#They are there for a reason you hellsite

[cinemaocd]

I read daily about robustness tumblr culture and how it's impossible to monetize etc. blah blah blah

but no one ever talks about the life's blood of tumblr: GIFSETS.

Tumblr has longevity because it is the gifset website. A movie trailer drops and within an hour there are already multiple gifsets. Just there reminding us this movie is coming out it looks pretty good. A tumblr user thinks: I wish I had memory box containing every facial expression and movement made by Colin Firth in that 5 hour mini series of Pride and prejudice and some other tumblr user devotes their life to making that happen. Some dead guy has a birthday and a tumblr user gifs every single one of his dozens of films and puts them in a single gifset just because it makes fans of the dead guy happy.

Gifsets are amazing because gifsets are silent and they ask nothing but that you look at their pretty dancing images and smile fondly and click the like and reblog. A gifset didn't elect trump. A gifset didn't gaslight your grandma into believing that covid is an alien plot. A gifset just went floating by with no other thought than to look pretty and be appreciated.

[gophergal]

Guilt tripping people does nothing but cause vulnerable folks to spiral and make folks who dont live with moral OCD feel negatively toward your cause

[spontaneousglitterbees]

[self-spaghettification]

tiktok's banned in my country but ive heard the scene where aaravos cries is leaked if so is there a way for you to share it here because i really wanna see my husband cry like a pathetic bitch (im mentally unwell)

(I UNDERSTAND YOU IT SHOULD BE AVAILABLE TO ALL UNWELL AARAVOS FANS)

andd ahh sure !!!

i also am in the process of getting the unedited footage from someone off tiktok/twt maybe so i will rb with that if/when i do

in the meantime here are all the edits i could find on tiktok

[pencilofawesomeness]

Hey Pencil, can I ask you what you think of Neuvilette's character after the end of the current Archon quest? Not gonna lie, I was a bit disappointed at how he and everyone else treated Furina, but I was curious about your thoughts on the matter

ohohohohohohohoho anon. Dear sweet anon, you've activated my trap card, otherwise known as the Pencil Essay card, because I have sooooo many thoughts about this.

I will say though, I see Neuvilette in context of the story quests too, especially Furina's, as well as his friendship stories and voicelines. So, er, spoilers for that I suppose, but I can't separate those bits away from his character at this point. Anyway.

I frickin love Neuvilette. As a character, he checks a lot of boxes of traits that I adore, like being hella old, a dragon, somewhat isolated from normalcy, a cinnamon roll that can kill you, and Doing His Best. Now, as an important addendum to this, the fact that he is a dragon is a crucial part of the basis, because that's where a lot of conflict starts. He's separated from his kind, he's not a human yet he is confined to a human form, he remembers that the elemental authority should be his but Celestia took it and the archons have it now. The idea he has that he will forever be isolated, and that there will forever be a certain taste of bad blood between him and the rest of the world is founded. And yet. AND YET. Long ago, Focalors asks for him to help lead Fontaine, and he!!! Agrees!!! Neuvilette's character is rooted in a sense of justice and fairness, and in such, he tries to remain open-minded, and thus, he must witness things for himself. When he is presented a change in perspective, he accepts it.

Honestly I thought the Archon Quest did this rather nicely. He worked with Furina, believing her to be Focalors, for years. While Furina did waaay too good of a job in being as showy as possible, their close proximity meant that some of her true ethics and anxieties did make themselves known to Neuvilette. He knew when Furina was panicking and lying, just not why. Likewise, he has had inklings of when she's been sincere, and also, has a better perspective on how other people perceive her. More on that in a second.

Knowing what we know in hindsight, the Archon Quest is....very harsh. But. I understand why it happened that way. It was very clear that neither the Traveler nor Neuvilette wanted to put Furina on trial, however, neither of them were able to get her to tell the truth in private, and time was of the essence. The threat of a whole populace dying (and!!!! People have already died at this point!!!! Civilians!!!) is kind of a big deal. Something happens, or they all die; full stop. Hence, calling out the big guns. Which, to their credit, was just meant as a display of pressure on an actual deity, not an actual trial with death sentences and the discovery that Furina was a stressed out human all along. Focalors wanted that, however, so all according to plan. But very much not what Neuvilette wanted.

Fast forward. For Neuvilette, I think there is something really special to be said that he cares about both Focalors and Furina. He's only ever seen glimpses of both, but when Focalors aims to die to give Neuvilette back what is rightfully his, he protests! He doesn't want that! If there was a way for Focalors to undo the sea, he would accepted that, despite the janky usurped power thing. She is making a divine sacrifice, one that nobody else will truly know, and he mourns the person that is lost for it. Meanwhile, for all that Furina acted as a mask, and acted as if she was entirely self-sustainable, Neuvilette has shown to be concerned over her as a person. He caves so quickly to meet with Arlecchino when it's clear she's nervous, he asks Traveler to look after her, he tries to ask her when she's clearly being flighty. Even little things, like when he tells Traveler to acknowledge Furina at the beginning of the quest when she's showing off, because he knows she equates attention to success (just not why) and he is throwing her a bone. Yes, he is exasperated just as frequently, but Furina is not making it easy at that stage. Her entire schtick is to purposely keep people at arm's length, to be entertaining before she's likable, so really, I think there's an impressive amount of patience to be had.

The thing I have noticed about Neuvilette is that he is the kind of just that is caring. The law is for the sake of the people, and thus, people have become his focus. He denies this for a long time on account of believing himself to be forever an Other, but it is persistent all the same. He quickly wants to see the melusines treated well and with respect when they are integrated with society. He wants to see justice for those who are hurt. He understands, even, when those who do wrong are not bad people, like with Wriothesley. Neuvilette is, at his core, a kind person; however, he is terrible at expressing care in ways we would expect it. In part because he's just Like That, and in other part because he spent so long unaware of it. Usually, this means that he takes things at face value. If a melusine is being threatened, then there is a problem regarding humans' view of melusines again; if Wriothesley crawls out of hell with a Vision and the new title of Duke, then that means he found something to live for and he will support it; if Furina asks for space, then he tries to give her space. Neuvilette is a sincere person, even if sometimes he misunderstands the emotional complexity afoot.

Back to Furina. When it's revealed that she is a human, and she absolutely crashes, Neuvilette may not be the picture of fatherly comfort, but he is there for her in the way she asks, and even, in the ways she doesn't. She wants to be left alone, because Furina is tired of a facade and at this point she believes that everyone will hate both the fake her and the real her. Neuvillete obliges, and he arranges to pay for her apartment and food and make sure she is taken care of, when Furina is clearly not thinking that far ahead. It's clear that he would visit more often, but he's busy being the effective Archon now, and also, he doesn't think Furina would want that. Face value interpretations and all that. However, Neuvilette still appreciates the good that Furina did accomplish, in the mask and out of it. He doesn't fully understand Furina's hangups, but he respects what she does or doesn't want to do.

Now, Furina absolutely hit that depressive slump of a crash. Homegirl is living off of noodles like a broke college student. She thinks the world hates her and that everyone only put up with her because she was the archon and a superstar. Did she need someone to intervene? Sure. But she pushed Neuvilette and Clorinde away when they awkwardly tried, so Furina has to go through the long story quest way, and come to a bit of her own realization that people genuinely respected her ability to act as a skill and a thing of beauty, not just as a lie.

Furina's story quest offers the very best presentation of how Neuvilette sees her, and how, in his own way, he apologizes but also respects everything she has done and is. When Furina goes on stage, despite her valid reservations, and she gives it her all for that actresses sake, and she gives it her all because its real to her too, and Neuvilette sees this and sees her bravery, her spirit, and all of the hard work that Furina has given Fontaine for 500 years. So he tears a chunk off of his power and he gives it to her, in the form of a Vision.

The Visions are such a wonderful representation, because now that Neuvilette is the sole sovereign, without Celestia's janky throne in the way, he has full power over the granting of Visions. He can stop if he wants, because Visions are made by ripping chunks off of the god in question, but Neuvilette has studied and he has learned that humans are amazing and they earn their ambition, and he wants to give to that. So it's an incredibly purposeful gesture here and it carries the meaning of his care and respect in ways that he cannot articulate.

Neuvilette is kind. He's stiff, dutiful to a fault, has trouble being vulnerable and recognizing it in others, but he is trying, and he is kind. He gives credit where credit is do, and he tries to do the right thing, even when he misses the mark. He accepts when he's wrong, though, like with Focalors and Furina, like with missing how the general populace adores the melusines now, like with Childe when he honestly was baffled by the oratrice's absurd verdict. He's an old dragon and he's slow to catch up, but he makes that effort anyway, which I think is really neat. Neuvilette learns and he implements that. In Lantern Rite, he listened to Furina and finally managed to take a vacation, and he made a dumb little dragon ladle and had fun doing it. And he walked away from that realizing why taking a break was important.

So, er, yeah. I think Neuvilette is neat. Furina too. I really wish we can see them interacting more now that Furina is finally getting it through her skull that people do, in fact, want to be her friend and spend time with her, and I would love to see more on the implications that Traveler has told him of the other archons' exploits and he is forced to admit that they also either have no idea what's going on or that they known of them took the elemental authority on purpose/for the sake of it, but that's either an end-game thing or we'll never get it. Alas. Still I think Fontaine and all of hydro is in good hands with him.

Also he's an awkward dragon yall know I love grandpa dragon men who have parental bones but have no idea how to use them on purpose. I have. a type. of course I'm looking hard at neuvilette he's got the whole package

So uhhhhhh yeah. Yeah. I will. End it there.

[nedlittle]

sometimes you hear the bullet scrambled me like an egg

[silverwanderingcrow]

I Think the booping is a Crowley invention that has now back fired and his notes are full of boops

[yourlocalnerd07]

Me, watching a mutual engage in a good-faith argument in the comment section of a tumblr post

[thereareeyesinsidethetrees]

people on tumblr are assholes and ae’m tired

*a lot. certainly not everyone, it’s just that a lot of folks are. this isn’t directed at anyone, don’t worry ^^

[smallblueandloud]

full of gratitude that i got to hang out with sara @paperairplanesopenwindows in-person three times within the last year

[hellsite-detective]

Detective, might you assist me in finding a post?

It starts off, I believe, asking the reader's favourite colour of the sky.

Except, instead of being the infamous post, it is a rickroll. I had flung myself four posts down my dash before I realised.

this one woulda been rather hard... had i not already found it. lemme explain.

see, a while back, i had stumbled upon this post while tryin' to track a different post. and i had sent it to Madame Curator, given she's the Queen of the Sky and the Master of Rickrolls. so, trackin' this one back down was rather simple. i just retrieved it from her and filed it away.

here ya go! enjoy torturin' the timeline with this one! have a great day!

Post Case: Closed

[internetgiraffekid1673]

Hey I know these problaby aren't the question you where thinking where gonna come up here but I have a couple rapped fire questions I don't know who to ask and your the only one who ever consistently comes into my page so here I go:

How does one game followers on this app because whenever I post something I feel like I'm just waiting my time cuz nobody ever sees the stuff I'm writing or making, and I know people say to just be who you are and do what you like but I've been doing that and I have a total of six followers (and in all honesty your the only person who ever interacts with my posts)

Is it better to just spew out content or space out posts? I have all these ideas and things I want to make and post but I feel like if I post over something it's gonna have an even smaller chance of being seen and that honestly hurts cuz I put allot of time and effort into my posts for literally no one to see them!

Okay I know that was a lot and I'm sorry but I just don't know how else to ask and you seem like you would know that kind of thing because you always get notes on your posts, if these are questions you can't or don't wanna answer that's obviously fine but If you do choose to answer I would really appreciate it since I'm new to this whole Tumblr thing and I have never had a platform like this.

Anyway I'm done rambling, answer or no answer thank you for your time and I just wanted to thank you for everything!

Ella Zimmerman

Hello! Dear friend! First of all, some bigger blogs don't mind signal boosting. You can drop an ask into the inbox of some of them and be like, "hey, do you think you could ask people to look at my art and/or writing? I'm having trouble finding people." Case in point: EVERYBODY GO FOLLOW @ellazimmermansblog , HER STUFF IS VERY COOL, SHE IS VERY FUNNY AND TALENTED, AND HER ART IS AMAZING! SHE MADE MY HEADER IMAGE!

I feel you on nobody interacting with your posts, it felt like a while before I found my people here! This is how I found them.

1) Follow other people. A lot of the followers I have are just my much cooler mutuals. Find someone who's blog you like. Follow them, interact with their posts, send them asks, that kind of thing. Just an example of the kind of asks you can send: I love OC content, and a lot of really cool people will happily infodump about their OCs if you ask them. A lot of people are happy to make friends. The way I find people to follow is part scrolling through tags for my interests, but also looking through likes and reblogged that were made on my own posts and seeing if I click with any of those folks.

2) Make fandom posts. Tumblr is a fandom website, and while I ADORE your original content, it is easier for people to find you through fandom and then get attached to your other stuff.

3) Be alright with screaming into the void. A lot of the time when I make posts, I'm not actually expecting anybody to interact with them, unless it's a fandom post. I'm kind of just screaming into the void. Sometimes I'll get pleasantly surprised and someone will interact with it, but my personal posts are all 0-3 note posts most of the time, while most of my fandom posts hover around 20ish and sometimes my posts "break containment," which I classify as anything over 50 notes (you can see which ones have broken for me in the top posts section).

4) Tag EVERYTHING. This one is annoying and boring and hard, but tags are how people see your posts. I spent a solid month just having an empty blog and stalking tumblr before I actually made a post, so I had a pretty good handle on what tags I should be using, because some of them aren't very intuitive. For example: I play wizard101 and that was one of the first posts I made where I found mutuals. Wizard 101 is tagged under #wizard101, #wizzy101, #wiz101, and #w101. That's FOUR different tags that people could be using, and if I wanted all of them to find that post, I had to use all four. Tumblr's auto-suggest tags are pretty helpful, but so is just scrolling through like a maniac.

(I also ramble in the tags of my posts. Just things I want to add that don't really belong in the main body of the post).

5) Post a lot. There are 2 types of people on this website: the people who are doing some kind of long-form project and don't really have time to make other posts, and the people who just post things and reblog things they like willy nilly. The long form project people also usually post their project on a side-blog and have a main account they use to still jabber and talk about stuff not related to it.

6) Reblog things. A LOT. Tumblr isn't really a "passive engagement" website. There's no algorithm on here. People prefer to curate their dashes very carefully based on the tags and the blogs they follow. So if you want to see more content for something you like, follow that person and reblog that post! ESPECIALLY posts that don't have very many notes, since those people are usually also looking for friends and engagement. You've probably noticed my blog is like 80% funny reblogs where I ramble in the tags and 20% my own nonsense.

7) And this last piece of advice is more for how to engage and less for how to get engagement yourself: find someone who is really bored and likes answering asks. They may not follow you back, but it'll be a fun conversation and way to engage and pass the time. I'm shy, so I look for people who are bored and have anons turned on like @call-me-chips (hope you don't mind the tag!) For people who are unaware, I am ALSO one of those people! Ask me questions! About anything! Even invasive ones! Including stuff I logically can't answer! Or just send me rants about things that you just want someone to hear! I love them! Send them as anons if you want! I don't care, I love talking to people on this website!

I hope this helps you find more of your people, and best of luck to you amigo! Remember to follow @ellazimmermansblog who I am tagging twice and praying that tumblr doesn't break for at least one of them!

[gophergal]

Consequences

(full under cut, cw gore)

Fun fact: I wasnt even thinking about the bread tumors when I drew this

[foxcilious]

I love it when I go to someone’s post and the dash changes colors to match the person’s account theme. It feels like I’m visiting someone’s house and this is the welcome in before I check their profile to take my shoes off and come inside.

It’s like posts are little decorations people put out.

[etherealising]

sweetheart. this isn’t gonna be the nicest message and I do not intend for this to come off as being a hater; but as a fellow author, I felt this obligation to voice what I’ve seen that might be considered “cringe”.

i was highly, highly, HIGHLY invested in your Carmy Berzatto “all i ever knew, only you” series, but frustratingly lost complete interest by your erratic postings and timeline. like having “interludes” instead of just chapters? it’s outstandingly confusing. if you want to write a flashback, just do it with confidence, but your organization of your fic is frustrating to read. you’re not a terrible writer, on the contrary - I think you’re very good. like VERY good.

however, you lose yourself in an avalanche of details. you try W A Y too hard to foreshadow and allude to certain details, but you just confuse yourself and end up “putting your foot in your mouth”.

author to author, it helps TEN FOLD to pause and reread; to reedit. fuck a publishing timeline, fuck the followers that pressure you into posting, just make sure your story makes sense in a chronological order - cause the story’s whiplash was a turn off.

and I know, I know, what’s one reader to a plethora of others? i just felt the obligation to say that while it has the potential to be a GREAT story (that you keep incredibly expanding and deepening), it is wildly confusing in terms of your “timeline”.

my best wishes, support, and eagerness to see what else you might publish! and my apologies if I came off too harsh or rude - I’d simply love to see fellow authors expand on their craft!

not angry just dejected, take this response how you want i do not care : )

please do not refer to me as sweetheart. no matter how many times you explain that this isn’t a bash or negative feedback, calling me ‘sweetheart’ implies that you’re being condescending : )

first off [aiekoy] was not supposed to be a full fledged chaptered fic, so please writing gods forgive me for the utmost heinous act of writing and figuring things out as i go.

i can understand your “critique”, but you failed to explain how duel timeline in a story is “cringe” … i’m confused??

i’m sure you’ve read a mainstream book with the duel timeline trope, that’s exactly what this is. you’re implication that i’m cringy and not confident is such a fuck you to me because regardless of your intentions with this message it’s not coming across the way you intended.

my interludes are not a “confidence” thing, if I didn’t have confidence this fic wouldn’t have seen the light of day : )

imagine telling someone writing FOR FREE that their idea is “cringy” and a “confidence” issue??? i’m sure you can understand why i might come across a bit annoyed : )

i don’t try way too hard to fucking do anything, i just WRITE. i would honestly love to see where i “put my foot in my mouth” because i genuinely don’t see it. and that’s fine because it’s my writing and i’m constantly going over this shit ALONE so of course i’m not gonna catch every little detail that make people tick.

i am not getting paid to write this story. i am not getting paid to edit this story. i am writing this story because i had an idea and felt like sharing it because why fucking not. fan fiction does not and will not always be the best piece of literature/fiction you have ever interacted with and thats okay.

if you have fuck all time to edit, re-edit, draft, re-draft, and have a beta editor then i applaud you. but i have responsibilities outside of fanfiction so if something isn’t up to YOUR standards it’s not MY highest priority.

you also say “fuck a publishing timeline, fuck the followers that pressure you into posting,” but in the same breath explain that YOU quit reading because of my “erratic postings” and timeline. maybe i’m just not understanding it but it comes across a bit contradictory.

please understand that if my timeline is confusing, it’s because the bear’s canon timeline is confusing and contradictory as fuck. i’m literally doing somebody else’s job by trying to make this timeline make fucking sense.

don’t know who bestowed upon you this “obligation” you speak of but it was not i sis : )

to whoever this anon is i hope you can understand my defensiveness as i DID NOT ASK for this critique and obviously i’m going to be defensive this is MY work. and please if my response rubs you the wrong way please do not chime back into my inbox yapping off at the mouth that i’m a “bitch who can’t take critiques”

because i actually can but your critiques are UNSOLICITED for one and it just came across extremely pretentious (at least it read that way to me).

i probably would’ve had a much better reaction to your “help” if you had given me examples and explained a bit better your point of view, but you didn’t so i don’t, sucks to suck : (

have a great rest of your day, hope your journey as a writer continues going swell : )

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

I fully expect the shitheel techbro CEO to come back from his sabbatical (if he ever manages to log the fuck off in the first place) in a few months and whine about how all the people that were mean to him :(((( just prove that this site’s userbase is simply too hostile for him to successfully turn a profit on, and this debacle will be the excuse automattic uses to justify shutting down the site. I’d honestly bet money on it.

I saw that post going around about all this saying ‘when automattic sells tumblr’ which is a nice thought but also misguided. Automattic isn’t going to sell tumblr. No one else would buy it. Especially not now when the tech bubble is bursting. The maintenance costs for this site are astronomical and automattic bought it for a rock bottom price. When automattic (or rather just Matt himself) decides they’re done, the site will just get phased out.

And now it seems incredibly likely that when the site dies it’ll go out due to one multimillionaire’s oversized ego, latent unexamined transmisogyny and whorephobia, and inability to reflect on why a social media ceo personally banning users who said something mildly critical about him like the worst parody of a forum mod gone power mad isn’t effective site moderation.

Here’s hoping he at least gets sued into public disgrace for discrimination and data privacy violation in the process.