#I know a lot of people on this site don’t use Twitter so it’s important to note Miss hale is supportive!

[peytraa]

[londonfoginacup]

A New Larrie’s Guide to Tumblr

A probably incomprehensible, certainly incomplete list of what you need to know; whether you’re coming from a different platform or discovering Larry for the first time. 

My credentials

Hello! I’m Emmu. I’ve had tumblr since… 2008? Maybe 2009. I moved over from deviantArt and used Tumblr as a personal art blog for many years. I joined the One Direction fandom in 2014, so my 1D blog has 8+ years at this point. That being said, I will get on my soapbox a bit during this. Please excuse me, I’m quite passionate about cultivating a happy and healthy fandom.

What makes Tumblr different

The biggest thing that makes Tumblr, as a site, different from Twitter or Instagram is the rejection of algorithms. The “following” tab on your dashboard is in chronological order (and if it isn’t, you can – and should – change that), and the “for you” tab is both a recent feature and rarely used. Tumblr has very little algorithm, and the algorithm they have isn’t very good. It means that you’ll get the most god awful ads you’ve ever seen on this site, because they don’t utilize your data well. And that’s to your advantage.

Tumblr is a great place because you can curate what you see more than other social media. The people that you choose to follow are the only people that you see on your dash (unless you choose to follow tags, which I guess is an option? @lululawrence says “it is and it used to not do anything unless you went to the search page and then it would like autofill your followed tags options, but NOW they take those followed tags and plop them on your dash... SOMETIMES. usually only on mobile. but if there's only one new post in the tag, it shows you that post OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER AGAIN. IT'S SUPER ANNOYING ACTUALLY. SO I STOPPED FOLLOWING TAGS. lol anyway”).

So, the site is in chronological order. This is its biggest selling point.

There is also the opportunity for long posts. Masterposts. Things that are searchable without having to read through pages of screenshots or condensed twitter threads. You can write a whole lot more without worrying about character limit. People publish whole fics on here (I suggest ao3 for that, but tumblr is technically an option!).

Another important thing to know about tumblr is that the archives on tumblr run deep. There are newer larries here, and a lot of them, but you can also find older larries. People whose 1D blogs go back to 2010 or 2011. You can dive into the archives and read firsthand accounts of what was happening with One Direction or larry at that very time. Doing a bit of research means you find cute fetus pictures of the boys, but also you’re able to figure out for yourself whether something actually happened. Rumors always seem to spread quite easily and fandom memory always seems impossibly short, but here on tumblr you’re able to find out for yourself. That means the next time you hear about how xyz thing happened a long time ago, check out some of those archives and see what you can find.

Also, my personal favorite part of tumblr is that old posts are just as valid as new posts. Find a masterpost about RBB and SBB from 2015? Go ahead and reblog that; bring it back to the circulating dash. People will love that. Find a fanartist that you really like? Search through their tags, reblog anything you want. It’s not considered stalking or weird in any way. We love bringing back old posts here. Tumblr is a website where you’re not meant to just talk about the present. 

The cultural difference between Tumblr and Twitter

Speaking of the ways that tumblr and twitter are different, let’s talk for a moment about the 1D fandom in particular.

I’ve held this theory for a while that the twitter (and instagram) algorithm is fracturing the fandom. Because twitter is so dependent on the algorithm, people are more likely to split apart and join smaller and smaller communities based on smaller, more specific opinions. Tumblr, being a place where you don’t just get a post on your dash because someone else liked it, doesn’t have those smaller cliques. There are larries, and there are antis.

(if you get really in the weeds, there are also larry shippers [who don’t believe they’re together but like to read it in fic], and houis [who think they were together but broke up], but I just don’t hear about them as much).

While I do occasionally hear about blouies on my dash, for the most part this is a culture that exists primarily on other sites. 

On another note, because tumblr doesn’t have that handy algorithm, we have to work to make it a more active space. Likes don’t do anything here for anyone other than you, and it doesn’t really change anything about what you’ll see on your dash. Think of them more like the bookmark setting on twitter or instagram. Reblogs are necessary to get anything spread. Anything that you enjoy, or that looks interesting for any reason? Reblog it! That’s the only way other people will see it! And leave a happy comment in the tags if you’ve got one (more on that later). 

And, while lurkers do exist in this fandom (and we love them), it’s important to get an icon and blog header that make you look like a real person. People on tumblr have long been in the habit of blocking shady blogs, mostly because of a bot problem, so if you want to lurk, you have to look like a lurker. Maybe reblog a post or two to establish yourself, and make sure you don’t accidentally look like an icon-less bot posing as a sugar daddy. 

How to set up your account

Okay, so you’ve got a tumblr. Let’s take a minute to fix up the settings so that you’re not getting, well, the worst version of the site. 

My advice is to start by going into your dashboard preferences and:

Turn off the best stuff first (it’ll just show you things you’ve already seen)

Turn off “include stuff in your orbit” (you’ll see terrible posts that are mostly NOT in your orbit)

Turn off “Included based on your likes” (again, you’ll see posts you hate)

Turn off “shorten long posts”. It’s a ridiculous setting that, like many things on tumblr, had potential but was rolled out in an incredibly unhelpful and user unfriendly way.

Once you’ve got that squared away, go into filtering and block any tags and content you don’t like, as that is always proper fandom etiquette. Not seeing things you don’t like is your responsibility, not the responsibility of the person posting them. I personally suggest adding the topics you don’t want to see to both the content list and the filtered tags list, as that gives a much better likelihood of posts that are particularly unsavory for you getting caught by the filters. Please also note this might need to be done on both desktop and the app separately as, depending on where tumblr is at the moment, these filters do not always carry over from one application to the other.

Now scroll down to tumblr labs. These are their experimental things. Some are good! Some are very bad. They do change, though, so this might get out of date pretty fast.

Personally, I enabled fast queue

And disabled everything else

ALSO, an important note, if you are using the apple app, you need to go in and turn off the adult content filter. No idea offhand where that is, but it means posts that include tags like “mine” and “girl” are blocked. It’s ridiculous. 

Who to follow and how to find them

So, you’ve got a new tumblr and need people to follow. This makes sense! To really fill up your dash, I’d suggest the following

Find one person you like. There’s a good chance you know at least someone from twitter who also has a tumblr, so you can start there. If you’re not from twitter, or are looking to start fresh, you can dive into the search function (I’ve never tried finding someone this way myself, but searching larry stylinson or something similar would probably get you started)

Find the people they reblog from and check out each of their blogs! Follow people that make you happy

Follow some update accounts! Thinking of some off the top of my head, there’s @HLUpdate, @Stylesnews, @dailytomlinson, @HLDailyUpdate, or @neilswaterbottles (there’s definitely more though). 

Follow some fanart or fic rec accounts! 

I’d always suggest @1d-fanart or @hlcreators for art. 

For fic, you could check out @hlficlibrary, @ficsyoumayhavemissed, or @thelarriefics. 

Or, recurring fic fests! @onedirectionbigbang or @wordplayfics, which happen every year.

And if you end up not enjoying someone you’ve followed? Unfollow them! It’ll make you happier.

How to interact with posts

Tumblr is all about tags. Do you have a comment or thought? Reblog a post and say your thought in the tags. That way anyone you follow will see it, and the person who made the post will see it. This way a post doesn’t end up with a lot of cluttery additions that don’t mean a lot to the average person reblogging it, but if you browse the tags of posts you’ll find lots of interesting things. Tags can be used to keep track of things, too, of course — some people tag all pictures with who’s in them, or tag art or fic with tags that mean they can find them again. Tags are versatile! But reblog, don’t just like, and tag! The more you interact, the happier content creators are!

What not to do

Don’t repost. If you see something you like on tumblr, reblog it. Even if it’s a really old piece of fanart (like circa 2011). Reblog that old post! Reposting means people don’t get credit, and it doesn’t link back to them. That’s not cool, and in the long term makes fandom less happy.

How to cultivate a happy and healthy fandom

Send happy anons! Ask how people are doing, do question memes, say how much you loved fic/art/edits, etc.

Reblog art. Reblog fic. Reblog what makes you laugh. The more you reblog, the more other people see, the more the fandom moves! Content creators just want their things seen; every time you reblog, their phone gets that little notification and you’ve given someone a bit of happiness.

Unfollow people who annoy you. Follow people who make you happy!

If someone has a take about 1D that you don’t agree with, don’t tell them or send them argumentative anons. Find people who will agree with you, and complain to them privately. Or make your own post, not shading anyone, just presenting your own opinion and theories!

Remember that everyone is a real person. Cut them some slack when you find them being annoying. But also, unfollow. Curate your dash.

[copperbadge]

Watching Twitter implode, as an outsider who has hated Twitter for an extremely long time, is absolutely fascinating. I had a twitter account, now deleted, which I checked about once a month and posted to every few years, usually in a vain attempt to acclimate myself to a system I felt was hostile to any method of communication I was capable of. For about a year now even checking my notifications has been pointless, since I was quoted in a tweet by some corporate account that the spambots got hold of; literally all I saw in my notifications for a very long time was ads for various things attached to my name, retweeting that fucking train quote.  

I understand the importance of twitter particularly in uplifting marginalized voices and chronicling major historical events in first-person witness accounts; I know people personally whose small businesses are absolutely fucked because they depended on twitter for almost all their PR and a vast portion of their sales, and that truly sucks. It’s easy to glibly say “and nothing of value was lost” but a lot of value is being lost. 

But I also just hated everything about trying to use twitter. I can understand its importance and still hate it. I also don’t like the Mountain Goats even though they are vitally important to the emotional stability of like, half the people I know. 

The upshot of this is that I eventually had only a dim understanding of the way twitter culture evolved, since I wouldn’t go near it with protective gear on. So I was absolutely dumbfounded to read articles about the Verification badge being put up for sale and to see people saying, “Well, if Twitter’s no longer trustworthy, why be there?”

It blew my mind to realize that in introducing verification in the first place, Twitter had given its entire userbase explicit permission to abandon critical thought when they saw that alluring blue bird. Because twitter verified people, it seems a huge number of users thought they didn’t need to question anything on the site and, because of the way most social media works, the site also quickly became a series of personal filter bubbles. 

It makes the last few years make sense, in a weird way -- it’s not just that a massive chunk of culture abandoned critical thought, it’s that they were told that was okay to do, every day, every time their eyes hit the site. And Twitter is structured to offer diminishing returns on a hard dopamine hit, so a lot of people were on it a lot. I’m not throwing stones -- I’m physiologically constantly a quart low on dopamine, so I’m on Tumblr for much the same reason. And I’m not saying that anyone who is Chronically On Twitter has no critical thinking skills. But I am saying that it appears the vast majority of people who let their online critical thinking skills go slack did so because Twitter said it was okay. Twitter said, we’ll do the questioning for you. 

(Watching Twitter implode as someone familiar with the psychology of D/s relationships is....also fascinating.) 

The coverage of the Lilly tweet in particular is interesting in relation to this because it doesn’t seem like anyone is asking who made the tweet. Perhaps there’s no way to find out, but I don’t even see threats or attempts. Eli Lilly is suing Twitter and doesn’t seem even inclined to ask about the human who did it; nobody at Twitter, to my knowledge, has vowed to find and punish the perpetrator, which is hilarious given what Musk clearly wants to do to the people mocking him personally. No major media outlets seem interested in reporting on people discussing the question, let alone asking the question themselves, which indicates to me that nobody’s gone looking. If people are asking, they are not asking loudly or visibly. 

And don’t get me wrong, I don’t want us to find the person who tanked Eli Lilly stocks en route to reopening the discussion about price-gouging in the healthcare field. I wish there was a way to buy them a beer and/or a vial of insulin. But the fact that nobody seems to even be asking the question is weird -- until you remember it’s twitter, and nobody asks questions when it comes to twitter. Why would you? Twitter does the asking. 

And absolutely vitally -- where the fuck is Donald Trump? 

(Questions you never think you’ll ask.) 

Elon Musk promised to reinstate him; even if you claim staffing issues, he’s managed to kill all advertising on the site and switch off two-factor authentication, but he couldn’t flip the switch on Trump’s twitter account? Or personally offer him a new one under the aegis of the freest of speeches? Less than a day ago Trump was still trying to get the courts to give him his bluebird back. I don’t want him back on twitter, lord knows, but I’m perplexed that he’s not, because that was part of the package deal Musk was pitching. 

It’s almost like Musk knows what the bridge too far is. And nobody is asking about that either.

I hope people who come here from twitter find joy here. I hope the ship of twitter is righted so that my friends who love it can go back to it, so that the artists and writers I know can get back a vital tool for their creative self-support and the activists I know can regain a great tool for effective organizing. Twitter is a huge part of the cultural landscape and I hope it ends up okay, and I hope the staff still there can get some rest. 

But I also hope that this sharp cultural shock has been a reminder that letting someone else ask the questions means letting someone else control what answers you get.

[solarwynd]

Armys indifference towards jimin is eye opening to me. Has it always been this way? I think ever since I became a solo I’ve started to see things a lot differently that’s why I don’t outtightly judge the Armys that make it seem like they’re making it up because I was them at one point and unless you’re heavily biased towards jimin or a solo stan you’re just not going to see the vitriol hate he receives. I used to be a shooter account in 2020-2021 I had a large platform defending the members all the time and even though I biased jimin, I never saw even a fraction of the shit I see now as a solo. That’s why when armys say “they all get hate” it’s coming from them only seeing what their timeline provided to them, they’re not going out of their way to see what Muri or people like him say about jimin and no one is bringing it to their timeline and this is not me defending them because I think it’s ridiculous to not even acknowledge it but in a way I understand why they are the way they are. But the part where you said they’re not to6 and most bias the two youngest members is true, taekookers are the majority of the fandom and a lot of them see jimin as the big threat not only in the fake relationship they have made up but musically too, jimin does nothing and you’ll have people constantly name drop him and his music is loved but fans even though I’d say he doesn’t have nearly as many solo stans as the other two. I think the fandom in general hold Jungkook to a much higher standard than the rest especially jimin, I remember when jimin got a #1 and a lot of them were saying “wait until Jungkook comes” like it was a threat and how he will outdo jimin like they have something to prove. It’s pathetic to witness it everytime. Ot7 is a myth no matter how much they sugarcoat it, even the members are liars, they do see each other as competition maybe less of jimin and Jin but most of them care about the charts and how they perform

No, the current indifference was a recent change. Mostly because of how well face and lc did in comparison to dday which was the catalyst. Armys have always been “fine” with jimin but almost purely in the context of bts. He’s the only member that they never allow to be anything but an extension of bts and they’re pushing him even more into that role now because they find him digestible as the group cheerleader. It’s always “jimin and his brothers” as way diminish him as an individual or use him as a prop. It’s also why Jimin can’t have anything to himself. Not even the hate that he gets because armys always have to trivialize it by making it a maknae line issue and it’s done purposefully.

They’ve crafted the narrative that pjm solos are the worst, so whenever something proves the opposite they have to derail it. And that’s why I can never give armys the the benefit of the doubt of them not knowing about the hate jimin receives at the hands of jjks/tkkrs/kths because I know they see it. They follow their accounts and they interact with them (which is why I curse the day hybe hijacked the 7 symbol and made it jk’s brand)They just do their best to shield those groups from callouts because in doing so they’d be attaching th and jk’s name to them and they don’t want those two to get dragged. But anything with jimin attached to it? Automatically in the wrong and gets witch hunted.

I’ll never forget when a jimin biased army exposed a shooter on twitter for being a giant kth solo and jimin anti and armys outright defended them despite overwhelming proof that it was the truth. They even ran the jimin biased person off site because that account being a blink doxxer was more important. That’s when I knew that the bulk of armys do not care to “defend” jimin past blinks or the kpop stans who attack him from the outside. And even when they do that, it’s still to his detriment cause a lot of times they’ll offer him up as bait using his achievements unprovoked and get him dragged in the process.

That’s another thing in itself too. Armys are also only okay with what jimin has accomplished if they can lord it over kpop stans because as soon as we bring up the fact that jimin achieved what he did with no payola or label aid, all of a sudden it’s shade to jk. I used to HATE whenever armys would be under jimin’s chart tweets with that “just wait until jk debuts” BS because it just shows how desperate they were to restore that status quo and the hidden rule in the fandom.

Jimin is allowed to be good but he can’t be better than anybody else. He’s popular but tk are the most famous members. He can dance but hobi’s the best out the group. He can have writing and composing credits but it will never compare to rapline. Jimin has always been the outlier in bts because he’s always underestimated and put into a set role. Imagine he’s the only one out of maknae line that put any effort into his album and armys still ended up centering face around joon when that documentary came out just because he gave jimin advice. Not only that, but armys also do the most to find any way possible to give tk credit for those two albums that they don’t deserve. And all because those two didn’t live up to their own pretentiousness.

This isn’t news cause I’ve shared this same sentiment before but I never believed that jk deserved the high pedestal people put him on. He doesn’t do anything significantly better than anyone else in the group but because of his looks he gets that extra boost. I’ll never lie and claim that he’s not talented but that’s about it. He’s given more room to not live up to expectations while still getting heralded as the group prodigy. And it’s like, okay? But how long will you wear that out before you actually do something worthwhile to live up to that title?

There’s plenty of things that have made me realize that outside of the group, some members just don’t appeal to me. So it’s not that they potentially see each other as competition that bothers me or makes me think that they’re liars but some decisions that have been made that has made me resentful to some degrees towards them. And I don’t think that’ll change tbh.

[unforth]

How to Use Tags on Tumblr

I frequently see people tag their works things along the lines of “sorry I don’t know how to tag,” and I also frequently see people tag badly while at least appearing to know what the fuck they’re doing, so it’s been on my mind to write up a post like this for a while, and with the influx of Twit-ugees, now is as good a time as any I suppose.

Advance warning that I’m the most long-winded bitch up in this place and just neurodivergent enough to never know how much to cut/what details don’t matter so apologies that this just goes on and on and I just hope that if you bear with me you’ll learn a thing or four.

Also note that any time I say "A thing will work this specific way" that is always subject to Tumblr's spontaneous habit of breaking and I can never guarantee that things will actually work at any given moment.

(this is fucking 5,000 words about using tagging on this blue webbed site so. Read more it is.)

Tagging 101

Okay, I’m gonna start at absolutely baby, sorry. The first thing you need to know is where tags go. You don’t tag in the “type text here” box where you’re talking about whatever. This isn’t like twitter, where if I start going hey everyone I’m writing a post about how to #tag things on #tumblr, everyone will see it if they go to #tag and #tumblr. Nope, you gotta put your tags in the box thingy at the bottom if you want people to actually see them when they use tag-search-related options.

You can write #whatever in the body of your post til the cows come home and it won’t do jack shit unless you put it in that bottom #add tags box. So. Do that.

Once you know how to tag, the two most important things to know about tags are:

1. Anyone can see your tags. Everyone can see your tags. Not just your followers. Not just OP. Any random stranger who pokes around in a post can see them, AND they’ll appear in the OPs “new activity” notifications, AND they'll be in the "view all reblogs with comments and tags" button that anyone can select, AND, if it’s an original post and you’re the OP, they’ll appear in the searchable tags on Tumblr. Like. Seriously. We can all see you. So always bear in mind that anything you say in a tag is subject to public scrutiny.

2. If you use a tag on an original post, your post will appear in that tag search. Anyone can search by tag in Tumblr. You go to that bar up top…(note that I’m using MDZS as my example for this post, but you can easily substitute your fandom of choice). (Reblogs that use a tag do NOT, EVER, appear in the tag searches.) So yeah, you're searching for a tag...

…and you get three types of search results. The first, with the #, shows the tag-ified version of your search, and clicking that will take you directly to tag search (and therefore show you posts that have that tag, and specifically exactly that tag - if you go to #mdzs, you won’t see #mdzs fanart, because tag search is narrowly defined). The magnifying-glass marked searches are common and related searches, and will show you posts that have those words in their text AND in the tags, so a magnifying-glass search for MDZS will show you things tagged mdzs, and also #mdzs fanart, and any random-ass post that includes mdzs anywhere in the main text or tags. You’ll get a lot (and you’ll have the chance to narrow that search by top posts vs. latest posts, recent vs. ever, type of post - as in picture vs. text vs. video etc., etc., though note that these searches are always busted and always lean heavily toward recent stuff). If you know you want the tag, you can click #mdzs, but even if you go to search instead (for example, if you just hit “enter” it’ll take you to search, not the tag), you can still see related tags:

Now, see how that says 21k followers? On Tumblr, you can follow tags! Anyone can follow tags! Popular tags often have tens-of-thousands, and occasionally hundreds-of-thousands, of followers! What exactly following a tag means depends on how any given individual sets up their feed, but for many people it means that random posts from that tag will appear on their timeline. Which means that if you tag your original posts (NOT reblogs - this applies to posts for which you are the originator) with a given tag, anyone who visits that tags and/or follows that tag can see it and might even have your post appear on their feed even if neither of you knows or follows the other. 

Anyone who visits a given tag will be able to see your post (or, well, almost anyone - a. if you have them blocked or they have you blocked, they won’t see - though if you block a main blog/side blog, and they post from a different side blog, you CAN still see - if you really want to block someone you’ll need to block all their alts too, which is often a challenge since people tend not to be super public about their alts; b. if the tag is in the last 5 allowed tags on a post - more on that later - it won’t show up, uh, basically anywhere, good luck with that; c. if the tag search is broken, which it basically always is at least a little, welcome to our duct-taped hellsite enjoy your stay).

If you want people to see your post, this functionality is fantastic! It gives you a lot of ways to get your content out there. If you don’t want people to see your post…well. It is absolutely critical that you understand that there is absolutely nothing private about tags, and that even though we all frequently clown in tags, you need to be aware of the potential consequences of that clowning, namely that people will see you clowning, including complete strangers, and so you might not want to clown quite that hard. 

Personal Blog Organization

But, I hear you say, I want to organize my own blog! If I don’t tag my mdzs posts #mdzs to avoid everyone seeing them because I Don't Want That, how will I find them when I want them later?

Well, first, don’t expect to ever be able to find things easily on Tumblr, lmao. We do have search and tag organization options (more later!) but in the end always assume things you post might become unfindable; if you really want to be sure you can find something again, find another way to store it (I personally keep “things I don’t want to lose” in drafts; some people also use likes, or private side blogs).

That said, this is one of the main reasons a lot of people use personal tags to denote their own content. For example, if I want to post something but I don’t want it to spread too far, I will avoid using the fandom tags and stick to my personal blog organization tags. I personally use “unforth rambles” for my “whatever the fuck this is” kind of posts, “whine whine whine” if I’m complaining, “unforth writes” for my fiction, etc. Lots of people have a personal tag, and not only do they make it easier for you to find your own stuff, they also make it easier for other people to find your stuff.

Want to post about mdzs, want to be able to find it again, but don’t want it in the tag? Try “yourname’s mdzs thoughts” or something similar.

Do you create a thing, and want people to be able to actually find it if they come to your blog, instead of it getting buried under a billion other reblogs and shitposts? Try “yourname art” or “my yourfandom fic” or whatever. Trust me, as someone who routinely tries to find art on people’s blogs? People who have specific tags make it much, much easier, and believe it or not I guarantee there is SOMEONE out there who’d like to be able to interact with your stuff more easily, and if you make it impossible you’ll never even know they wanted to.

Likewise, of course, a personal tagging system can make things utterly unfindable cause sometimes that’s Goals. Take this knowledge and use it as you will.

Aside to the above: queue tags. If you’re on Tumblr for more than 5 minutes you’ll see that a lot of posts have tags like “my queue” or, more often, ridiculous “queue”-related pun tags (when I used to use one, it was “#q hoo hoo”). Why do people do this? Well, there’s surely a lot of reasons, but as far as I know the main one (my own reason, at least), was pretty simple: Tumblr has a messaging system, and a lot of us use it, and if we post something, people will think we’re online and might message us and then get upset that we don’t answer. Using a queue tag makes it very clear “this posted when I wasn’t actually present.” Then, you can (like me) go back to ignoring your messages for days and pretend you haven’t been on Tumblr until you’ve actually got the whatever to answer them.

ETA: it's been pointed out that, depending on what search settings someone is using, using "my thing tag" may still show up in searches, so if your goal is to keep your posts out of the main tags, you'd be better served to avoid using the same full text as the common tag(s).

Tag Limits

It’s also important to know that you don’t have unlimited tags, and they can’t be of unlimited length. Tags have a character limit (...I never remember how much it is, though, maybe 200-something?) and you can’t have more than thirty tags on a post. Conventional wisdom is that if an important tag (such as a fandom tag or character tag that you WANT people to be able to find) isn’t in the first ten tags, it won’t appear in search, though I’ve definitely seen things in tag search that had the tag farther down than that. That said, if you put anything in between Tag 25 and Tag 30, don’t expect to ever be able to find it again. Trust me. I’ve tried. Tag 25 to Tag 30 are a tag black hole, and anything in that range might as well not exist because it won’t be searchable. (Sometimes - but only sometimes - search will be able to find things in that hole, subject to all the bugs that normally make search nigh unusable). Note that on mobile, at least, Tumblr yells at you if you try to tag more than 30; on desktop I honestly don’t know if it does cause I always use XKit reblog features instead, lmao. (more on that later!)

A couple other tag limits include:

1. various punctuation breaks tags, though which has varied over time. For example, currently if you try to make a tag with quotes (#I told him “shut up”) you will NOT get a tag that says that, you’ll get two tags: #shut up and #i told him. And, they’ll be in that order - the tag in quotation marks will end up first, before anything else. For a long time, hyphens also just absolutely murdered tags; theoretically they fixed that recently though in practice I’ve noticed it being hit-and-miss, so if you want to be sure things work well don’t use a hyphen. Further, at least on desktop, a comma tells it “this is the end of the tag” so if you enter a comma it won’t put in a comma it’ll just end your tag and take you to the next one. Honestly, if you want to be sure that your tag doesn’t break your best bet is to stick to…not. Forget grammar. Surrender to the void. People will figure out what you mean…or they won’t. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ We never said this was a great site but you’re stuck with us now, lmao.

2. you can’t edit tags. They recently teased that they’d introduce tag editing, but at least as far as I’ve been able to tell it’s never actually been unrolled, or maybe it’s only been unrolled to some users (we often only get features for some folks, or only on mobile or only on desktop…). An addendum to this is the simple rule that no matter how careful you are you will inevitably make a typo in your last word, often the last letter, right before you hit enter. I’m sorry. It’s a law of nature. On the plus side everyone knows that tags can’t be edited so no one’s going to care if your spelling is janky. (ETA: just to be clear, since it was pointed out in the notes: you CAN delete a tag and retype it. so, it's up to you if you feel like doing that. I meant you can't go back and edit the text entered as a tag, you can only delete it and make a new tag)

Censoring Tags

Do not censor tags. ESPECIALLY trigger warnings. Sometimes people will censor letters intentionally so things won't turn up in the tag search options (for example, if they're saying something negative), and while I think that's valid I also think there are better ways to handle it (like just use a different fucking tag). But if you censor tags, and especially if you censor warning tags, you make it MUCH HARDER for people to consistently blacklist. Just call things what they are (except n s f w - more later), and tag accurately (so if you want to post anti use "anti thing" tags instead of censoring), and make it possible for people to ACTUALLY avoid things and blacklist. Please. I'm begging you.

Finding the Tag for The Thing You Want

Often, finding a relevant tag can be super easy, especially if what you like is common. If you’ve been in online fandom at all, even on other platforms or forums or wherever, you likely already are familiar with common abbreviations for The Thing, and those are usually a great place to start (for example, #mdzs, #mcu for Marvel movies, #spn for Supernatural, #lotr for Lord of the Rings, etc.). However, since people do often use multiple tags (like, they may tag #mdzs AND #mo dao zu shi, AND #grandmaster of demonic cultivation, AND #gdc) you can always try putting in The Full Name For The Thing, and then seeing what tags are on the posts that pop up. Then, once you see that, you can click through a few and check them out. Every tag’s page will have a box like this:

…and it says right there how often the tag has been used “recently” (no, I have literally NEVER figured out how “recently” is…recently). If you want to find the most popular tags for a given fandom, the easiest way is to just poke around in the tags people are using and see which ones have the biggest number in that “XXX recent posts” box. Those are the ones people love and use, and emulating them will lead you in the right direction (assuming you want people to be able to find your stuff).

On the other hand, what if you like something rare, something obscure, something that doesn’t have a consistent naming structure, etc.?

That can get a little harder, but the challenges can be cut through fairly easily.

1. search for every variation of The Thing that you can think of and look through the results until you find The Thing You Actually Wanted.

2. see how that post is tagged.

3. check those tags for more of The Thing You Actually Wanted.

4. keep doing this until you find the tag where people who are into The Thing You Actually Wanted congregate.

5. winning!

Creating Tags and Space

…okay but what if that last step 5 ended with losing instead? Well, BE THE CHANGE YOU WANT TO SEE IN THE WORLD.

A lot of people on Tumblr use personal tags for their own blog organization…but many also use tags and tag-tracking to create a personal tag meant for publis use. So, source blogs (blogs that act as “clearing houses” of stuff for a specific fandom, character, ship, etc.) will say “we track #thisisourhashtag, use it so we can see your post!”

You can do that! If you really love something narrow and specific, you can at least try to get the word out. It takes a lot of work though - because you’ll need to get the word out yourself. “Hey, I love This Obscure Thing! Do you also love This Obscure Thing? Come join me, use #thisisyourhashtag!” is a start. But just “building it” won’t be enough - you’ll also need to do the leg work to find more of The Thing, reblog it, interact with the people making it, etc. Often on Tumblr, the difference between a really vibrant small fandom community and a small fandom that’s absolutely dead silent is one person taking the initiative to say “I’m going to do whatever I have to, community-building-wise, to find other people to talk to about this.”

(The best example I know of for this is the Daomu Biji fandom. Like seriously, they’re a fucking case study on how to take a tiny group of people who are Really Into A Thing and turn it into a vibrant, supportive community that is, frankly, a joy to be a part of. If someone wants more info on kinda…how this works…I think it’s outside the purview of this post but I’m willing to babble about it some other time.)

Navigating Tumblr, Your Own Blog, and Other People’s Blogs Using Tags

One of the cool things about tags on Tumblr is that every tag has a static, usable link, which - if your own blog or a blog you’re trying to access has a consistent tagging format - can make it much, MUCH easier to find things. ESPECIALLY because static tag links constant and consistently work about 80 bajillion times better than “search.” Posts that are unfindable using “search” WILL (usually) be findable using the tag’s link. (Exceptions include if the OP has blocked you or you’ve blocked them, and if the tag is in the 25th, 26th, 27th, 28th, 29th, or 30th tag slot; ETA: another exception is that in the PAST this wasn't the case; Tumblr has greatly increased the visibility of tags over the years, and may do even more in the future). So, how do you do this?

For all of Tumblr: the link you want is https://www.tumblr.com/tagged/(THE TAG)?sort=recent (or ?sort=top for them in order by most popular. Note that this is one of the cases where what’s after the ? ISN’T A TRACKING LINK ffs it’s not ALWAYS tracking you can’t ALWAYS delete it without consequences sometimes the internet is exhausting).

For your own blog: https://yournamehere.tumblr.com/tagged/thetagyouwant

For someone else’s blog: https://theirnamehere.tumblr.com/tagged/thetagyouwant

A lot of people use this for personal blog organization, and it’s especially common for source blogs to have very structured tag lists to help with navigation. For example, in the art sideblogs I run, anyone can look up any tag using links like this, and it’ll enable them to find every post with that tag. See? https://www.tumblr.com/mdzsartreblogs/tagged/mod%20post

NOTE: Tumblr, in the last few weeks, changed how this feature is set up. As you can see, the link is now structured differently than what I typed, BUT the original link formatting still works, just how it appears has changed. That said, because Tumblr can never change a thing without breaking it, there’s now sometimes a problem where if you type the link in, it’ll replace a space ( ) with a plus (+) instead of with a fake-space (%20 is how browsers classically translate spaces into Internet Speak so that the urls don’t break). If your space gets made into a +, Tumblr will say there are no results, so you’ll have to manually go into the link and change it back to a space and THEN it will work. Yes, really. No, I don’t know why. Also, if you try to get rid of the plus in the search bar instead it will NOT work correctly, because if you remove the plus, put in a space, and then hit “enter” on text written in the search bar, it’ll switch you from “show all posts with this tag” to a standard search (which will have all the bugs that standard searches usually have in Tumblr).

But, basically, once you know the tag that someone uses for a thing, or have established what tag YOU want to use for a thing, navigating your own or other people’s blogs to find Every Post Tagged With The Thing is really easy, and can be a great way to find niche content, a user’s own creations, or That Thing You Posted Two Years Ago That You Need Again For Some Reason.

ETA: Someone mentioned in the tags that if you add /chrono to the end of these links, it'll show you all the same info BUT it'll show the OLDEST posts firsts instead of the newest and I did not know that and that is A.MAY.ZING and thank you to the person who told me and now y'all know too.

Blacklisting Tags

You’ll see me talk a lot in this post about the ways that Tumblr is broken and how that can make it harder to accomplish whatever it is you’re trying to do. There is one notable exception to the brokenness. At least in my experience, and in the experience of basically everyone I’ve ever spoken to about it, Tumblr’s internal/built in blacklist works pretty darn well.

Don’t want to see a tag?

Go to Account Stuff -> Settings. Scroll down to “Content you see,” which is where Filtered Tags and Filtered Post Content are.

Filtered Tags will only filter The Thing if it’s literally #the exact tag you put in filtered tags.

Filtered Post Content will filter any post that mentions the thing.

Note that Tumblr blacklist is actually over assiduous. I personally ONLY use filtered tags, and I’ve found that it will often filter a post even if the current reblog of that post doesn’t HAVE the tag - like, if anyone has EVER tagged The Post with The Thing, it’ll get blacklisted. Also note that while theoretically, filtered posts will still show up as a box you have the option to show, in practice some will just. Not show. I’ve absolutely had blacklisted things just Not Even Appear. Which can be annoying, if it’s actually a post you want to see, but there’s no perfect system.

Also, never EVER let anyone tell you that “blacklisting is only for things you hate.” Look, you curate your own experience. If your bestie is posting about a fandom you’re not in, and it’s clogging up your dash, you’re not obligated to scroll through their 80 posts about that thing. Just blacklist it. It’ll make your experience using this website much happier. (if your bestie doesn’t tag the thing…you can try post content filtering. But yeah that’ll make it harder). I personally blacklist a fuckton of fandoms that I’ve got nothing against, I’m just not IN them, and seeing content for them is of zero interest for me, and if I blacklist them then I have more time to interact with the things I DO want to see.

And yeah I know I prefaced this section by saying blacklist actually works. Take this entire section as what my ten-years-on-this-site ass sees as “functional” on Tumblr.com.

Making Tumblr Actually Vaguely Useable

Do yourself a favor and download XKit. (It’s on Chrome too, but fuck Chrome. Y’all Chrome users can go find the link yourself sorry not sorry). XKit includes a fuckton of REALLY DAMN USEFUL functionality for making tumblr (on desktop, not mobile!) function better…

…and especially, Quick Reblog, Quick Tags, and Tag Replacer can help with tagging and tag management. Quick Reblog gives you the ability to rapidly reblog things without having to click through to the reblog window, and it gives you a box to type in all your tags when you quick reblog. Quick Tags makes all existing posts on your blog and sideblogs have an extra little button that lets you add new tags to it without having to open the edit screen for the post. Tag Replacer lets you swap a tag you no longer want to use for a new tag. Get XKit. It’ll help you. I promise.

*

Okay, so now you know something about how tags work, time to learn some tag etiquette.

The most important thing to remember when trying to figure out how to tag an original post is that people follow tags because they want to see The Things About That Tag. This has some obvious consequences, namely:

1. They won’t want to see things that Aren’t About The Thing.

2. They won’t want to see someone Hating The Thing.

So that leads to…

Tagging for Fandoms

DO: tag fandoms that are relevant to your post. Feel free to tag variations on that fandom - you can tag #mdzs and #modao zushi and #mo dao zu shi, or #spn and #supernatural. No one will mind.

DON’T: tag fandoms that aren’t relevant to your post. Yes, even if it’s a fandom by the same author (looking at you, people who tag #mdzs, #tgcf, and #svsss on every mxtx post you make, I see you and I seethe). Yes, even if it’s a different version/adaptation of your work. If you create a sub-fandom-specific work (for example, to stick with MDZS for now, if you create a work for The Untamed that includes the Yin Iron, don’t tag it MDZS; there’s no Yin Iron in MDZS, and while yes some people who follow the MDZS tag will want to see it, there will also be plenty who don’t. This is especially true when there’s a popular adaptation that a lot of fans of the original don’t like. People who adore the BOOK of the Hobbit? May be pretty reticent about seeing things about the MOVIE if they didn’t enjoy it!) Try to maintain awareness of this; it’s courtesy not to just tag Every Vaguely Relevant Fandom. You won’t make people happy they’re seeing your stuff. You’ll make them annoyed that you spammed irrelevant tags.

Tagging for Ships and Characters

DO: tag the characters ships that feature in your work. Doing variations of their name is fine as long as those variations are relevant. So, if you make a piece of “wei wuxian” for example, you can absolutely tag that “wei wuxian” and “weiwuxian” and “wei ying” and “weiying” and “mdzs wei wuxian” etc. But.

DON’T: tag every single iteration of a character. If someone is following a tag for a specific variation of a character (to stick with MDZS, maybe they follow the “yiling laozu” tag) then they want to see that variation, not…NOT that variation. So don’t post your, idk, fluffy Lotus Pier Wei Ying pre-canon thing to the “yiling laozu” tag. And I know this sounds like gibberish to people not in this fandom, but like. Just extend it to your own fandom. Lots of characters have different fandom nicknames or self-presentations for themselves at different points in canon. People who specifically follow the "pre-serum steve" tag isn't going to want to see "post-serum steve." That's the entire point of following a specific tag instead of an over-arching tag. So, when you tag your original stuff, stick to the ones that actually have something to do with your piece. 

DO: tag the ship in your piece in multiple ways. Like, to use a non-MDZS example, does your piece have Destiel? Go ahead and tag Destiel and CasDean and DeanCas. It’s okay. WITH THE ADDENDUM THAT: in some fandoms and in some parts of the world, it is common that writing Character A x Character B is actually NOT the same as writing Character B x Character A. Especially for East Asian and Southeast Asian fans, people often list them in a power-dynamic related order. Whether you think that’s a good thing or not (I personally think it’s a silly but whatever, they can do them, it doesn't effect me) is irrelevant; you need to understand that if you tag every order of a ship, you might have people ??? you over it. (Yes, really. It’s happened to me.) And that doesn’t mean don’t do it! Just. You should know. Knowledge is power. Or something.

DON’T: tag ships that aren’t in your piece. I don’t care if Wangxian is the most popular ship in the fandom; if your piece doesn’t show Wangxian, people who like Wangxian don’t need to see it in the tags. You’re doing no one any favors. Often people will say “if your piece doesn’t feature a ship PROMINENTLY don’t include it,” but that one imo is a bit more flexible. It depends on what your work is “doing” with that ship. Which leads to…

Sharing Your Negative Opinions

Please. For the love of fucking god. Do NOT post hate in the main tags. Yes, it’s just your opinion. Yes, you are absolutely entitled to your opinion. But it’s fucking rude. People go to tags because they enjoy the thing being tagged. You’re just being a dick if you therefore use that tag to shit all over that thing.

Now, this is NOT to say “don’t post negative shit,” but rather more importantly: if you want to tag negative shit, find the tag that people use to tag that specific negative shit and use that tag instead. Like. if you hate Jiang Cheng from MDZS (you’re wrong and I will block you) you do you! But don’t tag your hate #jiang cheng. People follow #jiang cheng because they LOVE the angry grape. Instead, do a little tag research (see above on how to find tags for That Thing You Like, and yes it applies even if it’s “That Thing You Like to Hate”) and find out what tags people who Hate The Thing use. Often just “anti (thing)” is a good start, though commonly the biggest groups of haters/"popular" anti opinions will have a tag they favor that’s different (for example, “canon jiang cheng” and "grape hate" are the common anti-Jiang Cheng tags; “destiew” is a commonly used anti-Destiel tag, I’m sure there are loads more but those are the ones that spring to my mind after a decade on this hellsite).

Using an anti tag is a MUCH better way to handle your hate, anti-ness, negative opinions, etc. You can find other haters to wallow with, and everyone else (like me) who just want to enjoy our shit in peace can do so. And like, I’m personally very against antis, but I also absolutely respect the right of people to have negative opinions AND to share those negative opinions, which is why I’m explaining this. It really does help like-minded people come together, and also enables people who want to avoid the vitriol protect themselves. It’s a win-win.

Tagging Trigger Warnings and Other Warnings

Tagging triggers and other potentially challenging material (such as flashing images) is a courtesy. It’s not required, but it’s certainly polite. There are some standard rules (for example, don’t use “tw epilepsy” because it’ll show up on epilepsy-related searches which is the exact opposite of the point of tagging it; tag “tw flashing” or something similar) but there’s generally NOT a “one size fits all” tag system. Instead, most people just establish their own system and make it clear somewhere “this is the system I use” so people can blacklist. Alternatively, you can see what tags your mutuals are using, and use those. Alternatively, alternatively, people will sometimes put “please tag X tw” in their pinned posts or bios - though always remember that there are risks involved in publicly advertising what someone with bad intentions can do to hurt you!!!!

Standard trigger warning formats on Tumblr include: “tw thing,” “thing tw,” “thing,” “thing for ts,” “cw thing,” “thing cw.” 

Note that tw - “trigger warning” - is usually used for things that are likely to be triggering (such as blood, gore, etc.) whereas cw - “content warning” - is often used more for things that some people may want to be aware of (such as flashing or depictions of food) but that isn’t necessarily a common “trigger” per se, especially in cases like food where even calling food a trigger can often itself be triggering for people who have are recovering from ED-related challenges.

Also as an aside, the “ts” is generally a sign that someone is a Tumblr Old, as it stands for “Tumblr Savior,” which is a blacklisting extension a lot of us used before Tumblr had built-in blacklisting features. So if you see “long post for ts” (which is when I see it most) it’s like seeing a fossil, a tag that’s become so standard for a type of post that a lot of people still use it even though the use of Tumblr Savior isn’t very common anymore (at least…I don’t think it is???)

When in doubt, if you want to respect people, listen to them - see how people are tagging The Thing you’re worried about, and follow those tagging conventions. Don’t reinvent the wheel if you don’t have to - someone who triggers to something will already have the most commonly used tags for it blacklisted (and may not follow you if you aren’t willing to also tag for it) - so you make the site more usable for everyone if you use “tw eye trauma” instead of “this is my personal eye trauma tw tag”.

Also also as another aside, don’t use n s f w. Don’t even type it in your posts. They’ll get buried. They’ll go where tumblr posts go to die, and none of us even know where that is, because they're that gone. They won’t appear in regular searches. They won’t be in tag searches. They won’t even be discoverable on your own blog. Yes it’s fucking annoying. Yes it makes it harder to avoid explicit material. But. Find another tag. “lemon” is a common one, as is “nsft” (not safe for tumblr).

Tagging Systems and Spoilers

For the most part, if anything has been out for a month or so, you should assume that no one will tag spoilers. Don’t get me wrong - a minority of people still will, definitely! - but if, for example, you’re in the first chapter of MDZS, and you don’t want MDZS spoilers…don’t go into the MDZS tags. Just don’t. You’ll see everything you don't want to see. (Unless like me you WANT to see spoilers, in which case HAVE AT.)

For fandoms that still have new content being released, spoiler tags are often determined by community consensus, and a lot of people will put up posts saying “this blog isn’t spoiler-free for Thing. Blacklist #spoilersforthething to avoid spoilers.” It’s generally fairly standard to have a spoiler tag be “#thing spoilers” or “#episodenumber spoilers.” When in doubt, yet again, look at what everyone else is doing and emulate that.

*

hoookay. 2.5 hours after I started writing this, I am finally done. I hope folks find it helpful, and hopefully I didn't miss anything obvious. Feel free to hmu with asks if you want to know more!

[ryuichirou]

Replies

A bunch of short ones today; I hope you’re enjoying your weekend!

Anonymous asked:

I was just scrolling through your art and let me tell you, the way you do highlights is sooo satisfactory!

Thank you so much, Anon <3 Super happy to hear that!

Anonymous asked:

I found someone on insta with a daily malleus account who reposted your art (credited) but I figured you might wanna know, idk who exactly runs the account but I have a screenshot. It’s the Sebek x malleus piece where Sebek is flustered over shirtless malleus

Thank you for letting us know, Anon! We really appreciate it. And I think we found it… I’ll deal with it a bit later :)

Look at some of the comments, this is exactly why I don’t allow reposts on other sites, especially insta/facebook/tiktok (the big three lol): we can’t really control who is going to see our content there. We have all the warnings on our blogs, there is a certain understanding that if you follow us, you have to be aware and not mind other content that we post. It kind of sucks when people try to strip that control away from you and post your work to other spaces, when people can shit on us for me drawing things that I want to draw. We probably have some of these people blocked both here and on twitter, and yet they still get to see our stuff when it’s reposted and share their oh so important opinion.

Anonymous asked:

I can't tell if I simp for Crewel because I like him or I just want his coat

Anon, this right here is the biggest mood ever.

It’s probably so unbelievably tender and fluffy and satisfying to touch…

Anonymous asked:

Do you have any thoughts on Jack/Epel? It's not one of my faves but I think they're cute

They really are cute, but unfortunately a little too cute for us :( But we don’t have anything against  them. But I talked about them a little bit in this post (the very last ask there).

Anonymous asked:

First Halloween JP voicelines were wild lol.

"I want to fill you up to the brim... with fear of course." -Cater

"Let's have all the fun we want tonight. Now, let me hear you scream all the way to the moon." -Azul

"The sight of you screaming as you try to hurry away... it's irresistible. I cannot hold myself back from chasing after you!" -Jade

"Who would like to be tied up in fear?" -Jade

"First, I will wrap your whole body in bandages ... just kidding." -Jade

"There's no need to look so frightened; I won't bite." -Jade again

"Yield yourself to me and become my servant." -Vil

"Struggling against me is useless ... you won't get away." -Epel

"You might find yourself trembling unable to sleep the whole night." -Lilia

There's also everyone being flirty and then Octavinelle inviting us to spend next Halloween in Coral Sea with them and how fun it is but in Jade's vignette they say Halloween under the sea is terrifying and detail their own near-death experiences during it so... what is their play here

God it was such a good event with so many great and honestly very horny voicelines lol It’s like the NRC students just can’t be normal, for them to scare someone automatically means to also flirt with them and also maybe even assault them. These boys aren’t alright… and I love it a lot.

Epel’s one is hilariously adorable though, like awww you scawwy vampire. Having it here next to Lilia’s is amazing lol

Also Jade straight-up said that he can’t help but chase if someone is running away from him, what a creepy rapid dog.

[doumekiss]

If you are here to contact me on behalf of someone else read this first

So I really hoped I wouldn’t have to make this post, but it recently came to my knowledge that a person I blocked many years ago started to send messages to a person she saw me interacting with here on my dungeon meshi prompt post asking them to send me a message on their behalf. I don’t have any wishes to receive messages from this person, so please don’t. Below I will explain a little bit of my history with her: 

So the person who contacted them won’t leave me alone, I’ve blocked them on everything and they won’t take no for an answer, I’ve told people in my life that if one day somebody kills me to look her up as a possible suspect because of how much she creeps me out, this is not the first time she saw me interacting with someone online and tried to get close to them.

I am going to explain a little bit about the context so you guys know where I am coming from so I met Ana on a Brazilian fanfiction website called Nyah Fanfiction back in 2015, and she was one of my most frequent readers and I had a lot of affection for her at that time. So in 2018 when some friends and I decided to create a WhatsApp group to send prompts and do challenges and just talk about fandom things, I decided to invite her to join. She accepted and became one of the most active members.

And then after a few months things started to get weird, anything I said she would get offended and hurt, and she would take everything personally, like she saw me liking an episode of Black Mirror that she didn't like as a personal attack on her and it was hurting me to constantly be treated as a villain to the point that sometimes I dreaded to send messages to the group I created, but I continued to ignore it until this incident at the end of 2019:

We did a mini ficathon on the group and Ana wrote a oneshot based on a prompt that I sent and she send me a message letting me know, usually when someone does something based on a prompt I try to read it the same day, but that week I was tired, at the time I was working and studying for some important exams (and she knew this because I mentioned it in the group), and then on the evening of the same day she sent a message asking if I had read it yet, and a bunch of other messages in the following days. So I went to tell her that this in the fandom was considered bad behavior and it's not something she should do to me or anyone else (she was 18/19 years old at the time and I know that often this kind of thing isn't very clear to young people in fandom). And then she got mad and said that I was bad and that she liked my writing but that I was a terrible person and a lot of other things.

I reflected for a few days and I went to tell her that I thought it was better for us to stop interacting, that we were clearly incompatible as friends and that because of our different personalities we were hurting each other. She was pissed but accepted it when it became clear that I wasn't going to change my mind.

A little before that I joined a different brazilian fanfic website called spirit fanfiction because most people had abandoned nyah at that point due to some really shitty management decisions that made the site almost unusable. Around the time that I chose to end our friendship I unfollowed her there, but I didn't block her. A week later after the drama, she started to favorite the works I posted here, and comment super nice things on some of them (I had a lot of nyah content to pass from one site to another), and send prompts in the first prompt journals I published (back them the site had this feature of creating blog posts similar to livejournal, and there is also a timeline feature that is similar to a mini twitter, this will be relevant soon), and I was a little uncomfortable because I asked her to stop interacting with me, but I thought it would be ridiculous to make drama about it and I just let it go.

A few months go by in november of 2020, and then I receive a message from someone who created an account just to let me know that Ana was talking bad things about me all the time on the timeline and sending messages to everyone who followed me to let them know that I was terrible person. At the time I barely interacted with the timeline, it wasn't a feature of the site that I read or paid attention to, I generally talked to people through comments on the fics. So I went to read Ana's timeline, and it was creepy as fuck, almost every day for months there was some subtweet about me, sometimes many times on the same day, things like that I copied her stories (which btw I didn't even read), that I had an evil soul, that she felt stalked by me, that I was rotten inside, that I should be run over by a bus. And she got so angry when people said something positive about me or interacted with my stories, there was a comment that I found particularly strange about me stealing readers (like how you steal someone's readers? It's not like a person chooses just one writer to read, I don't know, maybe she thought that every time someone chose to read something of mine they were rejecting reading something of her idk).

And after that, some things started to make sense, like my number of followers kept going up and down in those months, a sometimes people stopped following me just a few hours after they started for no reason at all. And some people continued to follow me but stopped interacting with my stories, at the time I was really active in the A Song of Ice and Fire fandom, and as soon as I joined the site I started interacting a little with other writers in the fandom because it was one of the ones I had more content to post, but then little by little they stopped talking to me, people who at first treated me very well, at the time I received the message I think there was two or three people still talking to me on that community. So I blocked her, and a few hours later she went to talk to Vanessa, a really good friend of mine she met through the group, that she didn't understand why I had done that. After receiving the message I talked about it with the person who sent me and also with a couple of personal friends on private and Vanessa was one of them, and she was someone who had known me for over ten years at that point, so she told me about Ana’s message and asked me if she could tell Ana that I knew what she was doing, and I said yes. And now I became super aware of the timeline and then I saw that Ana was making herself the victim there saying that she was going to leave the site because she made powerful enemies (seriously, the image she has of me is so distorted, she thinks I'm super popular but like when if you look at my fics you see that this really isn't the case, I have a few that ended up popular but you know I’ve been writing since 2009 I wrote over a thousand stories eventually something would end up popular lmao, but if you see in general most of the things I post only has like 2 or 4 favorites, I only have a large number of followers because I write for a lot of different fandoms and in general I tend to follow people who follow me back on there. 

My friends suggested that I write a journal explaining to my readers that there was someone spreading rumors about me on the site, and I considered it but I thought it was better not to, because everyone would know it was her and I knew that Ana had problems with depression and anxiety, my friends pointed out that I had it too and that Ana had no problem doing these things to me, but in the end she was a teenager and I was a 27-year-old woman so I put it aside and got on with my life.

In the following years she created a few new accounts just to interact with me, and as soon as I realize it’s her I block her again. A couple of people from the asoiaf fandom that stopped talking with me started again, and told me that they used to believe a lot of bad things about me because of Ana, and then she started being creepy with them too and making a lot of drama so they blocked her and thought maybe they were wrong about me, but I’m sure there are probably a lot of people who still believe in the things she said, and sometimes I still get a little paranoid sometimes that everyone secretly hates me and that the best thing would be to delete my account and only talk to some of the few people I trust, which obviously sucks because before fandom used to be just something fun that brought me happiness and I was much more open forming friendships in the past.

I called her out public on spirit I believe it was the end of 2021 or beginning of 2022 after it came to my knowledge that she started contacting people she saw me interacting with, I couldn’t talk with anyone on the timeline or get friendly in the comments that she went to follow them and started to message them, this time not to talk shit about me but casual at first, just to befriend them, and them after a while she mentioned we had a friend in common and how sorry she is about everything. And I made it very very clear that I have no wish to have any contact with her again ever in my life, and I thought it was over until I received that message today. 

In the message she said she was sorry for everything and that she did because she was a minor and had depression and that she wants to be friends again, but like I joined fandom when I was a minor with depression and anxiety and many many other issues and I never did this sort of shit to anyone, and she is no longer a minor and she is still trying to contact me after I made it clear that I don’t want to talk to her again, she has no respect for the concept of consent when it comes to human interactions, she thinks she deserves to have access to me no matter how profoundly uncomfortable she makes me. Everytime I’m reminded of her I have to relieve this really shitty chapter of my life. 

Her current username is iammyownsaviour, I’m not telling you guys to block her or don’t be friends with her, but please don’t send me anything from her, I don’t wanna hear it. 

[trans-luis-serra-navarro]

Introduction post!!

Kia Ora!!!!! My name is Eric! My main account is @wisecrackingeric-2 where I am most active and post art!!!!! You may also know me as the person who hosted Serennedy Pride Week 2024!!

[if you have the time, PLEASE pretty please check out all the amazing art and writing under the tag everyone is SO DAMN TALENTED]

This is a side account dedicated to all things Luis Serra Navarro- I’ll be posting my own analysis, theories, character explorations and other general goofy posts!! I’ll also be reblogging posts about Luis I find informative or insightful, and some art as well!!!

This blog is meant to be a space to share theories, headcannons, and general positivity around Luis Serra Navarro, but also serves as a bit of a place to house any popular analysis/headcannon posts!!! So if you’re looking for something in particular, you’ll probably find it here!! Otherwise if you have a post you really enjoy but haven’t seen here, please please please feel free to send it to me!!!! I’ll also be posting about the ship serennedy quite often, and I’ll post about trans-related stuff every now and then!!

I most likely won’t be responding to anything on here, so if you URGENTLY need me for something, go to my main account!!!!! I also do NOT give permission for my posts to be screenshotted and reposted on other sites such as twitter or TikTok!!!!!

Please don’t interact with my account if you are a t3rf/here to try and “disprove” headcannons or erase important information, super hardcore pr0sh!p/fandom discourse blog/ship discourse blog/anti queer/race discourse, if you consistently whitewash Luis in any way shape or form and/or ignore POC voices, call Luis a ‘predator’ or a creep, or if you’re just going to be racist/transphobic/bigoted in general or if you’re only here to try and ‘prove me wrong’ or start and argument!!! And most obviously, if you come here and try to spout negativity about Luis, I will simply block you!!! This isn’t a discourse/meta analysis blog, this is just for fun!!

Also please don’t follow me if you’re an 18+/NSFW blog!! I’m not comfortable with sexual jokes!

Tl;dr: I love Luis a lot and he is always on my mind, so I made a blog dedicated to posting silly stuff about him!!!! Please don’t take my stuff TOOOOOOO seriously!!!

Hashtags I use for navigation under cut!!

#serennedyprideweek: the tag I used to host the Pride-themed Serennedy ship week in June 2024!!

#othersposts: other peoples posts!

#luisposting: my own posts/text posts!

#sillyposting: posts that are lighthearted or aren’t meant to be taken seriously!

#ericsart: Art reblogged from my main account!

#othersart: Art from other people!

#reblog: exactly what it says on the tin!

#serennedy: all things Serennedy-related!

#trans: for trans related stuff specifically!

#asks: for posts answering asks!

#important: important posts!

#to do: stuff I plan on responding to!

#Don Quixote 1957: for things about the 1957 Soviet Russian film Don Quixote by Orson Wells!!

#otherstags: for tags other people have added!

And finally, if you’re looking for a good end-all analysis video on Luis, I can’t reccomended HeroFatBrett’s video ‘Luis Serra — How RE4Remake Transformed Him Into The Series’ Most Tragic Hero’ enough!!! Unfortunately it won’t let me add links but you can find it on both of their YouTube channels!!!!!

[cavicape]

longass advice seeking post incoming, bay bee !

tldr: i’m looking for a good social media to post my art and make art friends on

so, i used to be a regular deviantart user back in the day, yah? i had toyhouse/artfight but deviantart was where i did eeeverything on. i didn’t know how good i had it back then, as ever since i left in 2022 due to everyone else leaving, i’ve never been fully satisfied with another social media.

here’s my best guesses at identifying why i liked it so much:

mostly artist user base: i do art as a hobby, not looking for commissions atm, so i have a preference to interact with other artists over the average twitter/instagram users

community: i loved the little niche communities that formed there (2018/19 mario/koopaling community my beloved 🥰). the site is full of people who comment thoughtful things, and it’s easy to go back and forth. i really miss that. i remember spending most of my time in the mario community, but also a lot in the adoptable and original species communities. dA adoptable culture is something i miss- it was really fun to make and buy amateur adopts with points and art offerings alone. if i was older when i joined dA, i probably would have been into ARPGs too (like bagbeans and midveil). (wait actually if you know any good ARPGs active today i’m interested to know 👀)

page customization: genuinely had so much fun with this, i loved looking at f2u page codes and i even made some of my own. some days i think i spent more time customizing my page than posting art! probably (subconsciously at least) why i’m into website building nowadays…

but now i’m on tumblr! …right? i’ve been lurking on this site for almost as long as i’ve been on deviantart, so it was kinda like a natural progression of things. however, i’m not 100% happy with it. mainly, i dislike how tags are the main way of communicating. some people have said nice things to me in tags, and i want to thank them, but wtf do i do? not like i can reply to tags, so send a private message? that sounds waaaay too personal. well whatever, i still like it here, so i’ll stay for the time being. but i want something else.

so. what do i do now?

i’m considering a couple options:

neocities: you wouldn’t know from my currently unmodified layout, but i do know html/css. i’ve coded whole webpages for fun already, and i adore the creative freedom it allows. the downside is though, i probably wouldn’t get much interaction there, even if i include a chatbox or some other way to reach me on my website.

sheezy.art: on surface level this looks like something that would scratch my dA itch, but i’ve yet to do more research, so i can’t say for sure yet. i worry the user base is too small now though.

toyhou.se: i mean, i already have an account here. what i’d do is make it public and… trying to interact more with others? i don’t know if th can be used as a main social media. at least it appeals to my old adoptable/original species community nostalgia.

newgrounds: i’ve been told it’s great for artists. however, whenever i look at the comments of anything, nobody says much of anything. i’m looking for a site where yapping is more common! also everyone is SO talented on there, i feel like i’d stick out at my skill level there.

any other suggestions i get from this post (although i’m wary of sites that take your art for ai purposes) (yes i know tumblr does this 😭)

this is actually quite important to me so like. any advice, suggestions, or thoughts are appreciated. thanks in advance!

reblogs are welcome to spread this around

[saffronapplemanga]

Let’s Talk Manga Demographics!

Colleen from Colleen's Manga Recs asked me to weigh in when someone had questions regarding manga demographics, so I made a Twitter thread. I figured I'd make a post here too since this topic has many misconceptions. I am someone who frequents bookstores in Japan, works in the industry with manga demographics being my special interest, and this is a manga blog after all.

There’s a lot more to demographics than this but here goes nothing.

Links to my other manga posts here

Link to my thread on Twitter. I could talk about demographics for hours but I tried to keep the thread concise and just address the question. (A little more detail in this post). I'm going to compare Japan and America because that's what I'm most familiar with.

The tweet I replied to was this:

---

First off — and say it with me — demographics are very important. Beyond reaching your target audience, they create various platforms and spaces for a larger variety of titles to be published, including more marginalized voices. Erasing demographics would only hurt marginalized works, like shoujo manga, which would be the first to go. Male oriented media/perspectives would become the default since we live in a patriarchy amongst other things. Titles would become samey.

No, gendered demographics are not necessarily reductive, usually people’s ideas regarding gender are. Sure, society can be weird about it, but gender isn’t inherently bad or evil. You are not as progressive as you think you are if you believe erasing gendered demographics is a good idea. That’s honestly a Gender Studies 101 take.

Some people say they don’t care about demographics or don’t notice and just read “what’s good”. That’s great, but yes you do notice, if even on a subconscious level. This is not a brag, but I can tell the demographic of any manga just by looking at the cover or a few pages even if I know nothing about it. There are meaningful differences obvious to those with an eye for it. Again, not a brag, but it’s there.

Not to be crabby but I’m tired of people who don’t know how the industry works arguing with me about these things practically every week. I’ll leave it at that for now.

———

With that out of the way — there are various factors that go into why a publisher labels a manga a certain way (combination of art style, writing, etc). There’s also a difference between how publishers in Japan and abroad do things.

Shoujo/shounen/seinen categorization obviously is a Japanese thing. (Josei isn’t really used in Japan and is often grouped with shoujo, but that’s another convo right now). In America, there’s different but sometimes similar labels used in publishing (young adult, for example) but it’s not a one-to-one. And these labels only apply to manga. They’re not used for manhwa, webtoons, or even light novel manga adaptions. Those are all different subgroups under the umbrella of comics. Calling a webtoon a shoujo is like calling The Walking Dead comics (a western comic series) a seinen. I’m not saying one is better than the other, they just have different categorization labels.

Even the LN manga adaption of The Apothecary Diaries, for example, is not shelved with the rest of the seinen manga. It is labeled a seinen on many ebook sites (more on them later) but there’s a separate LN manga adaption shelf. Why? I can tell when something is a LN adaption without being told because they do have different vibes and appeals, and thus different audiences. For sure there’s a Venn Diagram of manga, LN adaptions, and webtoon readers etc. but the Venn Diagram is not a circle.

Overseas publishers probably have more leeway on how they market things because of this. It’s a different market from Japan. EN publishers use imprints and this is meant to replace JP publishers using magazines (also printed on vols). In America, bookstores arrange manga by alphabetical order, no regard for demographics. That was so weird to me the first time I saw it.

Normally EN manga have imprints, but in Japan it's based on the magazine it's published in since each magazine has a “publishing house style”.

Even EN novels are organized in categories and then alphabetical order (by title or author). In Japan, it’s organized by demographic > magazine/imprint/publisher > then alphabetical order. Same for ebooks.

You’ll have the shounen section, but Jump titles are labeled on the shelf, and Square Enix titles are grouped together, then arranged by alphabetical order. This goes for both new and used. Even when there’s a separate area for new releases, they tend to group them this way.

To the left, I can see signs that say “seinen comics”, and the publishers “Shueisha”, “Shogakukan”, and “Kodansha” in the back. New releases are usually end-caps. The blue sign says “New Release Comics”. They tend to keep the demos together for these too.

Selling bundles of used series is common, so you can see in these pictures, the one on the left has signs on the shelves that say “Kodansha seinen comics”. Right pic is my local bookoff. It’s not explicitly labeled, but they grouped all the shoujo bundles on the same shelf.

Left: “shoujo comics/lady’s comics” (Josei is often referred to as “lady’s comics” in Japan). “BL-lady’s comics”. Right: the shelves are labeled “Champion”, “Sunday”, “Magazine”, “Jump” which are all shounen magazines.

Colleen had asked me about this for their video (my comment at the 32:04 mark, but watch the whole vid because it’s good!) I wouldn’t be surprised if the thing with Renta JP in the vid was similar to physical bookstores too, because of it’s part of marketing their “brand”.

We stan Colleen🫡

Since the magazines are sold in Japan and not just the tankobon volumes, readers there are likely more familiar with what series are published together under what demographic and what makes them fall under that demographic. Plus you HAVE to know the demographic to even be in the right section of a bookstore when looking for a specific title.

If they switched up what a manga is labeled as in the bookstore versus the magazine, that would muddle things and confuse readers. I can imagine they’d want readers shopping for one title to see their other titles next to it so they buy it. It’s all a part of their brand. But since the magazines aren’t sold outside Japan and the market is different, foreign publishers take liberties. Sometimes I wonder if they should’ve even used JP demos tbh.

Then the same Twitter user asked a follow up that led to more relevant stuff that I hadn't initially mentioned in the thread:

I picked up the Japanese tankobon of Hikaru ga Shinda Natsu (The Summer Hikaru Died) from my local bookstore back when vol.1 first came out and it was in the seinen section. Renta JP has it under “lady’s comics” (usually what they call josei, since josei is not commonly used there).

I’m not 100% if this is the reason or not, but if I had to say, BL and horror have a lot of history with shoujosei so they labeled it as such. And in brick and mortar shops, like I said, the publisher would want their titles together so people buy more of their stuff. Online, ebooks don’t have a physical shelf they’re on so the way you’re searching for it is different so they changed the label for online searches for what gets the most hits.

Horimiya is labeled shoujo on Renta, but I it is in fact a shounen. It’s not in the shoujo section at bookstores.

It's from a shounen magazine and I still consider it a shounen because of multiple reasons (like art, story style, etc.)

Again, they are playing around with the labels to optimize marketing for digital versus brick and mortar.

I call this ✨gerrymandering but for comics✨ LOL and there's a reason I used the word "gerrymandering" as it's basically the bullshitting of demographics and it's not a word that has a positive connotation.

But yeah, I hope this was informative!

[logically-asexual]

hot take but i think that if we want thomas to put out content more frequently by making shorter things that require less effort then we also have to do our part.

thomas has a lot of pressure because he probably feels that he must keep this reputation of a perfect guy who never fails to make children smile and teach people of all ages important lessons on mental health etc. in order for him to be comfortable putting out simpler content we have to understand that he will make mistakes while doing it. because if he has to ensure every video is perfect and has months of dedicated research to back it up, then that causes videos to take so long or never get made.

if thomas decides to try putting out content like that sleep documentary more often then we have to be prepared to forgive him for mistakes instead of scaring him off by scrutinizing every single word he says.

i know thomas is an adult with a decade of experience on social media and i’ve said before that most criticism on this site is probably pretty inconsequential since it’s properly tagged and easy to avoid. but i want to just talk about this because probably people talk about criticism points from tumblr also on twitter where it will unpredictably show up on thomas’s timeline, or on youtube comments.

and i’m also not talking about big stuff and also the difference between what is a “small” and a “big” mistake and what each person is prepared to forgive is very subjective* but. but i just think we need to be aware of this. if thomas uses a word that’s a bit insensitive, makes a joke that’s out of touch, references something problematic, relies on a stereotype to portray a character, stuff like that then. we can try to bring it up so he is aware of the mistake but in moderation (making an attempt to see if there’s not already a hundred comments about it already, for example) and with kindness and just… approach the issue with good faith.

because if he puts out a short sanders sides inconsequential episode and uses a word he shouldn’t have and a bunch of people interpret that as him not caring about an entire demographic or him having terrible bigoted beliefs or him not caring about the show at all or stuff like that then he will feel discouraged and then we all lose. he must be held accountable for his actions but there are ways to do it that don’t involve interpreting an unfortunate phrasing or joke as him having the worst intentions in the world.

we cant demand perfect content that is also frequent. and most of us understand by that that we don’t need big big productions that address big big issues, but also we have to understand that we shouldn’t demand perfection in thomas’s awareness on social justice issues or in his keeping track of plot details or in his vocabulary or his use of language either. he’s a youtube comedian, after all. not a politician or somebody working at marvel or netflix or whatever.

i don’t know what’s right or wrong and i don’t know what exactly constitutes the set of “small” mistakes that we should be prepared to forgive but i think that if we all take a minute to think twice before judging him then it’ll be better and maybe he can feel more calm about creating content. which would be awesome because i love him and i want him to enjoy the process of creating. so. these are my thoughts.

[galactic-rhea]

A, C, D, I, Q for your ask game!

A - Ships that you currently like a lot. (They don’t have to be OTPs because not everyone has OTPs.) Friendships, pairings, threesomes, etc. are allowed.

Well, quite obviously anidala is my OTP here in SW and it covers the romantic, the platonic and even the friendship somehow, but that one aside, let's see:

For romantic:

Barris x Ahsoka , Luke x Han, Obi-Wan x Quinlan, Obi-Wan x Satine, Rose x Rey, Finn x Poe.

For strong platonic relationships that go a bit beyond "friendship" but also can't be classified as romantic or family (I'm aromantic deal with me):

Anakin and Rex, Ahsoka and Hera (althouuuugh I have been considering them as romantic too). Anakin and Artoo, and Obi-Wan and Anakin can be here too, but they're more family to me.

And finally, for "whatever the hell is happening here" ships:

Obi-Wan x Maul, Morgan x Ahsoka, Obi-Wan x Jango (to be honest, Obi-Wan is so shippeable lol) and of course, the jewel in the crown of this one: Palpatine x Dooku. And I think one-sided Boba and Vader to be extremely funny.

Also I had this super crack and random ship that ocurred to me once: Ventress and Sabé. Do you see the vision.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

Ahh, that's a hard one, mostly because I'm still fairly recent to this fandom and I haven't had that much time to like, develop strong distaste or something or let alone know about common ships (all the ones i mentioned above, mostly come from my own experiences while watching the series/movies).

But eh...I really don't like Keylo. I also don't like Obi-Wan / Anakin or Cody/Obi-wan. Not because I think the shippers are bad or evil or problematic or anything, I just don't like them and i have realized that they're sometimes hard to avoid because people don't tag them. But hey, I really don't have anything against people that like those.

Oh, and the brand new Mae x Qimir

D - A pairing you wish you liked but just can’t.

Probably Cody/ Obi wan because one of my friends really likes it and I'm just "eh" . Also I wish I could see the vision of Sabe and Padme, but I can't 😔

I - Has Tumblr caused you to stop liking any fandoms, if so, which and why?

-Lets out an airy huff- Oh boyyyyy.

Yes. Although that much Tumblr but more like the whole fandom across several platforms. I'm also theoretically new to Tumblr because I just started using it more when I made this SW blog.

To summarize: There are some fandoms that are awful and the previous one was fairly bad, I liked an extremely unpopular character, and I got on the bad side of a big important famous person in the fandom whom was in several sites not only tumblr and twitter, which, hhuh, well. That previous fandom was terribly bad for my mental health, so I won't name it because I suspect the wolves of that fandom are still running and hungry.

Q - A fandom you’ve abandoned and why.

Basically I answered it on the previous question. But talking about another completely different fandom: I dipped my fingers briefly into our flag means death fandom and not only came from it heavily disliking Taika, but found the fandom extremely only focused on just three characters which were the ones I wasn't interested, so I just lost interest and didn't even watch the second season

[theonethatyaks93]

An Important Message for the Pinky and The Brain Fandom.

Hello everyone! I know I haven’t been the most active in recent weeks, but I just want to discuss something with all of you. I’ve noticed that there has been a lot more toxicity and frustration in the fandom as of late. There has been some controversy surrounding certain pieces of inappropriate art being shared where minors can view them. I don’t think that this is a very good idea and I believe this should be stopped immediately. I'm aware that some artists tag their posts correctly, so this is not to put hate on them. I follow a few artists that post this kind of stuff, but I know that they understand what to post and what limits they have. To put my point-of-view out there, I’m writing something where I address recent events and what should be done about them. This is my attempt to keep this fandom alive and to make sure that it remains a heathy place for everyone to explore.

Posting/Re-blogging NSFW Art: Every fandom has NSFW art/fanfiction. It's basically a given to any community. However, there should be some limits to who and what can be seen/what can be posted to everyone. Posting this kind of stuff is fun, as long as you have made is EXPLICITLY clear that this is not intended for a younger audience. Some people as of recently have been posting this art to the public on sites like our very own Tumblr and Twitter. Posting and/or re-blogging this stuff where minors can view it is disgusting and very disrespectful. There are a lot of younger people in the PaTB fandom who adore and love these characters and this show so much. Showing them these things can have emotional and mental consequences of massive proportions. I get it, some people make mistakes. Some others I follow might accidently support this kind of behavior because they don't realize that minors are seeing this. But if this becomes a regular occurrence, then it needs to stop. I've seen gross things in other fandoms I'm involved in (The Owl House, Animaniacs), so I'd hate to see this become one of those. And if you're mad at the fandom, don't be mad at the entire fandom, get mad with the people who promote this kind of intolerable behavior. If you're posting NSFW art, be careful to who can see it and if you want to post it at all. Re-bloggers, BE CAREFUL! Make sure you don't allow minors to view your re-blog or just don't re-blog it. Also, the art you make might not be interpreted as inappropriate by you, but it can be interpreted that way by others. Don't get mad with those people for posting the art or for those who get uncomfortable with what was posted. Don't assume that what they posted was out of malice, they might've not seen it that way. Those who get uncomfortable by this, I get it. People have their limits. Others need to respect that.

Tagging NSFW Art: When tagging NSFW art, make sure you imply everything that's featured in your art in the tags and make sure that minors cannot see this. On Tumblr, mark your post as mature so that people under the age of 18 can't see it. Put tags down to allow people to decide if they want to view the art. If you don't mark if your art is mature, then you'll be on the receiving end of tons of hate from fans. Being respectful of others and what they like/dislike is one of the keys to a strong fandom of people. Putting what occurs in your art (similar to tagging things in fanfiction on AO3) allows people to make a decision on viewing something. Don't post something without using appropriate tags, it will only cause problems. I've seen a wide variety of people posting NSFW art without using the right tags, that could get you blocked, reported, or even banned. So, I implore every artist on this site, mark your art posts as mature if they are mature and if they have sexual themes, violence, or contain alcohol/drug abuse. Failure to do so will often spell despair and doom for your reputation in the fandom.

Keeping the Fandom Safe (especially the minors): The previous two things mentioned are only a few ways to help keep the PaTB and other fandoms safe for the younger crowd. A few other things that you can do include communication and having respect. Make sure to mark your posts as mature and to also express to your audience that this post was not intended for minors. Re-blogging these posts will also put others at risk for viewing NSFW content. So, please tag all sexual or mature posts with the appropriate tags and make sure to communicate with those who follow you about the nature of your post. Respecting others is also important. Don't get mad at people who do post NSFW art but have all the correct tags. Those people have their limits too and they know that minors won't be allowed to see it. Calling others out for just being themselves is wrong, especially when they are doing all they can to make sure minors don't view what they make. However, posting/re-blogging this art without proper markings and tags is horrible and must be stopped. Minors can view this stuff and can become confused/concerned/mentally scarred. Condoning this kind of behavior is unacceptable and tragic. Also, don't target certain people who post this art but make sure that it's tagged correctly. These people are emotionally affected by these words and it can really hurt their appreciation. I personally know someone who's been going through some serious crap as of recently. I want to tell this person that they don't deserve this. They did nothing wrong and if others can't see that, than it's their fault. I'm hoping that they stay within the fandom because I want to see them shine. I hope that they understand that a ton of people in the fandom truly support them. Let's all work together to keep the Pinky and The Brain fandom a safe and welcoming place for everyone. I get that it's not as popular as it once was, but let's please not let it end up like other fandoms out there.

What to do if You See This Happening: If you see someone posting or re-blogging NSFW art without the correct marks/tags, please don't stay silent about it. Report it immediately to the site, maybe something can be done about it. You can also acknowledge what occurred (DO NOT USE NAMES OR CALL SPECIFIC PEOPLE OUT! It will make everything a million times worse!) and try your best to stop it. If the issue persists, do everything in your power to cease what happened. These harmful actions can cause people to leave fandoms, which is awful. These ideas might not work for every situation, but it can help.

Conclusion: I'm absolutely devastated about what I'm seeing. I encourage others to not mimic the behaviors of these people who are doing horrible things. I also encourage others to hold onto the fandom. It may be difficult, but avoiding these people could lead to a great experience. There are many talented and amazing individuals that aren't toxic and actually respect and admire the fans of the show. Trust me, the PaTB fandom isn't entirely made up of bad people. I've interacted with many others who are awesome. If you can't tolerate this behavior and want to leave, I'm not stopping you. But if you want to stay, please tag any NSFW post with the right tags, respect other people and their limits, and don't frustrate others in the community who are trying their best to leave a positive impact. I don't want this fandom to die a slow and painful death. I want to make it last. So, to any person who is posting these works without the right tags, please stop. Minors will view this and won't understand what is happening. It will lead to emotional and mental scars and that's not something that should happen. Don't harass others who tag their art appropriately. I hope that this will help to relieve some of the pain of recent events. I'm not trying to call anyone out or spread ill will, but I'm hoping that these individuals will understand how their harmful actions are affecting others. I'm not leaving the fandom just yet. I'll be trying my best to promote a friendly and fun community with my regular posts. I´ll leave everyone with these final words: if you are promoting these to minors, whether it be accidentally or intentionally, I'm encouraging you to please cease this behavior immediately. You are harming people in various ways and are leading to the harassment of innocent fans. I'm hoping we can resolve these issues so we can continue to support a great show that we all love. I'm glad some people are taking responsibility for their previous actions, and I can only hope that this is only a short-lived thing. Let's re-shape the PaTB fandom to be better and stronger than ever.

Signed your friend,

patb-pics

[girlstupid-boygenius]

Does anyone else feel like being a fan, especially in the music space, has become exhausting? You can’t just enjoy the art artists create anymore. You can’t have wholesome fun conversations about the music and lyrics with fellow fans. (Thankfully this still exists in a few areas like tumblr.) but generally speaking, any discourse regarding it has become so competitive and toxic. I HATE the fact that my absolute favorite group, Boygenius, has decided to bless us with an entire album, and it’s already stirring up drama. Why?. Look, if you’re a huge phoebe fan, but you’re not as familiar or fond of Julien and Lucy’s music. It’s okay. But this moment isn’t about you. Why try and insert dominance in a fan base you’re not actually in? Why does it have to be so toxic and competitive? Why does this excitement have to automatically be overshadowed by stress about competitive ticketing. Instead of people bonding over fandoms. You can’t go on Twitter and post about being a fan, without someone trying to “out-fan” you. I don’t really get on a lot of social media sites anymore, so I’m speaking from past experiences, I am sure it just keeps getting worse. Being a fan just seems more and more like a competition. Who can prove and post the most to seem like the biggest fan. How can we create the perception of being the biggest fan. Who can be the loudest?

It seems that lately, concerts aren’t even that fun anymore. That sense of anticipation and excitement has been replaced by stress. I stand in line with people who only buy tickets to shows to -post- about the show, but not experience it. I wanted to delete a lot of my social media pages a while back… and you know what? My only concern was missing out and being the first to know important announcements. Why did I get that way? Why can’t I be just as much of a fan without being first. Why can’t we just enjoy music and enjoy the artist. Why does it have to be this way. Ugh.

[yourtoradorasextendedwarranty]

“Hey Kid, Don’t Tell Your Parents.”

Got your attention yet? This website, along with sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit, are a danger to kids. A lot of people may go, “I used social media when I was young and I’m fine” and sure. Maybe you are fine. But in a world so torn to shreds and divided by insane people, predators, zealots, and moral absolutists, there’s a much bigger threat now. 

Fact of the matter is, as of just recently there has been a trend of radicals saying, “Hey kid don’t tell your parents about this, they would not understand.” And while we know that phrase is normally reserved for predators, it’s also reserved for groomers. Or in this case people who are telling your kids that if they are not happy in SOME way, they are trans. Why prompted this? What else but this:

This to be stacked on top of a recent video that proves CHILDREN are being fast tracked into transitioning. Which can be shown here. And is being done to SMALL children. Who are NOT getting mental health help. They are just being pushed through the Big Pharma pipeline. And congrats for everyone pushing that. You’ve created a class of people who will forever have to live off Pharma companies, and Surgeons. 

https://www.instagram.com/reel/CrOyphmA6eN/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

body > iframe { min-width: auto !important }

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Project Veritas (@project_veritas)

And in the video you clearly see people are being harmed by this. Children who are NOT EVEN OLD ENOUGH to understand the consequences of sex, are being taken advantage of, having their bodies pumped full of hormones and having body parts cut off. HOW THE FUCK are they old enough to make that choice if they are not old enough to consent. AND DON’T TELL ME that shit is different because it’s not. YOU just need it to be different because that way you can make more people like you. 

OH. And before someone comes to me and says, “Oh well you can’t convince a person that isn’t trans to be trans”. TELL THAT to the thousands of detransitioner. We are sterilizing and mutilating KIDS! Many of whom will forever be dealing with mental health issues BECAUSE of the whole situation as well as probably body dysmorphia. And it’s because of people like you. 

If you see this and you are under 18 and you believe you are trans. Let me give you some advice. If a person ever tells you, to NOT seek mental health help. Or they tell you not to tell your parents about something.......Assume the person you are talking to is a predator. Because 9.9/10 times, they will be. And contrary to the false studies you see. We don’t actually have YEARS of data backing up that transitioning helps people. Because prior to now, it wasn’t really a big enough thing to DO research on. 

More than that. Imagine if you thought you were a chicken when you were 8. And your parents had your arms cut off to affirm your identity. It’s the same thing. And lastly. Hormone blockers  are NOT reversible. Any amount of puberty you miss while taking hormone blockers? Does not just come back. When you miss it, you miss it. And if you take blockers for years, and come mid-late 20′s you want kids? You might not even have the ABILITY to have them. 

If you are a guy and take blockers as a kid and end up with a micro penis. YOU BETTER PRAY you find a woman that loves you for you. Because sex likely won’t even be an option. Also girls. No. You breasts will NOT grow back. And there have been stories of 14 y/o girls having their breasts cut off, regretting it, then asking if they will grow back. No. They won’t 

And before anyone says anything, NO. This isn’t an anti trans rant. 

This is a rant against radical activists, who’s only goal is the transition of as many people as humanly possible even if they are not trans. And that should scare you. Because these people are now the reason we see fast tracking. How many people have to be scarred by you, and or kill themselves because they were not trans and wanted an escape? HOW MANY BODIES are you fine with?

Because I can bet, if we brought back all the people whom activists claim took their lives after “Not being affirmed enough” the problem would have been that they were depressed, not trans, and the transition only made things worse. How many kids and teens have to die until it’s enough? 

We need to put a stop to this. Laws need to be put into place barring kids from being put on hormones. Laws need to also be put into place saying that you need 2 years of mandatory mental health help before surgery is even allowed. Why? Because this is a mental health epidemic. And it needs to be handled PROPERLY by mental health professionals. (Oh and any of the ones that have signed off on fast tracking? And ones that are caught doing so in the future? Revoke their creds, and throw them in jail.)

[hansolz-moved]

or just take the support in whatever form you receive it and don’t be ungrateful.

hi anon ! I took some time before replying to this to collect my thoughts but here we are :D

so for me this is very deliberate wording. immediately jumping to ungrateful because I think posts should be reblogged is pretty ridiculous imho! so id like to break it down for you

i used to make moodboards and icon / header packs! some of my most popular posts from that time have 523 and 401 notes respectively. out of these 532 notes, 28 were reblogs, 494 were likes and one was a reply. and out of the 401 notes 36 were reblogs and 365 were likes. some of those posts have as few as 4 reblogs. this is extremely frustrating because it means my content was enjoyed but not deemed worthy of spreading. i would see it used on twitter and on discord or even reposted without credit because the time I took to compile it was never taken into account. it was always brushed off as 'easy to do' and as such simply not worthy of proper engagement.

when a post is reblogged, it is boosted to other blogs and as such to the dash of people who follow that blog. that's new, fresh engagement and new exposure, every time. that engagement is also going to push your post up in the search results, but unfortunately, most of the time people are not going to go searching for posts to like/rb and instead they will reblog what is already on their dash. this is why that engagement is so important for content creators of all kinds.

it is nice to receive likes, yes. and I will happily admit that since getting into a new type of content creation, my reblogs are not that bad but I am typically receiving double what I receive in reblogs in likes alone. having nearly 600 notes for not even a third of them to be reblogs can be frustrating because i know that my content is not receiving as much new exposure as it could. I do this to have fun, not to be famous on Tumblr of all sites but I have to admit that it feels wonderful for people to engage with my content and appreciate it.

likes are awesome !! they really are !!! but ultimately they do not really help content creators gain or maintain any type of footing in the community. especially not because a lot of people have their likes hidden. if I receive 200 likes on a post, 100 of those people will have their likes hidden and that's being stingy with the numbers tbh!. out of those 100 people with visible likes, maybe 5 or so people will go through their likes at any given time and if they're an avid user of Tumblr, that has to be done pretty quickly for them to see my post. chances are they don't engage with it, meaning that even though it adds to my numbers and its a nice gesture... it's essentially pointless.

on the flip side, if I get 100 reblogs and each of those blogs has, on average, 5 active followers; that's a shit ton of blogs I am suddenly visible to. not all of them will choose to interact with me or my content and that's okay because it still gives me visibility and that is extremely important.

personally, I like and reblog. if I haven't reblogged something, I queue it. but honestly , if I had to choose the way people engage with my posts I would rather them just rb if they're going to choose one! it helps me massively and I am ever grateful for the people who rb my posts because I immediately see the engagement from their following whereas I gain little to no fresh engagement from reblogs alone.

ccs; writers, gif makers, gfx artists, etc etc etc all spend a ridiculous amount of time doing what we love to do, and no, we are not entitled to anything from anyone but to say that if you enjoy our content and benefit off of it (if you're using it as an icon somewhere else, or saving it onto your phone to be your wallpaper, or showing your friends, or getting the feels from it because that fanfic was just so <333333 then you're benefitting from it!) ... then you can give us a boost. especially if you are consistently enjoying our content.

the bottom line is that the reblog system keeps this site going. if we keep going down this path then all of these content creators you know and love are going to get frustrated and leave when the only form of engagement truly benefitting them dwindles even further. and I can't say I blame them because ill be right there with them