#I should probably change my tagging system so many of my posts are specifically

[wutheringhestia]

ah yes john seward, voiced by jonathan sims of jonathan (jon) sims magnus archives fame, not to be confused with our good friend jonathan harker

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[patchworkprince]

I need to revamp this blog

[utilitycaster]

So one thing that's come up a lot lately in discussions of the morality of the gods and of characters is alignment. I happen to take a position on this that can best be described as "strong ambivalence" with regards to its value; but it keeps coming up in my notes and tags as almost an argument-ender, and in most cases, it shouldn't be treated as such.

I think this gets complicated when it comes to the gods, and that's probably a whole other post, but for PCs? It's not helpful. Setting aside that the fandom has long disputed characters' canonical, verified alignments, whether those disagreements have had validity (Vex) or not (Fjord), unless the argument is specifically about alignment, arguing about alignment or citing a character's alignment is utterly useless.

Alignment is not fate or destiny. For D&D PCs its only real uses are to handle some niche mechanical situations I personally hope the system begins to move away from (eg: who can damage a Rakshasa; attuning to some items) and, much more importantly, in providing the player with a general understanding of their characters' mindset from which they can build the nooks and crannies and exceptions. If you're actually discussing whether a character is in the right, "they're neutral good" means nothing, and your opponent can just say "well, their alignment should change." What's useful is to actually ask whether they are acting in a way that benefits people or alleviates harm on a scale beyond themselves; and whether their intentions are actually realized in their actions.

Two examples here are Orym and Ira. It does not actually matter if Orym's motivation for hating the Vanguard is the very personal "they killed my husband and father-in-law" or much more abstract, ideological "the greater good", in the same way that it wouldn't matter whether Imogen's motivation, were she to join the Vanguard, would be "because of her mother" or "a desire to kill the gods as part of the elite chosen." The outcome is the same. It doesn't matter that Ira sabotaged the key not out of some greater sense of duty but because he really fucking hates Ludinus for personal reasons; it matters that he sabotaged the key.

Now, obviously, intention gets important in the long-term and in whether you can trust people, since it's pretty clear that (for example) Ira is not going to sacrifice himself for the cause and if he finds a way to fuck over Ludinus more thoroughly that doesn't involve coincidentally thwarting his plans re: Predathos, he may very well pursue that. But for the goal of breaking the key? Yeah, whether or not he's chaotic neutral or not has absolutely no bearing.

A really good real-world equivalent I see for Orym, actually, is people who leave fundamentalist religious groups. It's a remarkably similar position. I think, on the whole, very few people who leave far-right religious ideologies do so because of some grand theological/philosophical awakening. Many eventually develop their own new spirituality or deliberate lack thereof, but the impetus is usually not "I have seen the true answer to the existence of god"; it's a deeply personal reason. It's "the leopards are going to eat (or have eaten) my face; I should get away from the leopards." Sometimes it's because they're queer, and realize that their queerness is inherent and not a deliberate slide into sin, and it forces them to rethink the framework. Sometimes it's because they're women in an exceptionally (ie, beyond the baseline norm) sexist society. Sometimes it's the realization of past abuse and the opportunity to break that cycle with their own children (I've had this post brewing, in some ways, since I read this article a couple months ago). And this is all, to be clear, incredibly valid, and the problems begin when one starts to deny this was the impetus.

The personal experience nearly always comes before the larger philosophy (in fact, I think when it doesn't, the larger philosophy tends to have massive gaping holes), and I think it's a denial of one's own humanity to refuse to admit that. I suspect some people wish to see themselves as an objective perfect arbiter of good and evil - that alignment is, in fact, real and true, and there is a class of good people whose behavior is rooted in ideologically pure theory, and the unwashed bumbling masses beneath. But it doesn't work like that, and even if it did, the bumbling masses could get quite a lot done before the ideologically pure finalized their first decision. There's a lot of value in admitting that it was personal and even at times selfish reasons that brought you to the more general ideologies you've adopted. In fact, I think denying that the personal is involved and that theory mostly exists to try to justify and extrapolate is what leads people to that at times heartless inaction in the name of ideological purity.

Getting back to the point: if someone dislikes a characters' actions, it's not useful to say "well they're neutral good (or whatever)" because the issue is the action; you need to talk about the action and where it fits in context. But if someone dislikes a characters' motivations, and especially if it's on the basis of those motivations being personal, I don't think they're worth the energy of an argument. They've decided they hate the character and have no interest in outcome or empathizing, only in people matching their own ideology, which they deny is just as based in the personal. That's someone who thinks alignment exists, definitively, in real life, and that they're the true judge.

[alphabetboyluvr]

Ok so I saw that long ass post that anon sent you about the vote thing on Wattpad, and while I don’t agree with some of what they said where they told you what to do (which they shouldn’t have done, they were rude) I do actually agree with them where they said people don’t tend to look at the votes when deciding whether or not to read a story. I actually think the whole vote thing is just something only authors care about, not readers.

As an avid reader on Wattpad, I do give votes just because authors like it- but I don’t actually give a shit about how many votes a story has when I’m looking for my next story to read. I look at the number of views- which I think you’ll find most readers do, even though the view count can be skewed.

Either way, I do think the whole vote thing should be taken off Wattpad as to the majority of readers, they really don’t care about it and it doesn’t give a good representation of how good a story is

I've been thinking about this all a lot ever since the last anon came in. I'll probably avoid answering questions about this topic again, but there does seem to be disconnect between the writer and reader standpoint, so I'll try and explain my thoughts as best I can without waffling for ages lol

my answer is to this ask, but also to the topic in general, and thoughts I've had regarding that last anon.

it's a really difficult topic to discuss because wattpad has an algorithm that is never really explained to writers. i cant say its important because xyz - i can just give you my own experience. ive been on wattpad for 11 years and have seen it through many changes. i used to use the activity tab to find new stories, and i honestly think getting rid of that was detrimental to the user experience tbh.

as it stands, we don't know what the algorithm favours, so we have to do what we can.

and what can we do? we can tag our work, we can acquire reads and votes, and then we can do more laborious things such as entering award books run by other users and engaging with our readers in various ways.

the tag system, and trending stories under those tabs, are really skewed. for instance, I don't think any of my stories have ever made it onto the fanfic tab, nor have I ever ranked highly under tags despite having really engaged readers and metrics which would suggest I would be.

so, unlike what the last anon said, my stories haven't always been 'out there'. word of mouth, and some stroke of luck tiktoks, are what's pushed them more than anything. so in that way, yeah the desire for votes is flawed—but personally I don't think read count is indicative of quality. if we're thinking about it from a marketing standpoint and conversion rates etc, votes a far more indicative of quality and I'd rather be known for quality over quantity.

the last anon also specifically noted the number of reads/follows I have on wattpad, and suggested that I shouldn't care because those numbers are high—which, respectfully I disagree with. if I didn't care in the early days, I wouldn't have pushed myself to make it to where i am. you can't just expect me to switch off that part of my personality. I'm ambitious and I really care about the things I create.

my girliepop oc's tend to have ambitious streaks and personal goals that they work hard for. they take after their mother, in that sense.

i think what confuses me the most is why it irks people, when you boil it down. its a tap on the screen for readers—and having just uploaded an 11k chapter that took hours to write, to edit, to craft, only to then be told its not worth it? i dunno man, it's just mean lol.

you can think these thing by all means, but don't come into my space just to be cruel. sometimes it okay to keep your opinions in your group chats.

the system is flawed, but I don't think you can blame a gal for just trying to work with it in the only way she knows how

[verylovedcondition]

🫧 introduction 🫧

last update: may 24, 2024

🌟 hiya, i'm eiffel or v! i'm a 21 year old college student with a passion for trinkets and toys of many kinds! i use ey/em, xy/xyr, and they/them pronouns.

🧸 this account is meant to document fun moments and travels of my toys :D ive admired toy travel accounts since about middle school and i've finally decided to go through with it!

💥 i'm a big superhero fan, so most of the toys featured on here will be my superhero figures! i also love plush toys, dolls, and other little figurines, so they will be making appearances here as well.

💭 tagging and more info under the cut!

💫 tagging system: the following tags will be used to organize (subject to change as i... [gestures vaguely] figure out this whole blog)

v's toybox: a general catchall for all my original pics/vids v's thought bubbles: my text posts. for general announcements or feeling/thought sharing, which i'm sure i'll do from time to time friend: [insert name]: this tag is used to separate out my specific toys! my figs & dolls: catchall for my figurines and dolls my plush: catchall for my plush toys eiffel opens stuff: posts of blind box/bag openings. because i like those! new friend alert: intro posts! as new friends are rounded up into posting their little intros will go here (we'll see if i make sure to actually use this tag lol) misc: anything miscellaneous should it end up here for any reason! collector's bin: other people's content! i don't know if i will be reblogging other people's stuff yet, but should i start to, it'll be stashed here!

other tags i will probably be generally using will be those related to toy and plush communities. i will try to very sparingly use fandom related tags so as not to annoyingly spam, but if i think somethin' is particularly fun i want other fans to see, then it might just end up in a fandom tag!

⚠️ disclaimer: because i'm an adult, i might occasionally have my toys in pictures with things like alcohol or other substances, or possibly a funny suggestive joke now and then. these will be tagged appropriately with "[insert topic] cw" so you can filter them out if desired. if you need anything else tagged, please feel free to inform me and i will do my best to tag any future content with it!

⚠️ interaction policies: i don't tolerate any hatred upon my blog. any transphobes/homophobes/racists/etc will be blocked. zionists will be blocked.

additionally, proship will also be blocked, as i am highly uncomfortable with that community and those who identify with it.

i also request my content not be reblogged to specifically ddlg+mdlb+cgl/ageplay/sexual age regression type blogs. i am also very uncomfortable with this interaction. i doubt there will be this style of interaction, but i will disclaim anyways.

sfw agere/kidcore/etc blogs are welcome and not considered to be of the same variety of blogs listed!

[keepthisholykiss]

i guess this is a pinned post (until i unpin it someday)

lots of people are making the move to tumblr yet again which means i have been getting a lot of new followers and feel the need to make a pinned post given trends that i do notice in my new followers. if you are following me for the first time and reading this i humbly ask that you read further before following. this goes triple for anyone that found me through takarazuka. idc about DNI rules usually but this keeps happening at a rate that has almost made me delete my account before so!

some things to know about me before following:

i am trans in a t4t lesbian marriage and we’re both varying levels of asexual and agender/no gender/genderfuck so if any of that bothers you then please DNI!

i am both physically and mentally disabled and i will let you know about it, your opinion on that matter does not concern me

i often forget to tag reblogs so if there is a specific tag you want me to include please let me know and i will make sure i start tagging that item

i work in and produce research for academia, an institution built on systems and morals i do not hold and do not support. my research is always as accessible, queer friendly, and free as it can be. if you have opinions on my research leave me alone idc 

i do not participate in fandom. i worked in community management for a variety of brands and media types for years and frankly fandom exhausts me. i will interact with your blorbo post and think its fun but i will not join your discord or fic exchange which brings me to my most important or relevant point:

if you are coming from any takarazuka post i have made (or that my wife has made? idk) please consider if you actually want to interact with this blog. i made a previous post shortly after leaving that fandom aka the only fandom i ever have joined. in that post i said some things in a much harsher way than i probably should have or would have today but i listed my many issues with that media and the people who bullied myself, my spouse, and our friends. there are some amazing people who i know and still care very much about in that fandom but if you are new to it or just forgot i existed please know i will never post a takarazuka post again. i know my blog still gets recommended alongside tkz blogs (including those who actively wish me physical harm :D) and yet i cannot change the algorithms of tumblr. so please consider that when you follow me or send me anon hate.

hopefully this is the last time i ever have to post something like this but theres been an uptick in both terf and tkz interactions on this blog so!

[verdanabdit]

Tag masterpost & Info

First and foremost: To try to get around Tumblr's auto-flagging system that would get me shadowbanned, I'll be censoring all d☆rty words, and all mentions of the terms SS/FF/WW and NN/SS/FF/WW will be substituted with the rot13 equivalents "FSJ" and "AFSJ". FSJ and AFSJ will have separate tags because I personally prefer being able to filter out the h☆rny sometimes. I won't be using the labels feature because that'd just be telling on myself. Besides, this is fontcest; if you're in for a penny, you're in for a pound. I don't use nicknames for AUs very often, so mind the tags to figure out which I'm talking about. (Sometimes it's vaguely either-or)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Pairings

All of these are same-universe brother/brother inc☆st. Please block me and the tags if they trouble you.

If any give the result "Page cannot be found", it probably means that I just haven't posted anything with that tag yet, rather than the hotlink being broken.

Undertale (All)

Undertale (FSJ)

Undertale (AFSJ)

Underfell (All)

Underfell (FSJ)

Underfell (AFSJ)

Underswap (All)

Underswap (FSJ)

Underswap (AFSJ)

Swapfell Red (All)

Swapfell Red (FSJ)

Swapfell Red (AFSJ)

Swapfell Purple (All)

Swapfell Purple (FSJ)

Swapfell Purple (AFSJ)

Fellswap Gold (All)

Fellswap Gold (FSJ)

Fellswap Gold (AFSJ)

Horrortale (All)

Horrortale (FSJ)

Horrortale (AFSJ)

Underlust (All)

Underlust (FSJ)

Underlust (AFSJ)

G (All) (? Whatever it is where Sans and Papyrus have fused with Gaster?)

G (FSJ)

G (AFSJ)

Deltarune

Deltarune (FSJ)

Deltarune (AFSJ)

Vague pairing (All) (Vague enough that it could be any of the above, usually referring to them as energetic brother/lazy brother. Will still be tagged as fontcest for visibility.)

Vague pairing (FSJ)

Vague pairing (AFSJ)

Pairing traits Separated into both character specific and personality specific for your tastes! I know the latter half aren't grammatically correct but I don't want to disrupt the grammatically correct tags. These are mostly for avoiding the ones you don't like, as they aren't in use on FSJ posts or posts where it doesn't specify who has what role. (I asked if I should change this for individual pairing tags reflecting those that Japanese users utilize, such as HoneyBerry or BerryHoney, but I got no response.)

Dom Sans

Sub Sans

Dom Papyrus

Sub Papyrus

Dom Lazy

Sub Lazy

Dom Energetic

Sub Energetic

Post types

Open prompt / Imagine (All)

Open prompt / Imagine (FSJ)

Open prompt / Imagine (AFSJ)

Art

Observations & headcanons (Usually can be read platonically)

Unfinished fanfic (All)

Unfinished fanfic (FSJ)

Unfinished fanfic (AFSJ)

Finished fanfic (All)

Finished fanfic (FSJ)

Finished fanfic (AFSJ)

Off topic (Not really content, and either not related or mostly unrelated to Undertale)

Asides (Related to Undertale, but not substantial enough to really tag it with anything else)

Info under Read More / Keep Reading.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Info

I'm reposting things from my Tw☆tter because Tw☆tter is constantly on the verge of collapse, and I got frustrated with how difficult it was to find other peoples' posts on Tw☆tter. I wanted to be able to easily find their prompts, imagines, daydreams, etc. but it's pretty impossible once an account has like 20,000 tweets. So I wanted to collect all of mine in one place, since it's what I would have wanted others to do too. (Let it be encouragement, maybe? I want to read all your fontcest thoughts.)

I would just move here from Tw☆tter, but Tumblr banned the you-know-what in 2018 and all the real activity is on Tw☆tter. If the ban never happened, I would have never left Tumblr in the first place. And they're never going to un-ban it. But because I'm not posting AFSJ in a visual medium, I should be alright to post here at least.

If any of my silly little thoughts inspire you, please use them. I can't write much, so they'll do nothing but sit here. If the same prompt inspires more than one person… then let there be as many cakes as everyone wants to bake! No credit necessary, but appreciated.

Even if something isn't tagged as vaguecest, do feel free to switch names around or whatever to imagine your AU of choice if the prompt seems like it could fit them, too. I actually struggle a bit with some classic fontcest prompts because I feel like it might fit more than one.

I don't think anyone here would really want to talk to me, but if you ever send me a message and I don't reply for a long time, you can probably safely assume that Tumblr ate it or shadowbanned me, so I never actually received the messages. You can send anon messages on c☆riouscat or message me on Tw☆tter. I use the same name everywhere, so those pages are pretty easy to find. (I won't be linking to them because Tumblr doesn't like external links.)

(Last minute addition: I can't reblog certain art without getting my blog flagged, but I can like whatever posts I want, so here's a link to my likes which is basically all the art I would have wanted to reblog.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Please remember to always tag your pairings and content properly so everyone can either find the things they like, or avoid the things that upset them.

(I have blocked all pairing tags that aren't same-universe brother pairs. Please don't intentionally show me any iterations of the skeletons paired with someone who isn't their brother. I am a weenie whose dumb heart hurts to see their OTPs with other people.)

[hollowsoul12]

Anywho, on to a less happy post that I've been wanting to make, yet was unable to make due to personal OCD reasons, I'm going to talk about the bright contraversity, but more specifically how poorly the tumblr side of the community has handled and how separating art from artist is tricky in this situation. (Now just like most of the bright post this will be getting into it, this post contains mentions of serious and horrible sexual topics relating to AdminBright. If you are a bright system you should go into this post with caution, as I won't be kind of AdminBrights creations in the slightest. Also you should check out Daisy Adia's document on her previous relationship with AdminBright regardless of whether you read this post or not)

So, most of you have probably already know of the basic gist of the situation, but if you have not been checking the scp tumblr tag for a while or dont even know what a AdminBright i, let me just catch you up to speed: Recently the contraversity of AdminBright (or Theduckman), the creator of Dr. Bright, Brights family, and handful of other SCPs as well as being a previous staff member for the wiki before he was banned, after "the list of things Dr. Bright is not allowed to do at the foundation" was temporarily deleted by a leaving staff member without telling the rest staff. The reason this article specifically was targeted was because AdminBright is a known s*x pest that s*xually and emotionally manipulated/ab*sed multiple people and, due to the list being the most egregious interpretation of his self insert on the wiki (as the list portrayed him as a womanizer and pervert), its been one that held the most hatred in the on-site community. Unfortunately, due to the licensing and previous scp wiki rules, the article has been brought back and has gained protected status due to its unprompted deletion. This one action, however, has lit a new spark of hope of getting rid bright from the site, as the list was the biggest stop sign in peoples hope of getting rid of him and with its deletion it weakened that obstacle. Now people on both the off-site and on-site community have been going about protesting and rewriting articles surrounding bright from changing his name and creating a new character to less than subtle frustration of allowing the bright list back. Meanwhile their is many others that are simply trying to figure out with what to do next. 

This latter group, however, is where the problem's mentioned in the beginning have started to occur. You see, the tumblr side of the community, as well as many other parts of the off-site community, have (and I try to put this is the nicest way possible) been stagnant in relation to scp, but tumblr in particular has been extremely stagnant. What I mean in this case is that unless its about a scp that's over 1000+ upvotes or is character/group that got a cult following during series 1-3 (alagadda, nalka/sarkics, the doctors of the foundation). it wont get discussed and even then the stuff discussed isn't looked at from a meta/real life angle. It is also due to this extreme stagnation that now that this situation about bright has once again resurfaced, it has been a mixed about the idea of getting rid of or even replacing bright. Some have decided to cut ties with bright, but a very vocal group of people on here have decided to basically dig their heals in here and even started to deflect the anger towards people trying to replace him like DJ Kaktus.

Now, I've tried my best to keep calm try to figure out a way to reach a certain middle ground with this situation, as I know their is a lot people that kin bright are generally normal/good people, and tried to figure out a ultimatum, but you know what I'm just gonna say my truthful opinion:

If you are a bright fan or any SCP fan for that matter and actually care about being against Theduckman, THEN JUST FUCKING MOVE ON FROM HIS SHITTY FETISH INSERT AND HIS INSERTS ABLEIST CODED FAMILY!!!

"BUT HE ISN'T A SELF INSERT ANYMORE, THE COMMUNITY HAS RECLAIMED HIM." Dr. Bright has been constantly used as a stand in for his creators sick fantasies, not just on the SCP wiki, but also in sexual roleplay. Dr. Bright, the character, was used by Theduckman to take advantage of people. Dr. Bright, the character, is reason Theduckman got to the position of admin and was able to take advantage of people. Hell, Brights amulet and his ability to swap bodies ican literally tie directly back to Theduckmans branding fetish Even after he got banned, he actively encouraged people to keep using his characters! Most in not all active on-site authors know of Theduckmans past, and guess what, THEY WANT HIM GONE. Their also victims of Theduckman that want him gone. The only reason why people seem to have "separated" bright from Theduckman is because of the disconnect between the off-site and on-site communities, but I guarantee if many people actually knew the situation, more people would not be supporting keeping him around.

"BUT DR. BRIGHT AND HIS FAMILY ARE IMPORTANT TO THE SCP LORE" Dr. Bright and his family have not, is not, and will never be important to the lore of SCP because THEIR IS NO CANNON. Their entire storylines where Bright doesn't exist, hell their is multiple timelines where the foundation does not exist. And even if their was one overarching lore, bright and his family barley play a role in modern scp or are just their for name recognition. 

"BUT CHANGING BRIGHTS NAME DOESN'T CHANGE ANYTHING, WHY WOULD EVEN CHANGE THE NAME BUT KEEP THE CHARACTER THE SAME" BECAUSE OF BRIGHT FANS THAT DON"T WANT LET HIM DIE! STUFF LIKE SHAW ONLY EXSIST BECAUSE WON"T FUCKING LET BRIGHT DIE!

*Ahem* So, yeah, thats my opinion. Truthfully I know that its impossible to actually get rid of Bright and truthfully that not every single person thinks the same way about Bright as I do. In truth, this post is NOT meant to hat on people that like Bright but rather is meant show how fucked up Bright as a character is and how his existence in this fandoms needs to change. And in truth that change appears to be finally happening with the list being temporarily deleted. I hope that one day we finally can leave bright as a memory, but till that day we just have to stick to rewrites

[idyllic-ghost]

Hi, reblog the work of the writers you like.

From my experience and the experience of other Tumblr writers that I've spoken with, our writings don't get nearly as many reblogs as they do likes. No matter how many times it's being said, it doesn't seem to do much.

First, we should get one thing out of the way: this is not criticizing anyone who doesn't reblog fanfiction, think of it more as a chance to change your mind. Now let's get to the issue.

To make this as easy to read as possible, because I know that it isn't fun to read these things and you probably have other things to do, I'll list up the topics I want to bring up:

Reblogging spreads authors' works

Motivation

Fanfiction is free

In defense of the people who don't reblog

These writers are so good.

1. Reblogging spreads authors' works. This one is fairly simple. Without reblogs we can't reach as many people. Tags only do so much. The absolute easiest way to reach new readers is for other people to reblog. If you love someone's work, you should share it with other people. This will benefit both the author and new readers. Sometimes it might even benefit you since you get to talk about the fanfiction you read. This leads me to my next point.

2. Motivation. Reblogging AND making a comment about the story gives the writer motivation. This feedback can be what helps other people to continue writing. In my own experience, I'm less likely to write more if I get less interaction. This is normal human behavior, we all have a reward system after all. If you want more fanfiction to be published, encourage the writers because there's no other external motivation for us... which brings me to my third point.

3. Fanfiction is free, and it's great! I won't try to push my anti-capitalist agenda on you in this post, I can save that for another time, but fanfiction being free makes it accessible for everyone with an internet connection. If we want this to continue, the writers have to feel motivated to keep writing. As said before, external motivation is needed for that to happen. The many fanfiction communities on this app, and other fanfiction apps, give the chance to all kinds of people to read. Reading, as our teachers and parents told us, is important for the brain to develop. Getting your daily words in is significant, even if it is through fanfiction. Let's keep it this way. Let's get people the possibility to read and not have to pay for it.

4. In defense of the people who don't reblog. Listen, I get it. It's not easy to reblog for some people. It can be a bit awkward and sometimes you just don't know what to say. Sometimes it's just that you don't have an account that's meant for fanfiction or a specific fandom. I can't force you to reblog others' posts, I know that. But if you've read this far, and I really hope you've read all of it, you'll understand where I'm coming from and I hope that changes your mind.

5. These writers are so good. Let's wrap this up with my final and fifth point. This is perhaps my more subjective point, compared to the rest. These writers put in hard work to make the most beautiful works. Most of the writers on here write so beautifully, and they deserve recognition for it. It's unfortunate to see people who write so well not get to hear it.

So that's it. I hope you read it, but if you didn't it's not a big deal. This is mostly me complaining. The point of this post, however, is to try to make the fanfiction communities become more welcoming again. I know that this won't do much, but there's no hurt in putting your attempt out there.

Note: This is not me asking for more notes, although it will always be appreciated, I'm asking for you to pay more attention to the works of the many talented writers on this app.

If you want to start reblogging but don't know what to say, something as simple as "I really enjoyed reading this" is enough. Don't forget, comments and likes are always appreciated - but reblogs are the best thing for a fanfiction writer to receive.

[lejaybleu]

the fuck is this blog

wow i'm so glad you asked!

i've spent a longggg ass time on this site (long enough i can't say how long exactly in case you know how to subtract. whoops.) and haven't made a proper intro post for the whole duration. this is it! this is the one. have fun reading this? i guess?

basics

i'm kind of a fandom blog, kinda not? i mostly reblog and don't post original stuff often, but i do occasionally, and that stuff is either just my thoughts or sometimes fandom content. i am part of many, many different fandoms, so if you came here for one thing, expect to see other stuff too! also, i do engage in discourse and post politics. i do understand that some people come here to escape the world we live in, and that is 100% valid, but as an 18 year old american student with not much income to speak of, engaging in civil discourse online is one of the ways i stay politically active since that's accessible to me. if that bothers you, this probably isn't the blog for you!

triggers, tone indicators and nsfw

i'm not going to share my triggers for my own personal safety, and also because they are the kind of thing that get tagged for being fucked up anyways. i am totally willing to tag for triggers myself (i usually use "// [thing]" as a trigger tag, so if you don't have that blocked for the trigger in question, do that!), and usually i remember to tag common triggers. if you have a less common/more general trigger or just one you've seen me not tag for, PLEASE feel free to dm me/send me an ask and i will absolutely start tagging that for you! if you're an existing follower and i post things with your trigger without tagging for it and you'd like me to start tagging, please also feel free to let me know. i'm trying to become better about tagging for triggers and i understand it's important, so just reach out if you have any concerns in that department.

as for tone indicators/tone tags, i sometimes use them and i sometimes don't. if you'd like me to use them more or for specific things, just shoot me a dm or an ask, but know that i am often very forgetful when it comes to tone tags specifically so i can't guarantee anything

i do sometimes reblog nsfw content. i always tag for it- if you have "nsfw"/"// nsfw" blocked you should be all good if that's not stuff you wanna see- but please take this into account before following me and follow at your own discretion. you have been warned

politics

i am a queer radical leftist and a trans-inclusive feminist!! i am primarily a socialist, but anarchocommunism is neat too. i believe all people are people and are deserving of respect, resources they need to live, and resources they need to be happy. i'm pro-choice, pro-bodily autonomy in general for all people (including disabled folks), pro-queer, pro-trans, pro-woman, pro-inclusion and pro-respectful dialogue. i am anti-capitalism, anti-language/label policing, anti-generalization of any group of people, anti-exclusion, anti-racism, anti-sexism, anti-bigotry, and anti-reactionism. i want to be clear i am not anti people- i do my best to respect everyone regardless of their views, but while i respect every individual, i believe i have no obligation to respect every individual's/group's beliefs.

as for the very prominent discourse on tumblr about shipping fictional characters, i think it's really fucking stupid that people feel so strongly about others finding solace in imagining certain fictional characters kissing or fucking or whatever. if you are one of these people: go outside, touch grass, and funnel that anger into issues that actually affect people's real lives (e.g. reproductive rights being taken away, the policing system, the healthcare system... stuff like that.)

also, please be aware these are my views NOW, as of the date on this post. as i've said i've been on this website for a hot minute and my views have shifted and changed over that time period, so if you find something from like 2019 that totally contradicts what i've said here, that is why.

dni

i don't believe in not interacting with people purely based on their beliefs or random characteristics about them (this is a personal thing. i don't think there's anything morally bad about having a dni) if you are capable of having a civil dialogue and respecting me and my identity, i'm happy to have a good faith discussion about pretty much anything, no matter what your views are. that being said, if you are not in fact capable of that, please leave me alone thanks. also if i fall into your dni, do yourself a favor and don't interact with me

fandoms

if it has a * next to it, i used to be into it and am not really now

life is strange

miraculous ladybug*

voltron: legendary defender*

dream smp/new mcyts*

heartstopper

killing eve

young royals

stitchers

shadowhunters*

winx club

andi mack*

glee*

the arcana

detroit: become human

buzzfeed unsolved/watcher

unus annus

the stormlight archives

heathers (the musical)

dear evan hansen (the musical)*

be more chill (the musical)

a lot of broadway and off-broadway musicals to be honest

personal stuff

if you've read my bio, you already know the drill: i'm jay, i'm a bi trans dykeboy, i'm 18 and i'm south asian american. i'm currently a full time university student double majoring in neuroscience and theatre design (feel free to send me asks about either i will go crazy). in my free time i sing, play guitar, write (or stare at blank google docs for hours), and hang out with cats. i don't exactly know what i want to do other than parenting. i have adhd and that makes life sucky sometimes but it's also very much a vital part of who i am (for me personally). otherrr than that, i can't think of anything, but if you wanna know something my asks are always open! i will not share identifying information though for obvious reasons.

so yeah that's me! if there's anything i forgot just let me know. thanks for reading :)

[ask-artsy-oncie]

For Everyone New to Tumblr

So! Your shitty social media website has become even shittier? So much so that you’re running to our beloved little hellsite? Welcome! Despite all the jokes, this is genuinely one of the last good social media websites out there that has a considerable userbase, and it’s probably for the best that its growing and people are beginning to grow used to experiences that aren’t dictated by advertisers and algorithms. 

BUT

If you want to be welcomed with open arms from said userbase, you are going to have to learn how to use and navigate Tumblr. 

Having been stuck here for almost 11 years, now (the fact that this is a retired Once-ler askblog should be proof enough), I feel like I’ve seen a lot of posts that have touched on many different aspects of Tumblr that new users should be wary of, but none that have put the entirety of new user advice into one big post. I feel a little bit of a lacking in both content and convenience that might make taking all this advice in difficult.

So here I go, making a big long post that new users can have as reference.

I strongly recommend that new users at least start the account-making process on a laptop or desktop computer, as opposed to a mobile phone, for reasons I will get into later, but it’s not a requirement.

(PLEASE NOTE: Table of Contents only functions properly when you view this post on my blog, sorry for the inconvenience!)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MAKING YOUR BLOG

   - Editing Your Blog’s Mobile Appearance

   - Editing Your Blog’s Desktop Appearance

   - Your Blog’s Settings

APP VS MOBILE VS DESKTOP

MAKING POSTS

   - Types of Posts

   - Content in Posts

   - The Tagging System

FINDING OTHER BLOGS

   - Following Blogs You Already Know

   - Finding New Blogs

INTERACTING WITH OTHER BLOGS

   - Reblogs, Comments, and Likes

   - Asks, Submissions, and Messaging

   - Blocking

YOUR INFLUENCE AS A TUMBLR USER

   - You Have None

TUMBLR CULTURE

   - Post Circulation

   - Miscellaneous Etiquette

   - Tumblr-specific Memes

Let’s get started, shall we?

Making Your Blog

So, you’ve just finished making an account (or you’ve been using Tumblr with the bare minimum as a blank blog that only likes posts since creating your account) and you’re met with a screen that looks something like this:

(please note, I will be using the desktop site for the majority of this tutorial)

You have, presented to you, a dashboard full of popular, recommended blogs, with more recommendations offered to you either on the side, or, on mobile, during short breaks in your dashboard. Maybe you’re already following a few people or tags - cool! Right now, we’re not going to focus on the dashboard, there are a few important steps that we’ve neglected in making our Tumblr blog!

To get started, we’ll need to click on this little icon, here:

(on a mobile browser, you’ll instead want to click on this menu icon)

You will get a menu that looks like this - with general options above, and a list of your blogs, below. Right now, what we want to focus on is “Edit Appearance” under your blog, which, for whatever reason, is actually how you access your blog’s settings (whereas “Settings” just takes you to your general account settings)

The page will look something like this - scrolling down will offer you a myriad of options!

Editing Your Blog’s Mobile Appearance

What we can do, here, to get started, is edit the appearance of your blog for mobile devices - this includes mobile browsers and the Tumblr app. This includes changing your icon (which will not change across platforms), adding a header image, blog title, blog color, and description. (Note: If you want to include any HTML-specific content in your description, such as links, images, or special text formatting, please forgo working on your description until we move on to editing the appearance of your blog for desktop sites)

It is highly recommended that you do not use an independent artist’s (including fan-artists’) work for your icon or header image without their permission AND credit. Art theft is a huge issue on social media, and while most sites don’t actually do much to punish you for this, I will tell you, right now, that if an artist recognizes your icon or header image as someone else’s (not your) art, and notices you haven’t credited said artist, they are very likely going to be wary of you, and will possibly block you. To avoid going on a tangent, if this concept confuses you, please feel free to check the #art theft tag on my blog.

Ideas for what to use for your icon and header:

- A screenshot or stock image of your favorite fictional character

- A drawing you did

- A photo of your pet

- A photo you took

I personally like to use backgrounds from shows or games that I like as my header, and my own art as my icon. 

Next, you’ll want to click on the “Background” option and select a color that compliments your header and/or icon (your header should probably take priority, though, since it’s pretty permanently attached to your background color when people go to view your blog). The “Accent” option next to it should be a color you can see clearly against your background color. 

Once all the visual elements are done, you’ll want to type out a blog title. This can be anything from your online pseudonym, a quote you resonate with, or some shitpost-esque descriptor of yourself. Your description is equally “do whatever you want”. Most people give their online pseudonym or any name they’re comfortable using online, their pronouns, their occupation (most artists or writers will list that they’re artists or writers), their interests, etc. There are many things you can do with your description.

Here’s an example of what I’ve done:

(The header image is from a picture book, and the icon is from a TV show)

Looks a lot more nice and personal than the blank appearance it had, before, huh?

But WHY should I edit my blog’s appearance? Tumblr has had an issue with bot accounts which, buy and large, do not edit their blog appearances. When you, a human being, don’t bother to do this either, many long-time users will assume you are also a bot (and probably block you). Plus, having a custom-looking page is part of the fun of Tumblr! If you’re going to be here for a while, might as well make it a place you actually like the looks of!

Now, the nittier-grittier part of blog customization - editing your blog’s appearance for desktop browsers!

Editing Your Blog’s Desktop Appearance

In order to see how your blog will look outside of the Tumblr dashboard or mobile browsers, You’ll need to go to “[blogURL].tumblr.com”. By default, the desktop version will look very similar to the mobile version - but there’s a lot you can do to make it better for desktop browsers, specifically. This part is a lot more optional than editing your blog’s mobile appearance, but if you like the idea of having your own personal little website of sorts, you should definitely give this a try!

You’ll want to get started by clicking on the little paint palette icon. 

If you do not use a laptop or desktop computer, you won’t be able to access this icon, which is why I recommended earlier that you start your blog-making process on a laptop or desktop computer.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll end up with a layout like this:

Look at all those options!! I suggest toying around with all of them in order to figure out what you like best - most features and options are self-explanatory. However, it might be good to go over a checklist of the things most users like to change for this version of their blog:

Theme - Selecting the “Browse Themes” option will allow you to find a number of different layouts you can use for your blog (Free themes can be found under the dropdown menu that says “All Themes” and changing it to “Free Themes”). My personal favorite theme is “Accessible” by eggdesign, as it has an option to use a font that’s easier for dyslexic people to read, and is very customizable.

Background - Can be either a color or an image, but this is what will be displayed behind all your posts. It’s best to use images that were either designed to be tiled, or very large images that will cover the whole screen.

Fonts - Most themes allow you to choose a font for your title, your description, your posts, pretty much any text that will appear on your blog. It’s best to make a short “test post” so that you can properly see what your posts will look like when you’re selecting a font and color for them.

HTML Description - In your blog’s description on this page, you can use HTML coding to make text bold, italic, add a hyperlink, add a picture, pretty much anything you can do with HTML coding. In the old days of tumblr, people used to design little HTML widgets people could copypaste into their blog descriptions, like clocks, or even simple virtual pets! If these still exist, go crazy and add whatever the hell to your blog!

After messing around for no longer than 7 minutes, I’ve got a blog that looks much different on desktop than it does on mobile!

When you’re satisfied, just make sure you save your changes before exiting!

Your Blog’s Settings

Now let’s go back to our blog settings - there are a few more options that have nothing to do with appearance, but will change our Tumblr experience a lot.

“Share Posts You Like” will create a tab on your blog that will allow anyone visiting your blog to scroll through your likes. Most tumblr users prefer to keep the posts they like private (consider the drama that people have caused on Twitter over people liking posts from accounts that a mutual might have beef with, though, most things that people choose to hide on tumblr are more for just having the option of privacy, we like privacy here!). Either way, as you’ll see later in the Interacting With Other Blogs portion of the post, leaving this option switched to “on” is not a viable replacement for reblogging posts.

Similarly, people prefer to keep the accounts they follow private. Again, mostly just for privacy’s sake.

The “Featured Tags” option is something most often used by content creators. It’ll just give anyone viewing your blog a list of suggested tags to search for on your blog, so many creators will list their art/writing/photography/what have you content tag through this feature.

Replies, asks, submissions, and messaging will be discussed further in Interacting With Other Blogs, so until you fully understand these options, I would wait to activate or change them.

Your queue is a set-aside list of posts you’ve either made or reblogged that will not be posted immediately. Instead, they will be posted at a time you chose until the allotted time or post count has been fulfilled, or your queue is empty.

Your timezone will affect the timestamps on your posts and reblogs, so if you care about that, I suggest making sure it’s accurate to where you live.

Your blog’s visibility is another privacy feature. You can choose to make your blog inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have a Tumblr account (this will also render the desktop appearance of your blog inaccessible to everyone), and/or you can also choose to hide your blog from search results, meaning that any time you use a tag on your post, people will not see that post when they search for a tag on Tumblr’s “Search Tumblr” system.

With all that taken care of, your blog is complete! Congratulations, you’re finally recognized as a real person on Tumblr!

App V.S. Mobile V.S. Desktop

Before we get into using Tumblr, I do want to talk a little about what platform you might be using Tumblr on. You have a few options: the app, using your mobile device’s web browser, or using your laptop or desktop computer’s browser. 

The Tumblr app is heavily pushed by Tumblr, itself, and sees a very popular usage, but it’s also known as the most broken, most limited, and most censored method of using Tumblr. Its draw is convenience.

Accessing Tumblr on your mobile browser is pretty much the half-way point between using the app and opening Tumblr on your computer browser. The look is very much built for mobile use and its menu system and new post layout is closer to the Tumblr app’s, but it isn’t as censored and tends to only be affected by bugs that also affect the desktop site. Its search system, as far as I can tell, is also closer to that of the desktop site’s. 

Unlike Instagram and Tiktok, Tumblr was designed first as a site to be accessed by desktop users, and then was later adapted to mobile devices - closer to how Twitter is. As such, using Tumblr on your computer’s browser is probably the best way to use it. It doesn’t glitch as often as it does on the app and tends to load faster, too. Additionally, making different kinds of posts is more clear-cut on desktop. Additionally-additionally, most of Tumblr’s annual April Fool’s Day hijinks are designed for desktop, and usually don’t get mobile support. 

My recommendation is obviously to use Tumblr on your computer’s browser, but you won’t lose too much using a mobile browser. Just don’t let Tumblr trick you into using the app.

Making Posts

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to delve into actually putting some content on your blog!

Why would you want to do this when you’re just here to look at other people’s content? Well, again, it kind of boils down to you coming off as a human being. Surely you have thoughts you’d like to throw out into the void - opinions on media you like or dislike? Thoughts on how your day went, or something you’re excited for? Maybe you have photos you’d like to share? A place you went to, an animal you saw, or an article of clothing in a store you thought looked nice? 

Making your own original posts aren’t nearly as necessary as editing your blog’s appearance, but it’s part of the Tumblr experience and helps makes your blog feel more personal. It can even help you make friends on Tumblr if that’s something you want to do. The anonymity of Tumblr means that you don’t have to worry about your real-life friends and family reading your inner thoughts, or that you can say stupid things as a teenager and won’t have your face tied to it like you would on Tiktok. It’s a free-for-all, here, and things are more fun when you join in!

Types of Posts

On the desktop site, you can begin making a new post by clicking on one of various options listed at the top of your dashboard

These are all different types of posts you can make. 

(On mobile, your only option is to select “Create a Post” from the menu, and then embed whatever kind of media you want into a text post)

Text posts - The vast majority of Tumblr posts, as far as I’m aware, are text posts. You can add an optional title to your post, and then fill in the body with text. Additionally, you can embed other media into the body of text posts and utilize HTML coding.

Photo posts - Kinda close to the way posting on Instagram works, a photo (or series of photos) will appear at the top of the post (and if users click on the photos, they can access a larger version of them), with optional text in the body of the post. The body of photo posts essentially function like the bodies of text posts.

Quote posts - Not used very often anymore, but still have their place if you ever want to share a specific quote, the header of these posts are any given quote, while the body is the quote’s source. Again, the body of quote posts function like the body of text posts, but I really don’t recommend you use this particular post this way unless the source is tied to a video or image (or you’re doing some next-level shitposting)

Link posts - Are also not used as often (most people just embed links into text posts) but tend to get used to share news articles or other situations where a post’s sole purpose is to share a link.

Chat posts - Used for dialogues. The vast majority of “incorrect quote” blogs use chat posts. This will automatically format a post’s body in an ideal way for sharing a script. Chat posts can not have text added to them in reblogs without adding to the original post, itself. This means that someone can reblog from you and add onto the dialogue you write, but the post wouldn’t mark them as the one who added it, nor would it explicitly label your post as edited, which can make some users believe that this was part of what you wrote. Tumblr etiquette usually dictates that it’s rude to add to a chat post.

Audio posts - For sharing MP3 files or Soundcloud links. As far as I know, the use of songs within the copyright system are a messy, gray area. Blogs have been deleted for reuploading large amounts of songs within the copyright system, before. Yet my sideblog full of early 2000′s Eurobeat has survived for many many years. Just be careful, I guess.

Video posts - For sharing video files (preferably MP4s) or links from video hosting sites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc). Like photo posts, the media is at the top of the post, while you have a body that functions like a text post.

Content In Posts

For this section, I will be using a text post as an example, as most other posts have text post qualities in them.

The most you’ll ever usually worry about when making a post is simply typing out the words you want to appear in your post

But you have a number of options for formatting and embedding available to you! Highlighting text will show you various formatting options (bold, italicize, headline, link, strike, list, and blockquote) which will change the way your text looks within your post (or, in the case of linking, functions). On mobile, you will also see options to change the color, font, or size of your text. This can be done on desktop, as well, through HTML coding (to access this, you’ll need to select the settings button and change the editor from “Rich Text” to “HTML”)

Starting a new line of text within a post offers you some additional options before you start typing anything. This will allow you to embed a photo, video, or read more link into the body of your post.

So you could theoretically make a post like this, instead

(this post is formatted very poorly, don’t make posts like this. I’m just trying to show off your options, please put some thought into your post formatting.)

One final note - you do not have to (and should not) censor your words on Tumblr, no matter how controversial. Tumblr has a rather infamous history of censorship and random shadowbanning, but for the most part, you will not lose your blog if you type out words like “kill” or “suicide” or swear words. If you don’t want to use these words, don’t talk about these subjects. If you want to talk about these subjects, use the damn word. Self-censoring prevents people from effectively filtering out words they do not want to see on their dashboard, so you’ll be doing more harm than good if you censor yourself.

Now that you’ve made your post, you’ll probably want to tag it

The Tagging System

Tumblr’s tagging system is... unique. Not in it’s functionality, but more in how it’s used in the context of Tumblr’s culture. This will come up again, but tagging is only used as a method of sorting posts half of the time, here. The other half of the time, it’s used as a sort of “whisper mode” where you can add commentary to your own posts (or other people’s posts) without directly altering the body of the post.

Let’s use another example post:

In this post, the text “Wow, I had a great day, today. I got to walk my dog” is the body, and the only part of the post that people will see if someone chooses to reblog it. The tags “#dogs” and “#my ramblings” serve to categorize the post on my blog, and Tumblr as a whole. If someone were to search “dogs” on Tumblr, they would eventually see this post. Similarly, “#my ramblings” serves to mark this post with a personal tag for my own text posts that I use to organize my blog in this hypothetical. 

However, the tags “#i love my dog so much she’s such a little porker” and “#but she is a very good walker” are not tags meant to categorize. They instead exist as an aside where I’m adding text to the original post without actually altering the post, itself. It serves as an afterthought, a different way of talking on this site.

Similarly to how you shouldn’t self-censor in posts, you definitely should not self-censor in tags. Tags are the most common way that people filter content on this site. If someone is sensitive to discussions of death, for example, they will filter out the tags “#death”, “#tw death” (trigger warning death), and “#cw death” (content warning death), and won’t see any posts tagged this way. But if you tag your post as “#tw unalive” or “#d34th″ then the person trying to avoid your post will actually end up seeing it, and probably won’t be to happy about that, best case scenario.

Another thing to note is that characters like commas and quotation marks don’t work properly in tags. Commas separate different tags, so typing one will end the tag you’re currently typing and start a new one. Quotation marks prioritize tags, so anything you have in quotation marks will immediately be brought to the front of the tags portion of the post (not very helpful if you’re typing a string of sentences).

Finally, in order to use the tagging system to find a post on your blog, or on Tumblr, in a way that doesn’t rely on Tumblr’s kinda broken search system, you would need to type “tumblr.com/tagged/[tagname]” for generally searching the website, or “[blogURL].tumblr.com/tagged/[tagname]%20[tagname]” for searching a specific blog, into the URL bar on your browser. (A “%20″ in a URL represents a space in a tag, so if the tag you’re using is more than one word, you’ll have to type a %20 for every space in between words)

Finding Other Blogs

So now you know how to exist as a Tumblr user on your lonesome, but how about existing as a Tumblr user within a larger Tumblr community? Well, you’ll have to find some other blogs to follow. 

By default, Tumblr will put posts on your dashboard from popular blogs or blogs that might have aligned with some interests you listed when you signed up (ironically, this dummy account I made ended up getting posts from a blog I co-own on its dash without me following said blog), but part of the appeal of Tumblr is that you don’t have to be forced into an algorithmic feed of content.

In order to achieve that, though, you first have to turn the algorithmic feed options off (in the “Dashboard” tab of your “Settings”, your preferences should look like this):

From there, you can start following people and properly tailoring your dashboard to your liking!

Following Blogs You Already Know

If you already happen to know some users on Tumblr, or have a favorite that had been popping up in that aforementioned algorithmic feed, your best course of action would be to actually follow said user rather than rely on that feed to continue to show you their posts (the algorithmic feed doesn’t show posts in chronological order, anyways, so you’ll more than likely miss out on some of their posts if you don’t follow them). This can be done in a number of ways, and I’ll use the co-owned blog I mentioned earlier as an example:

From your dashboard, you can click the “Follow” button displayed next to the blog’s URL

From Tumblr’s menu, you can go to the “Following” tab and manually type in the URL of the blog you want to follow

Or, from the blog’s page, you can click the “Follow” button found in the top-right of the screen

Finding New Blogs

But maybe you don’t already have a set list of people you plan on following, and are looking for new content? There are another number of ways you can find new people to follow!

As briefly mentioned at the very beginning of this post, your dashboard will not only display posts from people you follow, but also make suggestions on new blogs you can follow. The top portion are people Tumblr thinks that you, personally, will like, while the Radar consists of posts hand-picked by Tumblr, and are usually from artists.

Another way you can find new blogs is by searching tags relevant to your interests and looking for content you like. If a blog consistently has posts you enjoy in a tag, odds are you’ll probably want to follow them!

But if you’re going to be a participating member of a community on Tumblr, you really should know the etiquette of how to interact with other users, rather than jump in blindly.

Interacting With Other Blogs

This is the main subject I see come up over and over again on posts trying to explain how to use this site, and for good reason. Tumblr’s “ecosystem” relies very heavily on user engagement, and, unlike other social media sites, likes alone do not register as engagement. Content creation and online communities are a give-and-take social environment - if you want creators to keep showing you content, you should engage with it to show them that you want to see their content in the first place.

Reblogs, Comments, and Likes

When you find a post on Tumblr that was not made by you, you will find a number of buttons below the tags:

The number is the amount of “notes” a post has, which take the form of comments (the speech bubble), reblogs (the recycle symbol), and likes (the heart). The arrow button allows you to share a post via private messaging or external websites, but this more often than not doesn’t affect the post’s engagement, so we’ll ignore it for now.

The most important button in this case is the reblog button. This allows you to add the post to your blog (which will put it on your followers’ dashboards) while the original poster retains all credit for making the post. This directly gives the original post proper exposure and leads to more people seeing it, which leads to more people reblogging it, and so on. Think of this practice like growing a tree: Every time you reblog a post, a branch keeps growing. If you only like a post and don’t reblog it, the branch stops growing.

You’re never obligated to reblog posts - but you should consider the effect it has on posts. If everyone who saw the original post only gave it likes, then the tree would essentially just be a stump.

It’s also possible to reblog posts more than once, unlike retweeting.

When you reblog a post, you have the option to add something to the body of the post and/or add some tags that will only stay with your specific reblog of that post. Most people tend to use the tags to write additions to the post as a way to not “impose” on future reblogs of said post, but it’s ultimately your choice. If you feel like you can or should add to the body of the post, feel free to!

Another option for commenting on a post without affecting the body of the post is, well, comments (also known as replies). This will keep your comment contained within the notes of a post without you needing to reblog it. A lot of people will both comment and reblog a piece of work in order to show the original poster that they enjoy the piece, and also support the piece, but leave their comments about the piece off their blog.

It’s not uncommon, though, for people to just use the comments to get into arguments with one another without having to reblog a post over and over again, so I guess be prepared to see that.

Finally, both last and least, are likes. It’s not wrong, by any means, to like a post. It’s nice to know that you enjoyed a post enough to pay even a little bit of attention to it. Just know that it doesn’t do much for the person who made the original post. Liking on Tumblr, due to the lack of people using an algorithmic feed, and the fact that nobody cares about checking your blog’s “likes” tab, is essentially like bookmarking a post for yourself (as you can always view your likes in chronological order from the menu at any given time). Liking can even be a way to politely but quietly acknowledge a post. Say a friend of yours posts that they’ve had a bad day. Many Tumblr users would leave a like to let their friend know that they’ve seen their post, and they’re there for them. 

It’s always nice to get likes, they just do nothing for engagement.

Sometimes, you might see a coin button at the bottom of a post, this means the original poster set up an option for you to tip them. This is entirely up to your discretion on whether you want to do this, or not, and many people have expressed concern with giving your financial information to Tumblr, citing worries about security issues. Again, this is your choice, just know the risk. Many creators also have links to their Ko-Fi, Paypal, or Patreon, if you’re looking for another option in supporting someone, financially. 

Asks, Submissions, and Messaging

But say that you want to interact with another user without engaging with a post they made - you’ll have to send something to them, directly.

In your blog’s settings, we skipped over a few options - replies, asks, submissions and messaging. Replies, or comments, were covered above, but the rest will be covered, now.

Asks are one-time messages you can send to a blog, or others can send to your blog, so long as the recipients askbox is open (which can be toggled in settings). 

If the sender has a Tumblr account, is not blocked by the recipient, and does not choose to be anonymous, then the message functions similarly to a text post, where you can embed media into it. 

If the recipient allows anonymous messages, and the sender prefers to remain anonymous, and/or is not logged into a Tumblr account, then the message can only be comprised of text.

If the recipient does not allow anonymous messages, then only people with Tumblr accounts that they have not blocked can send asks.

Submissions function very similarly to asks, except anyone can send them, regardless of whether they have an account or not, and they take the form of posts, any posts that the average Tumblr user can make. It is recommended that, unless your blog is themed around submissions, you do not open your submission box, due to people having used it to send malicious links or shock videos.

If you get an ask or submission, you will get a notification above the envelope icon at the top of the screen (or next to the “Inbox” tab in the menu) that will look something like this 

To answer an ask, you must simply click the “Answer” button and type out your reply. For whatever reason, there’s currently a glitch where, if you right click while answering an ask, the entire post gets deleted before you can post it, so avoid that. Once you’ve finished typing your reply, you can choose to answer if publicly or privately. You can only answer non-anonymous asks privately, and it will be sent back to the sender’s askbox with your reply.

To post a submission, you click the “Post” button, but you also have the option to edit that post by clicking on the pencil-shaped button before you post it.

Messages are a private instant messaging option on Tumblr. Only other Tumblr users can message one another, and people may limit who they allow to message them (for example, some people set their blog so only their mutuals can message them). To message someone new, you need to click on the smiley face button (or select the “Messaging” tab in the menu) and select “New Message” before typing in the recipients URL. 

Please remember to be respectful when you interact with other users. Like, I know this site is pretty infamous for its vitriol, but, I dunno, the goal with this post is to keep the newcomers from ruining this place, y’know?

Blocking

Okay, so say you come across someone who hasn’t taken the advice above, is just a total dick to you, or maybe has some ice cold takes that you keep seeing in your favorite tags, or maybe you just plain don’t vibe with their content. That’s where blocking comes in.

When you block someone, they cannot message you, interact with your posts, or send you asks off-anon. You also do not see any of their posts on your dashboard or in the tags, but it’s sometimes possible (for whatever reason - likely a glitch) for you to interact with their posts. If your blog is private, then they can no longer see your blog at all.

There are a few ways to block someone. First, if you see one of their posts, say, while browsing a tag, you can click on the dots at the top-right of the post and select “block” (on mobile, this menu also appears at the end of their blog description while viewing their blog).

You can also go to your blog’s settings and type in their URL, manually, next to “Blocked Tumblrs”

Finally, if they send you an ask, you can block them from the dots at the top-right of the ask (Note: blocking anons on Tumblr used to block their IP address from accessing your blog, this feature hasn’t worked in years and blocking anons today is essentially useless. I would recommend turning the anon option off for your askbox)

OR, if they send you a private message, you can block them via the three dots at the top of the messenger window

Stay safe out there!

Your Influence as a Tumblr User

So, I am aware that most of you are coming in from Twitter and Tiktok, where the concept of a social media influencer and brand presence is very normal and common (almost oppressive). You might be wondering, what kind of influence might you have if you become a prominent Tumblr user? Well,

You Have None

Tumblr is a community that is actively and vocally hostile towards the very idea of social media influencers and brands. This site’s userbase has infamously been impossible to advertise to, and even if your non-creative (non art/writing/fan-edit/etc) posts start to get massive attention, it rarely leads to you gaining significant amounts of followers (quite honestly, all it does is get very angry people in your askbox who either willfully misinterpreted your post, or just flat out don’t agree with you). Prominent posters are rarely even known by name unless they’ve earned a degree of infamy (typically by being so weird that a lot of people will avoid them or cringe when they show up on their dash). If you make a popular post, you are “OP” (original poster) and nothing more. 

Everyone’s follower amount on this site is private and there is no way to toggle it to be public, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter how many followers you have, to begin with. I’ve seen people who admit to having over 10k followers average around 50 notes on their post. I have over 2k followers and I get lucky if a post I make gets to 20 notes, let alone 50. Posts you don’t want to get popular will get popular, vice versa, and you have no way of controlling anything. There is no “For You Page” that you can tag, the explore tab is underused by the vast majority of people here, everyone tends to stick to just their dashboard and maybe a few tags they like to check. There isn’t even a good “time” to post on Tumblr like there is with Instagram and Twitter.

Tumblr recently released a feature where you can sponsor your post to improve its reach, however the entire process is random and you cannot target any demographic whatsoever. We are random, anonymous hermits here. You cannot beat us, you just have to join us. 

Tumblr Culture

To close this post off, I’d like to bring up a few things that you’re very likely to run into in your time, here. Basically, here are things you might want to get used to during your stay on this site.

Post Circulation

As mentioned above, non-creative posts getting popular rarely have positive effects for the original poster. As such, many Tumblr users actually abhor their posts in this category getting popular. This is usually because it floods their activity feed (especially for content creators, it drowns out the attention we get on our creative posts) and sends very angry people who didn’t like our post for whatever reason to our inboxes. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t circulate these kinds of posts, go ahead and do it, we resigned ourselves to this by joining this hellsite, but it will probably happen to you, especially if you’re noticeably the new guy (and use mannerisms specific to other sites).

On a related note, Tumblr is an ecosystem where posts circulate regularly. What I mean by this is, it’s very common for posts from years ago to continue to circulate (be reblogged over and over again) as if it were a tradition. Every Thursday I’ll likely see the Out of Touch Thursday post be reblogged again. And not, like, the video being reposted like it is on Twitter where people just make a new post, but the original post from years ago brought back to my dash through reblogs. Or fat/flat fuck Friday every Friday. This website loves its unofficial holidays, and a lot of people queue old posts to be reblogged on specific days. This is all normal, and you’re going to have to get used to it.

Additionally, posts that used to circulate a lot but were considered annoying or weird (the first ones that come to mind are “Do You Love the Color of the Sky?” for being annoyingly long, or any of the “Werewolf Boyfriend” posts for being weird innuendos) tend to survive as jokes or references in new posts, so they still end up circulating one way or another.

Miscellaneous Etiquette

In line with “annoying”, the majority of long-time users on this site have repeatedly shown annoyance with this newer trend of: liking someone’s tags, reblogging the post, and instead of screenshotting or copying the tags in the reblog, typing “prev tags” or “previous tags” in their reblog. Not only does this out you as a Twitter user (the practice is a rehash of the “LRT” or “last retweet” practice on Twitter because of the discouragement of making quote-retweets, which aren’t a problem on Tumblr), but it’s just not intuitive. Sure, someone could follow the reblog chain to whatever tags you found amusing, but just like making your likes public, people don’t want to do that, and they won’t. 

On Tumblr, we don’t hold some kind of claim to tags. It’s nice if you @ the person you copied the tags from, but not really necessary. Just copy or screenshot the tags and put them in the body of the reblog. 

Another miscellaneous thing related to interacting with posts: spam liking and reblogging things from people isn’t considered a worry here like it is on Instagram. You won’t get flagged as a bot or anything, feel free to do that as much as you want. 

Reblogging your own posts are also considered fine, and most people will tag these reblogs as “#self rb” or “#self reblog” so that people who don’t like seeing them can filter them out.

Additionally, long posts are often tagged as such (#long post) so people don’t have to worry about spending a long time scrolling through one post if they filter the tag.

Asking popular bloggers to reblog your post is generally considered rude, but there are bloggers out there who are open to it, especially if it’s a post regarding an emergency financial situation you may be in. Still, please recognize that no one is obligated to circulate your posts for you, and many times, it isn’t personal (most people simply don’t want to open the floodgates of having all their followers and then some demanding they reblog from them, too).

Tumblr-specific Memes

There’s a lot of humor specific to Tumblr that doesn’t tend to leave this site, but you’re definitely going to find it here after staying long enough.

Gimmick accounts - Vary from accounts dedicated to specific niches of information (eg. suppermariobroth), a variant of the former except there’s a running gag that the blog will not break character on (eg. pictures-of-dogs), bot accounts welcomed by the community (eg. the-haiku-bot), and blogs designed specifically to interact with posts to induce a punchline (eg. post-store). Though some may get annoyed by the latter, these types of blogs are generally accepted as part of Tumblr’s ecosystem.

A type of gimmick account that’s died off in recent years is the askblog, which is where someone will run a blog roleplaying as a specific character and answer asks in-character. These are usually accompanied by art (usually made by the person running the account) and can sometimes end up telling narrative stories through their answers. You’re less likely to run into them nowadays, but you might find them here or there.

Ironic roleplay reblog chains (Open RP) - are instances where someone will, as a joke, prompt people to roleplay with them in completely ridiculous scenarios (or scenarios that start off seemingly serious, but devolve into silliness). One of the more common trends as of late in this category have been wizard battles between random users where they get into disagreements and then begin casting spells at one another. Related to these is the wizard council (usually posts made by user normal-horoscopes) where spells are regularly “approved” or “banned” (this is all for fun and make-believe, and the purpose of banning spells is usually so you can catch someone making an illegal spell in an RP and “report" them to the council for it in an “I’m telling mom!” sort of way).

Tumblr Scandals - Tumblr has had a pretty meme’d on history of scandals and drama that many outside of the site know of, but they still get referenced here a lot in a tongue-and-cheek manner (think “Oh, a Tumblr convention, that sounds like such a good idea! ;)” ). People aren’t big on tone-indicators on this site, so just assume that 90% of posts that propose something overly grand or something that sounds too stupid to be successful are being made in complete sarcasm. 

April Fool’s - Every single year, on April 1st (EST), Tumblr staff will add a gimmick to the desktop version of the site for the sake of fun. This year they gave us a button to spawn crab emojis on our screen and we all pressed it thousands of times, until we couldn’t press it anymore because the button was covered in crabs. Sometimes users come up with jokes to play on their own (”Mishapocalypse” refers to everyone spamming a specific picture of Misha Collins (of Supernatural fame) on their followers’ dashboards, many April Fools’ ago). It’s all in good fun, even the more “mean” seeming pranks (many people tried to crash the site this year just to see how staff would handle it. It was unsuccessful and staff congratulated them on their effort) have a pretty amicable tone or conclusion. If you’re on the desktop version of this site for only one day a year, let it be April Fool’s Day.

That’s all I can think of, for now! I know all this information can be pretty overwhelming, I hope that the way I formatted this post at least made things easier to digest. If you have questions, you can always send me an ask! I genuinely do think that, despite how intimidating this site can be, a lot of you are going to enjoy Tumblr as a breath of fresh air from the algorithmic, corporation-infested, ad-ridden world out there. If you keep these basics in mind, I’m sure you’ll be welcomed here. 

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

A little long thing on censorship and boundaries on the internet

Okay prefacing this by saying this post is only written for tumblr and ao3. If you go beyond those I have no knowledge for you unfortunately, but maybe people can chime in in the notes.

Starting off, each person is responsible for controlling their own internet experience. We’re lucky that tumblr does not have an algorithm that forces unexpected things onto your dash (aside from blazed posts and based on your likes, but more on that later). You are in complete control of the content that appears on your dash, based on who you follow. Likewise, on ao3 you’re able to filter searches so you see what you want to see, and no one is making you click on the things you don’t. No one owes you anything with their content, aside from the ability to avoid it if you choose.

Follow up, you are responsible for making your content avoidable for people who don’t want to see it. If you’re writing the kinkiest fic out there, that’s fine. That’s yours to write and share as you wish. But you’re responsible for tagging it so that people who aren’t after that kind of material don’t see it if they want to. That way you get people who are happy to see/read your works, and people aren’t confronted with 50 Shades of Gray when they were really just looking for some PG hand holding.

Basic tags for those who aren’t used to tagging systems are whether it’s NSFW, any particular kinks, and any potential triggers (things like gore, underage, no con, suicide- if there’s an archive warning for it on ao3, it’s probably something you should tag so people can avoid it). Make sure that you spell the thing out without typos or euphemisms or @ny w31Rd $tuff that would lead to it NOT being filtered. (We don’t Unalive here, we kill, and Unalive will show up even when kill has been filtered out.)

What if someone I follow reblogs something that I don’t want to see or find problematic? If it’s something specific you’re trying to avoid, tumblr has tag filtering. You can block tags related to that thing, and it won’t show up on your dash uncensored. In case you ever want to see what’s behind that censor in spite of the tag, you’ll have the option to view it anyway- you won’t miss that the post exists entirely. If it’s something that hasn’t been tagged, it might be a good idea to (kindly!! Respectfully!!) request that the person tag it appropriately. If they refuse, you might want to unfollow them so you don’t have to see it anymore.

I unfollowed someone whose content bothered me, but my mutuals keep reblogging it so I still see it on my dash. You can block them! Then reblogs won’t show up on your dash, no matter how many mutuals reblog it. Blocking someone does nothing to them- try not to see it as something aggressive or offensive. You have the right to control what you see online, and blocking is a way to do that more effectively. You can always unblock them later if you change your mind!

Things from people I don’t follow keep showing up on my dash. This could be a couple of things. If it says “based on your likes!” or “tags you follow”, that’s something you can disable in settings (I can edit this post later with the exact locations) and tumblr won’t show you those anymore. That said, those are still subject to tag filtering, so that’s also a good approach if you don’t want those things to go away completely.

Now that blazed posts are around, there’s a chance you might get something you don’t like through that, but I’m not sure if there’s a way to filter those out. I haven’t seen a blazed post from tags I block yet, so… so far so good? If anyone knows, please chime in!!

Some content shouldn’t exist online, even if it can be blocked/filtered/avoided. This is the most important point on this post. I do think that some things shouldn’t exist online. My mother also thinks some things shouldn’t exist online. However, we don’t agree on what those things are, and we both agree that there are some cases where we would make exceptions to our rules. If we start purging content that we don’t agree with, it’s going to become a question of who is disagreeing with the content. Gotta be honest folks, in that scenario, I’m pretty sure the voices that get listened to will be straight, cis, and white.

TL;DR: Internet freedom disappears when we allow censorship, but we do still need to protect each others’ boundaries when we’re online. The best way to do that is to tag your content (no tag limits on tumblr or ao3, so don’t hold back! Only the first five count for searches on tumblr but the rest can be used for filtering blocked tags), block and filter things you don’t want to interact with, and unfollow or block people who you can’t trust to respect boundaries.

PLEASE reblog this post and add on anything you think is relevant, because this feels more relevant than ever right now <3 thanks friends

[grey-sides]

A Stranger Things Guide to AO3

I made a post earlier about courtesy when tagging on tumblr and got some good feedback on it! So I wanted to make a similar post about tagging on AO3 for the Stranger Things fandom in general because all fandoms are always growing and learning. I have been using the site for an unknown number of years and so I have picked up some helpful information that I wanted to format into a fandom-specific sort of guide. This will be a little long, but it's a good reference for any fandom.

I want to begin by saying that failure to tag properly isn’t a crime or punishable. But tagging is a courtesy. Existing in a fandom should mean that you want to be as helpful and courteous of the people in your community, regardless of if you like the characters they like or the ship they ship or the tropes they write. It’s easy to get caught up in discourse, but it’s important to remember we’re all under one banner, Stranger Things fans. 

Tumblr’s up first, very briefly, because I don’t think many people know this:

On original posts, only the first five tags matter in the tagging system, but tags are not the only thing that matters. If you make a post with a tag in it, sometimes tumblr will sort that post into the tag, which is why anti-anything can make it appear in the regular tag. A better method is to change a letter into a symbol, for instance I might type “st3ddie” so my thoughts don’t appear in the steddie tag unless I want them to. 

People started this when talking about other ships in other fandoms, but it’s nice to do for you and for others. If you purposefully hate in a tag, people will think you’re an asshole. If you didn’t know, now you do!

Okay, onto Archive Of Our Own:

Let’s talk about pairing designations

/ or x implies the pairing is having sex or is romantic

& implies the pairing is platonic 

These mean two different things and you may attract a very different audience if you get this wrong, so just pay attention to which relationship tag you’re using- some relationships will have both options!

A fic tagged “gen” means there is no romantic relationship present, this could be used for writing about Jane and Hopper bonding or Max and Billy getting a better sibling relationship 

Within the “relationships” tag section on AO3, you can add “Minor or Background Relationships” this will likely be used because there is another pairing or multiple that are not the central focus of a fic, but do make an appearance. 

For instance, if I write a Jopper story (Joyce Byers/Jim Hopper) and want to include that Nancy and Jonathan are also in a relationship in it I would tag it like this:

Joyce Byers/Jim Hopper, Minor or Background Relationships, Nancy Wheeler/Jonathan Byers

If Nancy and Jonathan were also a major part of the story, I would tag this story as:

Joyce Byers/Jim Hopper, Nancy Wheeler/Jonathan Byers

You can also tag things as past relationships if the past relationship will inform how the characters interact or what may be mentioned

In a jancy story, I may tag it like this:

Nancy Wheeler/Jonathan Byers, Past Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler

If I am writing a harringrove fic and I don’t like the choices Nancy made, I may bash her in the work. I would tag this information so people who do like Nancy are either not surprised or can skip my fic entirely

This tag would likely be freetext, so I would keep it at the end to not clog up the “canon” or wrangled tags

IE: Nancy Wheeler Bashing

I would also do this for other relationships or characters mentioned, when you don’t warn people of this, you’re also kind of being an asshole

Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings implies one of those warnings is present!

You don’t have to specify which one, that’s your prerogative, but you probably shouldn’t use it when you mean “No Archive Warnings Apply”

You can change your tags later! Update your tags whenever you need to as your story progresses!

Additional Tags To Be Added or Tags May Update Later are both indications to warn your audience more things may be coming

I would also say though, if you know a story will contain one of the Archive specific tags- warn for that ahead of time, some people don’t want to read Major Character Death or Non-Con at all and that’s okay!

You can also warn for triggering content in your author’s notes, but make sure to tag that

Something as simple as “Trigger Warnings in Author Notes” should be sufficient

Do your best with tagging and leave yourself open to tagging feedback

I know this is hard, but if people ask you to add a tag, try to just do it, I’ve gotten defensive before too, but it’s all part of being in a community

AO3 tags are not the same as tumblr tags, too much free text is a pain for the tag wranglers

Use them sparingly, but use them when you have to! Maybe just cut back on tag talk where you can, that’s what the notes are for!

AO3 themselves have awesome guides on tagging and how they work, give their FAQ documents a peruse if you’re ever feeling unsure

My inbox, sans anons, is open if anyone has specific questions, I’m happy to help out however I can :)

[pineapplesandpinas]

how do people use ao3? i can never figure it out😭

It can definitely be confusing!! Luckily I’ve been on it for a super long time, so hopefully I’ll be able to explain well 😅

ok so first you want to go to the website, either by typing ao3 into the search bar and clicking on the website itself or typing archiveofourown.org which will take you directly there.

next your going to search up what type of fics you want! If it’s a pairing I would recommend character a/character b, that usually yields the most results. But if you don’t want a pairing you can also try just looking up a specific character and seeing what pops up! Looking at the picture, I looked up Fred Weasley/Reader, and if I wanted fics specific towards that pairing I would click on the little underlined tag in one of the fics (as I have highlighted)

alright, everything up until this point has been pretty easy, and where most ppl get confused is the filters part. Click on the little button that says Filters (as highlighted) and then you should see this menu pop up on the side of the screen:

ok let’s go down the list of the filters, starting with the little bar that says date updated. When you click on it, more options will appear to choose (as seen in the video below). Mainly this will prioritize what fics will show up on the first page that you see. Most of the options will show you the most popular fics based on that category, for example if you click on ‘Hits’ the fics will show up in order of most to least hits per fic. Date Posted and Date Updated will show you the most recent fics posted/updated

ok next is the Include tab. As it implies, you can go into here and filter in things that you definitely want your filter to have! These inclusions will take place in the form of tags, so be careful with how much you want to include. Some authors don’t tag a whole lot, and the way the filtering system works if it doesn’t have that tag it won’t show you the fic (even though it might have what you want). My suggestion would be, if it’s your first time look through the drop down options and see what might interest you! Of course it is not necessary to pick anything if you don’t want, and if there is something that you know you want you can always type it in in the ‘other tags to include’ bar

alright onto the Exclude tab. As you can see, the layout is exactly the same as the Include tab. This will filter out anything you do not want included in your fics. Sometimes that can mean specific character pairings you don’t want to see, if you want to keep to a specific fandom, etc. Remember, there is no shame in filtering stuff out that you don’t want!!

we’re close to the end!! now for the More Options tab. This is similar to including things that you want, but it’s more for the type of fics you want to see.

Sometimes authors will write for multiple fandoms, either doing a full on crossover (for example: the Harry Potter characters in the world of Avengers), or they will write multiple chapter fics that include a oneshot for Harry Potter and a oneshot for the Avengers. Choose the option you would like, and if you don’t like It you can always go back and choose not to filter it!

A lot of times authors will post unfinished fics, and will update as time goes on. If you want to read only finished fics, then click the Completed Works only option. If you only want to see works in progress, click the Works in Progress only option!

For the word count you can filter how short/long you want your fics to be, and for the date updated if you want to only read recent or old fics you can filter that too!

Now we are finally at the end! I personally have never used the Search within results bar, so chances are you won’t either. But if you do want to know then a simple Google search will probably give you the answer. The language bar will filter in specific languages, for example if you want to read fics only in Spanish, you can do that

The last step is to click Sort and Filter, and walla! All fics tailored to your wants at your disposal. If you find you want to change something you can always click the back button to go to the previous page, or start a new tab completely.

Ok now that that’s all done, to read a fic simply click on the title! (Highlighted above)

I think that’s it. If anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! So many people discard ao3 because it can be too much to handle, but once you get the hang of it, the site is a godsend 😅

[spencers-renaissance]

I found my way home

Summary: After Spencer tells Hotch about his recent autism diagnosis, he expects that to be the end of it. Somehow, though, it keeps coming up, and Hotch keeps proving himself to be the best father figure he could have asked for. 

Tags: autistic spencer, protective hotch, hurt/comfort, fluff, paternal hotch, team as family

TW: mentions of ableism, one small instance of ableism & homophobia 

Pairing: Gen 

Word Count: 4.1k

Masterlist // Read on AO3

This was borne from my conversations with @criminalmindsvibez about the lack of autistic spencer fics and her amazing headcanons. While I'm not autistic, Emily is, and helped me to portray Spencer's autism as accurately as possible. That said, please feel free to correct me on anything I got wrong :)

Spencer had made an effort to get into work even earlier than usual today. He’d ridden the metro through the city, dipping his hand into his messenger bag every few minutes to compulsively check that the slim letter he’d received in the post the other day is still in the front pocket where he’d safely placed it that morning. He brushes his fingers over the paper once more as he enters the near-empty bullpen, the letter cool from the winter air.

It’s still so surreal to him that this is where he works. After years of dreaming of working for the FBI he’s finally here, and even though it’s been his place of work for almost two months now, he’s still not used to it. The warm offices are a nice reprieve from the wintry December wind, and he can feel himself relaxing as he heads to his desk. Leaving his coat and messenger bag on his chair, he pulls the letter out of the front pocket and runs his index finger along the edge. He finds himself biting his bottom lip as he tries to work up the courage to go and see Hotch. 

Sucking in a deep breath, he marches determinedly up to Hotch’s office, entering as soon as his knocks are answered. 

“Reid,” Hotch says pleasantly as he takes a seat opposite his desk, realising belatedly that he probably should have waited until he was invited. “You’re in early. What can I do for you?”

Nervously, Spencer hands him the letter he’d couriered across the city so carefully. He’d taken care to open it neatly with his letter opener but the return address on the back has been stamped at a crooked angle, and it bothers him every time he notices it. He can’t stop looking at it now as he taps his fingers anxiously against his leg in the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence, a safe and familiar reassurance played out by his nervous fingers. He watches apprehensively as Hotch pulls the letter out of the envelope, unfolding it and skimming his eyes down the page, taking in the news Spencer’s been so anxious to share with him.

Diagnosis: Asperger’s Syndrome

God, it had been a long process. He’d had to seek out a doctor in DC who diagnosed adults, paid for all the consultations and diagnostics himself — his insurance certainly wouldn’t cover it, not that he’d feel comfortable using his cushy FBI insurance for something so personal anyway — and the whole process had taken far longer than he’d expected. Finally, though, the envelope had arrived in the mail, and he officially had a diagnosis. 

Of course, he’d had his suspicions for years, especially after one of his professors during his second PhD had casually asked whether he’d ever been tested, planting a seed in his brain that led to many late nights in the library, reading all the literature available to him. It’s why he’d found it strange that it had felt so validating to finally receive that letter in the post. But it had.

The label made sense, and now that he had a diagnosis from a medical professional he felt comfortable to share it with others; he’d been far too paranoid about being questioned, not being believed or lectured about the evils of self-diagnosis no matter how he was confident in himself. He didn’t tend to be an insecure or self-conscious person, but after years of bullying and trauma surrounding what he now knew for sure to be his autistic traits, he couldn’t help but feel almost protective of his affirming label. 

Now though, it’s an irrefutable statement. Dr Spencer Reid has autism, and the first person he wants to tell is Hotch.

“I had no idea you were getting tested, Reid,” Hotch says, a hint of surprise bleeding into his voice. “Is there any specific reason you wanted to share this with me?”

“Well… I felt like someone on the team should know,” Spencer starts carefully, afraid to give too much of himself away, “and I thought that someone in a leadership position was the best option. Gideon has never been very… supportive of my autistic traits or behaviour, so I thought that you— that you would be the best option.” He feels awkward, fidgeting in his chair as he watches Hotch’s serious face and kind eyes absorb the information. 

“That trust in me means a lot, Reid,” he says, a rare smile making its way onto his face. In that moment, Spencer knows he made the right decision. “How can I make things easier for you? Is there anything you need me to be doing differently?”

“Uh—” He hadn’t really been anticipating that question and it catches him off guard: he’d predicted a quick nod of acknowledgement, a request to photocopy the letter so it can be put on file followed by a swift dismissal, but the letter is now sitting on his side of the desk: clearly, Hotch intends on keeping this between them. This is far from what he expected.

“Why don’t you start by telling me about autism and how it might affect your work?” Hotch corrects himself, recognising quickly Spencer’s need for specifics. “I’ll admit I don’t know much beyond some probably rather unhelpful stereotypes.”

Spencer nods. He can answer that question. “As everyone knows I often go off on tangents,” he begins, “and that’s because my special interests — or hyperfixations — often coincide with our work, so I know a lot about the topics we’re investigating. If I do that, just redirect me to the case and I’ll be fine. It’s also really hard for me to have to present myself in a certain way all the time. Vocal stims and gestures are the most satisfying to me but I often have to mask them, which I’ve never been very good at anyway, and it’s fairly exhausting. That’s why I often excuse myself; I go to the bathroom or a secluded hallway and stim on my own. My doctor also told me I tend to overcompensate in social situations and over-perform emotion. Those are the basics, I guess, but it’s a very complex disorder and since it makes up me as a human being, I can’t exactly explain all of it in one conversation.”

“No, that’s fine, Reid, you’ve given me a good picture of what to expect, thank you.” Hotch smiles at him, fondness in the crinkles around his eyes and the softness invading his usually stern expression. “First of all, you never have to feel like you need to excuse yourself to stim. Do you think it would be helpful if we told the rest of the team so they know what to expect? I’m assuming vocal stims are saying certain words or making sounds…?”

Spencer nods. 

“Okay, so if you needed to do that we could just continue the conversation while you get it out of your system. Gestures certainly wouldn’t be a problem. How do you feel about that?”

He hadn’t really considered telling the rest of the team but it seemed sort of intimidating, like he’d be opening a vulnerable side of himself to people he didn’t even know that well. On the other hand, they’d all been so understanding of his quirks and odd behaviour so far without even knowing the reason behind it. He’d never once been made to feel the way he used to at school, forced to either pretend to be someone else completely or be isolated and ostracised. 

He settles for, “I’ll think about it.” 

“That’s fine. There’s no pressure,” Hotch assures him. “I’m very happy you told me, Reid. I hope you know you can come and talk to me about anything, whether it’s about this or something completely different.”

Spencer leaves his office with the letter back in his hands, no notes or copies having been made, feeling almost elated. Never in a million years would he have expected that to go so well. 

⭐️

He doesn’t really expect it to come up again. He’d told Hotch so that he could understand him a bit better, and also because Hotch had quickly assumed a protective, almost paternal role in his life and he wanted to share the piece of news with him whether he was leading his department or not. That was supposed to be it, though, he didn't think anything would materially change, especially since he decided not to tell the team about the diagnosis just yet.

But almost immediately after he’d told Hotch his diagnosis, his rambles began to be gently redirected back to the case, sometimes without him even noticing. He wasn’t rudely cut off by anyone anymore, Hotch always steering him back on course before anyone else can jump in and hurt Spencer’s feelings. It’s so… kind that it almost feels foreign, and he finds himself gravitating towards the older man more and more, sitting next to him on every jet journey and staying glued to his side during cases. 

His newfound protectiveness over Spencer is only demonstrated more clearly a few months after their conversation in Hotch’s office when they’re on their way to New Mexico for a case. The second he spots that the murder victims had all been found with different Fitzgerald quotes scrawled on sheets of paper found in their own personal notebooks, ripped out and left for investigating officers to find, he launches into an info-dump to rival info-dumps. 

He can’t help that literature is a special interest of his, made all the more intense by the fond childhood memories of reading to his mother in her bed. Fitzgerald had been her favourite author of the Modern Era, and he’d spent hours analysing significant passages in his novels as a child, so he starts explaining the literary merit of each of the quotes left at the crime scenes. 

Apparently, he doesn’t hear the first two times Hotch tries to direct him back on topic, but he hears it when Gideon shouts, “Spencer! Long and unnecessary tangents are not conducive to actually solving these cases. Get back on topic. Now.” He’s loud enough to briefly knock him back several decades to memories of his father screaming at his mother’s schizophrenic babbling, when she’d become convinced that the villains of her favourite novels were trying to break into the house.

Spencer stops mid-sentence and stares at Gideon, who is staring right back. Everyone’s watching the two awkwardly, but the short moment of silence is quickly broken by Hotch. “There is absolutely no need to be that rude, Jason,” he says disapprovingly, while he lays a hand on Spencer’s arm in a light, absent-minded sort of touch. “Reid may have been off-topic but he deserves respect just like everyone else on this team. Nobody needs to be shouted at like that.” He directs his attention back to Spencer. “Why don’t you tell us how those Fitzgerald quotes could help us solve the case, Reid?” 

He gives him an encouraging look, and when he looks around the jet, everyone else is, too. Carefully, he starts speaking again, a little afraid of being cut off again, but after a few sentences of relevant explanation he regains his momentum. It’s more than a little vindicating when it’s his ‘unnecessary tangent’ that ends up being the key to cracking the case. 

⭐️

Soon after Hotch’s split from Haley, he approaches Spencer one evening when they’re the only two left at the office with a dinner invitation. Within the hour, they walk into a nice, low-key Italian place in the city and take a seat in the far corner of the restaurant. 

“Is everything okay?” Spencer asks a little uncertainly, confused as to why his boss is suddenly taking him for dinner. 

“I had this idea almost as soon as you told me about your autism,” Hotch explains, knowing by now that preambles and niceties only frustrate Spencer instead of setting him at ease. “I wanted to take you out for dinner every week to try and give you a space to ramble about all your special interests and not feel like you have to mask around everyone. But when I was with Haley, all my personal time was obviously spent with her and Jack. Now, I have the time to dedicate to you and all the incredible knowledge you’re hoarding in that brain of yours.”

“Really?” Spencer asks excitedly. The idea of uninhibited space to talk about the recent knowledge he’s acquired and not have to feel insecure or worry about performing social skills he doesn’t see the point of is everything he’s ever wished for, and something so wonderful being provided by Hotch only makes it better. 

“Really.”

Spencer wastes no time. He dives right in. “I was just watching a documentary the other day about volcanoes and their ability to trigger lightning storms with their voltage,” he begins. “Basically, magma rises toward the volcano’s surface, its water rapidly turns to vapor, which shatters the molten rock into tiny particles and creates charged particles. When the ash plume erupts into the atmosphere, the densely packed particles collide, driven by momentum. Friction then affects their electrons, becoming electrically charged. Positively and negatively charged electrons separate in the ash plume which creates a charge imbalance that builds an electric charge strong enough to trigger a lightning storm.” 

“That’s incredible.”

“I know,” Spencer says excitedly. “If the ash plume rises high enough in the atmosphere ice forms, and when ice, hail, and supercooled liquid droplets collide, the rates of lightning explode, it’s crazy.”

They’re briefly interrupted by a waitress taking their orders, but as soon as she leaves, Hotch gets him to jump back in. “What about that lecture you attended last week… the literature of 18th Century England or something?”

“19th Century English Lit, yeah!” He’s so eager to finally share this with somebody who will genuinely listen to him, and he can’t help it when his arms start to flap excitedly. Remembering where he is, he doesn’t try to mask it, pin his arms to his sides and simply deal with and suppress the innate urge to stim, he lets his body do what it wants to. Instead of eliciting a strange, sideways look, Hotch just smiles fondly.  

“The lecturer had this fascinating theory on Dickens. I’ve always seen him as a pretty straight forward author of picaresque fiction, obviously combined with facets of melodrama. And it’s common knowledge that he was inspired by the novel of sensibility, of course. But I’d never thought about the stylistic and lexical choices in his works beyond standard analysis, and this lecturer went on a deep dive into his use of collocation and it opened my eyes…”

He spends the whole evening stimming to his heart’s content while detailing every current interest of his to Hotch, who simply listened intently while eating his meal slowly, dragging out the meal for as long as Spencer needed. “Let me give you a lift home,” Hotch insists after footing the bill, leading him out into the warm evening air.

“Oh, I don’t mind taking the metro,” he replies truthfully. 

“I know. But it would make me feel better to drop you home safely. It’s late and seeing you into your apartment building would give me peace of mind.”

“Sure,” Spencer agrees happily, he’s still buzzing from such a nice evening and the least he can do for Hotch is let him rest easy tonight, so he climbs into the passenger side of his car. A few minutes into the car ride home, he realises he should probably actually verbalise just how much he enjoyed dinner. “Thank you, Hotch. I don’t think anybody’s ever done something so nice for me before.”

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” Hotch replies, smiling even though he doesn’t take his eyes off the road. Spencer very much likes it when Hotch uses his first name, and he’d been doing it all evening. He doesn’t really understand why it feels so nice, just that it makes him feel… special, maybe.

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he repeats, before freezing as he realises what he’s said. He’s got so used to not masking all evening, he’s not in the right rhythm and mindset to suppress the urge to repeat Hotch’s words. He’s been so nice the whole evening, the last thing Spencer wants is for Hotch to think he’s mocking him. 

“Hey, it’s okay,” Hotch reassures him, tapping his arm lightly as he smiles encouragingly. 

“Don’t mention it, Spencer,” he says again, repeating it a few times in relief before the itch is satisfied. He really does have the best boss/friend in the whole world. There’s no doubt about that. 

⭐️

Rossi’s initial reaction to Spencer had admittedly been a bit rocky, and having Hotch undeniably on his side was the only thing that made those first few months bearable. He never let them go off on their own; never put Spencer in a position where he’d have to be alone with him. Gradually, though, Rossi adjusted to his quirks and he became almost as protective of Spencer as Hotch.

That doesn’t bode well for the local sheriff when they’re on a case in North Carolina. He’s been prickly since they arrived, being as stubborn and uncooperative as possible, slowing down their progress on actually solving the case, and Spencer’s noticed him being a little extra rude to him in particular. It doesn’t massively bother him — it’s not exactly like someone’s aversion to him is a novel concept — but he can feel some sort of tension coming from the others. It happens a lot more now that they know about his autism and are more aware of themselves and others.

He tries to ignore it the best he can; he puts his head down and focuses on the geographical profile, going wherever he’s sent. Besides, the sooner they solve this case the sooner they can get out of North Carolina and back to DC. On their third day on the case, he’s working quietly in their designated corner of the police department alongside Hotch and Rossi while the others are out investigating in various different places. It’s a nice environment, and even though both men are his superiors, he feels more relaxed in their company than in anybody else’s.

It’s a relatively pleasant morning — considering the whole trying to catch a brutal serial killer thing — until they need to ask the sheriff a question. He saunters over, a tense and angry expression on his face, and Spencer can’t help but feel a little off, the confusing tension in the air that Spencer can’t quite identify making him anxious in his inability to properly decipher it. “Gentlemen,” he says, already frustrated. Spencer suspects it’s a pride thing; not many police departments like being shown up enough to have the FBI called in.

Eager to know the answer to their question, Spencer’s the one to jump in and ask. “Sheriff, we were just wondering whether the town gets much traffic from the local university or—”

He’s cut off by the sneering, towering man. “I’m not taking any questions from your kind,” he says aggressively. 

“I’m sorry?” Spencer squeaks as Rossi and Hotch both prepare to say something in response.

The sheriff cuts them off before they can get their likely diplomatic and calming words out. “Homo retards aren’t welcome around here.”

“Hey!” Rossi shouts as he leaps out of the chair, grabbing him by the collar as he’s helped by the element of surprise. “You don’t fucking talk to Spencer like that, you hear me? Weak, cowardly men like you—”

“Dave,” Hotch says placatingly, putting a hand on his shoulder and diffusing the situation. “Listen, Sheriff, we are only here to help you. But if you can’t respect my agents then we’re going to have a problem. Either you’re civil to Dr Reid, or I’m reporting you to the NC Sheriff’s Association. You hear me?”

The sheriff’s pride is clearly wounded, but he at least nods before giving them all a scornful look and walking away. 

“We didn’t even get to ask the question,” Spencer says anxiously, suddenly feeling out of his depth, like he can’t quite get enough air. 

“Dave, try and get an answer,” Hotch directs, taking charge of the situation. “Spencer, come with me.” He takes him into a secluded hallway for a little privacy, sitting him down on the cool linoleum before sinking down next to him. “You’re okay.”

“You’re okay, you’re okay,” Spencer whispers over and over to himself as he rocks backwards and forwards, trying desperately to self-soothe.

“Do you want me to touch you?” Hotch asks. He’s been in enough of these situations with Spencer to know he’s usually in two very different headspaces: he either longingly craves the grounding touch of a hug or a hand on his back, or he needs complete space. He’s also learned that asking outright is the only way to get an direct answer. 

“Yes,” Spencer replies, before repeating it over and over again as he’s wrapped up in Hotch’s arms, head pressed against his chest, his hand pressing gently against the back of Spencer’s head. He starts to calm down as he manages to breathe to the heat of Hotch’s calm, steady heartbeat, the comforting touch of someone he trusts with his life also helping to bring him back down to earth. A good ten minutes after the altercation with the sheriff, he’s feeling much better and brings his head out of it’s safe cocoon between Hotch’s chest and hand. 

“Come on,” Hotch says kindly. “Let’s get back to the case, yeah? You can just sit and work quietly until you’re ready to hold a proper conversation again. How does that sound?”

Spencer nods tiredly, knowing that work will perk him back up again, and being surrounded by his team will make him feel safe, asshole sheriff or not.

⭐️

Over the years Hotch helps him through any hurdles that come his way, learning the exact nuances of Spencer’s characteristics and requirements, making sure to accommodate him in every way possible.

He brings an extra, super-soft sweater in his go-bag in case Spencer ever forgets his and needs something gentle on his skin but tight enough to make him feel secure. He buys him stimming toys, dropping them on Spencer’s desk before he even arrives at work and lets him use his office whenever the lights and noise of the bullpen get too much, drawing the blinds and giving him the space he needs. Rossi doesn’t even question it anymore when Hotch shows up with a stack of paperwork and moves into his office for the morning. 

It wasn’t until Hotch made a concerted effort to make his life easier that Spencer realised how hard it had been fighting through life on his own. So when he realises Hotch’s birthday is coming up, he decides he wants to show his gratitude. It’s never been easy for him to express emotions, especially since he’s never really found it rude when people don’t thank him, but he knows that for most neurotypical people, appreciation is important. 

So he talks it over with Derek and on Hotch’s birthday, he comes into work to see Spencer waiting in his office with balloons, a cake, a card, and a present. He’d spent hours trying to find the right words to explain how he feels, to find the right words to show Hotch just how much everything he’s done for him means, but eventually he’d settled on something simple:

Caroline B Cooney wrote: “I found my family. I found the right thing to do. I found my way home.” 

I found all of these things when I joined the BAU, but more specifically when I walked into your office, hands shaking, clasping a letter I’d been waiting for all my life. Thank you. 

Hotch reads it with tears in his eyes before taking in the cake, a classic birthday cake Spencer had bought at the store, the words “Happy Birthday Dad” written in blue icing. He didn’t really understand why the cake had stood out to him, or why he associated the word ‘dad’ with someone who wasn’t related to him at all, but he’d trusted his gut and with Derek’s cheerleading, he’d bought it. 

“Oh, Spencer,” Hotch says tearfully. “Can I hug you?”

Feeling only mildly uncomfortable at the visible display of emotion Spencer doesn’t know what to do with, he nods and steps into Hotch’s comforting embrace. “This means the world to me,” Hotch murmurs quietly as he stands, hugging Spencer for as long as the younger man can stand it. 

Spencer’s still not completely sure why he’s managed to make him so emotional, but at least he can trust that it’s a good thing, that Hotch is happy and pleased and reassured. And if he can make him feel even a smidgen as happy as Hotch has made Spencer over the years, well. He’ll consider his long and boring trip into the city to buy the cake, present and card worth it.

Quick Note: Spencer is diagnosed with Asperger’s because that part of the fic is set in 2005. These days he would be diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

taglist: @criminalmindsvibez @strippersenseii