Fandom Is The Best - Tumblr Posts

I’m siiiiiick and feeling sorry for myself 

but! my @omgcpsecretsanta​ gift has been cheering me up! A beautiful French rolling pin for all my pie and croissant baking! :D :D Bitty will be keeping me company when I bake now, as will my secret santa! I just noticed that it’s actually from Canada, too, so Jack and Ransom will be well represented as well. :)

so, thank you SO MUCH @lesgallys​ ! by the way, your package arrived well in advance, but I’d given you my folks’ address just in case, and so I didn’t open it till Christmas. And then I didn’t even feel well enough to post my excitement, even though it had cheered me up! 

also, your dropping by my tumblr to chat, especially that first time with the election awfulness, was wonderful. I wasn’t sure if I could post publicly or reply privately, so I erred on the side of caution, but it really was a great lead-up to the holidays at a time of finishing a LOT of classwork and obligations to others all at once. :D :D :D 

FTH Auction Total

When we started organizing this auction, it seemed like the kind of thing that could pick up some real steam. People were scared and frustrated and looking for a way to act, and we knew that we could create a productive way to channel that into something positive.

Still, we were blown away by the response. Hundreds of people signed up, offering a total of nearly 700 fanworks. And by the time the auction closed, our total in pledged donations was beyond anything we had thought possible.

By the time we were done tallying by the end of inauguration day, we realized that, together, we had reached a pledged total of $24,851.

And that’s amazing, but it gets better. Because, in the end, we actually raised…

Wait for it….

…

…

(You can find the breakdown by individual groups here.)

So how did we get there? There are a lot of answers to that.

There were fans with no money of their own to donate volunteering their time. As one creator wrote to us, “I am the type who struggles just to get enough money for food and rent and thus I usually can’t afford to donate to charity as much as I want to so it feels really great to be able to put forth my artistic services that I very much can afford to give away and still bring in some cash for charity.”

There were dozens of fans who took a chance and bid on creators they had never met, not only because they wanted to donate to good causes but because they wanted to give their fellow-fans an impetus to create, and to let them know that their contributions are welcomed and valued.

There were dozens of creators who offered to double their effort – or double, or triple, or (in one heroic case) duodecuple their labor – by creating fanworks for the folks who had bid on them, but hadn’t won their auctions. We got almost $4500 in additional donations that way.

And countless bidders – really, we were keeping track at first, but then gave up – donated more money than they pledged. Sometimes it was an extra $5; sometimes it was $50. One high bidder, who had pledged $60, couldn’t choose between the six suggested groups, and so donated $60 to all six groups.  Another donor “rounded up” from $40 to $500. More of you than we could count went above and beyond.

What happened is that you all stepped up and took a risk. You volunteered your time and your resources. You looked out for one another, and extended generosity to people you didn’t know. You stood together, and together you created something amazing.

These are the values that we stand for, and these are the things that will help us win.

This administration is waging psychological warfare on us. They are trying to break us so that we stop fighting back. But if we keep standing up for one another, and supporting the institutions that protect us and our values, we can win.

You know how to fight back. You’ve already started.

If you want to get (or stay) politically active in the coming year, we’ve created a resource to help you, to supplement the other great resources on tumblr (and to help connect you to them.) Although this blog will be reserved for planning future auctions – because yes, we will be running another auction next year – we are launching @fandomtrumpshateaction, which will post a couple of times a week about concrete, specific actions you can take to fight back against the ravages of the current regime.

If you want to organize an auction of your own between now and next winter, focused on a particular fandom or on a specific cross-fandom theme (e.g. femslash or stories about characters of color) get in touch with us – we are happy to share our playbook with you.

But don’t feel like you have to do those things. if you need to take some time away from the news for your own sanity, that’s all right too.

Take care of yourself, because we’re counting on you to be here next year.

We will be.

@bamfinacuddlyjumper

@captainbunnicula

@imaginary-fr13nd

@pipmer

@porcupine-girl

@reluctantabandon

@tiltedsyllogism​

@vulgarweed​

in my queue since this time in 2016...

I’m siiiiiick and feeling sorry for myself 

but! my @omgcpsecretsanta​ gift has been cheering me up! A beautiful French rolling pin for all my pie and croissant baking! :D :D Bitty will be keeping me company when I bake now, as will my secret santa! 

thank you SO MUCH @lesgallys​ ! your package arrived well in advance, but I’d given you my folks’ address just in case, and so I didn’t open it till Christmas. And then I didn’t even feel well enough to post my excitement, even though it had cheered me up! 

also, @lesgallys, your dropping by my tumblr to chat, especially that first time with the election awfulness, was wonderful. I wasn’t sure if I could post publicly or reply privately, so I erred on the side of caution, but it really was a great lead-up to the holidays at a time of finishing a LOT of classwork and obligations to others all at once. :D :D :D