#There's a link in the pinned post on this blog >:]

[ms-demeanor]

Great question! This is legitimately an important thing to ask when you're presented with advice online.

Some tips for when you see instructions/a how-to/educational guide online and you aren't sure if you should trust the source:

Find out what else the author has done; you can do this by searching their name online or by following the links they may have attached to their writing. In my case, I've got information about myself in my pinned post which includes links to previous guides I've written on a variety of subjects - including tech-related subjects - and a link to my personal website that you can investigate.

Find out what experience the author has in the field being discussed. During the height of the pandemic we saw how important this was, because there were often GPs and nurses giving advice that contradicted the information shared by virologists and infectious disease specialists. It's not just important that someone presenting information is knowledgeable about one subject, it's worthwhile to find out if they're specifically knowledgeable about the subject they're talking about. To find this kind of information you'd want to look into a writer's history; check their publication history by searching their name on the site you found their writing on (so if it's a magazine click the author bio, if it's a journal search research databases). On tumblr you can click through someone's archive or you can run their handle through the jetblackcode tool to see what their most popular posts are about. I try to make this easy, so I (again) link a bunch of posts in my pinned. Tumblr search is notoriously terrible, but you can also search keywords on someone's blog (and it's a good idea to do this on anyone's personal website if you're following up about something they've read online). Personally, I have a long history of posting about various kinds of scams (medical and pseudoscience scams, as well as email and phone-based scams) and social engineering; you can find this in my archive but also in some of the many sideblogs I list in my pinned.

Think critically about the information being presented. Ask yourself: - If this information is incorrect, how could it cause harm? - If it does do harm, WHO would it harm? - Who is this information aimed at? - Does it seek to change someone's behavior? How?

Fact-check the information yourself. If something stands out as sounding wrong or incorrect to you, or if it is directly counter to something else you've learned, do some research.

Compare the information presented to what other writers in the field have to say. If the information is way out of line with other writing in the field is there a reason why (is it highly contextual? based on new research? predicated on an unusual behavior) and if so is that reason explained?

Do exactly what you've done here and ask questions. People who are operating in good faith generally don't mind being questioned about their work and why they did it. (They won't always have time to answer, but they should at least be *open* to being questioned)

Anyway, the 30-second answer on why you should trust me specifically on this topic: I am a tech professional who has spent 13 years educating people on how to avoid being scammed online as part of my job. I also have a background in journalism and have a great deal of interest in increasing media literacy in general; I consider this kind of thing an aspect of media literacy.

How to avoid sharing Social Media Scams in the Wake of a Disaster

The world is full of disasters. It is also full of people who have learned to profit off of disaster. It is an unfortunate fact of life in the modern social media/online environment that in order to avoid spreading scams, you have to make a continuous effort and you have to be cynical.

There are a lot of wonderful, well-meaning people in the world who want to help everyone who asks for it. Unfortunately, those people are easy to scam.

These are some rules to prevent you from either falling victim to scams or from passing scams along to other people.

These are not suggestions, these are not things to take into consideration, the rules listed here are RULES that you need to adopt in order to keep from spreading scams on social media.

Rules:

Never, ever share screenshots of fundraisers or resources that you haven’t verified yourself. If you see a screenshot of, say, the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds Instagram announcing that they will be accepting evacuees with RVs, you go find the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds website, you find the social media linked on their website, and you check that the post you’re seeing actually came from the entity it’s claiming to. Once you have proved that the post actually came from the entity it’s claiming to, double check that entity with a couple of verifiable sources. So, for instance, if I was checking on the Guitar Center Music Foundation I’d check Guitar Center’s website and maybe I’d look for news articles about donations from the foundation. If I was looking up the Antelope Valley Fairgrounds, I’d look for a local newspaper calendar of events that linked to the fairgrounds or would check the city websites in the area and search “fairgrounds” on them. I would not share a link to a social media page for an organization until I was 100% certain that it was actually associated with the organization. You shouldn’t either. If you see a post that claims to come from a specific group but all you have is the screenshot of the post, go find the group’s website and if it all checks out you may share it IF AND ONLY IF you add the link to the post. And if a post has a link already, click through it and STILL check that everything looks okay.

Never give money or information to someone with a free email address. This sucks. I know. But if the group you’re looking at only has a gmail address or a protonmail you have no way of knowing if they’re legitimately associated with the organization at a glance. And even if they ARE associated with the organization, the free email account demonstrates a lack of planning/commitment that has troubling implications for the handling of your money or data.

Do not share screenshots of “resources,” headlines, social media posts, or news articles. I’m done with screenshots. Screenshots are easy to fake and almost always remove context from the discussion. A standalone screenshot isn’t information, it’s a trap to get you to share something without thinking. Do not *trust* screenshots of “resources,” headlines, social media posts, or news articles. Always assume a screenshot is faked unless you have found the original post yourself. A screenshot isn’t a “resource” it is an un-source, it is intentionally removing information from the viewer and we are well past the time when people should have understood that sharing screenshots without a link to the original text in context is never, every trustworthy.

Do not give money or information to accounts without a history. This may mean individual social media accounts, or it may mean a shiny new mutual aid project that popped up near your house. It’s unfortunate that people have their accounts deleted, it’s unfortunate that new orgs have trouble finding support, but the likelihood that a new account is a scam is simply too high to trust your money or information with it. If someone is asking for money or offering help on an account that hasn’t posted for years, or that suddenly changed all its content, or that has only existed for a month with no links to other, older sites and socials, you shouldn’t trust that account.

Okay, those are the RULES. Those are the lines you draw in the sand. The TL;DR version is this:

Don’t share posts you haven’t personally verified

Don’t give money or information to accounts with generic email accounts like gmail

Don’t share or trust screenshots that have no links or further context

Don’t give info or money to brand new accounts

I absolve you of any guilt you have surrounding this. You want to share that post to help a stranger but they have only had an account for a week. You want to spread that resource, but unfortunately it is only available as screenshots of an anonymous instagram account. You think that perhaps that mutual aid group really can help people, but the only way contact them is to put your info into a google form and send an email to their gmail account. That post seems really helpful, but actually you can’t find anything that suggests that the Mt. Pacifico Aquatic Center exists outside of this twitter account. No more guilt! Guilt be gone! You do not have to feel bad for not sharing these things, or not reaching out, or not giving money because doing so would be irresponsible and would put other people at risk of being tricked by scammers or wasting what money they can donate on a potential fraud.

Now, some tips:

Always, always, always take at least ten minutes to think about giving someone money or your information online. Read the post that moved you, then re-read it, then go sit away from it for ten minutes and think about it. There’s a good chance you will still want to give, or sign up, but ten minutes away will give you a chance to consider if there are any red flags in the post that inspired you.

Independently search everything you’re going to share. Go outside of social platforms and check on search engines. Check Wikipedia. Look up the website and send a while clicking around. Go on a *different* social media platform and check their account.

Just straight up search “[SUBJECT] Scam” before you do anything. See if this thing you’re looking at is actually an old scam that’s revamped for a new disaster. See if you can find an explanation of how something might be a scam or risk in a way that you didn’t understand before.

Get used to getting away from social media. Go check websites.

Learn domain name syntax. “musicfoundationguit.arcenter.com” is a bullshit scam. “guitarcenterfounditaon.org” is a bullshit scam. “guitarcenter-foundation.org” is a bullshit scam. The actual domain is “guitarcenterfoundation.org” and the link to the correct page isn’t going to be “guitarcenter.foundationfires.org” it’s going to be “guitarcenterfoundation.org/fires”  

Tips for Orgs:

If you do not want your org to look like a scam you are going to have to put some effort into it. Unfortunately this will probably also require at least a little bit of money; I know it’s hard to get money together at the beginning, but it will pay off in the long run.

Invest in a domain and hosted email. You can get relatively inexpensive hosted email through most domain registrars and even if you only get one email address for your domain you can forward it to all the free gmail and protonmail accounts you want. But buy a domain, set up a simple website, and get an  info@[yourdomain].com email set up because you don’t want people emailing “MyOrgInfo@gmail.com” because it’s super fucking easy for a 1337 hax0r like me to set up “YourOrgTeam@gmail.com” and scam the people who want to reach out to you.

Make a blog on your actual website, not on a social media site. A blog means that you can make regular posts and establish a history to prove that you are real and you do real stuff; it will also help with SEO and help to ensure that when people search for your org YOU are what comes up. Keeping up calendars of previous activities with links to those activities is also good.

Set up social handles on all the sites you use, make a “socials” page on your website, and link to your handles so that people can verify if you’re the one posting something. If you don’t make it extremely easy to find your socials, that means it’s extremely easy to set up fake accounts claiming to be you. Then put the link to your website in the bio on your socials.

If you are offering something or holding a fundraiser or doing anything on your social media page, link it back to your website. If you have an IG post offering resources, you should include a url for your site in each image. If you share a photo on twitter with the info for a march, that should link back to your website with more info about the march. If you post a fundraiser on tumblr you need to link the fundraising page of your website on that post.

If you absolutely positively cannot set up a website and a real-ass email address, set up a linktree, choose a primary social media to post on that all the others refer back to, and very explicitly state what your email address is and that you do not have other email addresses somewhere that's difficult to miss. Build a history of posts and link to other orgs that you work with or any writeups or stories about your events or projects. The point of all of this is making yourself easy to verify. "northfullertonfnb@gmail.com" sucks but it sucks a lot less if it's in the bio of "@northfulltertonfnb" and that page has a two year history of posting meal share schedules and menus.

In conclusion, don't share things that you haven't personally checked. When in doubt, it is always safer not to share.

[josephscoat]

The Budgerigar Burglars

"A little birdie told me something..."

@professorcalculusstanaccount, thank you for doing the promotional/cover art of the story!! I would also like to thank them for bouncing ideas with me and subsequently proof/beta reading chapter 1 ― they’ve been very supportive and encouraging.

While I was unable to post on the actual dates I set up due to some personal reasons on my end, I will *hopefully* have it out sooner or later.

As a sort of teaser 2, here’s the first 101 words of The Budgerigar Burglars by @professorcalculusstanaccount and me, Jo :> !

Tintin was Bobbie’s most expensive drunken purchase.

He can’t remember much from the night he got the cockatiel, much less how he got his name― he just woke up with a pounding headache one morning, to a bird singing showtunes in his ear, in the dilapidated state of their (once shared) apartment.

Recalling past events, it was the night they’d finally settled for the divorce; his then wife was packing her belongings, planning to head off to who knows where and Bobbie was drinking enough spirits that could turn him into a spirit, if he kept at it for too long.

When the full thing does come out, I plan post it on to AO3 and post a link to the fic here on Tumblr.

For slightly more info on what the story and AU is about, click on to here to visit teaser 1 which is also the current pinned post of my blog!

[glistensoftheday]

Just gotta say I’m so happy to see a Glisten of the account,I love him so much:3

You don’t have to if you don’t want to, but it would be so super awesome if you drew some glitter hugs stuff (Glisten x Goob) they’re one of my favourite ships 

I love your art by the way:3

First, I’d just like to wholeheartedly thank you!! This means abunch to me I’m so glad you like my art ^^ if you wanna see more art, go check my main blog linked in the pinned post!! :]

and bc you were so polite and nice, how could I not say yes to doing your ask hahaha,

so here it is people! Day 5 of drawing glisten, today is mango-blush’s ask of glitterhugs! (Glisten x Goob)

[jojo-schmo]

I just finished overhauling The Forgotten Land Roleswap’s Masterpost (pinned to the top of my blog) with new links, descriptions, and cleaned up tags! Links should all be working on mobile and web but lemme know if any don’t for some reason! :)

The new tag “Roleswap Bonus Features” will cover answered asks, artists commentary, and other extras that aren’t comic pages!

I also renamed the Roleswap Fanart to “Roleswap Fanworks” since it isn’t just drawings anymore! (I’m seriously so grateful to every single person who has made something based on the AU… it means so much that you’d take the time to make anything and show me!!!)

I have some more fan work to feature from the last month that I’m going to reblog and tag soon, but if I’ve somehow missed anyone from before that and didn’t feature your work here, ping me with a mention in the replies of your post or something, so I can make sure I thank you properly!

Anyways, if you reblog any version of the AU’s master post, please make sure it’s the newest version pinned to my blog, heheh. I worked hard to zhuzh it up :3

[everyone-needs-a-hoopoe]

palestinians on this website have been driving themselves out of their minds since october 2023, past the point of heads full of grey hairs in their 20s, past the point of multiple breakdowns, getting gazans' private documents to prove they're real people while exposing and driving off the very few actual scammers there have been. multiple organisations like operation olive branch and gazavetters have sprung up to try and alleviate the toll this takes on individuals while still saving as many people as possible. ahmed 90s-ghost had a news article written about his successful escape to egypt!

those lovely organisations you listed cannot help gazans right now because they rely on getting aid trucks over the borders, which are kept closed by israel (which is ordinarily responsible for letting the majority of aid through) and egypt. the only people who can help gazans are other gazans and people like us with our valuable foreign currency.

and we need to help! even with a ceasefire agreement, children are being splattered across gaza's few remaining walls because israel never honours these things. families are still starving and freezing to death. people still have to pay rent for apartments with no walls or sleep in tents made of blankets in the pouring rain. every hospital in gaza is a bombed out shell, while wounds go septic in streets running with sewage and lungs fail in air choked with the dust of a nearly flattened city. did you know that one of the terms of the ceasefire was that hostile aircraft are only allowed in gazan airspace for a maximum of 8-10 hours per day? can you imagine living most of your day with the incessant buzzing of death above you, never certain when it's going to come for you? can you imagine how bad it was before that this is an improvement that was fought tooth and nail for?

the people sending you asks use the little internet connection they can get per day on esim cards, and the little phone charge they can buy off anyone who's managed by some miracle to keep a solar panel intact through over a year of carpet bombing, screaming into the void in a language they don't know to beg for their lives. they don't know how tumblr works. they don't know who can help them. they need ANYONE to care that they're dying.

and you don't care, so yes, you are being callous. you would not be the people who sheltered jewish people during the holocaust. you are not a good person. by reporting these blogs without rock solid evidence - evidence actual scambusters like kyra45, mangocheesecakes and neeches work their asses off to find - you are actively sabotaging the fundraisers of dying people. i am not exaggerating when i say that kills people. it has killed people. it is killing people.

i really can't emphasise this enough, much less sugarcoat it: if you've reported multiple gazan fundraisers it's very likely that you've killed someone.

the least you can do is ignore them if you're not going to donate. if you want to be a little more than an everyday nazi with the radio up loud so you can't hear the screams from the concentration camp next door, you could start paying attention to what's on each blog. many have "vetted by so-and-so" on them, or "reblogged by 90s-ghost" who as i mentioned is a real palestinian who escaped gaza who can tell at a glance if their arabic is google translated like a scammer would do. you can check out these vetting blogs and see what they do and who they promote. maybe you could even toss a reblog their way! maybe even a couple of bucks!

it's never too late to start caring. my pinned post has a few links to vetting organisations. top of my blog (under this post now) is a fundraiser led by my best friend for a baby with a failing heart who needs treatment TODAY or he's going to die. one of my friends is even offering commissions for it if that makes you feel better! you know, if it makes a woman starving herself to try and afford treatment for her infant son less of a dirty beggar.

you can stop being callous if you want to. if you have followers or money you can save someone's life. i really hope you'll try.

I'm starting to feel callous for saying this:

Please, Please, Please, if you are in a situation where you need money or have a go-fund-me started, DO NOT send people asks about it.

Make a post with places to donate instead, spread awareness through reblogs, but don't go into strangers DMs or Ask Boxes soliciting donations. It makes you look like a bot, not a real person needing help.

The big scam one I'm seeing right now is individuals "in Gaza" asking for donations. Before Gaza they said the donations were because of an illness. Bots/scammers are using Gaza to pull at your heartstrings and scam you.

Donate to places you can trust. Like Amnesty International, Free The Children/WE Charities, UN Crisis Relief, Red Cross, etc. Places you know are credible.

I feel callous for deleting/blocking/reporting asks like that but just know it is a scam. It's using your empathy against you. Do not fall for those asks. Donate to causes, raise awareness, but delete and block those asks/dms because they are not real people. it's the same copy/pasted story on each one. Do your research before donating and be safe online.

[marvelmaniac715]

Why are you still posting about Good Omens when Neil Gaiman is a sexual predator

My answer’s going to be slightly long, so I just want to preface this with this - Neil Gaiman is an awful, horrible man, and I’m horrified by his actions. I do not support or condone what he’s done, and even before this news broke, I wasn’t a ‘fan’ of Gaiman himself, due to his own works such as Stardust and Coraline directly linking to negative childhood experiences. Please understand that the only time I will ever refer to that man in a post again will be if I tag ‘fuck Neil Gaiman’ because really, fuck him, I get angry even thinking about what he did.

Yes, I do still post about Good Omens, but only because Terry Pratchett was responsible for around 75% of writing the original book, whilst Gaiman was responsible for only 25%, I’m not sure if that’s the exact statistics, but I know that Pratchett did more work for the book than Gaiman, and I like Pratchett because he wrote the book that the first play my childhood drama group did was based on. He’s the only original creator that I still respect.

For more personal reasons - I discovered Good Omens in around 2023, at a time where I was still trying to make friends at school - I met some of my best friends through discovering Good Omens, then I properly discovered Doctor Who through David Tennant, which led me to meet another really close friend and be inspired to write more fanfiction as well as post here on Tumblr. Good Omens has been too important to my life and my development in terms of socialising to just ignore. In fact, for my seventeenth birthday last year, my gifts were mostly Good Omens themed - I received the book, the script book, the tv companion, a pin badge, and stickers from Shein that I refuse to touch because they’re stolen fan art. I’m currently looking at a Good Omens signed poster - another birthday gift - thankfully not bearing the name Gaiman, and this was all before testimonies against him were released, none of us knew.

Also, the people in the Good Omens fandom are so wonderful and talented - the cosplayers, the artists, the fanfic writers, the people who make meta posts theorising about small details, their work is extraordinary and I just want to celebrate them. My Tumblr blog is half my own thoughts, and half me reblogging people who deserve all the praise in the world for their contributions to the internet; this is the show and tell website, and if I love something, I want to reblog it to show the world.

I never meant to hurt or offend anyone, so if there’s anything I can do, like making it clear that I don’t support Neil Gaiman, or putting a trigger warning on any reblogged posts, or even just apologising as profusely as I can, let me know because I’ll do anything to ensure that anyone who comes across my blog is happy (I’ve been a people-pleaser for my whole life, I don’t like upsetting people). I know this has been a bit of a ramble, I just felt that you deserve a proper and honest explanation as an answer to your completely valid question. If you want to unfollow me or block my posts, I’d completely understand, your decision would be completely warranted. Again, I’m sorry for any hurt I’ve caused, and I hope you have a good day/evening.

[sehnista]

GFMs I’ve been asked to share: Updated July 29,2024

Wafaa @wafaaresh - https://gofund.me/f30e1212 (€7,662 / €100,000)

Munna family @monashamali - https://gofund.me/71d5dab9 (£6,396 / £30,000)

Abdelrahman @anqer - https://gofund.me/0116943f (€12,776 / €20,000)

Amal family @amlanqar - https://gofund.me/9d6e3b04 (€3,208 / €50,000)

Ashraf and family @ashraf-family2 - https://gofund.me/17c8539e (€13,264 / €20,000)

Aya family @ayaanqarsblog - https://gofund.me/ed9acb7e (€4,725 / €15,000)

Shymaa and family @shymaafamily - https://gofund.me/260a2aab ($9,053 / $50,000)

Eman family @emanfamily - https://gofund.me/82b8e1e4 (€2,446 / €33,000)

Eyad Sami @eyadeyadsblog - https://gofund.me/37cec903 (CHF9,790 / CHF20,000)

Youssef Al-Habeel @saveyouseffamily - https://gofund.me/c3d330ca (£5,235 / £20,000)

Moamen Majed @moamenmajed99 - https://gofund.me/610b22c5 ($7,498 / $30,000)

Tamer Al-Deeb @tameraldeeb - https://gofund.me/a5d26177 (€22,575 / €40,000)

Additional GFMs added July 29, 2024

Asmaa Majed @asmaa2005 - https://gofund.me/bd2afd56 ($953 / $50,000)

Ahmed family @children-gaza & @leen-gaza - https://gofund.me/8ceac2bd (€2,856 / €15,000)

Walaa Ahmed @ahmed79ss - https://gofund.me/b24478d6 ($8,657 / $50,000)

Amira @amira-world - https://gofund.me/7676d838 (€17,005 / €20,000)

Malk family @malkzaeem - https://gofund.me/f5a14faa ($21,211 / $50,000)

Mohamed Mikki @mohamed-mikki - https://www.paypal.com/donate?campaign_id=EKWGJQPP5NNXC

Mahmoud Khalaf family @mahmoudkhalafff - https://gofund.me/0ee1236d (€16,548 / €30,000)

[alechans-cutetickles]

🇺🇸:look what i found on pinteres O//△//O

🇮🇹:Guardate cosa ho trovato su pinteres O//△//O

[polling-sonic-fans]

Today I have received a couple of notes and messages w/ regards to some polls from people concerned about bias. This post outlining my thoughts on the subject has been linked in the blog's pinned for some time now, but I reshare it now for anyone interested. If you are curious about the results you're seeing, it is always sensible to consider the population that's being asked, and who is likely to be sharing to their own audience - I encourage this.

The TL;DR is this: yes, these polls can't be considered representative of all Sonic Fans, or even all Sonic Fans on Tumblr. This is known, and can't be avoided. The blog growing will hopefully increase sample size and better represent the community on this site, but respondents will always be a self-selecting sample. That said, we can still strive for fair, accurate and interesting polls within this group, and interpret the data with clear eyes about these limitations. And, it's still fun. I hope.

Vote on.

Tumblr Biases

Recieved yet another note on a poll expressing concern that it would be a biased result because the population of tumblr does not reflect all Sonic fans. This is true for all of this blogs polls - they can only, and only aim to, capture data on the Tumblr Sonic community.

A few expected biases that come to mind immediately, that you should be aware of interpretting the data from these polls (and many others on this website:

Tumblr seems to have above average incidence of neurodiversity when comparing large polls to global data (See Table 2). This is expected to affect polls regarding narrative readings, specifically in interpretting neurodiversity in characters, and interfan relations/ fandom culture.

Tumblr is known to overrepresent non-hetero sexualities (regrettably, citing buzzfeed here); this might suggest that polls will skew towards reading characters as LGBT, and a preference for same-sex pairings over more typically 'straight' user bases.

Tumblr has a higher proportion of women/ female identifying people, as well as a large non-binary and trans population. Considering that in 2015 Yougov found that more women than men listed Sonic as their favourite video game, (although we cannot extend this data too far - it is out of date, British, and a very specific wording), it could be said that this doesn't impact our polls as much as gaming communities with more men in them, however we should be aware that tumblr has a distinctly smaller community of cisgendered men.

Tumblr is perceived to lean left, although this is a difficult metric to quantify as 'left' is so broad. Still, we should expect polls relating to politics, ethics, and activism can be expected to be affected by this.

70% of tumblr users are Gen Z and Millenials. This should not be a major issue, as it is expected that the majority of Sonic fans will be under the age of 50 at present, but will impact the life stages we expect most users to have hit.

There will be more ways in which the data gained in these polls is biased by hosting on Tumblr. Blogrunner does not have ambitions to host polls on any other site, as this is where it is active. However please consider these and other biases if you intend to use any data gathered here for your own purposes, as well as the following caveats:

The reblogging nature of this site means that polls with small sample size cannot be considered reliable: one large blog might be able to share a poll and encourage their followers to vote in kind with them. I recommend that until polls start reaching 500 votes minimum, they cannot be considered fair representatives of the tumblr Sonic community, and as always the more votes the more reliable.

I am asking polls in English: these questions can only be considered to be reflective of the english speaking population of tumblr.

Polls on tumblr do not allow for changing vote - if wording is complex, votes are more likely to be inaccurate.

Polls regarding characters will include that characters tag, and therefore recieve more traffic from fans of the character who frequent that tag, than those who dislike the character, who may even have it blocked. Same for ships and games people may either follow or block.

That's all that's coming to mind right now. This post will be pinned as a disclaimer, please always do your own research and think critically about the ways in which netnography and survey are limited data points. Thanks.

[william-snekspeare]

comfort zone

ko-fi

[pterribledinosaurdrawings]

o heck I have not been posting many dinosaurs at all this month! I'm very focused on a big sewing project but am taking some time today to do some drawing.

[galindatopland]

if they were teens in the late 2000s shauna would catfish jackie on a dating site during one of jackiejeff break ups and she would have no idea why. like she'd create an account with stolen pics of some dude who Lives Out Of State and she'd flirt with jackie to make her break up with jeff permanently and she would Not be self aware about it

[thatonesongyouretryingtoremember]

according to my local tiktok user, it's back up now?? or something? but in case anyone new here is still here, I'll reblog the above post which is also linked in my pinned.

reblogs spread posts, not likes. follows show you similar things, not likes.

report bots, block instead of fighting, and use the askboxes bc talking to people is cool bc social websites aren't TV and blogs aren't content farms.

New Users!! Hi 👋 ❤️

Tumblr has alot of bots, and the only way to combat them is by blocking and reporting them.

only issue is, bots are identified in the following ways:

- generated username (mythicwolfspace, or other automatic options)

- names in URLs (martajohnson, any real name)

- strings of numbers, specifically when they are after a name (lilliansmith1574 or something)

- default pfp

- photo of oneself in the icon

the problem is- I or someone else might block you by mistake if you have these!

you might get reported/blocked if we think you're a bot

luckily, you only have to do ONE of the following things to prevent this (ofc you can do more):

- reblog things! you can add your own nice input in the hashtags of your reblog! reblogging is part of the essential user interface of the app, which is a whole other post, but it also might not be what someone checks first before blocking you, so I recommend don't one of the others.

- change your icon! if you can't figure out how to do this, you may ask in the replies(comments), or my inbox. same goes for any of these. make sure to choose something a bot wouldn't. your pet, your blorbo (fave character), your pride flag, a picrew (with credits somewhere on your blog), a MEME! in the meantime, I've got a little guy for you if you can't choose just yet:

on mobile you can press and hold to download her, I think it's right click on the image. There are plenty of other ways to customize how your blog looks, like changing the background color or header image, that makes this site unique and cool, but pfp icon is the first impression people get of you.

- change your url if you think it could be mistaken for a bot!

- change your blog title (the big words that show up beneath your icon, not the URL) to say "I'm a human!" or "not a porn bot!", or put a similar phrase in your bio.

- make an original post. even a single one. it can say "I love the smell of ebooks" or some random thing for all anyone cares. you can pin it to the top of your blog so we can see it before your reblogs, just to make sure we can tell you aren't a bot.

as you get used to the platform, I also encourage you to continue customizing your blog, making it more "you"

reblog things you like! entomology, Sherlock, the history of pizza, witchcraft, environmentalism. Any time you see a post and think "huh. cool." and REBLOG it. press and hold the reblog button on mobile and swipe to your blog icon to quickly reblog, or hit the R key on desktop, but you can also go the long way and make an addition or hashtags.

change your background color, make a bio (anything from age and state to just "I reblog posts about carp :3")

tumblr is a cool place to be once we know you're a people!

[thebramblewood]

Exciting news: I now have a story page and a characters page! They're pretty basic at the moment, but I'm hoping to think of some fun stuff to add later. For now, you might find a few new nuggets of insight in the character bios! I just wanted a cute little hub for readers new and old to find everything they need in one place. Let me know if you think anything (or anyone) major is missing or if you notice any errors. Here are all the character portraits. Aren't they cute? And thanks to @buglaur for the incredibly easy to modify template!

[knaccblog]

Rescuing Aziraphale isn't what makes Crowley happy, not really. He doesn't want him to be in danger in the first place. He wants him safe. He wants him happy.

But he does like having an excuse to take care of him, to protect him, to dote on him in a way that's safe, acceptable and would be honestly illogical to turn away. Like Crowley walks into that church, burning his feet all the way and Aziraphale nearly shoos him away? (Because of the fight all those years ago, because he must be in league with these Nazis) But Aziraphale is in actual, real danger of being discorporated, of being sent back to heaven for who knows how long, so how can he actually reject Crowley's offer to protect him, right?

So every time Crowley does this, the whole "gallant knight swooping in to save Aziraphale from his own follies" thing, it's basically completely irrejectable, safe love Crowley can offer up to Aziraphale with no fear of rejection or overstepping the invisible line between them. Aziraphale can say "you go too fast for me, Crowley" a hundred times in so many varied ways and Crowley accepts this but he's never going to reject Crowley's love when it comes to him as a hand pulling him free of oblivion. That's what Crowley likes. Being able to love Aziraphale in a way that he knows will never be rejected.

[nuzlight-mia]

If yer a pokepasta askblog blease reblog this I want to collect 'em all. This includes related blogs like command blogs! As long as the readers can interact in some fashion~

Even if I'm already following you please feel free so others can see this too! (I follow from my main blog as this is a side blog)