#and i have a bunch of metas reblogged or in my queue i think about gordon

[sallysetoncore]

i have a LOT of thoughts about vampire and werewolf lore in supernatural specifically how they're the two most common creatures to "turn" someone else and we see MULTIPLE hunters get turned into both, all with varying endings and there's something to be said about how they all operate as plot devices and something something symbolism but i can't get the words to make sense

[moonshinemagpie]

I Blazed So That You Don't Have To (Unless You Wanna)

After I made an ask tag game with writing questions, I decided on a whim to blaze it. Then I decided to cancel, but tumblr said I'd have to request a refund from the google play store, which sounded annoying, so I let it blaze.

I couldn't find much from users about the blaze experience so I figured I'd write about it here for the curious.

First: I paid for 2,500 impressions, but the post actually runs for 24 hours or until 2,500 impressions are hit, whichever is longer. That's a nice deal imo; mine received over 4,000 impressions.

But second: Presumably because Tumblr is not an evil capitalist surveillance state megacooperation like Facebook/Meta, you can't select your audience by anything other than country. I would have obviously preferred for my post to only be shown to people who are interested in writing, but I figured enough of Tumblr probably writes that it wouldn't be too off-topic for most people.

That being said, if you actually want to advertise something like a book or other project, I can't imagine blaze getting you many customers.

Also, your post will go into a queue to be reviewed by human moderators, which means you can't choose a specific time for your post to blaze. It'll be up within a day of you clicking the blaze button, so plan accordingly if you think that matters.

My post was broad and interactive, so I feel like it didn't piss too many people off, and a lot of people reblogged it to join the ask game. However, 2 people did reply with nasty messages (one had a profile that said "kill kill kill, I hate sluts," and one stated that they hate Catholics in their bio, so that's fun and neat). 

I think if you try to sell something or advertise your niche fanfic, etc, you can expect more than 2 trolls. Turn off anon ask before you blaze a post. 

For me personally, I liked reading people's responses to the writing ask game, but only 2 people thought to actually ask me the questions I'd written (shout out to those two homies). I also got no increased engagement with any of my regular posts.

People will not notice your account exists just because you blaze one of your posts.

I found a lot of blogs I like, followed a bunch of people, sent questions to the inboxes of some of those who'd reblogged it, and got 5 followers in return. I think most people don't pay much attention to the OP, and I also think I might not have gotten any followers if I hadn't made such an effort to interact with others. 

So don't blaze a post just to get followers. 

For me, I genuinely like reading about other people's writing processes, and I'm still new to writeblr and am very happy to follow other writers, so that was fun for me. But if you're just trying to shine a one-way spotlight on your own blog, the blaze feature isn't going to do that for you.

So what's the use of blaze?

If you have cash you wanna throw into the interwebs and you think your post is both general and interactive enough to be of interest to a broad audience, then it might be a fun way to find accounts you wouldn't have come across otherwise.

It's also fun for shits and giggles, obviously.

I don't recommend it for advertising.

The bad points

Your post will be shown to potentially anyone. Besides troll interactions, my post also got reblogged by spheres of tumblr I'd never encountered before. Like, lots of TERFs. I'm a sensitive ladybug, and some people straight up post the most violent descriptions and hateful content, like, please please please touch so much grass. I could have gone without reading through some of those profiles tbh. But still fun for the writeblr accounts I did follow.

I changed my username during the campaign because I realized I don't need trolls and terfs to know my author name. Remember stranger danger, etc, etc, and be smart about the info you share in your bio/pinned post/username during a blaze campaign.

Blaze Report

You get a report showing how well your post did, but the numbers don't seem accurate (compare the 246 notes to the 81 notes the report accounts for). Before that, you can also see the impressions the post has had thus far during the blaze campaign. As you can see in the first screenshot, my in-progress update told me my blaze started in 1970 (what a long, strange trip it's been). In other words: Tumblr's gonna tumblr.

In summary

To blaze or not blaze? Probably not, but yes I guess if you want people to interact with your ask game. Turn off anon asks!!!

[talistheintrovert]

tag game!

tagged by the lovely @ninappon AGES ago lmao, thanks lovely <3

1. Why did you choose your url?

i'm a massive introvert who gets the most joy out of being alone and quiet evenings with a few of my closests friends, but i'm very good at *appearing* as if I'm the opposite, and i got tired of explaining to people that i'm not, in fact, an extrovert. it's my name for everything, but the downside is that people think it's an ironic joke dsfkljghdfk

2. Any side blogs?

i used to run a gimmick one for t100, but now i've just got my writing one which is where i only reblog my writing posts and fanfics

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

a decade or so, which is WILD to think about

4. Do you have a queue tag?

i do! it's a line from one of my favourite songs, Samson by Regina Spektor. "I loved you first." substituted with the word "queue" obvs

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

i was a dork who didn't have anyone to talk to about all the fandoms i liked, and tumblr had gifsets and metas and other people screaming about those things - what more could i want?

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

my amazing tumblr wife @fen-ha-fuck-you made it, and made the two previous iterations of my blog aesthetic as well, with only a colour scheme and some vague requests from me, and they've nailed it everytime because they are a goddess

7. Why did you choose your header?

my previous two icons were both hand related, and while my new one wasn't i didn't want to lost the hands theme because i am still gay, so abby made sure to put hands in the header

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

i think it's one i made during pride in 2020 collating tweets about blm and the protests, and then there are a few fandom posts with really similar notes counts right after it

9. How many mutuals do you have?

a bunch!! not exactly sure lol, but i adore them all

10. How many followers do you have?

1,455 and i've been telling myself i'll do another follower celebration when i hit 1,500 so if anyone has ideas for that, pls let me know!!

11. How many people do you follow?

over 500 lmao

12. Have you ever made a shit post?

i haven't shitposted but i have made a number of posts that would probably be considered shit dkfljghdflkjhgdk

13. How often do you use tumblr a day?

i do not count kdlfghsgjdf

14. Did you ever have a fight/argument with another blog?

yes, a very long time ago

15. How do you feel about the ‘you need to reblog’ posts?

if this means "we should be reblogging more on this site" posts then HELL YEAH!! reblog everything!! if this means those "why haven't you reblogged this hyperspecific thing i have decided it is a crime to not know about posts" i hope they die off, there's no point in guilting people into reblogging a post with depressing world news etc. just because you personally have decided they must - people come to this website to escape those things

16. Do you like tag games?

Yes! Don't hesitate to send them my way!

17. Do you like ask games?

Yes!! it's been a while since i've done any though

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

@fen-ha-fuck-you @clarkgriffon @enigmasandepiphanies @liyazaki @laowen also they're all super talented you should follow themmm

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

do my tumblr wives count as "crushes"? i feel like this is a mutual romantic and platonic connection at this point sdkfljghkjf

20. No-pressure tags: @anyone who wants to do this lol

[olderthannetfic]

Hey, sorry to ask this, but a few days ago I saw a post/discussion about the history of original work on ao3 (i.e. how and when it was allowed). I thought it was in my likes, but it's not, and I thought you had reblogged it recently, but I didn't find it. I was wondering if you have seen this discussion around? Or where I can find more about it? This specific post talked abt how who defended original work on ao3 were not the BNFs, if that helps.

That was me running my mouth in the reblogs of something or other. It’s just the one comment.

But what’s that you say? Some tl;dr about a pet topic? Don’t mind if I do! ;) (To be honest, most of this debate happened years ago, and a lot of the long meta was by me back then too, so…)

Okay, so, the situation with Original Works is actually super interesting and a microcosm of early years OTW wank.

This is going to be even more tl;dr than my usual. To try to summarize very briefly:

There were two big cultural factions. One thought “original” was the opposite of “fan”. That one was in charge of OTW. It was hard to get voices from the other side into the debate because they already felt excluded from OTW.

This divide broke down more or less into Ye Olde Slash Fandom on the “it’s the opposite” side and anime fandom on the “WTF?” side. Americans on one side and a lot of non-US, non-English language fandom on the other.

I. Media Fandom, Anime Fandom, and Early OTW

I went to that first fundraising party that astolat threw in New York City back in… god… 2007? 2008? I wasn’t on the Board or any official position until the committees got started later, but I was around right from the very beginning.

Whether you’re looking at volunteers or at people who commented on astolat’s original post, there were always a variety of fans from a variety of fannish backgrounds. People aren’t absolutely in one camp or another, and fannish interests change over time. If you go dig through Dreamwidth posts to find who was actually participating in this debate at the time, half of them are probably in the other camp now.

If you think like that sounds like a preamble to me making a bunch of offensively sweeping generalizations and divvying fans up into little groups, you’d be right! Haha.

I.a. Ye Olde Media Fandom

There are a lot of camps of people who like fanfic. One of the biggest divisions has been Ye Olde Media Fandom vs. anime fandom. Astolat’s social circle–my LJ social circle–was filled with people with decades of fannish experience and a deep knowledge of the Media Fandom side of things.

Those fandom history treatises that start with K/S zines in Star Trek fandom in the 70s and move on through the mainstream buddy cops like Starsky & Hutch to the more niche, sff buddy cops like Fraser and Ray or Jim and Blair are talking about Media Fandom. I try to always capitalize it because the name is lulzy and bizarre to me unless it’s a proper noun for a specific historical thing. It was coined as a rude term for “mass media” fandom aka dumb people who like, ughhhh, Star Trek, ughhh, instead of books. This is a very ancient slapfight from the type of fandom you find at Worldcon, often called “SF fandom” or plain “fandom”.

(Yes, this leads to mega confusion on the part of some old dudes when they find Fanlore and fail to understand that “fandom” there refers to what these people would call “Media Fandom”. They think only they get the unmarked form. But I digress…)

Media Fandom is a specific flavor of fandom. It’s where the slash zines were. It’s where the fans of live action US TV shows were. It’s the history that acafans have laid out well and that tends to get used to defend the idea of a female subculture writing transgressive and transformative fanfic. On the video side, Media Fandom is where Kandy Fong invented vidding by making Star Trek slideshows.

(Kandy’s still around, BTW. She’s usually at Escapade in L.A. Ask her to tell you about the dancing penises sketch in person. She’s hilarious.)

Astolat and friends had been going to slash cons for years. They founded Vividcon. And Yuletide. That meant that when astolat said “Hey kids, let’s put on a show!” we all jumped to help. This is a lady who gets things done.

From a Worldcon perspective, or even from an older Media Fandom perspective, this group was comparatively young, hip, and welcoming. Their fandom interests were comparatively broad. Just look at Yuletide!

In fact, yes, let us look at Yuletide… [ominous music]

I.b. Yuletide sucks at anime

From the very first year (2003), Yuletide mods have asked for help with anime fandoms, been confused about anime fandoms, or made bad judgment calls about anime fandoms. They’ve fucked up on Superhero comics and plenty of other things over the years, but anime has been the most consistent (well, and JRPGs, but there’s so much overlap in those fic fandoms).

There was already bad feeling about this. There were years of bad feeling about this.

I.c. Where are the historians?

Academic study of fanficcy things pretty much got started with Textual Poachers and Enterprising Women. Other acafans who are well known to LJ and later Tumblr are people like Francesca Coppa who wrote a very nice summary of the history of Media Fandom. These are not the only academics who exist, these academics themselves have written about many other things, and by now, OTW’s own journal has covered a lot of other territory, but to this day I see complaints on Tumblr that “acafans” only care about K/S and oldschool slash fandom.

There were years of bad feeling about this as well.

I.d. What kind of fan was I?

Now, by the time OTW got started, I’d moseyed over to not only a lot of live action US TV but a lot of old-as-fuck US TV that is squarely in the Media Fandom camp. But once upon a time, I was a weeaboo hanging out with my weeaboo friends in college. I learned Japanese (sort of). I moved to Japan. Livin’ the weeaboo dream!

More importantly, I used to be a member of a lot of anime mailing lists back in the Yahoo Groups days. I didn’t realize what a cultural gap that would cause until the original works issue came up on AO3.

I.e. Anime Fandom, German-language Fandom, Original M/M

Once upon a time–namely in that Yahoo Groups era–there was an archive called Boys in Chains. It was where you found The Good Stuff™. Heavy kink and power exchange galore! It was extremely well known in the parts of fandom I was in, even if you weren’t on the associated mailing list. It contained lots of fic, but it also had lots of original work.

Around that same era, I was on a critique list called Crimson Ink, which was mixed fic and original. The “original slash” and “original yaoi” crowds mixed freely and were in fanfic spaces. Remember, this is like 2003. You’re never going to get your gay fantasy novel published in English in the US. A couple of fangirl presses started around then, but they died an ignominious death after their first print run.

Fanfiction.net used to allow original work before it spun that off into FictionPress. We forget this today, but if you were an early FFN person, the separation wasn’t so great either.

Meanwhile, German-language fandom was hanging out on sites like Animexx.de, a big-ass fic archive that prominently mentions also including original work. I have the impression that Spanish-language fandom was similar too.

Shousetsu Bang*Bang was founded in 2005. It was a webzine for original m/m, but it was entirely populated by fanfic fandom types.

In all of those kinds of spaces, there was a lot of “original” work that was kind of slash or BL-ish and seen as fannish if it was posted in the fannish space. These weren’t anime-only spaces. They were multifandom spaces where it was seen as obvious and normal that a couple of huge fandoms like Harry Potter would dominate but that everything else big would naturally be anime.

While fans from every background are everywhere, I found that the concentration of EFL fans living in Continental Europe, South America, and Asia was much higher in this kind of space, even the exclusively English language part of it, than in my US TV fandoms.

II. AO3 Early Adopters

AO3 went into closed beta in 2009. In 2010, it was open to the general public (albeit with the invitation queue it still has). But not everyone was interested yet. Just like fandom is loath to leave the dying, shambling mess of Tumblr, fandom was loath to leave dwindling LJ/DW circles or was happy enough on Fanfiction.net. I used to see a lot of posts like “Why are you guys trying to STEAL fanfic from the original! FFN is enough!”

I literally could not give away the invitations I had. No one wanted them.

So who was on AO3? Obviously enough, it was all of us who built it and our friends. So that means a bunch of oldschool Livejournal slashers coming from fandoms like Due South or Stargate Atlantis.

The queue was open. Anyone could make an account. Everyone was welcome. In theory…

But more and more, there started to be these posts about how “AO3 Hates Anime Fandom” and “FFN is for anime. AO3 is for Western fandoms.” and “If you guys actually wanted anime fandom on there, you’d invite us better and make us more welcome.”

At the time, I found these posts obnoxious. People aren’t purely in one sort of fandom or the other. No one was stopping anime fandom from making accounts. No one was banning anime fandom. If there wasn’t much from old fandoms, that was because old fandoms seldom move.

Things began to change. Trolls on FFN forced the Twilight porn writers out, creating enough fuss and brouhaha to mobilize people who would rather have stayed put. AO3 got big enough that randos found it by accident. Original work started to pop up, posted by people who’d never looked at the rules and had no idea it was not allowed.

III. History of AO3’s Policy

I had argued for allowing “original work” during the initial discussions about the ToS. On one side of this issue was me. On the other, everyone else on the committee.

I was overruled.

Open Door started importing old archives to save them. Boys in Chains was hugely important to fandom history from my point of view. It was slated to be imported… maybe. Except that Boys in Chains is half original. AO3 was happy to grandfather in those stories, but the final archive owner felt, quite rightly, that it would be unfair to tell half of the authors they were welcome in the new space while spitting on the other half.

I was pissed. I had been pissed since being overruled the first time. To me, the fact that it should be allowed was so blatantly obvious that it was hard to even explain why.

(To be honest, this difficulty in explaining why and the even greater difficulty in figuring out the source of that difficulty is what held the discussion back for so long. When every assumption on either side is completely opposite, it’s hard to communicate.)

I felt betrayed. It would be like if you helped build something, and everyone was suddenly like “Well, obviously, we can’t allow m/m. It’s not normal fanfic.”

So we discussed it again and, again, it was me vs. literally everyone else. And still the “AO3 is only for Western slash fandom” bitching rose in volume and more and more people complained of feeling excluded from the new fandom hub. Finally, the committee agreed to open the issue up for public comment and get some more input. I was a fool and neither wrote nor proofread the post. It went out phrasing the question as allowing “non fannish” work or something of that sort.

I was furious. The entire point of the whole debate was that I saw some original work, the original work that belongs on AO3, as inherently fannish. And now this had been presented to the AO3 audience as something completely different. Think pieces were popping up in the journals of everyone I knew about diluting AO3’s mission and how we needed to save AO3 from encroachment. Public opinion was very negative. That’s both because of how the post was phrased and because OTW die hards at the time were mostly from the same fannish background. This tidal wave of negativity meant that there was virtually no chance of changing this poisonous rule. And if the rule didn’t change, the people who wanted the rule change were never going to show up to explain why it mattered.

If you’ve been reading my tumblr, I think you can guess what happened next.

I posted a long post to my Dreamwidth. It was a masterwork of passive aggression. In it, I wrung my hands about how simply tragic it would be if AO3 had to delete all of the original work… like anthropomorfic.

Now, I think anthropomorfic counts as fanfic as much as anything else, but I also knew that it fails most rigorous “based on a canon” type definitions of fic and, more importantly, it’s a favorite Yuletide fandom of many of the people on the side that wanted to ban original work.

That’s a nice fandom of yours. It would be a pity if something happened to it. 

Yup. Passive aggressive blackmail. Go me. Suddenly, there was a lot of awkward backtracking and confused running in circles in various journals. The committee agreed to table the idea for a while but not rule out the idea of allowing original works in the future. We agreed to halt all deletions of original work. If a fan posted it, the Abuse Committee (which I was also head of at the time) would not delete that work even though it was technically against the rules.

Time passed. The people on the negative side got tired. I wanted off that committee and had wanted off for ages, but I was damned if I was going to leave before ramming through this piece of policy. Grudgematch till I die! (Look, I never said I wasn’t a wanker.)

After a while, some other fans came forward with more types of “original work” as evidence that it should be allowed. These were from parts of fandom none of us on the committee knew a damn thing about.

This new evidence combined with the gradual accretion of original stuff on AO3 without the sky falling eventually led us to quietly rule Original Work a valid fandom. There was never even a big announcement post. I slipped a word to the Boys in Chains mod myself.

IV. What Were They So Afraid Of Anyway?

So why were people so resistant? Seems like a dick move, right?

Not exactly.

I mean, I was enraged and waged a one-woman war to change the rules, but the other side wasn’t nuts. The objections were usually the following:

I just don’t get why it would be allowed. It never was in my fannish spaces.

Most of our members don’t want this.

Most of the examples of things that ought to be included are m/m. We are privileging m/m if we allow it, and AO3 already has a m/m-centric reputation that can feel exclusionary to some fans.

AO3 is a young, shaky platform that can barely handle the load and content we already have. If we open to original work, we’ll be opening the floodgates. The volume of posting will be so high, it will drown out the fic we’re actually here to protect.

Protecting stuff that doesn’t need protection because it’s not an IP issue would dilute OTW’s mission.

If we allow it, idiots will try to turn AO3 into advertising space, posting only the first chapter and a link to where you can pay to read the rest.

If we add another category of text before we add fan art, that’s a slap in the face of the fan artists we are already failing.

These arguments all make perfect sense in context.

Obvously, the issue with the first two is that different fannish communities have different norms. I knew that a very large community disagreed with the then current AO3 policy, but since so few of them were around to comment, it seemed like a tiny fringe minority.

The m/m thing is… complex. M/M content with zero IP issues is at risk. It is always at risk in a way that even f/f is not (though f/f is also always at risk). Asking for m/m to be exactly equivalent to f/f or m/f in numbers, tropes, whatever is ignoring the historical realities. In our current moment of queer activism in the West, we treat all types of queerness as part of one community with one set of goals, but once you get to culture and art or even more specific activism, this forced homogenization is neither useful nor healthy.

OTOH, AO3 really did have PR problems related to the perception that we gave m/m fandom the kid glove treatment. That objection wasn’t coming from nowhere.

AO3 was shaky. It was tiny when I first brought up this argument. Hell, it wasn’t even in closed beta the first time we discussed this. Part of what made the quiet rules change possible was AO3 organically getting much bigger and OTW having to buy many more servers for unrelated reasons.

The “floodgates” thing was put to rest by tacitly allowing original work before the rules change. We had a period to study how fans actually behaved, and as I predicted, only a small amount of original work got posted. It was indeed mostly things like original BL-ish stories or original work that had been part of a mixed original/fic fest, exchange, zine, etc. Currently, the “Original Work” fandom on AO3 only has 76,348 works. That’s pretty big compared to individual fandoms but tiny compared to AO3’s current size.

The commercial argument was spurious because commercial spam had been against the rules from the very beginning. OH THE IRONY that nowadays AO3 has all these idiots trying to post the first chapter of their fanfic and then direct you to where you can buy the rest.

AO3 has plenty of fanfic of public domain works. One of the problems with gatekeeping original work is that any way you try to distinguish it (not based on a specific canon, not an IP issue, etc.) will apply to some set of obviously allowable fandoms.

As for fan art… OTW has failed fan artists. They needed protection as much as or even more than fic writers. Just look at Tumblr! If we had succeeded at making DeviantArt but allowing boners, fan art fandom could have been safe all these years. Or when Tumblr inevitably shat the bed, we could have scooped up all those people instead of them scattering to twitter and god knows where.

OTW has failed vidders too, at least in terms of preservation. I know I’m not the only one who thinks this. Other major people from like the first Board and shit have discussed this with me offline. Doing some kind of vidding project, possibly outside of OTW is on a lot of our to-do lists. But at least one of OTW’s biggest victories has been that copyright exemption. OTW has demonstrably done really positive things for vidders that other organizations and sites have not. As a vidder, I never expected to see good hosting for the actual video files, and I’m quite content.

But fan artists… yeah. That argument makes sense at least from a place of frustration.

BTW, for the love of god, if you’re a n00b to OTW stuff, please do not reblog this post excitedly telling me that hosting fan art is on OTW’s road map, so yay, good news. Someone always does that, and it’s so irritating. I haven’t been involved in OTW in years, but I used to be, and I know what is on the roadmap. The couple of you who do heavy lifting on sysadmin and coding and policy things are welcome to weigh in as usual. I know none of us like that we can’t host fan art. It’s not what we intended.

Nonetheless, I found this argument to be the perfect being the enemy of the good. If we can save more text now without losing much of anything, we should do it. The fact that we’re fucking up on the fan art front is not a reason to spread the misery around.

V. Is “Original” the Opposite of “Fanfic”?

Okay, so that tl;dr above is why “BNFs” were on one side and “nobodies” were on the other. BNFs from one cultural background founded OTW. BNFs from the other cultural background weren’t even aware that the debate was going on.

But what was the underlying philosophical problem in even having the conversation?

It took me a long time, but I finally worked it out: We had two completely different ways of categorizing writing, and they were so baked into how we phrased questions that everything ended up being unanswerable to the other side. Here is what I came up with:

Schema 1

Fanfic - based on someone else’s IP

Original Work - the opposite

Schema 2

Non-Fannish Work - School essays, stories you are writing to try to sell to a mainstream publisher

Fannish Work Type 1 - based on other people’s characters directly (i.e. fanfic) Type 2 - based on tropes or whatever (“original slash” and the like)

Now, in the current moment when half of Tumblr just got into Chinese webnovels and the m/m ebook industry is thriving in English, original, tropey, BL-ish work is no longer different from “things I am trying to sell”. But this is how the divide was circa 2005 on fannish websites, and it’s the divide that was driving this internal OTW debate.

VI. Let’s Summarize the Camps One More Time

So, again, the debate makes perfect sense if you understand who was involved.

On the mainstream “But that’s not fanfic? I’m confused?” side:

Big US TV fandoms in English

Fandom historians of K/S–>buddy cop slash–>SGA, etc.

Americans

On the other side:

Anime fandom

“Original slash” fandom that had already been chased off of everywhere

People upset that AO3 wasn’t farther on translating the interface and supporting non-English language fandom.

People upset about US-centrism in fandom

Yes, I am very white, very American, and by now very into old buddy cop shows, but this was basically how the breakdown worked. It meant that something that looked like a minor quibble to one side was really, really not.

[eldritch-elrics]

tagged by @gusu-emilu , thanks as always!

Why did you choose your URL?

i like the elric bros from fmab, like the eldritch aesthetic, and like alliteration, so!

Any side-blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them.

i have SO MANY but ever since i decided i didn’t want to make any more fandom sideblogs most have been inactive. i mainly just reblog fanart on those because i still follow a lot of blogs that post stuff about those fandoms. i think the only sideblogs i have that are not inactive are @distortedspiral for the magnus archives, @vs-stardream for kirby, @universefrog for homestuck, and @voidbugs for hollow knight & hld

How long have you been on tumblr?

i think since 2015

Do you have a queue tag?

i don’t use a queue anymore but when i did it was #the native queue of resolution because hamlet pun :)

Why did you start your blog in the first place?

i’m pretty sure it was right when i was discovering that like, there was more to sexuality than gay/straight, so i did some research on the interwebs and found some (surprisingly decent) lgbt related tumblr blogs and made a blog to follow them? i also followed a bunch of star trek blogs i think.

Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

wen ning :) i like him

Why did you choose your header?

it’s a cool piece of art from one of my favorite artists, cosimo galluzzi - i chose this one specifically because it fit my blog colors lol

What’s your post with the most notes?

i wish i could say it’s the mo xuanyu meta post but nope, it’s this fucking star wars post (i do have more popular posts on some of my sideblogs though)

How many followers do you have?

504 :0

How many blogs do you follow?

930 :\

Have you ever made a shitpost?

absolutely

How often do you use Tumblr every day?

too much lol it’s good boredom fodder

Did you have a fight/argument with a blog once?

not that i can remember

How do you feel about “you need to reblog this post”?

“Usually a guarantee that I will not reblog it” - emilu (i agree)

Do you like tag games?

yeah!

Do you like ask games?

hell yeah

Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

i know for a FACT that @courtesycalling is. clout master. stream kirby phone on you tube

Do you have a crush on a mutual?

what is a crush. who can define romantic attraction. what a mysterious concept

emilu already tagged like half the people i wanted to tag but hmm. @the-golden-ghost @mulletdean @xuanyus-palette @wolffyluna @i-write-angst-not-tragedy if you want!! feel free to skip of course

[confessionsofa-roleplayer]

can I have some advice, please?? I write a popular canon muse, and generally get lots of interactions, and I love all my partners, don't get me wrong! but no one ever seems interested in anything about my muse - no one ever cares about my headcanons or meta or anything that doesn't directly affect THEIR muse. I love reading my partners' thoughts about their muses, and drop a like to let them know I enjoyed it, but am I being selfish for wanting the same?

I definitely don't think it's selfish to want the same things from your partners that you offer them, and I'm sorry that your current partners haven't been able to give you that. Unfortunately, I'm not entirely certain of the best ways to encourage more interaction because a lot of that can depend on the individuals viewing the posts. And making a post about wanting those kinds of interactions doesn't always go over well with others because people often take it the wrong way.

For me, posts with graphics and/or animation tend to catch my eye more frequently as I'm scrolling through a bunch of posts. Maybe your text posts are getting lost on the dash? You could try adding some sort of aesthetic graphic that fits the headcanon? A gif from Tumblr's 'Find a Gif' option or something from a free graphics site, like Pexels, Pixabay, or Unsplash?

Something else to consider is the time of day you're making these posts vs. when your partners seem to be the most active.  If either you or your partners are on different schedules (or in different time zones), you might try putting your headcanons, metas, etc. in your queue, and let them post throughout the day.

Another option might be to focus on general headcanons and meta that loosely relate to current RPs when possible.

Examples:

Let's say your muse is a firefighter and in one of your RPs they're dealing with the aftermath of a fire where not everyone made it. You could do a few headcanons that tie into how your character usually reacts in situations like that and why.

Or maybe how your muse is reacting in the RP ties into something that happened in their past - you could write a drabble that explores that past event.

Another idea would be if something in an RP reminds you of something else about your muse. You could start your post with something like, 'The thread I'm doing with (your partner's name here) reminded me of something from my muse's backstory and I wanted to share...'

You could also try creating/reblogging a drabble/headcanon creation meme.  Sometimes getting others involved in the creation process will get them interested enough to like or comment your work once you’re done.

In the end, however, I think it’s important to remember that the things you write should be for you.  Yes, it feels nice to have interactions from others after posting what you’ve written, but just the process of creating the idea should also be a good feeling - a bit like making a new discovery, perhaps?  If you’re not getting the interaction you’d hoped for, try to refocus on that awesome feeling of fleshing out your muse - of getting a little bit more in touch with them.  I know it’s not quite the same thing, but you’ve created something special - something that connects you to your muse in a new way - and that’s an amazing feeling, too.

Would our followers like to share their own experiences with this kind of situation?  Or maybe offer the OP other ideas for getting their posts noticed?

~ Mod MJ ~   

[its-chelisey-stuff]

I was tagged by @liveasbutterflies @what-breaks-my-heart and @dangermousie thank you!! When 3 of your fave mutuals tag you, you just have to do it lol

1. why did you choose your url? It’s not that deep hahaha Actually, I believe I only gave one word and tumblr suggested the rest to me. Does it still do that? I wish I had a better story about it lol 2. any sideblogs? This is the one and only :) 3. how long have you been on tumblr? I honestly do not remember. since 2011? 2012? I only vaguely know because I was in high school at the time. 4. do you have a queue tag? I queue most of my posts (some of them get posted when I’m in the middle of my third dream at night haha) should I tag them? I don’t think it makes a difference lol I know I’ve technically been here for a decade but I only started to use it for real till late 2019. I’m still learning about things. 5. why did you start your blog in the first place? I do kinda remember thinking it’d be edgy because no one else I knew had it (teenager thinking right there). Also, it was around the time I was a BIG fan of YA books and I found meta and so many edits and gifs here. It was nice to see. 6. why did you choose your icon/pfp? I was just playing with paint lol but I like it, it goes with my personality. 7. why did you choose your header? big fan of GOT7. Apparently, that pic was taken right before they performed for the last time, together. But I loved it because it’s gorgeous and the lighting reminds me of the time I saw them in concert. 8. what’s your post with the most notes?  Oh, it’s this post about The King: Eternal Monarch. I cringe a little (just a tiny tiny bit) when I see someone has liked it because, I love the post, but it wasn’t even a meta post, it was just me fangirling about the ship and I made it in like less than five minutes lol Still, it has a lot of screencaps about the things I ABSOLUTELY adore in my ships,so if there’s a post that I made that deserves to be liked so much, it’s that one. 9. how many mutuals do you have? I do wish Tumblr could tell me just as it easily tells me the number of followers. To all my old and new mutuals, you’re all precious to me! 10. how many followers do you have? 451. Guys, that’s a HUGE number for me. I’ve gained quite a few since DAYS started btw. I see you and I appreciate you lol 11. how many people do you follow? 199 12. have you ever made a shitpost? Of course. That’s honestly the way my mind works a lot of the time while watching dramas. Sometimes it takes me a while to sound coherent when doing meta posts lmao 13. how often do you use tumblr each day? A LOT. Hey, it’s the only social media platform where I’m not just lurking and genuinely enjoy using. 14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? I’m never mean or rude or anything like that. But I did once got into an argument about a morally grey character. I love morally grey characters but I’m never gonna be the one to justify murder lol or such crimes. This person sort of did, so... 15. how do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts? I reblog a bunch of gifs about the dramas/shows I’m watching and posts that make me laugh or teach me something BUT I don’t think that people should feel obligated to reblog just because it shows on your dash. 16. do you like tag games? Yup. But sometimes I forget I’ve been tagged. It took 3 people for me to do this haha 17. do you like ask games? I do, I love the attention hahaha. Send more, ask me! My asks are always open lol 18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous? I don’t know, but I follow them all because I like how they write or how they gif. Or because of their sense of humor. They all need to be famous. 19. do you have a crush on a mutual? No, but I do admire, like truly, a couple of mutuals and the way they write. I love reading and watching dramas and (a couple of times) I’ve spent hours reading meta about characters. Their writing is better than 90% of YA books I read in my teen years. 20. tags? (No pressure!!) @obsessedkuroi  @eclectifylady @asiandramastoke and some new mutuals to know them better @kimsunho @dayummmdorisss @justapotatorant @kimsungrin 

[daemon-knight]

So I guess I’m going to be doing these Off the Cuff/State of the Community things yearly. For those new, apparently once the year starts to end I do a massive essay/opinion piece on the general state of things I see in my little corner of the RP community. I usually do this due to let out some of the built-up of emotions in me just dying to let out, and also to collect my thoughts in a more civil way than just spewing it out angrily in the middle of January after an impulsive mass-unfollowing spree. Also, if I’m going to have to deal with a bunch of anon hate, mass exodus-ing of my blog, and relentless vague-bloggings on the subjects I talk about for the rest of the week, it might as well be at the end of the year so I can start the coming new year fresh.

Ideally, I’ll end this one on a more positive note if I organize everything properly, but we’ll see.

And so, with that said... 

Notes from Last Year

I might as well start by making some quick notes and comments from last year’s little blurb and talk about what’s changed and what’s remained the same in terms of my opinion and general disposition. 

And honestly, little has really changed. 

However, just so everyone knows my current opinion of things from last year...

People are still promoting half-finished blogs and it needs to stop. Gonna’ say it again, don’t give people who don’t put in enough effort to finish the damn thing attention. I’d rather not see half and quarter-efforts be rewarded, as cruel as that sounds. 

Dash Commentary is still a thing and it... bugs me. It’s going to get its own segment after this, but just know I'm less than apathetic about it.

I still see RPing as more of a character building experience more than anything thing else. I’ll go into more detail later, but the short of it is that it requires work on your end just as much as your partner’s.

I still look at canon divergence with raised eyebrows, but I’m slowly softening my stance on them, if only due to the fact that Claudia is an OC and not affected by a canon character’s position in the grander scheme of things.

My opinions on shipping and multi-muse blogs haven’t changed much either... That’s all I have to say for now, read the original post for more details.

Okay, that’s everything of importance from last year, let’s talk about some new stuff. Starting with...

Dash Commentary

Might as well rip the bandage off and get to the hard-hitting topics first. 

Alright, I’ve said this before to some extent, but I’ll say it with a little more clarity here: Dash commentary, by all technicality, is meta-gaming. It is your character commenting on situations and events they would not have experienced first-hand nor were a part of as if they did and they were. I tend to tolerate this because it’s usually done for comedy, and usually a form of crack RPing. However, I’ll also say that the act of someone else commenting on events they weren’t a part of for sake of giving their two cents is very rarely perceived comedic or funny. And if it isn’t funny, it just comes across as juvenile.

It feels like weak excuse to be a part of an RP thread without actually replying to it. That, to me, is cowardly and it does more to infuriate me than anything else. Maybe I’m just being an old man complaining about the new way people RP now, but it really doesn’t feel like people want to be involved in conflicts and struggles anymore. It feels stale to me. I see it as a bigger problem in the state of things, and... I don’t know, it might be a problem larger than the RP corner I’m in. 

Okay, that was a lot more depressing than I expected, we’re moving on.

To something even rougher.

Profiles/Blogs

For the sake of brevity and keeping things somewhat in order I’ll try and keep this to bullet points to not go too off-topic. But in terms of profiles and blogs...

Actually finish the damn blog before promoting it. This was an issue last year, I’m still seeing it, and it’s still annoying. It’s actual flash over substance and as someone that’s been doing this for over ten years, it irritates me something fierce.

A bit of repeating advice, but try and keep the actual profile short. About two to three short paragraphs for the bio, and for the personality section either a short paragraph or a quick list of the top five or six aspects of your character will do. I’ll say it again, as of this post I’m actively following over 60 people, anything to make it easier to get through your profile and plot things helps.

One that note, a short rules page helps too. If you’re over the age of 20 and you’ve been RPing for over 5 years you already have a decent grasp on grammar and general RP etiquette as far as I’m concerned. The main thing I look for in rules pages nowadays are for passwords and triggers, as those are the most important things to me as your partner.

Thankfully, I think passwords have either been phased out, or I’ve just blocked enough blogs that have them to not see them anymore. Either way, I’d still advise against having them. They do nothing but tack on extra work for a partner that, frankly, might not even be around long enough to actively write with.

I’d recommend not making a sideblog for RPing unless it’s specifically for NSFW RPing. It makes things like starter calls, asks, and general data-keeping difficult for both yourself and others... mostly others.

I don’t know why dash-only blogs are becoming a thing, but unless someone can explain to me the actual advantages of having them aside from avoiding the actual work behind making a full blog I’m going to advise against it.

And that’s really it in terms of profiles/blog advice/opinions I have. Moving to something a little more... divisive.

Musings/Galleries

To me their are two types of musings. The actual definition where a character speaks, thinks, meditates, or discusses on a specific topic at length. Or the type where people reblog quotes and aesthetic posts revelant to their character. I’ve talked about this before, but to summarize I think the latter kinds of musings weakens you as a writer, as you depend on outside sources to explain your character instead of your actual writing. That’s the nicest I can put, but that link I gave definitely doesn’t. Same thing for reblogging fanart of your faceclaim. I’ll probably do a rambling on that topic in the future, but the short version is those picture just fill a queue and that's really it. This is moreso aimed at OC blogs than Canon ones, but... eh, I got similar feelings on it.

Okay, moving to some actual advice now.

Advice and Miscellaneous Opinions

I think I’ve shown enough teeth, so now I can talk about the fun stuff in a nicer tone and really relax you with some advice.

Okay, I’m lying, I’m still going to be a little mean about this.

Really, it’s your blog, write however and whatever you want. In terms of honest advice I have very little. It’s a lot easier to explain what not to do than what to do. That said...

Something I’ve said in the past, but keep world-building to a minimal on your blog, or at least to things that directly effect your character. This usually means their powers, magic, weapons/equipment, and what’s relevant to their immediate background. To use Claudia as an example, I have an idea of what the social and political landscape of Ivora lands are, their economy, their reputation, and general army/militia is like, but I’ll only go into depth about it if a character asks Claudia herself about it. It’s not an immediate relevant part of a tomboy lesbian knight that stabs and punches people for fun, it’s just background information to help ground the character when needed.

I’ve got a draft on writing fight scenes in my drafts that I’ll be posting at a later date, but I’ll give the short version of my advice here. In short, fight sequences should have a back-and-forth rhythm to it. In terms of RPing it’s a lot like a turn-based RPG, you do a move, then your partner. One action leads to another, and another, and another. Have you character do nor more than two consecutive actions per post, as any more than that tends to ruin the flow and forces/pressures your partner to taking unnecessary hits. Much like professonal wrestling the goal is to sell the fight. Again, things to discuss on a later date, but that’s the gist of it.

Use alternate universes with care. If you can slot the original verse into a world without changing too much of your character, do it. I think the only series/worlds that are popular and widely-used enough to maybe need a alternate universe of its own (as of this post) would be My Hero Academia and Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. Most other series/worlds already allow for some semblance of the supernatural and uncanny that can easily slot in a random element or two without breaking it, but My Hero Academia has a lot more grounded rules in place for how powers work as a whole and the laws (both physical and societal) work around them, so it’d be harder to logically stick random elements of someone else’s story in them without contemplation. JJBA has only two main ways to get superpowers as far as I’m aware, so trying to slot a random OC like Claudia in there would be difficult unless they followed the rules of the world. Most other series I thought of adding would allow for some amount of wiggle room for most characters. But just to be thorough...

As far as I’m aware Demon Slayer Yaiba is honestly just samurai killing demons with not-hamon, that’s not too hard slot in random characters that just happen to not be samurai/swordsmen so long as you mind the time period.

One Piece has a ridiculous among of wiggle room in terms of powers and abilities. Cursed Fruit is a thing, but I’ve heard there’s some leeway here and there.

The only real world-building done in any particular Fire Emblem is surrounding the immediate continent/country of that specific game, and they recognize that foreign nations are a thing, so not much work needs to be done there to slot some other medieval-based character in there.

I didn’t mention Fate/Stay Night, namely because I have mixed feelings about the series as a whole, some very conflicted opinions about Nasu’s writing style and themes, some pretty hot takes on F/GO as a concept, and a general revulsion towards gacha games... however, Fate/Stay Night is basically the modern world with magic and mages, which is pretty easy to slot in a character or two, Servants aside.

Also said this last year, but multi-muse, try and keep the number of muses in the single-digits, it’ll help you and your partners keep a little order in the long run.

Honestly? Queue/schedule your ask memes, it just looks nicer on everyone’s dash.

I was seeing people open themselves up for commissioning icons a few months back... I’m no lawyer, but I’d recommend commissioning icon psds frames instead. There’s a lot less worry of copyright shenanigans that way since most of those assets would be either your own making or through (ideally) sites and places that allow those assets free for commercial-use. Just saying.

Okay, I think that’s everything I wanted to get off my chest, at least everything I can think of at the moment. Let’s all do this again next year.

Or the next time Allen gets triggered by some fresh hell that taking over my corner of the RPC, whatever comes first.

[mtt-brand-trans]

Blog info

I seem to be getting a (small) influx of followers from being @ed by undertalegorls, so here’s a rough outline of what my blog is and hopefully will be in the future!

About me/the blog

I haven’t quite decided on nicknames yet, but for now call me Chris! A lesbian who just recently discovered she’s butch but has been in the Undertale fandom for years. She/her but also testing out he/him, 16, autistic, white and cis. This blog was only started about a week and a half ago, I purposefully made it on Undertale’s fourth anniversary!

As a lesbian, I will obviously be paying special attention to the [gru voice] gorls. But worry not, I love all of Undertale and Deltarune, and you should see plenty of all your favs! Despite what I said in the first sentence, Mettaton is even one of my favorite characters!

I hope to be able to make my own content! For now all I’ve done is make (debatably) funny posts, but I enjoy writing metas and even make art from time to time! I’m mostly good at realism, but every now and then I take a stab at fanart.

My relationship with Asg*re is...... complicated. I was mostly neutral on him until I started following evenmywordsare and undertalegorls, so now my opinion is neutral-leaning-negative. For now my official stance is that if Toby wanted us to like Asg*re, he should either actually redeemed him, made him do something less terrible than kill six kids, or have made him the villain. In my personal canon interpretation, Asg*re is either the villain, living on the surface away from everyone else post-pacifist, or straight-up doesn’t exist. I don’t think about him much so kindly don’t message or ask me about him, I just felt the need to make this bullet point because apparently Asg*re is a hot topic of debate.

Made a vent post about it the other day (epic cringe comp) but there’s a lot of internalized misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, ableism, etc. this fandom needs to unlearn. Hopefully this blog can be a place that I and other people can do that. This does mean, though, that there’s a lot of fanon dissing, especially when it comes to sans and gaster. If I’m ever making fun of them, it’s because I’m making fun of fanon.

I LOVE listening to the soundtrack and picking out leitmotifs, I’m currently working on a google doc that’s compiling them all. I’ve even found some new leitmotifs!

I queue things up to be posted every hour on the hour from 8AM-3PM Pacific time(aka while I’m at school).

Stan list: Alphys, Undyne, Toriel, Shyren, Knight Knight, Papyrus, QC, Snowdrake, all the Amalgamates, Muffet, Mettaton, etc. etc.

Blog rules(?)

Y’all I am a minor. Please be kind, respectful of my boundaries, nothing too nsfw(especially cuz I’m asexual), I’m not giving out a bunch of personal info, etc etc you know the drill

Discourse will likely happen. Probably mostly making fun of asg*re and critiquing the fandom. As undertalegorls so eloquently put it, “not discourse free but all opinions are right.”

If I say anything out of line, tell me! Putting this in the blog rules so that everyone will see this, instead of reblogging those posts that say that. I cry into my pillow when I say something in the wrong tone of voice to the lunchlady, if I say something insensitive send an ask, dm me, anything and I will apologize publicly. I will of course try not to do that, and generally try to talk about subjects that are in my lane, but I think it’s best to put this disclaimer just in case.

No fucking inc*st, no p*dophilia, no other nastiness. This means no asg*riel, no s*riel, no fr*ns, not f*ntcest, no burgerpants and Mettaton, etc etc

Ships that squick me out include kr*sie, mett*lphys, pap*dyne, asg*re x anyone, sp*de k*ng x anyone, frisk x anyone, chara x anyone, asriel x anyone.

No sexism, homophobia, transphobia(this includes gendering the nonbinary characters), biphobia, racism, xenophobia, ableism, etc. You will be blocked for that. I don’t want to put up with that on here, tumblr is where I go to at the end of the day after putting up with all of that at school. Please don’t be that guy.

Uhhhhhh have fun! First and foremost I just want this to be a place where Undertale fans can have fun and enjoy good content. Feel free to send me posts or rec me blogs if you think it’s something I’d like!

[sleepykalena]

Hi, New Followers!

I realize that i got a lot more followers in the past month than i expected to get (which was like...0), so I think i should introduce myself and my tumblr:

You can call me: Sleepy, Charlene, Char (she/her pronouns! and i’m cisgender)

I reblog:

Mostly Rogue One stuff (incl the cast! i’m a Lunatic.)

All the Rogue One meta I can get my hands on, esp if I like them or have a response to them!

Definitely Rebelcaptain stuff (though I am not explicitly against any major ship except for ones involving Jyn and a rather old fellow in white, for similar reasons as the ship involving a certain up-and-coming jedi and a middle-aged father-killer with anger issues) (<-- this is not the same as me being anti-any-one-character, i just have a problem with the ships because of their dynamic)

Soccer stuff (specifically MLS and USMNT. #LATiD, suckas! but also #SaveTheCrew)

Some stuff with Pedro Pascal in it

The occasional joke (+1 if it’s a good pun and/or disney-related)

Some art aesthetics

Some artwork in general

Certain posts on US Politics (i strive to not do this often because i do it more on facebook, but if there’s something i need to say, then i will fucking say it, and if that bothers you, then cool, i’m fine with you unfollowing me)

Things I want to keep in mind for reference (art, painting, animation, photography, writing, etc.)

Most of my reblogs are on my queue, so if i’ve liked a post of yours, there’s a good chance i’ve also thrown it onto my queue, which currently sits at about 13 days long >__>

I make:

Rebelcaptain fanfics - they’re long. they’re very long. All but one of my fics is under 2k words! And i’m sorry not sorry if a bunch of them tend to have a political/emotional slant that tears the reader away from escapism. i’ve been labeled by other people as being “Queen of Slow Burn/Build” and having “no chill”, as well as someone who "doesn’t do small-scale”. I’m actually quite fond of those labels! plenty of other people can write fluff better than I can, i think, and i’ll try my ass off for you to write it when requested, but my biggest pet projects will center around other things for sure.

Rogue One gifsets

Rebelcaptain sketches/drawings

And I’m hoping to make even more stuff (like pencil tests!!!) as time goes on~

Here are some links for my:

Rogue One/Rebelcaptain related fanwork goals for 2018

Released fics

Upcoming fics that I’ve got lined up (including Tumblr prompts, if I’m currently taking any)

Stuff I drew

if anyone has any questions, or just wants to chat, drop me a message or an ask! this fandom’s been kind to me so far, and i’d like to get to know some of y’all <3

[elizabethrobertajones]

Hi Lizzy, I'm new to the SPN fandom and saw a bunch of bibros making fun of meta writers. As a lowkey Destiel shipper it still pissed me off. I'm wondering- who are your fav meta writers to read?

Pfft, it’s practically a badge of honour that THEY are pissed off by the meta. Interpretation worries them because as soon as you get into the what they’d see as hippie dippy “all readings are valid uwu” part of literary theory, you’ve made an attempt to level the playing field with them and they don’t wanna be on it with us, they want to have the one sacred and true reading of the show to which all roads lead etc etc. Actually buying into the idea you can interpret the show and come up with multiple readings or that the text would DARE support another version (even the interpretation that Sam and Dean aren’t soulmates or something ship-free that gets in the way indirectly - or an argument they are soulmates but that’s basically just the show’s way of conveying Heaven is somehow worse than Hell for them :P) immediately is a threat to the idea of a cast iron version of the show that’s the one they latched onto. 

Strange world where “reading into things” is an insult instead of a sign of healthy curiosity and a desire to learn and understand. And I see people who literally mind their own corner or would agree in spirit with their interpretation as long as you CALL it that and leave others be to have a different one, get dogpiled by them for daring to treat the show as a flexible and multi-layered, analyse-able thing…

Ah well. 

Kinda missing out on the yearly punch up in the parking lot round the back of the fandom right now, tbh, since I’ve been AWOL with hanging around with family and friends stuff. Kinda not missing it. :P Welcome to the fandom, it can get pretty messy, and some of us here just wanna watch the show and ask silly questions to everyone about how many burgers Dean’s eaten on screen recently or whatever important character analysis nonsense is bothering us today.

To which end! :D 

No matter how long you have followed me, even if it’s like a day or 2, you must have noticed my queue endlessly spitting out @mittensmorgul‘s full-show rewatch along with the TNT loop, all out of order and a week late because that’s how I roll. Mittens is a great meta writer to read because everything she writes is fun and the kind of hectic idea hopping my brain glues with..

Everything @awed-frog writes is similarly enjoyable to read in that style but longer and more poetic and dark, and very insightful. (You might be able to tell I’m mentioning the meta writers I reblogged stuff from today while waiting for my long term memory to contribute anything)… Linking their ask tag for starters because idk how to find other long meta at short notice :P

Actually while I’m thinking about rewatches, I’ve always enjoyed @dustydreamsanddirtyscars‘s dramatic, purple prose essay approach to meta and flawless blog presentation… Sadly Jenny’s not enjoying season 12 very much with the change in style from the weird dark symbolism of Carver era, to the sort of fractals upon fractals of weird little emotional references and do-overs this year when Dabb gets to do his thing on a whole season, but if you want Carver era weird dark symbolism, I’ve been really enjoying where she has been lurking in Carver era, meta-ing her way through it. 

(I just generally dig reading re-watches, especially because all that hindsight is paying off so much now because for Dabb era if we’re going to meta it we NEED hindsight and reminders and the TNT loop playing in the background showing us just how layered and self-referential the show has become (and what it’s doing differently, and how much the characters have grown and changed, which, I think, is the point now) - anyway if you’re doing a rewatch, I LOVE to read posts about old episodes, especially the weird old MotW and really early seasons stuff no one seems to talk about much any more)

There’s a LOT of great meta writers out there and after every episode I try to find and reblog the long reaction notes, if they’re done it, from @dorkilysoulless @grey2510 @kayanem @bluestar86 (and awed frog again). @charlie-minion has been busy this season with other stuff as far as I know with a few more infrequent visits, but I know she has a page with every meta she wrote on it and generally wrote a great post per episode for a good chunk of the time I was in fandom, and still drops by fairly regularly despite a smaller presence. @thevioletcaptain also is great and has an episode reaction for most episodes (though again has been busy with IRL stuff for a few weeks/months/I have no concept of time but she hasn’t posted anything for the recent episodes as far as I’ve seen >.>) and also a page with her meta on it that when I was brand new to the fandom I had permanently open in another tab to cross-reference while I re-watched the show :P

(A lot of my favourite meta writers I imprinted on like a duckling when I was new and remember them really well but of course I love all the new people around here but my actual useful visual memories are all the fandom circa season 9 and not all around any more much, because my brain has been stewing in migraines and fatigue since, like, the middle of season 10, and my new approach is to wearily trudge through my dash barely checking who wrote what unless I have to deal with minuscule fonts on a read more, so I’m afraid my memory of active bloggers is totally rubbish and it’s best just to look at my awesome meta tag and see who I’ve been reblogging a lot lately and some really grevious oversights in people I will smack my head for not mentioning if you bring it up, but your question was phrased in such a way I went straight for who do I ENJOY reading not quick gimme a useful list with no explanation thing :P So uh, sorry if this is 100x longer than you expected :D)

[priscilla9993]

Blog tag

Tagged by the amazing @piracytheorist

Brain typed out the old username before this, but I do love the new one. You should check her out!

1. Why did you choose your url? I chose my url on a whim for this site. However, the true story behind this is similar in the sense that kid me, having to create a username for Neopets and Fantage, not used to how the internet worked, went with my name and age at the time. Obviously, a username that normal would be taken or just stupid to put. Thinking I was so clever, I put a 3 at the end to symbolize the three 9′s. Little did I know, it stuck and here I am today.

2. Any side blogs? I wish, but no. At least not on here. I can barely maintain one as I’m not very active on social media.

3. How long have you been on Tumblr? Since January of 2021, lurking in the background until February when I finally posted or reposted something, so not that long.

4. Do you have a queue tag? Nope.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? I was captivated by this whole new world of people who loved a bunch of fandom related things and shared their opinions without politics or society playing an oppressive role. It felt like Wiki Fandom, but social media version. Not to mention my love for Once Upon A Time with their ships and characters led me to start my blog. I had my own opinions on some things and mainly wanted to reblog things I loved on here too. Eventually it turned into me posting my own meta though.

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp? It’s a picture of the Barnes and Noble copy of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass as well as a brown stuffed animal rabbit of mine that has been with me since childhood. I chose it because I love the story and it contains a part of me that never wants to lose a child’s sense of whimsy. Partially joking, but it was either that or a Dopey plush since I wanted something from I loved but took a picture of irl. I don’t take a lot of photos...

7. Why did you choose your header? My header is a Madarcher/Curious Archer scene with Alice and Robin in a dungeon. I love both the characters and the ship. It’s one of my favorite moments from the show and was around the time I joined Tumblr. I think it’s so special how in a scene where they are trapped with only each other for company, they vulnerably talk and Robin gently brushes Alice’s face/moves her hair. Albeit, she’s trying to grab Alice’s hairpin, but it was a sweet moment all the same. Brings me joy every time I see it.

8. What’s your post with the most notes? “Foreshadowing at its finest” Ooooh, I believe this is my first original post! I am proud that it has triumphed as a Madarcher/Curious Archer post as that is a ship I will take to my grave. Also, it’s funny how it hasn’t been a long time, but re-reading that post, I still think I’m reaching too far. Thought it was brilliant then, but I change my mind every time I see it. Let me know if you check it out and agree/disagree/have other thoughts.

9. How many mutuals do you have? None actually, but I like to think it’s quite a few and hope think of me as a mutual too. It’s probably because I haven’t been on here long and don’t follow that many people, lovely as most of them are.

10. How many followers do you have? 10. Just like this question # lol. I’m not into Tumblr for the followers, but I’m honored that some people want to follow the stuff I post.

11. How many people do you follow? 6. I should really go follow more considering the amount of stuff I like. There are some people I want to follow, but they either get risque or extremely spammy with their posts.

12. How often do you use Tumblr a day? Probably an hour or less.

13. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? No and I’m quite thankful as of yet.

14. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts? I feel indifferent to them I don’t need to reblog. Although, I do feel guilty sometimes as I typically love and support the things people want reblogged, but skip over the reblogging since I have nothing to add on and don’t want to unwillingly shove/spam the post to others.

15. Do you like tag games? Yes, they are a joy to see and participate in.

16. Do you like ask games? Yes!  I love to answer and ask questions.

17. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous? I don’t have a mutual, but I think in my small bubble of following others, @killian-whump, @wyntereyez, @piracytheorist, @enixamyram, and @bleebug are Tumblr famous. They are some of the first people I got knowledge of from tags and reoccurring names/reblogs.

18. Do you have a crush on a mutual? Nope, but I admire so many people on here. <3 I don’t know if any of them constitute as a crush because I don’t know if I’ve ever been in love. Probably irl, but then I’d be in denial and chalk it down to admiration or desperation from crush culture. But to answer the question on crushing anyone online romantically, no. I’m tagging @jlsadphoenix, @fairytalepsuedonym, @mefyys, @of-monsters-and-werewolves, @sals86, @mary-margaretblanchard, and @intothewickedwood.  Feel free to do this blog if you want, and if you do, please tag me on it so I can learn more about you too. :D

[spookysimps]

tagged by @frostandstardust, luv you bestie

tagging @the-winter-senpai and @crispychickenito if y'all wanna (I have no idea what this tag game comes from but hey, its fun!)

why did you choose your url?

because my main is spookykitten on like everything and I have come to be known/will answer to "spooky" so... you know I figured my simping-for-xue yang blog should be titled appropriately

any side-blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them.

this is the sideblog lol, my main is @spookykittenwrites. I made this blog to put all my mdzs stuff on because I didn't want my poor World of Warcraft mutuals to suffer a bunch of sad, beautiful chinese men (and occasionally women) crying in period clothing all day every day

how long have you been on tumblr?

uhh a while, on and off. probably 8 to 10 years or so? not sure. I've made a bunch of different blogs and accounts over the years

do you have a queue tag?

no queue tag but I've been thinking about it

why did you start your blog in the first place?

already kind of answered, but I didn't want to flood my main blog with mdzs fandom stuff. Also, I thought it would be easier to leave my main blog for writing updates/person posts/creating stuff while this blog is more for reblogs

why did you choose your icon/pfp?

It's a meme I made lol

why did you choose your header?

I don't think I have one??

what’s your post with the most notes?

I don't really make posts on this blog, but on my main it's my xue yang meme (if we're talking all time) or my sad songxiao edit (if we're talking more recently)

how many people do you follow?

102

have you ever made a shitpost?

everything I do is a shitpost my dude

how often do you use tumblr?

hourly, I have no life. well, unless I fixate on something and forget about it for a while then maybe I get a few hours of reprieve.

did you have a fight/argument with a blog once? who won?

back in the Dark Days of my old blog I said some unpopular opinions in an apparently mean way and got yelled at for it by, like, the whole fandom I was in so that was fun. I keep my thoughts to myself now and don't interact with fandom politics/meta/etc.

how do you feel about “you need to reblog this post”?

it has and will make me NOT reblog purely out of spite. You're not my mom, you don't get to tell me what to do (on a more serious note, it's not for some rando to decide who has the energy to interact and engage with what, when.)

do you like tag games?

YES!

do you like ask games?

Also yes!!!

which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

hopefully none, I don't like being perceived lol (I also have like.... 5 followers on this blog lol so it's doubtful)

do you have a crush on a mutual?

I love all of my mutuals ❤❤❤

[themandylion]

I was tagged by @ayzenigma to tell you a bunch of personal stuff about myself/my blog!

1. Why did you choose your url?

Because I’m a large cat and possibly the Shroud of Turin. More seriously—it’s a geeky history reference and a cat reference and it has my name in it all at once. I would have it as my AO3 username but I completely blanked and forgot that I intended to adopt this as my universal internet pseud for the entirety of 2010 and as a result ended up with three accounts using clarityhiding while everything else is themandylion.

2. Any side blogs?

I help run a shipweek that has a blog, but I don’t think that counts? I just put everything on one blog and make y’all suffer. If I ever made a side blog, it would just be cute animal pictures and interesting internet stories to share with Mandymom in a safe environment that wouldn’t allow her to find my fandom shenanigans.

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Since 2013, apparently. My first post was in August of that year, but I might have gotten it sooner.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

No and I’m honestly not sure what the point of them is? (But I also don’t use my queue, so that may factor in.)

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

Because I needed a place to put fanart and I got the impression that Livejournal (and clones) had mostly gone the way of the dinosaurs when I wandered out of hiatus.

6. Why did you choose your icon?

Itsa me, Mandy! One of my favorite Mandys from my old webcomic.

7. Why did you choose your header?

It’s, um. A very meta meme created within the universe of The Tempest of Team RedBird, which was my primary fic project at the time I realized I could have a header.

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

I thought for sure it would be Give Tiny Tim Nice Things: A Rec List, but apparently it’s my 2019 fic round-up. Huh.

9. How many mutuals do you have?

Is there and easy way to check this? Look, I have no idea how Tumblr works, I just post things and read my dash and constantly curse the app.

10. apparently doesn't exist

11. How many people are you following?

Tumblr tells me this is 83, which seems suspiciously high.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Does turkey-turkey-goose count?

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

Ummmm like 2–3 times in the evening, usually? Unless work is really slow. >.>

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Oh man. I feel like I did?? But cannot for the life of me remember if that was on Tumblr or Livejournal or what.

15. How do you feel about “You need to reblog this” posts?

Evil. I ignore them out of spite. Always hated chain letters.

16. Do you like tag games?

Yes! I just rarely tag anyone when I do them because I’m very shy. /o\

17. Do you like ask games?

In theory, yes. In practice, I don’t think I’m active/social enough on this site for them to work. I generally only get 1–2 asks, which makes me feel really self-conscious about reblogging the ask post in the first place.

18. Which of your Tumblr mutuals do you think is famous?

I know one is a published author! Aside from that—I have no idea. There are different levels of famous within fandom, depending on angle, corner of approach, position of the stars in the sky...

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

I constantly crush on random people I’ve hung with on the internet. I’m sorry. It is my curse, because we have bonded and chatted and I just really like spending time with you. Don’t worry, I won’t make it weird. Just pretend you never read this and we can proceed with our lives like nothing’s changed.

20. Tags

[paisley-print]

Thank you for the tag!! @oo-hazel-oo !!!

Alright - I’m in a silly goose mood so here goes nothing.

1. Why did you choose your url?

It’s my name and print - like writing. BUT ALSO since Paisley is an art print style. Its kinda like a pun :) .....Okay I know I’m not a comedian but I thought it was funny

2. Any side blogs?

Nope

3. How long have you been on Tumblr?

Not with this blog- but I have been on a LONG time. Probably started my first blog in 2010. I know I was WAY too young. Especially the way the sight used to be porn porn everywhere so much surprise dick. It was honestly the wild west.  Since then I have had a few role play / fan fiction blogs. 

4. Do you have a queue tag?

#queue ....but most everything post is in the queue anyway. Even this probably...how meta. 

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place?

I started it to read fan fan fiction ....I never really intended on having this become a fan fiction blog. But here we are I guess. Ironically enough the story I first started on here is yet to be finished. RIP. Imma finish Imma finish - I promise!!!

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp?

I look a lot like Brooke Shields so I use her as a FC a lot.  Then I  just set her to a background of paisley print.  

7. Why did you choose your header?

OH cuz I took super long to photo shop it and I thought it looked pretty. I might make a new one soon though. 

8. What’s your post with the most notes?

Chapter one of Near The Water’s Edge....but the post with the most feedback has been the prologue of Midnight 

9. How many mutuals do you have?

I honestly have no idea ....but I could always use more. so follow me. I’ll give you lots of love I promise.

10. How many followers do you have?

63 BABY LETS GOOOOO

11. How many people do you follow?

106 wonderful writers I do not know. AANNND my one wonderful IRL writer friend kam. Hey kam. 

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

Every post on this blog is a shit post in some capacity :) :* :> :p

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day?

:) I would like to plead the 5th  Now that I think about it I probably login in here more times then I drink water during the day. :O

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once?

Ohmygod No.....but the darker my stories get, the more likely I feel its going to happen. Like, writers in this fandom get so much hate, I am worried that I’ll be next. It has even made me hesitate posting some darker themed stories.....but you know what. Bitch imma still do it. I’m a retired mean girl with way too much time on my hands square up.  I was voted into prom court three times lets go.  I’M A LEO DROP A MEAN ANON SEE WHAT HAPPENS.

That goes for any of my followers getting hate as well.  Tag me : I will be your champion against the mean anons. I have trained in the age old ways of bitch. 

NOBODY and I MEAN NOBODY is allowed to be mean to my friends on my watch.

 -.- nobody. 

15. How do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

Umm  it depends what it is.  Normally I will reblog something that I agree with regardless of if it reads “you need to reblog this” or not. Most of the time ignore it.

16. Do you like tag games?

I DO! This is my first one and I am having a blast!

17. Do you like ask games?

I’m not sure what that is! But you know what! Probably!

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous?

Guuurl I aint even know. So many. Too many to count. I got so many new followers the past two days I gotta go down the list and follow a bunch of people back. Gotta catch em all- you know?

Upon further reflection, I am at least 6% sure that @honeymandos is famous. If not  then they should be. Their writing be fire ngl. I am a shameless honey mandos groupie.

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual?

If we are mutuals - I have a creative crush on you.....but mostly I have a crush on @oo-hazel-oo     cuz not to brag or anything but were basically best friends on here.  And her writing is *Italian hand*

20. absolutely no pressure tags:

@honeymandos of course. 

And Ohmygod Imma tag some people I have not had a chance to get to know yet. 

@xoxo-callie @anaaaispunk