#posting this on my art blog so maybe more visibility?

[mejomonster]

In case tumblr ever does go down, im mejomonster on twitter insta discord too. Please add me

[cripplecharacters]

so, the posts on this blog about facial difference inspired me to make an oc with facial difference- specifically strabismus and a port wine stain. she's pretty much become one of my favourite characters to draw and develop, ive taken care to make sure she doesn't fall into shitty tropes. however, i have had one problem- in the world she lives in, rebels like her cover their face most of the time. ive been really struggling on how to design her mask/covering in a way that doesn't feel shitty, and doesn't feel like it's trying to cover her facial difference. and i know that technically it's not as bad if she's not the only character who wears a mask, but i still don't wanna push it, if you know what i mean? so it would be awesome if you could give suggestions on how i could handle her mask. here's a reference of her for. reference, and some ideas ive had for masks. thank you for taking the time, and for this blog in general!

[Image description: Traditional drawing of a light-skinned girl with pink straight hair, smiling. She has a large port-wine stain on the left side of her face, and her right eye goes inward. Around her are three headshot sketches;

first shows her in a bandana that goes over her nose with "bandana doesn't obscure FD but hides smile + necklace" written above, second shows a half-mask that covers only the right side of her face, with "early concept, feels tacky, shows port-wine stain but not strabismus :(", third shows a domino mask, with "domino mask, do I even have to explain? No-go" next to it. End image description.]

Hi!

I think that something close to the second one would actually be kinda fun (no irony or sarcasm). If we're talking about a story where everyone wears a mask, having the character with FD wear one that covers everything except for the FD is actually subversive! I never thought I would say that, but it does feel like it is.

Not sure how strict of a design should it be, but a diagonal - her bottom right to her top left - mask would be nice!

I tried to write down a detailed description of what I mean but it was coming out rather overcomplicated, so I hope you're okay with me doing a few demonstrative sketches; a diagonal and rather-silly option, an idea for the bandana with a drawn smile and the kind of tie that would show her necklace, and an idea for the half-mask but with an eye with strabismus painted on the mask.

So here are the suggestions! I haven't drawn in a while so my skills are kinda rusty, but I hope it conveys the concept! My personal favorite would be the first one - I know it barely counts as a mask but then again, in comics it's common that someone is unrecognizable when they wear a pair of glasses, so maybe it's not as farfetched haha.

The second one would be totally fine by my standards, but I'm assuming that her necklace has some kind of significance in the story, so maybe she could cross it at the back and tie it in the front instead for it to be more visible (or wear the necklace over it even?).

I think that doing something like on the third drawing above would be okay if there are also a lot of moments where her actual strabismus is shown. In general, I think that the idea of a character with a facial difference wearing a mask just to paint it on the mask is kinda silly, and I feel like it would fit her character. But for something like that to work, she would need to have the mask off often. If you choose to do that, I suggest your first time showing her to the viewer is with her mask off, both for the usual reasons I mentioned before but also because strabismus is often used as a gag in art. For me, seeing a character wear that kind of mask with no context would be kind of eye-rolling - but seeing a character with a crossed eye put on a mask with the same exact kind of eye, go and join their friends at doing rebel things? That's actually something new!

I enjoy that your character seems to be on the rather joyful and happy side, I like that :-) (smile emoji)

I hope this helps!

mod Sasza

[nitewrighter]

Since we have an influx of people coming in from twitter and discussing the whole culture of retweets vs. reblogs between the two sites, I'm going to take a moment here for some

Queue Propaganda

First off, what is the queue?

It's a posting mechanic that you can customize for yourself so that rather than immediately reblogging something, you can arrange for it to be posted at a later time. Your queue on tumblr can fit up to 1000 posts! Wow!

Why would I want to do something like that?

There are lots of reasons! For me, I like the idea of having something that consistently posts throughout the day for my followers in different time zones. I also like to support artists by reblogging, but I don't want to spam their notifications all at once and create an impenetrable wall of reblogs from the same artist on my dashboard, and the queue allows me to distribute those reblogs over a longer period of time, basically giving said art a more extended period of circulation. The queue also has a 'shuffle' function, so if you have a whole bunch of reblogs from one person, you can 'shuffle' it with other items in your queue so your dash has a bit more variety. If you're an artist, you can also set up your blog to reblog your own works so that they can show up on feeds at a later time. It can also be useful if you're reuploading a bunch of your art from twitter onto here and maybe don't want to dump it all at once.

Do we have to have a queue?

You do not! You can come online and spam reblog a bunch of jackshit or whatever suits you! I just think it's a nice feature!

Is there queue etiquette?

Nothing heavily enforced, but a lot of people will use a queue tag (often something quirky and specific to their blog) to indicate when their blog is posting from their queue, which also doubles as a 'hey just because I'm posting doesn't mean I'm online' sort of message. Some people will have a silly queue-specific pun for their queue tag, and others will just tag their queue with 'q,' it's really up to personal taste. You can schedule as many or as few queue posts a day to suit your tastes.

What's up with the post scheduling? Is that the same thing?

It's in a similar category, but it's more specific. When you schedule a post, that's basically set at the time you set it to post at, regardless of what's in your queue. The post is visible in your queue, but it stays fixed at the date you scheduled for it, regardless of what you add to your queue or how many times you shuffle it. This is very useful if you have content or reblogs meant for specific events and holidays!

Okay but what is the general vibe around queues? Do people like or dislike when you queue their posts as opposed to immediately reblogging them?

A queue *is* a reblog. There is a bit of a joke with queue users on this site where it's like "I'll see if they like my post within 6-8 business days" but it really is a useful form of posting because it extends the sort of... digital shelf life of content. No one is insulted if they see you reblogged your post with a queue tag. A reblog is a reblog, regardless of what time it pops up on the dash. No pressure.

[mycraftingjourney]

Introduction post

I wanted to give a bit of an introduction to why I'm here, what I'm doing and so on.

tl;dr: I like clothes and I'm into sustainability, so I started (visible) mending a few month or so ago. I also crochet, although not as much as I'd like to, and I dabble a bit in embroidery. My goal is to kind of document my journey with these crafts and maybe inspire people to give some of these a try.

I'd also love to talk about all things (visible) mending, crochet, embroidery and fiber arts in general and share the knowledge I have / point people who want to start to some resources that helped me.

I've been into fashion/clothes and styling them on and off for a big part of my life. A few years ago, I also got into sustainability, learning about how buying new fast fashion damages our planet and exploits other human beings, and what may be good alternatives.

This path, inevatibly, lead down to getting curious about mending. I learned basic sewing skills when I was a child, but I never altered any clothes and apart from a few tiny things never mended anything.

However, this year, I wanted to change that. I've heard about visible mending before and I really liked it. I had a pair of jeans when I was a teenager that was patched (by someone else) that was my favourite pair. Unfortunately, I managed to ruin it beyond repair and also grew out of it, but this stuck with me. I always liked to express myself creatively, and in recent years, what I wear has become a big part of that. The idea that by visibly mending my clothes I express my passion for sustainability feels really good (and punk!) to me. The idea of altering clothes that I don't currently love but could love if something about them was changed is also a nice one.

I only darned my first sock a few months ago. My goal with this blog is to share this first darn as well as the progress I make, because I want to encourage other people. You don't have to make perfect mends to be sustainable. On the contrary, mend imperfectly, mend messy, but DO MEND. Even if you'll have to redo it at one point, when you have more skill, even if you don't end up redoing it and instead use that piece of clothing for something else, you still gave it another wear, or two, or three (or fifty) - and that's what this is all about.

I tend to be an extreme perfectionist and it's hard for me to deal with a situation where I'm not perfect at a first try. Surprise surprise, I am not when it comes to mending, or embroidery, or crochet, or anything at all really. But I'm trying to let that go and concentrate on what I achieve rather than what I did "wrong" or imperfectly. I want to share my messy bits and the things I'm proud of, and I want to update how the mends I did held up. As i mentioned above, I hope that maybe I'll inspire some people to pick up a needle as well. Even if you "only" fix that button or a ripped up seam. Every mend counts!

When I get into altering or even making clothes, I will share those projects too, but that will have to wait a bit since I don't currently have any space to put up my sewing machine and I do simply not have the energy nor patience to hand sew bigger things.

Apart from mending I also crochet. Talking more about that feels like a bit of an overkill here, I'll make a new post for that.

Recently I also started to embroider, with the idea of using embroidery in my (visible) mending and to embellish clothes. Here again I decided on a project where I just start and don't try to be perfect from the beginning on, I'll share more about that as well as my crochet project(s) soon.

I think this should be enough for the moment with the introduction. One thing about me, as you probably got by now, is that I'm really bad at being brief with my writing. I have no idea how often I will manage to make posts on here due to work and life, but I will try to do them quiet regularly, as well as sharing things I see that might be helpful / interesting / that inspire me. I also think I'll probably only write more for bigger projects but also just share stuff I'm working on / finished recently.

Maybe I'll also share other DIYs that are not really crafts/fiber arts related but I think are cool.

This isn't my main blog (thats @merryfromthestars), so if I follow I follow from there.

I'm also always open to questions, discussions etc. so just send me an ask or dm if you want! Just, I might take a moment to answer them, because life and work :) I'm excited to see where this journey takes me, and I hope some people will come along and maybe get inspired.

[poohbea]

𝐎𝐍𝐂𝐄 𝐔𝐏𝐎𝐍 𝐀 𝐂𝐎𝐋𝐋𝐀𝐁.

"When we are young

We read and believe

The most fantastical things"

★ We all know the classic tales and fables read to us as children, the weird and mystical world of Alice in Wonderland, the nefarious shenanigans of the big bad wolf, the happily ever after's of each and every princess we all aspired to be. They've stuck with us, grown with us, maybe even shaped us into who we are as readers and writers. However, I think it's time for these old fairy-tales to get a revamp, don't you?

★ Also a big happy twenty-third birthday to my boo @hellavile, I told you I had something planned, think of this as my lame birthday gift to you haha, love you 🤎

Status: CLOSED

RULES ⋆ﾟ⊹

★ We are re-writing the classics, from Cinderella to the Ugly Duckling, The Little Mermaid to Jack and the Beanstalk. If you can think it, you can create it!

★ All forms of media are welcome, these include: fics, art pieces, mood boards and anything in between.

★ You must be 18+ to enter as per the rules of this blog. Please have your age in your bio or if you are uncomfortable with having your age disclosed please shoot me a DM to confirm.

★ This collab is sfw, nsfw and dark content friendly for all fandoms (attack on titan, jujutsu kaisen, tokyo revengers, obey me, one punch man, bleach, demon slayer, naruto, bastard!, etc.) - however I will make a list of all the fandoms I write for and add any other ones as they are entered. On the note of nsfw and dark content, please tag/include proper warnings on your works, it's essential and allows for a better experience for readers who may view your masterpiece.

★ You do not have to be a follower/ follow me to participate. Anons are prohibited from participating though.

★ All characters must be 18+ or aged up (for obvious reasons)

★ No word count limit (but if your fic does exceed 400 words please add a 'read more' tab)

★ Character repeats are allowed (however they are limited to 4 maximum)

★ After joining please reblog the post (when I have officially added you to the masterlist). This is a big help with visibility (more people see the post when you reblog) and allows more people to participate, which means more fics for you to read. Sharing is caring after all.

★ After completing your work please tag me or DM me so I can to add the link to the masterlist, additionally please use the tag ⊹ ⋆ﾟ꒰ఎ ONCE UPON A COLLAB ໒꒱ ⋆ﾟ⊹ in your first ten tags so readers are able to find your work easier.

★ The deadline to enter is December 31st. There is no submission deadline so no stress, submit when you're ready.

HOW TO ENTER ⋆ﾟ⊹

★ Send me a message in my ask box (without being anonymous), stating your chosen character(s), what fandom they're from and what fairy-tale you will be writing for.

For example: Hi Pooh! Can I please join your collab with big bad wolf!beelzebub (from obey me) x little red riding hood!reader, thank you!

★ Again, please remember to reblog the post once you have entered and are added to the masterlist.

⋆ﾟ⊹ ONCE UPON A TIME… ⋆ﾟ⊹

Attack on Titan

ᝰ there lived an ugly duckling!zeke yeager — authored by @dejwrites

ᝰ there lived a prince charming!eren yeager and cinderella!reader — authored by @sintiva

ᝰ there lived an aladdin!levi ackerman and jasmine!reader — authored by @rainbowqueenbee21

ᝰ there lived a thief!armin arlert and rapunzel!reader — authored by @kingkonoha

ᝰ there lived a peter pan!jean kristein and tinker bell!reader — authored by @maydayaisha

Tokyo Revengers

ᝰ there lived a beast!taiju shiba and belle!reader — authored by @tristitia

ᝰ there lived a dimitri!benkei keizo and anastasia!reader — authored by @fubuwritings

ᝰ there lived an ice queen!ryusei satou — authored by @fubuwritings

Jujutsu Kaisen

ᝰ there lived a prince charming!nanami kento and cinderella!black reader — authored by @eiflawriting

ᝰ there lived a repunzel!geto suguru — authored by @bleubrri

ᝰ there lived a big bad wolf!toji fushiguro and little red riding hood!reader — authored by @poohbea

Haikyuu

ᝰ there lived a giant!iwaizumi and fem jack!reader — authored by @angelwa

The Arcana

ᝰ there live a little mermaid!asra alnazar and royalty!reader — authored by @nymphoteric

Chainsaw Man

ᝰ there lived a rumpelstiltskin!kishibe and royalty!reader — authored by @gojou-violin

ᝰ there lived alice!aki and cheshire cat!reader — authored by @nakachuchu

© poohbea, all rights reserved. DO NOT copy, reupload or modify my work to other accounts and platforms. if you intend to translate any of my works please ask permission first ♡

[boomstab-papa]

Tae's guide to Pillowfort

So you fucking hate what tumblr is doing, you're fed up, but you don't know where else to go / what to do when you get there

Here's a guide what I've been up to over on Pillowfort:

For starters, new users need to either get an invite code (message me if you want one, because I literally always have some!) or donate to Pillowfort's operating costs to get started. I recommend getting a code first, and then donating later if you decide you like Pillowfort.

Recognize that Pillowfort has no ads and does not sell user data, so you are not the product. You are the customer. Pillowfort lives because users give their money to the webisite directly, just like how ArchiveOfOurOwn.org operates. If you give Pillowfort a try... and you want to see it keep growing... and you have a couple bucks to throw their way... please consider donating!

On your new account, you'll set up your blog. User icon, description, settings, etc. You get one blog per account. Consider making this your "everything" blog, where you make your original posts AND reblog things.

Consider making a Community that will serve the same purpose as a tumblr sideblog. For example, I made my main blog ceylon-tae and then made the Community "ceylon-tae-art". Just make the Community for now.

Did you set your NSFW and blacklist preferences? You should. Filters & Blacklist have their own link in the sidebar, so you don't have to go into your Settings every time you want to blacklist something. Easy!

Join some more Communities! Think of joining a [Fandom] Community like following the [Fandom] tag on tumblr. Posts from that Community will show up on your feed now! Here is a list of the currently-most-active communities.

Follow some people! You might have seen some of your comrades on tumblr posting their Pillowfort accounts, or maybe you really liked someone's post in a Community and you decide you'd like to follow them! Go follow them! Their posts will show up on your feed now!

Make a post! Remember to add any relevant tags to the post, especially if your post is NSFW, and don't cen/s0r your tags. Your post will now show up on your blog, and you can control who can see it, reblog it, or comment to it. You can make text, image, video, or link posts.

Now you can reblog that post you made to your Community that you made! Or to another Community someone else made! Some Communities review submitted reblogs before posting them, others do not. Remember to add the relevant tags to your reblog here as well.

Reblog posts you enjoyed, so you can show it to your followers!

If you have something to say about the post, Pillowfort has a nested comments section! Livejournal / Dreamwidth / Reddit users will find this familiar. Newbies will hopefully find it easy to learn: make your own comment, reply to the comments other people have made, talk to people in a space that's made for talking and replying.

You can make your own hush-hush commentary in your tags when you reblog a post to your blog, but these tags are not visible anywhere else. So Pillowfort is not gonna rat you out to OP when you make weird tags on your reblog. But also there is no bulit-in way to read everyone's tags in one long list.

You cannot make addendums to posts when you reblog them. If you want to add something, make a comment! Or make your own post and include link to the original post.

Seriously. Comments section. Good stuff. If you enjoy a post, check out its comment section. For comparison, tumblr discussions lived in reblogs, but comments on AO3 fics are what makes an author's world go 'round. Comments are where discussion lives on Pillowfort. So comment on the post if you have something to say! You can have real discussions again! GO. BE FREE. You can also do a Kung Pow Penis in nested comments if you want to. Nested comments are good.

Likes just tell OP you liked the post. That's it. It's just like how kudos works on AO3.

Remember, there's no algorithm, so Likes don't boost any post's visibility, and if you want other people to see a post, you reblog it. If you want to see posts, you follow people and communities, or you dive into the tags for yourself.

There's more details and things to know, but I think these are some good basics for "how the fuck do I even get started"

More how-to-pillowfort guides: https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/3459763 by DoktorHobo https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/4099124 by rah https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/4404622 by killerandhealerqueen

In summary:

Make a blog. Make posts. Make a niche-interest Community or three. Follow people and Communities. Reblog other people's posts to your blog. Reblog posts to your niche-interest Communities. Make comments. Reply to comments. Love the comments. The comments are a fertile land and we will thrive. And we will call it... Pillowfort!

[polyamorouspunk]

ok thank you for explaining! i think im still a little confused bc i thought clicking the "dont show mature content" toggle or however its phrased is how you curate your dash just in case someone reblogs someone they dont usually reblog? like for example if a blog that normally posts cute stuff reblogs something horror themed you can make sure not to see it instead of having to unfollow the cute blog? and thats different from blocking tags because the cute blog might not tag that post as violence or death or w/e even if the original posting person did? but i think maybe i just dont understand smthing about the site and ill figure it out by using it more. it took me a while just to figure out that reposting and reblogging were referring to different things so i spent a long time thinking that reblogging someone's art was bad here lol. thank you again!

If you mark a post as mature it hides it from everyone who has that setting enabled. If someone marks my post as mature it essentially black lists it. So if you think “I don’t like this I’m going to mark it mature” you have marked it mature for every single user on this platform. You have taken someone’s content and added a “Do Not Go Here” sign to every single user on this platform, not just you. If you don’t like a topic (we’ll use horror as an example) block the tag instead and then on your dash any horror that comes up will not be visible for YOU and only YOU. Adding a community label makes it the poster’s problem and blocks it for EVERYONE, not just you.

[ask-duotale-b2fc]

✨️Duotale FAQ✨️

Just in case peeps ask questions a lot lol. Will add more as we go.

•What exactly is this AU about?

Its just a funny little AU where not all monsters were locked underground and some went into hiding instead. Some species of monster in this AU can take on human form with their magic, hence why this is possible. Of course, this doesnt stop kiddos, human or monster, from climbing that darn mountain though.

•When is the next page?

Duotale updates every Friday. Time varies but I try to keep it between 10am and 12pm EST. If either day falls on a holiday, the page will be posted the following day.

•Why is this AU called Duotale?

Because the two main characters are twins, hence the Duo in Duotale. Ok they aren't twins, but they are siblings, born a few months apart. Yes, Strawberry is the Older one.

•Is the player a thing in this AU?

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on the AUs in the Citadel. No one is controlling the Duotale cast though. They've had their own mind and actions from the start. Underplayer is in the Citadel though, if you count them as a player.

●Can my AU be featured in your comic?

Why yes. Just refer to the link in the Masterpost labeled "how to get your AU into the comic". Follow the rules, answer the questions, and you'll be in where we can fit you! Do note that we will try to spread everyone out through different MVC visits, so please, don't be upset if your appearance isn't automatic! You will be seen eventually before the story's end! Scene art and asks are a different story though.

•Will Kris make an appearance?

Yes :3. I'll leave it at that. Ralsei will make an appearance in asks or art, Susie may or may not be in the comic itself. Here's the boi. During the comic he's a lil toddler. (Gender explaination is below btw for those that care.)

•Is Kris gonna be Frisk or Luci's counterpart?

No. Neither. They will be their own person.

●Is Clover gonna make an appearance?

Like Kris, the cowboy ghost will be there, but unlike Kris, you won't see him in comic til the end. He will (and has already) pop up on our blog, like Dalv or Star sherrif boi, but in comic, sorry, hes in Asgore's castle and that's so far away right now lmao. But here's how he looks. Yes, he knows the fox stole his hat. He does not know where his gun is, though.

●Will xxx color soul child also be in this AU?

Depends. We already have the Yellow soul decided (obvi). If There's another colored child you wanna see pop up as a canon-to-duotale ghost at the end of the comic you can ask, but so far only Clover and MAYBE Marine(Patience soul) but the lore is off that comic might contradict yellow or ours so that's undecided. Any other kids so far would be only seen in the MVC. We're trying not to pick kids in full existing sets so thats why Clover and maybe Marine are our only choices so far. We are more likely to make up the rest tbh. No more red souls though beyond cameos. Red souls work a special way in our AU and there's not a lot (if any) that can fit that requirement.

•Can other ghosts see Chara/Luci?

Yes. And she can see said other ghosts. Strawberry can only see those that she summons and Blackberry can see ghosts as well. Frisky can sense spirits near him but obviously cannot see them.

●Why do some characters have rings around them?

That just means they're dead. Ghosts. Spirits that didn't move on to heven or hell. The ring color matches the color of their soul and doesn't change. Luci, Blackberry, Dalv, and Kris have special rings though. They change color based on emotions. This color changing mood ring is only available to one species and it starts becoming visible around puberty. Luci is fullblooded, hence why her ring is always visible and changing like a rainbow, though Blackie and Kris aren't fullblooded, so their rings might be a bit faultly ha. If you're every curious what the colors mean, you can refer to the link labeled "Luci's mood ring" on the master post. Or a more simplified list ca be found on her teen ref.

•What exactly are the main cast's species?

Blackie is is a halfbreed kitsune vampire, Luci is a purebreed vampire with demonic powers, Strawberry is a tanuki who practices witch magic, and Frisky is a human. He just has a magical scarf to give him wings like redbull. As for Kris... you'll figure it out. No spoilers, sorry lol.

•How did you come up with the idea of Duotale?

Originally this story was gonna be a comic of our own runs in Undertale, showing how they clash and would effect each other. Kinda like thise PMD comics and Nuzlocke animations people make. But somewhere between writing the script and making the first cover art, we changed our minds and made a whole AU instead.

•Is fanart allowed?

Yes uwu. You can find character info and all current ref sheets in the Masterpost, last section at the bottom :3 If ya tag me, I can reblog it in my main account so peeps can see it, and an account I have specifically for or art made by others so I wont lose it. Main account is @oatmealkitty . That is where all non ask/comic art goes.

•What ships are in this comic/blog?

Oh boy a hard question to answer. Ignoring any cameos, out of our own and JUST our own characters this is the list. I'm probably missing a LOT though as these are off the top of my mind.

☆Friskyberry (Frisk x Blackie) | ☆Charaberry (Luci x Strawberry) | ☆Charisk (Sugartale) | ☆Chariel (Luci x Cristal; in the past before adoption, though nothing comes of this.) | ☆Pappyton | ☆Soriel (They break up post story on mutual terms) | ☆Torgore (They break up before the story and never get back together.) | ☆Kingdings (Asgore's relationship post comic) | ☆Sansby (After Sans and Tori split) | ☆Alphyne | ☆Kris x Ralsei

•What are the pronouns of each character?

You will find all information on the masterpost, last section. If someone is missing we just didnt finish the refs yet. Apologies. Since I know MK, MTT and Blooky will be asked about due to lack of refs, they are all he/him here but Blooky and MK accept They/Them. Remember that this is an Alternate Universe, as in not sticking to the game's lore to a T. So please dont start a fuss over this. If canon versions of the characters ever speak or are spoken to in the Citadel, they will be referred to by the genders Toby (NOT THE FANDOM) placed on them, so be happy with that smh.

A note to avoid confusion since I KNOW this will cause issues if I don't give a bible explanation: WITHIN the comic, Kris' pronouns will be he/him, hence me calling the younger one he/him. Personally, I can't see a literal 3 year old toddler changing his gender or even caring about that. I know I sure didn't back then lol. I didn't care till damn near the end of highschool tbh. Soo, He starts requesting people use they/them (if possible) in his late teens as thats what I personally experienced. Sorry to anyone who wants out of the womb non binary/trans babies. Oh and when he's spoken to or about in another language, regaurdless of age, it will be male pronouns bc languages. Sorry, can't fix that either. That's just how languages work. So yeah, Tldr: In comic=he/him. In asks=they/them (he/him if non english language).

𖤐~~~~~~𖤐~~~~~~𖤐

✨️Asks✨️

•You can ask LITERALLY anything to ANYONE. Even the mods. All suggestive/sexual questions will be filtered with a label if need be.

•All questions will go to the post comic adult versions of the cast unless specified in the question, or unless we allow asks for the kiddos for some reason.

•You can ask spoiler based questions, but they will either be heavily censored or answered in a joking manner as to not give away everything that happens in the story.

•All asks that seem like spam will be ignored. I know we answered them before jokingly but after a while it becomes too much. Also! We will ignore asks about religion (offensive/forcing), racism, sexism, stuff like that.

[furrylibrarian]

Nothing gets my tails tangled quite like AI schemes, so it’s been a thoroughly unpleasant half-hour learning about the Tumblr crew’s AI deal.

I clicked the opt-out switch, but I’m certain that everything I’ve posted here before today has already been sold off to be fed into a machine. I mean, it’s likely that data crawlers already snapped it up, but this feels distinctly scummy. The platform sold my creations and thoughts without warning and without asking permission.

And I’m not any sort of professional, I’m just a personal blogger who draws sometimes and wants to get back into creative writing. I don’t know if I can comprehend how violating this must be for people whose creative projects are their livelihood.

I want to make things, I want to share the things I make, and I now more than ever worry that there is no longer a safe place for me to share them. Tumblr certainly isn’t. But I’m not ready to abandon this blog. Maybe next time I draw or write something good enough to share publicly, I’ll just upload it somewhere else and post a link here. My art deserves a good home, that doesn’t pull this kind of nonsense.

Also, if this is news to you, 1. I’m sorry I was the one to inform you, and 2. go to your blog settings, and check the “Visibility” tab. There should be a switch to opt your blog out of Tumblr’s AI partnership. If it’s not there, try updating the app.

[brainshock-alpha]

it's clearer now more than ever that i really ought to move some of my eggs into at least 1 other basket maybe, so: i'm dusting off my long-dormant cohost and attempting to establish more of a presence there. if you're there already you can follow me if you want; if you're not there then consider giving it a shot, especially if you're not interested in a twidder-like structure of blogging.

i am brainshock and solonggaybowser on cohost dot org. my pinned posts will soon be updated with these links.

(come to think of it, is it even A Thing to have separate pages for art etc on cohost...? i guess i'll look into it later.)

regarding art specifically: if the deal with mj goes through then... i'm not really sure what i'll do lol. i suppose i'll either keep posting art but with stronger anti-ai protection(s) (which will visibly impact the image quality) or simply stop posting art here altogether (which would be a damn shame). either way my art blog will remain up -- there's no point in deleting when everything still persists in reblogs and such -- and the weekly self-reblogs there will keep happening at least for now.

in any case, i'd like to thank everyone who's ever supported me in any big or small way during my creative journey :) i'd be honored if you continued to do so over at cohost but i won't hold anybody to it. i hope things work out for all of us one way or another.

[tagging so i can self-rb lol @brainshock-alpha @godspeed-gay-bowser]

[writing-for-life]

Neil reblogged a post and I muse about fandom pipelines…

I woke up to absolute chaos on my lawn again—in excess of nearly 1,500 notes. Took me a hot sec, but this time I got fairly quickly that Neil reblogged one of my posts again (the last time it happened, I was much more confused). And while that’s always super fun (of all the posts, it had to be one with the #murphy and his cool hat-tag 🙈. Also: Thanks Neil for my shredded inbox—I was sleeping and couldn’t switch off notes. So if any of you are waiting on replies or anything, forget it right now, can’t find anything 🤣), it also made me reflect. You know me, I always have to turn everything into an essay, so here goes…

The post in question was a couple of days old and already sat in the 400 notes range before Neil hit the chaos button. I have posted some of Vince’s art before, most notably the sister piece to this one (which I personally think is a more accomplished work of art, but that’s personal taste). As you can tell, none of them have near as much engagement. No surprises there.

My blog is small, but not tiny (4 figure amount of followers). Pretty pictures always get engagement, but mostly when they’re Murphy or Death (I don’t post shipping content because despite ample shitposts, I created this blog with the goal of source material appreciation and deeper engagement with it). The odd one of Delirium or Desire breaks through, BUT…

I often read that people care about all the characters of the Sandman, even (!, ha) the female ones. My blog is mostly rooted in the comics with the odd journey into the show (you won’t find too much fan-content about the actors here), so I try to post about ALL the characters, even “obscure” ones, and tag accordingly. Of course I have my own preferences, and there’s obviously also much more art centring Morpheus than, say, Despair (which also supports the point I’ll try to make), but I make an effort to dig and/or write for it, be that art of Destiny or Lyta or a meta about Desire or Lucien/ne. And especially the writing can feel discouraging and somewhat self-perpetuating, because if you spend whatever time you have left in your day on creating content that no one is interested in because it’s not centred around one or two favourite characters (because they always get engagement on here, and I’m sometimes not sure if people even truly digest them—some of the tags/comments suggest they don’t), you simply reassess if you shouldn’t do something else with that time. Or you keep on writing about one favourite character because… you might as well.

But when something like this happens, I notice one thing: Most people so obviously don’t search the tags. They get their content from one or two (or a handful of) blogs and content curators. Neil is obviously different in the way a post takes off, but I also see this on a smaller scale regularly:

People say they care about Sandman characters other than Morpheus (and “the other one”), but hardly any posts about them (bar Death and *maybe* Delirium and even *more maybe* Desire) get any engagement off the bat. Often not even from people I know are fans. And of course we’re not all online 24/7 and things slip through, but these are visible trends, not just singular occurrences, when you run a blog like mine.

Because that content is right there, in the tags, if you only look for it.

If people checked the tags of the characters they supposedly care about, they would find them, even if the posts are not as plentiful. And every so often (read: hardly ever, but it has happened once or twice), one of the bigger shipping blogs will reblog a post about those characters. And guess what? Immediate engagement. Slay Queen! 🙄

But many, many people don’t look for them. They find them on their dash because they follow certain blogs and let them curate stuff for them. Fair enough, it’s at least partly how Tumblr works. But that’s also how the fandom pipeline works. And the fandom pipeline is biased.

Call me slow, but if people profess their love for all the characters and especially the women of the Sandman, why don’t they check their tags? Because if you run a blog with half-decent engagement like mine, it becomes so immediately obvious where the engagement comes from:

Posts about Murphy: Almost always directly via my blog AND reblogs. The former means through my followers and tags. And I can see that a decent amount comes through tags, because not everyone who reblogs from my blog follows me. So for Dream, people do check the tags (although: pictures always do better than metas, and thirst-trap pictures do a lot better than more artistic and abstract takes. Fics? Bwahaha, you’re joking. I don’t write Dre@mling, reader-inserts or smut, so no chance).

Posts about Death and Delirium: Yeah, maybe? Occasionally? Especially the “pretty” ones. Especially the ones that sideline them a bit and still centre Murphy in some way (and I understand how hard it is not to do that, because in the grand scheme of things, it is his arc we’re following. He is the central character, even if not in all storylines, and we don’t need to pretend he’s not and be angry about it either).

Posts about everyone else: Hahaha, nope. UNLESS a big (shipping) blog reposts them. Which hardly ever happens.

So is it really true that people care about the female characters (or any characters other than Morpheus and the one that shan’t be named) if they don’t even check their tags? If they only get their content from a handful of blogs that are so clearly biased towards two characters?

Don’t get me wrong, I have my favourites, too. And that’s totally okay. We’re all allowed to like what we like, it’s not about that. But we can’t be in denial about the fact that the majority (I’m not saying everyone) of fandom engages with The Sandman purely through a shipping lens, so I guess I personally just wish people would reflect more on how the fandom pipeline works. People are commonly told to create what they want to see etc. But what’s so totally obvious is that most people don’t even look for other characters via the tags. They let other people do the work for them. And if those blogs don’t post diversity apart from the odd token female character, guess what happens?

Long story short: I’m a big advocate for getting into the habit of checking the tags for more than just one or two characters (and I know some people do, so this is rather a general observation). And to check the tags regularly, even for the characters we like most if they are the more popular ones; it works the same for them, as reblogs by people like Neil always show. Because that post was already there for days, but the majority of people bar the first 300-400 did NOT find it through the tags.

Echo chambers are the death of different and critical opinions about anything. Even female characters; the fandom pipeline works for them, too. It’s just that far fewer people are interested outright, but the narrative in any fandom gets controlled by the most vocal blogs for any character.

And maybe that’s the former scientist in me speaking, but:

Bias is not the problem. We all have it. And as long as we’re aware of it, it’s okay. The problem starts when we let it work the pipeline until nothing else is left. And the easiest way to avoid that is not to rely on just a couple of favourite blogs for content.

[biboomerangboi]

So you want to your local tumblr Creator?

Okay with all the AI art things coming out and also some new users I thought I’d show you all good ways to support creators on this platform.

First you’re going to want to go into your settings click into visibility and manually turn off the third party sharing feature.

Yes even if you aren’t an artist or don’t post anything at all. The more users that turn this on the more Tumblr can see we don’t want AI here.

This is literally the bare minimum of what you can do and if that’s all you want to do that’s fine.

However if you want to support creators more you need to understand that likes don’t do anything on this platform. With a lot of new users I’m seeing more and more ratios like this:

Which is fine all notes are good notes we all appreciate your like on our art but this is the reblogging site. There’s no algorithm! Likes don’t boost our art that much, other than maybe bringing us to the top of the tag. What helps is reblogging. This site is built for that and it is quick and easy.

Literally all you have to do is hit the reblog button beside the like button and hit post. You don’t need tags or anything on your own blog. It really is quick and simple. Literally it only takes one second more than liking alone.

Now you might be saying Zee I want to reblog but I don’t want to spam my blog, I’m only on tumblr at 20 minute intervals I don’t want to to clog up other peoples dashes with my reblogs and that’s fine I got you.

Let me tell you about the queue function. Tumblr has a built in awesome system called the queue.

It’s really quick and easy to use all you have to do is hit the reblog button, hit the three dots to the side, hit queue and boom your reblog is now added to your queue.

Now what does the queue actually do? Basically it allows for your reblogs to go out at random times throughout the day without you doing anything. For example mine posts 10 times a day during the whole 24hr period. This is because as you can see I have a lot of art in my queue, you don’t need to have that much but you can. The queue is literally limitless.

To modify your queue can also hit that cog button and modify it to suit your every whim. And boom there you go a quick and easy way to help creators from your mobile without any hassle.

You can even shuffle your queue so on days when discover a new interest and go through the entire tag liking and reblogging things you can mix it around with the stuff you regularly reblog to not overwhelm your followers with your new special interest! It's great!

Now if you want to push this one step further, maybe you like having tags on your posts to keep your blog organised, but you don’t want the hassle of typing out all those tags in 20 mins. Then don’t worry, I got you.

You see I kinda lied, the like button does have a function. It’s great as working as a bookmark. So if your in public and you want to show love for something then go on ahead and like that thing. Then when you get home you’re going to want to pull out your laptop and boot up tumblr and xkit. Which you can get here!

Once you have xkit up your going to want to go to quick tags and set up your tag buddles. These tags are then autosaved and easy edited making reblogging and adding to your queue incredibly easy. You can even add in your own rambly tags and keep the bundle.

Honestly you don't even need to do it everyday, sure it saves some time but I usually try to update my queue once every two weeks or so (I forgot for like a month this time thats why my queue is so big, I had to go very far back, Don't be a me. It's stressful.) By using your likes as a bookmark you keep all the art and then can backdate everything you've liked in past few weeks, but honestly you don't need to do this. I do because I can be very Type A about running a blog but no one is going to hate you for spam reblogging or for reblogging without tags but please think about reblogging stuff to give a creator a much needed boost of serotonin. Remember that most creators are here for free and just want to share the thing they love with other people so keep the cycle alive and reblog stuff.

[that-bookworm-guy]

Tumblr Newbies listen up:

First of all welcome, things are different here, and we won’t lie, it’s a mess but we also kinda love it.

1. Want to be popular or famous on here??  Move along, not gonna happen. Follower count aren’t shown to others here, nor is the following count. No one cares, and honestly it’s one of my favourite things about this site. Does a person have 10 or 10k followers?? Only they know. Following to unfollow later isn’t really a bit issue, there’s no reason to because no one knows how many followers you have. 

2. Block, block and block. Blocking is seen as like a last resort or something big on other sites. Not here, block who you want when you want for whatever reason you want. It’s not a big thing.

3. Your dash is yours. Follow who you want and whatever you want. Unfollow whenever you want. Follow your likes and change however often you want.

4. Want to make a popular post?? Good luck my friend A popular post could be anything from useful information to someone going ‘I like salt’ to someone really random. Post what you wanna post when you wanna post without hope it’s gonna get noticed. Which leads me to my next point

5. It’s basically yelling into a void here Post whatever you want, it’s probably going to end up getting swallowed into the void with maybe the same 5 people here liking it. It’s basically just like yelling while in a crowd and 1 person might yell back, but that’s it.

6. Likes are cool, but it’s not what we’re really into. Likes are cool, but only you see what you like, unless you make it visible to others. Reblogs are basically sharing stuff to your profile and to someone else's dash so others see what you reblog. If you like something, reblog it. Like it is just basically saving it for you to look back at later. Comments are basically just a convo between you and the original poster. You can reblog with a reply, so the comment is public and others can reply to you. Notes are the overall amount of comments, likes, and reblogs. Aim for liking and then reblogging something

7. Tags are cool, but they are also for thoughts. so you can tag stuff with the basics #Photo #Art etc, but you can also #I really like this and once I saw something similar and it reminds me of that. Hashtags here can have spaces and can be quite long, but you can break it up with other hashtags for basic sentences

8. Find your people There is a fandom and blog for everything and I mean everything. You can always find a blog or someone who likes what you like. You just have to find them and search tags. I’ve only been involved in the book side (Booklr) and the study side (Studyblr) but there is always someone out there you can chat to

9. Just have fun We’re not really here for much else. There’s no pressure on tumblr, there’s no popular side, there’s no fight to be something you’re not. Just be yourself and enjoy what you can

10. This site is a mess Yeah, things stop working or they mess around, it’s part of the charm

Bonus:

A lot of the time there are inside jokes. I came across one this morning I had no idea what it meant. You can find tags or sometimes people explain. We want people in on the joke, if you know the joke and someone asks you, don’t be a snob about it. Let them in on it. It’s so much more fun and its amazing what people can do.

[himbos-hotline]

Wdym treating it like tik tok /gen

very simply. Reblogs are what keep this website alive, there are no rules to reblogging things. You can reblog things from mutuals, not mutals, you can talk in the tags. whatever you wanna do, as long as you reblog. that completely fine, thats what tumblr was made for. Whereas social medias [and I refer to tumblr as social media super loosely here] nowadays rely on likes as engagement. Liking things on tumblr is used for posts such as vents or stuff like that. Not for things that people make. I'm not calling it content, we arent getting paid for what we make we are not content creators. we are artists. No matter what thing we use to make our art- if youre a writer, painter, digital artist, photographer, whatever!

People make things for themselves, they share them for other people. You don't make an entire four course meal just for yourself, you dont spend hours making a cake just to leave it sitting on your kitchen table. Likes are not visible on tumblr and if yours are, nobody is going to go into your blog and click on your likes. nobody is doing that, like ever. So you like a bit of fanart and it stays in your likes, unseen forever. Where as with a reblog, you are showing that fanart to other people for them to then show other people. your reblogs are visible because they're visible on your dash.

People who create things, artists on tumblr thrive on reblogs for other people to see their things. Using the analogy of the cake again.

Likes are you putting the cake behind a glass wall and going "thats a nice cake."

Reblogs are you cutting the cake up and sharing it with other people, telling them the recipie.

People thinking that likes do anything other than just, staring at the artist. Reblogs are showing other people going "look at how cool this person is! this is where you can find more cool things!". Tumblr is not tiktok its made for people to reblog things.

your blog is your house, why wouldnt you want to decorate it with things you love? this is not some celebs house with crisp white walls. Have fun! reblog stuff!

Now dear anon, Im gonna adress you and other people reading this directly. Say you spend hours making something that you really love, your bleary eyed, youre tired and hungry and so fucking proud of what you made. So you go and so super excitedly show it to your friends. youre beaming and all wide eyed with joy, you have the joy of creation pulsing through your veins...and they just. stare. they all look at you. Maybe, if youre lucky, one of them will raise a disconnected, bothered lackluster thumbs up. How does that make you feel? Do you feel the joy drain out of your body? do you feel that lack of dopimine in your brain? do you want to pick up your pen again? do you want to put your time and effort into something that you feel like nobody cares about it?

Now, different situation. You spend hours making something that youre proud of, you go running to your friends going "look! look what I did!" and they all irrupt into this joyous laugh, they praise you, people freak out at you, you get affection. you get a reward. You walk into the kitchen the next day and the stuff you made is posted on the fridge along with sticky notes.

Thats how it feels to be a creative nowadays on tumblr. You spend hours working on a fic or a request or gifs or video edits or what have you. And if youre lucky you will get like, 3 reblogs and one of those are you re-reblogging. For example, here are the likes/reblog ratios from my most recent fics

My dead girl adam Cole Au- 4k words for one chapter

An adam sqaured request- 2k words

A hangkenny fic- 4k words

See anything similar? theres more likes than reblogs. People will stop making things if people dont stop treating likes the way they work on tiktok. Your likes are blocking up artists and then people who dont make things, get pissed when people stop.

[romaine2424]

Daily Blog June 30, 2023

Big arse Sigh. My daughter and her boyfriend have Covid. It's her first time. They are quarantined upstairs. I had it over a year ago and do not want a repeat performance. Fingers crossed they get through it okay. In the meantime, windows are open, fans are on, and I have two air purifiers turned on. Also have a stash of N95 masks, hand sanitizer, medicines, thermometer, Covid antigen tests, and oximeter. *Rom is prepared*

What I'm reading:

Almost done with The Ordeal of Being Known!

Tumblr Interesting Posts

As today is the last day of Pride month, I wanted to highlight a series that @thedrarrylibrarian has been posting called Happy Pride. Here's the premise as stated: Several people have been kind enough to let me publish their thoughts on fandom, community, and queerness to celebrate Pride in the Library.

I think there is seven so far and they're just lovely and so heartfelt. You can read all 7 by using the tag: #Pride in the Library.  

I'm going to be posting more about @thedrarrylibrarian as a Drarry resource soon!

2. There's posts and comments floating around about doing a blackout for Disability Month, which is for the month of July. I will be posting. And I think this post by @intothedysphoria explains it best.

Tumblr Drarry Fic/Art Resources:

Okay this is something AO3 users should look into. It's a Fanworks Permission Statement Builder by @flamingwell. This would be put in your AO3 profile and maybe in the notes for your stories. The following is from the post in case you're not quite sure what a permission statement is: A fanworks permission statement (also known as a blanket permission statement or transformative works permission statement) is very simple: it's something you post in a publically-visible place (usually your AO3 profile) that tells other fan creators what you are and aren't okay with in terms of other people making fanworks based off your stuff. It can be as simple as a sentence or two, or as complicated as you want to communicate your preferences clearly.

Now, I haven't used this yet but it's high on my ToDo list! I'll let you know how it goes when task is accomplished.

Okay, that's all I have for today because I am still writing! Usually, I'm poking a stick at my muse but right now my muse thinks its cute by chasing a fluffle of plot bunnies.

SCOTUS is a Dumpster Fire!

Rom

[katyspersonal]

How to identify that someone's account is shadowbanned

Okay so, basically? Tumblr is being a real mess with this, but you can help the artists that got nightmare'd like that! Shadowbanning on Tumblr is a very annoying thing that makes your posts not appear in search and recommendations, makes you unable to use DMs (and people can't send you asks the last time I checked, either?), doesn't show your notes to other people etc.

The easiest giveaway is if the person does not have you blocked, but when you hover over their icon, the blog doesn't display any posts:

(Using a person that got shadowbanned as a volunteer because Tumblr hates good art lmao)

Usually when you check their blog, you can see there is no ask or DMs option available, and for further evidence you could check the posts that you know they liked/reblogged. If it doesn't show their notification, it usually further proves they've been shadowbanned (rarer it means they were blocked by OP since they liked/reblogged this post, so this is a bit more vague). Another good evidence is if their post is not showing in Tumblr's search tags - especially if you clearly remember you did see it in the tags previously!

If you reblog the post from a person that got shadowbanned - it will still show up on the dashboard and in blogs, but shadowbanning still seriously robs artists from exposure (and from potential new customers if they sell stuff). My incentive to check whether artist got shadowbanned is usually when there are too little notes considering the quality.. Works almost always + proves my point.

How to help?

If they have left other means to contact them (email, patreon/boosty, twitter, insta, etc) - message them there, explaining the issue! I usually link a good post about Shadowbanning from @that-damn-girl that explains in details what it does and what to do ( x ), TLDR; they need to message Tumblr staff about the issue via in-site function. Explain that their posts do not show up anywhere, they can't use asks and DMs have disappeared, all that. Usually within one week staff explains it was a glitch and apologise, and they can see the difference when DMs are back, posts show up in tags, their notes are visible etc. Sometimes staff might forget to get back upon too many requests, so sending other ticket is also an option.

Some blogs won't have any means to contact them available, so in these cases I have to "get creative" usually. For example, explain them that Tumblr fucked them up in the comments under some post (track this post regularly because, again, their response will not show up in your notes). Or maybe bother their mutual that I have a reason to think has their Discord or other contacts and could pass the message to them. Usually there are SOME ways to inform the person!

Basically - train to identify and undo this shit! It is somewhat easy to spot when you know what signs you're looking for. I have seen SO many artists, especially ones not speaking English native or who migrated from Twitter to have no idea what is going on, and their followers don't know what shadowbanning is either!

___________________

P.S. There is also a rare possible issue (that I have had a misfortune to encounter when I was trying to unban my blog) where they consistently ignore messages from affiliated email. If you feel like that's the case and you have been banned for too long, despite repeatedly sending tickets, try to use another email and explain why you did so. The possibility is very unlikely but as someone who had to deal with this, I just thought it is worth mentioning. Hopefully I was the only "lucky" one like that haha.