#i'm not reblogging this to the other blogs considers /most/ ppl also follow me here lmao

[stardust-falling]

Hi! I keep seeing ppl debating if SQQ's eyes are canonically green or black. What do you think? Somebody said SQQ's eyes are green in the cover, but if you think otherwise, why? If you've discussed about this before in your page, may I see the link?

Hey! I posted this one on my meta blog (this might be what actually stirred up the discussion), but I still need to update the post there to include the timeline and all relevant information provided by various commenters.

Anyway, I'll go ahead and give a little summary here.

SQQ has black eyes in the novel, and they're explicitly described that way (黑， 乌黑 specifically, color words meaning black and crow-black (like jet black)).

This means that a depiction of SQQ with green eyes is contrary to novel canon.

At some point, people on the wiki said his eyes were described as 青 (qing）which is turquoise green/blue. I'm not exactly sure where this came from, but one very, very loose potential for this could be a misreading of the following description: 眉清目秀 which is used to describe the appearance of a young SJ. It's possible, perhaps, that the character 清 (clear) here was accidentally misread as 青 （green/blue) but i don't think that's a particularly easy misreading, especially since in that phrase the 清 is linked to 眉 （brows) instead of 目（eyes). But anything is possible, and this is the only place in the novel I could find reference to "clear eyes" in regards to SQQ, and the only potential way this misreading could have basis in the novel. Either way, his eyes are never described as 青, so that's an incorrect assumption.

So, the only thing I really consider canon proper is the novel itself, but that's my own stance. A wider stance would be considering the novel as primary canon, while the donghua/manhua are secondary canon, and things like official art could be tertiary canon. In this framework, details included in the donghua that aren't in the novel but aren't contradicted by it would also be considered wider canon and fill in those gaps, while things that contradict the novel would be canon as well, but specifically alternate, donghua canon. The same would apply to official art-- if it doesn't contradict the donghua or novel, it fills the gap, otherwise it's another kind of alternate canon.

Under this wider system, then Shen Qingqiu's canon eye color would go this way:

Primary canon - Black eyes Secondary Canon - Grey Eyes Tertiary Canon - Black, Grey, or Green Eyes

So depending on what you consider canon, then the answer can change-- but in my opinion, the novel overrides other sources.

Okay, so let's go into the secondary and tertiary canons, then. On the post on my meta blog that I linked earlier, in the replies and reblogs, there are some references about the evolution of SQQ's character design in donghua and fanart, so I'll leave those explanations to speak for themselves.

Let me talk a bit about the official art, then.

Though the English edition has the most vivid green eyes in character design, it is NOT the only cover art with green-eyed SQQ!

Across translations, he is depicted with varying black, grey, or green eyes, as follows (using purple color for grey since tumblr doesn't have a grey color):

Taiwanese (OG) - Black Taiwanese (Revamped) - Darker green, occasionally darker grey (some variety here) Thai - Lighter grey Vietnamese - Black Burmese - Medium grey or dull green (again, some variety) Korean - Black, but may vary to grey or very dull green (resolution not high enough to tell)

And then of course the vivid green of the English edition.

So when it comes to official art, it's basically evenly split, with three black, three grey, three green (counting the ones that vary).

Green-eyed SQQ is not exclusively a western fandom thing. I mean, on some levels, it makes sense for character design-- matching his eyes to his clothing color.

Personally, I wouldn't call it canon. And I think if anyone does want to claim it's canon (via the tiered system), that it would be a good idea to preface that you're going off of alternate canon instead of novel canon, so that it's not used as an argument when the discussion is specifically centered on novel canon.

There is a level of canonicity to either green-eyed or grey-eyed SQQ, but such depictions still contradict the novel, even if supported by other mediums, since his eyes are specifically described as black there.

I guess, it depends on how you want to define canon at the end of the day. I'm not here to tell other people how to play in their own sandboxes, I just personally like to play in novel canon only so that's my stance on it.

Hope this is the sort of info you wanted!

[smol-grey-tea]

Can you explain more on who Angel is? I don't know much about Ssum.

Hello Anon!!! I'm not the most knowledgeable on Ssum either 🤔ᴴᴹ but your local Cheritz enthusiast is on the case!! Here's what I know!! ^^

Angel is not actually called Angel but 1004!! The number translates to that name in Korean, which is why we call him Angel. He is a most mysterious fellow who has, to my knowledge, only appeared twice in Harry's route, changing the chatroom's background to a series of ones and zeroes, similar to how Unknown did in the MM prologue

Angel's role in Ssum involved being able to hack somehow into the chatroom and offer the player the option to either view a good future of Harry or a bad one. In Angel's second appearance, I believe he only gave a bad future?

This is all I can gather about Angel in regards to the Ssum. In regards to Cheritz's other games though....

I've gathered that, first of all, Angel's way of speaking seems to resemble Seven's? It might be possible that Angel is Seven, considering:

The aforementioned similarities in speech

Seven's 1st appearance in MM after the prologue is a chatroom at 10:04

Hacking the app

Having a number as a name

And this is only a theory (though a very strong one) but Seven is most likely a Wizard, and Angel possesses the power to show the player the future, something that probably wouldn't be possible for a normal person

Also the fact that we already know that MM and Ssum take place within the same universe/pocket dimension

Idk if Angel is Seven idk. But it seems way too similar to not at least be a reference to Seven

The references to Angel don't stop at MM tho. The number 1004 is seen in Nameless at least once

1004. The main character's address. The rest of the address lines are references to both Cheritz and Crobidoll, which leads me to suspect that the number 8282 might also have significance somewhere else, altho idk where I'd look to find that out

Idk if there are any Angel references in Dandelion ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ummmm but that's all I know. Idk if Angel is Seven, it seems quite likely, but if the person in the teaser Cheritz showed is Angel, I don't think the face looks like Seven tbh. Different face shape. Tho I kinda agree with ppl about the use of the character wearing a cloak similar to those worn by Mint Eye followers. That's an interesting addition

There may be other ppl who are a bit more qualified to answer this ask than me idk. When I'm browsing on Tumblr, I only check out the Cheritz tag and Nameless The One Thing You Must Recall tag so I only looked at The Ssum tag today to do a bit more research on this.. I've never even played Harry's route and I was playing June's but recently uninstalled the game again because, even with June, it's still god damn boring and I hate the gameplay of it

I will reblog the posts I used to research this immediately after posting this tho. But. There's this one really good post I saw where I first learned about Angel and I can't find it for the god damn life of me. I believe it's on @natsuneages blog and the title is Cheritz Boys with Red Eyes Have Powers, and @zealousfanprunewolf commented on it about Angel but I can't god damn find it guys aaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!

[ofmermaidstories]

About blocked anon. In general i agree with merms. Howevre. Ok im a silent reaer too for the most part. Tried a sideblog, but i get sidetracked and end up not using it. If the writer has an ao3 i try to leave a comment there but i have more trouble reblogging and interacting on tumblr fro some reason. I have been blocked too for not reblogging fics! But honestly I don't feel particularly bad about it cause I feel like I can't really blame a writer for blocking ppl who don't support their fics.

Like, it's not about talking to the writer, it's about reblogging their fics and show appreciation to the work they put in them and posting them for others. If that's important to that particular writer and they don't feel good with ppl who just lurk (like me) then it's their right to deal with it however they see fit.

I still look at their blog thoughthey just don't show on my dash. If anon wants to put the work and reblog and comment fics on a side blog if they don't want to do so on their main, and ask the writer to unblock them i'm sure they will (unless there's a different reason, like maybe the writer saw soemthign on anon's blog and was like "hmm don't like that". Can't do anything about that.)

You’re allowed to disagree with me, Anon, LOL, I promise don’t mind it—a difference of opinion (on inane things, and I would consider anything that happens on tumblr dot com short of harassment to be inane) is good! Healthy. 😌 Mix things up a bit. But—okay, let’s talk about the reblog debate.

I just don’t vibe with it, LOL. I don’t vibe with sniping people for being lurkers. 💅🏽✨ I don’t respect it, actually, if we’re going to get serious—yes, people can (and should!) curate their followings as they need to. If someone decides to deny you access to their online space then, no, you can’t do anything about it. I just also happen to think it’s one of the more stupid reasons you can block someone lmfao.

I know that the general (touted) thought process behind blocking lurkers is generally a parroted, “it’s about supporting writers”. And to be honest, I would respect the push more if people just admitted they wanted more comments LMAO. Because!!! I think that’s perfectly fine!!! It’s okay to be like, “hey I worked hard on this, and I would like to see a big fat number of notes or to have people in my inbox”. We are real people—real people taking the time and effort to create fun things for free, and it can be bitterly disappointing to have that met with silence or entitlement.

The solution to that though isn’t blocking people for being silent readers. Because that’s turning around and doing to them exactly want we don’t want done to us, as writers—it reduces them from being living human beings to numbers who are measured by how they can best serve (or “support”) you.

I can hear the “Merms this isn’t this serious, we just want more people to reblog fics” already but tbh… it is. I think it is because it lets the worst of us get away with treating each other really, really appallingly. You are absolutely allowed to deny someone access to your online space. But if you’re denying them that access and also making them feel bad (“you haven’t reblogged enough fics/you haven’t liked enough of my posts to fill the weekly quota/you’re not doing enough for me to be allowed to see this content I provide online publicly and for free”) then idk… sounds like ur the problem to me.

And look, I don’t say that easily. Tumblr has always been a site where mass hysteria breeds like mould; it tends to happen when online spaces become our Third Place for socialising. We don’t have the normal, social safety-rails that like, actual real-world Places like work or school have for us—we’re unleashed here in our downtime and feel protected by the anonymity of a screen. By the fact that we can’t see each other’s faces when we say things like, “you don’t do enough for me” to random strangers. I don’t like that! So I don’t police it on my own blog. 🫡

Fandom is one of the precious few spaces we have where anything goes. You can create whatever you want, however you want, and it’s all done purely for the love of it. It’s indulgent and silly and fun. So to come into this space and then directly make demands of the other people in it (“reblog x number of fics or else you’re not a real member of the community”) goes against the spirit of why we’re all in this shared space in the first place.

We can absolutely have a conversation about how to support each other—writers and readers—without fear mongering about lurkers being why “omg the community is dying”. I think the community is falling into a lull because people get obsessed with new things; a new show or game. New technology, like ChatGPT for instance, which gives maybe otherwise passive readers a chance to create their own fiction or pocket boyfriend, instantly. Maybe it’s even a generational thing—a change in how people socialise. We are in constant contact with each other, with constant availability—controlling what little we can, what we spend our energy on or how we engage with things in our third space is sometimes only control we have. I’m sure we could even dig digger about like, the consumerist behaviour and entitlements so many of us subconciously take on now—wanting instant updates or reading completed fics only or taking it for granted that we’ll be given an entire season to binge in one go.

I appreciate that writers want to push back against the audience entitlement that can come with creating readily available smut about popular characters. And yeah, reblogging does help showcase art and writing! But it can’t be demanded. It just can’t. Just how no-one has the right to demand you write how they want you to, or upload when they want you to, you don’t have a right to dictate how engage with your work (beyond not being dicks to it!!!!!! underscore!!!!!!).

Should we try and support each other, even through a small act like a reblog? Yes!!! It’s so so so good!!! Despite the essay I’ve just written, I am all for support being shown in whatever small way it can be!!!! But—there’s no entry fee, to being in a fandom. Not for lurkers, not for active readers, not for writers and not for artists. Demanding a fee like that just pushes people away and feeds them into traps like ChatGPT, which, while I understand and emphasise with it’s popularity (especially for younger readers), I will never support it. It’s using it’s current popularity as free training and when it’s learnt enough it will be monetised, but only after it’s stolen so much from all of us. And this is why we should protect the freedom of things like fanfic, and why we should say no to trying to turn each other into numbers or updates—we’re already products that are being sold, in so many other aspects of our lives. We desperately need spaces where we are free to be unhinged about little kissy stories and the characters they’re attached to.

I’m sorry Anon, I know you were just offering a counterpoint to blocked anon lmao, and I didn’t mean to unleash—but I am actually incredibly passionate about this topic, and the broader implications for the community a debate like this brings.

[s-dei]

I'm not sure but maybe you can make a group or blog and let friends join/follow them so everyone can speak of similar interests (or react to them if they or you are a bit shy)

You know like sharing your stuff, message each ithers or even send each others meme, whatever it is I send you a hug, it's not easy when there is stuff you can tell but finding joy in your own way and finding yourself is wonderful so even if we are far many of us support you and your discoveries and interests <3

Thanks for your support, but I'm not having >this< kind of a problem. I'm not feeling lonely or "no one else loves my strange stuff" - I have friends to speak and share with, I'm happy to come here on tumblr or another social media and randomly chat with someone, I'm hella happy when ppl interact with my art, even if it single like or reblog.

My problem is, that some people (real, and mostly relatives) want to interact with me in a ways they consider "normal for everyone", while I'm not comfortable with those. Or maybe comfortable the most average level without having fun. When I'm trying to explain it, they don't understand, they say "everyone do it so you can too". Well I can, but I will have zero joy, and It's not what everyone expect.

You see, I love my internet friends, but I also want to have 'my' community of REAL people, and with current real ppl I don't feel like myself. My mom says "just try to learn more about these ppl, it will be fun" and I kinda agree. But I don't think any of them will be interested as well to listen about my fandom socially-inappropriate stuff, it isn't fair and isn't equal interest.

[softranswolves]

In the Teen Wolf fandom, it seems like peeps only love the big-names, the ones who regularly return to post content versus people who joined in the last few years.

As someone who has been here a while, what's your take on this? Should new people stop trying? Because that's what I'm feeling.

Hey friend!

I just wanna say, before I really get to my answer, I'm kind of touched that you see me having been around for a while!! I'm definitely not what I'd consider a big-name and I know my blog is mostly just my little corner full of stuff I curate with my own creations or reblogs of other people's but you see me 😊 I'm also for sure not tapped into the fandom itself like some folks I follow. I just doot my snoot in my little archive of teen wolf shenanigans and try to maintain friendships with anyone who wants to interact with me (via asks, messages, or tags, good golly I wanna hug anyone who interacts in tags lol and I for sure recognize when ppl come back).

I typed a way longer response that you may not have wanted, all to just say I would hate to see new people stop trying!! I adore that teen wolf is still pulling people despite it being off air and potentially not getting more movies (whether or not that's what most people want). I think fandoms need fresh air continually too. No two people will experience the show or content 100% the same way and have every single response be the same. Just with the two cakes mindset of creation, there are multiple cakes for how we all digest the show and they're all delicious. I carved out my own little corner here because I wanted organization for myself, and I create largely for myself. Any interaction I get, I fucking adore, I cannot impress that enough lol. I just never really expect it bc I know I do my own thing here with stuff like Multiamory May moodboards. Rarepairs and polyamory and trans headcanons just aren't everyone's cup of tea and I stopped trying to be recognized for what I "target" when I know my quality isn't 100% and I'm just vibing to my own weirdness instead of being super put together about it. I've definitely flickered in and out of the fandom when it comes to engagement too - like how last year (or year before? idk, time is confusing) I was running regular events but currently I just don't have the energy/passion in the same way.

If you really want to be seen more, esp if you make your own posts/content, utilize tags, even if you're hella lazy with it like me. I try to always use #twedit no matter what, in addition to #twfemslash and #twrarepair when applicable. Those go on the radar of people who fill the queues of some "big" blogs that do a bunch of reblogging just to have continual content out there. I also feel like I got a foot in via a couple of my discord servers, mainly Teen Wolf Legacy, and making a couple too (one for Scott shipping, one for teen wolf femslash; others i know of included pecific Derek-positive ones, a Stiles shipping one). That absolutely increased my reach, because I could share my stuff with people who specifically wanted to get pinged for, say Allison/Stiles content as an example. Idk that my following blew up or anything, I'm still a relatively small teen wolf blog. But it did make it easier to grow into my niche here. It also made me realize how big the fandom is. Some might only watch for or engage with a particular ship or character, while others like me do so for pretty much anyone.

This was still lengthy, I'm sorry. You caught me after work when my brain is like solely focused on decompression via fixation and tumblr is often a source for that. Please don't be discouraged from trying, and if you feel comfortable coming directly to me I could possibly point you in the direction of some other teen wolf blogs with similar interests! Big-names are hella daunting and it still blows my mind some of the ones I always sort of looked up to also just have some nerd behind them that I can talk to (even if I feel like im annoying them lmao). Feel free to talk with me more either on or off anon too, I'm pretty much always here to some extent. I love new people so fucking much, I'm just not engaged enough to always see you 💜💜💜💜

[insecateur]

So twitter related disc horse

I popped for a hot sec to reblog a clearly photoshopped pic of someone pointing a gun to elon and saw someone say Tumblr was boring.

On one hand I can shit on twitter users for the rest of my natural life (which dont get me wrong is fun) but also i can see it being hard to understand. We are not born knowing everything, and it can be hard for ppl not having an algorithm spoon feed ppl content

Plus i bet that person does not even know about h*man p*t g*y (censoring so he does come here and cause ruckus)

i guess i can kinda get how people would find it boring bc it's a lot slower than current twitter but it's a good thing imo like i don't actually find endless scrolling to be that fun tbh . less activity means more time to do other stuff

but also i honestly don't find it that slow personally ??? but i've been using twitter exclusively from my private account where i follow less than 100 ppl outside of posting art/fic/random musings since like. 2017 so. my standards are probably skewed

i just find the idea that TWITTER is better than tumblr for conversation to be laughable considering twitter literally limits how many characters you can put in a post forcing people to fragment their thoughts when they can't be contained in under 500 characters (not to mention it used to be HALF THAT! how quick we forget) i constantly see people complain that twitter threads are a pita to read and follow to the point there are tools to make them more readable. like

(personally i also hate getting suggested stuff i might like (my only exception is youtube and that's mostly bc i can easily dismiss it and it's videos with titles so i can immediately be like No and not actually have to be confronted with anything i don't want to see) so the fact that twitter has been pushing that on people more and more in the last few years has just cemented it as a Bad platform for me personally. however i know i'm very much the exception to this rule lol)

probably people find platforms like discord the most well-equipped for discussion? instant messaging and social media/blog posts feel like different beasts to me tho. but idk

[ladyseidr]

I am still around lurking, but I know my activity has been sporadic on all three blogs (plus, yes, i went radio silent on IMs and dis.cord again sigh). Honestly, I’m currently learning to accept that, while I’ll eventually be okay, I’m not okay now and probably won’t be for awhile. So, yeah, I still intend to write and I’ll respond to messages when I feel able, but I won’t be making any promises about when/how often/etc etc etc.

[pinwheelfunhouse]

🎪 harland // he/they // 25 🎪

requests: open!

masterpost (+ fnaf edition)

‼️ empty blogs w/ default avatars get blocked on sight ‼️

reblogs > likes

main: @slashpaws

gifs from these videos!

personal carrd here!

requesting rules and dni under read more!

rules:

if you have a request for a character not on my fandom list, just ask about it! if it doesn't match my 'won't do' list, there's a good chance i'll still do it! and if you can, please send a photo for reference!

please limit requests to one per ask! it's easier to organize for me that way! you can send in multiple asks for multiple requests though!

please respect my dni and stay away if you match anything on it!

you can be as vague or as specific about requesting as you want! including the types of stims you do or don't want!

i'll also happily do non-fandom requests, like animals or just aesthetics in general!

kin, d/a, fictive, oc, and sona requests are 100% okay!

even if i've already done a character, you can re-request with different/specific stims if you'd like!

i reserve the right to deny any request for any reason!

fandoms i will do:

five nights at freddy's

team fortress 2

resident evil

night in the woods

my little pony (please specify gen!)

inscryption

super mario

black butler

portal

pokemon

minecraft

lego batman movie

don't hug me i'm scared

faith: the unholy trinity

undertale

emily wants to play

mystery skulls

the owl house

cuphead

there is no game: wrong dimension

rusty lake games

the stanley parable

house of ashes

dying light

vocaloid

soul eater

sonic the hedgehog

encanto

bendy and the ink machine

invader zim

poppy playtime

hazbin hotel

helluva boss

youtubers/their characters (ask first, extremely selective about this one, will only do youtubers i know and watch. you can check the listography on my main for a list!)

fandoms i will not do:

h.etalia

a.ttack on titan

h.arry p.otter

s.outh park

r.ick and m.orty

b.luey c.apsules

f.lumpty's

d.ream s.mp

f.riday night f.unkin

p.opgoes

c.ult of the l.amb

d.eltarune

other things i will not do:

anything yandere/kink/bigotry related

dni:

you fit the usual dni criteria (lgbt+phobic, racist, ableist, fatphobic, antisemitic, nazi, pedo or pedo sympathizer, anti-blm/anti-acab, etc...)

you are pro-trump or support any of his ideals

you are a terf/transmed/truscum/anti-mogai

you are a bi/pan/poly/omni/aro/ace exclusionist

you are an anti-anti/proshipper/fujoshi/fetishize lgbt people in any way

you ship pedophilia, incest, abuse, or irl ppl (s.ebaciel, f.ontcest, a.ftoncest, s.coutspy, the re8 lords together, ch.eavymedic, etc...)

you are a kink/ddlg/cgl(re)/petplay/yandere blog or reblog/post this sort of content (sfw age/pet regressors are totally fine)

you are anti-kin (unless you are/support factkins; in that case, do not interact) or gatekeep kinning

you are anti self-dx or a syscourse blog

you support scott cawthon or "stand by scott" after his controversies

you support, follow, or defend anyone who matches any of the above criteria in any way

additionally:

everything i post is okay to tag as kin/me/id! f/o, comfort character, and system tags are also 100% okay!

i work a full-time job with weird hours so requests might take a bit to get to, please be patient!

you can ask me to tag anything you need! i try to tag the most obvious things but i can always add tags for those who need them! i tag triggers as "[trigger] //" (for example: flashing // or blood //)!

if you like one of my boards, please consider reblogging rather than just liking! a lot of times the links in my posts break them so they don't show up in tags for everyone, so reblogging helps out a lot!

when doing a character i'm not familiar with, i can only go off vibes or colour palette, so if you want something specific associated with them please let me know!

[dontjudgemeimawriter]

About Me

Hi!

My name is Emma, you can call me anything that makes sense though. My main is @magicmoon65 (I do like the nickname Magic but any's fine), it's mostly reblogs and feel free to follow me there. Mostly I want to make sure ppl know because that's what I follow, like, ask, and reply as. Any writeblr stuff will be here though!

I use she/her pronouns and identify as a lesbian. This is reflected in my writing because all my characters, especially main characters, as queer, and I try for diversity of all kinds but am sure there's some ways I can improve.

I'm 22 and recent college graduate, psychology major with writing & theater minors. I include this because my love of psychology gets reflected in my writing. Writing isn't my career but I consider it more than a hobby-- writing is my life & soul.

I've been writing since I was about 11, when I wrote out of a notebook while in class and shared it with my best friend during lunch. This means I'm a lot more open than most to sharing my writing,especially when I feel like people are going to see it. I've been sharing more recently because people are seeing and interacting with what I post and it makes me really happy to see.

I love to be tagged in tag games! I have a list of blogs to tag in tag games, (but when they don't respond I get shyer about tagging them) so if you want to get tagged let me know! Feel free to tag me, too-- I also try to comment on what I get tagged in as that's how I've grown confidence here.

I write a bit of a variety of things but every thing is very heavily character- driven. I have a lot of character whose flaws drive the story. I end up writing a lot about trauma and mental illness, too, meaning my stuff can get really angsty.

I write mostly fantasy, some YA/New Adult realistic fiction. Most of my fantasy is somewhat urban, somewhat modern. I avoid the Tolkien-level high fantasy as well as save-the-world plots, and prefer the stakes to be much smaller but still high due to how personal they are. Something that shows up a LOT is secrets, and I often build entire plots around a secret the character feels they have to keep.

I'm a planster, I plan a bit but largely like to discover as I go, and I have a pretty good system for balancing the two. I'm also a "can't write if font is a basic sans serif" person. And I vastly overuse em dashes. I prefer writing in first person past and to get really close to their thoughts-- I actually rarely italicize thoughts because I believe that all almost all the narration should be inner thoughts. I also believe that any first person narrator should be unreliable in the sense that they have a strong bias... but not unreliable in that they purposefully lie to or keep things from the reader. I'm pretty lax with spoilers as a concept, since I believe that if I ruin something by revealing a twist, it was badly written to begin with. That said, I want to gauge reactions accurately, and that may be the main reason to keep from revealing something.

I'll keep sharing my stuff as long as people interact with it, and I do follow a bit of a social contract... meaning if you interact with my stuff I'm very likely to get interested in yours. That said, though I like to read snippets and excerpts, I will never keep up with anything serial posted here. But, I do like to beta read, so if you need beta readers (for a completed, not necessarily finalized, draft) hmu and we can talk.

My blog is writing advice, some writing memes, a lot of tag games (including rb's of others'), and some excerpts of my WIP.

Picrew

[tokugou]

Hi. First: I love your GIFs! They're pleasing to see on my dash (and sometimes gives me niggling ideas for creating GIFs of my own but almost never do it cuz procrastination and my creativity sucks haha 😅)! Please keep creating! <3

Second, genuine question (and out of curiosity): Why do you self reblog your posts often? People can see your posts on their dash, and even on the search thingy. The search thingy doesn't let people see your self-reblogs (just the original post). Even though I've kinda been on and off of Tumblr for years, I don't really get how it works, so I'm a bit confused as to why you and other bloggers self-reblog your/their own posts?

You don't have to answer if you don't want to, though! I'm just genuinely confused and I don't know who/where else to ask/search 😅. Thanks in advance! Have a nice day! <3

I honestly don't know what I did to get dragged into this discourse

Thank you for polite question, I honestly don't know if I can help you a lot and if my answer will explain it as you expect. I also was on and off tumblr for a long time and often, but I can answer it based on my own experience on this becasue it was confusing to me too when I first met with self reblogging.

Long reply under read more so to not trash other people' dash

first of all self promotion isn't a bad thing and i'm staring to think some of people here see it as a crime

compared to old one nowday t/mblr is a mess, lot of people left this site and most of them were content creators (either artists or gifmakers) and back then it seemd more welcoming to editors? People would rb your stuff no matter your popularity becasue hey it is content from my fav series i wanna see more i wanna keep it on my blog and show it to others so there was no need for people to self reblog becasue it circulated around a lot on its own.

new people who join this app are raised on i/stagram t/itter and/or f/book where LIKES means everything, you show your support by liking posts THIS NOT APPLY TO TUMBLR AND NEVER DID [you can check this amazing post about rebloging]. As nice as it is to get likes on your post becasue it is like a pat on a head - it is only a pat, doesn't mean anything on a long run. Reblog = spreading. If people don't spread it we stay unnoticed and we tend to self reblog more.

another thing that changed is: people no longer scroll from top to the last post they saw before going to sleep, cos why would they? You wake up in the morning open app while eating breakfast or drinking coffee and you sroll past ten or twenty post or an equivalent of hour or two of your absence - you dont go deeper cos it would be a waste of time - again, I say USUALLY, some ppl still do this and it is ok either way - which leads us to main point of self/reblog:

DIFFERENCE in TIME ZONE not all of our followers live in the same time-zone, when I post something in my free time it doesn't mean others have it too, most of them are probably sleeping or in working place at that hour. We self reblog so people who were absent (and we think might be interested in - becasue why not? they follow us for a reason right?) can see it when they get back on here. By reblogging ourself multiple times, that puts the post back on the follower’s dash and hopefully gives them a chance to see it.

most of people follow ton of blogs (one of my friend I met here told me they follow over 1k blogs) imagine even half of these blogs posting regulary, a few things per hour, the dash is messy and crowded OUR EDITS TEND TO GET LOST IN IT. Most of people follow a lot of blogs and might miss our posts becaue their dashes are WAY more active than these who follow five or ten blogs.

t/mblr fandoms aren't welcoming to new creators in my experience, to get notes you need to be popular/have lot of followers but you can't have lot of them if your posts aren't spread/seen and so on and so on it go in circle (a lot of ppl also only reblog popular posts and avoid these with litte of notes - don't know why it is like this, maybe they think these posts are suspicious?) so with self reblog we also give some of these fake notes to make a post more appealing, i guess? this one is just speculation.

the search function you mentioned is very rarely used tbh people don't go to search for things daily, they usually only do this when they join new series/ship/etc to check if there is something. People usually stick to what they see on their dashes. AND most importantly this option doesn't work as it should. It is some type of algoritm that promote post that are alive/active - even if your post is relativy new it might not show in search becasue it died quickly (as if it wasn't interacted with for some time). With search option it is 50/50 your thing either show there or not. ALSO REMEMBER search option is a terrible promoted thingy that doesn't show you everything so you better stick to /tagged/ thing you can enter manually while on dash if you are using web t/mblr.

people no longer go straight to specific blogs to check if they missed something, they might do it for their besties (as they call it) but other than that DASH is all people see and focus on, so the more often content creators self/reblog the higher chance followrs will see it.

we are not paid for what we do and it come to everything: edits, gifs, arts, writing, video and META POST we are not paid for it and no matter how many people say notes are just numbers these numbers are our motivational payment, the less you get the less you create because you just don't feel the point of sharing your creations if it is not received well or at all.

when I started posting I used to post new content daily even twice a day, nowdays seeing most of my edits not being well recieved in fandom I lost motivation to the point I was thinking of quiting because it didn’t give me joy anymore and I'm still considering it.

I personally never felt bothered seeing self rebbloged post, I follow a bunch of content creators, some of them sr twice a day some each hour, some more or less often. It often helped me to see something I would missed becasue I wasn't here and personally it often give me joy to see the post I remember seeing that had 2 notes when I rb it and now it is 500 or more.

to anyone who read it and still think self reblog is a bother: do not tell people to stop self reblogging. If you genuinely have a problem with self reblogging, just unfollow or block the person who does it and don’t make a fuss over it!

I hope I managed to answer you at least partly? I probably lost the point somewhere between first sentence and second but... well

[rouge-the-bat]

yk what's personally disturbing to me... policing who people reblog from. example: Person A has a ship or headcanon or fandom or what the fuck ever that Person B dislikes. Person C reblogs regulary (or even just once) from Person A, without rbing the content B hates. Person B decides that is callout worthy. The reason this sucks (aside from obvious reasons) is like... you don't know why someone follows someone else. For me, I sometimes reblog from ppl I don't like just bc I'm hate scrolling 1/2

duudee yeah im so sick of ppl assuming that you support like everything someone does just bc u reblogged from them or follow them. like even if you follow someone, it doesnt mean youre buds, it doesnt mean you know everything they say or do even if they post it- because its not like people are gonna see EVERY single post someone makes ??? (unless theyre like a fave blog or something and keep updated, but thats not the usual case) and you dont have to agree with every single one of someones stances to follow them. some people *GASP* Dont care about sitting exclusively in echo chambers for their own views.

and you could just see a post from ur recommends that you reblog or smthn and you dont look at any other posts from op, so its not like you even know anything about them besides The One Post. or someone just has a lot of posts that tend to circulate in your corner of the internet bc of the ppl u follow, even though you dont follow the op directly. and most often for me i dont even recognize that may be happening bc i rarely notice urls when im looking at posts.

people tend to do this with celebrities too, like i get that some people be like way too deep stanning famous actors or musicians or w/e but for me personally idk jack shit about celebrities im a fan of. and i dont even really consider myself a "fan" of celebrities, but more a fan of their content, and that really only applies to musicians bc i dont get invested in like, particular actors content. i just listen to peoples music, but i see so often ppl treat that as endorsing everything the maker has done even though 1. idk shit about them 2. im usually not even giving them money, its really rare for me to actually buy music. majority of the time i legit cant even tell you someones name or what they look like, unless their music is under their name instead of a band title and their face have been on their albums or something. like THAT is how much i literally do not get invested into celebrities. this is a bit offtopic tho lol but its kinda relevant so i wanted to say the tangent

also like. 99.99% of the ppl i encounter on here are complete strangers. idk everything about them and i honestly dont WANT to know??? most of these people are completely insignificant to me, we are just people passing each other on the street, maybe ive passed them a few times in this town, who knows! i see they have a cute hat on and move on, not remembering or knowing anything about them. im not gonna practically reasearch every person i encounter on here just to interact

[i-want-my-iwtv]

Is it just me, or are most people in the VC fandom women? (Not saying I mind, I'm just legit curious if and why.)

(Reminder: I am/was not a gender studies major, nor a student of fandom. This is just an entertainment blog and all that follows is my opinion only.)

This is a highly sensitive topic that people study academically for many fandoms, and I will hardly do it justice here. But I felt it was important to share what I can, anyway. Some links are under the cut for further reading about this topic, even though they do not apply to VC fandom specifically.

The short answer is that, from my experience, yes, most ppl in the VC fandom seem to be women. This is based on the past 20 years of AR’s booksignings I’ve attended, online communities, interviews/articles over the years, AR’s FB (her own posts + comments from her People of the Page), and AR’s Twitter. However, I would add that she absolutely does have fans who are men, NB, agender, genderqueer, transgender, etc. It would be difficult to do a thorough demographic study of all of her fans (current/past/specific time period(s)/etc.), so I wouldn’t know what portion of the fanbase is made up of women.

Let’s take a brief look at our superfan from movie!IWTV:

^What is superfan thinking? Does she think Santiago is a REAL VAMPIRE? Does she want to die? … or, is she simply a groupie of that media and enjoying it as a fantasy situation? We don’t get her backstory in the movie, so we may never know.

^Santiago has had to deal with hecklers and admirers for years so he’s not really fazed by her disrupting his show, and when he shuts her offer down, it draws a laugh from the audience. Laugh at the fan who confessed her love for the fantasy of it all and offered herself as tribute. 

Before we specify why women are in VC fandom, one thing to consider is What is fandom? In my opinion, it’s a group of people who are drawn to a shared space bc of a shared interest in specific media. Within that, you still have to reach out to individuals in order to become friends. You don’t necessarily have to agree on every aspect of the media you each enjoy, but having chemistry certainly helps. Participating in fandom can also mean creating/consuming fanworks without having any personal connection with other fans. Sometimes it’s just in posting fic and/or leaving kudos. Some join a skype chat group so that they focus primarily on their personal connections with other fans. It’s a wide spectrum and there are different ways to engage with other fans within a fandom.

Why VC fandom? We all have our reasons for being in VC fandom. I would prefer not to speak for other fans as to their reasons, but everyone is welcome to respond in the comments/reblogs of this post, or message me on/off anon, and I might gather up those responses and add them to this post. 

Why I was drawn to VC: Personally, I’m a woman, and I’m in this fandom bc the canon/fanon is intellectually stimulating to me. I’ve made some of my best friends here. We share a love for these characters and we discuss them at length. This does not mean we 100% support everything the characters do in canon. We enjoy them as fictional characters, not necessarily as role models.

Secondly… I had posted a personal account about my reasons for being into VC canon, but later deleted that post bc I was informed that my reasons weren’t acceptable. That VC was not for straight women. I’ve given it a lot of thought and I’ll briefly tell you my reasons for being attached to VC, under the cut. 

Brief historical context:

These books are/were written by a straight white woman, and she’s always advised her fans to “write the book you want to read.” She currently writes for herself, presumably, as she does not use an editor in the traditional sense. She began VC in the early 1970s with the short story, “The Master of Rampling Gate” (which eventually became the full novel IWTV). The short story was published in Redbook magazine at the time, which is/was a magazine for women, and the short story was written in the vein (pun intended!) of the older gothic romance novels that were extremely popular in the ‘60s. 

^In fact, this edition of IWTV is straight-baiting, as the only female love interest that Louis might have gotten into that physical position with would be Babette, and that… definitely doesn’t happen.

IWTV is a dissection of Louis’ feelings, and Louis was a stand-in for Anne herself. VC in general has a lot of emotion, both in the dialogue, and the introspection woven into the narrative itself. The fact that these books are mostly written from the 1st person perspective is a very intimate means of communication to the reader, and makes the novels that much more emotionally rich. Some might say that such emotional writing tends to appeal to women.

The books are intimate. There is a constant thread of intimacy throughout which seems to appeal to women of all sexual orientations, in my opinion. I started the series with IWTV when I was 11 yrs old and I’ve heard from other fans of other genders that they also started VC when they were young, even around the age that I did. Being right before puberty, maybe that adds some extra addictive quality to it, that it explores a kind of intimacy when we’re in the phase of life where we’re just becoming interested in sexuality. I remember mooning over pics of Brad Pitt in my table group at lunch, and we would talk about him, but I doubt any of us would have wanted to actually kiss him at the time, we just wanted to speculate about dating and romance!

After the first book, the intimacy continues with TVL, where we get Lestat’s backstory, and as the series progresses, it just keeps going. Whichever book new VC fans enter the series, they’re going to hit that vein, more or less. It’s not as strong in the most current books, but it’s still there. I would say that AR found that the way she wrote the first 2 books was so well-received that she felt validated in her style of writing, that it was appealing to her readers, and continued to produce it.

There’s also quite a lot of wealthporn, where the characters describe their expensive clothes, jewelry, or lavish surroundings, none of them have to hold a dayjob or anything menial like that. Since many of us do not currently enjoy such luxuries of material goods and/or freedom of leisure time, it’s another element that might make it appealing to certain demographics. There’s a ton of wish fulfillment in the books. 

Hit the jump for a little more.

My reasons for being into VC

Basically, I was bullied when I was 11 (for having a bad fashion sense and bad teeth), which is right around the time that someone gave me a copy of IWTV. I had always loved horror novels and scary stories as a way to study monsters and see if I could unpack them and better understand them. I drew inspiration from the way the VC characters handled their own obstacles, I loved getting Lestat’s backstory, he was not just a colorful antagonist, he had his own reasons for acting the way he did. Reasons are not EXCUSES, but in understanding monstrous behavior, we can equip ourselves to weather it when we see it in real life. Eventually, I got braces, grew out of my 90′s grunge phase, and while the bullies changed form over time, I learned how to deal with them. 

Could I have drawn inspiration from other books/movies/music? Yes! And I did. But VC, for the intimacy of the stories, for the vibrancy of the characters, for so many reasons that I can’t go into on a post I’m trying to keep brief… this is a piece of media that I’ve held onto over the years. Not the only one, but certainly the main one, for me.

A few good posts to check out re: women in fandom:

And I don’t mean to attack you, Anon, but these posts are written with a tone because there is so much criticism of what women in fandom are not allowed to enjoy. Please read at your own risk, but they have some very good points about why women might be into certain things in fandom.

a comprehensive guide to mlm shipping habits in transformative fandom

THE DEPTHS OF MISOGYNY THIS PLACE PLUMBS

villain-relatable marginalization 

[sapphirescales]

hey! i was wondering if you had any advice for anyone who has just joined the community? how to get interactions and stuff like that? i've just joined and i'm not really sure what to do or how to set myself up

hey there! i’m working off the assumption that you know some basics. i’ve been in the rp for years now so a lot of this is borne from my own experience roleplaying here and what i wish people told me way back. it’s a lil harsh but i hope you’ll find this helpful

anyways, here’s a crash course:

ic =/= ooc: what this means is that, before you start roleplaying, remember that things that happen in-character are not supposed to be a reflection of out of character feelings. so, for example, if someone’s muse absolutely hates your muse, that doesn’t mean that the writer hates you. just because you, personally, hate a muse doesn’t mean that your muse should either. your personal assumptions about another character are unrelated and shouldn’t be reflected in what your muse assumes about another character. for example, you might personally think that iro.nman is overrated but your character might idolise him or aspire to be like him or be completely neutral; it’s not the same thing.

standard roleplay etiquette: read through all of someone’s available pages before you follow them; if someone’s taken the time to write up all those pages, take the time to read them. even if you think you’re a Veteran Roleplayer, who has seen every variation that you can about someone’s pages, read them. don’t reblog their out of character posts / headcanons / graphics unless it’s marked as okay to reblog. during interactions try not to godmod or metagame your partners ( if you don’t know what that is, a quick google search will help you out ). sometimes, certain blogs might cool with you following them but aren’t open to interacting with your character for various reasons ( for e.g. if your muse is someone who is dead in their canon and they want to keep that a fixed point, they might not be open to interacting with your character, especially if they have set headcanons already ) or they might not be okay with you following them at all – that’s okay, there’s plenty of other fish in the sea. people come and go in the rp community fairly often. keep your head up.

writing samples: if you’re really new to the rpc, and you’ve never written with anyone before, people might not write with you simply because they have no idea how you write. it’s nerve-wracking but start with some posts that show off your understanding and insight for your character; write some drabbles, do some character-development related things. that will help you for when you actually do start writing as well, because you’ll have developed your muse a little bit more!

get some pages set up: your navigation page isn’t all that important. if you’re playing a canon muse, neither is your bio page necessarily. what is important, and what will tell people the things they need to know about your blog and characterisation, is a rules page and also a verses page. even if your verses page is very basic, and isn’t very detailed or super pretty, that’s okay! get the information out there about what you’re willing & open to write, establish your boundaries and show people you’ve put some thought into your character.

work hard on your character: roleplay is a hobby and i’m fairly certain that this is an unpopular opinion but if your character is underdeveloped – if their personality seems to change for no discernable reason between each person you thread, and your writing style is in constant flux, it makes it really difficult to understand and for people to want to know your character. you don’t have to have someone completely fully fledged out, but work on them, on understanding and exploring them and making them have depth and people will get more interested.

try not to ask for interactions specifically based on ships: ships are wonderful and fun and really great but it can be really disheartening ( especially for female muses ) if you come to them specifically for the sake of writing to ship. it’s happened to me so many times and it’s both a sign that sb hasn’t read my rules and that they don’t really care about my muse, they just want to focus on shallow writing. not everyone is interested in writing ships, and some people might not necessarily be interested in writing ships with you. that’s okay! ships will happen naturally and hugely dependent on writing chemistry; it’ll happen in time.

don’t impose your backstory on other people: this applies to all types of characters, but the ones i see it happening with the most are original characters. if your character’s backstory assumes that somebody else’s muse has done something to / for your muse before you’ve even interacted, you’re probably better of writing fanfiction. many people – including myself – consider this a form of godmodding. 

stick to your guns: when you’re first starting out, it’s really easy to get sucked into doing threads that you personally feel like don’t go with your characterisation or isn’t headed where you want it to. feel free to drop them. stick to your character, and your interpretation. for example, when i was in the te//en wo//lf fandom, i was writing peter, and a lot of people were just looking for A Token Uncle to drag them, and not really interested in writing actual plots with me. it’s okay to want to write other threads; make your wishlist known.

roleplay is give and take: this is related to the one before but basically, don’t be selfish when you write, and don’t let others be selfish when they write with you. good threads that are enjoyable and memorable for both parties are threads where both partners ( or more, if you’re doing multi-player threads ) get to explore their characters and really build a character dynamic together. 

mix things up sometimes: it’s okay to want character consistency but try to mix things up when you’re writing threads with people; no one wants to have sixteen of the same kind of threads, especially from one person. try and mix things up and put a different spin to them! it’ll be fun for you and fun for your writing partner, too.

don’t steal things from other people: whether that means headcanons, verses or the exact way they’ve done their theme. i’ve even known people to go through duplicates’ blogs and basically reblog all their non-rp posts from the source. i’ve seen all kinds of stuff stolen and i’m here to tell you that people will notice. they always notice, whether it takes 5 mins or 50 years, people will notice. don’t do it.

focus less on your follow count: some ppl will have thousands of followers and only write with two people; others will have much less and write with most of them. the number of followers you have doesn’t matter; we’re all here writing because we have a character that we love very very much, whether that character is someone we’ve created or someone already existing in media. your follow count is not reflective of the quality of your writing; the quality of your interactions reflects that. so focus on building your character and character dynamics.

ugly truth #1 – the muse you play will reflect the interactions and attention you get: i’ve been in about five to six different fandoms since 2009, and i’ve noticed one thing – if you play a canon character, you’re more likely to get followers v quickly compared to original characters, regardless of if they’re fandom or fandomless ocs. if your muse is a cis man, you’re more likely to gain followers very quickly compared to if you’re playing trans man, women, trans women or enby folks. if you play a white person, you’re more likely to gain followers compared to if you write a person of colour, especially black muses. if you play a muse that does not ship sexually with men ( e.g. a lesbian muse or an ace muse ), you’re less likely to get followers very quickly. it’s an ugly truth, but don’t be discouraged. there WILL be people who write with you, you DON’T have to change your character in any way to make them more palatable. keep loving your muse and people will love them in return, i promise.

ugly truth #2 – aesthetics matter: they’re not reflective of quality of writing but they are used, in this rpc as a whole, as a way to measure the amount of time and dedication you put into your character. you don’t have to go and code a theme from scratch or create your own psds – although some people do, and if you can / like to, good for you! – but try and set up a nice, clean theme with clear links that isn’t one of the preset themes on this website. it’ll help so, so much with getting interactions, even if your theme is really really plain. it’s unfortunate that aesthetics do matter but no community is perfect.

ugly truth #3 – the rpc isn’t pretty: there’s always really disgusting people lurking around. there’s callout posts flying back and forth to the point you don’t know who to believe. whilst one person says one thing is okay, someone else says it’s not. there’s other petty drama, vagues everywhere. it’s pretty nervewracking and hugely intimidating. it’s likely that you’ll get involved. it’s very likely that someone could call you out for something you’ve written that they find is a problem. the rpc isn’t pretty – but neither is real life, and because we’re a community of people, Real Life Issues ( like racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, biphobia, islamophobia, anti-semitism, ethnocentricism, etc etc ) often get carried over to the online community. it’s not a pretty reality, but it is a reality that you’ll have to deal with, just like you would have to in real life. if someone points out that you really messed up, it doesn’t matter how long ago you did that thing, find out how to apologise sincerely for the hurt you’ve caused, and apologise properly. if you’ve overstepped your bounds, apologise properly. if someone is throwing baseless accusations, defend yourself clearly and calmly and the people who matter will know and understand. if you see something someone else has said or done or written, which is offensive, talk to them first ( and, yes, this means if you’re white and you see a mutual doing a racist thing, you should definitely go and talk to them ). the rpc isn’t pretty at all, but it’s our community – and now it’s yours, too. you have a social responsibility to make the community safe. 

the energy you put out is the energy you’ll receive: you’ve just joined the community but the community is huge and no one will necessarily go out to receive you. there’s no easy way to get interactions, but i firmly believe that the amount of time and effort you put out is what you’ll get in return. don’t just sit around waiting for other people to interact with you; make an effort. if they ask for compliments or constructive feedback, send something in. if they reblog memes and their blog is open to memes from non-mutuals, send something in. make starter calls, make open posts. ask for constructive feedback – maybe it’s something in your interpretation or the way you write that might put some people off ( and if it’s legitimate, think about it, and if it’s not or it’s something nitpicky, move on and find new people to follow ). i understand that it’s hugely nerve wracking – i’ve got anxiety as well, and i’m always nervous when following new people. in facti’m pretty guilty of this particular thing myself, even after all these years. but roleplaying isn’t like fic-writing; it’s necessary to interact with others. and, just like in real life, sometimes you just have to make the effort first and not keep track of how many times you’ve done it, and focus on the fact that you’ve got a ton of new friends and writing partners.

treat others how you want to be treated!!!