I’m sitting around waiting for our car to get serviced so I’m gonna take a minute to write a post I’ve been chewing on for a little bit lol
I think! A lot of creators talk about ‘word of mouth’ being the best advertising and it’s TRUE they are right but I’m not sure the actual like, function of that is getting across because people still get confused about it when I bring it up, and I keep seeing people frustrated that their efforts aren’t working (notably in spaces like the obscure webcomic tournament). Recommending stuff to your friends or writing stuff in to promotional spaces DEFINITELY helps don’t stop doing that, but what people ACTUALLY mean by this is getting Visibly Excited about things in spaces where it can break containment.
Fandom content is what gets people into things!! Like, think about everything that “takes off” online; it’s not because people post the plot synopsis over and over, or go “please read this it’s good,” the stuff that actually gets people engaging is seeing some cool fan work or clipped out content and going what the FUCK is that. The Barbie movie probably would have done fine on its own, but the insane phenomenon it’s become certainly wouldn’t have happened if regular internet users hadn’t memed it to hell and back; this stuff works.
I didn’t give a SHIT about Persona 5, or The Magnus Archives, or The Adventure Zone or any number of things I got dragged into until I saw fandom content for them. Persona 5 sounds like boring as fuck anime shit on paper, I do NOT care about podcasts, but people kept drawing the COOLEST stuff for them or posting insane fan theories until I HAD to know what was going on. That’s what we’re talking about with word of mouth! Sincere engagement with the thing is better than any advertising could ever be.
It doesn’t have to be creative art or writing either! Make Character Appreciation Posts using the source material! Make an essay-length analysis of the story’s themes! Set up a weekly post about how much you love a character or a count of how many days it’s been since someone showed up, do Incorrect Quotes or paste tumblr text posts over characters, idk man there’s entire blogs dedicated to posting every One Piece panel that has certain characters in it, there are no rules
What I’m saying is if you’re wanting to help out smaller creators, please get involved, and PLEASE do it outside insulated places like discord servers. A thriving community that only exists inside a closed server still looks like a ghost town from the outside. “please read this it’s got lesbians” helps get something on the radar, making a compilation post of the lesbians and posting it with a link to The Thing gets people’s attention.
anyway that’s all thanks @ Fans Of All Kinds for caring enough to want to help out independent people to the point i felt like it was worth making a post like this; to be clear, nobody is owed any of this stuff and you’re certainly not obligated to put in all this effort to enjoy a thing! but i know a LOT of people are enthusiastic about indie media and want to help out, and sometimes a little extra guidance from the creator perspective helps them figure out how to do that effectively. love you have a good day
right now it’s almost halfway through 2023, and 2024 is an election year in the US. I have started to see a growing proliferation of posts suggesting that there is no difference between the republican and democratic parties–the exact same kind of posts I saw an awful lot of before the last major election here. I am unfollowing folks who post or reblog these sort of posts, as I consider these posts to be fascist propaganda framed as leftist discourse, designed to suppress anti-fascist votes and voters.
Prepare yourself to vote for Biden now, because the only other option is someone who will make 2016-2020 look like a picnic.
You work with what you’ve got, not what you wish you had.
I detest Biden more with every passing day (and he was not in my top 10 candidates in 2020). 2024 will be an election between:
Biden/The Former Guy
Biden/DeSantis
Biden/Republican Fascist to be Named Later
No Labels is an op. It’s being funded by unknown parties to defeat Biden and the Democrats. Their election scenarios are fantasy football for political junkies.
No Third Party has a road anywhere outside statewide offices (Bernie is the exception that proves the rule, and he’s a Democrat for all intents and purposes).
Arguably the rosiest scenario is that TFG breaks with the Republicans to form his own party and tanks any chance the Republicans have, but that’s not looking as likely as it did two years ago.
If you’re pissed, get involved in your local elections. Ensure that no position is running unopposed (and that includes if you’ve got a conserva-Dem somewhere now–primary them).
Get the House back in the Democratic hands (unless you’re up for two more years of this only with MTG as Speaker this time). Increase the margin in the Senate (and send Selema to her post-senate career). Make sure your school board isn’t full of flat-earthers. Wake sure your county counsel isn’t going to shut down your libraries if they have a book someone doesn’t like.
As Stonekettle says, if you want a better country, but a better citizen.
There’s a reason we call it a civic DUTY, not a civic privilege.
Starting mid-April I’ll be posting to-do lists and action items for people who’ve never gotten involved before. One party wants you dead. FIGHT.
Speaking as a Michigan resident: Look at the laws being passed in Michigan. Now look at the laws being passed in Florida. Spot the difference? That’s because Michigan is being governed by the Democratic Party, and Florida is being governed by the Republican Party. That’s the difference. They’re different parties. It is not the same.
You want what we’ve got? Vote for it.
(And you want Michigan to stay the way it is and not slide backwards into the shit we had to deal with with Rick Snyder, or even just the way it was when the House and Senate were Republican-controlled? Keep fucking voting.)
D are not our friends or even allies but R is a staunch enemy
look the main thing is that our first-past-the-poll voting style automatically and always devolves into a two party system where the majority of people dislike both parties. This is now a known phenomenon, a feature of our voting method as inevitable as water running downhill.
But that isn’t going to change until we get some sweeping voting reform that revises our voting system into some kind of ranked or run-off voting
Meanwhile one of our destined-to-be-disliked parties is actually trying to do things we want (health care, living wages, social services, public transportation, civil rights, education, support for gay and trans people, religious tolerance, etc) and one of our parties is banning books and undoing women’s rights and supporting corrupt racist police and endangering gay and trans lives while paying people to make posts about how both parties are equally bad so that people don’t vote democrat.
Like, we are going to not like a lot of how the Democrats operate, that is a feature of the current design, but they are trying to protect women’s rights, they are trying to help the homeless, they are trying to raise minimum wage they have agendas that include important things. And republicans? are at this point a literal cult that want to create a religious fascist state.
Even my father, now 80 years old, a man whose politics i have often despised, a man who voted for Reagan for fucks sake! even he (unhappily) votes Democrat now, because he’s not an insane person, and the republican party has become SO BLATANTLY EVIL AND STUPID that he can’t ignore it.
Democrats pass legislation we want that republicans then find ways to block. Democrats have passed bills that:
close gender pay gaps raise federal minimum wage make becoming a US citizen easier for immigrants protect civil/public water sources from pollution cut greenhouse gas emissions to fight climate change increase gun regulation lower and control prescription drug prices improve healthcare access for those with pre-existing conditions protect net neutrality protect gay marriage rights
these are all the subjects of specific real bills that democrats have either passed into law or tried hard to pass in the last few years.
Meanwhile republicans act to block these bills while championing book bans and attacking trans folk and giving more power to corporations to ruin our planet and taking away women’s rights.
when you see posts attacking Democrats from the left or whatever, the talking points and quotes can often be traced back to right wing sources
So all posts trying to keep non-republicans arguing amongst ourselves and calling for us to not vote democrat (or not vote at all) ? I will be assuming they are bad-faith posts and i won’t be spreading them or engaging with them or anything.
Honest critique of the party is necessary, but like it or not our system currently is a two party system, and i’ll be voting for the better of the two until we can change our voting style to make additional political parties viable.
I live in Pennsylvania.
Neither of my children is cisgender.
The last gubernatorial election was, literally, do we elect this guy who is overly fond of cops but is generally a normal human being, or do we elect this other guy who believes frightening conspiracy theories and wants my children removed from my care and forcibly detransitioned and honestly would prefer them to be dead?
That’s it. That’s the kind of choice we get in first-past-the-post voting. If that second guy won, we needed to move. There was no safe way to stay here. The votes of my fellow citizens were all that was standing between my kids and serious fucking danger.
And my fellow citizens DID turn out. Lots of them came out and voted to reject the scary death cultist. I am grateful to all those who went, ugh, I don’t really like this guy, but the other guy is worse, and hauled themselves down to the polling place to get it done.
You, too, can vote to reject scary death cultists, in your hometown and your home state and in the country as a whole.
Getting rid of the scary death cultists is a prequisite for getting political representation you actually want.
(ID: An illustration of Arthur Lester from Malevolent. Arthur Lester is a tall, gangly blond man with yellow eyes wearing a white shirt, a tie, and pants. A brown satchel is thrown over one shoulder. He walks through a cave, with a lit lighter held in one outstretched hand. /End ID)
(Additional ID: The image is framed as being viewed through a hole or niche in the cave wall in front of Arthur. The illumination of the lighter framed by the edges of this hole forms the shape of a hooded figure, with an aboveground opening in the cave wall behind Arthur forming its shaded face. /End ID)
I think many of you would enjoy Lost Terminal. It’s future sci-fi, and hopepunk, and just, deeply kind.
There’s an AI living in a satellite and he’s very lonely. His name is Seth, he’s inarguably a sweetie, and the Earth below him looks very very different to when he was first created. The climate has changed, the lights of cities have gone out, and there’s a whole new ocean.
The only people who talk to him now are two other AI on the Earth: St. Petersburg, who was designed to predict the future and is now perpetually stressed because of it, and Antarctica, who was sent to the South pole in a massive research vehicle awaiting her crew, who never came.
Atypical to AI backstories, Seth’s mother cared for him dearly, letting him choose his own voice, reading him stories, teaching him everything she could, and making sure he knew he was a real person. He similarly had good relations with the rest of his crew, who were never offered a way home to Earth.
The show delights in talking about all kinds of interesting things, like radio, seed vaults, radiation, orbital mechanics, sleep cycles, lunar photography, and of course, tabletop games.
One thing I value about it greatly is this sense, both in the story and from a meta perspective, of doing the best with what you have to help other people. In the show this often takes the form of community, sharing information and resources, being there to help where you can, and a theme of learning, both in terms of knowledge and just how to be. It doesn’t pretend humans are perfect, but it also really believes that people will more often than not, help where they can.
Externally, this comes from some of the topics and representation in the show, which has plenty of queer characters, and an interest in mental health. A few of these feel as though they’re not something the creator has much direct experience with, but that he’s made an effort to research, understand, and give a simple but meaningful (and always kind) portrayal of. Asexuality, dissociative identity disorder, being trans, to name a few, and none of these characters are insignificant. I personally find it a comforting reminder that we always have allies out there, people who might know a lot or almost nothing, but who are still willing to listen and support. And that it’s good to be someone who doesn’t know, but is willing to learn.
There’s transcripts for free on the Patreon, which come out with each episode, there’s gorgeous original music, they’ve got simple but clean and effective soundwork (good for lab listening), Seth has a nice voice, there’s no ads, and a new episode a week with surprisingly short breaks between seasons.
There’s currently 12 seasons of 10 episodes each, and each episode is about 10-20 minutes. They aren’t too heavy, and it’s an easy podcast to pick up where you left off without feeling lost, if that number intimidates you.
I’ve adored this show since it was only a season long, and still do. It’s worth the listen.
Oh, cool! I love the behind-the-scenes stuff. If you’ve never seen the original (this version is narrower so you miss a lot that was going on) it’s here:
