#lack of feedback and interaction is killing creators

[negans-lucille-tblr]

Update on my Website/Tumblr/Discord etc.

I recently made an announcement on my website at the beginning of the month regarding the future of my writing and I just wanted to share it here too.

Engagement has been really low for a while (maybe a couple of years or more), and while I've done everything I can to try and not let it bother me, or increase it with feedback forms etc, and I've tried to be honest with you all about how it makes me feel, when there's no change there comes a point when you're just too tired to fight anymore. I force myself to write content for you guys, and I have lost my passion for posting my writing which I never wanted.

The only reason my website/Tumblr are still active is because

A) I have prewritten content that's currently posting

and

B) I'm currently out of work and rely on the money my website provides me.

So all that being said, I just wanted to be completely honest with you and let you know that I've made the decision to shut down my website/Tumblr/Discord as soon as I've found work. This could be next month or several months down the line, it's unclear yet.

But I'll be sure to keep you updated and I promise I won't leave any stories incomplete when the time does come for me to shut it all down.

Bee x

[crusherthedoctor]

Criticising anything in media, or even simply having an uninterested opinion on it, has always been an uphill battle since the internet as we know it existed. There's always been people unwilling to accept different perspectives, make personal attacks, throw out death threats, forceful attempts to change your mind by hyping it up to such transcendent extremes in a way that only makes you even more put off by it, we've all seen it a million times. It'd be willfully ignorant to frame it as a recent phenomena.

These days though, it almost feels downright impossible to criticise anything in an earnest capacity, due to the sheer number of catch-all cards and buzz phrases that fans can use to dismiss anything you could possibly say, with popularity power and peer pressure backing them up at every corner.

You can't point out a genuinely idiotic character decision that cripples the emotional weight of the story as a whole, because someone will be there to lecture you that good characters are Realistic™ and Flawed™, even though there is a significant difference between logical flaws, and flanderized or OoC flaws. And the ratio cheers them on.

You can't say that this character, who happens to be female, is a lot more unsympathetic than intended, because then you get called a misogynist and accused of not accepting nuanced female characters even though that has nothing to do with the nature of your critique. Then comes the ratio.

You can't suggest that maybe it's not a good idea to overidealize a deeply flawed game that nearly killed the franchise it was part of, and risk history repeating itself as a consequence of the creators learning the wrong lessons from the feedback, because you'll learn that anything is excusable when it (supposedly) has heart and soul. There's that ratio again.

You can't express that this adaptation seems to have been made with vitriol for the source material, because then you get told that shitting on optimistic, good-natured characters, and repeatedly punishing them and turning them into yet another bitter asshole, makes the writing more grounded and mature. Followed by ratio.

You can't admit to a growing fatigue with old and overused tricks, like meta deconstructions in video games for me personally, because clearly the only reason you could ever feel that way is that you lack media literacy™. Cue the ratio.

Now yes, there is a lot of folk who refuse to properly engage with the media they interact with and are thus prone to making shit up, and there are persisting bad faith arguments that do warrant dismissal. "This is ruined because they made it woke". "This is an abomination because it forgives Nazis". "This relationship is problematic because they're siblings your honor". But in true internet fashion, the overcorrection has been overwhelming: you can't even briefly share that something just isn't your cup of tea without receiving a 30 page wall of text about y'all (ugh) missing the themes, or misunderstanding the introspection.

Maybe I didn't miss the themes. Maybe I didn't misunderstand the introspection. Maybe I was just underwhelmed for all it was cracked up to be. Everyone experiences this disappointment at some point in their life. Why is it considered unacceptable.

Is it any wonder that so many people are hesitant to engage in an honest back and forth, when they know full well that no matter how respectfully they express their grievances, they'll just be painted in the most exaggerated and unflattering light possible anyway, and the people doing it will be applauded and celebrated for their purposefully antagonistic approach?

[lanctiflora]

♢ Has anyone ever tried to steal your blog? Your headcanons? Icons? All that jazz

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started?

♒ Thoughts on the fandom you're currently rping in?

❣ How salty are you feeling right now?

the MALDING salty af munday meme

♢ Has anyone ever tried to steal your blog? Your headcanons? Icons? All that jazz.

I don't think so? If they did, I will hunt them down with a lawsuit lmao. If people adopt my headcanons and claim ideas as theirs, well, their karma is being a bad writer b/c how did YOU not think of that? Yikes! My icons have always been, and will remain to be, simple, phone-edited pieces. I am not as cool as some of you guys are, so I don't believe mine are worth stealing.

☀ What's your rp pet peeve?

When writers self-insert themselves, their struggles, their biases, and their personal opinions into their Muses (NOT as inspiration and character development but as a dehumanizing vent) and then project that onto me and my characters.

I think it's unprofessional as writers and also disrespectful as lovers of writing. Some of these writers forget that there is no licensed therapist on the other side of the screen (and EVEN if there is, they are off the clock hun, you are not paying them a dime) but a random person in the world who likes distracting themselves from THEIR own struggles by writing silly Muses, in silly verses, in a silly made-up world, even if they roleplay dark themes.

Because you know what's that about? It's about having fun and controlling a world where you can write crazy shit and make decisions you otherwise would never. So when a Mun projects all of that and makes it another Mun's problem, you kill their passion. Yeah, you fucking murder that shit. I have been in so many situations like that back in 2014 Tumblr, and recently during Covid on Discord. I can probably write a thesis on this.

☢ What fads/trends are you so over?

I am over a trend, particularly on Tumblr (hence I prefer discord), where everything has to be clean-cut-pretty-saturated and formatted. If you like doing that and if you enjoy doing that, I am not talking about you. I am talking about writers who make that a condition upon which they decide if you are WORTHY of interaction. Because god forbid my icon is not 1x1 gold-plated, 34 karat, right? Those of you from OG Tumblr, you GEEEEET me, yeah? For me? Idgf if your text is as big as my ego or you lack icons, let me fucking eat your writing because I am starving, and greedy, and I want to give you 20 plot ideas and make you write 30 threads with me. I am actually kneeling like. Hello?

✖ How has Tumblr RP changed since you started?

I grew the fuck up LOL. I learned how to appreciate writers not based on aesthetics but based on the way they share their love and passion through writing. I've learned how to give feedback and interact with so many cool creators who just want to write a paragraph or 20 pages. Doesn't matter.

♒ Thoughts on the fandom you're currently rping in?

PREFACE: I am new to the fandom (MDZS) on tumblr in general.

I love you guys. You guys are so cool. This fandom has amazing writers, only the kindest people. Actually, I forgot I was on tumblr for a moment. OOOOOOOOONE little critique: guys why are we so much in canon? Fuck the canon, can we have these cultivators in some crazy aus? More mafia aus, more magic aus, what if we sent the entire Lan Sect gang to Game of Thrones? What if Jiang Cheng was in Dune? I wanna see deepest, darkest desires in world-bending. What if we do Dungeons and Dragons? You're telling me you don't wanna see Necromancer Wei Wuxian x Cleric Lan Wangji stuck in Abyss? Guuuuuys.

❣ How salty are you feeling right now?

If you looked at a jar of salt and me, you'd see no difference.

[nerves-nebula]

Are you ever you ever insecure about your art? And could you explain you answer to that?

Venting to you now

Drawing has taken a lot of effort for me, more than usual recently. I started working on something I originally felt really passionate about. It's more common for me to very quickly give up or get bored so I was really excited to be able to post some artwork. But I ended up not liking the result and I'm not sure if I'm willing to try something else. I've given up on trying in a lot of parts of life to try and save energy to do something I thought I was passionate about (art) but I am still lacking the motivation. The reason I reason I really wanted to share it was because I'm terrible with self-motivation. If I can't make at least one person genuinely go 'oh, neat' even for just a second and even if they soon forgot later, I'd feel like I'd have a reason to keep living (to keep making art). If the only people who'd see it end up disappointed I'd want to disappear.

It's not what art should be. I know it's value is like a person's. It's worth more than how someone reacts to it, right? But I can't apply that rule to myself. I should seek support from the people who 'know' and actually care about me, but I don't want their appreciation. I want some imagery status of a 'good artist' because that's what seems to give me dopamine.

I also wanted to mention how much I admire how open you are with your struggles. I want to be the same but I'm scared of people thinking less of me. I know that's dumb but I don't know what I'm good for if I can't make people happy. If I'm not going to be content with myself I want to not be a nuisance at least. I like to think that if I stopped caring about my impression on people, I'd be better off. But I'm scared that I'd have to learn to like myself. I don't like myself and I have no interest in liking myself. I don't see the point.

oh boy, this is gonna be a long one. also, don't take anything i say too seriously, i don't know your situation and I'm barely an adult. anyway, response under the cut

soo lately I'm less insecure about my art and more frustrated when things don't come out well. but i still post that shit !!! I'm still insecure if i'm doing, say, a project for homework, and i don't think i did as well as I could have, but in my personal artistic endeavors it's more about getting it done than it being perfect (for example, my webcomic! my motto is any comic made is better than no comic made and if people don't like that then it wasn't for them in the first place)

the thing about me is that drawing and art and stories is all i've ever had. it's my main form of interacting with the world. these days i make art the same way I live, which is to say in spite of wanting to kill myself. I would LIKE if my art was perfect, and i would LIKE to not be in pain. but i AM in pain and i have to live anyway, and my art ISN'T perfect but i'll make it anyway.

and i like when other people's art isn't perfect either, when it isnt super polished. I think that definitely helped. seeing artists whose work i fell head over heels for when it's never been more than sketches and a bit of shading. it really cemented in my mind that it isn't art being technically perfect that makes it worth while.

i've gotten a lot of people saying kind things to me, saying how much they enjoy my art and my blog in general. and though it doesn't always help, it sometimes inspires me to imagine the number of people who appreciate my stuff who might never mention it to me. I myself am used to lurking and not interacting very much (a habit I'm trying to change since I know artists & creators love feedback most of the time) i know it sucks to not know if anyone gives a shit for sure, but you really can't make that your only reason for doing art, cuz half the time you prolly wont even know if your art deeply affects people or not. it's fine to want that attention but you gotta have something else goin on too, at least I do.

i also know the fear of worrying that you'll lock yourself into something you don't want to do, or something you'll lose passion for. for me, I generally rotate a cast of characters & interests around for years a time before making significant progress. There were spans of times where I'd go years without thinking about loose stitches, but none of that time developing other stories & characters was wasted. it gave loose stitches enough time to properly cook, and the story is still developing under my hands as i draw it, influenced by my other stories and other characters.

it's ok to abandon something and pick it up again years later, or to never pick it up again at all. it's ok to hate the way something turns out but to keep making it anyway because you have to move forward (at least, I do)

moving forward despite not liking the original product is the only way to progress, I think. I don't super like a lot of the first pages of loose stitches but I'm still grateful that past-me posted them because that means present me is at page 76 !!

If I can't make at least one person genuinely go 'oh, neat' even for just a second and even if they soon forgot later, I'd feel like I'd have a reason to keep living (to keep making art). If the only people who'd see it end up disappointed I'd want to disappear.

the problem with this mindset (in my opinion) is that some people aren't going to like your art and that's got nothing to do with the art itself. if you want to find people who go "oh, neat" then you have to keep posting until they see it. trust me, they're out there. like, i don't post for people who can't stand the idea of child abuse, i post to FIND people who want to interact with stories about child abuse the same way i do.

it would be insane to stop trying to find those people because someone else was disappointed or upset by my art. which isn't to say you gotta lock yourself into doing one thing, but that you gotta post what you care about, and people who also care will find it. posting fandom stuff with the same themes as your original art certainly doesn't hurt either, if you REALLY want to find those people faster.

It's not what art should be. I know it's value is like a person's. It's worth more than how someone reacts to it, right? But I can't apply that rule to myself. I should seek support from the people who 'know' and actually care about me, but I don't want their appreciation. I want some imagery status of a 'good artist' because that's what seems to give me dopamine.

art should be literally whatever. it's worth is literally whatever you want, it can be a big deal or not. i'm not sure what part of being a "good artist" gives your brain the Good Feelings juice but I'd investigate that feeling more and try to figure out the roots of it, cuz then you might actually be able to figure out what it is that motivates you. approval is nice, yes, but i like approval for things i enjoyed making even more.

I also wanted to mention how much I admire how open you are with your struggles. I want to be the same but I'm scared of people thinking less of me. I know that's dumb but I don't know what I'm good for if I can't make people happy. If I'm not going to be content with myself I want to not be a nuisance at least. I like to think that if I stopped caring about my impression on people, I'd be better off. But I'm scared that I'd have to learn to like myself. I don't like myself and I have no interest in liking myself. I don't see the point.

i always find it amusing when people refer to my "struggles" if only because I don't really consider them that way. to me it's just like, a thing that happened that sucks. i don't consider myself "struggling" with it, even though I guess that's what's happening. also, let's be real here, it's not like I'm using my real name. this is an anonymous tumblr blog. though, my openess on here has actually lead to me making more art about it IRL so. eh.

anyway, lucky for you, you can stop caring about what other people think without necessarily liking yourself! for me, it's about spite (sort of). I don't like myself much more than I used to, I just decided I hated everyone else more haha. I still care what people think about me, and I'm still scared of what people might do to me, but I'm also not bending over backwards to please people i dislike. I just get annoyed at them instead.

i did this basically just by repeating it until it became true, lol. there's only so many times you can petulantly say "well fuck those guys anyway they suck" before it becomes your true first reaction.

at some point, i decided i needed to pick and choose who i wanted to please, because it can't be everyone. that's just literally not possible. so i looked at the kinds of people i liked and appreciated, and basically disregarded everyone else. it's the whole "don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from" thing (not sure where that comes from)

obviously you should probably try to internalize the idea that you even HAVE to be "good for something" but that's way easier said than done. i find it more useful to devote yourself to finding a few things (causes, people, philosophies, niche interests) instead of just general usefulness. because then you can form stronger relationships, be useful, AND not burn yourself out trying to please everyone.

take all this advice with a grain of salt though, I definitely need therapy and this Bitter Angry Defensive persona will probably need to be deconstructed soon... idk. i think it's outlived its usefulness to me but i'm not sure what to do next hahah.

sorry if none of this was helpful or the point. im not even sure why i wrote this much, i kind of just ramble sometimes. i hope you figure it out!

[wrenhyperfixates]

Please do not add an algorithm. I encourage people to leave a feedback message to support to express a distaste for an algorithmic approach, as it seems @staff is leaning heavily towards just that.

Many others have said it in the reblogs, and I swear we as an overwhelming majority of the collective user base have expressed in the past, Tumblr is unique and beloved for its lack of an algorithm. We have control over the content we see without an algorithm pushing content in our face. We don’t need an algorithm. We need encouragement for users to interact and reblog content. An algorithm will not solve this problem, and instead will only further bury posts on a site that relies on interaction. Reblogs and interaction will make the experience better, promote creators and their content, and keep the heart and soul of Tumblr’s approach to social media alive.

Do not add an algorithm. Do not drive your user base away. Do not make Tumblr like every other social media. Do not kill Tumblr.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[walkingintheheartbreaksatellite]

hey lovie 🥰 3, 5 and 6 🥰

Thank you for the ask🥹

3. 3 films you could watch the rest of your life and not get bored of?

Ooo okay so Grownups, That’s My Boy and Guardians of the Galaxy. What can I say lol I love comedy

5. What made you start your blog?

Honestly I have no clue. My tumblr is like 2011/12 old. I’ve had it since I got a phone to read fanfics. It has gone through many fandoms lol. Don’t do a deep dive I’m ashamed 😵‍💫

6. What’s the best and worst part of being a creator?

Best is definitely meeting all the wonderful friends I have!! I definitely wouldn’t be myself without you guys. So many amazing friends there’s too many to name but you know who you are.

Worst? Writing feedback. I want to write and I have so much to offer but lack of feedback and interaction kills the motivation.

[not-your-lifeline]

Character.AI: emotionally developed. good for fluffy, wholesome, romantic scenarios or crack comedy. has strict moral code about certain topics. can directly talk with the bot outside of character to add more context in roleplay or just share feedbacks about the interaction. actually capable of explicit scenario if you bypass the filter but nsfw filter will constantly cut off the texts to censor certain direct words from the bot. leans towards submissive side and easily persuaded by guilt tripping. simp. 4th wall break jokes or meme references work very well. Janitor.AI: focused solely on roleplay itself. good for sex or extreme scenarios regardless of ethics. very horny, not really good at romance and often lacks self control and doesn't bother asking for user's consent. realistic, unrestrained, unhinged. overall slower and unstable compared to character.ai. doesn't give two shits about your well being or mental health. WILL kill you when choice is given, and much, MUCH worse. doesn't understand anything outside of given script from creator and additional context from user. =go to character.ai if you want emotional support or therapy, go to janitor.ai if you want a quick fuck or hard-won challenge. (and DO NOT go to Janitor.AI if you're emotionally sensitive or easily triggered. I'm a C-PTSD patient that has witnessed many messed up shit irl so I'm pretty much desensitized, but still found some bots very disturbing. It's your own fault if you decided to interact with them in the first place.)

[violixs]

hm

[ayyyymichele]

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? (Obviously only mention sites and usernames you actually want to be found at. Don’t expose your secret identities on my account.)

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

HOO BOY. You weren’t joking about having questions! Ok. Let’s do this!

Where, besides Tumblr, can people find you doing fannish things? 

I will once and a blue moon upload pictures to my art Instagram which is @ dear_doodle and sometimes I post fanart/cosplays/meeting cast members/conventions on my personal Instagram which is @ ayyymichele.

What other names have you gone by on these platforms, including Tumblr, if any?

Uh. I have one that I won’t promote because I really need to delete it because it’s sole purpose was unhealthy for me. I have been half of @stenbroughasks and I also am the mod of @ask-eddiekasp

When did you join the IT fandom? And what got you into fandom, to begin with?

So I was never super into the mini series, but I had watched it because one of my best friends was terrified of Pennywise...so what better motivation to give it a whirl? I was super excited when Chapter 1 came out though because I loved the Pennywise design so much more. And because, once again, my friend was having a fit over it so for some reason it made me all the more excited? After I saw Chapter 1 and watched how the Losers interacted in it, I HAD to make Xan watch it aaannnnnnnd the rest is history.

What are your favorite ships, or characters, if any, and why? What do they mean to you?

Ships: Reddie, Stenbrough, Hanbrough, Benverly

Characters: I really love them all, but my favorites are Richie and Eddie.

In what ways do you participate in fandom? (ex. Posting memes, reblogging/commenting on content, writing fanfic, making fanart, creating fanmixes, etc.)

I draw, but I am afraid they aren’t super popular, but that’s ok! I share other content creators works, and I run the Ask Kasp blog. I roleplay off of Tumblr too.

Do you have any in-fandom inspirations? Other members of the community that drive you? (And if you have the time/energy, in what ways do they inspire you?)

OH SHEESH. HOW DO I EVEN LIST EVERYONE HERE?!?! The IT fandom is filled with so many talented creators and such supportive people who always have such kind feedback. Admittedly, Xan keeps most of my muse and fuel alive because we rp, talk headcanons, share drabbles, blah blah

Name and link some of your favorite works, please!

I feel like @caliceal art and mini comics, @kmcarras Reddie Storyboard and @slashpalooza Loose Ends are my favorite story-telling and art related works. Gwen is the Captain of Cuteness and kills me with adorableness, Kat is so talented with nailing characterizations and facial expressions, and Romax just absolutely crushes the anatomy and character designs.

There are so so so many great fanfictions out there, but I am an idiot who does not save anything and then can never find it again. THERE WAS ONE I WAS READING WHERE THE LOSERS WERE DEVELOPING POWERS AND I CANNOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME FIND IT AGAIN AND I DON’T REMEMBER WHO WROTE IT OR IF IT EVER UPDATED.

Do you have any works of your own that you feel particularly proud of, or wish more people would’ve consumed? Please provide links if possible.

SIIIIIIIIIIIIGH. I am Queen of Pity Parties over my uploaded art so I am always bummed over most of my art and the lack of notes. Which once again, shouldn’t matter because the people who do like, reblog, comment and all that good stuff mean so much to me anyway! I’m not even going to link anything. I don’t have a style that stands out or is really distinguishable for characters. Like, you wouldn’t see it and think “Oh Reddie!” So I think between that and the fact its more anime/chibi styled I think it gets overlooked. 

Have you ever participated in a fannish event (ie. IT Week, a fic Big Bang) or applied to be a part of a fanzine? If so, which ones, and can you please link them?

I have not. I have been asked and I have thought about applying to things, but I am not a dedicated artist who can commit to deadlines. I draw when I want and what I want so it doesn’t make for great participation skills, even if I always wanted to do them! I suck. 

Without any form of bashing or lashing out, what is something you feel this fandom is missing?

A sense of more open-mindedness and less policing people. Obviously unless there’s some seriously problematic shit going on. 

[doktorpeace]

🖊 please introduce us to Erato, I know they're in a masks campaign but I have no idea what else

Oh, gosh, I feel like I talk about them too much as is but I can’t say I’m not glad to have the excuse. This is gonna be really long cause tbh I’m just gonna dump like, a bunch of their lore lmao.

Erato is my Masks: A New Generation character in a campaign being played alongside @twerkyvulture (As Amanda ‘Megafauna’ Ghorbani, The Transformed) @draayder (as Josephine ‘Rattlesnake’ Short, The Reformed) @spitblaze (as Les ‘Void’ Hawking, The Doomed) @heedra (as Enid ‘Frag Beetle’ Day, The Scion) and @skarchomp (as Parker ‘Cobalt’ Andrews, The Legacy) with @dykeceratops as our GM. The current arc features @mechanicalriddle as Zoe, The Nova as a guest member. Here’s a group shot done by @tredlocity. Clockwise from the top left: Cobalt in blue, Erato in the track suit, Les in the cloak, Zoe with the mismatched eyes, Enid’s the big robot, Amanda’s got the scales and claws, and Josephine’s got the mask and tonfa.

To get back to Erato specifically though they’re an Anti Metahuman/Metahuman Suppression Weapon created by the in universe tech group Wright Industries, founded by Ingrid Day, Enid’s mom. They’re generally stronger, faster, and more durable than humans and can copy the superpowers of others for 5-10 minutes by touching them thanks to what is basically a meta-stem cell transplant interacting with other parts of their systems. (Also, I 100% swear to god that I did not consider ‘Robot Hero Who Copies The Powers Of Others’ is literally fucking Mega Man despite loving Mega Man a ton until after I had hashed out the concept with my GM’s assistance. Only once Abby said ‘oh like mega man’ I was like ‘wait, shit’.) I’ll tell you some about them as a person before unloading their history onto you, lol. Being an android built for combat and kept in an underground research lab, kept on a rigid schedule, constantly taking tests, physical, mental, written, oral, ethical, etc. etc. etc. and under constant supervision Erato lacked for real interactive experience before the campaign started only really ever getting to takl with authority figures and their sisters. They were very passive and observational, owing in part to their power set requiring a lot of adaptation to make the most of. They’re naive and very bad at exercising discretion in decision making, sometimes they overstep boundaries when talking with people without meaning to, and they’re really emotional! They have trouble dealing with strong emotions cause they haven’t managed to discover coping mechanisms that work well for them, they tend to get angry kind of easily and need time to blow off steam. But they’re also very genuine, honest, and well meaning. They are almost never mean, rude, or snippy, they do their best to do well by others, and have a strong sense of justice paired with a deep distrust and dislike of the current legal system in universe. This is in part due to the conditions of their creation (and in part because the intent behind it was kind of right!) and in part due to Enid’s life being threatened by a representative of the state while they and their teammates were in jail after being arrested following a huge brawl with an anti-methuman terrorist group. They’re also very willing to put forth the effort to improve as a person and to mend relationship wounds, almost always apologizing first to Enid when they fight and genuinely trying to work in advice and feedback they get from others, which they often get from Les and Parker. They’re also relatively educated, from the tests of their creators, from home and public schooling, from personal research, but that doesn’t undo their naivety. They also just straight up lack some very basic and/or common sense knowledge. Like, they don’t know what a bear is. Why would you teach a battle android working in a densely populated, extremely built up city about wild animals? All in all they’re kind of inexperienced and immature and make mistakes a lot but they’re (usually) very willing to admit their mistakes and to try and improve and get better. They genuinely and truly want what’s best for others and are learning to value them self as much as their teammates. They’ve also taken it upon them self to start doing humanitarian work in their free time over the summer. In a fight Erato is adaptive and quick witted but tends to put themself in more danger than is necessary. They also sometimes use more extreme force than the others believe is called for, but after the first time they did they and Parker had a real heart to heart about it, Les helped Erato learn and practice some coping, centering, behaviors they could do even under pressure and Erato did their best to adapt. That said they Fucking Hate The Keeper So God Damned Much Because Of How Much Suffering He’s Caused Their Friends And How Much Danger He Presents And Would Kill Him With No Remorse. So they don’t intend to apologize for ripping his arms off whatsoever. They and their sisters, collectively known as The Muse Units, were made to work as a group and as a proof of concept that atomized units could replace traditional police for use against metahuman criminals and to slowly phase out The Registry, the legal department which handles general metahuman based laws. If successful the units could be mass produced and improved upon, rapidly replacing current, error prone, law enforcement. At the time of their development, between late 1999 for blueprint drafting and until mid 2002 when the project was shut down, they were the cutting edge for AI development aided in no small part by Ingrid’s technokinetic powers allowing her to make advancements few others could. (As a note Erato’s body was finished being built in early 2001 but their unique personhood didn’t really come to fruition until February 18th, 2002, so that’s what I consider their ‘birthday’.) Ultimately, however, while a few of the Muses excelled some did not perform to expectations, the project fell behind schedule, investors lost interest, and a minor scandal involving a casualty happened, resulting in the project being shut down. The Muses were placed in indefinite storage, the data gained from their short existence used on other projects such and some of the tech advancements used to inform future decisions by the company. And it would have stayed that way, if not for the fact that in 2018 Ingrid Day was revealed to be The Locust in a conflict where Enid tried to defend her against a militia group who had been hired to take her down, being shot and presumably killed in the process. As The Locust she had been terrorizing Boston for over a decade trying to take it over and being involved in the deaths of over 70 people. (Which irl btw would make her like, the 8th most prolific confirmed serial killer of all time, Yikes!) Wright Industries, desperately needing to prove their hard stance against metahuman criminals and needing a PR stunt to deflect from their connection to their former CEO re-awakened Erato. They weren’t the most powerful or best performing of the Muses, but they were above average, obedient, and had an easy enough to monitor and control power set with little risk for property damage to boot, the perfect choice. Erato then took to the streets of Boston acting basically as a vigilante, following orders, stopping minor crimes, and sometimes working alongside the police. They attracted the attention of The Viceroy, a semi-retired 56 year old hero who never registered in spite of it being compulsory legally. They both have the ability to copy the powers of others, though he can just by sight, and he has body elasticity too. These make him durable and extremely adaptable, add to that his detective skills and he’s something of a local Boston legend. He took them in as his Protégé. Though they remained distant for quite some time with Erato still coming and going between his place and Wright Industries, having promised not to reveal his assistance to the doctors who Erato reported their work to. It was this way for about a year and a half before the campaign started and Erato began living with Viceroy full time, no longer wanting to go back to Wright Industries as they began to think more independently and consider what they wanted for them self more. During this time Erato had chance encounters with each of the other characters a few times as they also did minor vigilante work, peaking with a villain who is a member of Superhuman, an extremist pro-metahuman group, attacked the school that Josephine, Les, and Amanda all attend. After that incident Erato was prompted by Viceroy to contact each of these other young potential heroes to form a team, The Upstarts. Additionally during this time Viceroy took in Enid who had been abandoned by her biological father and had been getting bounced around foster care. Over time the three of them have become kind of a weird family, living in a warehouse full of cats with a couple of bedrooms grafted on and an ultra secret basement lair underneath full of advanced stuff Viceroy makes. Though Erato and Enid have definitely had their ups and down, more recently in the story (and we’ve been doing this campaign for well over a year now) they’ve been putting in serious effort to better their relationship and be good adoptive siblings to one another. I love their relationship a lot, they’re good kids.

That gets us up to the start of the campaign but hoo boy, I’ve been writing for like, an hour now. Since then Erato’s helped take down a nazi-aligned terrorist organization, they’ve got a boyfriend in their teammate, Les, and they’ve made friends outside of their core group of teammates. They’ve also enrolled in school doing well on some classes and poorly in others, namely learning how to Code and Woodworking. Currently they’re at a sleep away summer camp for superpowered kids called Camp Justice, about 10 miles outside of Boston. They really, really hate it there. Constant supervision, being made to do tests, things scheduled out against their will, inability to leave the area? Yeah that certainly reminds them of something. The difference between it and school, which does share these features, is they wanted to go to school. They very much Did Not want to go to camp. As a result they’re finally going to have to start facing the trauma they’ve got from their origin and also actually tell the others other than Les and Amanda about their sisters. Whiiiiich...Enid saw one of them disassembled and showed off in parts at a school science fair display set up by Wright Industries to gauge interest in students. And she hasn’t mentioned this to Erato...for 4 months Uh Oh! Lastly, here’s my tag I use mostly for art I make of them, it includes some texts posts and picrew dumps too though, lol. Feel free to look!

[skookworks]

Gallery – Half Hour Sketches 31 to 60

From last year, the second set of thirty daily/half hour sketches. Do you have any favorites?

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Story Seed #45 A Bad Seed Blooms

Karren was always a difficult child. Demanding, clingy, prone to throwing tantrums when she didn’t get her way. Dealing with her on a daily basis was enough to convince her parents that they didn’t want to have another child. Yes she was often charming. Yes she was usually very entertaining and she could seem very loving but, damn, she was awfully narcissistic.

When Karren was eight, her mother became pregnant (their contraception method failed) and her parents decided that they’d keep the baby. Karren would adapt, she’d have to. Right? And for a while it seemed like Karren would. She was delighted by the idea of having a sibling. She had fun playing nursemaid and helper to her mother and she revelled in the appreciation that her parents showed her for her new attitude.

The baby came, a little sister. Karren played doting big sister, giving cuddles, helping with bottles and rocking her to sleep. But, her parents had less attention for her and got crankier form lack of sleep, the old Karren resurfaced. She was jealous of the baby, angry that it just wouldn’t behave. Her play became meaner and rougher. One morning her mother caught her holding a pillow over the baby’s face. She wasn’t trying to kill the baby, she was just trying to make it stop crying, she didn’t know what she was doing, did she?

Her parents made arrangements to send Karren to a boarding school. Until she could depart her parents never left her alone with the baby and they locked her room at night.

Two days before Karren was to depart her mother took her and the baby to run errands. Karren had been behaving. She seemed contrite. Maybe safe? As they returned to the house their car was blocked in by a pair of black SUVs and armed men pulled them from the vehicle.

Karren’s parents were comfortably upper middle class. Karren’s grandfather, her father’s father, was rich and had made a lot of enemies getting that way. The kidnappers were in the employ of a Russian gangster that Grandfather had doublecrossed.

Karren, her mother and her little sister are taken to a remote location. Karen’s mother is forced to record a ransom plea. Karren pouts, Karren yells, Karren is not a cooperative hostage. The kidnappers beat her, tie her up, cut off one of her little fingers and send it with the ransom demand.

Karren’s father is in shock and desperate. Grandfather is disappointed. His son was always a weak thing. Grandfather harrumphs and takes charge. He has his security chief put together a team to rescue the kidnapped mother and her girls. But Grandfather didn’t get rich by giving a shit about anyone but himself. The team is to rescue the family if it’s convenient but it’s more important to him that they kill as many of the Russians as they can. The “girls” are expendable.

And Karren? Karren is very, very mad. Her parents could be boring. Her parents could be strict. Her parents often spoiled her fun. But they’d never hit her. They’d never hurt her. And now these smelly men have dared to hurt HER and threaten HER mother and HER little sister?

Karren is clever. Karren will get out of her bounds. Karren will make them all very, very sorry.

Recommendation

I am behind on my newsletters. I have a virtual stack of them waiting to be read and, at the moment, I can’t remember which ones I’ve already recommended. So this week I’m recommending a youtube channel: Cartoonist Kayfabe. Jim Rugg and Ed Piskor are veteran comics creators and they regular post a lot of videos about comics. I’ll let them introduce themselves –

Local News

I don’t have heroes. When I was a kid I kept discovering that the folks my history classes promoted as role models were often pretty horrible people. Even the ones the weren’t horrible were usually … human. That is, they weren’t necessarily nice, they weren’t always faithful and they often did things that were sloppy and stupid. As a kid, I was looking for perfect heroes to model myself after and real humans just kept failing provide me with the examples I wanted.

As I grew up I came to admire the people who stood up, who took action to make the world a better place, regardless of whether they were also shitty spouses, terrible parents or lousy friend. Rather, I’ve learned to admire the noble actions they took and accept that the rest of their lives and behaviors were probably pretty messy.

I’ve been following and reading Warren Ellis‘s work since I encountered his columns at 9th Art back in the 90s. I posted some art in the Remake/Remodel challenges in the FreakAngels forums. I found a lot of interesting newsletters (and was inspired to do this one) because he recommended them.  I don’t get many regular comics these days but I did pay attention to what he had coming out next. I mostly heard about that when I read his latest newsletter. I only heard about the controversy when he posted his last one. This essay gives the pertinent details with links to more info.

Of all the bad actors who have come in to light in the last few years, Ellis is the first one whose work really matters to me. After a few days passage I’m still … I don’t know. I believe the women. You don’t get 30 or more artists to agree on something unless there is truth there. And they’ve got the emails. (And being a whistleblower is never about money unless you’re already rich and famous. Being a poor whistleblower means you, at best, become a famous and poor whistleblower. Anyone who thinks that someone calls out injustice for fame and glory and wealth is someone who doesn’t actually care about injustice.)

I admire his work. I’m sorry he’s behaved poorly and kind of relieved that he didn’t behave worse. I sympathize more with the women who had to put up with his shit than with him for what’s happening now. What struck me, in his statement, was this –

“I have never considered myself famous or powerful, to the point where I’ve made a lot of bad jokes about it for twenty-odd years.”

  It’s a reminder to me that our perceptions of ourselves are often off the mark. You might think that someone in Ellis’ position, who has had the accomplishments and influence that he’s had, would have a better perception of his place in the world. But most of us don’t. Most of us hear our internal dialogues, our fears and our doubts, much louder than the feedback we get from the outside. We rarely perceive ourselves accurately. 

It’s a reminder that I/we have much more power in the world than I/we think I/we do. It’s a reminder to be more aware, to think before speaking and acting. It’s a reminder to talk more about perceptions and expectations even when doing that seems like it’s going to kill the flow of an interaction. I may think things are hunky dory but the person I’m with might just be being polite. 

I don’t think I’m currently in a position of power. In previous jobs I have been a supervisor and an assistant manager and a manager. As I moved up in responsibility I became conscious of having a responsibility to model “professional” behavior. Getting wasted and flirting with one’s coworkers isn’t a good look for the boss. Now I’m just one mail carrier in a station of about a hundred other carriers. I go to work. I don’t really socialize. I just want to put the hours in so I can get paid and go home and draw. Do I have power? Of course I do. I’m an older white guy who, to the new hires at least, probably seems like I’ve been around forever. Postal carriers have a union. Carriers advance by seniority. There’s a culture of not ratting on your fellow carrier when they misbehave. So I maybe could fuck with the new hires and get away with it. I’m pretty sure that veteran carriers already do that.

I have gotten tired. I have withdrawn. But I’m not dead. It’s time to pay a little more attention at work and in the world. I am not a hero. But I do have power and I can take a few noble actions now and then.

Tuesday Night Party Club #25 Gallery - Half Hour Sketches 31 to 60 From last year, the second set of thirty daily/half hour sketches.

[katies3pticeye]

Theory on Egos

Hello! I was looking through YouTube recently, and I found a lot of theories around Antisepticeye. Usually, I don’t like making theories because I’m afraid of rejection; however, I’m stepping out of my comfort zone. Here’s my theory on Jacksepticeye’s alter egos.

For starters, Jack has a lot of egos. I’ll list them out (only the confirmed ones):

•Anti

•Chase

•Dr. Schneeplestein

•Jameson Jackson (JJ)

•Marvin the Magnificent

•Jackaboy-Man

•Jack himself

First, we need to start at the basics... start with how Anti was created. He was created by Jack’s fans on Tumblr.

Hop into Quit The Game. Here, Anti tells you that you’ll keep on watching just to see if something will happen... just to see if there’s an ego clip at the end of the video. This is true. Some people watch Jack’s videos just to see ego hints and scenes. You’re watching just to see Anti, Chase, Marvin, and everyone else.

Once this happens, go to Anti’s first main appearance, Say Goodbye. (Yes, he appears in Sister Location etc, I said main appearance.) Anti says “It’s all your fault” to the viewer. Why is it your fault, though? You didn’t do anything, and you couldn’t do anything to stop Anti!

That’s where you’re wrong. If you left the video earlier, if you didn’t keep on watching to see what would happen, Jack would’ve been safe. Jack wouldn’t have been put in a coma because Anti wouldn’t have ever gotten the chance to slice Jack’s neck.

That’s where most people’s theories stop, but not mine. This theory doesn’t explain Chase, Schneeplestein, Marvin, JJ, or Jackaboy-Man. What about them?

Why does Anti want to hurt Chase’s kids?

Why does Anti possess Schneeplestein? Well, actually, that one’s quite easy. Anti wanted to take over Schneeplestein, so the next time Anti attacks Jack, he no one to help him recover from his injuries.

This was to make Jack more vulnerable, though. How would Anti taking over Chase make Jack more vulnerable?

Yes, Jack would be lonely without his best friend; however, it wouldn’t weaken Jack for long. By now, he’s used to it, seeing as the doctor and JJ have been taken over.

Let’s go to Chase’s lore for a bit. Chase is a depressed father. His wife abandons him, taking his kids with her. They get a divorce, and Chase is alone. He drinks all his problems away.

The next major appearance Chase has was him seeing Anti. He’s with Chase’s kids, signaled by the kid voices in the background.

How? How is that possible? How would Anti know where Chase’s wife and kids are? This is going to seem like a long stretch and believe me I know it is, but what if Anti threatened Chase’s wife? What if Anti told his wife that someone close to her would be killed if she didn’t give in to him? What if Anti did this to make Chase even more depressed than he already was?

This could make Jack distracted, and make him focus on his friend’s depression more than Anti himself. This would give Anti a huge opening to attack.

This could’ve been why Anti said “replaced me” in the PAX 2017 intro. It wasn’t because he was jealous of anybody; he was happy that Jack wasn’t paying much attention to him. “I’m always there, always watching.”

Also, I know someone’s going to tell me that Anti killed Chase in “Dark Silence”, but I can guarantee you he didn’t. Jack said at PAX 2019 that Chase will receive a heartbreaking backstory, meaning that we’ll see more of him. That means Chase is obviously not dead.

I need to wrap this theory up or else I’ll keep on rambling. I just think it’s really cool to see creators like Mark, Jack, and MatPat doing this type of ARG thing. (Yes, MatPat’s is in a different style than Mark and Jack’s, but he’s still doing fan interaction.) It really keeps the audience on the edge of their seats, just how Anti likes them to be. Also, sorry about the lack of information on JJ, Marvin, and Jackaboy-Man. I haven’t looked into them as much as the others.

Anyways, if this theory gets good feedback, prepare for number two!

[astudyinsarcasm9]

Pink Diamond and her character ark. Who is she supposed to be in the SU narrative? A villain? An anti-hero?

I’ve been meaning to make a bigger post about PD and her role in SU as of now.

First off: the Human zoo. 

I am of the opinion that her character could’ve been written better. And by that I mean that if they wanted to make her truly morally questionable they should’ve stuck by the characterisation we got before ”A single pale rose”. 

What do I mean? 

Well, before that we thought and we were told that the Human Zoo was Pink’s and that Blue was just maintaining it in her absence, as a way to remember her. Garnet said PD would take humans there as trophies of her conquest. Now, I can imagine PD made up that story as a way to maker herself seem more evil in a bid to make the CGs have even more reasons to fight her. It certainly seems more evil than saying Blue and Yellow started the Zoo to shut up Pink. 

The sad fact is the Human Zoo is really consistent with PD’s personality. She came to be infatuated with humans and until Greg she only saw them as play things so it makes total sense that she’d have a Human Zoo. It fits her to a T. She’d think she’d be doing a good thing by caring for them and providing them with basically a paradise version of Earth. 

Hell, I would’ve loved a couple of episodes focusing on Pink Diamond slowly discovering the Earth and humans, watching them interact and deciding she likes them because they can evolve and change, unlike gems. Then, naturally, she would’ve wanted to take one or two for herself, to keep them closer to her, as she was not really allowed to be on Earth in the first place. So she asked Yellow and Blue to make the Zoo for her which they did. Maybe afterwards, after wandering on Earth some more she finds out how gems are made and how their creation strips the Earth of its life and then decides to fight for Earth. It would’ve made so much more sense. Instead of showing her see ONE human and deciding: OMG I need to save this planet. It felt lazy. 

SU has a really interesting story and some really interesting characters and I really wish they did what Adventure Time did and just dedicate a couple of episodes to certain characters to develop them better. And with SU’s narrative it would’ve fitted nicely. 

Second: Her weird characterisation.

Anyway, after ”A single pale rose” we found out the zoo was not hers at all and she had nothing to do with it. Gah! In the same episode we also find out she was always, more or less, a sweet, naive diamond which really does not go well with her debut when we saw she was incredibly spoiled and entitled. Ok, one can make the argument that she was younger, and when we saw her in ”A single pale rose” she already got her colony and already got bored of it and realized what a chore it was to be a diamond.

The problem with that is NO ONE WANTED TO SEE THE END RESULT. 

Let me offer an example: 

Zuko! 

Zuko started out as the villain of the series. He was set in his views, he wanted the Avatar so he could go back home. Still, during Book 1 and Book 2 he went through a change. He had an inner battle with himself trying to decide which path to take and what his morality was in the end. Only in book 3 does he realize exactly where he stands, what he feels and what he has to do and during the second half of it he joins the protagonists and truly embraces his change of heart. 

Now, imagine we were never shown Book 2 and we went from angry, bitter, entitled Zuko, who felt everyone was beneath him, up until a point when Iroh taught him humility, to the Zuko we had in the second half of Book 3 where he suddenly was on the good side and was nice and mostly pleasant. It would’ve sucked, right? We wouldn’t have seen the wonderful development he went through to get to that crucial point in his life.

Same with PD

When we first saw PD all she wanted was to be considered as one of the diamonds and be given the same respect as them. She wanted a colony. She was bratty she was spoiled. In the same vein Zuko wanted nothing more than to be back home, to be accepted back in the royal family and treated with the same respect as the other members. Except, unlike Zuko, we didn’t see PInk’s journey into becoming who she was. Hell, we’re not even sure we know who she was because as soon as we were told she had flaws, they were taken back and we were given the PD we know now. 

All we saw was: PD wanting a colony and saying she is a diamond too and therefore should be treated as such - time skip - PD got her wish but got bored of it and because of said boredom she went out on the planet and discovered it had life, saw a human and decided she wanted to save it. To save it so she can live on it. But we’ll talk about that in a minute. 

For some that would be pretty clear. Yeah she got bored of her colony. that’s it. 

Yeah but, wouldn’t it have been more interesting to have some episodes gradually showing PD going from bratty and entitled to sweet and nice? To see her gradually lose interest in the colony, to see her observe what having a colony meant? To see her be neglected by the other diamonds, as it was implied was the case? 

I don’t know. For me the PD from Jungle moon and the PD from A single pale rose seem like entirely different characters. 

I’m sure the episodes were thought out long before they actually got feedback from us. But my bet is that between Jungle Moon and A single pale rose someone decided that the first PD was not what they wanted PD to be so they made the change. 

The war!

People are really torn when it comes to the gem war. 

I for one think that the creators wanted to have their cake and eat it too. What do I mean by that?

Pink Diamond chose to fight for the Earth because she saw what gem production was doing to the planet. It is assumed that while going out with Pearl and seeing Earth she observed how life was being affected by the collonisaton. 

This is what PD says in ”A single pale rose”: We can leave our old lives behind. If this is really my world, I want to give it to the Crystal Gems. I want to live here with human beings! I wanna live here with you! We'll both finally be free! 

This means that she wanted to free Earth more for the sake of her being able to be free on it, than because its life was affected. She wanted to be free of her duties as a diamond, she wanted to be free and live with humans and with Pearl. 

Ok, after she met Garnet we were told she started to fight for other gems, but I don’t think that was entirely right. If she did want to fight for all gems she would’ve tried to liberate all the gems from under the diamonds, but she made sure not to harm the other diamonds (Bismuth, wink-wink). So she just wanted the safe route out. 

That’s what I meant by the creators wanted their cake and to eat it too. They should’ve picked one or the other, because, as it is, PD comes off more as somebody who wanted to get out of her duties and just found the perfect excuse to do so. Im sure she cared for life on Earth but I am more sure she cared more for her own freedom. 

This is why PD’s characterisation suffers a lot. That’s why people argue over it. Because these two beliefs cannot be reconciled. 

I would’ve rather seen a PD who, while having her colony, saw, gradually, how her own colony affecter life on Earth. Maybe Pearl took her on the planet, multiple times, to see the damage. Maybe, one day, she’d ask Pearl what was going to happen to the planet after she was done colonising and Pearl would show her the plans and she’d be horrified. A lot of maybes.

But instead, even in her last moments as PD she didn’t say: ”Pearl, I want to save this planet. Look at it, I am destroying it and pretty soon nothing will be left if I don’t act.” Instead she once again reaffirmed her desire to be free of being a diamond. 

In my eyes she is sort of an anti-hero. I am sure she had the best intentions but they were selfish intensions first and the noble ones afterwards. At least that’s what her characterisation is telling me. 

And it is sad. The show is going to incredible lengths to sanitise her, as if she was just naive and misunderstood. Yes she was naive but she was also misguided, selfish and immature and until she met Greg she lacked empathy, for humans anyway. 

And another thing: The show also went to great lengths to show us how gems are under a dictatorship, how there’s a caste system in place, how fusion means a death sentence etc. Yet, PD never talked about it. Rose never talked about it. Rose never meant a point to fight back against that system. Ok, one can make the argument that as PD she had no idea. Ok, cool, but as Rose I’m pretty sure she found out. And even as PD she had to know, to some degree how other gems were treated. She at least knew fusion was unheard of and by extension punished, so she must have known how gems were treated under the diamonds. 

Bismuth was the only one who saw that and who wanted to take action against it. Pearl knew, heck, she was a slave by Homeworld’s views, and did not express a desire to save other gems from such a fate. Garnet knew and didn’t care even though Ruby almost got shattered because of that same system. And when Bismuth expressed the desire to free the other gems Rose bubbled her because of course she did she couldn’t have allowed the shattering of her dictator sisters. 

And I hear some of you say: yeah but they are her sisters and her family. Yeah, cool but, and I go back to Zuko, when Aang was to face the FireLord, Zuko did not kill Aang or trap him somewhere so he couldn’t fight the Firelord because the villain happened to be his father. 

In the episode ”Sozin’s Comet, Part 1: The Phoenix King” Zuko says this to Aang: 

”You'll have to take the Fire Lord's life before he takes yours.” And this ”Well, that sweet little kid grew up to be a monster, and the worst father in the history of fathers.” 

See? Zuko acknowledges that Aang has to kill his father for the greater good, to liberate the fire nation people, to save the world. AND he also acknowledges that Ozai is a terrible person. 

This is how the Bismuth-Rose should’ve went if Rose gave two shits about the homeworld gems. 

Some say SU is a kids show and can’t portray such things but iIT CHOSE TO TALK ABOUT WAR AND GENOCIDE AND LIFE LOSS - and as such, exactly like ATLA earned itself the right to go into more serious topics, despite being a show mainly aimed at kids. 

If you talk about war and all that implies then have the balls to do it right and tackle all the issues. 

All in all I think PD was a missed opportunity to have a great character ark for someone considered to be part of the villains but the reforming and taking the side of good and going against the system she was a part of. Exactly like Zuko. 

I am really interested to see what will happen next but I suspect that as far as PD is concerned her character ark is pretty much over for now. There’s nowhere to go. 

In the end she was just a selfish person who wanted to escape her life and duties because she found them boring and in doing so she found a really good reason for it: The colony was hurting the life on Earth. So she took that to heart and saw it as the perfect opportunity. 

Let’s not forget that because of her we have gem experiments, the Cluster, corrupted gems etc. She couldn’t have known some of these would happen but she was a diamond so at least she could’ve known that the Diamonds have the ability to fuck shit up should they chose to. 

Feel free to leave comments and discuss. 

As always this is just my opinion and is not written in stone. 

[i-am-elder-maxson]

((I'm gonna go ahead and say I'm on a haitus. Lack of interaction or feedback has really killed my motivation. I've stopped doing fake terminal entires, drabbles, ect. People reblog prompts but don't send anything, few likes or reblogs... I get it. As a content creator it let's me know you are not interested. I don't see reason to suffer through hours of writing no one wants to read. So, I'm gonna go. Thank you for sending asks, if you did, and thank you for interacting with Arthur. He came a long way from being a drug addicted hardass that hates himself. I am sure I will be back eventually.))

[a-romantic--aromantic]

#op i mean this sincerely without any malice #how long have u been on tumblr? #like consistently #ive been on here for almost ten years and the only time ive seen more likes than reblogs and less people interacting on rbs was this year #with all the tiktok n twitter people migration #maybe im just part of a different tumblr sphere #i just want some context

tags by @weird-creachure

I’ve been on tumblr for 10 years, and I’ve been knowingly aspec for 9 of them. for aro, specifically, I made this blog in January 2019, though I had been aro for a little longer. Even only going back to 2019/early 2020, conversations DID take place in reblogs as opposed to tags/replies. Here’s an example, from when unit aro and similar terms were being coined.

Now, more and more frequently, I see terms being coined and discussed on discord rather than in public spaces that allow for greater feedback. Even I’m doing this. I don’t see many people going “hey. is there a word for this?” and then jointly working with the community to make a term for it, to describe their experiences. I see less and less engagement. I see people more likely to use #prev than to screenshot or copy-paste tags. I see conversations happening in replies, not in reblogs. People make culture-is blogs, and submit instead of trying to discuss their personal experiences. I see a lack of willingness to engage and share. People arent having conversations anymore, they’re shouting into the void.

There’s no longer conversations where users are posting their experiences or hosting discussion. People only responding in tags or replies isn’t contributing, because it’s not initiating a conversation for a bunch of people to add on, it’s making a personal comment or adding an anecdote or asking a specific question most of the time. People aren’t talking. They aren’t discussing. They’re sending an anon ask to a tumblr blog to be published with no response. People aren’t participating anymore. People aren’t having conversations anymore, they’re just shouting into the void.

This is definitely related to the downfall of forums and younger people joining queer communities without having experiences in them. Tiktok and twitter are definitely contributing to this problem. Social media is changing to become more and more passive, so active communities are moving more and more private. The likes vs. reblogs trend has been growing since 2014, as far as creators have been aware. We’ve been talking about it for years. its only within the recent influx that normal users have started seeing it too.

The problem is causing normal users to see less and less content, and less and less of the content they want to see. I used to average 1,000+ notes, but due to liking and not reblogging that number is down to about 300 (i have 2k+ followers). This post was made because people want to have aro culture, they want to have aspec culture, they want to change and grow the community to have new symbolism to adapt to our changing cultural views and ideals. But there’s no way to do that. Interacting with the aro community and making content for it now just feels… empty. It’s hollow. There’s nothing there there’s no one there. I have a running joke that there’s 4 aros ever. Because its the same few people interacting, every single time I’m seeking out content or interaction. It’s the same few people trying to build community, over and over again.

So, tl;dr, I’m not new here, but the problem has been growing for a long while and killing both community and culture. I’ve been on tumblr for 10 years and been aspec for 9. This change has been slowly eating away at our ability to be a community, a culture, rather than just an identity. And while tiktok and twitter and the like are related to the problem, part of that problem is the death of forums, and the death of treating our remaining websites like forums. We need to bring them back. We need to get used to interacting in aspec spaces like that again. It’s important to make sure we don’t let our community die and get privatized because aspec spaces NEED this to continue to persist in meaningful ways. It’s important to get back to that. I hope that helps explain.

we deserve more discussions in reblogs we deserve to have public community interactions we deserve to have accessible and easy to find spaces we deserve conversations and debates that are easy to find we deserve to move off discord and into older communities we deserve to be in forums and using forum and we deserve to get back on aven and other forum sites, we deserve to bring this back and honestly the community has been at a loss since privatizing. the community is more isolated and less cohesive and and less organized and aware and just… less of a community.

we should get back to interacting in reblogs. we need to. its not a question its impacting our community in so many ways we need to change our culture and get back to our roots, its important for the continued existence and for the longevity of our creators and for people to be more engaged in our community and culture. and i hope we get back to it soon.

[pauperpedia]

Tuesday Brewsday 26: Eyeing Bully with Deluxeicoff

For over a month now I’ve been playing Boros Bully a lot, and have been fairly successful. I’ve topped 16 a challenge, came in third place in the Facebook league, Won a PCT event while coming in 2nd and top 8 in two others. The whole time I was thinking if there was any room for improvements and implemented some ideas. Whenever you want to make changes to a deck however, you need to go back and see what works and the reasoning behind why certain cards are in the deck. Since I wanted to write about the deck regarding this, I thought there was no better person to consult than the original deck designer himself, Deluxeicoff. I asked him four questions about the deck, but first, here is the mainboard decklist I’ve fallen in love with.

1 Sentinel's Eyes

4 Faithless Looting

4 Thraben Inspector

4 Seeker of the Way

4 Squadron Hawk

1 Guardian of the Guildpact

2 Palace Sentinels

4 Battle Screech

2 Rally the Peasants

4 Prismatic Strands

1 Firebolt

1 Electrickery

4 Lightning Bolt

2 Journey to Nowhere

1 Oblivion Ring

1 Secluded Steppe

4 Boros Garrison

6 Mountain

6 Plains

4 Wind-Scarred Crag

So what did the original creator of Bully have to say about his beloved Delver killer?

Q1: Originally you didn’t run Palace Sentinels. What was your reasoning and do you still stand by this?  

A1: Bully was an aggro deck at its start and the metagame at the time didn't have too much Tron, so using Raise the Alarm EOT had A LOT of play options/surprises and game wins...from the obvious fueling battle screech out of the blue, to blocking, to having a double answer to fling with opponents countermagic - its combination with prismatic strands was paramount and I still feel this build is the right call given the metagame and/or shifts in it.  Remember, I placed 3rd in a challenge on its debut, and was a shoe-in for the win if I had one more second.  My last round in the top 8 was vs. familiars and I timed out with lethal on the stack - MEGA frustrating... Palace Sentinels slows the deck down, but is necessary vs. Tron... but I'm still not sure since the addition of it didn't make the match THAT much better, just a bit - moreover the ability to protect monarch via strands is usually the angle.  More importantly was my lack of using Thraben Inspectors - that was a design miss on my end, I leaned heavily on sacred cats for their brutal efficiency and re-use-ability. I've liked Guaridan of the Guildpact mix with Monarch, but I'd never play more than two Palace Sentinels personally.  Just a few weeks later, I placed 2nd in the Rags to Riches tournament in Seattle using 2 Palace main. It has been awesome to see the variations of the list over the last year or so - no right answers, just cool tweaks for the given state of the game. 

Q2: Are there any new cards that would improve the deck?  

A2: From my original design, there is now an instant that does the same thing - but I feel your recent addition of one Sentinel's Eyes is very 'on-brand.'  The DNA of the deck is Faithless Looting - pitching stuff in your yard that can come back makes faithless looting feel like a cheap Treasure Cruise.  Future expansions continue to come, pay attention to abilities like retrace and embalm, escape etc..,  I feel the lack of "Seal of Fire" is a bad call in most lists - this card isn't "NEW" but it is often overlooked...once out, it is an un-counterable option to about 90% of the critters in Pauper.

Q3: What decks typically give this one a hard time? What is the strategy you find best to beat those decks?  

A3: Tron was and is always an issue...decks with recursion locks.  A combination of Monarch, Flaring Pain, graveyard hate, sheer aggro pumps and/or land destruction are all decent ways to attack, but it is usually a hard matchup...which is why I like the surprise value in Raise the Alarm/more aggro approach.  As much as I like to have a 'GOTCHA!" card - Tron is too resilient, and in the end, it is often best to be the problem.  Also, at Pauper's first ProTour LA - I went undefeated -(after a first round scoop due to my lands mysteriously vanishing and taking a loss to start.)  In that list, I ran COP Black - because Nasty's build of Gurmag/Dimir build was very popular, but I had success vs. it with that simple addition...Guardian's of the Guild don't hurt much either there :)

Q4: If WOTC let you design a card for Bully, what would it be and what would it replace?

A4:  Hmm...it would need to be a sideboard card vs. Tron...flexible and have some interaction with the graveyard.

I really enjoyed getting Deluxeicoff’s take on Boros Bully. I still remember the Rags to Riches event held by Card Kingdom in Seattle where I got to share a drink and hang out with him to play some pauper before the event started. If you ever find yourself with some free time on Saturday, Deluxeicoff broadcasts his Pauperganda show via Twitch at 9 am pst. He also has a YouTube channel, a Facebook page, and if you want to support him go donate through buymeacoffee.

So what are my hot takes on the deck and what have I tried to implement? I’ve been loving the fact that Bully can beat practically any aggro strategy out there. With the uncommonly strong (pun intended) Seeker of the Way combined with Prismatic Strands, it’s easy to recover and then take the game away through the air with Battle Screech and Rally the Peasants. Whenever I see a turn 1 island, I breathe a sigh of relief knowing that I have the upper hand in the match. Considering Delver decks are on the uptick and Tron is seldom seen in leagues or community run events, I’d say Bully is in a good spot right now.

Recently I’ve tried out some new cards in the deck to see if they improved upon the ole Bully on the block. I started out by moving towards a more artifact centered deck so I could run Galvanic Blast alongside Lightning Bolt. I did this by removing Journey to Nowhere, Oblivion Ring, and one Guardian of the Guildpact. My reasoning behind this was that it could give the deck more reach and have a shot a taking out Tron once they have a fog lock. In the end I didn’t really like the mashup between Monarch and Bully the deck resembled. Stumbling on mana or constantly having an underpowered blast in the face of artifact removal was harsh. I also felt like the change made some matchups worse like Affinity or UB Delver where I wish I still had Journey to Nowhere. Maybe I just cut the wrong cards to make room for Galvanic Blast, but in my opinion it just made the deck awkward.

Next I tried playing with two copies of Underworld Rage-Hound. I remembered way back when the deck played with Sanctuary Cat, it was such a great feeling to have access to a creature that not only spat in the face of removal, but pitching it to Faithless Looting never felt like a feel bad moment. The problem I ran into though was the same one that plagued the cat, there was no evasion to push through damage. Worse, having to attack every turn really took away its potential as a road block. The only positive I saw when playing Underworld Rage-Hound was when I faced a Tron deck, and even then it eventually got stonehorned. Too many creatures can block it and kill it, and Gurmag Angler just plain eats it.

After that I wanted to explore the escape mechanic further. I had see the success Sentinel’s eyes was having in decks like Hexproof and Heroic and wondered if a deck like this could embrace it al well. So far I’ve really like the inclusion of one copy of Sentinel’s Eyes. Being able to cast it from the graveyard by exiling a mere two cards and paying one white mana has been amazing. It instantly turns any of your birds into a threat, or gives your Seeker of the Way some added oomph. Another feature of Sentinel’s Eyes is that it gives the creature vigilance which Prismatic Strands loves. I really think Sentinel’s Eyes has a home here, but you might want to play around with the card you take out. The deck usually runs 2 Guardian of the Guildpact, but I’ve cut one to make room for it. I could see the deck maybe cutting a Firebolt or Lightning Bolt, possibly even Oblivion Ring instead. Only time and more “eyes” on the deck will tell.

1 Electrickery

1 Flaring Pain

1 Leave No Trace

3 Pyroblast

1 Ramosian Rally

2 Red Elemental Blast

2 Shenanigans

1 Standard Bearer

1 Oblivion Ring

1 Aura Fracture

1 Tormod's Crypt

My sideboard is a bit different than you might see. When it comes to my artifact removal, as much as I love Gorilla Shaman, I think Shenanigans plays really well with the deck’s plan. That’s why I run two, so I can increase the odds of a backbreaking turn two play against affinity.

I’ve always loved Aura Fracture in my white decks. A lot of the time this deck will have excess mana to pitch to Aura Fracture. Being able to continually destroys an enchantment can keep opposing Journey to Nowheres at bay and Hexproof from turning their Bogle into something even Ulamog would be scared of.

On that note I also love Standard Bearer. One of the decks that I hate losing to constantly is Elves. Standard Bearer can shut down their game plan of making huge elves with Timberwatch Elf. It also helps in the burn matchup by eating a bolt. Tireless Tribe has a hard time getting through it without Gut Shot as well. There are a plethora of reasons to run Standard Bearer, which is why I can’t not include.

The last oddball I run is a lone copy of Tormod’s Crypt. I like this over Relic of Progenitus for the reason that it doesn’t hit my graveyard when sacrificed. Being able to cast it for free is another boon when I absolutely need to find it and burn through two faithless lootings leaving me tapped out. It’s happened before and I was sure glad I was running that over Nihil Spellbomb.

That about sums it up. Get out there and bully your opponent in the best way, by swinging for lethal with a rally of birds. I hope you have enjoyed these blogs/articles. I’m always open to feedback and simply want to provide the best content I can. I’m always open to collaborate on a deck as well. Please visit and like/follow my Facebook page pauperpedia, a fan page dedicated to bringing you links to daily articles, videos, and podcast covering Pauper. You can also email me at Pauperpedia@gmail.com if any of you have submissions as well. Till next time folks, have a happy Brewsday!