#have seen some posts on my dash recently that make me want to make this clear. i will always be on the side of palestinians in this struggle

[r0sebutch]

let me be so clear: i stand with palestine. i stand with palestianians. i also stand with jewish people. zionism is not synonymous with judaism. israel genociding palestinians is not an excuse for antisemitism, because the state of israel is not synonymous with judaism. there is never an excuse for antisemitism.

[mr-ribbit]

gonna rant again bc im seeing a lot of trans women on my dash having to carry the heavy lifting to argue for their basic respect and a lot of other queer people who want to ??? get mad about that apparently. for the record as usual: im tme, im not speaking for anyone besides myself and my perspectives, but I am trying to reach out to fellow tme people to level with y'all from inside the house.

i thought we all got past the 'calling people gendered terms when theyve asked you to stop' thing in like. 2012. i swear we were allllll on board with not calling women dude anymore, nerfing sir and ma'am, neutralizing collective terms for groups, and all of that was like, during the onceler era. that's how we got off-putting shit like folx into the mix - remember???? why are we here again.

to those who I've seen claiming that they REALLY genuinely don't want to offend anyone, and that theyre trying to understand the dude thing, and they don't want to be seen as transmisogynistic when they aren't: ok. let's talk about it. step one, stop sending that really loaded anon to a trans woman you don't know, and close that in-group hatepost with 100 replies from people name-dropping trans bloggers they don't like. try to open your mind and assume for the duration of this post that I am not cynically trying manipulate thousands of tumblr users into making Bro the next big swear word, but a fellow queer human being who thinks you're all being pretty intentionally obtuse about an upsetting trend in our community

to be clear: this post is about the issue of trans women being called bro, dude, man, etc., particularly in recent tumblr discourse about transmisogyny, and the backlash they face if they get upset about it. this is also maybe moreso about the shitty ass excuses I see tme people make for why they supposedly can't stop doing this.

so let's go through some of the things I've been seeing people say they don't understand, supposedly in earnest, about this issue

"I DIDNT USE DUDE AS A MASCULINE TERM. I CALL EVERYONE BRO. MAN IS A GENDER NEUTRAL TERM"

I'm not actually going to exhaust my list of reasons why dude/bro/man are not strictly neutral, but you should be pretty aware that all words have context. Dude might be seen as neutral in many contexts, sure, but 'woman who is frequently called a man by others' is a situation where the context adds extra meaning to your words, just like calling someone "sweetie" might be neutral in some cases, but if you've got the context of knowing that's your coworker who's half your age, it's a bit less neutral. If you're not capable of reading that context and being tasteful about when you say dude, then you need to at least be ready to respond gracefully when someone asks you to stop. This is the part I'd rather focus on.

"BUT I DIDNT MEAN IT THAT WAY. IM NOT TRANSPHOBIC"

I think you should consider broadening your perspective *beyond* your intention behind the word. people may already understand that you meant the word neutrally and therefore didn't have transmisogynistic intent, but that's not really the entire scope of what people are saying. if that's your only concern, you're just trying to clear your record, not actually listen to what they're saying.

there are lots of words people don't enjoy being called, and in most cases, when they say 'pls don't call me that', people respect that and move on. even if the word isn't a slur, if it hurts someone's feelings, we all as a society have agreed that it's pretty shitty to keep calling them that. if your friend asked you not to call them 'buddy' anymore because their dead grandparent called them that, or something equivalently personal, you'd probably respect that instead of telling them 'but I call everyone buddy!!' right? even if you didn't really understand why it bothered them so much?

there is a prominent tendency for trans women to be denied this privilege, and when they ask not to be called dude or bro, people don't seem to respect this request as much as they would in other situations. when I accidentally use a gendered word and someone tells me they don't like it, I try to respond with something like "my bad, I didn't mean it as misgendering but I can see you were still bothered by it, so I'll try not to keep saying it. sorry!" and most people are willing to accept that. when trans women ask people this favor, a lot of people get VERY defensive, and treat the request as inane or unfair, instead of just apologizing and moving on. this is why people are upset when this happens, and it's why people are calling your actions transmisogynistic

also like you might not be doing this, but a lot of people DO use dude and bro in an intentionally gendered way to make trans women uncomfortable. it's a power play bigots use to talk down to them or otherwise maliciously harass them. do you know what arguments they use to defend that behavior when called out on it? 'oh I call everyone that' 'dude is gender neutral calm down' 'dont overreact its just a word'. by acting like this, youre all just giving credence to those same arguments.

"WELL THEY SHOULDNT GET SO MAD AT ME WHEN I DIDNT MEAN ANY HARM"

they can get as mad as they want!! also, are you sure they're 'mad'? or are they just expressing their feelings about a negative topic to you, and it makes you feel bad, so you have to make them out to be unreasonably emotional? how do you think they should have phrased 'dont call me that' to better spare *your* feelings?

also like, in most cases, these women do not knowww you. if your main response to someone saying you disrespected them is to say "I didnt mean it that way, I meant it in a friendly neutral way", well that's NOT YOUR FRIEND! she has no idea what your opinions are or what you think of her!!! she has no reason to assume you only upset her in a friendly way and not a bad unfriendly way! but she did get upset, and she did the one thing she can do which is *tell you what upset her* and your response is to say "well actually you shouldn't be upset at all"??????

and another thing:

it's not just the issue of using the word 'dude', it's because you're coming off extremely dismissive of women who have asked you to stop doing something that harms them, and because your argument is basically that they just shouldn't be so bothered by it. or that they're stupid, irrational, or otherwise crazy for telling you that it bothered them at all, just because you Technically used a gender neutral word according to Your Rules. be honest, does that seem fair? If people were calling you something that bothered you enough to ask them to stop, and they responded like this, how would it make you feel?

focusing solely on your intent and what the words mean when you use them is the same thing as saying "just get over it". no woman should need to Prove to you that 'dude' is gendered for you to care about what she's saying. the fact that you're asking people to do that sucks and makes you look bad, which is why people are arguing with you and calling you a misogynist.

especially those of you who are only doing this with trans women who are actively arguing with. you're wielding misgendering as a cudgel and we can all see it, grow up please.

[puphoods]

ive only seen bits and pieces of what happened to predesterone, i know they got deleted (at least twice) and the ceo is making defamatory statements about them, but im genuinely confused as to where I could find this all going down. if u dont wanna gather links or whatever i get it its just that everything popped up on my dash suddenly and i want to know whats happening but i dont know how to find out

theres obviously a lot of people posting rn but ill try to get some links together to sum it up as best i can find- keep in mind i never followed her myself and only distantly knew of her so there are people closer to the situation that probably have more stuff they can tell you though, and searching her url(s) has a lot of info

avery has i think two blogs deleted yeah, unsure about any older ones but predstrogen and avewy/predesterone were both deleted very recently

predstrogen (the first blog) was allegedly deleted for "sexually explicit material" despite any posts that may have been labelled as such being marked with a community label and her blog recently being manually approved as NOT containing adult content. she also talks in this post, as well as here, about how she has had a support ticket open for several months for harassment she was receiving that has not been dealt with

this is an example of the threats and harassment she has been receiving. ive seen a few different people get this ask copy pasted

the CEO of tumblr made a post wherin he publicly aired information regarding her deletion and threatened legal action against her , showing examples of the alleged death threats where no actual threats were made and telling people in the replies to just leave if they were unhappy with the moderation of the site

avery made a post about this and her new blog was again deleted within five minutes of her making it

multiple people who have made posts about the situation have said matt has DMed them and confronted them

this is word im hearing secondhand, so if i get any details wrong please correct me, but posts of hers such as her transition timeline are apparently ones that were flagged. i cant find any screenshots but many of her posts, including one that was a silly edit of a snow leapord wearing shoes, have been completely wiped from the site. if anyone has a screenshot or link to both the original post and it being deleted i can add it to this

again there are a lot of posts going around but these are i think what you really need to know whats going on...

[catgirl-kaiju]

i have a transmasc friend who has been feeling really bummed recently that he hasn't seen much in the way of transmasc positivity on his dash, and i see how much it impacts his mood and self esteem. i care about him a lot, so i want to do a little something to maybe help raise his spirits a little bit:

share some memories of trans masc folks you know or have known, who left a positive impact on your life!

i'll start:

here's to a boyfriend i had years back! he was a very autistic demiboy with a reptile special interest and a love for aquariums! we'd go visit a small local herpatarium together, and he'd tell me all about the animals there. his excitement was contagious! he even had a pet snake who was so cute. we both loved Pink Floyd, and i really treasure the time we spent sharing music with eachother!

here's to a friend i had back in Texas! he was a really warm and chill dude, always so kind and patient. he loved his community and organized a local trans social group so that we could have something more laid back than a support group. he was a scholar in queer and jewish history, as well as jewish theology, and i learned so much from him.

i have a friend now who is a very kind and sweet guy. he's been there for me in some of my darkest moments and is a delight to be around! he is a very skilled cook and baker who helps make incredible food for our household. he has a passion for hair and has helped everyone in the house with cutting and styling our hair. he loves musicals, and i've learned so much about musicals from listening to him and watching movie musicals with him. i could say more, but i know this post is going to be long enough as is lol

[sailoryooons]

I am going to say something that has really been bothering me that not everyone may agree with, which is totally okay, everyone is entirely valid to disagree with me: There is a fast fashion problem in fandom, specifically fanfiction.

Disclaimer: This conversation is not about broadly writing the same tropes, genres, and ideas. I am not talking about people writing fics with similar themes or the same name. I am specifically talking about people writing fics that are very obviously heavily influenced by other fics. This is not me talking about: I wrote __ character as enemies to lovers vampires and so did this person so they stole. Please do not trivialize this conversation with instances that are very obviously not what I'm talking about.

As someone who exists in the fanfiction space, I want to express what I have seen specifically in this space in my own experience, my mutuals experiences, and random experiences I have seen on my dash.

Recently, it seems like there is a reoccurring theme of writers (often new writers) taking "inspiration" from fanfics that they love and value and essentially creating their own version of that story to the point it is bordering on plagiarism. I say bordering on plagiarism because while people may not be copying line for line or entire scenes in order, you can tell that it is a re-arranged duplicate of another story.

I am not talking about writing similar tropes and dynamics. No one owns a trope or a dynamic. I am specifically talking about people taking the plots, scenes, concept and core of fanfics and recreating it and changing some plot elements or placing it in a different alternate universe and calling it their own, when at the heart of that fanfic, it is taken from someone else's creation.

This to me, reads like people who read a work, fall in love with it, but think 'this is easy to do, I can do this myself' and they end up making a replica of a fic that you can tell is a replica of another fic, despite adding some changes. Nine times out of ten, these inspired fics lack the obvious thought and heart the original writer put into it.

Which, begs the question: How is this different than fanfic writers taking inspiration from media (i.e. published books, movies, music, shows)? Because fanfiction is meant to replicate a specific something from published media. It is not meant to duplicate an already established fanfiction contribution.

I know that the nuance between that line is very ambiguous and it brings up the discourse on 'should there be fanfiction of fanfiction' - to which my response is it is, generally, pretty obvious what the difference between being inspired by a fic and copying a fic are.

In the last few months, I have lost count of how many times I or mutuals have a) discovered someone has been writing a story based off of their fic 2) have been asked to use an already written work to make their own or 3) already have started writing works modeled after an already written work and in hindsight asked the author if they could keep doing so (this third instance almost always happens after someone accuses them of stealing another work).

This feels like the fast fashion industry. Someone finds a story that is popular (whatever that means to the individual), takes all of the elements they think makes the story works, rearranges it, posts it as their own and and says they were 'inspired' (if they credit the original story at all).

This is why so many works that readers are coming across feel like they are the same thing. It is the same A + B + C = D over and over and over again, because people are outright just taking what they think works from other stories and using it.

Again - I am not talking about people who come across a trope, AU, genre or dynamic they like and add something similar to their story. I am talking about the people who are very intentionally and obviously writing the same exact fic with their own 'twist' (whatever that means).

Why is this a problem (beyond the fact that it's essentially roundabout plagiarism)? You're taking the heart, soul, and creativity someone poured into something and posting it on your own and robbing it of the originality, the essence, and the intention behind it. You cannot replicate a writer's feelings and obvious emotions that they have poured into the original work, and it shows. And it is gutting to the original authors who are finding remixes of their work across the fanfiction space.

Please consider whether or not you are inspired by a story or if you are redoing it in your own image. If you find yourself worried enough about your story that you feel like you have to publicly credit someone to avoid scrutiny, perhaps the question needs to be asked of whether you're just redoing what someone else already wrote.

Please do not confuse inspiration and recreation. 9 out of 10 authors will love that they inspired you to write, but would not love to find that you wrote a fic inspired by them that is a rearranged or hollowed-out version of the fic they wrote.

The fanfic space wants and needs more writers, but it does not need people unwilling to create their own art, instead taking bits and pieces from others and calling it a success.

Also adding: This problem also directly contributes to 'smaller' writers or more niche (often queer and bipoc) stories not getting the hype, readership, or recognition they deserve. On more than one occasion I've seen stories that had explicitly queer or bipoc characters taken and turned into heteronormative or white-presenting stories.

Note: This 1000% goes for actual visual art as well, including gifs etc. in fandom but I'm not well-versed there and thus, did not include it.

[wowevenmoreloveonearth]

You know what? I have become a gaylor sympathiser

This is going to be a long post, sorry! Please read the full post before even thinking about commenting.

Over the past few days I’ve seen a few posts on my dash about taylor swift and her fans that have left a bad taste in my mouth.

I know that a lot of people think that some fans of her are “trying to make her gay” and I just wanted to put the record straight and defend some people after actually looking at what’s going on. And I know I’m probably opening myself up for tumblr’s poor reading comprehension but before I start I’m going to say this:

I do not think taylor swift is a lesbian

Ok? Now let’s have a conversation.

First of all from what I’ve seen most of the fans who talk about Taylor swift and queerness do it from a point of literary analysis and learning queer history. This is a huge part of the community and lots of people have said that they never would have learnt so much about queer history without reading taylor swift’s works through a queer lens.

Adding on to that point, it seems a little hypocritical for the gay site which loves queer readings of books, tv shows, songs, musicals, films etc to be bullying a pretty small group of people who are mainly doing queer readings of lyrics. Especially when those people get near constant death threats. Instead of bullying these people (who don’t think or do what you think they think and do) why don’t you go outside and think “does this affect me? No. Do I agree with them? No. Am I going to cyber bully them because of this? No.”

Secondly, for the people who believe that any speculation on a real persons sexuality is 100% wrong. I used to think this too but I have changed my mind a bit about this recently after stopping and thinking about it properly. I’m not trying to change your mind at all I just want you to stop and think for a minute.

If you only get mad when speculation is queer in nature, then maybe think about that for a minute. Why is it totally wrong to think a person might be queer. We probably do it in our daily lives with people we know and they likely do it with us, back in the day that’s how queer people found each other-by speculating on sexuality. Would you be upset if you found out someone that you know thought you might be queer? I wouldn’t, maybe you would but if you would, why? Why is it terrible to think someone might be queer (this is NOT about hounding a person to admit to being queer like shawn mendes, this is just thinking in your head and on your small blog that the person will likely never see). Also this is literally the website where we talk about historical (real people) being gay even when they would have never said something to the equivalent.

An addition to this point before people start saying in the comments is that this is NOT the same situation as with kit connor. The issue there was people assuming that he was straight and taking that role away from a queer person. Speculating that he was queer was the opposite of what happened in that situation. So this is not an example of what happens when you speculate queerness.

Final things to say:

1) don’t believe every post you see with someone looking insane about taylor swift being gay, a lot of them are fake.

2) before anyone says “they should listen to real queer artists instead” most of them very much do. There’s a lot of fans of Hayley kiyoko, girl in red, Janelle monae, tegan and sara, zolita, kehlani etc.

3) there are some queer flags that are there. Sorry but there are. Hairpin drops, lavender, the ladder, flag colours, songs about women, friend of dorothy reference. Whether they are intentional is a different matter.

4) shipping real people is not what is happening for the majority of the people in the community. Also this comes back to queer vs straight again. Plenty of swifties ship taylor with men she’s been seen with and no one goes into their inboxes and sends death threats even when they are the ones making taylor swift all about the men she may or may not have dated.

5) taylor swift has never stated her sexuality. I know this may be hard to belive based off of how some people act, but it’s true. She has made vague statements which could have many meanings but she has never clearly stated anything. When gaylors get upset with taylor it is not because she said she is straight, it’s because they are getting death threats and doxxed and she seems to either be unaware of it (which is unlikely given how she seems to be a little terminally online) or she doesn’t care enough to tell her fans to stop.

6) if she does explicitly say she’s straight then there will probably be disappointment in her use of queer history and flags and her potential queer erasure (as we saw with lavender haze, with straight women describing their relationships as lavender) and centring herself in queer spaces (like the you need to calm down music video) but no one will be angry that she’s not gay. And a lot will probably be grateful that she actually explicitly stated for the record to absolve any confusion. The main issue would likely be other fans ramping up the death threats and bullying.

In conclusion: these people who do queer analysis of Taylor’s work are not trying to out her or make her gay etc. if you don’t understand it that’s fine it’s clearly not for you and you can go quite easily without seeing any of it. It’s not illegal to read works through a queer lens and if it means more people know about queer history then I think that’s a very good thing.

I changed my mind after looking at what a lot of people are actually saying rather than what people perceive them to be saying and maybe you will too?

Just be kinder to people online please and if you don’t like what people are saying block them and do not engage!

[hedgehog-moss]

Top 10 Best Trees in my local forest

10. I know I know this is a stump hence why it’s #10, but I love that it looks like the outline of a person’s body. A person that was drawn and quartered apparently. I should do a Top 10 Stumps one day, I’ve seen some cool ones!

9. Another stump, but I initially wanted to include this one in my top 10 as a tree, and then it was felled recently :( It was one of my favourite local trees because it had such big roots (larger than most nearby trunks!) that emerged from the ground here and there like undulating sea serpents. I was sad when it was cut but on the other hand it had the sweetest-smelling resin in the world. It was a very windy day so the smell travelled everywhere, and this tree’s fresh resin made the entire forest smell like candy floss.

8. I just like that this one looks like a busy giant centipede crossing the stream on its way somewhere. I’ve always wanted to use it as a bridge but so far I’ve not dared.

7. This one looks like it belongs in a jungle with these thick vines all over its trunk. I had the Playmobil jungle set when I was a kid and it was one of my favourite toys and I would have absolutely loved to find a jungle tree near my home.

6. This tree already looks cool during the day, but at night by torchlight these scaly-looking roots look exactly like a T-rex’s paw clawing at the ground. It’s a mandatory stop every time I go on a nighttime walk in the forest with my cats.

5. This one is unremarkable most of the year but then there’s 1 week every autumn when it just catches fire and it’s a happily-anticipated yearly event (for me).

4. Yes I’ve already made a post about the remarkable tree but I actually went to check it out since then, and it’s the most ridiculous story. 

See, there used to be a genuinely remarkable tree there and it was known as the King of the Forest. Then this tree was felled like 70 years ago but the road sign was already there, so they decided it would now refer to a nearby, nearly-as-cool-tree, which became known as the Queen of the Forest. Then the queen was also cut down. There were no other remarkable trees nearby but people still refused to remove the sign so a normal boring tree became the new remarkable tree. There’s a little sign next to it (otherwise you wouldn’t remark the new remarkable tree) explaining that this is the Viceroy of the Forest (yes, really!) and sort of summing up how this ordinary fellow came to be promoted. I didn’t take a picture of it, that’s how unremarkable it is, but I love the story behind its Viceroy title, it’s exactly this:

3. Now, this one is in the top 3 because it’s my cats’ favourite tree:

Its trunk has completely split in two and one half of it fell over but remained attached and now forms a very long arching “tongue” that touches the ground. My cats LOVE walking on it, it seems to make them feel very important, like a red carpet for cats. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos featuring cats doing their catwalk because they only accompany me at night... But look at this strange tree arch (it’s like six metres long!) and picture three important-looking cats walking on it:

2. This one is shaped like a harp!! A very beloved landmark in my woods, it makes me smile every time I walk past it.

1. This one is just excellent, green-tipped like a Caran d’Ache pastel pencil and with roots that look like they harbour a whole city of little wood sprites. (ft. a Pandolf for scale):

1. (it’s a tie) This tree might not be as cool or fun-looking as the others (although in winter it looks dashing!) but it’s the tree that marks the beginning of my land so it feels like a welcoming friend. For sentimental reasons it will be ranked first.

[insipid-drivel]

Toxins, Venom, and Poisons in Historical Western Medicine: How Are We Not Extinct From Doing Some Of This To Ourselves?

This piece is an involuntary piece inspired by @writing-with-sophia's awesome post "Poison list", which is an accurate and succinct list of commonly known (and ancient!) poisons, venoms, and toxins that have been and were used for causing poisoning in ancient and recent history. I wanted to write this because what struck me by their post crossing my dash was, the sheer number of poisons listed that were - and even still are - used as mainstays for healthcare around the world throughout the ages!

OBLIGATORY DON'T BE A DUMBASS PSA: If you're planning on incorporating these poisons into your HISTORICAL-era writing, it's also important to remember that many of them were used for medicinal purposes at one time, too, and it's great you're interested in learning about the subject! And also, you shouldn't try ANY of these! I will not tell you how to do it at home if you DM me, so don't! You are not appropriately trained to do it! You will harm or kill yourself and possibly your loved ones if you fuck around with any of these and it will be 100% your fault and you absolutely should feel bad bout it! I've seen some of you idiots believe 4chan posts about making home-grown crystals using recipes for actual mustard gas and seen you being wheeled into the ER on the news! I will not feel bad if you get yourself hurt if you screw around with any of these plants, elements, or animals!

Resource blog plugs and PSA over, now for the Hilariously Poisonous Medicines:

If you're writing something that's meant to take place prior to the advent of our more modern understanding of poisons, venoms, and toxins, factoring in "this is toxic to me NOW, but what about 500 years ago?" can add a lot of opportunities for interesting plot elements to your story.

These can include someone accidentally poisoning themselves with a toxic drug or substance that wouldn't have killed them if they'd handled it properly - like tansy? Grows all over the place in Europe and England? That'll kill you if you harvest it too late in the season, but it's good for intestinal parasites when it's harvested early in the year and processed right.

Did the lady's maid really kill her mistress with belladonna? Or was she trying to secretly help her mistress get rid of an unwanted pregnancy?

The protagonist's children can't survive to make it to weaning age! Is the wetnurse a poisoner, or does the milkman hide that he sells sour milk by pouring Borax into it so no one could taste it and has no idea he's killing his clients' babies?

Nuance and cultural mores regarding historical views about poisons and toxins can make writing even more fun, dynamic, and interesting! Explore 'em!

Just... please don't try any of this crap yourself. You will poison yourself, it will hurt, you will die, and you will hurt the entire time you're dying. Using OP's master list alone, here's the flip side of these lethal beasts through the eyes of our distant ancestors who believed illness was caused by "vapors", "bad air", and "imbalanced humors":

Hemlock:

Used across multiple different cultures in history. When properly administered to treat a disease, poison hemlock was used to treat asthma, whooping cough, bronchitis, joint/bone pain, muscle cramps, and insomnia. Hemlock was most often used as a sedative and antispasmodic.

Arsenic:

Arsenic is a heavy metal, and so has been used in everything from making specialty dyes for wallpapers (Scheele's green is the most infamous arsenic-based paint; Queen Victoria once had a guestroom in her palace redone with Scheele's green wallpaper. The first dignitary to stay there had to be carried out and taken to emergency care after breathing astronomical amounts of arsenic dust from the wallpaper's paint), to medicine. Arsenic was especially commonly used in history to treat skin ailments ranging from acne, to psoriasis, to syphilis sores. It was also sometimes prescribed for menstrual cramps, upset stomachs, colic, and arthritis, among many, many other things.

Cyanide:

Uh... I have literally never found any evidence of cyanide in medicine, outside of its use in modern medicine as part of certain chemical lab tests for measuring urine ketone bodies that involve no contact with a patient whatsoever. Cyanide literally works in less than a few seconds to render your entire body incapable of absorbing OR using oxygen in your lungs or already existing in your blood. Cyanide is really only good at making things that breathe not breathe anymore.

Nightshade:

There are a lot of different "nightshades", so being specific is essential here. Potatoes are nightshades. Tomatoes are nightshades. Calling anything a "nightshade" does not inherently mean it's lethally toxic. Belladonna is probably the most notorious of the "deadly" nightshades, but to this day, is still used medicinally, and would actually be seen as a health and cosmetic mainstay in historical fiction, especially if your setting is in Italy!

Belladonna is an Italian portmanteau for "beautiful woman", because tinctures (water-based drops) of belladonna were commonly used by Italian women as eyedrops to dilate their eyes and appear more attractive, aroused, and desirable. Today, belladonna's eye-dilating effects are still used by optometrists to dilate the pupils! Belladonna has been, and still sometimes is used as an NSAID, general painkiller, motion sickness treatment, asthma medication, and even as a treatment for IBS.

Ricin:

As OP said, Ricin is derived from the toxin found in Castor Beans, and is surprisingly new as an official "the only reason this is made is to make someone dead" poison. Not only is ricin a popular "nobody would think to test for this!" choice in mystery/thriller writing, but it has been used for political assassinations in real life before. Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian anti-Communist dissenter and writer, was killed in 1978 with a 1.7mm diameter ricin-coated pellet shot into his thigh muscle by an unidentified assailant using a modified umbrella as a gun. He died 4 days later.

Historically, castor OIL has been used for medicinal purposes, especially for treating constipation, inducing labor in pregnancy, and as a topical skin moisturizer. If you've ever watched the opening scene in Disney's "Peter Pan", when the childrens' mother is trying to give them a spoonful of medicine each, she's actually giving them castor oil! Castor oil tastes really bad (so much so that flavorings like cinnamon were often added to try to muffle the taste), so the childrens' reluctance and disgust at their mom making them take their medicine is very realistic for the era the movie came out in!

Strychnine:

Another lethal poison that started life as a medicine/food additive. Strychnine is no longer used medicinally at all today, but historically, it was used to stimulate the heart, treat bladder and bowel incontinence, and limb palsy. Strychnine is a deadly-powerful muscle stimulant that, as a poison, causes horrifyingly painful full-body strictures (spasms) and destroys the cardiovascular system. (Fun fact: Strychnine and hydrochloric acid were historically mixed into cheap vodka to make knock-off gin, especially during the Georgian Era in England if the brewer didn't have or couldn't afford juniper berries!)

Snake Venom:

Seriously, do your research before you write an actual, real snake species using venom they don't produce! The Big 3 Forms Of Snake Venom are: Hemotoxic, Neurotoxic, and Cytotoxic. Specific snake species exclusively generate the same kind of venom (so a hemotoxic snake will ALWAYS produce baby snakes that also make hemotoxic venom). Aristotle himself wrote in 380 BC that certain snake venoms could be applied for treating fevers, smallpox, and leprosy, and there is even some evidence in the historical record prior to the 1800s that different cultures have experimented throughout the eons with using venom for converting into antivenom, but I've never found a source citing anyone making a successful form of antivenom until around the 1850s.

Digitalis:

OP really nailed the important thing about Digitalis, and that is it's cardiac benefits for certain people - particularly for treating congestive heart failure. Vincent van Gogh was actually prescribed epilepsy medication that likely contained Digitalis, aka Foxglove, and there are some prevailing theories about van Gogh's love of bright yellow paint as being either caused or exacerbated by the symptoms associated with digitalis use, which can cause an attraction to and increased visual sensitivity to the color yellow. In several portraits, including one of his own psychiatrist, van Gogh shows subjects presented alongside foxglove flowers. Digitalis is absolutely lethal if consumed or taken without expert guidance, however, because it's the mother ingredient of Digoxin. Digoxin isn't used as frequently as it used to be a few decades ago, but it's still used and prescribed today for certain forms of heart failure and heart disease. Digoxin was also, at one time, was also sometimes used to induce chemical abortions.

Lead:

Dear god, lead. Not only is it so slow to kill you that you'll think that the only way to manage your symptoms is with more lead, but lead poisoning can be a life-long crisis for a person who is regularly exposed to it. Humans have used lead for everything from plumbing, to paint, to our cutlery, to cosmetics, to medicine. While yes, it is very possible to ingest enough lead in a single sitting to die within hours or days, most sufferers of lead poisoning experience it for years or decades before the symptoms become obvious. Some archaeologists believe that the Romans used lead cutlery because lead has a unique reaction when we lick it: when you have lead coating your tongue, it makes EVERYTHING you eat suddenly taste 10x better. I learned this myself from going target-shooting with my mom at a gun rage as a teenager, inhaled gunsmoke (which contains lead), and went for lunch immediately after. Even though I was just eating a $5 meal from In-N-Out, my burger tasted so good I thought I was gonna have to change my pants. When I asked the rangemaster at the target place about it later, he literally said, "Oh yeah, lead makes the worst cooking taste like heaven."

The ancient Romans ate a lot of rotten, spoiled, and sour food, and so lead would've made it easier to eat it back then. But the neurological effects of lead poisoning are nightmarish. It's suspected that, in America, the #1 reason we had so many active serial killers in the country from the 1940s-2000s was because of leaded gasoline. Ever since leaded gasoline was banned? Serial and random violent crime rates have dramatically gone down, especially in metropolitan cities. Ancient Rome, too, gradually became an increasingly violent city as its population went up and its reliance on lead did. We're only just now starting to figure out how toxic lead actually is, so go nuts with using it as a plot element regarding subjects like "Why Are You Like This?"

Mercury:

Mercury is also known as quicksilver, because in spite of being a heavy metal, the temperature at which it melts into a liquid is very, very low compared to most other metals. The first Emperor of China, Qin Shi Huang, was rumored to be so obsessed with the notion of immortality that he would send his doctors on doomed voyages around the world searching for a legendary substance that would, indeed, make him immortal. Legend has it that some doctors who were tasked with the job found out about the last guys, and produced mercury before Emperor Qin Shi Huang and cried, "Here it is! I got it!" so they wouldn't end up doomed to drown at sea. Qin Shi Huang became so obsessed with ingesting and medicating himself with mercury that, when his legendary tomb was being constructed, he had a small-yet-accurate-to-scale map of China+the known world about the size of a football field with every body of water full of fountains of running mercury in his burial chamber. His tomb was rediscovered in the last couple of decades after archaeologists found suspiciously high levels of mercury in the soil on top of a "hill" that had been sitting in the countryside untouched for thousands of years. It turned out to be Qin Shi Huang's long-lost tomb.

Since those days, mercury has closely been associated in early medicine as a sort of cure-all, since it literally kills anything it touches (including people). Captain Blackbeard himself, the most notorious pirate in Western history (Western specifically; google who Zheng Yi Sao was), was known or widely believed to be a syphilis sufferer, and desperately sought infusions of mercury from ships he'd capture (and the doctors onboard) to treat it, believing like everyone did that mercury could cure syphilis. It can't. They just didn't understand back then that syphilis starts off surface-level, and then eats your brain years after the initial infection.

Aconite:

Again, ridiculously toxic outside of specific medicinal applications that still aren't safe today! Aconite, or wolfsbane, has historically been used as a heart sedative (for slowing the heart), diuretic, painkiller, and even used to induce sweating. Evidence of wolfsbane being used for medicinal purposes has been spotted here and there over thousands of years throughout the Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Empires, but its original use came about in Ancient Greece for hunting and culling wolves by poisoning bait-food with it. That form of hunting died out long before the European Middle Ages, but the name "wolfsbane" stuck. Mostly because in the Middle Ages, a lot of people believed werewolves were a huge problem, and kept wolfsbane handy to deter said werewolves.

Thallium:

Today, thallium is mostly used in the production of camera and eyeglass lenses. Before its toxicity was known about, it wasn't strange to hear of thallium being used topically to treat fungal infections like ringworm. Thallium was also sporadically used in treating typhus and tuberculosis, along with a wide array of sexually transmitted diseases.

This list doesn't even touch the tip of the toxic iceberg when it comes to the sheer quantity of hilariously dangerous toxins people have, or still continue, to use for medicinal purposes! In a Victorian-era English London middle-class townhouse setting alone, there were dozens and dozens of ways to poison or otherwise harm yourself just by going about your daily life. So, if you've got a period piece you're working on, or are just bored, you can pick an exact date and time in our history and learn just how terrifyingly comfortable our ancestors were with upsettingly dangerous substances and home remedies. You can also watch a massive docuseries, called "Hidden Killers" and hosted by historian Suzannah Lipscomb, among other historians and archaeologists, which deep-dives into the hidden and unknown dangers of living in eras from Tudor-Era England, to the Post-WWII Reconstruction Age.

As a final note: I am NOT bashing Chinese or Eastern medicinal practices here, and in fact deliberately have gone out of my way to not include any references toward culturally-sanctioned medicinal practices in Eastern and Southeastern Asia. This post is specifically related to the history of WESTERN medicines and their associated history. I am not, nor have I ever been, a doctor of any traditional Eastern medicinal practices, and do not pretend to know better. Sinophobes are unwelcome in my blog space.

[nobodysdaydreams]

Explaining fandoms I’m not in, but I have seen on my dash from the mutuals (to the best of my knowledge based on their posts):

Why? Because I thought it would be fun and entertaining and I hope I’m not wrong.

The Magnus Archives (TMA)- a group of people document creepy and supernatural events while they slowly one by one discover either that they are the monsters/possessed by them, or that they are being taken in by the monsters, or that their coworkers are the monsters, or that they themselves are possibly friends with or dating the monsters, or that they have been working for the monsters (or bad guys) the entire time. Many of the villains seem to be demented or possessed life sized toys and clowns or eyeballs. This podcast has so many episodes, and I see so many posts about it, but these seem to be the common themes.

Miraculous Ladybug- actually haven’t seen this one on my dash in a long time, but when I first did, despite appearing like a straightforward kids fandom, the shipping discourse confused the heck out of me. But if I have this right, based on the posts from my younger followers, two teenagers are animal themed superheroes who are dating each other and also have crushes on each other, but they don’t know they are dating each other, because they don’t know each others secret identities, because… okay, I still honestly have no idea why. There are ~5K posts about this apparently very central and specific plot line, but not one explains why they don’t just tell each other who they are??? Anything for the plot, I guess. Apparently this has been going on for a long time to the point where even the show’s target audience of children is confused as to how these teenagers and grown adults haven’t put the pieces together as to who everyone’s secret identity is.

Keeper of the Lost Cities (KOTLC)- there’s a girl named Sophie. She is an elf in a love triangle with Keefe and some other guy (I think his name is Fritz). Keefe’s parents are terrible, especially his mom. Sophie has horse DNA (I don’t know if that post was a joke or not sorry if that’s wrong). There’s an elf with fire powers. Elves read minds. There’s a group called the black swan who are the good guys, I think. Also I think the elves and humans are at war. I know Keefe’s parents are trash, does Sophie have parents? From what I can tell, she grows up believing she’s a human but then surprise! She’s an elf and the chosen one, and elves are possibly immortal? Wait, maybe Sophie’s a half elf. Is that a thing?

Spy x Family - two people are fake dating each other for spy reasons but eventually fall in love for real. The twist is, they each think the other is a normal civilian who doesn’t know about the fake relationship (which is kinda messed up to make someone fall in love with you for a fake cover but if they’re also doing the same to you that’s karma I guess) but I think it might end up ok, because they fall in love for real (Aw) but possibly also not okay, because I also think it might be revealed that they’ve been working for enemy sides this whole time (drama). Also the adopted daughter is a mind reader who knows everything but chooses to keep what she knows secret for the plot. Respect. And I recently saw something about the family having a super powered dog? Is he real?

The Murderbot Diaries - a bunch of robots are created for one purpose: murder. But when their murder programming goes haywire, they discover that they might have more in common with the humans they’ve been assigned to kill than they originally thought. Or that they have more humanity inside themselves than they thought… or maybe that the people who created them have more evil intentions than… well in hindsight, “the people who build the murder robots are evil!” seems like an obvious plot twist, but maybe they’re more morally complex or had decent intentions and just never intended for it to go this far… or maybe the robots get hacked or decide maybe they don’t want to be murder bots anymore which brings us back to free will. Interesting philosophical questions, but I think the robots might be getting into some wacky shenanigans as well. Also they apparently have diaries. I get that a diary is just like… a log of what they’re doing, but that won’t stop me from imaging a big scary robot with a little pink glitter pen writing “Dear Diary, I killed three people today. I still see their faces when I try to power off at night. When I go into sleep mode, I dream of their faces. I begin to wonder things, like whether they had families, dreams, or ambitions. I also wonder what they felt in their final moments. I fear this means I am developing a conscience and desire to turn against my programming and the creators. But probably nothing a little update and restart can’t fix. I’ll keep you updated, dairy. XOXO, Murderbot 💕” So. How did I do? Scale of 1-10, with 10 being “you nailed it!” and 1 being “None of this is remotely close. What posts have you been looking at?”

[londonfoginacup]

A New Larrie’s Guide to Tumblr

A probably incomprehensible, certainly incomplete list of what you need to know; whether you’re coming from a different platform or discovering Larry for the first time. 

My credentials

Hello! I’m Emmu. I’ve had tumblr since… 2008? Maybe 2009. I moved over from deviantArt and used Tumblr as a personal art blog for many years. I joined the One Direction fandom in 2014, so my 1D blog has 8+ years at this point. That being said, I will get on my soapbox a bit during this. Please excuse me, I’m quite passionate about cultivating a happy and healthy fandom.

What makes Tumblr different

The biggest thing that makes Tumblr, as a site, different from Twitter or Instagram is the rejection of algorithms. The “following” tab on your dashboard is in chronological order (and if it isn’t, you can – and should – change that), and the “for you” tab is both a recent feature and rarely used. Tumblr has very little algorithm, and the algorithm they have isn’t very good. It means that you’ll get the most god awful ads you’ve ever seen on this site, because they don’t utilize your data well. And that’s to your advantage.

Tumblr is a great place because you can curate what you see more than other social media. The people that you choose to follow are the only people that you see on your dash (unless you choose to follow tags, which I guess is an option? @lululawrence says “it is and it used to not do anything unless you went to the search page and then it would like autofill your followed tags options, but NOW they take those followed tags and plop them on your dash... SOMETIMES. usually only on mobile. but if there's only one new post in the tag, it shows you that post OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER AGAIN. IT'S SUPER ANNOYING ACTUALLY. SO I STOPPED FOLLOWING TAGS. lol anyway”).

So, the site is in chronological order. This is its biggest selling point.

There is also the opportunity for long posts. Masterposts. Things that are searchable without having to read through pages of screenshots or condensed twitter threads. You can write a whole lot more without worrying about character limit. People publish whole fics on here (I suggest ao3 for that, but tumblr is technically an option!).

Another important thing to know about tumblr is that the archives on tumblr run deep. There are newer larries here, and a lot of them, but you can also find older larries. People whose 1D blogs go back to 2010 or 2011. You can dive into the archives and read firsthand accounts of what was happening with One Direction or larry at that very time. Doing a bit of research means you find cute fetus pictures of the boys, but also you’re able to figure out for yourself whether something actually happened. Rumors always seem to spread quite easily and fandom memory always seems impossibly short, but here on tumblr you’re able to find out for yourself. That means the next time you hear about how xyz thing happened a long time ago, check out some of those archives and see what you can find.

Also, my personal favorite part of tumblr is that old posts are just as valid as new posts. Find a masterpost about RBB and SBB from 2015? Go ahead and reblog that; bring it back to the circulating dash. People will love that. Find a fanartist that you really like? Search through their tags, reblog anything you want. It’s not considered stalking or weird in any way. We love bringing back old posts here. Tumblr is a website where you’re not meant to just talk about the present. 

The cultural difference between Tumblr and Twitter

Speaking of the ways that tumblr and twitter are different, let’s talk for a moment about the 1D fandom in particular.

I’ve held this theory for a while that the twitter (and instagram) algorithm is fracturing the fandom. Because twitter is so dependent on the algorithm, people are more likely to split apart and join smaller and smaller communities based on smaller, more specific opinions. Tumblr, being a place where you don’t just get a post on your dash because someone else liked it, doesn’t have those smaller cliques. There are larries, and there are antis.

(if you get really in the weeds, there are also larry shippers [who don’t believe they’re together but like to read it in fic], and houis [who think they were together but broke up], but I just don’t hear about them as much).

While I do occasionally hear about blouies on my dash, for the most part this is a culture that exists primarily on other sites. 

On another note, because tumblr doesn’t have that handy algorithm, we have to work to make it a more active space. Likes don’t do anything here for anyone other than you, and it doesn’t really change anything about what you’ll see on your dash. Think of them more like the bookmark setting on twitter or instagram. Reblogs are necessary to get anything spread. Anything that you enjoy, or that looks interesting for any reason? Reblog it! That’s the only way other people will see it! And leave a happy comment in the tags if you’ve got one (more on that later). 

And, while lurkers do exist in this fandom (and we love them), it’s important to get an icon and blog header that make you look like a real person. People on tumblr have long been in the habit of blocking shady blogs, mostly because of a bot problem, so if you want to lurk, you have to look like a lurker. Maybe reblog a post or two to establish yourself, and make sure you don’t accidentally look like an icon-less bot posing as a sugar daddy. 

How to set up your account

Okay, so you’ve got a tumblr. Let’s take a minute to fix up the settings so that you’re not getting, well, the worst version of the site. 

My advice is to start by going into your dashboard preferences and:

Turn off the best stuff first (it’ll just show you things you’ve already seen)

Turn off “include stuff in your orbit” (you’ll see terrible posts that are mostly NOT in your orbit)

Turn off “Included based on your likes” (again, you’ll see posts you hate)

Turn off “shorten long posts”. It’s a ridiculous setting that, like many things on tumblr, had potential but was rolled out in an incredibly unhelpful and user unfriendly way.

Once you’ve got that squared away, go into filtering and block any tags and content you don’t like, as that is always proper fandom etiquette. Not seeing things you don’t like is your responsibility, not the responsibility of the person posting them. I personally suggest adding the topics you don’t want to see to both the content list and the filtered tags list, as that gives a much better likelihood of posts that are particularly unsavory for you getting caught by the filters. Please also note this might need to be done on both desktop and the app separately as, depending on where tumblr is at the moment, these filters do not always carry over from one application to the other.

Now scroll down to tumblr labs. These are their experimental things. Some are good! Some are very bad. They do change, though, so this might get out of date pretty fast.

Personally, I enabled fast queue

And disabled everything else

ALSO, an important note, if you are using the apple app, you need to go in and turn off the adult content filter. No idea offhand where that is, but it means posts that include tags like “mine” and “girl” are blocked. It’s ridiculous. 

Who to follow and how to find them

So, you’ve got a new tumblr and need people to follow. This makes sense! To really fill up your dash, I’d suggest the following

Find one person you like. There’s a good chance you know at least someone from twitter who also has a tumblr, so you can start there. If you’re not from twitter, or are looking to start fresh, you can dive into the search function (I’ve never tried finding someone this way myself, but searching larry stylinson or something similar would probably get you started)

Find the people they reblog from and check out each of their blogs! Follow people that make you happy

Follow some update accounts! Thinking of some off the top of my head, there’s @HLUpdate, @Stylesnews, @dailytomlinson, @HLDailyUpdate, or @neilswaterbottles (there’s definitely more though). 

Follow some fanart or fic rec accounts! 

I’d always suggest @1d-fanart or @hlcreators for art. 

For fic, you could check out @hlficlibrary, @ficsyoumayhavemissed, or @thelarriefics. 

Or, recurring fic fests! @onedirectionbigbang or @wordplayfics, which happen every year.

And if you end up not enjoying someone you’ve followed? Unfollow them! It’ll make you happier.

How to interact with posts

Tumblr is all about tags. Do you have a comment or thought? Reblog a post and say your thought in the tags. That way anyone you follow will see it, and the person who made the post will see it. This way a post doesn’t end up with a lot of cluttery additions that don’t mean a lot to the average person reblogging it, but if you browse the tags of posts you’ll find lots of interesting things. Tags can be used to keep track of things, too, of course — some people tag all pictures with who’s in them, or tag art or fic with tags that mean they can find them again. Tags are versatile! But reblog, don’t just like, and tag! The more you interact, the happier content creators are!

What not to do

Don’t repost. If you see something you like on tumblr, reblog it. Even if it’s a really old piece of fanart (like circa 2011). Reblog that old post! Reposting means people don’t get credit, and it doesn’t link back to them. That’s not cool, and in the long term makes fandom less happy.

How to cultivate a happy and healthy fandom

Send happy anons! Ask how people are doing, do question memes, say how much you loved fic/art/edits, etc.

Reblog art. Reblog fic. Reblog what makes you laugh. The more you reblog, the more other people see, the more the fandom moves! Content creators just want their things seen; every time you reblog, their phone gets that little notification and you’ve given someone a bit of happiness.

Unfollow people who annoy you. Follow people who make you happy!

If someone has a take about 1D that you don’t agree with, don’t tell them or send them argumentative anons. Find people who will agree with you, and complain to them privately. Or make your own post, not shading anyone, just presenting your own opinion and theories!

Remember that everyone is a real person. Cut them some slack when you find them being annoying. But also, unfollow. Curate your dash.

[echoes-of-mia]

okay this is a long ramble and kinda personal, so bear with me, but i want to talk about being aspec in the joker out fandom bc I'm full of emotions and i need to share them somewhere

(just a short warning for internalised aphobia before i go on)

for context, i identify as aspec, more specifically asexual and some flavour of aromantic. I've known about the ace part for about 3-4 years now, the aro part is more recent and I'd say that before, lets say, a couple of months ago, I'd always seen that as something negative, something that makes me miserable, a deficit that will always be there and that others will never understand

and then i joined the (tumblr) joker out fandom around... june of last year, probably? and at first i thought "theres no way there are many queer people in this fandom, its essentially a boyband, and other aspec people? no way"

well, oh boy was i wrong

because not only is this fandom, like what, 90% queer? (i know someone made a poll at some point but i dont remember the percentages) but it's also around 50% aspec. and there's just this general positivity and support surrounding the a-spectrum in the fandom. like, some days ago there was an aphobic comment somewhere and before i even saw it my dash was FLOODED with people defending aspec people and i was just sitting in the kitchen reading through the posts and crying.

and yes, this is tumblr, i could have seen this coming and it's probably different on other platforms, but so many aspec people in one place, in one fandom, is still something that I've never experienced before.

so why are so many aspec people drawn to a slovenian indie/shagadelic rock band that, at first glance, is just 5 very good-looking probably-straight guys making music? that doesnt really make sense, right?

and then you see how much more they are. how they interact with each other. how comfortable they are in their sexualities, in their masculinity, in being themselves. you see a group of friends that love each other so unashamedly it's a bit unbearable to watch sometimes. you don't see them holding back because "thats not their partner!" or "that's reserved for romantic relationships!", you just see love. you see them supporting each other, being physically affectionate, looking out for each other, laughing together, even living together. vse kar vem could easily be a romantic song, but it's about their friendship!!

and what is all of that, if not THE dream of many aspec people? to be okay with not feeling sexual or romantic attraction because you have your group of friends that you love the same amount as allosexual/-romantic people love their partner(s) and to show it, and to know that they love you the same (and won't replace you with romantic partners) because they also show it, without thinking twice about it, without thinking about how others might interpret your relationship because it just doesn't matter as long as you love each other.

so of course aspec people see themselves in joker out. we see hope for ourselves in them, we are probably a little (or in my case very) jealous of their friendship, we want what they have or we just love to finally see real people live with the sort of affection we would like to have. (just to clarify, this is based mostly on what i feel, so other aspecs might feel completely different about this, idk why I'm trying to generalise this)

and this is about all five of them, but to take jan and nace as an obvious example: they love each other so much that the fans start to speculate, and they know about it. but instead of hiding their affection, they just keep on doing what they're doing. because they know how they feel for each other, and it's no one else's business, and they won't be stopping their love just because of "conspiracy theories". and to me it doesn't matter how they love each other (platonic, romantic, whatever), it matters that they do and that you can't help but notice it, because they show it in every interaction we see of them. the damon baker photoshoot just confirmed that, they look at each other and the amount of love makes me cry, it's so incredibly beautiful.

(just some other things i want to mention: them probably cooking mostly potatoes because nace is glutenfree. nace calming down bojan after his panic attack in summer. jan and bojan casually kissing on the lips during a concert. the jure and bojan getting married photoshoot. bojan touching kris's hair during concerts. kris being carried around during a photoshooting. jure and jan drawing a heart together. them gathering around jure's drumset during concerts. i could go on but for my sanity and yours i won't, there are so many moments that just make me soft)

I'd love to be more physically affectionate with my friends, but every time there's this voice in the back of my head saying what society has conditioned it to say, which is that that kind of affection is reserved for romantic relationships, and this voice stops me every time. i feel like bojan, jan, jure, kris and nace either don't have that voice (anymore?) or they've just managed to ignore it, they don't hold back and i admire that as much as i wish i could be like that.

and while i still have a long way to go until i can be affectionate with my friends without worrying about it or holding myself back, joker out have shown me that it's possible, because of them i finally have days on which i think that i can be aspec and actually happy about it. being aspec finally feels as freeing as it should feel and I'm just grateful

joker out has allowed so much queer joy into my life without intending to and although i don't think anyone i know irl will ever understand this, i hope that some of you can relate to this in some way.

I've said this a lot during the past two weeks but i can never say it enough: all the love to my fellow aspecs, and also to all the non-aspec people who support us <3

feel free to add to this if you want to; my dms are always open if you want to talk about it without posting about it, i love hearing other people's thoughts about stuff like this ^^

[discworld-heritage-posts]

What do you think you add? Do you think you make a poignant post better when after scrolling down through it we see someone saying it's "official"?

I'm choosing to interpret this ask as a genuine question (albeit one that's been worded a bit rudely) instead of a hate anon, because I wouldn't want to tarnish people's dashboards with hate anons.

Now, to answer your genuine question... The "Discworld Heritage Post" tagline I add to the end of posts has as much validity as I have authority to bestow it: none. Do I think my tagline makes posts better? Of course not! And I certainly don't think I make them official, (and neither my url or my pinned post claim that I do so).

I don't know what reasons other people had to start their own Heritage Posts blogs for other fandoms, but I will gladly tell you mine: I got into Discworld. I discovered the Discworld fandom in Tumblr. And, one day, while scrolling down some Discworld related tags, the idea just popped into my head. After checking that there wasn't a Discworld Heritage Posts blog already, I decided to make one.

I personally follow a few Heritage Posts blogs, and my reason to do so is probably the same as to why many people follow this blog: I wanted to see that kind of content. Tracking tags and being up to date on the most popular posts of a fandom is doable, but doing so for the dozens upon dozens of media I'm into is impossible, so I like to follow some Heritage Posts blogs to get some of those posts directly into my dashboard (it's also worth mentioning that sometimes, some iconic posts are made when people comment stuff on them, and those don't appear in the search tags, so following blogs that post about a certain fandom is the best way to come across some of those collaborative posts, because otherwise you'd rarely get to see them). So yes, I created a blog that, had it already existed, I would have liked to follow. Also, while other blogs with this gimmick usually limit themselves to reblogging, let's call them the "greatest hits", I've said since the beginning that I didn't care about how many notes something had. Be it cool art or a funny or insightful post, if I like it, I send it to my drafts.

However, none of those reasons are the main reason why I made this blog. The main reason is that I did it for myself. After exhausting all the content that showed up in the Popular Posts tab, I couldn't help but think of all the gold and treasure that wasn't there, buried and hidden due to the way Tumblr's search engine works. If you're familiar with the Discworld concept of "lies-to-children", that's what the "top posts of all time" is in Tumblr. A 20k post from 2016 will not be there, but a six month old post with 400 notes will show up. Surely there had been amazing Discworld posts and art posted in 2015 and 2013, but I wasn't going to find most of them unless I expressly went looking for them. And this blog was the perfect excuse to do so. As of replying to this ask, there's nearly 600 posts sitting in my drafts, and if I didn't have this blog I would have never discovered 90% of them. And those are the ones I've seen. I still have dozens of places I haven't searched.

I know that if I reblog a month old post with over 2k notes, a lot of people in the fandom will have already seen it. However, a 2k notes post from 2014, or a drawing with 40 notes from 2012 is something that is less likely to have hit people's dashes recently, or at all. When you come across the "Discworld Heritage Post" tagline in a post, please don't picture me as an uppity monarch performing the Tumblr equivalent of a knighting ceremony, or a stuffy museum curator deigning a piece worthy of being included in an exhibition. Picture me as a kid enthusiastically jumping and flailing my arms around while yelling "holy shit guys check out what I just found!!", because that's how I feel running this blog.

Ultimately, whether one of my posts does better or worse is indifferent to me, because they aren't my posts, or memes, or drawings. I'm just the intermediary. That being said, of course it's not indifferent to me, because more engagement means that was a post many people hadn't seen before, or had forgotten about, and one of my goals was to run a blog that would allow people to find those hidden or long forgotten gems.

When all is said and done, Heritage Post blogs are just another one of Tumblr's gimmicks. If we're not your cup of tea, you're free to ignore or block us. If you want to reblog something and don't want the tagline, you can reblog it directly from OP (or from another reblog if OP has deactivated their account).

[anistarrose]

I've been experiencing a lot of hand and wrist pain recently. This is because I've overextended myself writing IDs.

I've been doing some things to mitigate the pain and overexertion, but I'm still typing this post a lot more slowly than normal. (Rose from the future reports: I took two separate breaks.) And you may have noticed me writing fewer IDs recently — because I type those more slowly, too. The best thing for the long-term health of my body is probably finding ways to type less, not just slowly, and in general.

"But Rose, I've still seen you writing, like, a lot of IDs! Even if it's less!" you say, correctly. This is because I have Psychological Issues, including but not limited to: an unhealthy sense of obligation, an inability to break bad habits, and most of all, unrealistic standards.

But you know what, I don't like talking about my psychological issues. Instead, I want to talk about two statements regarding accessibility that feel like they're in tension with each other, even though they're actually corollaries.

First, not everyone can write an ID for all the posts in need of a description that they'd like to share.

Second, relying on a small number of people to make up the ID deficit across an entire community is unsustainable.

Struggling to make up an ID deficit single-handedly leads to burnout. It leads to the people who write the most IDs becoming those who can't write as many as they want to, or used to be able to. I have spent years dedicating myself to making my fandoms more accessible, both writing IDs and strategizing to encourage and help others to write their own. In most of my fandoms, I started out as one of a tiny number of bloggers doing this. And overwhelmingly, we still saw incredible success. (Encouraging people to add my IDs to their posts wasn't my invention, but I think it was a game changer. I strongly suspect it helped people take the baby step of learning formatting that emboldened them to write an ID all on their own next time.)

But. The sheer number of IDs I wrote was never going to be long-term healthy. I'm going to be making changes to my workflow, trying to use more OCR, maybe exploring voice to text. Most of all, though, my second biggest need is wrist exercises, and my absolute biggest need is downtime. I can't make up the ID deficit on my own. To do so would be superhuman.

I could keep going on. But you can all see the length of this post I just typed, about my inability to type without pain. So, I will instead leave you with just two more thoughts:

First, if you frequently type IDs, find places in your workflow for two types of breaks. Stretches, and downtime.

And second, if you don't often write IDs, but think you could, without undue mental or physical stress? I want you to write one.

Just one. The single easiest image on your dash or in your drafts that's not described already. If it's a screenshot of text, you can use Google Lens or any other text extractor. Make it as easy as possible on yourself. But try it nonetheless. Even if your blog still wouldn't be anywhere near fully described.

A few people writing a lot of IDs is a recipe for burnout. A lot of people writing a few IDs, and a few people writing a medium amount, is the future.

[savebylou]

Hi❤

I've never posted or reblogged anything at all ever because I didn't see the point and I find the thought so scary. This is like my safe space - and exept from sending an anonymous ask sometimes (It was not until quite recently I had the courage to and felt safe enough to do so.) - I kind of don't want anyone to see me. But now I am considering to start reblogging posts that I like instead of just liking them. Because I've seen a lot of posts recently about how important it is for fandom and tumblr itself.

I know that there's probably a lot of posts out there about how to use tumblr, but do you have any tips about how/where to start? And can you go back and write tags on your post after you have posted them or is that impossible?

Thank you for being here, I think you are very important to this fandom and I love your blog. Hugs from me❤

Hi anon! Sorry for the late response. First thank you for sending your ask, the last part of your message make my day, I really need it that. I think is amazing you had find the courage to send asks and interest to reblog content that is wonderful. This is a long post so answering below resources of how to tumblr and tutorials:

I totally understand the feeling of just wanting to see content, I was a lurker for months before I really have the motivation to start being active and it can feel intimidating sometimes because is not something we used to do, but with time you start to feel comfortable.

For resources here are some:

1.This post explains some basics of how to tumblr, how to use the tags, some suggestion in your profile and just general recommendations of how to behave on tumblr.

2.For personalize your blog: I recommend this post of making your dash in chronological order and this one about shorter posts. Also how to put some basic info in your bio (I will said that you don't need to put some much details of you, not even your name depending of how much you are comfortable to share, but the basic is just changing your profile pic and put some info like what you like or something along those lines so people know you are not a bot).

3. For using gifs in posts this is very useful.

4. How to find a post.

5. Protect your blog from AI resarch propouse.

6. I like this post reflecting on the reblogs, how your blog is a space to collect your shiny fandom objects. I see it as like my dairy of the fandom, post and reblog what you like to have this as a memory.

7. In case you want to make a post but don't want anyone to reblog your post.

My advice on how to tumblr:

1.Curate your own experience: Follow the people that you enjoy their content, filter the tags that you are not interested to see (I will put below how to), in case you keep seeing content for someone you disagree and don't like unfollow or block them.

2. You can reblog without the need to write tags or you can write tags, that is up to you.

3. Always be kind and if you don't like a post don't engage with it, ignore it.

4. Enjoy! Tumblr is to have fun, the moment that starts to not being fun, reflect of what you need to enjoy it or put some boundaries that you need so it doesn't affect you.

5. Don't overthink it. It feels very intimidating when everyone has their own mutual bubble but this is a very welcoming fandom if you follow people that you enjoy.

6. Try not to worry so much about follows, likes and reblogs. People come and go, you stay true to yourself regardless of who follows you or don't, is hard to get someone to follow you especially at the beginning but just try to focus on your blog and having fun.

7. Don't be afraid to interact, send asks, or talk in the tags, people enjoy it as long as your are kind. I will also say don't spam the asks hehe, if you want to share your thought make your own posts as well.

8. If you are a creator: In case you want to create something and share things do it for yourself and no one else. Is hard to get people to see yor posts but still don't lose the joy to share content regardless if people see it or not. I will add that for post of your own creation add tags so more people see it, for example if is about louis put the tag #louis tomlinson (there are also some especific tags that other blogs follow to reblog creators let me know if you want them).

Tutorial:

-Filter tags: This is super useful to not see content that either you are not interested or is triggering. First you go to Settings>Account

After this you go to the part Filter Tags and click on the edit icon on the right.

It appear a space where you can write the word or words to filter, when you are done you click on add.

After that it will show you this:

You can add filter tags as much as you want or remove them in case you need it. On your dashboard the filter content will appear like this:

Only if you click on view post you will see the content otherwise it will always look like that the filter tags. The only problem is when people don't use tags so you can't filter those posts.

-How to edit tags: About your question on edit the tags after, you can totally go back and add tags after. Here is how:

This is a post of a reblog I made, in the right corner there is a icon of a pencil that means you can edit, tap there.

It will show you either your tags or the post without tags:

You start writing in the add tags. The trick for the tags is that you write your word or phrase and to end your tag you tap the # that will automatically save that tag and let you go to the next one (there is a limit of words for each tag but you can still write in the next tag). When you finish you click on save and your tags will be save.

And because my brain is half a meme a funny post about reblogging.

I hope this is useful and not very confusing. Let me know if you have a specific question and I can make you a tutorial or share resources.

Thank you again for your ask, your motivation to want to reblog and for your sweet message it means a lot.

I hope you have a lovely day/afternoon/night. Sending you a big hug too.

[dean-is-love]

My thoughts on 9-1-1 and why I started watching

So, I've been seeing 9-1-1 on my dash for some years now. After the Supernatural fandom died down a bit in late 2021-2022, Eddie and Buck started showing up on my dash more and more. Frankly, I didn't really care so much, it was around the time I stopped actively blogging on tumblr.

In early 2024 I was back on tumblr occasionally, checking in with what was trending from time to time - now i'm on here almost daily again - and i saw that 9-1-1 was trending. I vaguely remembered that it was something about firefighters but didn't really pay attention to it.

Then posts started appearing on my dash about Buck coming out as bisexual in season 7, which I thought was amazing. As a bisexual person myself, I really love when there is bi representation in media, and coming out stories are really close to my heart because they helped me so much with figuring out my identity when I was younger.

I was skeptical at first because I thought it was just a one off mention kind of thing - like these things usually are - that maybe he was more of a side character.

Imagine my surprise when I saw that it was a multiple episode thing, that he was actually dating a man - I'll tell you my thoughts about Tommy later in this post - AND that he was one of the main characters of the show.

I knew about Buddie and knew that the fandom would probably be equally as happy and divided about this development.

Because I was procrastinating on my exams HARD and was sick of watching random youtube videos I decided to start watching 9-1-1 to get context for Buck's coming out and hopefully enjoy the show and the shipping while I was at it.

My first surprise was Buck actually being a main character. I think because of how I have usually seen people come out - or rather not come out - in other shows, I was pleasantly surprised.

It's the kind of thing where you can theorize a character being bisexual, but you know the writers are just queerbaiting/never intend to make them actually bi. Characters who are bi in these kind of drama shows are usually bi from the start, if that makes sense.

An example that comes to mind is Magnus from Shadowhunters. He was bi from the beginning, there was no big plot about him coming out - it was just a fact. There are many examples for writers never going through with it, but it's obvious that they are intentionally writing it - two examples are Dean Winchester and Stiles Stilinski.

I have no clue what was going on behind the scenes of this show and I'm not that deep in the fandom (because I don't want to get spoilers for the later seasons), but the fact that Buck didn't start out as a character that they meant to make bisexual from the start is what means the most to me.

I think the early seasons have almost no clues to his bisexuality (i'm on season 3 as i'm writing it).

There is queerbaiting with Eddie and Buck and I think that is pretty obvious from the end of season 2. I think it started in the last episode of the season, when someone was livestreaming and comments about them being cute together popped up in the chat. After that their friendship was suddently more and more in the spotlight.

Knowing now that they -partially- went through with it and actually made Buck bisexual, I don't mind it as much as I would have without knowing.

I really enjoy the representation on this show, it feels more natural to me than other shows I've seen recently.

That being said, I need to talk about Tommy.

Disclaimer he has been in maybe 3 episodes so far so please don't crucify me if I get something wrong about him.

Piecing together information from my dash before watching the show, I had reached the conclusions that Tommy was a) a pilot b) probably a character that was newly introduced in season 7 to date Buck and then disappear forever.

The second conclusion, as sad as it is, is simply how gay characters are treated in these kinds of shows (I mean it happened to Glen in season 2).

So imagine my surprise when Tommy showed up in Chimney's flashback episode. This was honestly huge for me. And yes, he is a side character, at least for now. But I do think that two established ("straight" - the other firefighters mention Tommy's girlfriend) characters getting together is amazing.

I love that they didn't pair up Buck with someone random and instead have him date someone who is already on the show, and has been for a while.

And okay, it isn't Eddie, but if the writers have the balls to go through with Buddie, hats off to them.

But I personally think Buck+Tommy is amazing too, and I'm really excited to get to season 7 to see it all unfold. (I do have a soft spot for Tommy)

I hope that watching so many cheesy speeches about family will pay off in the end, and that I can enjoy the bi Buck storyline to its fullest once I get to it.

[emilykaldwen]

"Blocking isn't some personal insult. Its a method of saying; hey, we clearly shouldn't interact, so I'm gonna build this soundproof wall between us to make sure we can't."

Except that's not what the people you associate with do and encourage you and others to do by extension. I really liked your writing, but it's disappointing to see the type of people you've chosen to buddy up to, who use blocking as a way to weaponize social media and make pariahs out of certain people in the fandom who don't bow to their whims. I hope they don't burn you the way they've burned so many others, but with their track record, I'm not holding my breath.

Okay let's do this. I'm tired. I would like to go back to sleep. Get off my lawn, etc etc.

I have been dealing with anons harassing me since I started posting HotD stuff back during the Season 1 show run. I got hateful anons saying terrible things about Abby back in December. When I interacted with NONE of the people that I currently interact with today. This escalated when I properly began posting Maiden in the summer of last year, and then escalated in the fall. After receiving some truly foul anons in regards to my writing, my OC, and my work, including one telling me to kill myself, I shut anons off. Because what the actual fuck. I have been on the internet for 25 fucking years and this is the first time I have EVER dealt with such bullshit.

Before these anons ramped up, I, like many people, blocked. A lot. I blocked mostly people thirst reblogging stuff about the actors that would cross my dash or in the tags because it made me uncomfortable, I didn't want to see it. I blocked a lot of blogs that were posting these weird reader x canon character thirst lists that I just found bizarre and didn't want to see scrolling through a character tag. That, friends, is what the block button is for. I block people with takes that I disagree with as well, I'm someone whose pretty liberal with my block button. I block things I don't want to see on my dash. It's honestly as simple as that.

No one has fucking told me to block anyone. I am actually deeply fucking insulted that I, a grown ass adult who is nearly forty, needs to be told to block someone/someones when people are setting up blogs called 'ihateemilykaldwens' and trying to terrorize me, and my friends and mutuals, and then try to frame another one of my mutuals for being responsible for it in the process. I only just recently started speaking with "the individuals" I've chosen to associate with long after I have blocked the people you're saying are being bullied.

And if this is about my post the other day about the culture I see: It was never actually about anyone specific, it was genuinely trends I have seen cross my dash as well as discussions with friends in other fandoms. That's all. If someone(s) thought I was talking about them specifically: Dude, IDK what to tell you. That's a you problem.

So let's stop playing coy. I'm tired of it.

THIS. IS. A SMALL. BLOG. I do not pass a block list around and TELL people or encourage them to block them, nor have I ever have it done to me. And even IF someone said 'omg you should block all these people' uh, no? I have free will and can make my own judgements?

Anon, if this situation is upsetting to you, either come off anon in the DMs and talk to me, or you are welcome to unfollow me. I don't care, and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

Because the people I've blocked on my own make others feel the way you're claiming they make you feel.

Because we all know who everyone is talking about. And I'm done. This is 12 year old behavior and I don't interact with minors.

I'm going back to bed. Whatever is in the fucking water, I want none of it.