#all tags are user added... some people are more organized... some people less... it's just a personal preference

[1o1percentmilk]

hi im new to tumblr and just discovered your account! i saw that you have an art tag? how do i make one for my own work? i LOVE your style btw :)

yes!! hello!! welcome to tumblr my friend!! (•u•)/

to make an art tag you can just tag your posts with whatever... some people simply tag with "my art" and other people (like me) have ~fancy~ tags of their own like "milkart2206"... it's very simple. i'll tag this post with "ask" and stuff so that people can find it later on my blog.

As for how to get the clickable tag into my bio, it's some sort of HTML magic... on Desktop mode, go to your blog > Blog Settings > Edit Appearance. You just need the hyperlink HTML element <a href=[YOUR LINK HERE]>[link title]</a> like so:

You can read more about it here (W3schools)

I hope that answers your question! If you have any more questions my DMs are also always open, just shoot me a message :) but yeah welcome to the place!

[sniffanimal]

Shallan and her stand 『PATTERN』 for my JJBA!SA au ;3; Tag for this on my blog here | tip jar/requests here Design notes below!

First, Pattern, a canon design so baller we spun it off Unchanged! Forreal though, his suit is designed after a wool runway suit I saw, I just made it look folded from paper instead. Also the model was in tights but I spared you from looking at Pattern's salad fingers-ass feet and legs. I don't really think the spinning pattern cryptic head is 100% fitting in JJBA's character design styles, but I think there's precedent for shapeshifting so why not!

Shallan, being Lighteyed, gets a far more modern/pop-y/cute design than Kaladin did (his being more utilitarian). I was thinking about how Jolyne, Foo Fighters, and some of the other jojo women look, notably things like exposed midriff, painted lips, and overalls. I know Early Canon shallan is a lot more modest and reserved, So maybe in TWOK-era she has her straps up and her sleeves pulled down over her fingertips on her safehand ok, but maybe during WOR and onwards she slips a bit lol. She's got big clunky boots on under the pant legs but the pant legs are big floor dragging bell bottoms. I LOVE the Y2K-ish lightweaver symbol I put on her shirt (it looks like a heart or a butterfly so. added heart and butterfly), and echoed it on the pants. The model I was looking at just had buttons on the shirt, but I switched it to frog clasps to look a little more Vorin fashion-y. For her body itself, I always draw shallan with twin buns and still a lot of hair left to go, thinking kinda along the lines of Disney's Merida or something with copious amounts of hair, though less curly. I also decided to give it some color depth to it and go more auburn to ginger versus scarlet or full ginger. Lastly I based her general appearance off the Korean model Jung Ho Yeon, who has also modeled with red hair sometimes! Very Shallan to me!

I'm thinking the setting is going to fall on a Roshar that's in a vaguely turn of the millennium (on earth) situation. Most of the tech is still fabrial based, but it's all kinda like what you'd see in the late 90s or something. Maybe closer to the 70s/80s actually since I don't think they quite have computers as commonplace. Navani gets one. Shallan does have a Mobile Spanreed, which is kind of like an ipad but with a magnadoodle-type board (or boogie board) for a screen and a ring with up to 10 paired other Mobile Spanreeds that you can communicate with. It's very modern and very convenient. No need for paper! And you can have them paired with many other boards! Shallan likes to draw on hers when she's not actively communicating with people, of course.

I'm getting ahead of myself. Shallan is struck by part of the Arrow by Kabsal, who was planning on recruiting her into his organization before he died. He tells them as much on his deathbed. She manifests Pattern as part of that, and identifying her as a Stand User, Jasnah and Ivory take her under their tutelage, not knowing that Shallan was actually able to use Pattern since she was a child.

[amphibizzy]

bluesky functions among a lot of false positives in all aspects of both moderation and curation. a net is cast, there is bycatch, and those get appealed/manually reviewed. a curation or moderation list should only cover an amount of users their own staff can handle basic vetting and appeals of, and thats generally the case for trusted ones. lower stakes things happen in curation, like say a feed that pulls posts mentioning "hylics" and tagged hylics, accidentally netting posts about Gnosticism and not the funny rpg game. manual removals/exclusions or inverted keywords is the work that must go into it

there are several current attack vectors, for example actively turning stuff like follow4follow trains into honeypots (where the followed account is then rebranded and its followers shamed or put on a list alongside it, worse people nuke-block everyone who follows it) and "mistakes" in untrusted, malicious labels/lists. this is a likely, malicious-user-driven reason why a large pattern of people could be roped into a fast moderation decision which is cleaned up in post there are users who make the platform more functional and there are ppl who make it worse. both have nearly the same tools, which are decently powerful but can be slow to update or have short outages

i wrote too many thought tags and then had even more thoughts so im gonna readmore here. i just wanna be productive in the decision if whether or not u wanna deal with joining and curating bluesky and its all interesting to me. yap yap

example: possible that the child safety bans picked up some people who were maliciously added to certain lists that then get targeted for reports

that but also *POTENTIALLY* some could be the maga ppl making fake trans etc accounts- deliberately infiltrating and trolling and being put on horrible subject lists willingly. there are also certain Harassment Websites who are currently targeting users in mostly alternate ways. it could also straight up just be people finding a list of a kind of person and mass reporting everyone on it

that is happening- just not sure if its part of it. the point is that there is a lot of bad actors

i have LIGHTLY looked into it and am not stating fact, but because of this context i think its is extremely reasonable that the ppl caught up in the bans are mistakes via user-driven malicious action, especially with the appeals that have gone through so far. theres so many things that are just kinda frontline messes that could be taken out of context. I DO NOT DOUBT THAT I COULD BE WRONG so dont be annoying @ me if i am. theres still info i wanna talk about in here but the whole platform is more complicated than the moderation ppl here are used to which ranges from fuck all to some awful shit. even here, a specific recent shitty tumblr ban wave had an extra shit layer of false positives, and i personally saw successful appeals of those.

on top of all of this, bluesky was gaining a million users a day for a bit there (and im shocked its functioning as okay as it is), theres no way any of this is gonna be perfect for awhile, and its going to look bad. but i think its worth continuing to curate if you dont have a need for a platform like bluesky, then no pressure to go there. i do personally consider tumblr and bluesky to be the two peaks rn. insta maybe a lesser if ur already established (but eugh, lol) bluesky is similar to twitter in structure but with easier curation (fully understanding the difference between each type took me a hot minute lol), plus a user driven effort to vibe reset from twitter by pulling away/cutting off combative interactions, muting and blocking instead of butting heads, more and noticeably less hostile interactions everywhere i look.

and imo feeds to organize your own posts is huge, not as easy to pass through like tumblrs archive but far better than nothing. ill b making a few categories of my art into feeds

just hesitate a bit before getting scared away from another basket to put your eggs bcs of some secondhand info. look into it because it could be interesting. bluesky doesnt cut off logged out users (another plus) so you might be able to look into things directly

update from me 10 mins later: i went to take my own advice lol and i found a relevant official statement from one hour ago

[probablytrapped]

There's been an ongoing debate for years between users on AO3 about whether or not people should be allowed to add works from other authors to collections.

Generally this debate is now over with the the default for a work to not allow others to add it to anything, meaning less and less works are available to add, which I really do think it is a shame. I understand the the general danger of losing fics since whoever was running the collection could make the works all anonymous, and the original author couldn't undo. That's pretty scary and annoying. Not sure exactly the the mechanics, but in general the issue stems from the fact collections were not designed for what users were ending up using it for.

Some argue that this is what the Bookmarks function is supposed to be, but I disagree. Bookmarks, while they can be either public or private, don't have the same social or organization power that collections had. (And if I'm remembering correctly, have a slightly stunted filter..)

Any reader could see what collection a work had been added to...And this is a bit of bad thing honestly, some fics have been added to SO many collections that it sometimes is a larger block than the actual tags. But that doesn't change the fact that it was a user built "what to read next" function.

I'm not suggesting that that's something that AO3 needs, I DO believe that a huge part of reading fanfiction is learning to fucking dig and search for what you want. But, user curated lists of recommendations? I don't see the harm in that. If often times is just a smaller pool to dive into rather than all of a specific tag or series.

Bookmarks aren't that easily delved into. Usually you might find an author you like and check out their bookmarks, but it isn't quite work the same as reading a specific fic and then seeing it's part of a collection called "NaruSasu timetravel fics I LOVE". Someone else also really loved that story! and here are some other works that they thought were similar! how nice!

If we COULD keep the collection system open and in use as it was or create something similar, I do think it would need some improvements:

Default number of viewable collections or rec lists should be capped at like 10, and then there's either a toggle to show more or a link to a new page with all the collections the fic is added to.

The ability to hide the collections list entirely from readers. It'll still be in the index page or something, but ultimately if authors don't want people redirecting to other things from their story....I get that.

I don't really love the idea of authors being able to remove their stories from a list, but that might be something to keep people appeased. But I don't think people should be able to opt out?? If there's no harm created by adding to a list I really don't see the point. Of course maybe someone starts a "Trash fic that should DIE!" kinda thing....anyway it's complicated

Being able to subscribe to a collection who be rad as hell. This unfortunately feeds into the social media aspect that I think AO3 tries to avoid, so I'm not sure if that would go over well. Maybe the people who run the collections can't have their accounts public on the collection page? dunno

And to spice things up, some general OTHER upgrades to AO3:

can i PLEASE get some easy to read indicator on a fic in the search level that i've read it before? There are so many extensions I've used over the years for this, but most of them break after a certain point...But I just need a "you've given kudos" or "you're subscribed" or SOMETHING. I don't mind rereading fics, but I don't love being Gandalf half the time!

In the same vein as above....just a personal status tracker button. Maybe it's visible on the front end, but anything really to indicate if it's "TBR", "Reading", "Finished", or "DNF". The "DNF" is kinda important to me. Since if I mark it, that means I gave up for A REASON. This should all be private an not visible to authors or anyone else.

I would like to see all the fics I've given a Kudos to. please.

[wifegideonnav]

I'm new to Tumblr. How do Tumblr users usually engage with each other?

well first of all welcome haha. the main ways to engage with people are:

liking and reblogging. platforms like instagram and tiktok run on likes and an algorithm, but on tumblr, people almost exclusively use their dashboard and turn off suggested content, so they’re only seeing what people actually reblog onto their dash. that’s why people on this site are so adamant about reblogs, because likes basically do nothing. i saw someone say once that anything you would like on a different social media, you should reblog on here, and i totally agree. and don’t worry about how old a post is, or about reblogging something you’ve previously reblogged. there are posts from 2014 that i regularly see on my dash a decade later, so literally don’t feel awkward, it’s 100% normal to engage with old posts.

tags. there are three main ways tags are used: labeling original content so people find it in searches, internal organization systems when reblogging or posting (for instance, many people have a tag for their original posts, and will tag reblogs by fandom or character or whatever - important note that reblogs do not show up in search results), and to make sotto voce comments on a post. it’s normal for people to make jokes, add their own commentary, ramble about something semi relevant, or say something to op in the tags on posts they reblog.

reblog additions. every time you reblog, you have the chance to add something to the post, which unlike tags will be retained when someone reblogs from you. a good rule of thumb is to comment instead of tagging when it’s something you actually want other people to engage with, as opposed to tags where you’re just kind of expressing yourself lol. don’t be surprised however if you see people’s tags getting screenshotted and added to a reblog. if this happens because the screenshotter likes what the tag writer said, it’s jokingly referred to as “passing peer review.” (and of course people screenshot tags to criticize or mock them as well.) essentially, tags are like being at a big group dinner and saying something to the person next to you as an aside, and then sometimes that person goes “hey everyone listen to this”

post comments. there’s also an option on every post (unless op has turned it off) for people to comment on the post itself, not on a specific reblog. mostly this is useful for talking to people on personal posts or posts with reblogs turned off. on a bigger post, just reblog it and put your thoughts in an addition or tag.

asks. seems like you figured this one out! lmao. asks are used for a wide variety of things, but essentially it can either be a prompt for someone to make a post or a way of having an interaction/conversation with someone without dming them.

dms. these work like dms everywhere else, except the functionality is limited and it kinda sucks.

games. there are also many varieties of games that people play with each other, ranging from ask games (things like “rec me some music” or a post with prompts and people send you some from that list), tag games (typically there are questions you answer then you tag other people to fill them out for themselves) handwriting tags, follow chains, giveaways, name/url playlists, and more. with the addition of polls, brackets have gotten popular too (eg the tumblr sexyman bracket). there also used to be a lot of in-character ask blogs, where a user would set up a blog and roleplay as a specific character that people could send questions to (there still are some but way fewer and way less popular than there used to be)

to be honest i feel like i have to put “discourse” and “drama” on this list too. people on this site loveeee having the most insane arguments of all time and then everyone else memes the hell out of it. google “sonic for real justice” for an example lmao. (of course there’s also very unfunny political and fandom discourse that goes on as well. i would advise you to avoid discourse blogs as a general rule regardless of whether you agree with their position or not)

tagging people. you can also @ people in posts you think they’d like or if you feel like they have relevant input. typically this is something you would do either to people you’ve spoken to before, or a big blog with an established persona and rapport with their followers (eg if you follow a blog about snakes and you see a random post with snake info that seems wrong but you’re not sure, so you tag them to ask for their expertise).

and this isn’t a specific “mode” of communication but it’s also a thing to “interpret” (for lack of a better word) other people’s posts. for instance, people drawing a photo from the original post (i cant find it but there was a post going around recently where op posted an aesthetic photo of an egg cooking and then several people painted it), or people trying/recreating something a post was about (example). it was also a thing for a minute there where people would rewrite funny exchanges as shakespearean dialogue

those are all the ways i can think of, although im sure i’ve missed some (if other people think of any pls add on!). good luck, and i hope you’re able to meet some cool people!

[esigners]

Ways to Increase SEO Traffic

Right now, we are going to discuss the most important tips that you need to know to be successful with the SEO (search engine optimization) of your website. The thing with these tips is that they are not mere lip service – they work! For that matter, these tips can help you nail the top spot – or pretty much close to that – for keywords that are relevant to your business. These tips can prove to be helpful for your off-page SEO as well. It does not matter even if you are a seasoned veteran in this domain – these tips can prove to be rather helpful for you.

Using keywords in the right places

It is probably common knowledge that you must add keywords to pages that you are looking to rank. However, the placement of these keywords is extremely important – just as much as the number of times that you use them in your content. To be specific, you need to make sure that your main keyword appears in the title tag of the page, the URL (universal resource locator) of the page, and within the first 100 words in the content over there.

Keeping users longer on your site

You should know that pogo-sticking can be a major determinant as far as your Google rankings are concerned. You might wonder what pogo-sticking means. Well, this is when a user clicks on your site, checks it out, and then goes back to the search results to find some other site that will be useful for them. When someone pogo sticks it tells Google rather strongly that they did not like your page/site. The number one search engine would downrank your site if it does not satisfy the users. The question is how you can do this – make people stay longer on your site.

Well, a good way to do this is to use lots of subheadings and bullets. This makes your content easier to read and when that happens people spend more time on your website. This also means that they are less likely to hit the back button.

Finding Suggest keywords

You might already know that you can use Google Suggest to find the most relevant long-tail keywords for your business. However, you might not know that you can do this with several other search engines as well. The most prominent among them are Wikipedia, YouTube, and Bing.

Deleting zombie pages

Zombie pages are ones on your site that are not getting you any traffic. They are kind of there without serving the purpose that you intended them to when you created them. The thing is deleting these pages can improve your ranking on Google search engine results. Recently, an e-commerce site did away with 11,000 such pages and saw a 31% improvement in its search engine traffic. At the same time, it also gained 28% in revenue. The thing is it is not only one to have benefited this way. Proven.com has seen an 88.3% increase in its organic search traffic by deleting 40,000 such pages from its site.

Adding keywords related to the content

There is a whole lot more to on-page SEO than only making sure you include the main keyword a certain number of times on your page. That is important but not the end all and be all. If you wish to rank on Google you need to use related keywords and synonyms in the page as well. You may wonder why that is so. Well, the main reason in this case is Google Hummingbird. This particular update lets Google go beyond mere keywords instead helping it understand the topic a page talks about.

Adding text to infographics, videos, and podcasts

Visual content such as podcasts and infographics is a great way to procure both backlinks and traffic. However, there is a major problem with them as well – Google cannot simply understand them! This is why SEO experts will always recommend that you add a whole lot of text to your visual content. You however need to make sure that the content is of a high quality. Such text content helps Google understand what your pages are all about.

Updating old pages

Do you have a lot of old blog posts on your website sitting there gathering dust? If that is indeed the case you can always update them as doing so will increase your search engine rankings. At times, such blog posts may be really good but they still would not perform as well as you expect them to. Their ranking performance would suffer to the extent that they might keep getting sent lower on search engine rankings. This is where upgrades and updates – preferably, major ones – are the order of the day.

There are several other ways in which you can help your SEO traffic such as the following:

• speeding up your website • using Google Search console • creating content based on shoulder niches • getting backlinks from your visual assets • creating branded keywords • adding definitions of different issues in your blog posts such as What is X • ranking in the featured snippets • finding more opportunities for guest posts • improving your organic CTR (click-through rate)

The thing with these tips is that they are not the only ones you need to know in this regard but they are, for sure, the most important ones in this particular context.

[seigell971]

The Rise of User-Generated Content, A Game Changer for Social Media Marketing

Hey there, fellow social media aficionados! Have you noticed how your feeds are bursting with content lately? From stunning travel snapshots to mouthwatering food pics and hilarious memes, it seems like everyone is sharing something these days. But here's the thing: a lot of that content isn't coming from brands themselves. Nope, it's all thanks to us, the users! Welcome to the era of user-generated content (UGC), where everyday people like you and me are taking center stage on social media platforms. And let me tell you, it's shaking up the world of marketing in the UAE and beyond.

So, what exactly is user-generated content, and why is it such a big deal? Well, think of it as content created by regular folks rather than brands or influencers. It could be anything from a selfie at a cool new cafe to a review of a product someone just bought. And here's the kicker: people trust UGC more than they trust traditional advertising. That's right – we're more likely to listen to recommendations from our friends and peers than from some slick ad campaign. And savvy social media marketers in the UAE are taking notice.

Enter the social media agency UAE scene. These are the folks who help businesses navigate the ever-changing landscape of social media, and let me tell you, they're wizards when it comes to harnessing the power of UGC. Instead of spending big bucks on glossy ads that may or may not resonate with their target audience, brands are turning to everyday consumers to create content that feels authentic and relatable. And let me tell you, it's paying off big time.

One of the coolest things about UGC is that it's incredibly versatile. Take Instagram, for example. Brands can encourage users to share photos of themselves using their products, tag the brand in their posts, and voila – instant social proof! Not only does this create buzz around the brand, but it also provides valuable insights into how real people are using their products in the wild. It's like free market research, but way more fun!

But it's not just about Instagram – UGC is taking over every corner of the social media universe. From Facebook and Twitter to TikTok and Snapchat, people are sharing their experiences and opinions with the world, and brands are taking notice. And the best part? UGC is often more cost-effective than traditional advertising. Instead of shelling out big bucks for a flashy TV spot or billboard, brands can tap into the power of UGC to reach their target audience in a more organic way.

Of course, UGC isn't without its challenges. For one thing, brands have less control over the content that's being created. That means they need to be extra vigilant about monitoring what's being said about their brand online and responding quickly to any negative feedback. But when done right, the benefits of UGC far outweigh the risks.

So, what does all this mean for you, dear reader? Well, for starters, it means that your social media feeds are about to get a whole lot more interesting. Instead of being bombarded with ads for stuff you don't care about, you'll start seeing content that feels like it was made just for you – because it was! And who knows, you might even become a UGC star yourself.

But beyond that, the rise of user-generated content is changing the way we think about marketing in the UAE and beyond. It's no longer enough for brands to simply push their message out into the world and hope for the best. Instead, they need to engage with their audience in a more meaningful way, and that means embracing the power of UGC.

Conclusion

So, the next time you see a brand encouraging you to share your photos, thoughts, or experiences on social media, go ahead and do it! You never know – you might just help them create the next viral sensation. And who knows, maybe one day you'll be the one calling the shots at a social media agency in the UAE, helping brands harness the power of UGC to reach new heights of success.

[catboybiologist]

So.

Have you been on Facebook recently? Probably not. Because it's unusable. Dead internet theory has become dead internet reality there, and it's uncanny. AI generated images are commented on and have interaction generated with AI generated comments on blank bot accounts. If there's human interaction somewhere in the mix, it's hard to find. There's enormous amounts of vapid statements that are all same-y, and all have that distinct AI cadence to them.

I noticed that something similar seemed to be happening with YouTube. In ye olden days, YouTube comments were notorious for being moronic as hell. But it's different now. Where once home grown stupidity roamed freely, there were now grammatically correct, but extremely valid statements that often repeated similar sentence structures and even seem like mad libs. YouTube comments are filled with "this reminds me of [noun]" "I liked the moment when [thing that happened in video]" "this makes me feel [emotion][emoji]" etc etc etc. Just kind of shallow observations about the videos.

I don't pay much attention to YouTube comments at all, but based on the glances I saw, I just kinda assumed YouTube was going the way of Facebook, and the bots were taking over. This is a change that's happened within the past year or so, so I assumed that the recent AI boom just resulted in more bots than YouTube can handle and didn't pay attention.

Today I noticed something though. I was listening to some music that isn't easy to find on my usual streaming service, and I briefly noticed the comment box.

It's prompting me, a human, to write a comment in one of those formats. Idk how long this has been there, but this is the first time I've noticed this little prompt, giving me a prewritten sentence structures to work with. So idk how long this has been there, or if this is all old news.

So YouTube is prompting very specific, yet very dumb comments. Interesting. Already has implications for the death of organic human interaction online, but eh, not that big a deal.

But the KINDS of sentences that they're promoting are definitely of note. Because from what I can tell, they're prompting users to generate content tags en masse to train AI.

"This reminds me of other media" -> helps decide what ads to provide on these kinds of videos

"This makes me feel emotion" -> genre tag for recommendation algorithms

"I liked the part where things happened" -> engagement analytics, and also providing written descriptions for moments in the video to train video recognition.

And of course, lots of the training done isn't reducible to direct "this type of comment trains this", but ends up a lot more black boxy. Google also explicit asks you to tag things sometimes, but that gets FAR less engagement than making people think they're just leaving their innocent little thoughts around.

Now, Google is no stranger to this. They've been doing this with recaptcha for... Probably approaching a decade at this point. But it was interesting to notice what seems like the newest iteration of this. This almost strikes me as a creepier, more insidious iteration of a dead internet- one where humans are still ultimately generating interaction and comments, but at the unknown service of a machine.

Woah woah woah okay I just noticed something about YouTube and idk if it's old news but I just noticed it, it seems new, and it explains a lot, one sec need a screenshot

[wellspringrpg]

Tumblr Tips for the Twitter Migrant

Hey friends, as a long-time tumblr user who never left, allow me to offer a few tips to make your lives a little bit easier. This is targeted at the twitter community who moved here from the TTRPG community and are looking to run more “formal” blogs.

1. Use your tags!

It’s gonna make your own life ultimately easier. Yes, tumblr’s search functions are questionable, but you can generally rely on being able to find stuff via tag on your blog.

Reblogs do not show up in site-wide searches. So, if you tag a reblog as “pokemon,” it doesn’t show up in the site-wide pokemon tag. Not even if you added something in your reblog. But it will show up on your /tagged/pokemon. This is basically the best way for both you and your followers to be able to find and sort through your own stuff. So if a follower wants to find a specific post of yours, they can go to YourBlog/tagged/my stuff. And followers browsing your blog is pretty normal here—it is a blog, after all. Don’t be weirded out if someone suddenly likes your post from 8 months ago.

And for that matter, most people here also use tags for commentary. It’s generally less obtrusive than adding commentary to a reblog, so you can add some thoughts without necessarily interjecting - the OP doesn’t get any special notification unlike they do with replies or reblogs with text additions. It’s a little spice just for your followers. (Just be aware that they are visible in the notes.)

As a general rule of thumb, you shouldn’t use dashes in your tags (links get confused), but spaces are safe.

2. Reblog (& Reply Culture).

So unlike with twitter, replying to something doesn’t put it on your followers feeds. (In fact, your followers can’t even see your replies unless they actively interact with the post itself.) Your likes aren’t necessarily public. (They are, by default, but only if your followers have certain settings enabled will they be able to see posts you like on their dashboard.) Basically, if you have a post you want someone to see: reblog it.

Replies are mainly for quick comments. It’s a pain to hold a discussion in the replies, so it’s mainly just for a quick “this is a neat take” kind of comment. Responding by reblogging + adding commentary in the post is how discussion actually happens. That’s the equivalent of actually replying on twitter. Tag commentary is for informal thoughts that aren’t necessarily inviting active discussion. It’s the spot for anecdotes or funny commentary that whoever posted it doesn’t necessarily need to have put directly in their activity feed.

3. Use the Readmore

Unlike Twitter where nuance goes to die, you may have noticed there’s no such thing as character limits here. Tumblr does automatically cut long posts unless you change your settings, but it’s generally still considered courteous to put a readmore. This little button here (also ctrl + shift + k).

It’ll prevent people browsing your blog from having to scroll through a huge wall of text unless they actively want to. It’s a good way to keep things organized. I’m breaking my own rule here for the sake of accessibility, but in most other cases, if you’re doing a long thread-type post, you should usually cut it to be courteous. Especially if it’s image-heavy.

4. Post Types (Photo vs. Text Post)

Most of us are probably gonna be using image posts and text posts. You can put images in text posts, yes, but generally speaking, you shouldn’t. At least not large images. If you have multiple large images (like covers, for example,) a good rule of thumb is to put them all in one image post. It’s also more eye-catching when the pretty picture is at the top. This isn’t a hard rule by any means, but generally speaking, it should usually be either that or one flashy image at the top and a readmore to spare your browser.

[ex]

Thanks for answering! :) So, basically, I'm not a big fan of actually creating an account on social media, instead more of a lurker I guess? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I blame paranoia and anxiety. If anyone were to ask me if I had an insta/twitter/snapchat/etc, I honestly tell them I don't have any. However, I have considered Tumblr, I'm just not confident enough. I do have blogs I follow/bookmark, but sometimes I use the search bar to look for content of my fav fandoms/characters. 1/

(continued from first ask) Tumblr's really accessible for me to browse compared to other social media. There's even no interruption (login wall) for looking through the content (ex., archive, notes) of a blog. Back then, I was too scared to send asks, but the community's just so welcoming I became more sure of myself to send a message. Overall, I enjoy my experience in Tumblr, which is why I was upset at the login wall while scrolling through a tag. It may be hellsite, but it's a hellsite I'm loyal to, in a way. 2/2

Thank you for sharing this, it's really helpful to see where you're coming from. I understand (and also have) anxiety around data-gathering in Big Tech. My hope is that Tumblr continues to work toward similar goals as organizations like DuckDuckGo, Brave, and Firefox (has made big improvements in recent years to contain trackers and communicate about what's tracking you).

Tumblr does have to turn a profit, however. And for now, as we work toward make Tumblr sustainable, that does mean ads. This is also why you're seeing more login areas. We collect much less on you than other social media, as evidenced by some of our historically wacky ads. We do also offer the option to go ad-free, which directly supports the site (and...removes the ads).

Obviously, you are free to use Tumblr as you are comfortable, with or without an account. However, I am going to take this opportunity to list out some of Tumblr's privacy-focused features (with some links to help articles for more deets!).

If you sign up using your Apple ID, you can hide your email address from us, for further privacy.

There are a number of blog privacy/visibility settings, letting you control when, where, and if you want to be visible to others, both on Tumblr and outside of it (like in search engines).

You can create multiple blogs within one account, each of which can be private and password protected.

You can create private posts, visible only to you.

You can keep your Likes and Followed list private, visible only to you.

You can turn off replies to your posts, and restrict who can message you to only those blogs you follow.

I'm sure I'm missing some, and more are being built. One more thing Tumblr has going for it is that most users have pseudonymous accounts, meaning their Tumblr is not connected to their real identity and prefer it that way. Which, according to science, creates a more stable community! I myself have other accounts & sideblogs for my obsessions and for lurking, not connected to this one (nor would I want them to be 😅).

Your privacy concerns are real and apply across tech. I can't promise that our current or future privacy features will alleviate all your concerns, but know that we take this seriously, and messages like yours help paint a more complete picture of what people want from Tumblr. It's immensely helpful, so thank you. My ask box is open if you have more to say.

I share your sentiment of being loyal to this hellsite, which is why I wrote so much to answer your message. I hope this sheds some light on recent changes. In any case, glad you're here, in whatever way you're comfortable.

[neptunesnxpple]

Undercover Lover 1/2? - Benimaru x m!reader

Summary: Benimaru infiltrates a singles night to find an undercover Evangelist member intent on taking down Asakusa. Will he find something else instead?

Wordcount: 2138

Tags: misunderstandings, beginnings, m!reader, singles night

A/N: 18+ only. Do not read or interact if you are a minor. Thank you.

“I don’t see why I have to be dressed up for this,” Benimaru complained. The twins adjusted the sleeves of his black kimono, patting at his black and white striped hakama.

 “It’s an undercover mission,” Hinata started,

 “Yeah you’re going to kill it on the dance floor, and then kill the infiltrator,” Hikage added.

 “An undercover mission at some get together hardly suits me. Konro is much more fitted for this.” He mused. Ever since the Asakusa fight he’d started the heavy battle of accepting his role. Even harder was coming to terms with the amount of trust the community put on him. Now he’d have to hide who he was for that community. He walked out of the captain’s quarters into the main area, team 7 and 8 were on standby, hovering by computers with headsets dispersed among the higher-ranking members. Konro passed Benimaru an earpiece while Iris fit a small camera on one of his chest pieces.

 “Remember, we’re counting on you.” Konro clasped a hand on his shoulder and gave him a reassuring smile. He doubted he could hold up to it.

 —

 The venue was lined with hydrangeas, blue and purple, situated on the water’s edge and decorated with warm, glowing lights. By all accounts it was beautiful. People were trickling in, dressed in semi formal attire, mostly around a similar age range. Benimaru kept a watchful eye, making a mental note of anyone that stood out. Unfortunately, he recognized most of them as locals. At least he could rule those out and focus on the out of towners.

 ‘You have to go in at some point’ his earpiece buzzed,

 “Relax I’m just gathering intel,” he muttered. Reluctantly he made his way to the door. The inside was just as carefully decorated. Hanging paper sculptures, soft lighting, and many small tables set up. He wasn’t sure the specifics of this event, but he didn’t think it’d matter. He tried to fade into the wall when an event organizer cornered him, smiling with a name tag and clip board in hand.

 “All guests are required to sign in and wear a name tag,” they chirped, “if I could just get your name and email address,” Benimaru groaned. This was already more trouble than it was worth as far as he was concerned.

 “Benimaru,” he stated, taking the clipboard, and scribbling that down as well as a fake email address. He took the name tag and slapped it on blindly. It didn’t matter where it went. The event staffer took back the clipboard.

 “Alright take a seat and we’ll start in 10.”

 Benimaru picked a seat on the far side, watching as the other guests filled in.

 “First we’d like to welcome you all to singles night. We’ve prepared refreshments and a light dinner spread. Check the letter on the back of your card, we’ll start with group A staying where they are and if you’re in group B you’ll be moving in a clockwise fashion. Then there will be a brief intermission while-”

 Benimaru couldn’t listen anymore. A singles night was the perfect cover for an evangelist looking to recruit a younger population. He’d have to be on his guard. He checked the back of his card. Group A. So, he’d be in wait and the potential enemies would be coming to him. This gave him the advantage. He sat back, hand twitching at the ready under the table. Time ticked slowly. The locals didn’t mind too much, he wasn’t much for frivolous conversation when he had a goal in mind and maintained the appropriate level of conversation. Those that came from out of town he was less forgiving to.

 “You decided to come to Asakusa for this?” He accused, causing the current victim to recoil at the animosity in his voice, “This seems like something you could have done back in your town. What’s the real reason for you visit?” Not long after the timer beeped and the insulted date would leave him, the next one going along just as well. None of these singles looked too suspicious, although they were irritable by the time they left.

 “Benimaru? Nice to meet you,” you introduced yourself, smiling warmly. He was an interesting looking fellow, the mismatched eyes were something you hadn’t seen before. He raised an eyebrow at you, arms crossed over his chest.

 “And what brings you here?” His fingertips warmed. You laughed nervously. It was a cliché opening, but the way he looked you was enough for you to overlook it. Intense.

 “Well I’m new to the area, I just moved in a couple of weeks ago, and thought it would be a great opportunity to meet some of the other people around my age,” you explained, “plus if I could meet someone special that’s a bonus. Why’d you decide to come here tonight?” Careful eyes scanned you from top to bottom, and you were glad you put the extra effort in your clothing choices. Benimaru struggled to come up with a reason besides blatantly saying what he was looking for, when a voice in his ear spoke up,

 ‘Say you’re trying to find the right one’. He could hear the exasperation on the other side. This whole time they’d been coaching him, and he’d been having some less than desirable results. This was close enough to the truth that he could allow it.

 “I’m trying to find that special someone.” Yes, special. And the guy in front of him was hitting all the boxes. Out of towner, recently moved here. Laughing at his initial investigative question. This guy was good. He took a cool sip from the glass in front of him, “what made you move all this way?”

 “I got a new job and thought it would be a fun change of pace. I like the unique energy. Are you from Asakusa?”

 “Born and raised. Now this job you were talking about-”

 “Yes, I’m a bit of a bug specialist, an educator,” you answered quickly, feeling flustered as you watched his eyes narrow. The heat pooling in your chest began to work its way up your neck. You were starting to feel a bit intimidated, not in a bad way though, and kicked yourself for answering so eagerly. This felt like an interview almost. You scrambled to turn this back into a conversation, “What do you do? Um, for fun or as a job.” Nailed it. You gave yourself a mental thumbs up.

 “I’m a busy guy, I don’t have much time for trivial matters. I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a community leader.” He watched as you fidgeted, not with the same amount of distaste as the others had. Something was different here.

 “Oh, I guess I’m lucky then-” before you finished the timer set off. As you stood up and turned to leave, a hand grabbed your wrist.

 “Welcome to Asakusa.”

 --

 When the break came you made a beeline for the entrance, walking around the side of the building and welcoming the cold air. For the most part everyone had seemed friendly. Things were a lot different from where you were from, and while it was exciting you were constantly aware that you’d sometimes say the wrong thing or share too much too fast. Still, being a gay guy in Asakusa you didn’t expect so many options. It made you wonder how many others there were that didn’t come. You rested against the wall, closing your eyes, and taking a deep beath. You listened to the quiet movement of the river nearby. You didn’t notice the person rounding the corner until two hands slammed into the wall surrounding your head, a large body blocking your view of the river. It was dark on this side. You struggled to make out anything until you looked up. Glowing pink eyes loomed down at you, stripping you away of any nerve that you could scrape off the pavement, an unsmiling face greeting you. It was Benimaru.

 ‘Benimaru what are you doing- it’s dark!’ A high-pitched voice shouted.

 “I know it’s you,” Benimaru sneered, voice rough and gravelly, “I know what you’re really here for.” You swallowed dryly, unable to look away and frozen in place. You were entirely at his mercy here. At least you were reading his interests correctly. You licked your lips.

 ‘Benimaru wait that’s not-’

 “I’m going to make you pay,” You felt the warmth radiating from his hands, intoxicatingly so. He must be a third gen user if he was this warm. He reached back and you grabbed the fronts of his jacket, taking a step forward and kissing him. You felt him stiffen to your touch and you immediately removed your mouth from his, eyes wide and the only thought crossing your mind being ‘oh shit’- had you misinterpreted his advances earlier? You opened your mouth to apologize, but instead got the wind knocked out of you as he lifted you off the ground and slammed you back into the wall harder than you’d have liked. His hand began to glow bright orange as it bubbled with flame, preparing to strike.

 “Benimaru! Hold it!” A deep voice shouted. Quicker than you could process- something, or someone, slid by you, fire on their heels, and knocked into Benimaru. You fell to the ground, stunned.

 “Benimaru! There was no mission, this was just a date night!” A younger voice shouted. The moonlight reflected off of the brightly striped fire equipment, only furthering your confusion. Why were fire soldiers here? And how did they know where you were?

 “Back off, I know he’s the infiltrator. I’ll end this right now,” Benimarus’ flame returned to his hand, this time larger than before and brighter. It illuminated enough for you to see a cast of other fire soldiers running up on the scene. What the hell?

 “It’s true, we just thought you could use the night off, and maybe meet someone outside of work!” A woman yelled. As if things could make any less sense, two young girls came bounding in at full speed, slapping at Benimarus’ legs.

 “Yeah dummy! What are you doing? You’re going to ruin all the work that Hina and I put in for this!”

 “Stupid! You’re never going to get a man if you keep blowing holes in them!”

 This was all just too much to take in. You stared vacantly at the pavement, trying to trace the steps of how you got here. Benimaru lowered his hand, flames withering.

 “It was all just… a fake mission?” He repeated, sounding lost. He looked at you, crumpled on the ground and thoroughly ruffled from the way he manhandled you. Guilt sucked out all of the rage he was feeling. Here he was attacking the newest citizen of Asakusa, just for being new. He rewound through the night. He had just interrogated at least 20 innocent people. The flame melted away completely. With the twins still yelling at him and giving him a much-deserved waist high beating, he made his way over to you. At this point Maki from squad 8 had been tending to you, checking you for injuries. When he approached you gazed up at him wildly, like some innocent animal caught in the crosshair of a hunter. Maki gave him a skeptical look.

 “You should be fine, just a little bruised if anything. Call this number if there’s anything else we can do for you,” she handed you a card and tentatively made her exit.

 “Sorry, I thought you were flirting but I guess you were just looking for um, someone undercover? An evangelist infiltrator? Anyway, I’m sorry for kissing you.”

 “You have nothing to apologize for,” he sighed, pushing a hand through his hair, and exposing the lesser seen eye further, “it was my fault. I jumped to conclusions. You were just new, and I assumed that you had bad intentions.” You nodded, unsure of what else could be added. After some uncomfortable silence, you heard another sigh. Benimaru dropped his hand, looking away from you, “because you’re new and because of the situation, I would like to offer you a personal tour of Asakusa. I know this town better than anyone and would like the chance to make it up to you.” You gave him a scrutinizing look, pleased when you watched him squirm under your gaze. Good, he should be on his toes. A satisfactory amount of time later, you gave him a timid smile,

 “Sure.”

 “Waka, we’re heading back to the station,” Konro shouted. Benimaru gave a slight wave and returned his gaze to you.

 “Do you need me to walk you back inside, or…” he trailed off.

 “I don’t think I’ll be going back,” you started. A displeased expression filled his face, “but, you can walk me home.”

--

Like what you read? Comments and reblogs fuel me to write more!

Also, my birthday is coming up on March 13th so if you’re willing, donate to my K*-fi so I can get a cake

[jestersdlc]

Forwarning, longgggg explanation under the cutShort explanation first tho!

Artfight is about making art for others and maybe getting some yourself and having fun! It doesn't matter if you only draw a little or can't be there the whole event, start late, anything, you're supposed to have fun after all! ^_^

And now long detailed explanation /silly

The general idea of Artfight is every year for 1 month (starting July 1st after the countdown is set for the event to begin) 2 teams of opposing themes will "fight" to gain points and see who wins in the end of the event.

To "fight" you draw art for someone else's character on the opposite team of yours, depending on what it is you get more or less points for this (like headshot, halfbody, full-body, multiple characters, sketch, colored, polish, etc) this is an Attack

They can attack you BACK as well by drawing one of YOUR characters to gain points for their team (plus you now have art back which is cool) this is a Revenge (this also applies if someone attacks you (this is called a Defense) and you attack back (A Revenge is not REQUIRED but generally appreciated, tho not everyone can Revenge all the attacks they get of course!))

You can also attack people on the same team, it earns less points if you do so some folks would rather NOT have/do friendly fire (I do friendly fire myself!)

And a general (unspoken rule) is to comment on attacks you get (or as many as you can if swamped) since it's generally appreciated to thank others even if you don't attack back :3

That's the basics, now I'll be mentioning some additional -still general- but some less well known at first glance stuff basically

To attack someone you need to submit an attack - add the image, title it, list the character(s) and user(s) as well as list any warnings and rate it.

Rating is how an attack is calculated for points, you list if it's a Revenge to an attack, the details on the options thar kind of thing. There's guides for how to rate things and list it for what content warnings! Those can be helpful to make sure you rate and tag things correctly since intentional tagging things wrong is cheating and doing it WILL get you flagged.

You also aren't limited to JUST drawing, tho you can do traditional and digital drawing you can also do things like sculptures, multimedia works (I've seen people make plushies and such!) Animation and even cosplay, there's guides for rating and categorizing them as well (.........I can say I've done the drawing, Animation and Cosplay categories myself....eheh....the guides are helpful.)

And you can do what's called MASS attacks, where you attack multiple people and their characters all at once, these rack up a ton more points and generally are REALLY COOL, they aren't really my thing but I've had characters included in them and it's really cool :3

And for more user specifics, you get badges for joining in an event and doing attacks (plus badges if your team wins) and you can say what you are ok with of your characters that you have listed (there's still general RULES, but its more specifically what are you ok with for that character (like some folks aren't comfy with gore or maybe they're ok with the characters drawn with other folks, that kinda thing)

Listed characters don't NEED super spruced up refs, just A good drawing works as a ref and whatever tidbits you wanna put about em (watermark/signature HIGHLY recommended) and you an organize them by priority of who you most want art of :3

Bunch of fun stuff (you can random search for a user/character to attack, follow folks, dm for questions on their character, rate others attacks for extra points while an events happening, plus there's the artfight server.)

And just added note that you can ONLY attack while an official event is ongoing, all art must be made for the event, during the event, you can't draw attacks in advance that's not In the spirit of the event (you can set up your profile and characters of course!)

And the theme reveal this year's on the 22nd :3

I think that's everything, if anything unclear or you have questions let me know dear! ^_^

Are you planning to join Artfight this year?

Understandable if not, lots of folks like being spectators or don't join every year or at all; just curious ^_^ (......mostly so we can attack you if you are /silly)

(.....................we may have almost sent this to the birbs blog instead of yours (not the first time we've almost done so))

-Chaos

Mmmm idk, I’m not exactly sure how it works nor if I’d be interested

You should see my Pandora collection in disco’s askbox :]

[crushpdf]

Tumblr Etiquette Masterpost

Hi! Because I have (1) anxiety (2) been on tumblr for more than a decade, I have assumed the incredibly narcissistic position of making a post about how to interact with people on tumblr, since I think I’ve mastered the basic rules.

UPDATE: I started drafting this post a while ago. I'm not calling anyone out. I mostly made this because I realized I had a shocking number of followers who are new to tumblr.

In this post I’m covering Asks + Anons, Reblogging + Liking, Following, Tags, and ~Making Friends~.

TL;DR: tumblr etiquette is about social norms. These are the norms I have observed in my time here. You’re free to blog as you choose, but tumblr is a happier place when everybody is following the same guidelines.

Yes I use the words like “have to” or “rule” in this post. No, none of these are actual rules. Do what you want, but be prepared to face disgruntled users.

Let’s get started!

All About Following 

Rule #1: You do not have to follow anybody you don’t want to. You do not need to let someone follow you if you don’t want to.

Tumblr is technically a social media site. If you want to grow your social circle, follow your mutuals’ mutuals. The internet is like real life. You do a Group Hang, and then eventually you get to the one-on-one friendship. (Please refer back to Rule #1)

Some of your mutual-in-laws might feel slighted if you follow everyone except them. That’s okay. (Please refer back to Rule #1) You might feel slighted if you’re the one not being followed. That’s okay. (Please refer back to Rule #1)

Tumblr is technically a social media site, but it’s also a place to see the content you like, not just the people you like. You can be friendly with people you don’t follow, or who don’t follow you. Some users are amazing people who just post the wrong content. That’s okay.

If someone posts content you don’t like, unfollow them. If you don’t like someone’s personality, unfollow them. Don’t be an asshole, don’t hate-follow, and don’t stress yourself out.

Asks, Anons, Messages

I tried to organize my thoughts into paragraphs. I really did. But talking to people on tumblr is messy if you do it wrong, and I’m just going to bullet-point some etiquette guidelines.

Rule #1: You do not have to answer any messages you don’t want to.

Your 500 word message should not be the first time a user sees your name

.....Before you get Venting Privileges, a user should recognize you from the tags you leave on their posts, or the comments you leave on their fic, or the other shorter messages you’ve sent them, or from being mutual-in-laws, literally whatever. But it’s Not Cool to dump things on people who don’t even know you.

The anon button should be used in two scenarios only:

.....1, to send a positive message. Not neutral! Positive message, the kind of message you send with heart emojis.

.....2, if you don’t want to admit personal information about yourself. The Venting Privileges Rule still applies even if you’re on anon (ie: you can’t vent! Because they don’t recognize your username!) and “personal information” does not include unpopular opinions. I’m talking messages like “Saw your post about living in Houston, and I agree!”

.....(Okay, three scenarios: if someone specifically asks for anons for an ask game or something!)

If you don’t want it posted publicly, don’t send it over an ask. Send it as a DM. You can always kindly request that the recipient doesn’t publish it, but typical tumblr etiquette is that asks get published by default.

Personally, if I follow someone back I like to introduce myself! Many of these conversations end after the “hi” stage, and I never force friendship upon someone. But many of these conversations also work as ice breakers, and make it easier to send the second message, and the third. Don’t worry that you’re being rude if you don’t do this—it’s also totally normal to just keep blogging as usual!—but it’s helpful in making friends.

If you reblog an ask game from someone, it’s just common courtesy to send them an ask of your own.

Tags, Blacklists

Rule #1: You do not need to use any tags you don’t want to.

(Are you sensing a theme? But this one gets a...)

But, be prepared to face disgruntled followers over this.

Tags are useful in so many ways. They’re a great place to organize posts so you can find them more easily later on! They’re a great place to show off your personality! They’re a great (and quiet! More on this later) place to show appreciation for content creators.

They’re also so incredibly helpful for your followers to avoid content they don’t want to see. If you’re delving into a new fandom and are about to reblog twenty posts in a row, tag it. If you’re liveblogging a movie, tag it. If your post (especially your photo posts) contains any common phobias or unpleasant things (gore, spiders, etc) tag it. And if one of your followers asks you to tag certain content, even if you don’t really understand why? Tag it, or else expect to lose that follower.*

*This isn’t about your follower count, btw. This is about being a decent person.

On the other hand, use blacklists and filtering liberally! If a user does tag their content, you have no right to complain about their posting it. Just filter it.

Reblogs, Likes, Comments

Tumblr is a blogging site. It functions on reblogged posts. That’s just how it works. This is not one of those sites where you scroll for hours clicking the like button.

Here are what likes are for:

Showing support for someone’s personal posts

Showing appreciation for someone’s tags

Admiring content that doesn’t exactly align with your blog (different fandom, inappropriate, whatever.)

Saving a post to find later

Showing double the love!

Here is where likes are most disappointing:

The original fic, artwork, or edits of your fellow tumblr users, especially in your fandom

(If you’re someone who regularly reblogs things, I’m not talking to you. You’re allowed to simply “like” posts. I’m talking to those users in my notifications that, day after day, like 35 of my posts and reblog exactly 1 of them.

Just reblog shit.)

Also, remember how I said you can quietly show appreciation in the tags? Only comment directly on a post if you are sure you’re adding something worthy to the post. If you’re just saying “haha me too!” or “I remember this!” just leave it in the tags. (Reminder! You can do what you want! It’s your blog and I’m not the police! I’m just teaching you etiquette! And the polite thing to do is to leave personal commentary in the tags!)

Let’s recap:

Aaaaand: Making Friends

Start small. Introduce yourself after you have mutually followed each other.

Leave nice things in people’s tags. They notice.

Send ask game messages.

Show off more of your personality. This isn’t a one way street!

.....You can do this by, well, reblogging things. Also by tagging things. Also by just making original posts.

Do not go zero to one hundred. You wouldn’t sit next to someone in class and start talking about your trauma (even if you heard that they share your own!). So don’t do it online.

Like people’s vent posts, and their asks, and their tag games. Reply to them, too.

Honestly? Do more tag games! If someone says “anyone can do this and say I tagged you” take them up on the offer! Tag other people you want to get to know more.

Last but not least, you do not owe anyone anything on tumblr, and no one owes you anything. Ignore the rude message. Block the annoying tag. Follow the users you like even if they don’t follow you back. Do not tell people to post more of X. Do not tell them to post less of Y. Do not ask them why they don’t follow you.

It’s so much easier to press the unfollow button than to be a dick.

[eintsein]

After a few years of trial and error, I think I've finally found the perfect organization method.

In the early years of high school, I had a bullet journal. I was an artsy kid who found a way to combine art with organization in a way that benefited other parts of my life.

However, as I approached the end of high school, my schedule got busier, and I was involved in a lot more things, so owning a bullet journal was less practical. Because of that, I switched to an app called Edo Agenda.

I continued with digital planning in college since I knew I wasn't going to have as much time. But all the apps I tried out—Taskade, Actions by Moleskine, Any.do, Todoist, Wunderlist—weren't suited to my planning and organizational needs. They didn't have the specific functions I required and didn't incorporate an organization system I liked to use. The predefined apps were too restraining, but the more customizable apps weren't customizable enough.

So then I switched to a bare bones, uber minimalist bullet journal method. That worked pretty well my second semester. It was simple, portable, and most importantly, flexible—all the things one could wish for in a planning system. However, it wasn't always the most convenient to use since I couldn't effectively integrate all the different aspects of my life, which, to no surprise, is mostly recorded digitally.

There was just one huge problem with my digital organization system that made me hesitant to switch back in the first place: everything was fragmented. Notes were in Google Docs. Financial records were in Google Sheets. To-Do Lists were in my bullet journal. Team projects were in Trello. My poetry was on Bear. Things I wanted to try are carelessly pinned to random pinterest boards or added to my YouTube "watch later" playlist. It was a mess.

Over the summer, I found out about Notion from a friend, and I thought, this has so much potential, it could even be exactly what I need. It's essentially like an empty notebook on your computer with functions that make it 10x more powerful. Notion allows you to integrate all aspects of your life and work into one app. Some of the advantages that have made me partial to Notion are:

Even greater customization level. Notion is a blank canvas with tons of predefined blocks and different file types. You can make databases, spreadsheets, Kanban boards, to do lists, etc. Also, you can remain connected to other digital services. You can link websites, collaborate with other users, use different structures (e.g. documents, databases, tasks), embed images and videos, etc. There are also tons of formatting options, e.g. text color, highlight, heading v. body text.

Better organization. Notion allows you to have pages within pages within pages within pages—an infinite hierarchy that you can organize with tables of contents. These pages are made of blocks, e.g. tables, checklists, boards, databases.  Both pages and blocks can be rearranged by simply dragging and dropping them to where you want them to be. In other words, I guess it's kind of like building a website to organize your life. Plus, their database feature is especially powerful as it allows you to connect all your data and get into as much detail as you wish (each entry in a database is its own page).

Templates. There are tons of templates created by both Notion and the community that you can use. These are especially helpful in the beginning since Notion does have a rather steep learning curve. There are template for almost every category: personal, planning, finance, job applications, design roadmap, etc. Check out their template gallery, this medium article called "10 Notion templates to inspire your use", or read on for my own examples!

Shortcuts. This makes typing and documenting so much faster. Notion uses Markdown, which is a text-to-HTML conversion tool, e.g. # = Heading 1, *, - = bullet point, etc.

Notion has some pretty awesome features, but how does one actually use it? Personally, I have four top-level pages: my planner, my personal journal, songwriting, and blogging.

Planner

I've been using my planner to, well, plan and track my day to day activities as well as my week and month. The way I've structured it is a calendar or monthly overview with links to pages of weekly overviews, and if needed, daily overviews within the weekly overview. This links things up so nicely, i.e. I don't have to be constantly flipping pages in my physical bullet journal or planner to find what I need.

I also have entertainment lists, which is mainly a table with all the shows I want to watch, the books I want to read, etc. I keep track of whether or not I've watched them, as well as my personal ratings. What I love most about this is that each entry is its own page, so I can type my notes for each book, show, or film and easily find them in the future. (Also the reason why I have plural “lists” instead of just one entertainment list is because you can filter entries by type of entertainment, e.g. movies, tv shows, books, articles.)

Personal

For personal notes, goals, journal entries, etc. This is kind of like an extension of my daily journal and just where I dump all my thoughts and keep track of the different aspects of my life: mental, emotional, spiritual, social, physical, and travel.

Another page I have is called "Stray Thoughts" and, well, it's pretty self explanatory. It's a lot easier to dump all my thoughts as they come and reorganize them later. Of course, this requires sacrificing the rawness of journaling, i.e. when the thoughts come and how you process them, which is why I still keep a regular journal that I write in daily.

Songwriting

I've been writing a lot of music over the summer and it's often hard to keep track of all of my songs and how far I've gotten in the songwriting process. So I created a table of songs - each entry of a song is a page with its lyrics. These are then tagged with the status of the lyrics (i.e. completed, in progress) and the status of the music itself (i.e. melody only, instrumental, mixing, mastering, revised). Eventually, I'll include demos in the database by embedding audio files in the document.

I have a separate section for inspiration and ideas, which is a kind of brain dump, e.g. words I think would make a good song, a certain theme for a song, a melody that's been stuck in my head, a vibe I'd like to try out, etc.

I've also been watching a lot of tutorials for music production and there's a section where I write my notes for that.

Eintsein

The last section of my Notion app is for this blog. Which has pages for

New posts. These are ideas for future posts, asks that I think would need longer answers, as well as posts that are currently in the draft stage (like this one was before I posted it)

Design assets. This is where I put all the visual branding material for Eintsein.com to be used in posts and any visual material on the blog.

FAQ. Having an FAQ document just makes it so much easier to make changes to your existing FAQ. Plus, if you ever change your FAQ theme, you just have to copy and paste what you already have.

Post directory. I keep track of all my previous masterposts, infographics, and generally longer and more comprehensive posts. It's the exact same as what you see on my Navigation page. And yes, the document contains direct links to the post.

New theme. A project I've been working on the past couple days is trying to create my own theme for my blog. This is where I put all my outlines, brainstorming notes, design inspiration, code snippets, etc.There are some pretty awesome features I’ve made use of in this page:

As you can probably tell, I'm absolutely obsessed with Notion since it has such awesome features and endless possibilities for customization. So far I've been using Notion for personal projects, which, since they are quite big in scale and have no set deadline, are important to organize well. My summer courses were only 6 weeks and weren't difficult to organize.

The formats above are just how I personally use notion. You could make some of your own, or if you don't think you want to build your pages from scratch, there are tons of templates to choose from. Here are some I think I'll be using in the near future and may be helpful for others as well, especially students like myself:

One drawback, however, is that Notion has a rather steep learning curve, but there are tons of tutorials online (especially YouTube) and I guarantee you it's all worth it.

Notion is not just a productivity app. It's a way to concretize your entire life.

Notion is free to use, but there are higher tiers that allow for more blocks, greater file size, etc. I use a personal account, which is $4 per month with unlimited block storage and no file upload limit (although I got it for $33/year). Personally I think the free plan would suit most people's needs, especially if you're not uploading large files.

[victorromeofox-blog]

VRF Website and Community

VRF Website and Community - Soft Opening Coming Soon!

I've been a little less active here in the last little bit, but have been working behind the scenes to build up the VRF website and planning around community-building.  I'm just about ready to start opening the site to semi-public access and start inviting trusted people to the Discord within the next week!  There is some information below introducing some of the content and features of the site and Discord server.  Please contact me (Ask or email preferred) if you would like access - I recommend reading the rest of this post before you do, but it is not required.

If you’re looking to better understand BDSM and kink, participate in a community of rational, respectful, and conscientious kink practitioners, and contribute to protecting, uplifting, and helping others - while still enjoying some fantasies - you are exactly the type of person who would be a great fit for this space.

If you’re “just here for the porn”, this website and community are not going to be what you’re looking for.  They are specifically a pushback against that very mentality, and the rampant toxicity and problematic discourse in the online BDSM/kink space, especially CNC kink, and your needs will be better met elsewhere.  Same goes for those who are just out to get nudes, roleplay online, organize hookups, or find a submissive - there are other spaces geared toward that.

In the meantime, I'd like to explain what this all means to me, where VRF is headed next, and what factors I'm taking into consideration as I continue.  This is going to be a fairly reflective post - almost like a letter of intent - but I'm putting it out there primarily for transparency and also for those of you who want some insight into my thoughts and process.

VRF - A Quick Recap

When I started VRF in 2015, I didn't really have a goal.  I was just looking to curate the kinds of porn I enjoyed the most on Tumblr and occasionally added some captions that came to mind as I did - and accidentally cultivated a sizeable following.  As the blog grew and began to have more interactions with others on the network, I realized that I couldn't stay in-persona all the time - not without sending a potentially dangerous message - so I started answering asks and giving advice out of character, as myself.  These "real" interactions, as well as the reality checks that kept rolling in, set the tone for what VRF would become - and made me feel much more comfortable with running a blog featuring questionable content.

I stepped away from the blog and went on hiatus in 2016; I saw a sharp rise in hateful, bigoted, and violent voices online and no longer felt comfortable that my posts would remain firmly in the realm of fantasy for the majority of readers.  Although the original @violent-rape-fantasies was terminated in 2019, I made a fairly complete backup of the entire blog before it went down.  I returned in late 2020 to start again from scratch, try to rebuild my following, and reconnect with the community - that effort was terminated by Tumblr in 2021, leading me to the two blogs I currently have (@VictorRomeoFox-blog / @violent-rape-fantasies-2​) and to create a self-hosted website containing the original VRF archives with major quality-of-life improvements to the Tumblr experience.

This process made me consider what my goals are for VRF, how I want to achieve them, and what promises I make to the community as part of that journey.  

VRF - Mission and Values

VRF's mission is to be a safe, inclusive, and collaborative space that promotes affirmative consent, healthy relationships, and conscientious kink, where consenting adults can explore their kinks, enjoy fictional fantasies, and uplift one another without overbearing guilt or shame.

Let me quickly break some of this down:

safe: I want people to feel comfortable consuming and interacting with me and my content - not only the kinks and acts depicted in the fantasies, but in the entirety of the space that VRF projects, including knowing that their personhood, privacy, anonymity, and emotional safety are important to me.

inclusive: although I focus primarily on male-on-female scenarios, people from all walks of life are welcome so long as they are good citizens of the community and conscientious kink practitioners.  This also means rejecting hate, bigotry, and willful ignorance.

collaborative: VRF is discursive, both in-persona and out-of-character; the content and direction I take is often influenced by the conversations I have with followers, the asks and submissions I receive, and the state of the community as I see it.  I want to always be in conversation with the community to understand its needs and goals so that I can better meet them.

affirmative consent: as discussed in a previous post, I highlight affirmative consent because it centers around positive action as opposed to consent, which can be a passive state.  I believe this is critical for conscientious kink.

healthy relationships: the relationships we hold shape who we are, who we become, and how we interact with the world around us.  I believe that healthy relationships build healthier, happier lives - this concerns all relationships, from friendships to families to romantic or sexual partnerships.  I have seen less emphasis in this community on relationships, and interpersonal interactions in general, and think that this is a major oversight.

conscientious kink: kink can be dangerous or harmful when not practiced with care and consideration - not just for physical health, but for mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being.  It requires reflection, introspection, and communication in order to form intentionality - the understanding behind what you do, how you do it, and why you do it.

reducing guilt: this is one of the concerns I get most often from followers - how to reconcile their guilt for enjoying consensual non-consent, and whether it is morally wrong or an indication that something is wrong with them.  I believe that CNC, like most kinks, can be practiced in a conscientious way to reduce and mitigate the potential dangers, but that it requires consistent effort, education, and research.

Aside from these, I identified values which are important for me to maintain in order to meet the mission.  Some of them are:

transparency: I try to be as transparent as I can, while maintaining my privacy and anonymity, so that people know that I have nothing to hide.  I cannot build a safe space without building trust, and I can’t build trust without being honest and transparent.

leadership by example: if I am positioning myself as a resource and giving advice to others, I must embody the values I put forward and lead by example, not by words; otherwise, what I say is worthless and lacks substance.

data- and research-driven: I want to provide people with a deeper understanding of themselves and their kinks; while anecdotal information can at times be helpful, I want the things I posit to have weight and justification behind them.  This means an intersection of data, research, and analysis around all of the factors involved, including moral philosophy, psychology, sociology, and biology.

care and patience: these kinks are difficult and hurtful to some people, and confusing or conflicting to others.  I need to be caring, considerate, and patient in order for people to feel comfortable engaging with my content and interacting with me.

contextualized: these kinks and fantasies don’t exist in a vacuum and must be contextualized in order to remain conscientious of the relationship it maintains to the real world.  This means that I don’t want fantasies misrepresented as reality or reality misconstrued as fantasy, and the onus is on me to ensure that followers are seeing both sides of the equation.

quality over quantity: I have a limited amount of time that I can dedicate to VRF work, and want to make the best possible use of that time.  I want to focus on high-quality content, both in-persona fantasies and out-of-character advice, research, and resources, without worrying about how much or how frequently I’m posting.  It also means that I care far less about the number of followers and viewers I have, and much more about whether I am cultivating the kind of followers that match my vision for VRF and its community.

There are other factors and values as well, but these are the biggest ones for me.  They drive how I present myself, how I interact with the community, and what kinds of content I put forth.

VRF Website - Content and Features

What does the website allow me to do that I couldn’t on Tumblr?

No censorship, frustrating filters, or threat of termination - I can focus on my content without running into blockers at every turn, or worrying that I’m going to lose all my work without warning.

Better content controls, organization, and layout - I can group posts logically and have different ways for users to access and view them instead of being one monolithic stream of posts.

Tagging and search - I’ve tagged my archive with kinks, features, toys, actions, positions, locations, and more to make it easier to both find content that you want to see and avoid content that you don’t.  The VRF site features granular search controls, including tag combinations, so you can engage with the site how you choose.

Random Post/Random Caption - sometimes, you’re in the mood to mix things up.  Instead of seeing a temporally-sorted feed of posts, you can go to a random post or caption from the menu bar.

Clear disclaimers and view control - instead of my content being blended into a sea of posts, which creates difficulty in carving out that safe cognitive space for engaging with these kinks or necessitates rapid context-switching, all of my posts will be in one central repository with clear disclaimers where I have control over how things are viewed.

The VRF Archive - the content from the original @violent-rape-fantasies blog have been restored to the VRF website.

There are some downsides, of course - like the lack of network discovery, limited server space and resources, cost, maintenance, and effort.  But the benefits greatly outweigh the additional overhead.

VRF Community

What’s the VRF Discord community all about?

This is a new idea I’m playing with - I’m not new to Discord or community management, but combining that with VRF is a new endeavor for me.  Since I’m going to be shifting my focus from Tumblr to the VRF website, some of those network and community interactions from Tumblr will move to Discord instead, such as interacting with followers, taking requests, feedback, and suggestions, and delving deeper into kink philosophy, fantasy, and practice.

I’ve set up the Discord in a way that different sections can be partitioned - like general discussion, BDSM/kink discussion, CNC fantasies, member content (submissions), and so on.  The different sections are accessible to different levels of membership and verification to maintain that safe, inclusive, and collaborative space.  For example, agreeing to the rules and guidelines gives you access to the general discussion section; verifying your age gives you access to BDSM- and kink-related sections; and being an active and trusted member who contributes to the server over time gets you access to the private sections.

This will also be a much easier way to get in contact with me, and keep the majority of my interactions with the community in one place, instead of hunting across Tumblr messenger for both my accounts, Asks, Twitter, Discord DMs, Telegram, Kik, and email.

VRF - Next Steps and Future Work

In the next few weeks, the VRF website and Discord community will soft-open and move toward general opening.  This is a new direction for me, but after assessing my priorities and goals, it is the solution best suited for what I want to achieve.  I will continue to use Tumblr, but will likely be focusing the majority of my time on the website and Discord.

The mission and values I’ve identified leave quite a bit of room to explore various ways to express these kinks and share knowledge.  I’m not hard-set on VRF being a blog with porn and captions, and could see changes or pivots in the future.  I would love for this work to be able to generate some modest revenue in the future in order to cover basic operating costs, support survivors of abuse as well as kink education and safety, and commission custom content.  As an aside, if you read all of this, please start your request for access with the word “potato” in all caps to let me know you got this far.

I also want to move toward a more ethical and sustainable model of captions and fantasies.  My first step toward this is in creating gifs myself and fully crediting the source, which I started doing when I returned from hiatus.  Concurrently, I am working with my partner, who is an artist, to develop illustrations and animations to accompany captions instead of commercial pornography - we’re still in the R&D phase for this, but hope to share some early content soon (including a fantasy and sketch that we’re working on to accompany a follower submission).  Ideally, we would be able to collaborate with submitters and sex workers to create fully original, credited, and compensated content - but that’s a huge stretch goal for the future.

We are also considering other formats for fantasy and knowledge delivery, including a visual novel format or interactive media (i.e., games) if the art development turns out well and proves sustainable.  We’re both fairly busy people in our personal and professional lives, and in situations where we have to maintain a fairly strict separation between kink involvement and our everyday lives, so carving out time for VRF work is challenging at times!

I look forward to seeing folks on the VRF website and Discord community soon!

[cosplayinamerica]

COSPLAY THEME PAGE : ShareMyCosplay.com

Tell us about ShareMyCosplay, what was the genesis of the ShareMyCosplay? 

Share My Cosplay has gone through quite the journey to get to what you see today. I can still remember the day that I came up with the idea that would eventually lead to Share My Cosplay. I was eating lunch with a few friends at my day job. A friend of mine showed me a cosplay of Jessica Nigri as Pikachu, and because I worked in IT,  for some reason had an idea of doing a website related to cosplay. The actual website took a while to set up, but I started off slowly, with an initial launch on social media. We launched with Tumblr and Twitter, slowly building an audience. Then eventually a little bit later adding Facebook, and eventually much later introducing Instagram into the “family’. Eventually we added the website and have been going strong since then. We’ve of course made tons of adjustments over the years, and most recently started adding content on YouTube. It’s been a great ride so far, and hopefully it will continue.

What was your first experience with cosplay as well as the convention scene?

Like a lot of people who are into gaming and comic books, I was aware of cosplay, but didn’t really know much about it. It was only after looking into the idea of starting a site that I really got to know what goes on behind the scenes. It was meeting and talking to people in the scene that made me realize what an amazing community of people are involved. That is why I have continued the site for so long. As our social media following grew, I got to know more and more of the cosplayers, and was so happy I was able to use what I had created to help them gain more exposure. Share My Cosplay exists as a place where all cosplayers can have their work properly showcased.

As for conventions. While I live in the capital city of Canada, Ottawa is a relatively small city of one million people. Conventions have only really made it big in the last 5 years or so and before that were never a really big thing. I had travelled to other cities within Canada for some conventions, but those were mainly toy based conventions, so there would just be a handful of devoted cosplayers hanging out. It wasn’t until much later, when conventions started to take off, that our city got it’s own “Comic-con”. Then things exploded quickly. When our first Ottawa Comic-con launched, I was there day one, and the lineup was out of the building and wrapped around the whole building. I think it took a couple of hours to actually get into the convention floor. I could only assume it was similar to something like entering SDCC, but on a much smaller scale.

So while that has been a staple in our city for the last 10 years, I’ve also been traveling to Montreal Comic-con, which is a little bigger. Since there are maybe fewer conventions in Canada, people seem to come from great distances to show off the cosplays they had worked out. The dream has always been to try and get to SDCC, but that hasn’t happened yet. Travel is so expensive from Canada.

So for the short term I had set my sights on visiting NYCC, which is a “quick” drive from my area of Canada. However like all plans, they fell through. I had plans to go to NYCC and E3 in 2020, but of course those fell through because of what happened around the world. I miss conventions. One because they are such a great way to meet and interact with the cosplayers, and two, it’s one of the primary places we get content to share on our site and pages. So that has been lacking for us recently. Fingers crossed things will get back to normal soon.

How has cosplay changed over the years in your perspective?

Like everything you get to know, it evolves and grows over time. Being knee deep in cosplay all the time (my inbox once had 100+gb of cosplay submissions), I have certainly seen it change over the years. Obviously cosplays have become more elaborate in construction. Things like LEDs are so cheap now, I always find it amazing when people incorporate them into a costume. So the cosplay builds just get bigger and better every year. Also I find the resources on the internet have gotten better. Cosplayers are now able to find more detailed pictures of what they want to create, giving them a way better idea of what and how they will do it for a certain character.

Another thing that has changed, are the absolutely stunning Cosplay edits you’ll see on social media. So why the cosplay photographers have always been an integral part of the equation (we try hard to tag them when people include their details on submissions), the level that the editing on pictures has changed over the years is dramatic. You’ll often see the time-lapsed photo creations on Social, and they are just mesmerizing to watch. People put so much time into creating these worlds to help elevate the cosplay to the next level. That has certainly changed over the years. That being said, we still love regular shots of cosplay too, the amount of photographers that specialize in cosplay has jumped a lot too.

In general, it seems cosplay has evolved from a simple hobby where you could throw something together to wear to a weekend convention, to a full time gig where people spend months on at a time for each one of their creations.

How has ShareMyCosplay changed over the years?

In my eyes SMC has evolved greatly over the years. As the editor there have been two major changes, and I think it has improved the way we do things. The first thing would be, when we first started I used to go “collect” the cosplay that we shared. So I had to either go find it, or reach out to people. I spent a lot of time tracking down cosplay to share, that I personally thought was cool or very creative. As you can imagine this took a lot of time. So this has changed dramatically over the past 3 -  5 years. Now I’m happy to say that we are 99.9% based on submissions from users. So while there is less than 1% of content that we do go out and ask for, it is basically all based on what people send us to share. So that is why you see such a great variety of cosplay content on our pages. There is a downside to this in a way, as compared to some other pages out there that only feature certain types of cosplayers, some people enjoy that a bit more and those pages can have more of a following then we do. However we are really happy with the content we put out. 

Then the second big change, that has certainly led to better content for our pages, is the introduction of automation. When SMC first started, I had to do everything manually. Like I would be on Twitter or my phone doing everything live, and sharing items. It took up a lot of my time, and greatly affected my personal life. At times I think I must have been crazy, as this is a free service that we provide, and I was putting hours into each day. Now of course things have changed and the Social Media aspect of SMC is way easier to manage. Facebook, Twitter and Instagram all have official tools available that allow you to schedule your posts. So you can easily take an hour or 2 and work on several days of a week at the same time, or if you were really organized, schedule the whole week. So I’ve learned to embrace this a bit more and learn the ins and outs of it. This leads to a more constant stream of content that our followers seem to enjoy. Which seems to lead to more engagement from our followers.

What’s the best part / worst part of running a cosplay theme page? 

The best part has obviously been meeting & interacting with the community throughout the years. We do our best to present a positive place where everyone can share their cosplay creations. We’ve been invited to some really cool events over the years, and our team has been able to go to a lot of conventions all over the world. It’s been a fun ride.

The worst part for me personally, is that while our team has grown and shrank over the years, I do most of the work by myself. Sharemycosplay.com is run by a single person, me. Also for the most part there is a single person doing all of the social media. So I do my best to have content up all of the time, but sometimes life gets in the way. We’ve put a few calls out for people that might want to help with content creation for the site, but sometimes it’s hard to attract people interested in helping. Right now I’d love a few writers that could write articles that I could wrap around cosplay posts for the page. We will have to see how that turns out.

What future plans do you have for ShareMyCosplay?

I’m always looking to expand Sharemycosplay.com with new content. During the pandemic I’ve been off my normal schedule so unfortunately updates have been a bit slow, but hoping to get back to things. With conventions off the table for now for the most part, I’m trying to move in different directions. I’ve recently tried to put more effort into YouTube, but even that has been impacted by the Pandemic, so I’ve leaned more on gaming content. That is going to change as I’ve started a new initiative that I just launched on our page a few days ago called “CosplaySELF''. Basically we are looking to have cosplayers interview themselves, and us edit the footage into the “episodes' ' featuring 3 cosplayers. Hopefully those will start to be live very soon. We are already into the editing phase and hope to have the first episode live soon, over on our YouTube page. Keep your eyes peeled. Hopefully, as long as people show interest, this is something we will continue to create and upload on a regular schedule.

Is there anything that wasn’t covered you like to talk about?

 Lastly I want to thank you for taking the time to include Share My Cosplay in this interview. It really means a lot when someone else in the community that you respect, takes a moment out of their busy life to recognize the work you’ve done. There have been times in the past where I have considered possibly giving up doing SMC, but getting some recognition really helps put things in perspective and allows me to continue on. Hopefully Share My Cosplay will continue to grow over the coming years, and continue as a great tool for all cosplayers to use.

https://www.sharemycosplay.com/