your fanfiction is valid

I don’t think people realize what rare and beautiful gifts really good full AMVs are.

Like… that’s hard. Really, really hard.

Something I’ve learned is that the longer you’ve been editing, the more time it takes to make an edit, which is probably the reason AMVs can take literal months to make, and most vidders usually cut the songs down and/or make short edits.

To keep up consistently good timing, clip choice, pacing, transitions, effects, and possibly even masking or typography over give or take three and a half minutes of song is a huge challenge.

It’s generally considered to take three hours to edit one minute of a movie. Apply that here, and we have it taking about nine hours for a fairly short AMV… and given that we don’t get paid to make these, and have to wrestle with hitting every single beat of the song, it can take much longer.

And we also have to keep our motivation up, find time to edit, not grow to detest the song, and struggle with technical difficulties. All of that is really grating.

I’ve been editing for a couple months over a year now, and, while I started out making almost exclusively full AMVs, I can’t do that anymore. I’ve improved a lot, and by this point, using the whole song is intimidating and requires a level of dedication that I could not possibly achieve every time I edit.

It’s been literally a year since the last time I’ve edited a full-length song that I didn’t trim.

So if you find an awesome full AMV, appreciate it! Tell the vidder that you love it!

I’m honestly just so in awe of AMVs and the people who edit them. Vidders are really badass.

Cherish them and their work.

Thinking About Fictional Character while you have music on is such a risky activity. there’s no way EVERY song on this album is literally about Fictional Character. and yet……..

I find as fandom has assimilated towards a capitalist mindset of consumption, there has been a larger focus on fanart and fanfiction- both in spaces that view creatives as "content creators" and spaces where creatives are seen as writers and authors but lauded similarly to celebrities or deities for gracing the common people with their creations.

This has produced a side effect wherein fanart and, primarily, fanfiction are seen as the Best Forms Of Transformative Works... which means that any other type of transformative work is thrown by the wayside.

There should be no hierarchy of fanworks - every single work is a labor of love (or spite... I see y'all throwing middle fingers to canon 😉) and should be recognized as such. Fandom is a community. It's not a transactional relationship. Everyone contributes and interacts out of shared passions and interests.

If you make podfics, gifs, photo edits, fanvids, fan binding, metas, fiber arts, jewelry, fanmixes, translate fics to another language, run/contribute to a fan wikia or compile lore and resources in other ways: I see, appreciate, and cherish all the hard, love fueled work you put into your creations.

Not to say that fanfic and digital art are over-appreciated (Since I do see that many people are allergic to pressing reblog. It's a community. We're supposed to share and communicate. Lurkers are valid but for the most part, interaction with like-minded people is what fandom is intended for.) but the pedestal they are placed on needs to be lowered. Your favorite artists and authors are real people with real lives. They piss and shit just like you. They work in retail and healthcare and are unemployed due to disability. There is nothing extraordinary about them and they are wonderful human beings all the same. No one is better than anyone else. We're all equals here on this playground.

That said, I think we need to uplift the underappreciated fanworks and creators and give them more attention so they are on equal footing with fanfic writers and fanartists. Reblog the gifsets and tell the creator you're in love with how they colored the gifs, keyboard smash in the tags when reblogging a plush doll someone crocheted of your blorbo, try listening to a podfic on your commute home instead of an audiobook and remember to leave a comment when you get home.

As a final note, I want to give a warm hug to anyone who has sat refreshing tumblr or ao3 hoping that maybe someone will tell them they did a good job. To anyone who has considered quitting their fandom endeavors because their posts or works never get as much attention and love as the rest of the artworks or fics in the fandom tags, your creations are worth making and sharing. Numbers do not equate to quality, nor can they convey how loved your creations are by a given person. Only you can bring your unique sparkle to fandom and your presence is absolutely welcome no matter how big or small, grandiose or inconsequential, important or worthless you think it is.

old songs is literally free therapy

listen I don't care if it's cringey for an almost-30-year-old to finally be getting into silly fandom shit like AMVs and cosplay

I finally have the means to do all the stuff that I didn't have the money or time or spoons or resources or support to do when I was younger

and it's great

Because I have just seen this specific thing for the second time, I would like to say:

That's it!

Other places to upload and then embed on AO3

Vidders.net (need to create a free account)

Internet Archive (create free account, upload to the Community Video collection)

Both are whitelisted on AO3. Uploading to AO3 guarantees targeted fandom eyes on your vids, better meta data.

Best method for fanvids:  Use 2 embed platforms (Youtube/Vidders.Net or Youtube/Internet Archive) or one embed and one download option (Youtube/Dropbox) - in case a site removes your vid

Some of you have never worked with an editing program and think that making gifs and edits takes like two seconds and it shows

I've been pointedly refusing to use the term "content creators" to refer to artists anymore, because I want to make art for me and the people I care about, not the endless demands of the algorithm. I'm not trying to Produce Content, I want to make art.

So it is deeply, deeply irritating when I use the word "artist" in a post and it gets endlessly reblogged with people asking "but what about writers? but what about actors? but what about musicians? but what about [x]?"

All types of art are included in the term "artist," god damn it. "Artist" does not just mean "someone who draws pictures."

I don't know why so many people keep taking this post as "yeah, we should come up with a better word for content creators!"

THAT WORD ALREADY EXISTS.

THE WORD IS "ARTIST," Y'ALL.

THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THIS DAMN POST.

The word "artist" is all-encompassing! By! Definition! We don't need to keep reinventing the fucking wheel!

Do you make art? Any kind of art? Drawings, paintings, comics, novels, songs, dances, photographs, performances, anything creative?

THAT'S ART, BABE. YOU ARE AN ARTIST.

RESIST CAPITALIST COMMODIFICATION OF ART AND CLAIM THE DAMN TITLE.

People keep trying to "gotcha" me on this post by bringing up YouTube video essayists for some reason.

Babes, I have news for you. The YouTube video essays are also art.

Writing, editing, graphic design, sound design...there are actually multiple art forms involved in producing a video essay.

It's art.

Y'all's definitions of "art" are limited, and some of them are quite frankly pretentious. "Art" is not a hyper-specific term, nor is art limited to specific types of people. Art is human. Humans are artists by nature. We make shit. It's what we do.

No amount of "but what about--" is going to get me to change my mind on this. If you make shit, you are an artist. You are allowed to claim the term. It doesn't matter what kind of art, it doesn't matter how often you make the art, it doesn't matter if you're doing it for pay or for a hobby, you are an artist.

Dear tumblr staff,

stop. its ok. you don’t need to do these things. just focus on functionality(like the video player). we don’t need these little updates when somethings(like the video player) need your focus. thank you for your time but really, tumblr looks great. try to fix more important things(like the video player) so that we can all properly enjoy the features of tumblr(like the video player)

This post is a decade old this year.