#(just in case someone might need it tagged for blacklisting purposes?)

[raayllum]

It's hard to tell because it's only been some posts but you sound somewhat frustrated with pre-season discussions happening elsewhere for The Dragon Prince? In any case, I thought you might appreciate the note that some people certifiably do like Rayla and Callum as characters perfectly well (I know I do at least and have since the start)?

I'm sure you're aware of it already but it felt somewhat like it'd help you not feel like you're typing into a void of dissent for enjoying them and the show concurrently? Even if I'd disliked the time skip in some capacities (I didn't particularly, I thought Rayla had good instincts wanting proof of death etc she just perhaps should have taken more backup for higher success chances if at all possible) Stella's introduction would have won me over entirely anyway.

There's no shame in being easily charmed by adorable animal characters, after all! She really is cute and also useful in limited capacities, like Bait.

If you wanted an actual ask with the above I suppose that I'm intrigued how similarly you thought Bait and Stella functioned as extended powers/company of their respective people and in the group?

Mostly on twitter (which is a reason to stay off twitter) but, in all honesty, it's mostly because it's annoying to see people use ship names or main tags for their complaining (I have "tdp critical" blacklisted or whatever for a reason y'know). Like as someone who truly deeply loves every character and every part of the show, when Claudia or Terry or Aaravos or anyone else gets promo I'm thrilled and intrigued and theorizing. And there's a minimal but loud portion(s) of the fandom who are either currently expressing (or have a track record) of annoyance when Callum and Rayla, as main characters and as the show's consistently most developed dynamic (which, I want to stress, has been the case even in s1 and s2) dare to be main characters and have marketing, there's an uproar of complaining. (Again, not the majority, but still baffles me that it exists at all.)

It'd be like if I complained about ATLA being primarily about Aang, its main character, for the majority of the show's run because I thought Toph needed more of a character arc (she's the least developed of the gaang bc she comes in s2 and has a general self-acceptance arc that doesn't need a ton of steps, for ex).

Sometimes favourite characters are there to have minimal screentime, execute their story purpose, and highlight other characters' arcs. The divide between characters where that's generally understood (Gren, Lain, Tiadrin, Opeli) vs characters where it's not (Aaravos in S4/S5, Runaan) again irks me because of the inconsistency, and therefore bias accordingly affecting judgement. Which maybe isn't fair - most people, myself included, are in fandom as a hobby, and for some people that means not evaluating their biases and not wanting to adjust their expectations; I just can't imagine doing anything else

I think Bait mostly serves as emotional support to Ezran and a lil guy to Talk to for Callum (2x05, 4x02) when a human character wouldn't quite make sense or is gone (Rayla is his usual confidant, for example). Stella is more interesting to me from a structure standpoint as 1) a character connected to the Star arcanum who thus far doesn't really need to be, so I'm curious there and 2) a juxtaposition to post-timeskip Rayla's "we can't save everyone" that her big heart and soft insides is still there, and still something worth listening to.

[wackywatchdotcom]

Hey I sae your picture of abstracted zooble and gangle. I saw your tag "ask to tag" but I'm not sure what that means (I apologise for my ignorance)

I would realy like to reblog it, I just don't rebloging things with no tagg because I like to sometimes look back especially if an old hyperfixation comes back, is it OK if I tagg it as the amazing digital circus, the characters name and fanart? I'll even add a tag crediting you if you want

oh yeah feel free to reblog it n put whatever tags u want, 'ask to tag' isnt to do with anything anyone else needs to follow or smth!!! its just a sort of catchall tag ive been using for yrs when i post smth that could have visual aspects/concepts in it someone might want tagged in the future for blacklisting purposes!!

i tend to add it when i cant think of a specific word someone might have blacklisted on tumblr that could apply to the piece, but i could imagine someone theoretically not wanting to see it. in that ones case i know the concept is unpleasant and that theoretically a person might want it to be tagged for some reason relating to that unpleasantness, but since i dont know what specifically a person would want it tagged as i put ask to tag :]

[schizodiaries]

hi, i hope you're doing good! i just started a mental health/recovery sideblog to help me deal with my schizophrenia and did diagnoses, and i was wondering if you have any advice for running a blog like this? i really like how you use yours creatively, and i want to get the most out of my experiences <3

Hi there, I’m doing great. I hope you are doing fine as well.

I don’t know if I have much advice for making a mental health blog, but I can at least tell you how I like to run mine. Here’s what goes through my mind when considering what to post here on schizodiaries:

I like to reblog relatable posts, memes about mental health, resources, and informative posts about schizophrenia, coping skills, and general mental health topics.

Sometimes I like to use this blog as a journal to document my mental wellness journey. Be cautious about what you share though, make sure none of it is personal or sensitive information that someone could take advantage of (e.g. listing your triggers).

Having a tagging system is nice, I try to tag every post both for organization purposes and in case someone would like a certain topic blacklisted from their dashboard.

I personally try to steer away from drama and discourse, as it can be stressful for some people and myself, but that doesn’t mean I can’t offer my two cents on a topic every now and again.

I like to have a theme with all my blogs. You might have noticed my theme on this blog is the white rabbit. So I’ll occasionally reblog posts pertaining to white rabbits.

I’m still trying to get better at this, but accessibility is important to a lot of disabled people, so I’m trying to refrain from reblogging images without IDs. I don’t know how to write them myself so I rely on others to do it. I also try to refrain from formatting my posts with different colors or fonts.

If an original post “breaches containment” or starts getting weird comments you can always lock the post and prevent it from being reblogged. You can also do this with personal posts that you prefer not to be shared.

I’ve never had to deal with anon hate or hate comments, but my solution to it is to simply ignore and delete them. Block them if you need to. Don’t even give them the time of day or the attention they crave.

Most importantly, as cliche as this might sound, just have fun with it. I have a great time running this blog and interacting with the schizospec community. At no point should it feel stressful or uncomfortable running a mental health blog. If you need to take a break, please do so, and if it gets too much you can always delete the blog.

[shaudo-of-a-doubt]

I'm not saying that it's less than a friendship. Allow me to elaborate.

What I'm saying is that following ≠ friendship and that one shouldn't give up on a friend just because their friend doesn't follow one's feed. That some friends may temporarily blacklist you while others will unfollow you and that either one doesn't have to be a sign that the friendship has ended.

My best example of the concept I'm trying to convey is that my sibling, one of my best and oldest friends, follows my account on Tumblr, but has a streak of truly vicious insectophobia. I, meanwhile, adore moths and jumping spiders and an assortment of creepy crawlies that unfortunately fit the bill and if, for my mental health (or personal preference or for any reason, really), I decided that I needed to post endless bugs without having to think about tags and trigger warnings, I would encourage this friend to unfollow my account and continue to maintain that relationship elsewhere.

I have friends I don't follow because their approach to politics gives me a headache and friends I don't follow because they are WAY more into a certain thing than I will EVER be. We're still friends, though, and I still talk to them and such things that friends do.

Mostly what I'm trying to say are two things:

1. Unfollowing and blacklisting are two tools that accomplish the same purpose for different people.

Maybe Tumblr is your primary point of contact between you and friends and so you want to be able to easily find those friends regardless of whether you can see their posts on a regular basis, and that's fine! I'm not telling you how to live your life. But people organize their lives in different ways, so don't be immediately heartbroken if someone you considered a friend unfollows you. That's when you go and inquire if everything is okay between you, if you're really worried and treasure the relationship. Maybe they just aren't that into your primary posting topics and don't want to deal with blacklisting. It can be a completely benign rationale, even if one that you don't agree with.

2. Maybe find more ways to communicate with friends?

This is mostly my age speaking. I'm kind of used to social media platforms disintegrating or evolving beyond usability or falling out of vogue or into disrepair by now! It's worth it to have other ways to contact people who you would otherwise be forced to leave behind in such cases.

It's this approach to online friendships that makes unfollowing friends on Tumblr a neutral act. Might not be your kind of approach (and that's okay), but that's all it is.

listen I am telling you this very important thing. shh listen. it is so much better to temporarily blacklist that Tumblr pal who is irritating you than it is to unfollow them. because over time you will realize that annoying thing they were doing was a phase or that bad attitude they had was a phase, OR that it was YOUR bad attitude making them seem annoying, and YOUR bad attitude is also temporary. and when the phases fade away you will realize it was just a little dumb thing in the grand scheme of your good life together, and in real life you can’t just unfollow your friends when they’re being dumb, you have to forbear with them, and you have to live with the consequences of your own actions.

[schnuffel-danny]

fully intend to open a pandora's box w this but i srsly want to know your thoughts on jack/vlad

They are my Blorbos. They are my Angels. They are my Stars, my Sky and my Moon. They shine a bright light from within my heart and- ALRIGHT that's enough of that. I like them a normal amount.

I don’t think I’ll ever be able to properly formulate my thoughts on them, there is so much going on with these two (or, most likely, I’m just being sick in the head). On one hand, they are peak comedy; the idea of them being a couple in any capacity is absolutely hilarious. They’re both braindead to a terrifying degree in completely opposite directions, they’re a disaster duo through and through, in the event that they’re allowed to be together (both on good terms) for more than five minutes they’ll somehow manage to burn an entire city down, with Jack excitedly suggesting they make s’mores over the roaring fires of a local gas station. Vlad is on a never-ending quest to prove his intelligence and superiority, Jack doesn’t even really care what’s going on he just wants to prove that whatever it is he can do it. None of us would get out alive if this apocalyptic event of a relationship were to happen, not me, not you, not any of the mildly horrified yet incredibly amused bystanders. They’re the funniest ever.

Vlad spends as much time as possible talking about how much he hates Jack and how much he wants to fuck his wife. This man wants to rip Jack’s spine out and steal his wife and kids. Jack’s kids consider Vlad to be the devil himself and his wife is at best indifferent towards him. Yet, forever oblivious, Jack treats Vlad like he put the stars in the night sky one by one. They’re friends to lovers to exes to enemies to friends to lovers (to exes to maybe lovers) again, but they can’t even be that because the enemies thing is entirely one sided. Jack is so blinded by his nostalgic ideal of Vlad as a friend that he remains blissfully ignorant of Vlad’s murderous intentions towards him.

The entire concept of the villain somehow getting together with the hero’s dad, who absolutely refuses to see him for the walking red flag that he is, gives these two the potential to be the funniest cringe fail pairing in existence.

Before I even thought of anything else about these two I was captivated by their comedic potential, so captivated in fact that while I was happily stomping my feet in the shallow puddle of this ship’s depth I didn’t notice I'd tripped and fallen into a lake until I started drowning.

Thinking about them hurts. It’s about the memories. It’s about the love which, despite everything, remains the same. It’s about the familiar comfort that seems so unattainable now, even when it’s within reach. The burning hatred, the unanswered cries for help, the unspoken apologies, the yearning for things to go back to the way they were, the loneliness, the betrayal, the violence… It’s knowing nothing has changed. It’s knowing nothing is the same. It’s about looking at someone you hate more than anyone and only being able to think of the times he’s held you close and made you feel safe in the world. It’s about loving someone and only being able to think of how you were abandoned. It’s about seeing how neither of you has moved on and realizing that you can’t do anything about it, not at this point of your lives. You aren’t friends, you aren’t lovers, you aren’t enemies. No matter what one feels towards the other it can seemingly never be reciprocated in the same way. Love neither wins nor loses. Love remains at a stalemate. It burns the same it has for decades and you watch the flames dance, but neither reaches to warm their hands by the fire. Not anymore. Something about doing so feels wrong. Maybe you just aren’t ready yet. But it’s alright, you’re not worried about it going out anytime soon.

Conclusion: I hate them and I want them to die.

[pipipinyyy]

Explaining why I have added every song in my entire and very long Niragi playlist because I can and because over analyzing him is my passion (I usually update it from time to time but I'll do it with the current songs)

Completely self indulgent post, but I decided to share to feed my fellow Niragi stans (*˙︶˙*)☆*°

This is entirely based on my view of the songs and how I interpret them while thinking about Niragi. I'm aware that most of them have entirely different meanings, this is just for fun :) (Also sorry if my explanations don't make much sense, English is not my first language and I might make mistakes when trying to put my feelings and thoughts into words)

This may contain manga/s2 spoilers

Hayloft-Mother Mother: Vibes

Criminal-Britney Spears: The whole song describes him ("he is a sucker with a gun") and the fandom's obsession ("mama I'm in love with a criminal")

Daddy Issues-The Neighborhood: I feel like he would act like this, using the most vulnerable spots to pick on someone ("cry little girl, nobody does it like you do")

Psycho-Jin Dogg, OVER KILL: Vibes

Riot-Hollywood Undead: He'd definitely start a riot like he did in the 10 of hearts, burning and destroying anything that crosses his path

Bitches-Mindless Self Indulgence: He most likely thinks he's a total fuckboy and popular with girls since he can get almost anything he wants out of scarying people

Baby's on Fire-Die Antwoord: Vibes

Insane in the Brain-Cypress Hill: This man is being consumed by his own way of protecting himself

Wolf in Sheep's Clothing-Set It Off: Based on how he feels towards the people who hurt him in the past ("Listen, mark my words, one day, you will pay" "You've always been a huge piece of shit, if I could kill you, I would" "Karma is gonna come collect your debt")

Death no more-IC3PEAK: Vibes

Gasoline-I Prevail: Sort of similar to Riot, ("So burn it all down, burn it all down, I don't give a fuck")

Toxic-Britney Spears: The whole fandom knows how much of a piece of shit this dude can be, but we still find ourselves liking/enjoying his character (to an extent), a toxic addiction

Nice Guy-GRLwood: As much as I love this man, he'd use the "I'm a nice guy c'mon" card just to fuck. If he wants to, he'll get it, if he doesn't, he'll most likely get mad

Dernière danse-Indila: Vibes

TRRST-IC3PEAK: Mostly vibes, I kinda see this song as how he felt the first time he killed someone on purpose inside the borderlands ("mama they say I'm a terrorist, I did nothing wrong but I got on the blacklist")

Saint Bernard-Lincoln: Vibes

Nowhere To Run-Stegosaurus Rex: Being with him at the Beach would either be ignoring each other completely or a game of tag, no inbetween. If this man wants to kill you, he'll get his fun time out of it as well ("You're gonna die, I'm gonna kill you")

The House of Wolves-Bring Me The Horizon: Based on how he sees life after being consumed by his current mental state ("Show me a sign, show me a reason to give a solitary fuck about your god damn beliefs" "What you call faith, I call a sorry excuse")

Smells Blood-Kensuke Ushio: Vibes

SIU-Maretu: Similar to Daddy Issues, don't expect this man to be a therapist. If he sees anyone crying or panicking in or outside a game, he'd most likely tell them to suck it up, just like this song.

Judgement-Kensuke Ushio: Vibes

MONSTER ENERGY GUN!-KevinKempt: Vibes + He for sure has an energy drink addiction, specially pre-borderlands

HURT-1 800 PAIN: Vibes

Fear Is The Mind Killer-Zheani: Vibes

I Bet on Losing Dogs: Based on how I know Niragi is toxic, and most likely unsaveable of his deteriorating mental state, but I still have him as my biggest comfort character ("I bet on losing dogs, I know they're losing and I'll pay for my place")

Emo Boy-Ayesha Erotica: He's been in an emo phase (and maybe still is), the lyrics are pretty self explanatory, they describe us Niragi simps perfecrly ("come on fuck me emo boy")

Crybaby-Destroy Boys: Vibes

The Fox's Wedding-MASA Works DESIGEN: Vibes

You're a useless child-Kikuo: We don't know much about his past, but judging by the unstoppable bullying he's suffered, his parents didn't care about him, or were straight up absent. He's been insulted by pretty much everyone in his past to the point of believing it and telling those things to himself ("You're a useless child, the most useless child in this world" "Drool in snot, dandruff, shit and piss" "I'm a useless child" "Nobody will save me" "I'm a lonely kid")

Take A Slice-Glass Animals: Vibes

Fighting With The Melody-Jimmy Urine: Vibes

Comics-Caravan Palace: Vibes

Rhinestone Eyes-Gorillaz: Vibes

Butch 4 Butch-Rio Romero: Mostly vibes, sort of how I think the most "peacefull" moments in a relationship with him would feel like, kind of bittersweet feeling

Suki Suki Daisuki-Jun Togawa: Yandere Niragi. If he's interested in someone, he'd go through an obsessive phase, most likely forcing the other person to "love" him. This man is so confused about the feeling of love that he's unable to tell when he loves someone or when he's obsessed with them due to his lack of attention ("Like you, like you, I love you. Say you love me or I'll kill you")

:(-The Garden: Vibes

Kitty City-Cyriak Harris: Vibes

Blood-My Chemical Romance: If Niragi went to a therapist, he'd act like this song, with his signature cocky and sarcastic personality (at least before he gets better) ("I can't control myself because I don't know how" "They can fix me proper with a bit of luck" "I'm the kind of human wreckage that you love")

A Mask of My Own Face-Lemon Demon: He feels like he needs to protect himself or else he will get hurt inside the borderlands by others again. He uses another personality, a completely ruthless one, even if he doesn't like it and hates himself for it, he doesn't see another way to deal with his fear, allowing his "new self" to consume himself. ("I'd wear that mask of my own face" "I look into my eyeholes and what do I see? A handsome motherfucker motherfucking looking back at me")

I'm a Murderer-Freddie Dredd: Mostly vibes ("I'm a motherfucking murderer")

'Cause I'm a Liar-Mcki Robyns-P: He would lie just for fun even in serious situations. If he needs to manipulate someone to survive, he'll do it his way, after all, he doesn't care anymore, he just seeks for excitement. ("Without emotion, without devotion. It's much easier to fake something happy")

I Disagree-Poppy: I don't know exactly how to describe it, but I feel like this is how he sees and feels the world and those around him, feeling misunderstood and going his own way ("If only all of you could see the world I see, then maybe everyone could live in harmony")

Personal Jesus-Mindless Self Indulgence: He has a superiority complex, that's for sure. I don't think he sees himself as a god, but I see him joking about it

Rainbow Factory-GLAZE, WoodenToaster: Vibes

Frontier Psychiatrist-The Avalanches: I kinda see this as Aguni taking the role of Niragi's "father figure" inside the borderlands, realizing he's turning insane and is unable to control him ("That boy needs therapy")

Hate it. Hate it. "JIGAHIDAI!"-WADATAKEAKI Kurage P: Jealousy. I can see it either in a pre-borderland situation where he hates the popular students in school, or inside the borderlands hating both Chishiya and Arisu. Jealousy takes over him constructing a big ego, causing himself to develop his superiority complex ("You see, I hate that popular girl!" "Does she think I don't notice? How she looks at me as if I'm trash" "I want to be praised" "I'm different from you all, I have my own ego! I'm not a side character" "I have zero common sense. I'm special")

Villain-Stella Jang: He knows damn well he's a villain, that's his goal after all, but what if someone took his point of view? wouldn't the villains be all of those who hurted him in the first place? ("We all pretend to be the heroes on the good side, but what if we are the villains on the other")

Violent-carolesdaughter: This is how I view an argument inside a relationship with Niragi. He's used to violence, to cause fear, and getting what he wants, so being in a healthy relationship would require a lot of patience and strenght. While he's getting better and suppressing those violent actions, there will be times where he accidentally uses violence or threatens the other person unintentionally, mostly hurting himself and his partner psychologically. The lyrics change between both points of view ("Don't make me get violent, I want my ring back baby that's a diamond" "She knows I'm a wreck" "I gave you all my trust and I told you just don't break it")

Hey Bunny-Baby Bugs: Based on how I think it would feel to partner up with him inside the borderlands and catching feelings for him while knowing the huge mess he is ("Hey bunny, what's with those evil eyes?" "Hey bunny, what the hell is wrong with us?" "Hey bunny, what if I loose you too? If I become the monster, together we can always be blue")

Kokoronashi-majiko: I'm pretty sure Niragi isn't able to see himself as someone able to love, even if he doesn't want to be alone (just like when he confesses this feeling while fighting with Chishiya and Arisu). If someone truly loved him and was willing to not letting him go, it would hurt. He can't see himself as someone who can love or be loved, so he can't accept the love he's seeking for in case that turns him "weaker" making his true self confront with the protective mean personality he's created. He could learn how to accept it, so he might want the other person to stay in the end, but it wouldn't be easy for him to accept it ("It's awful, I'd rather you destroy my body, tear it to sheds, do as you please" "No matter how much I'm loved by you, my heart is just one" "I don't know this, don't leave me alone")

Nightmare Parade-FAKE TYPE.: Vibes

Slipping Through My Fingers-Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried: Niragi seeing himself loosing his young, gentle and caring personality due to his fear, being unable to control what's happening inside, nostalgia and sadness kicking in ("The feeling that I'm loosing her forever" "That funny little girl" "Sometimes I wish that I could freeze the picture and save it from the funny tricks of time")

Kuroneko No Tango-Pink Martini, The Von Trapps: Vibes

YKWIM?-Yot Club: Him confroting his feelings of loneliness when he's left alone with his thoughts ("It feels like I care too much when I'm alone, oh no")

Romantic Lover-Eyedress: Just appreciating his physical appearance ("She's a killer, I love her features")

Wrecking Ball-Mother Mother: Based on how he sees himself as someone who needs to destroy everything in a way or another in order to be powerful + the fun he has with it ("Call me a reckless wrecking ball" "Let's break it just because we can")

Edge-Rezz: Vibes

Freaks-Surf Curse: Again, confronting feelings when loving someone, but not in such a painful as Kokoronashi ("I need a place to stay where I can cover up my face" "Don't cry, I'm just a freak")

Little Bit-Lykke Li: Vibes

6up 5oh Cop-Out (Pro/Con)-Will Wood and the Tapeworms: Vibes

PHONKY TOWN-PlayaPhonk: Vibes

I WANNA BE YOUR SLAVE-Måneskin: Freaky time. He would absolutely love this song, definitely his type of thing ("You could be the beauty and I could be the monster" "I wanna touch your body so fucking electric" "I wanna make you hungry, then I wanna feed you")

#BrooklynBloodPop!-SyKo: Vibes

A Cold Freezin' Night-The Books: Vibes

A Pearl-Mitski: My most favorite song to associate with Niragi. Represents his evolution as a character. Creating an scenario where he is loved by someone,he rejects it at first, acting tough ("I don't want your touch") and then proceeds to explain why ("It's just that I fell in love with a war, nobody told me it ended" "it left a pearl in my hand and I roll it around every night just to watch it glow") the war being the borderlands and his new personality, he loved it, but nobody drew a line and it's getting out of hand. The pearl is the feeling of power, the one he has to remember when feeling weak just to feel something. At the end of the song it changes to ("Sorry I can't take your touch"), realizing that he wants love, but he's not able to take it or else he'll become the Niragi from the past

Problematic-Bo Burnham: Him acknowledging his problematic actions but not wanting to apologize because he doesn't feel the need to. He knows he's done bad things but he is going to laugh at it and be a sarcastic mf about it

First Love/Late Spring-Mitski: Similar to Kokoronashi, he wouldn't be able to accept love and how it makes him feel. He would think that he prefers for everyone to hate him and be lonely instead of sacrificing his tougher side. Also talks about how he's grown way too quickly for him to understand feelings properly ("So please hurry leave me, I can't breathe, please don't say you love me" "One word from you and I would jump out of this ledge I'm on baby" "I was so young when I behaved 25, yet now I find I've grown into a tough child"

The Other Side Of Paradise-Glass Animals: Vibes

Bodybag-Chloe Moriondo: How I feel about liking his character, confronting feelings basically ("Don't know if I hate you or if I wanna date you" "I don't wanna like you, I just wanna tie you up, then keep you in a cage and watch you sleep for ages"

Get Into It (Yuh)-Doja Cat: Vibes

Psycho Killer-2005 Remaster- Talking Heads: Vibes

HOT DEMON B!TCHES NEAR U!!!-CORPSE, Night Lovell: Vibes

INFERNO-Sub Urban, Bella Poarch: Again, another song that describes him pretty well ("Baby I'm the reason why hell's so hot" "Terribly like terrible, she's a villain" "Think I'm getting butterflies but it's really something telling me to run away")

Bad Morning-Omori: Vibes

Trouble Brewing: Vibes

Dueles Tan Bien-Bruses: Another song about my confronting feelings with this man ("You know what? You taste better than alcohol to me. You know that and you've got control" "Because you hurt, and you hurt so good that I don't know what to do")

And that's it!! This took me the whole day to write but it makes me very happy to be able to share it :)

I've you've read the entire thing, hope you enjoyed the character analysis! ლ(◞‿◟ლ)

[roleplay-salt]

About; Rules; FAQ

Welcome to Roleplay Salt! This is a blog for roleplayers to vent & rant anonymously about the things that peeve or hurt them in the roleplaying community.

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Your submission will always be posted anonymously; no exceptions. (This includes positivity submissions & shoutouts.)

Your submission’s text will be placed in a graphic and then copied as plain text as its caption for accessibility purposes.

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Anyone following our blog will be allowed to leave replies on submissions, whether in agreement or disagreement, and everyone is allowed (even encouraged) to reblog submissions, with or without their own commentary. However, we will delete any spamming comments, including ones that are or are similar to “Why don’t you come off anon and say that?” Such comments provide nothing to the discussion. In fact, they usually shut down discussion and it completely disregards the entire point of this blog’s existence. No one has to “come off anon” nor are they “cowards” for seeking safety behind anonymity. Your aggressiveness with that sentiment only reinforces the reason why they want to be anonymous in the first place. ADDENDUM: We will delete salt replies that involve simply telling others to, essentially, “shut up and move on already” and “stop sending salt replies in about this”. You’re more than allowed to say this things in the comments, but we will no longer be making them a part of any future debates.

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Currently, there is only one operating the blog: Moderator Bull.

“Am I allowed to know your roleplay/personal blogs?”

Unfortunately, no. To preserve our own anonymity (for many of the same reasons as the submitters), we have agreed on the terms to never give out our URLs if requested. If we are interested in your blog, then we will follow you at our own discretion!

“Will you remove a submission for me?”

That depends on the type of submission, what it is about, and what your reasoning for wanting it removed is. The whole point of anonymity is that nothing gets tied back to you. The only cases where we will greatly consider removing a submission is if it’s involving a shoutout about you and you don’t want to be affiliated with us. 

“Will you remove my comments on a submission?”

Of course! However, we will not remove any corresponding responses to you (except in instances where, if yours is removed, the next comment is made to look like it’s being directed to the person prior to your comment. We don’t want to cause unnecessary conflict.) We will also not be relied upon to keep deleting comments you regret leaving behind. If you’re wanting to leave a public response on submissions, then you must be prepared to have others possibly publicly disagree with you.

“Can I ask you for roleplay advice?”

Go right ahead! But we can’t promise the best or most insightful of answers, or that we’ll get to them relatively soon! Chances are, we will post your questions anonymously so that others in the community can help.

“Why did you follow my blog?”

To make our existence known to you and, if you like us, hoping that you will send in a submission of your own or tell your roleplay partners about us!

“How did you find my blog?”

Most likely through the Recommended sidebar feature, a mutual, or just the good ol’ search function.  

“Could you unfollow me?”

If you don’t want to be associated with us, then we recommend blocking the blog so that we don’t unintentionally follow you again!

“Hey, could you do something about the people leaving rude, mean responses on the submissions?”

Unless they are throwing bigoted slurs, threats, or suicide-baiting remarks at the anonymous submitter, they are not doing anything wrong. They have just as much right to disagree with your submission as you had when you sent it to us. We are, first and foremost, a place to vent frustrations or hurts behind the safety of anonymity, and we are also a free-speech blog. We are of the belief that discussions, no matter how heated, is healthy and brings the community together as a whole. Just as your submission may provide someone else with the awareness that they are not alone in similar frustrations, someone disagreeing with your submission may provide a new perspective to you and others that had not been considered before.

“How does name-calling and swearing and being mean add to a discussion? You and your blog are what are wrong with the roleplaying community!”

Just because someone isn’t being nice to you as they give their side of the argument, doesn’t mean that it cancels out their actual argument. You’re choosing to be offended and distracted by how abrasive they are, and that’s no one’s problem to deal with but your own. You have the ability to block anyone so that you no longer have to see their comments on future submissions. Why would we police what people say, the endgame of which would be to ban them from ever reblogging or commenting on submissions again if they don’t listen to us, if you’re not even willing to try solving the problem first by just blocking them? Wanting to have the last word or being upset that your submission didn’t receive the feedback you wanted is not a reason for us to step in and step on someone else’s right to speak, rudely or otherwise. If you’re not going to block them, then why should we?

“Could you not post submissions on sensitive topics like noncon, incest, and pedophilia?”

We have started tagging posts that we believe might be sensitive and controversial in nature with the tag “#twcontroversy”. We recommend blacklisting this tag. If that is still not enough, then we recommend unfollowing/blocking us. These are topics just as relevant in the roleplaying community as anything else.

“Could you promote me?”

Certainly! But only if you are another community-involved blog (a blog that provides a ‘service’ to the community, such as advice, roleplay help, a place for confessions, etc.), and it must be relevant to the roleplaying community to some degree! If you want to promote a roleplay blog, then we suggest sending in a shoutout submission!

“I sent a confession in weeks ago. Where is it? How long will it take for it to get posted?”

It’s either sitting in the queue or sitting in our drafts, waiting to be queued. We have 1,200+ followers so far, and on average we’re sent 15+ submissions a night. We only post between 5 to 8 submissions at night. Your submission is on a wait list. That’s all we can tell you.

“Why don’t you just close your submission box until all the current confessions are posted?”

Because we’re a vent blog first and foremost. If we close our ask/submission boxes, then we’re no longer an option for people who might desperately need to vent or talk about something that could have happened to them that day but have no other options. We want to be a healthy alternative to just bottling it up or possibly lashing out at the wrong people.

“I don’t believe you! I think you deleted my submission because one of you didn’t like it! You’re not unbiased at all!”

We’ve posted submissions about highly controversial roleplay topics like noncon, racism, transphobia, and pedophilia. We reassure you that your salt submission about OCs, theme trends, blog selectivity, etc. is not on that same level, least of all to the point that one of us would delete it. The only submissions that we have deleted, so far, are the ones that have included racial and homophobic slurs.

“[insert OP/commenter] is obviously a rapist/pedophilie!”

If we find that you have accused someone of being a rapist, pedophile, or apologist of either because of their defensive views on noncon/pedophilic ships or roleplay, your comment will be removed and you will be blocked. These are serious accusations that you shouldn’t be throwing at people over fictional content and we refuse to to let you use this blog as a platform to spew such slanderous accusations.

[fair-fae]

In an ideal world, calling light to someone’s harmful behaviors wouldn’t result in angry people latching onto it as an excuse to spew hate at the accused. Sadly, this is far from an ideal world, but it’s the harmful behavior and the hateful attacks that are an issue, and not transparency being brought to behaviors that will likely hurt people. Threats, personal attacks, slurs, doxxing, leaking unrelated personal info, suicide baiting, anon hate, lies and slander--these are all absolutely abhorrent. I do not condone them, I do not participate in them, and I do not associate with anyone who I know does. Conflating raising awareness of abusers and holding them and their enablers accountable with these vile actions is at best ignorant, and at worst a malicious attempt to undermine victims and those supporting them. Asking for accountability, genuine apologies, and changed behavior is not an attempt to make someone kill themselves or run them out of any community and I very sincerely hope that these things are not what anyone is referring to with those claims because it could be not further from the truth. “Call outs” can serve a purpose and that is just an objective fact. When someone has a pattern of behaviors so harmful, so long-standing, and that so many people have been burned by, sometimes the most logical thing to do is warn the community at large. Equating any and every “call out,” any time a victim steps forward, any time someone is concerned with something people should be rightfully concerned about with “bullying” and “witch hunts” and “crusades” and “defamation” and imagined criminal activity is dangerous, either accidentally or intentionally. You are undermining victims, you are depriving them of a voice, you are cutting off potential future victims from information that could have helped them dodge the bullet, you are telling past victims of abuse and concerned bystanders that their safety and worries do not matter as much as your discomfort at seeing something unpleasant on your dash or being upset that your friend’s actions had consequences for them. Victims are not hurt just by abusers. They are hurt by enablers. They are hurt by people and systems who turn away from them when they ask for help. They are hurt by people who try to shut them down when they try to speak up. They are hurt when their attempts to reach out are met with insults and attacks. They are hurt when they are slandered to gaslight them, isolate them, and discredit their stories. Acting like it’s only acceptable for victims to be upset with their abusers and not all those who worsened, aided in, prolonged, or complicated their abuse and that no one but the abuser needs to take responsibility, apologize, and re-evaluate their thoughts and actions is absolutely foolish. In most cases of abuse, more than one person dropped the ball. And I do have to wonder, how many people would be able to avoid abuse entirely or escape it more quickly if their abuser did not have help? Crazy, slutty, thirsty, dramatic, confused, petty. These are words used to gaslight victims and make their stories seem less believable. But more than that, these are accusations women face every day in their lives in a society that normalizes this sort of dismissal and degradation of women and their experiences. It’s okay to abstain from judgment until you have seen proof something. Please understand, automatically insinuating a woman is a liar or somehow incorrect or malicious is not abstaining from judgment. You are taking a side, you’re just not taking the one that you think is being expected of you. If you need proof someone is abusive despite multiple testimonies, then why shouldn’t you need proof these women are being disingenuous before jumping to that conclusion? The problem was never waiting for screenshots. The problem was being more eager to tear down victims (especially women) than to listen to them. Politely brushing off women to their faces and then slandering them behind their backs does not create an environment where women feel comfortable divulging details and collecting screenshots for you. It does not create an environment where they feel like they can continue to come to you privately with their concerns and criticisms. It does not make them feel like they can talk to you about their problems. They did try to address things quietly and privately, both times. It didn’t work. How many times must victims talk at a wall before you acknowledge they made an attempt? I could talk more about enabling and censorship and how much more power it grants abusers and strips from victims but tbh that would be a whole tl;dr post of its own. So instead, on some personal notes? I tag my posts “discourse” so that anything controversial, opinionated, sensitive, long-winded, or negative can be blocked by anyone who doesn’t want to see it. Not to proclaim “THIS IS MINE HOLY DISCOURSE, READ IT AND AGREE WITH IT, PEONS” or... whatever exactly is being alleged there. It’s solely for your blacklisting pleasure. 

As for hurt feelings? I genuinely mean it when I say it, and I do not feel bad for it and will not apologize for it. If acknowledging enabling as a thing and expecting those responsible to, well, take responsibility hurts your feelings? Good. They deserve to be hurt and I hope you will learn something from it. That is not on me. I am not so insecure or idealistic I expect everyone to like me and everything I say or do. People will disagree, people will even be upset sometimes, that’s life, that’s reality. I’m not going to lose sleep over the fact that “enabling abuse is bad” was too spicy of a take for some people. And I wonder, for all your concern about feelings, did you care about the feelings of the victims of both men? The feelings of those let down by G&G’s officers? Did you care when you personally might have reopened those wounds when you denied their failings, protected them, and praised them? Did you care when the victims were undermined when someone proudly proclaimed that she told Kale off so they could have, too, if they weren’t so pitiful! Or did you give her a pat on the back because she was arguing for your side? Did you care about feelings when someone made a post calling people “sociopaths” and throwing around all kinds of personal insults, or did you applaud it and reblog it because it was an argument in your favor? Did you care about feelings when G&G couldn’t issue an apology without trying again to discredit one of the victims who had come forward? That’s the thing about toxic positivity. All the peace and love and happiness and open-mindedness? It only ever seems to apply when you want it to, when it’s your friend, when it’s something you agree with. Otherwise, it goes out the window, or better yet, it’s just a tool to get your way. “Don’t say that, because it makes me unhappy. Don’t do that, because I think it’s mean.” There’s no thought given to anyone else, their wants, their needs. It becomes nothing more than a means to force your will and control the narrative.

Sometimes in life your friends screw up and they gotta deal with that, and you do, too. Just because someone is good to you doesn’t mean they weren’t bad to someone else. Everyone is capable of both. That doesn’t mean you have to stop being their friend. In those times is when they need your love and support the most. However, love and support isn’t denying their flaws and mistakes and failings. It’s not shielding them from the consequences of their actions. It’s not attacking people who are justly critical of them. It’s not coddling them and making excuses for them. It’s helping them improve, helping them learn things, being honest with them with they’ve screwed up. It’s doing all of that no matter how hard it might be and being there for them despite it.

[holdmetightordont-2]

hi :0

i have 300 pages to read, and yet here i am, remaking my tumblr. yep.

hi, my name’s ray. i’m 23 and i started my first year of grad school two weeks ago. i already want to die. 

i’m not sure if this’ll be more of a personal or fandom blog yet. we’ll see. it might be a combination of things. i’m not bothered about followers or anything like that, so there’s no real incentive for me to make this blog known for a certain entity. i do want this blog to be somewhat organized though, so i’ll make sure i tag everything. ya’ll can blacklist any tags you don’t want to see.

i suppose the purpose of this post is to introduce myself, and sort of...blog about my first few weeks of grad school.

i’m tempted to reveal every single aspect of my life, as i do on my personal twitter account. i’ll try to be as appropriate as i can, in case someone irl finds me. i do think i’ll be somewhat recognizable, based on my research and interests, but that’s alright.

based on my username, you could guess that i am/was a big fan of fall out boy. i still listen to their music, but less so these days. about a year ago, i rewatched inception, one of my favorite movies in high school, for the fist time in years. after 8 years, i became obsessed and was pleasantly surprised to see that the fic comm is still around, churning out arthur/eames fics. it’s fantastic. i uh...love inception so much that i...did this...

i had it finished right before i moved for grad school. i’m pretty pleased with it :)

originally, i planned out a somewhat large-scale tattoo with my tattoo artist -- i wanted matching tattoos on my ribs of a rose garden, firstly because they’re one of my favorite flowers, and it would symbolize beast/highlight, the first kpop band i ever loved. then...in march, all that shit came out about junhyung -- who is a piece of shit, by the way, and i no longer really interact with fandom because of all the people who still support him -- so that obviously was called out. tbh, i’m so glad that all was revealed in march, bc i was supposed to get it in may. i would have really considered a cover up if i had gotten it before he was called out, tbh.

anyway! after i got the first half of the inception tattoo, i went to study khmer for the summer out of state. it was...an interesting summer, partly because of the teachers. khmer was h a r d. i hated the state i was in. i actually applied to go that school for my MA and i’m glad i made the decision not to go back in april.

after that, i returned home for a bit, finished off the tattoo, and promptly moved to...paradise. i’m trying to be vague here, but you can probably guess where i moved. it’s just beautiful here. the culture is so rich. i’m surrounded by such good food. i’m very excited about the classes i’m taking, the people in my program (anthropology) are so nice. i’m so so so so excited for my research.

but i’m lonely. i’ve made a few friends, but i feel kind of excluded from the group that formed in my cohort. i can tell that they hang out more together, and haven’t really invited me (though i haven’t sought them out either). i’m just kinda bummed about that. but it’s okay, i’ll make friends. 

i’m also suffering from health issues...i’ve had a hives viral infection for the past two weeks. it’s been fucking hell. nothing really helps except for the steroid i’ve taken the past few days. it just really fucking sucks. i’m itchy all the time, especially at night. in fact, i’m itchy right now, and i’m kind of glad i’m doing the all-nighter since i can’t go to sleep with this anyway. i hope this doesn’t last too much longer.

i fucked up real bad, y’all. i still have that 300 pages to read and weeks worth of khmer to do. my macbook actually broke yesterday, but thankfully i have my old one with me. it’s not a good excuse, really. i’ve been lazy. i hope i can better manage my time this upcoming week. maybe limit all-nighters to once every two weeks, or even better, once a month? that’d be nice.

on another note, i’ve been trying to cook more recently since a bunch of my kitchen supplies finally came in. i made a japanese curry with potatoes, carrots, and kabocha yesteday and it’s pretty good!! i wish i’d gotten a spicier roux though. it’s kind of a miracle that i like it so much, because i almost never eat vegetables. i guess the trick is to simmer the veggies until they’re super soft and absorb all the flavors. 

i also found recipes for a turmeric pad thai, “golden” (turmeric) broth noodles, and egg kimbaps that i’m excited to try!! there’s a small japanese grocery store that’s in walking distance from my dorm, but it doesn’t have all the ingredients i need. i also still need to order a mini fridge. but it’s been working out so far!! also want to make carne asada burritos!! i want to make 3 for this week and have the other 3 frozen so i can sorta meal prep throughout the month. i bought a meat thermometo and i’m just. so excited. because i have never made proper steak before, like the kind that’s rare or medium rare? it’ll be great.

okay, i think this is a good place to stop. it’s nice writing about everything here, cohesively. i’m a bit of a rambler on twitter (not that i’m not here, clearly), but i like that i have all my thoughts in a single place, even if there’s no one to read it. 

wish me luck on my readings! -ray

[golbatgender]

Triggers, tagging, and recovery

A mentality I’ve seen a lot on tumblr is “triggers are triggers forever and not tagging every last thing is ableist and bad!” This is a dangerous and incorrect understanding of why tagging/warning exists and how it works, and how triggers work, and has way too much potential to be co-opted for bad purposes.

Tagging for blacklisting helps people avoid specific things. It does not need to be done for xkit users for individual words if the word is already in the body text of the post. For example, if someone is blacklisting “bananas,” a text post or caption with the word “bananas” does not need to be tagged. An image of bananas or an image of the word “bananas” would be. Tagging with just the word “bananas” or blacklisting the word “bananas” is a much more sensible strategy than making up a euphemism for “bananas” and then forcing every other user on the site to use that new euphemism and acting like they’re un-progressive if they don’t want to call it “b fruit” just for you. The mobile app does require anything blacklisted to be tagged, but other than that, it’s the same.

Tagging triggers is not supposed to be forever for many things. If your trigger is a common word or object, or something hard to tag, or something so unusual you’d rarely see it anyway unless you’re following a blog dedicated to it, it is anti-recovery and an unreasonable demand on other people to try to have it blacklisted forever. In fact, complete avoidance can make the trigger worse. Instead, for recovery, which I define as “improving function to as good as it can reasonably get,” not “becoming completely normal,” you use the tagging to expose yourself to it in a controlled fashion--you see why a post is hidden, get a moment to brace yourself, and then you unhide it. You can also look at google image searches of it for controlled amounts of time, challenging yourself, to become desensitized to it, especially if it’s a less common thing. After a few months of this, you may still find the word/subject unpleasant but it likely won’t still be a major trigger. You might still prefer not to see it, but it won’t be a disaster if you do. This approach takes some work, but it’s usually worth it to not be triggered so easily.

It is polite to tag some really common or dangerous triggers, such as sexual assault or needles or self harm. Notice how these examples are either extremely common, major traumas, or paraphernalia or acts used to hurt oneself. HOWEVER, you can’t socially require people to do that, or to tag anything else. Acting like any kind of tagging is mandatory and not simply a courtesy has its own problems.

Some people can’t tag. Some people can only tag in limited ways. Tagging requires several extra steps, particularly on mobile, which also limits what posts one can tag. Tagging requires an identification of what needs to be tagged, and that is easier for objects (cats, dogs, snakes) and images than for more abstract concepts (abuse, violence, politics). Moreover, it’s at least partly an elimination of all things on an often very long list, not just a recognition of what’s there, if the tagging is for blacklisting primarily instead of organization. Not everyone is capable of making that kind of an identification on every single post they want to reblog. It’s ableist to act like everybody has to tag everything or they’re bad. It’s also ableist to act like everyone without a disclosed disability or mental illness has to tag--people aren’t required to disclose that to you. It’s also a boundary violation to act like you get to run their blog(s) for them. If someone won’t tag the way you prefer, just unfollow them, don’t bully them. Also, tagging extensively decreases one’s level of privacy; even if you make your blog unsearchable, tags can still be used to search your blog, and some users, particularly ones facing bullying, don’t want that.

Moreover, it’s really easy to co-opt mandatory extensive tagging for bad purposes. I’ve already shown how it can be used to falsely label people as ableist, or be used to violate boundaries. It’s also pretty common for people to act like entire groups of people are triggers, and try to force them to not only tag their own identities as triggers, but to try to force people to use a specific blacklist term that labels those identities as something inherently bad, instead of just blacklisting the identity itself. Because most people don’t understand how blacklist extensions work--it’s basically ctrl-F, it doesn’t only look at tags, it examines every user-visible text string in the page--it’s really easy for bad actors to bully people into tagging way more than they actually need to, sucking up their time and energy and coercing them into labeling themselves as something bad over and over again. If a well-intended social convention is so easily exploited for abuse, something is wrong with it.

I do support the availability of blacklist software and the provision of trigger warnings. However, individuals run blogs for themselves, so you can’t act entitled to warnings from all individual people without violating boundaries. I also believe that even institutions and outreach-focused blogs are only socially responsible for warning for major, common triggers, the same way food companies are only required to bold/list separately the top 8 most common food allergens, and anything beyond that is nice but not something you can fault them for not doing. Further, a blog or book or class or whatever should be free to do a blanket warning for its entirety, instead of individualized warnings for every post or piece of media, and not be faulted for that. Finally, it should be accepted that part of recovery is training yourself to be less triggered by things, and that in most cases someone who doesn’t tag or only partially tags is not attacking or not caring about survivors, that the blame for you being triggered ultimately falls on the person who hurt you, not the re-exposure; and that individuals have the responsibility to protect themselves and strangers don’t inherently owe that level of effort to you.

[bullet-pointers]

The application is the first part of the process. Occasionally with the aid of a hopefuls chat, it’s how mods get to know muses and muns before the group is finalized. Both the mods’ design of the app and the muns’ filling out of the app are pretty important to making sure a good roster can be put together with minimal pain.

Not all apps have the same sections to fill out or the same requirements for each section. Sections like Character Name or Backstory are pretty much on every single app, while other sections such as Likes/Dislikes and sometimes even Personality may not always be on there. It’s up to the discretion of the mods.

Mun Info

What Is It?: A section for information on the mun. Generally includes name/handle, pronouns, and triggers, and may also include time zone (for scheduling purposes), blacklist/greylist, and squicks.

Notes

Yeahhh, this section is pretty much necessary for all apps. It would be really awkward to not know who’s actually writing these characters. It’s also useful for lowering the odds of OOC drama.

Different groups treat triggers and squicks differently. Sometimes squicks are avoided in the OOC chat and triggers just need to be tagged, sometimes both need to be tagged in posts, and sometimes both are just lumped together in a masterlist. Obviously it’s important to note however they’re handled if you don’t want to make people unduly uncomfortable or worse.

Some apps may have a slot for blacklisted muns, and some may just figure you would list anything like that in an Other section. Either way, if there’s another mun you don’t get along with for one reason or another, be sure to list them. It may affect your chances of getting in, but it’s not worth getting into a group if you’re going to spend the whole time worrying about that other mun. IMO, having a specific blacklist section makes cross-checking apps easier for the mods.

Core Muse Info

What Is It?: The name, gender, appearance, talent, personality, bio, and central beliefs of the muse. This is what sets muses apart from each other and is the central part of the application. That being said, some parts of this section can still be added or subtracted if deemed appropriate.

Notes

Different mods will be more or less worried about appearances when it comes to app judging. It can be hard to compare across apps due to (completely valid) differences in drawing ability, image quality, only having a written description available, etc. Having a clean, detailed image and/or an appearance that reflects important aspects of the character or just like a really cute DreamSelfy can leave positive impressions, though.

Some mods prefer to limit numbers of muses with aliases or foreign origins on the roster. The same goes for fake talents, but including a lot of those can get a little weird, especially if someone’s fake talent is the same as/similar to someone else’s real talent. In general, you really don’t want duplicate talents, possibly with the exception of Reserve Course, which isn’t acceptable to all RPs, anyway. Some mods also like some kind of gender balance in the final roster, so sometimes you might get a liiiittle better odds by watching the hopefuls list and applying a rarer gender, but this isn’t always true, either. Just make sure the FAQ covers these sorts of things.

The personality section can be of different lengths and detail levels, and some RPs may accept bullet points or require specific personality aspects or details. Sometimes this section is nixed altogether if mods feel the other app questions should give them a good enough impression of the character’s personality, though I wouldn’t recommend this personally. Just be sure to provide the information asked for, and make sure it makes sense in the context of the backstory.

The same pretty much goes for the backstory/private bio. Just make sure it makes sense with the personality, and hopefully at least one of the two is unique enough to generate interest. There’s nothing wrong with plain/normal kinds of OCs, but you wouldn’t expect to see several of these in one roster. Also be sure any mod triggers listed on the blog are tagged in these. If your backstory has triggers for every mod, you might be better off apping that muse somewhere else, where someone can actually read the whole backstory.

Public bios have been popular but are still not on every app. These are pretty much always paragraph form, and different groups ask for different lengths. They can be a pain to come up with sometimes, and they can get pretty sticky in cases of fake talents or ???s, but they can also be helpful for conveying information that other characters could be expected to know and get an impression from before the game starts. If you put this section on an app, just be sure they’re eventually actually public on the blog/in the chat somewhere or they’re pretty much pointless busy work.

Muse Miscellany

What Is It?: A smattering of questions with less complex answers than personality/backstory. There’s definitely no golden standard for these, though questions related to motives and Monomachine items are common. Also includes likes/dislikes, favorite things/words, and who knows what else. Filling out some of these may be optional.

Notes

These usually aren’t as tough as the other parts of the app, but they can still be a pain if the app requires a ton of them. It’s best to keep this part fairly short, though it should still ask for anything the mods foresee being important in that specific game.

Some of these, like strengths/weaknesses and likes/dislikes, can be good for making the mun think a little harder about their muse. This can make poor characterization more obvious, but a lot of the time this isn’t super necessary information.

Monomachine items are in most apps and can be tricky to come up with. They’re good for revealing lore that your muse may not voluntarily bring up, for providing something that might brighten your muse’s no-good very bad day, or just for memeing. A lot of the time, activity at the Monomachine or local equivalent tapers off much more quickly than activity in general, so it may be better to require a smaller number of these so the interesting ones have a chance to be released into the wild.

It’s also good to have questions about common motives or unique motives the mods plan to use in the RP (most important person/item, biggest secret, etc.). It can provide mods with a good idea of what motives might be effective for a good portion of the roster. Especially when muns may be slow to respond OOC, it’s good to have this information already on hand. 

On that note, it may be a good idea to ask for smaller details (shoe size, hand size, etc.) that may be relevant for investigations with bloody footprints or things like that. It is very hard to get this information from everyone later if it happens to come up, but sometimes people get a little confused or don’t really know what to put for such specific details on the app, so it’s a mixed bag.

I personally (and I’ve seen it on other apps, too) like to include a question about whether a muse is more likely to be a killer, victim, or survivor and why. If you’re trying to keep the app short, this could be cut, but it’s good to have a balanced roster that isn’t all innocent babies who would never hurt anyone or all seasoned criminals who will probably kill someone before the KG is even announced. It’s also good for when volunteers aren’t forthcoming and you’d rather make sure murders can be IC than just 100% random/fair.

Sometimes this kind of information is to be answered IC, like in an interview. In these cases, you might want to make a note if the character’s answer is truthful or not and why.

Prompts

What Is It?: The bane of muns around the world, it’s a section of questions requiring longer, paragraph answers written in third-person like RP posts. Sometimes applicants are provided an array of prompts and can choose from them, sometimes specific prompts are required, and sometimes this section consists of only one prompt or is absent, though this is rare.

Notes

This section takes a lot of time, but it’s the best indicator of a mun’s writing ability for the purposes of the RP. They can be a huge pain to fill out, and some common prompts may be difficult to write a juicy response to, so it’s best to ask for the absolute minimum. Zero-prompt apps exist and can work out, but I wouldn’t care for that as a mod.

Execution prompts in particular can give muns a lot of pause, and I can personally say I’ve given up on an app that was otherwise finished just because I couldn’t come up with an execution. It may be reasonable to cut this prompt to save a lot of pain; however, it’s really best to have these on hand from the start. They can be very hard to get later, and they’re kind of important to DR games.

MM/traitor prompts should be required for those applying for that position. This kind of question might fit in a different section so it doesn’t have to be written like an RP post, but in general it’s hard to pick out a mastermind if you don’t know the deets of why they would start a killing game. You don’t necessarily have to ask for an MM speech, but you should at least know if this would be a satisfying plot twist and/or fit with the game’s lore.

The ability to choose from a list of prompts can help when a mun doesn’t feel very inspired to write about, say, the muse waking up in such-and-such location with no idea how they got there, or when filling out that prompt doesn’t convey the muse’s personality particularly well. On the other hand, asking for everyone to fill out the same prompt(s) makes it easier to directly compare hopefuls.

On that note, I like having less standard prompts, like reactions to not getting a Starbucks order right or how a muse would deal with a crazy roommate. While these can be tricky to come up with if you don’t want to just rip them off from other apps (which you prrrrobably shouldn’t without permission), coming up with unique situations can help muns more easily demonstrate the personalities of their muses instead of blandly answering the same old questions. That being said, these can be a little weird to work with if the muse would never go to Starbucks and/or leave their house in general.

Conclusion

No two games have the same app, and no two should. Applications are important for getting to know enough information to put together a roster that’s going to work out both IC and OOC. They also gather information for later use in the RP, when muses may be harder to get ahold of or have less time to answer questions. Mods just need to ask for what information they think they’ll need, and muns just need to try to provide it. It’s impossible to foresee everything you’ll need, but asking for every piece of info you could possibly have use for would make a longer app than anyone would be willing to fill out.

Click [here] for a listing of all guides!

[purrincess-chat]

*deep breath*

Okay.

I’ve cleared out the rest of my inbox and responded to all of the asks I’m going to on the subject. Anything else was deleted, and also for the time being I have turned off anonymous asks. I apologize to those of you out there who are very sweet and shy who use anon for its intended purpose, and I hate to punish you in the name of a few people who decided to use it to harass me on my birthday, but just for the time being I will not be accepting anonymous asks. If you would like to not have your name attached to something or want to make a request for something without other people knowing then feel free to message me or include in your ask that you don’t want your name to be published and I will make a separate post. I promise I don’t bite, and I won’t judge you at all.

That all being said, I think we should have a conversation about opinions. As I said a dozen times on Friday, it’s perfectly okay to have a different opinion as long as you are respectful. I think that a lot of people nowadays are so quick to become offended when someone doesn’t think the way they do, and they don’t know how to engage in conversation with someone when they disagree. I’ve had some heated debates with friends before, but at the end, even though we still disagreed, we were able to put our differences aside and accept that we both feel differently about it. 

I’d like to remind everyone that we’re talking about a cartoon. It’s not about real life or politics or religion or any other type of hot debate topic. It’s children’s fiction. It really doesn’t matter if someone ships Chlonath or Alyanette or whatever. If those things aren’t your cup of tea, then just ignore them or if they really grind your gears, filter those tags or get an extension that blacklists them. It’s okay to not like something just so long as you aren’t harassing the people that do like that thing. The same applies the other way around too. If someone says on their own blog that they don’t really care about a character or a ship that you really wholeheartedly love, I promise it’s not an attack against you. You can still like something even if other people don’t, and instead of focusing on the people that don’t like something then maybe go out and find the people that do. Never once have I said that no one is allowed to like a certain character or ship just because I don’t. You may not see me reblog things about that particular ship, and maybe from time to time I will reblog or make a post talking about reasons why I don’t like that thing, but again, that doesn’t mean I’m telling you that you can’t like it. 

People are always going to have a different opinion. People are always going to have their reasons for those opinions, and in the case of harmless things like cartoons, it doesn’t really matter if someone likes x ship better than y. It doesn’t impact your daily life at all if some stranger on the internet doesn’t ship your ship, but you may impact their day if you choose to lash out at them. As many of you know, Friday was my birthday, and to receive such hostility on a day that I was just trying to enjoy with my friends and family was frustrating. It made me anxious and upset over something that, in reality, doesn’t even matter. I tried my best to remain as respectful to other people as possible, but it can be hard when people are constantly filling your inbox with rudeness and unkind words just because of the way you feel about digital people. The main point I kept trying to make in my replies was that it’s okay to disagree with me. I am perfectly okay if people disagree with something that I’ve said so long as they do it respectfully and don’t come at me aggressively. I often enjoy conversations with people who see things differently because you can always learn something about that person or about the thing you are discussing, and it can make you see things in a different light sometimes.

 I know that’s asking a lot of tumblr to respect other people’s opinions about a cartoon, but I pinky promise you that your life will be so much better if you learn how to not antagonize people over silly things like ships. If you really feel like you can’t converse calmly with someone, then just ignore their opinions or block them or do whatever you need to do. Curate your own experience. If you choose to seek out things you disagree with or don’t enjoy and tear others down then your fandom experience will always be a negative one, but if you choose to keep scrolling and instead engage the people who like the same things you do then you will find your experience to be much more pleasant. And even sometimes in those groups people will have a different opinion once in a while, but you have to understand that just because someone does or doesn’t like something you do or don’t, it’s not a personal attack against you. Just be respectful of other people’s opinions, and if they aren’t respectful of yours then there’s a block button for a reason. Sending someone anonymous hate will never convince them of your side, in fact it might even drive them farther away from it because they’ll learn to associate that thing with the way you made them feel. 

All that being said, I appreciate those of you who offered your mature opinions in a respectful way to me. If you enjoy something then great, enjoy that thing as much as you want, and you are welcome to come here and celebrate the things that we enjoy together. I always do my best not to tag any type of complaining that I do about ships if I do it at all, and I hope that you all understand that if I’m complaining about something it’s not in any way me saying that you should feel bad for enjoying that thing. My opinions are based on my experiences and my thoughts and the way that thing makes me feel, and sometimes I can’t change that. I always try my best to give most things the benefit of the doubt, and who knows? Maybe one day down the road something will happen in canon that changes the way I see that thing, but until then screaming at me about how wrong I am just for feeling is only going to do more harm than good, and the same applies to everyone. So my plea to all of you is that you will seek out the things you enjoy rather than the things you don’t and to allow people that same opportunity. 

[fictionkinfessionsarchived]

oh mod responses! Lots of them! :v

Anonymous said: Hi, just checking, is there a kinfession signed by -💚 in the queue about Glinda? Just asking because another kinfession I submitted the same day got posted, so I’m just hoping tumblr didn’t eat it! Thanks!!

Oops there is! It will post tomorrow evening though! Or, today's evening, depending on when this hops off the queue!

anonymous asked: hello! could i ask that you please tag mentions of friday the thirteenth (the day itself) for blacklisting purposes? thank you ❤

Oh sure! Can I tag them as #friday 13th cw unless you have a different tag to suggest using!

Anonymous said: the snowflake and fire emoji-sign off asks can 100% be tagged as BNHA instead of osomatsu. if you know anything about bnha then its very obvious but i dont know how much any of the mods know so it could just be that

There's only one mod, me, and no I've never seen anything about the source hence why it's not always tagged right!

Also I don't use signatures when tagging ever at all because anyone is welcome to use the same signature!! Or better yet people can use signatures and also tell me the source? ;_; Assuming you want things tagged right the first time? Because I just go off googling names here! :T

Anonymous said: Mod Party Cat has spoken. Todoroki is now an Osomatsu San character

*in a very todoroki voice like that 'friendship has ended' meme: Sourceship with bnha has ended! Now Osomatsu San is my source!

Anonymous said: July 14th 2018, 5:06:00 am · 2 days ago Question for people who kinshift, do some of your ..... Or some of my kins are protective of eachother and I'll shift into one when the other is feeling unsafe

Anon you need to get yourself over to either, or both, @otherkindfaq and @headmatesfaq ! Both to learn proper fictionkin terminology and to figure out if your kintypes are headmates! Please learn the terms, there's handy guides on @otherkindfaq, the blog admin can help you out, and you might be able to find a way to explain what you're experiencing!

Anonymous said: July 15th 2018, 11:38:00 am · 3 hours ago im the anon everyone feels entitled to form opinions about: ...

You know what? You're probably right, and through a game of telephone everyone was misunderstanding your original point! I'm sorry that happened, as people missing the point of what you're venting about can be pretty irritating!

Which is only one reason why I requested people to put an end to the conversation via ask responses, and to reblog / take it to private messages! Perhaps there is someone in the notes that was part of the conversation who would like to continue it via PMs? Otherwise I would appreciate if you would also let the matter drop before further dogpiling, misinterpreting, and more hurt feelings happens!

Anonymous said: would you promo aesthetic blogs that have full image sources and credits on their moodboards? i dont have one just asking for curiosity sake.

Sure! But the blog admins should put that in the blog description! Often times I'll just completely ignore a blog that's only the promo post and nothing else! Not even examples of things they offer? Also, for clarity, the sources I'm thinking of are to things like flickr, 500px, IG videos, stim blogs, etc., and not just links to google images or weheartit!

anonymous asked: i dont think i’ve ever seen one on your blog but can you tag gifs (just in case) you ever add any to this blog

Oh yeah! I do tag posts containing gifs with the tag '#gif warning'! If there's a different tag that would be better to use, do let me know!

Anonymous said: in addition to the "house fires" tag, could you also tag when houses, buildings, or cities are demolished or otherwise destroyed? the tag "demolition cw" would work, unless you or someone else can think of a better one (sorry it's just a huge trigger of mine and i'm sick of seeing it untagged hhhhh)

Yes of course! I'll use '#demolition cw' like you want! I'll add it to the blacklist tag page too! Also you might be interested in the #apocalypse cw tag, for mentions of apocalypses or otherwise world ending ruination!

anonymous asked: I always get happy when Mod Party cat tags my kinfessions with slendytubbieskin without me even mentioning it like tysm ur the best - 🔺

*boops ur nose* ur the bestest too! I have a few special tag strings saved in a text document so whenever I see you, I smang a paw on the computer screen and whisper 'it them!!!' And then paste your tags into the inbox!!!

Anonymous said: do you only promo kincords or do you also promo kin request blogs???

I promote almost anything? I just don't promo blogs that use uncredited art/fanart, gifs, and photography because hey it's not the fishing hard to do that, you guise...! I also don't promo blogs that accept or encourage f.ac.tk.in! Thouh factives found in Systems are ok though, they're totally different than f.ac.tk.in!

quick edit: actually I don’t promo blogs that offer pendulums for extremely personal reasons that I’m not going to list publicly!

Anonymous said: Hi! Sorry that this is such an obscure trigger, but could you tag anything that mentions Overwatch? It’s a big trigger for me. Anonymous said: (Steven Universe anon) the show itself bothers me a Lot, sorry for the confusion!! it would be okay if it was just tagged as like,, “Steven Universe cw” or something,, i have the “stevenuniversekin” tag filtered so i don’t see the asks but the promo was just. fjfjjfjf im really sorry for this whole inconvenience

Eh, not inconvenient! I can do that! There's actually a few people requesting certain sources to be tagged at every mention, and not just kinfessions, so you're not alone in that! But I will simply be tagging it as the source! Meaning the tag 'stevenuniversekin', or ‘#overwatchkin’ since you both probably already have that one blocked if y’all follow this blog!

Mod Party Cat!

[first-order-general]

Hiiii! Eggs anon here! I’d very much like to RP with you properly, but I’m pretty crap at ye olde tumblr. Please could you point me to some basic resources for like how RP should work or like etiquette etc? Thank you!

// oh shoot okay I really want to help you on this because tumblr rp is a wonderful magical thing let me round you up some resources.

First and foremost, roleplay is for everyone. Having a fancy blog and icons and stuff is all very well but honestly all that really matters is that you show up, you respect your partners, and you do your best (: Having pretty graphics doesn’t really matter in the long run. It’s about telling the best story you can, cooperatively.

some (brief) vocab:thread - the roleplay, itself. usually it takes the form of a post that each user reblogs back and forth and adds onto.mun - the writer behind the charactermuse - the character. meme - prefab activities intended generate new threads. these are often in the form of sentence starters, where a list of possible sentences is what starts the thread.

As far as etiquette goes, the most important thing is just to listen to your partners. A lot of people have lists of rules on their page, so it’s good to read those before interacting with that person. If they have a character bio, it won’t hurt to read that too, even if they’re a canon character, just in case there’s something specific you might need to know when writing together.

the browser extension xkit has some modifiers that make tumblr easier for roleplay (there’s one in particular that allows you to edit posts so that you can keep threads short). This isn’t really necessary, but it can help make things easier, keep things cleaner. If possible, it’s good manners to delete your last response when you write your next one, so that each post doesn’t get too long and clog up everyone’s dashboard. 

Other etiquette things that are good to know: - tagging triggers is appreciated, as well as tagging nsfw. some people prefer to put nsfw under a cut, so that nobody accidentally sees it (I’m a little shy sometimes, so I’m guilty of that)- writing nsfw with minors is illegal in the united states, please don’t tell someone you’re over 18 if you aren’t, it could cause a lot of problems- It’s considerate to have an ooc tag, both for blacklisting purposes and so that people can distinguish between mun and muse. - there’s no real etiquette around roleplaying with duplicates of the same character. some people (I think most people) do it, some people don’t.  It definitely means there are more partners available to you-basically just be nice, you’ll be fine :) 

Honestly, it’s not as complicated as it sounds. There’s some culture to the whole thing, but it’s something everyone learns. There’s tons of resources out there, and if you have more questions you are always free to ask me. Here’s a few of my favourite resources, just for further reading (:

this is one of the best explanations of tumblr rp I’ve seen by a roleplay blog.this and this are my favourite RPH (roleplay help) blogs this is a great place to get iconsthis and this are great places to get themesthis is another great source, mostly for themes but also for other graphics stuff

I can answer more specific questions if you have them, but that first link is so good that I thought typing up a how-to might be a little redundant <3

feel free to PM me too if you’d rather talk that way n3ngood luck!!

[remelitalia]

How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR

Email is one of the most effective marketing campaigns out there — in fact, the average ROI of an email campaign is 122%.

For those who aren’t afraid to take a few extra steps, email images will spice up your campaign and help your email campaign stand out.

I’m going to show you how to leverage images in email the right way.

Email Images: Yes or No?

You can use email images, but should you?

I want to start by asking a few questions, because these will help you determine if using email images helps or hurts you. Read these and answer yes or no:

Do my images support my brand?

Have I optimized the image size?

Am I using the right number of images?

Am I properly using image alt tags?

Are my emails easily accessible?

Chances are you may not even know the answer to all these questions.

If that’s the case, then you’re not getting all you can from your email images, and this guide will help you.

But it’s not quite that simple. Having email images can boost your email’s aesthetics, but how do you increase email click-through rates with images?

What Is a Good Email Click-Through Rate?

Your click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on an image, link, or video in your email to continue through to your content. The average click-through rate is around 2.5% across all industries.

This number might sound a little low, but keep in mind, we’re talking about click-through and not open rates, which is the number of people who read your email.  

Including images in your campaigns is a great way to increase engagement and improve your chances of driving traffic or even sales.

Images in Email Marketing: The Magic Ratio

Many marketers will tell you there’s a specific magic ratio of image to text, but it’s not always true. What is true is image-only emails will almost always cost you a trip to the spam folder.

Do that too much, and you’ll find your whole domain blacklisted.

That’s no good.

The ideal ratio is around 30-40% image to text. Any higher, you run the risk of triggering spam filters. Any less will make your email difficult to read.

The only way to find out what works for your audience is to test it! Use A/B testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Keep Your Email Images Consistent

How many times have you searched for something on Google, found what you wanted, and clicked through to the website only to realize the link didn’t lead where you expected — at all?

It’s frustrating.

The truth is, you might be doing this to people right now without even realizing it.

Your email image needs to align with your brand and remain consistent throughout your marketing campaign.

Make sure when someone decides to open your email, it remains true to your company message, and all the emails look relatively similar.

If you’re using blue headers with a specific font in your campaign, it should match the landing page your visitor ends on.

Personalization and Targeting Are Key

Email personalization is more important than ever.

Why? 

Because there’s more impersonal spammy communication out there than ever before. Personalization changes the way your email appears based on the person you’re targeting.

Just think about it. How often have you received an email that seems like it was made for you?

Not often, right?

This is where you can get ahead of your competition by doing the things no one else is willing to do.

No product or service has “universal appeal,” so you need to narrow down your email images to a targeted audience.

According to Invesp, 59% of online shoppers find products more interesting when you personalize your marketing approach.

So, how do you personalize your email images?

Cater to Repeat Buyers

Find products people need to purchase regularly and appeal to people who bought in the past. Amazon uses this strategy, resulting in 60% conversions from their on-site recommendations.

Here’s an example from Wayfair that was based on browsing history:

Recommend New Products

Recommend products to customers based on their previous buying history. Go the extra mile and even call it “Selections for [insert name].” That strategy helps create an “in-store experience” for your subscribers.

It’s as if you went to the clothing rack and specifically picked out items you thought would look great on them!

Ask Questions

If you’re selling a service or a digital subscription, you can ask your subscribers why they haven’t made a purchase yet. Give them a chance to sound off on what’s holding them back.

Doing this not only helps the email feel more personal and intimate, but it allows you to get feedback on what you could do better.

The ALT Tag Is More Important than You Think

We all know the importance of ALT tags for website images, but what about images in email marketing?

Are you currently using ALT tags properly in your email campaigns?

When the email client doesn’t download images correctly, your ALT tag becomes your lifeline for a few big reasons:

When the email client doesn’t download the image, the ALT text displays to the email recipient.

ALT text provides context if images aren’t loading.

ALT tags make it easier for those who use screen readers and other accessible technology to understand the image.

When all else fails, the ALT tag might be the thing getting the email recipient to open.

How to Create ALT Tags for Emails?

On the back end, an ALT tag looks like this:

<img src=”youremailimage.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”How to Use Email Images in Email Marketing” width=”482px” height=”205″ />

Where it says “alt=” is where your ALT text goes. So, if an email image doesn’t load properly, that’s what will display across the email text area instead of the image.

The process of adding it might vary based on what email client you use. Here’s how to add ALT tags on MailChimp, for example.

Use the Best Format for Email Images

You have three primary formatting options for your email image. PNGs, JPEGs, and GIFs are the most common choices. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics offer a large color palette, which means compressing the file size doesn’t impact the image’s resolution.

Another benefit is that you can add transparent layers, making it easy to embed the image on top of other content. This lets you blend the background image into an email with live text.

The only downside to PNGs is the file size is much larger compared to JPEGs and GIFs because of the image quality.

JPEG

JPEGs offer large image compression, but doing so impacts the quality of your image. When you reduce a JPEG image, it groups each section into larger blocks, which causes the image to become blurry — which isn’t a good look.

While these are the most common image types, I wouldn’t recommend using them for email images.

GIF

You get less color vibrance with GIFs because they use an 8-bit color palette compared to a 24-bit palette with PNGs and JPEGs.

The obvious difference is the animation effect. Using GIFs in your emails increases interactivity and can allow you to show more than one product with the same image.

How to Find the Best Email Images

Finding the right images to get your email message across is crucial. There’s a variety of different types of images you can use, and each has its own purpose. Let’s look at a few.

Charts and Graphs

Providing statistics and data is almost useless without a graphic to back it up. When you provide charts in your email to prove a point, it makes it much easier for the recipient to grasp your message.

Inside’s business newsletter has a Series A funding tracker where you can see what startups recently got funding above $5m:

This easily shows at a glance who got the largest amount of funding, by size and color.

Piktochart is an infographic tool that makes it easy to create free charts (with a watermark). Just enter the data and select the type of chart you want.

Stock Photos

Stock images are the easiest way to add images to your email marketing campaign. There’s a large assortment of sites to choose from like Shutterstock, Depositphotos, and Pixabay.

When sourcing the best image, choose something relatable to your audience. If you’re targeting middle-age moms of toddlers, find images that appeal to your demographic.

Don’t just add images to add images — make sure they have a purpose.

Screenshots

Instead of using a numbered list to explain how something works, turn the process into beautiful imagery with screenshots.

Awesome Screenshot is a browser extension on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that makes it easy to capture screenshots directly from the browser. You can capture a whole page or a part and download it to your computer.

Personal Photos

Keeping it real and making things personal is never a bad choice. Email marketing is all about pulling back the curtain and showing people what you’re all about.

You don’t need professional photos to make sales, and the realistic and pure nature of personal photos can be what you need.

Illustrated Content

Illustrations are a nice way to expand your possibilities. While you might be able to do a certain amount of things with a product, an illustration can display limitless options while staying true to your brand.

Here’s an example from comedian Nate Bargatze announcing a drive-in tour. After this image, his email contained a text call-to-action with more information.

Consider hiring an illustrator on Fiverr or Upwork to get affordable illustrations.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is huge. In fact, 76% of customers trust content coming from “average” people versus the brand itself.

UGC helps create trust, and it offers authority from a relatable audience. For example, imagine how an image of someone using your product in their home would outperform a stock photo or a cartoon using it.

Offer rewards to happy customers by having them upload images to social media using specific hashtags and use those images in your email marketing campaigns.

Never Send Image-Only Emails

While images are important – you should never send an image-only email.

Here’s why:

Image Blocking Is Real

If you work in the corporate world, you understand this point. Many companies block images by default, and in fact, 43% of email users have their images turned off.

So, if you don’t have your ALT text game up to par, your campaign won’t load properly.

Email Image File Size

Email image sizes can cause subscribers with slow connections to lag and become unresponsive. If your email takes too long to load, your subscribers are going to click out or even unsubscribe because they can’t get your emails to open correctly.

Email Accessibility Is Changing

More people are using voice assistants to read emails, and these do not recognize ALT text or HTML yet. So, if the user is trying to read your image-only email, you’re out of luck.

So, what’s the ideal email image format?

Background Images with Live Text

Remember earlier, when we talked about the pros of using PNG files for your email images? Here’s where this all comes together.

Background images applied as an element to the email allow you to put live text over it, providing the most accessibility. Even if the subscriber has images disabled, they’ll see the text, which ensures all your subscribers will get something from the email.

Bulletproof Buttons

Including your CTA in your image is a fatal error. If the image is blocked or doesn’t load properly, the button or CTA you have is hidden and completely missed by the recipient.

Using bulletproof buttons allows you to build the button with code, rather than images. So if everything fails and your image doesn’t load, the subscriber will still receive your text and CTA.

Conclusion

Email images are an effective strategy to increase your email campaigns’ success, but you can’t take shortcuts.

Using the right image size, format, and design is critical to ensuring your emails get delivered and get results.

Follow all of the best and worst practices outlined in this guide, and you’ll be well on your way to a higher click-through rate and a repeatable email process that will drive traffic for years to come.

Need some help perfecting your email image strategy? Drop a comment below.

The post How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR appeared first on Neil Patel.

Original content source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/email-images/ via https://neilpatel.com

See the original post, How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR that is shared from https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home/how-to-use-email-images-to-boost-ctr via https://imtrainingparadise.weebly.com/home

[reviewandbonuss]

How to Use Email Images to Boost CTR

Email is one of the most effective marketing campaigns out there — in fact, the average ROI of an email campaign is 122%.

For those who aren’t afraid to take a few extra steps, email images will spice up your campaign and help your email campaign stand out.

I’m going to show you how to leverage images in email the right way.

Email Images: Yes or No?

You can use email images, but should you?

I want to start by asking a few questions, because these will help you determine if using email images helps or hurts you. Read these and answer yes or no:

Do my images support my brand?

Have I optimized the image size?

Am I using the right number of images?

Am I properly using image alt tags?

Are my emails easily accessible?

Chances are you may not even know the answer to all these questions.

If that’s the case, then you’re not getting all you can from your email images, and this guide will help you.

But it’s not quite that simple. Having email images can boost your email’s aesthetics, but how do you increase email click-through rates with images?

What Is a Good Email Click-Through Rate?

Your click-through rate is the percentage of people who click on an image, link, or video in your email to continue through to your content. The average click-through rate is around 2.5% across all industries.

This number might sound a little low, but keep in mind, we’re talking about click-through and not open rates, which is the number of people who read your email.  

Including images in your campaigns is a great way to increase engagement and improve your chances of driving traffic or even sales.

Images in Email Marketing: The Magic Ratio

Many marketers will tell you there’s a specific magic ratio of image to text, but it’s not always true. What is true is image-only emails will almost always cost you a trip to the spam folder.

Do that too much, and you’ll find your whole domain blacklisted.

That’s no good.

The ideal ratio is around 30-40% image to text. Any higher, you run the risk of triggering spam filters. Any less will make your email difficult to read.

The only way to find out what works for your audience is to test it! Use A/B testing to figure out what works and what doesn’t.

Keep Your Email Images Consistent

How many times have you searched for something on Google, found what you wanted, and clicked through to the website only to realize the link didn’t lead where you expected — at all?

It’s frustrating.

The truth is, you might be doing this to people right now without even realizing it.

Your email image needs to align with your brand and remain consistent throughout your marketing campaign.

Make sure when someone decides to open your email, it remains true to your company message, and all the emails look relatively similar.

If you’re using blue headers with a specific font in your campaign, it should match the landing page your visitor ends on.

Personalization and Targeting Are Key

Email personalization is more important than ever.

Why? 

Because there’s more impersonal spammy communication out there than ever before. Personalization changes the way your email appears based on the person you’re targeting.

Just think about it. How often have you received an email that seems like it was made for you?

Not often, right?

This is where you can get ahead of your competition by doing the things no one else is willing to do.

No product or service has “universal appeal,” so you need to narrow down your email images to a targeted audience.

According to Invesp, 59% of online shoppers find products more interesting when you personalize your marketing approach.

So, how do you personalize your email images?

Cater to Repeat Buyers

Find products people need to purchase regularly and appeal to people who bought in the past. Amazon uses this strategy, resulting in 60% conversions from their on-site recommendations.

Here’s an example from Wayfair that was based on browsing history:

Recommend New Products

Recommend products to customers based on their previous buying history. Go the extra mile and even call it “Selections for [insert name].” That strategy helps create an “in-store experience” for your subscribers.

It’s as if you went to the clothing rack and specifically picked out items you thought would look great on them!

Ask Questions

If you’re selling a service or a digital subscription, you can ask your subscribers why they haven’t made a purchase yet. Give them a chance to sound off on what’s holding them back.

Doing this not only helps the email feel more personal and intimate, but it allows you to get feedback on what you could do better.

The ALT Tag Is More Important than You Think

We all know the importance of ALT tags for website images, but what about images in email marketing?

Are you currently using ALT tags properly in your email campaigns?

When the email client doesn’t download images correctly, your ALT tag becomes your lifeline for a few big reasons:

When the email client doesn’t download the image, the ALT text displays to the email recipient.

ALT text provides context if images aren’t loading.

ALT tags make it easier for those who use screen readers and other accessible technology to understand the image.

When all else fails, the ALT tag might be the thing getting the email recipient to open.

How to Create ALT Tags for Emails?

On the back end, an ALT tag looks like this:

<img src=”youremailimage.jpg” border=”0″ alt=”How to Use Email Images in Email Marketing” width=”482px” height=”205″ />

Where it says “alt=” is where your ALT text goes. So, if an email image doesn’t load properly, that’s what will display across the email text area instead of the image.

The process of adding it might vary based on what email client you use. Here’s how to add ALT tags on MailChimp, for example.

Use the Best Format for Email Images

You have three primary formatting options for your email image. PNGs, JPEGs, and GIFs are the most common choices. Let’s look at the pros and cons of each.

PNG

Portable Network Graphics offer a large color palette, which means compressing the file size doesn’t impact the image’s resolution.

Another benefit is that you can add transparent layers, making it easy to embed the image on top of other content. This lets you blend the background image into an email with live text.

The only downside to PNGs is the file size is much larger compared to JPEGs and GIFs because of the image quality.

JPEG

JPEGs offer large image compression, but doing so impacts the quality of your image. When you reduce a JPEG image, it groups each section into larger blocks, which causes the image to become blurry — which isn’t a good look.

While these are the most common image types, I wouldn’t recommend using them for email images.

GIF

You get less color vibrance with GIFs because they use an 8-bit color palette compared to a 24-bit palette with PNGs and JPEGs.

The obvious difference is the animation effect. Using GIFs in your emails increases interactivity and can allow you to show more than one product with the same image.

How to Find the Best Email Images

Finding the right images to get your email message across is crucial. There’s a variety of different types of images you can use, and each has its own purpose. Let’s look at a few.

Charts and Graphs

Providing statistics and data is almost useless without a graphic to back it up. When you provide charts in your email to prove a point, it makes it much easier for the recipient to grasp your message.

Inside’s business newsletter has a Series A funding tracker where you can see what startups recently got funding above $5m:

This easily shows at a glance who got the largest amount of funding, by size and color.

Piktochart is an infographic tool that makes it easy to create free charts (with a watermark). Just enter the data and select the type of chart you want.

Stock Photos

Stock images are the easiest way to add images to your email marketing campaign. There’s a large assortment of sites to choose from like Shutterstock, Depositphotos, and Pixabay.

When sourcing the best image, choose something relatable to your audience. If you’re targeting middle-age moms of toddlers, find images that appeal to your demographic.

Don’t just add images to add images — make sure they have a purpose.

Screenshots

Instead of using a numbered list to explain how something works, turn the process into beautiful imagery with screenshots.

Awesome Screenshot is a browser extension on Chrome, Safari, and Firefox that makes it easy to capture screenshots directly from the browser. You can capture a whole page or a part and download it to your computer.

Personal Photos

Keeping it real and making things personal is never a bad choice. Email marketing is all about pulling back the curtain and showing people what you’re all about.

You don’t need professional photos to make sales, and the realistic and pure nature of personal photos can be what you need.

Illustrated Content

Illustrations are a nice way to expand your possibilities. While you might be able to do a certain amount of things with a product, an illustration can display limitless options while staying true to your brand.

Here’s an example from comedian Nate Bargatze announcing a drive-in tour. After this image, his email contained a text call-to-action with more information.

Consider hiring an illustrator on Fiverr or Upwork to get affordable illustrations.

User-Generated Content

User-generated content is huge. In fact, 76% of customers trust content coming from “average” people versus the brand itself.

UGC helps create trust, and it offers authority from a relatable audience. For example, imagine how an image of someone using your product in their home would outperform a stock photo or a cartoon using it.

Offer rewards to happy customers by having them upload images to social media using specific hashtags and use those images in your email marketing campaigns.

Never Send Image-Only Emails

While images are important – you should never send an image-only email.

Here’s why:

Image Blocking Is Real

If you work in the corporate world, you understand this point. Many companies block images by default, and in fact, 43% of email users have their images turned off.

So, if you don’t have your ALT text game up to par, your campaign won’t load properly.

Email Image File Size

Email image sizes can cause subscribers with slow connections to lag and become unresponsive. If your email takes too long to load, your subscribers are going to click out or even unsubscribe because they can’t get your emails to open correctly.

Email Accessibility Is Changing

More people are using voice assistants to read emails, and these do not recognize ALT text or HTML yet. So, if the user is trying to read your image-only email, you’re out of luck.

So, what’s the ideal email image format?

Background Images with Live Text

Remember earlier, when we talked about the pros of using PNG files for your email images? Here’s where this all comes together.

Background images applied as an element to the email allow you to put live text over it, providing the most accessibility. Even if the subscriber has images disabled, they’ll see the text, which ensures all your subscribers will get something from the email.

Bulletproof Buttons

Including your CTA in your image is a fatal error. If the image is blocked or doesn’t load properly, the button or CTA you have is hidden and completely missed by the recipient.

Using bulletproof buttons allows you to build the button with code, rather than images. So if everything fails and your image doesn’t load, the subscriber will still receive your text and CTA.

Conclusion

Email images are an effective strategy to increase your email campaigns’ success, but you can’t take shortcuts.

Using the right image size, format, and design is critical to ensuring your emails get delivered and get results.

Follow all of the best and worst practices outlined in this guide, and you’ll be well on your way to a higher click-through rate and a repeatable email process that will drive traffic for years to come.

Need some help perfecting your email image strategy? Drop a comment below.

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