i genuinely believe that tfl being so anal about everything to ridiculous extremes (on their forums i was scolded for not capitalizing for example) is part of the reason they kind of died out for a while. it's just not fun when there's so many strict rules for a hobby. i'm glad to see them revived, but saddened tfl held out and still has a monopoly on the concept

then it's such a small community one wrong move and it feels like you're blacklisted. i was once told they'd never let me run a rhcp listing if i let it lapse without updates one more time. in the decade i've been running it nobody else has even applied for it lmao. so then they shoot themselves in the foot by not allowing things to stay up, because they remove listings that might have been a day shy of updating lol

i'm interested in the tea tho... what'd they do to inspire this? 👀

Oh god, this kinda involves you in a very roundabout way, lmao. So when you lost the TLU graphic novel listing? I zoomed in and scooped it up, with the eventual intention to adopt it out back to you (afaik that's not against the rules, and I am a petty cow I'll admit lol). But life being what it is, a coding error that I just didn't have the f'ing spoons to correct meant I lost it under the Comics category.

I mean, it sucks but it was due to my own error, so I just took it on the chin and shrugged. Two days later I'm idly looking through the TFL updates blog, and the Animation category goes "TLU fanlisting open for application!" Which made me go like, what? I know I let it lapse under Comics, but under Animation I should still run it. (ZERO emails about its removal, no less. Literally nothing!)

I think it's probably just a minor error, so I email Animation and am like "hey, the listing is fine under Animation, all working", and after thirteen hours I get an email saying "The staffer of the Comics category removed the fanlisting from both categories when she processed her troubles update last week. She sent an email to include the removal on my next Animation update per her actions that day."

(cont) "This is common practice with crosslisted fanlistings to avoid unnecessary additional troubles updates for the same issue in multiple categories." And I'm just like...excuse me? What? We have to do all the footwork and applications for crosslistings, but they can be removed if you make a mistake in ONE category?!

And in the meantime, it's apparently open for ANYONE to apply for -- it's not a guarantee I'll get it back? So I'm just. Like. I send an email pointing all this out to them, radio silence. I'm just so over this shit lmao. Staff can do whatever the like, their faves get preference, the rest of us can go fuck ourselves, I guess. 🙃

So like I'm just...over it? Lmfao 🫠 The favouritism, elitism, rules-for-thee-not-me, and the rules that are just BS in general (like being REQUIRED to use proper capitalisation on the Boards, holy shit get over yourselves, and they wonder why the place is dead). Yeah nah. The whole concept now has more cons than pros.

Happy 10! :)

I got there eventually! :D