#i click on the link to the tumblr and is a blank blog with a title changed to 'my username now bitch'

[thedeafprophet]

when you click on a link to someones blog from another profile and you find something that implies There Was Drama here and it leads you onto a research spiel into some interweb of drama of people you literarly know nothing about and are entierly unrelated to you

[mornyavie]

I get why tumbler staff might feel it's a priority to make the site's UI more intuitive to people used to modern social media platforms. But if that's the goal then why does it feel like they're rolling a d20 to decide what UI element to attach a link to?

[ethosiab]

Sigh... Reposting bots are still a big problem in the hc and life series related tags still. I know there's been posts abt this done before, but since I still see these things getting engagement I think it bears repeating.

If you see a post like THIS:

As in, a post that's:

Reposted work (whether a text post, or art, ive seen both)

From a blank blog (no pfp, or header image or bio) with few posts, or at least very inconsistent posts

And a really weird read more link that often cuts off the caption

—it is a bot. The link in the post is not an actual tumblr read-more link. It'll lead to some other site, and you should not click it. Report the account as 'spam and/or bot' and block it so you don't have to see future posts clogging up the tag.

[phantomcodes]

poppy | theme by sage

get the code: static preview v1 / preview v2 header theme with a sticky headerbar

features (more info below the cut):

toggle: tags on click, updates tab, explore menu

responsive headerbox includes an uploadable image, custom title & description, and up to 5 info stats

sticky headerbar includes home/ask/archive & up to 3 extra links, updates, explore button or search bar, and day/night button

updates tab includes up to 5 updates with an icon & text

explore menu includes about text, up to 3 skills, up to 4 blogs, and up to 8 extra links, and a search bar

customizable: title, colors, body & title fonts, and font size

npf supported, responsive design, 3 post width options, 4 corner options, scroll to top, tabler icons

nothing needs to be changed in the code, everything can be changed in the customize panel!

terms:

reblog if using

do not touch the credit

all terms / faq

credits listed in the code / credits page

please consider tipping or supporting me ♡

blog name !! important

make sure you fill out the blog name field, this is what will show on the top of all your original posts. to clarify: your blog name is your blog’s url - for example: phantomcodes

custom title

similar to the blog name, your custom title will show on the header, i recommend not making this too long

headerbox

uploadable image - this will default to your icon if nothing is uploaded

up to 5 info stats each with an icon & text - if you don't want the info stats leave the info 1 field blank

updates tab

the updates tab is toggleable, it has up to 5 updates each with an icon & text

explore menu

the explore menu is toggleable and has:

about text: this is can be as long as you want! it will scroll

(optional) skills section: up to 3 - you can use this for statuses, projects, progress, etc. leave the explore skill 1 field blank if you don’t want this section

(optional) blogs section: up to 4 blogs - leave the explore blog 1 field blank if you don’t want this section

(optional) links section: up to 8 links - leave the explore link 1 field blank if you don’t want this section

reminders

remember tumblr’s customize panel is buggy, make sure to toggle all the options on/off before saving

i’m still on a sort of semi-hiatus, i’ll be around for questions but please check my faq, answered asks, etc. before asking - i will not answer repeat questions!

[scam-alerts]

❗❗Scam Update❗❗

Previously on... 🔎Scam Exam(ination)🔍

Seen as: I would like a commission of my son/pet... Scam Type: Commission Scam

Please read this post for a complete rundown of this scam.

While browsing #scams on tumblr earlier today, I saw a post from the wonderful and very talented @louksna-0 where they were calling out a scam account that seemed to be running the art commission scam.

After messaging them.. I found out something... interesting.

The scammers are now changing their script.

@louksna-0 was kind enough to answer some questions and help explain their interactions with this scammer with me, and even provided me with some screenshots which I'll show you all as well.

----------

Part 1 - How it start(s/ed)

Note: @louksna-0 has told me that due to being blocked, they cannot access their conversation with this scammer, but they were kind enough to detail their conversation with me to the best of their ability. :)

@scam-alerts: When this person messaged you for a commission, what did they ask you to draw? What was your response, and what sort of images did they provide?

@louksna-0: They asked me to draw two cartoon portraits of a girl with blue eyes and blonde hair, it was 2 photos, but the second seemed to be taken from a video, not a photo itself. I told her alright, the two were separate drawings, one for $18, the other $20. $38 in the end. She started pressuring me for the details of the commission to get the process finished, being cold and even rude.

@scam-alerts: Did you tell them a price first, or did they offer you money first? Was this amount higher than normal, or was it the price of your commissions?

@louksna-0: I told them the price first, they didn't offer a price to pay. They were pressuring me to tell them the final price.

@louksna-0: I say them because although the profile seems like a girl. Her account of PayPal, email confirmation and Tumblr were all different. So I can't really say their gender. Her profile said Elizabeth, her email said mayes Mary, and her PayPal account said Margaret castro.

These were the screenshots provided to me:

image 1 - The scammer getting very persistent in having @louksna-0 check their spam email for confirmation that the money was sent.

image 2 - The different names that appear on the PayPal, blog, and email (in that order.)

Image 3 - A screenshot of the fake email. (the same exact one that can be seen in the previous scam exam(ination) report.

Image 4 - This one is.. odd. @louksna-0 says that this was sent to them by the same email with a request telling them to send a refund, yet it has a very odd and fishy looking link. (they did not click on it.)

----------

Part 2 - Examining the Evidence

From what it looks like, the scam is pretty much the same 'I want you to draw my <thing>' scam except now they've switched from:

can you draw my son / daughter / pet. to can you draw this cartoon character*

*They might look at blogs now and see what an artists 'style' is to get a grasp on what an artist can do before trying to run this scam? Since not all artists can draw kids and/or pets? So that might be worth keeping an eye on.

They've also switched from:

Offering you a very large amount of money. to accepting commission prices to seem unsuspicious.

----------

Part 3 - What you should do now

🚩Red flags still present🚩

Blogs sending these asks are either blank or bare in one way in another. Little to no reblogs, maybe 'one' picture or two posted. In this case the scammer just had a picture of a dog that probably isn't even theirs.

They will refuse to pay with any other method than PayPal.

The purpose of asking for your real name and your PayPal email is just so they can make a fake email to scam you.

Stop. Read the email very carefully. Think about what it's asking you.

'you are to send (name) money to expand your account.' You are to send someone money, to get money.

You can't just 'expand' your account by sending another user money. That's not how PayPal works.

Emails from these scammers will always show up in your spam folder because they are not from the real PayPal service. They are 100% fake. Only trust emails about PayPal from a @paypal.com email address. Any email claiming to be from PayPal ending in a gmail/hotmail/yahoo.com address is. a. scam.

Always check your PayPal account via the website or App for issues before responding to someone and certainly before sending anyone money. If you see no issues, there are no issues.

Never click links in an email you get during or after interacting with a stranger when money is involved. If someone asks: 'did you get the email?' Check your spam folder.' Make sure you click the link to fix your account.' It's a scam. And they're probably trying to hack you.

----------

Final thoughts:

Remember, take screenshots and report these users to the websites they are running these scams on. If they DM you on tumblr? Report the DM. If they do it on insta, bsky, twitter or even discord?

Make sure you report them there too.

ALSO: Beware of recovery scammers. This is anyone coming into your DM's telling you they can 'help you get your money back' after you made a post talking about how you got scammed. These scammers are just looking for a quick buck.

I've got a whole post right here talking about what one looks like.

Take care and stay vigilant.

And thanks again to @louksna-0 for being a dear. <3

Other helpful guides on spotting scams. (by @kyra45)

[thenerdyindividual]

Y’all I think another fanfic scam is going around.

[img id: a message from account avawhite inviting me to sign up for ifanfiction.com]

ifanfiction.com is a real site, but when you investigate it, there is a home page stating that their most popular genres are BTS, Werewolf, Billionaire, and Mafia using AI art as cover photos for the genre. It claims that there are 100,000+ stories published with 100 million readers. However if you try to click on any of the genre title cards, it doesn't take you to any actual writing. They also claim to have "professional editors", "fanfic community", and "work respected". The logo they used for fanfic community was a head with AI written inside it which does not inspire confidence.

Going to the authors page, there are a few paragraphs about what the benefits of writing for this site which sound like they were written by AI. They say you can also publish original fiction on that site and they will give you “fixed royalty share and bonuses from the income”. They make sure to say that all fanfic is free on their site, but later claim that users are paying to use the site. The only way to sign up as a writer is to either email the address in the screenshot above, or if you go to author.ifanfiction.com. However upon poking around the author page, there was no TOS. There also does not seem to be a sign up page to be a reader.

I followed the link to their facebook group, and found that there is only one member who is the admin. There are no posts, and the group was not created until December 14, 2023.

I investigated the tumblr that messaged me. This is what their blog page looks like.

As you can see it is blank like a bot page is. I also checked out their likes. There were only two and both were fic collection posts. They follow 8 people, 7 of whom have updated in the last day and the other updated a month ago. So it’s clear that they are active accounts which is likely how they were followed.

All of this seems really sketchy. I make no claims as to what the site is actually attempting to do, but it seems like it’s a combo of email phishing and AI scraping. I would not recommend trusting this site with any of your work, fanfic or original.

[thedepressedjuggalette]

You never looked at the evidence if you really believe all they have is cropped screenshots. Your rhetoric about unrelated events in the past has nothing to do with your disgusting attitude towards people genuinely hurt and abused by that monster. It's clear all you've done is do exactly what Lily says to do and refuse to look at what her victims post. They are her VICTIMS. THE SAME VICTIMS YOU CALLED PREDATORS BECAUSE YOU DON'T WANT TO CLICK A FEW LINKS AND READ THROUGH POSTS THAT SPOONFEED YOU EVERYTHING SHE DOES.

Really love how you ignored the fact that I said and I quote "I've watched plenty of videos going into the abuse allegations" and I've even name dropped Ethel (aka Essence of Thought) as an example.

I really loved that. It's adorable. Learn to fucking read.

Also I am a victim of Pedophilia and fyi my abuser actually is a free man because the courts said there was a "lack of evidence". Thanks for reminding of that, asshole.

But let me give you a simple thought experiment that I KNOW you're not going to answer or are going to find a way to weasel your way out of answering:

Lily Orchard stated that her parents were extremely abusive, her sister even stated this in her own blogs and in her interview with Essence of Thought. Her sister's Tumblr Bio even has her bragging about how she was their parent's favorite -- not Lily.

So let me ask you, if Lily's sister was the golden child and Lily was the scapegoat... WHY DIDNT HER SISTER OPEN HER FUCKING MOUTH?

Lily even stated that IF she was such an abusive disgusting asshole her parents would've MURDERED HER. Point blank. PERIOD.

IF Lily's sister was such a favorite, such a golden child, their parents would've killed Lily a long ass time ago.

Now let's look at recent events.

It's been confirmed by Lily and KP herself that KP tried to get Lily and her sister into a call together....

IF Lily was SUCH AN ABUSIVE ASSHOLE...WHO THE FUCK THINKS ITS A GOOD IDEA TO PUT AN ABUSER AND THEIR VICTIM IN THE SAME CALL LET ALONE THE SAME ROOM WITH EACH OTHER NO MATTER WHO THE FUCK THE THIRD PARTY IS????

That shit is NEVER a good idea. But what makes this shit even more sus to me is the fact that KP got UPSET when LILY FUCKING ORCHARD was the one to say "No!" LEAVE THE CALL when this idea was brought up. KP stated this.

Do you want to know what this says to me. This says that Lily wasn't the abuser in this situation.

Lily was having a trauma response.

But Lily's sister was the one open to the idea of getting into a call with her supposed abuser... WHAT THE FUCK???

As a victim of pedophilia I can honestly say to you that if someone tried to get me in a call with my bio father - my abuser - I'd run so fucking far I'd change my name and move to the other side of the fucking planet if I had to.

My own mother tried to get me to interact with my cousins, aunts, and uncles from my bio-fathers side of the family and the answer has always been "No!" every single fucking time.

Why?

Because I don't want to be anywhere near the IDEA of my abuser let alone anywhere near him.

It makes me sick. So tell me why the fuck is it that Lily's supposed victim, Lily's sister adopts Lily's name, actively reached out to one of her friends and even reached out to her on Deviant Art to INTERACT with Lily?

Everything that the sister does doesn't scream "this a victim of an abuser."

It screams "THIS IS A POWER PLAY FROM AN ABUSER!"

So let's look at what this entire situation says to me.

Lily Orchard didn't want to be forced by KP to join a call with one of her supposed "victims" and is her sister who has been BRAGGING about being their parents golden child and could've gotten her murdered at any time said sister felt like it. Lily said "No!" and left the call.

Predators LOVE to have power over their victims. They LOVE having info on their victims and former victims. It's like crack to them. It always has been. So IF Lily was a predator... Why is it that she's been avoiding her sister? Her supposed former victim...

My abuser used the fact that I was just a naive 7 year old against me all the time. That my mom would never believe me. And he was damn near right until he broke up with my mom in another one of their heated arguments and after a month of him being gone I spilt my guts and my mom kept asking me "Are you sure?" until she finally faced reality and realized that he was in fact a predator.

Can't wait to see how you'll ignore all of this shit and all of these questions in the next ask which I'm 99% sure is going to be you twisting yourself into knots to not answer them and bitch about whatever perceived slite you find in this.

Also before I forget I'm mature enough to see that Lily was obviously annoyed and saw plenty of people whining about her about anime and just took it out in that ask and thus I didn't take it personally. I don't have to take every insult someone gives me personally.

I didn't call her supposed victims predators. You just did though LOL. Way to out yourself there bud.

What I've been doing is pointing out that the shit being thrown at Lily is the EXACT same things that have been thrown and accused at LGBTQIA+ people for years, especially in the current Political Climate. Marjorie Taylor Green and JK Rowling have been throwing pedophilia and grooming allegations at the Trans Community for YEARS.

And what makes this shit all the more suspicious to me is that A LOT of Lily's haters dead name her and misgender her so often it's expected of them and when Lily's sister first came on scene, and this was pointed out by Essence of Thought herself, she misgendered and deadnamed Lily until she realized that Ethel was going to continue to correct her so she had to use Lily's name and gender.

It's no secret that the majority of Lily's haters are transphobes so it's not hard to expect that they'd use the very talking points transphobes have been throwing at the trans community for YEARS.

[anitalianfrie]

So. You once believed tumblr to be your safe space, your archive, your goldmine. Instead, thanks to "unforseen" circumstances (fuck you dorna), you now fear for the safety and integrity of your blog and you want to know if there's a quick way to download a lot of posts without having to do it manually (I spent half an hour yesterday doing it. Do not recommend)

Fret not my child, and welcome to

How to save the posts under a whole tag in five easy steps!

Needed preface: while this method works great for images, videos, and gifs, the same thing cannot be said for text post, which will be saved in unreadable html. I mean, you can always feed the file to a compiler, I guess. Or painstakingly copy paste everything on word. Maybe it could work on ao3 too, actually, I should check.

ANYWAYS.

Step 1: go here, and download the zip file. Once you've done it, extract it, open it, and run the program, that inside the folder will look like

this. (the one in the centre. so that we're all on the same page)

Step 2: once you've done it, you'll run to me saying "cate anitalianfrie, this graphic interface looks like a relic from the nineties!" to which I'll answer, yes, but it works and that's all that matters. Then, you'll open the settings (gear on the botton right of the page) , go to the page named "blog" and where you see the option "tags" put the tag you want to download the content from.

(it's located in the bottom right section of the page)

the space will be blank. put the tag without the "#", and with the spaces.

if you want to download from more than one tag at a time, you can! just beware that it's not an intersection of the two tags (aka: not downloading the post that have both tags) but a union (aka: WILL download posts with one, the other or both tags). if that's still fine by you, put a "," between a tag and the other (ex: "my gif, cate.txt").

SAVE BEFORE CLOSING THE SETTINGS

Step 3(optional): the program automatically saves in the folder blog inside the folder your program is in. if you wish to change this, go to the "general" page of the setting. at the top, you'll see this:

go to browse and select the floder you want to put your posts in. (ps. obviously your download location will be different than mine. i've already changed it. the standard would have been C:\User\your_username\wherever_you_extracted_the_zip\Blogs)

SAVE BEFORE CLOSING THE SETTINGS

Step 4: past the link of your blog as https://www.your_blog_name.tumblr.com or https://www.tumblr.com/your_blog_name (ex: https://www.anitalianfrie.tumblr.com, https://www.tumblr.com/anitalianfrie) in the little space down on the left,

and press "add blog" on its right

Step 5: click two times on the blog (it now should be at the top of the page) and click "download"

And voilà you're all set! Wait for the machine to finish the crawl and enjoy your newly downloaded content

[slenbee]

Bot spam, adverts, communities, and you.

Hi everyone! I'm Bee, and today I'm writing this post to let others know of some ways to help combat Tumblr's current bot issue happening inside communities.

First, here's an index of this post:

Ways to help stop the bots from invading your communities.

How to spot a potential bot account and a bot invasion.

What a bot community looks like. (So you can report it!)

Long post under the cut with pictures and instructions on what to do if you want to do this or want others to maybe do this, so click read more and let us continue!

-----

To begin, here is the first step should absolutely take towards keeping your community free of bots.

1 - Deny them access.

If you own a community on tumblr?

Set it to request/invite to join.

It's that easy! How do I do this you ask?

Navigate to community settings > down to Joining, and set it to:

This means that anyone can request to join, but it's up to the admin's and the mods to accept those invites. If a blank blog* requests to join, you can easily deny those and just accept those that seem like real people. (&I'll explain what a blank blog is in a bit.)

If your community is small (say less than 500 people with less than 5 invites a week), this shouldn't be too bothersome if you remember to check it once or twice a week or so. :)

And if you're a member of a community that has an active admin:

Ask the admin to set it to request to join!

While this may not be the most ideal way of handling this issue, it never hurts to ask, right? You could always make a poll and see if others vote/feel the same way and maybe they'll change it, too. But, remember, it's up to the admin's discretion on if they want to actually do this. If they don't, then sadly you might have to either deal with it or make your own community if the admin/mods neglect to do their jobs. :(

Note: Staff are working on developing ways to help community admins better moderate their communities. This isn't just a 'we'll have to suffer through it' issue. It's just going to take time, is all.

Until we're given the tools to stop them, this is the only way that we (real people) are going to keep bots and blank blogs* out of our communities until tumblr staff comes up with a concrete way to keep them out.

-----

2 - How to spot a (possible) bot and a bot invasion.

Most bots now'a'days are what I like to call 'blank blogs'.

These type of blank accounts are also widely used by scammers. So if you're an artist and you get a DM from someone asking for a commission of their pet/son, yes, you are about to get scammed!

You can read more about this scam by clicking this link here.

While there have been a few mistaken users who have been caught up and mistaken as as a bot, once I removed them from my community they DM'd me back after I'd requested them to do so, and I explained to them how to change their profile banner, add a description, ect, and told them how reblogging worked on tumblr (as they honestly didn't know how the site worked), and we were all good after that!

My rule of thumb: Humans should do human things on the human website. If you don't, you aren't human.

Blank blogs (presumed to be bots,) are blogs that look like this:

Note the following with these 'blank' blogs:

No change in their background image. No change in their icon. (Just the default.) Generic randomly generated name or 'keysmash' name.* No posts or reblogs. They had 0 liked posts. Yet they were following dozens of people.

*These names can also be 3 English words slapped together to make a username. This is also a common tactic used by scammers (as I'd mentioned prior as well) as mentioned previously.

If you get a DM/ask from a blog like this (or ANY blog) and:

They ask for a commission of their son/daughter and/or their pet. They say 'hey pretty' and try to hit on you. (romance scam.) They try to offer you money to buy your art as a NFT (also a scam.) They try to sell you crypto or get you to invest. (obvious scam.) They try to sell you a product or service. (phishing scam) They try to get you to go off tumblr to a different website to 'talk'. They say they're a sugar daddy/mommy looking for a 'sugar baby'. They offer you some sort of free money. (nothing's free. it's a scam.) They offer you a job position or say <company> is hiring. They try to sell you HRT. (yes.. that's 100% a thing they're doing.)

It is all 100% an attempt to scam you.

Bots will sometimes join communities just for the sake of having people to target. Communities are full of people, so communities with more people are more likely to be targeted and joined by bots.

That's also why bigger Communities get more bot ad/p0rn ad spam.

Here is what a bot invasion looks like:

All blank blogs (I checked!) with no sign of human life.

All with random jibberish names, all joining on the same day.

-----

3 - What a bot community looks like. ....So you can report it!

I'm mentioning this part because I know there will be people who get curious and browse tumblr to find 'new things' and 'new interests'. And I'm here to point out what are the biggest and most obvious signs of bot made communities and/or communities made to scam.

Note: Do not join these communities, and do not, under any circumstance, click any of the links that are featured by these communities. They could very well take you to a phishing website or even something that gives you a virus. If you want to report them, just view the community, click the . . . at the top right corner and report it for spam unless it's doing something illegal. then report it as such.

Again. Don't let curiosity kill your phone/PC/Tablet. It's not worth it.

-----

The search.

So again, say you're new, and you like money. So you search 'money' in the tumblr search and then view communities.

As of right now, you'll see communities like this:

I don't think it takes a rocket scientist to point out the obvious as to which one of these was made by a bot/scammer.

So let's turn out focus to good ol 'Juwa 777 Download APK '

(Again. Do not actually go and download this.)

Things to note:

It only has one member. The admin. And viewing the admin? It is a blank blog.

The only post on this community... is an advertisement.

Thus it is pretty safe to say, a bot / scammer made this community.

Here is a second example further down the list:

Again, things to note:

One member (admin), blank blog, one post that's an advertisement.

Now here is one that's more 'tricky' as it has more members.

But the content itself is an obvious scam.

I won't show the members as a few are porn bots, but they follow the same theme of nonsensical names or 3 english words slapped together. They may reblog posts (usually porn...) or post things (again.. porn), but they're still bots.

If you see communities like these, make sure you report them. Just note if you report too many too fast (usually after 3) you'll get a 'oops try again later' bug for some reason and you'll have to wait to report more.

-----

So in conclusion: If you don't want bots, just don't let them in.

If you can't handle accepting invites, make someone a mod (who you trust) and let them help you accept new member invites. Divide the load and we can keep out the bots and keep our communities safe and clean until something is done about them.

Until then, please make sure to share this so others know what to do, and if you have any questions I'd be happy to answer them in the comments. :)

-Bee

[tenpintsofsundrop]

Fanfiction Etiquette 101

(Things You Didn't Know You Need To Know)

So, I have seen some discussions about these things on my dashboard, and I know some people are new to tumblr and new to fanfiction in general, so I decided to put this list together in case it might help people. And this stuff goes for all fandoms, no matter what type of fanfiction to write and post.

Also fyi, this post is mostly for people who write and post fanfiction.

1: Putting A Readmore/Cut On Fanfiction

So a 'readmore' (also known as a 'cut') is the ability to put the body of your fanfiction under a cut off link so that people's dashboards are not clogged up by long sprawling paragraphs of text. This is also helpful if your fic contains smut and people don't want to be subjected to smut - people have to click through to keep reading sensitive topics.

The button for it looks like this on desktop:

And this bar of options comes up on desktop when you hit 'enter' on a blank line.

And it looks like this on mobile:

Tumblr put it permanently into the hotbar of options so that it's easier for people to put a readmore on their posts on mobile.

Once you have inputted it, it comes up as a light grey jagged line, showing you where your text cuts off in the main post aka what text is visible before the cut and what's not.

And generally, I think it's a good idea to put the readmore after the first paragraph of your fic, or after the description/summary.

I have noticed that some people put it in after several paragraphs for a longer fic, but I think to make fics easier to reblog, you could put it closer to the top. And even if you're writing smut blurbs, you should put it close to the top to keep smut concealed in case people don't want to read or see smut.

If you don't use a readmore, people are less likely to reblog your fic because they don't want to put a long text wall on other people's dashboards.

2: Using (Stolen) Gifs As Fanfiction Covers

I have seen some discussion about using gifs from google, and people putting a gif that they have downloaded and simply writing under it 'this gif is not mine, please DM me if it's your and I will give you credit'.

It's generally established among gif makers that downloading random gifs and putting them on your fanfiction is bad etiquette. Those are considered stolen gifs.

Even if you say it's not yours and offer to give credit, any gif you repost that is not yours is considered a stolen gif.

Fanfiction writers and gif makers need to work together, not against each other. Reblog gif sets you like, and don't download random gifs, no matter what the source is.

The best way to use gifs as fanfiction covers is to make them yourself or to use the tumblr integrated gif search system.

The gif search system is in the same hot bar as the readmore, labelled under 'gif'.

When you pull it up and click on it, you type in the name of the character you are looking for, and then you can scroll through the results. You can click on a gif to add it to your post, and remove it if you don't like it. So you can try out different gifs to find the right fit of what you're looking for.

And when you find what you're looking for and put it on your post, it automatically credits the gifmaker.

And the credit appears like this. And the name of the gifmaker can be clicked and then it takes you to their blog, so you can see who made the gif. This is a much better way to use gifs, because if someone likes a gif they see on your fic post, they can click through to the original gifmaker and reblog it.

Alternatively, using stills from the show/piece of media you're fanfic is about is a great way to avoid using stolen gifs.

2.5: Using Flashing Gifs On Fanfiction

I have noticed that a lot of people use flashing dividers for their fics, and they don't tag it with a flashing warning (#flashing gif or something similar) and they don't see this as a problem.

Using a flashing gif in fanfiction without a warning can negatively affect disabled readers. Not just people with photosensitive seizures, but people with migraines and different types of eye issues.

3: Using Coloured Text For Fanfiction

Speaking of accessibility issues, I have noticed that many people (especially people new to tumblr/new to fanfiction) use Tumblr's coloured text option to differentiate characters in fanfiction - assigning one colour per character with dialogue.

Some people also just use coloured text for the whole body of their fics, just making it straight up unreadable for disabled people.

Using coloured text in fanfiction makes it inaccessible because certain types of colour blindness makes it unreliable to see on a white background, and bright colours can cause eye strain for different types of disabilities.

It is kinder to use the traditional black text for the body of your fic, and any important information (like the content warnings, DNI criteria, etc).

4: Putting Thorough Content Warnings On Fanfiction

Speaking of content warnings - I could (and probably should) make an entire post about this topic alone, because many writers (both new and old) are severely lacking in this department.

Content warnings are supposed to be more for just smut - and if you do have smut in your fic, you should put warnings for that, instead of just releasing for fic into the wild with no warnings at all. Content warnings are supposed to be for anything that could be potentially triggering for a reader - phobias and fears, sensitive topics, uncomfortable or fear-inducing situations, and kinks and nsfw topics.

Tbh I think not enough people put warnings for alcohol and alcohol consumption in their fics, because alcohol is far too normalized to most people, but again - I could probably make a whole post just about content warnings in fanfiction. Basically: if you think your post could be triggering to someone with an addiction or in addiction recovery (or triggering to a sober person who doesn't want to read about drugs or alcohol) - then include those things in the content warnings.

Fanfiction is about informed consent.

People need to be better informed about what the content of your fic is before they consent to reading it. Also, if you're worried about the warnings being too detailed and giving away 'spoilers' for your fic, then you're probably worried about the wrong thing. And you can just put a warning at the very top that says "the content warnings of this fic contain spoilers for the plot of the fic" and let people make their choice if they want to skip the content warnings or not.

Please, write about all the dark or sensitive topics that you want, but just put detailed warnings on your fic so people can be informed about it before reading your fic.

People always appreciate thorough warnings, and they are more likely to read your fic if they are fully informed before clicking into the body of it.

4.5: (Not) Censoring Content Warnings

Tumblr is not tiktok. (Same goes for posting fics on AO3, but this post is mostly about Tumblr fics.) On Tumblr you can say/spell out any word you want without your post being suppressed or taken down - suicide, kill, murder, fuck, abortion, hell, porn, tits, cumshot, etc.

So that means that when you're writing out the content warnings of a fic, you should write them out fully, rather than putting slang or alluding to the topics in a fic. (Again, informed consent.) Rather than saying 'this fic contains SA', say: 'this fic contains sexual assault' or 'this fic contains rape'.

I saw someone using the term 'unalive' in the content warnings of their fic, and tbh, that's what inspired me to make this whole post.

If you're not mature enough to spell out all the topics in the content warnings of the post, you're not mature enough to be writing and posting about those topics.

Also, try not to use terms that need to be looked up/implicit terms. Certain terms for kinks (like dacryphilia or somnophilia) might lead a person to google those terms and find things they don't want to see. So instead of using those terms, just say 'crying kink' or 'sleeping kink' instead, so that everything is spelled out plainly.

...

This is all I can think of for now. Basically, just be kind to others when posting fics. Be kind to gif makers, disabled readers, and anyone from your fandom who might have an interest in your fic! Be safe and have fun writing! <3

[fakehelper]

✦ Okay, I give in. Let's upload our gifs on the beta editor to prepare for a gif pack page. Resources are available at the bottom, so lets get started !!

So first things first, you can only upload 30 gifs at a time. Now for me, I will always upload as I gif, around every 20 gifs, then upload to the page (this also ensures I don't skip any or have doubles) and keep gifing. That used to mean that I don't have to wait for tumblr to load 300 gifs and die from impatience. For the rest of y'all that means you're going to have to batch upload. I know, I'm sorry.

Note: With the help of @nataliealynlind we discovered that the daily limit is 250 gifs! So if you have more than that, prepare to upload your gifs over the course of a couple days or use a second blog. (imo this is another great reason to upload as you gif! that way you don't have to get stuck at 250!)

So after you upload your gifs (in this case I only did 10)*, you're going to go to the gear at the top of your post and click it. Then scroll all the way to the bottom where it says Text Editor. This looks familiar, right?

*Note: If you don't save it as a draft first, your gifs will be in .gif format, not .gifv. This means you can skip removing this tag later on, but I'm not sure if gifs that are uploaded but never saved/drafted will later disappear at some point. To be safe, I would save it as a draft. I just forgot at this part tbh

Well the good news is, you only have to change this once! The bad news is, we don't do Markdown then HTML anymore bc Markdown doesn't strip any of the code anymore 🙃 So just change it to HTML

Now it should look like this! Fun!

Okay, now we're going to copy that text and take it on over to our new best friend, the HTML Cleaner! So you're going to want to paste it on the right side of the screen. Your gifs should appear on the left side. If both sides have text, that's how you know you pasted it on the left.

So in order to get ride of all this extra code, it's going to take a couple extra steps. First, you're going to check these boxes on the left hand side.

Now, on the right hand side, you're going to enter these under Find and Replace (copy/paste section below!!). I know you're like, uh what? Where the hell did you get those numbers? Well, I got them from our gif post code!

For easy copy pasting:

Find: <figure> Replace: (leave blank)

Find: </figure> Replace: (leave blank)

So after you add the specific widths for your gifs, you're also going to want to add the following:

Find: .gifv Replace: .gif

Find: alt="" Replace: (leave blank)

Find: /> < Replace: /><

NOTE: If your gifs are usually the same size, I would recommend saving these snippits above on your computer's sticky notes or a draft to copy/paste for future uploads! While I do appreciate the viewer traffic, I'm sure coming to this tutorial every time is gonna get old real fast.

After all that, click Clean HTML

And now, your code should look like this! If there's still a space between your image links, just click Clean HTML again and it should get rid of it!

Now your code is nice and clean to put into your gif pages! Not quite sure how to do that? Read the Setting Up Your Sidepage section in this older tutorial!!

Resources

HTML Cleaner

My Gif Pack Page Codes

Recommended Gif Pack Page Codes (tag)

Previous Tutorial (How to upload to a Standard Sidepage)

Barebones Code (for previous tutorial)

[orphiclovers]

Not orv related but kinda new to Tumblr so like what is the behaviour 101 on Tumblr , can I get a few tips , i desperately wanna interact but idk

Okay, I knew I would get something like this. You're already doing pretty well, in that you have a profile pic and have figured out the ask function, so good job. 

Orphiclovers’ guide to Tumblr 101:

1.The number one crucial step that EVERYONE should do, even if you don’t care about the rest. CHANGE YOUR PROFILE PIC to ANYTHING that's not the default one (Though not your face. We don’t generally do that here.) The reason to do this is because it’s almost impossible to tell apart a just created blog from a porn bot. If you haven’t encountered one yet, you will. They're a big thing on tumblr, a completely blank blog created by a bot (sometimes with an attractive woman as the profile pic) that follows you and and sends you ‘hot singles in your area’ type scam messages. If you get one, don’t click any links! Under the message there will be a prompt saying ‘mark this as spam?’ click that and tumblr will automatically report and block the blog.  Some people with huge bot infestations automatically block any blank blog to be safe, and you don’t want that accidentally happening to you, so CHANGE YOUR PROFILE PIC!

2. The other essential blog customization thing is go to Blog Settings>turn off ‘share posts you like’ and ‘share the tumblrs you’re following’. This will hide your likes and the people you follow from every other user. Basically everyone turns this off to have privacy. Otherwise noisy fucks like me can come to your blog and look at all that.

3. You ALSO need to go to Settings>Dashboard>scroll to Prefrences> disable ‘Best Stuff First.’ Having your dashboard (that’s what we call the “Following” tab on Home where you see all the posts) be in chronological order is objectively the best way to be on Tumblr. This is the one social media that doesn’t shove the algorithm down your throat, enjoy it to the fullest. I have never in my life clicked on the ‘Explore’ tab except by accident, and the ‘For You’ tab is also controversial. I don’t recommend it. You can learn to use tumblr with no algorithms and you will feel better.

4. Okay, but there’s like two posts on my dashboard, what do I do? You need to follow people, friend. Go to the search bar and enter a tag for a fandom or character you like. That’s ‘#kim dokja’ or ‘#honkai star rail’ - unlike instagram, you can put spaces between words. It’s not case sensitive, so #Kim Dokja #kim dokja and #KIM DOKJA is all the same to tumblr. I recommend going in tags and not just ‘kim dokja’ because tumblr’s search system is often wonky.

5. Now, scroll through the posts and follow the blogs. That’s it. Now their new posts will show up at the top of your dashboard. Currently, I follow 119 blogs and that’s a pretty decent number. I get new posts every couple of minutes, and if there are no new posts I exit the app. No endless doomscrolling. Also, all the people I follow actually post stuff I want to see.

6. You mentioned wanting to make friends and that brings me to my next tip: Reblog. Reblog, reblog, reblog. Every post you want to click ‘like’ on you should reblog instead. Everytime you want to comment you should reblog instead (and put the comment in the tags).

7. This will put their post on your blog. Most of the posts you see on your dashboard are posts the people you follow have reblogged. It’s hard to wrap your head around, but it’s essential tumblr stuff so I will try to explain it in detail.

Reblogging etiquette

8. Blank reblogs are fine.

9. If you want to say something like ‘good art!!’ or ‘wow I love this theory so much’ put that in the tags of your reblog. The original poster will see the tags you have added, and also anyone who follows you will see the post + your tags. But if they reblog a post from you, your tags don’t come with unless they decide to manually copy them (which people don’t usually do unless they want to respond to something you said in the tags. Then they will copy the tags and put <- prev as in ‘previous’ and respond to them. This is like a whispered conversation you have on op’s post but they will still be able to see all of it so be mindful.) Some people also use the tag system to organize their blogs.

For example, if you reblog art of kim dokja, in the tags you can put ‘#wowowow I’m drooling thank you op, #kim dokja, #orv, #orv fanart’. Theoretically now when you or anyone else goes to your blog’s search function can search #orv fanart and see all the original posts you have made and the stuff you have reblogged with the tag #orv fanart.

Now I will address some common concerns people have before reblogging. “Am I reblogging too many posts in a row??? Won’t the people who follow me get annoyed???” No, they will not 99% of the time. And if they do, they can unfollow you. But okay, if you’re worried about this you can put your reblogs in a queue. Here’s how tumblr themselves describe it: ‘The queue lets you stagger posts over a period of hours or days. It's an easy way to keep your blog active and consistent.’ Basically if you tell it to it will automatically post the stuff you can put in the queue every hour or 15 minutes or whatever you want the interval to be. Check it out.

“Won’t reblogging posts bury my own posts and prevent them from being seen???” No. All the posts you reblog are probably long buried in the OP’s blog too. But as long as they get passed around in reblogs they will get new eyes on them, forever. Also, you can reblog your own posts if you want them put on your followers dash again (usually tagging this as #srb or #self reblog). They will also still be in the tags you put on them originally. Myself, I tag all my posts as #my posts or #my art so anyone visiting my blog can easily check for those specifically (though I don’t know if anyone does…lol. Lmk.)

 “Okay, but I have so many different interests, won’t people hate seeing random reblogged posts about stuff they’re not interested in?” They can deal or unfollow you. But okay, some people create ‘sideblogs’ for every fandom they’re in. This functions as almost a fully fledged seperate blog. For example, you can’t easily tell if a blog you follow is a main one or a sideblog, or what their main blog is (unless they tell you). You only can’t like or follow or send an ask from a sideblog.

In general you don’t add stuff to the text part of a reblog unless you have something significant to add and/or are mutuals with the OP. Mutuals is when you both follow each other. I’m guessing you’re asking me how to get people to follow you back and to that I say idk man. Make posts and talk to them in reblogs and it will naturally happen. 

Also, asks are fun, send people asks (and enable them in setting on your own blog.)

10. Also, give your blog a description and a title. It’s just nice customization. The title can be a quote you like and the description anything you want to tell someone about yourself. Look at how other blogs do it. I think nickname/pronouns/list of fandoms is pretty standard.

Let me know if you want to ask anything else :)

[simdertalia]

Hello everybody! I've seen some people saying they don't know how to edit their page, and as a result a lot of blogs that are blank are being blocked & reported as bot pages, or labeled as adult pages (because people are reporting them incorrectly. Actual spam/bot pages should be reported as spam, not adult content, even though some of them contain adult content). After so many reports, I think that a blog will automatically be labeled as such and the user has to contact Tumblr support to change it back.

I've taken some screenshots on my own page with some notes/edits, posted above, to help anyone who wants a quick tutorial on personalizing your page. When you make the edits to your page, remember to click on the blue save button in the top left editing area.

It's quite easy, you go to your main blog page and click on the painting palette symbol. The next thing that comes up is a page with an editing area, I've added notes to the sections that should be edited, the header is a good idea to edit also, but it is mainly ✨your description and avatar,✨ as both helps others separate your account from bot accounts that also have an avatar (often blank, or images of women models) and something in the description (sometimes this is empty, sometimes it is"their name" sometimes a ton of emojis, it varies). Some bot accounts even have the word "sim" in their handle, so the community can't totally rely on a username for indication with that word in it, either (unless it specifically says "simblr" or "ts4" in the handle).

Anyway, the influx of bots has caused some annoying problems for us all here, I made another post about that here, with links to more information. The best way to avoid these issues is to make sure your blog is personalized.

Here is a tag on my page for some free icons if you'd like to grab something cute & quick, or if there is something specific you would like, I'm more than happy to make one for you, so just send me a DM or Ask 💗

If I have blocked your blog by mistake, you can send an Ask to my CC finds sideblog linked at the top of my page, and I am also available on Ko-Fi and Instagram where you can send me a message, I will be glad to fix it right away.

And if you've got a blog that you are painstakingly sifting through your new follows due to all the blank ones, feel free to reblog for your followers 💗

*this original post has been edited for correct wording and more information

[starfallsystemblog2]

DO NOT SEND US GOFUNDME 'S WD DO NOT HAVE THE MONEY FOR IT AND WE FEEL HORRIBLE NOT BEING ABLE TO HELP AND WE DO NOT HAVE TIME OR RESOURCES TO PROPERLY VET THEM!!!!

BE MATURE IF YOU DO NOT BE MATURE YOU WILL BE BLOCKED

~~~~~~~~~~~~~:♡.•♬✧⁽⁽ଘ( ˊᵕˋ )ଓ⁾⁾*+:•*∴~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Got deleted my brother deleted my whole Tumblr even my base account so I'm rebuilding

WE ARE A SYSTEM DIFFERENT ALTERS LIKE DIFFERENT THINGS

level 22

RADICAL ACCEPTANCE FOR ALL (not radqueer I'm radinclus)

Userbox blog -> @userbabies2

Agere(dre) / petre(dre) blog -> @babiesbabiespace

Shopping blog -> @shopping4u2

Songs I listen to with lyrics -> @s0nge-0ff-th33-d4y

True crime copied from Wikipedia -> @t-r-u-3-c-r-1-m-3-j-u-n-k-i-e

An alters blog, Stuff it finds, it's a photo dump basically -> @f-0-u-n-d--s-t-1-c-k-3-r-s

Slang -> @slang-net

Our hoard -> @thestarfallsyshoard

Art/Kcole's blog -> @art-has-2-di3

Intro post 1 (link)

My coined terms (link)

Typing quirk that I made up (link)

Byf / dni / about us (link) ((working on it))

click here for the debunking of r/systemcringe(link)

Studies and Research Into Endogenic and Non-Disordered Plurality (link)

AI "artist" and supporters DNI

fakeclaimers dni (that includes anti endos)

Pls ffs dni if you support anyone that supports ¡Sr@3l

Have to rebuild my following Occasional typing quirks

System of 13

Taken in a t4t relationship

learning disability

BPD

NPD

DPD

GAD

Autism

ADHD

just right OCD

tourette syndrome

Major Depressive Disorder (clinical depression)

Auditory Processing Disorder

Co-Dependant

Hoarding Disorder

TW RECLAIMED SLURS

𝖋𝖆𝖌𝖌𝖔𝖙

syscourse stances under the cut but this only applies to the main fronters

syscourse

👍/❤️/📘/🔺/🟢/🌕/🟥/🌲/🌤/🔇/🐊/🐌/🐳

Birthdays:

Host: Dec 19 (age 21)

Ana: no birthday (age 18)

Art: Oct 19 (age 18)

Asher: July 18 (age 18)

Blank: no birthday (age 18)

Crayola: Sept 10 (ageless)

Dream: no birthday (age 24)

Eret: no birthday (age 27)

Jschlatt: no birthday (age 23)

Marc: March 9 1987 (age 37)

Phil: March 1 1988 (age 36)

Ranboo: July 4 (ageless)

Ray: no birthday (ageless)

Seven: no birthday (age 7)

Smol: no birthday (no age but is a little)

Steven: no birthday (age 27)

Tom: no birthday (age 20)

Tommy: Feb 2 (age 17)

V̷̧̛̻̫̠͖̯͍̫̀̾̌̓̆͋͑̋̕͜͠͝ẓ̶͚̳̲̤̩̣̜͖͊̎͆͊́̈́̂͒̋̆̆̍̕͝z̴̃́̆̆͊͜͝w̷̧̮̮̯̣͔̙̟̮̙̥̻͊͜ȯ̵̱̠̖̑͑͜o̶̝̟̠̫̍̌̉̌̅͂̽́̓͐v̵̡̜̪̹͌͋̔̽̀̓̾̒̂͠͝s̸̺͙̥̮͍̈́̆́͒̓͛́͐̈́͗̔́h̵͚̭͔͉̟̙̲͔̠̬͉̺̤̅̽̿̅̆͠ḫ̷͚̙̓̃̿̆̓̌́͘h̵̠̗͔́̾̐͝͝: no birthday (infinite)

Wilbur: no birthday (age 24)

Zenon: no birthday (age 19)

[phantomcodes]

ruellia | theme by sage

get the code: preview v1 / preview v2 personal version of my fansite theme abelia!

features (more info below the cut):

toggle: tags on click, explore popup, & updates box

choose between left or right sidebar

headerbar includes icon/blog title, home/ask/archive links, search bar or explore popup, scroll to top, day/night, & tumblr controls buttons

sidebar includes an uploadable image with a custom description, up to 6 links, & an updates box

customizable: colors, body & title fonts, and font size

npf supported, responsive design, 3 corner options, tabler icons

nothing needs to be changed in the code, everything can be changed in the customize panel!

terms:

reblog if using

do not touch the credit

all terms / faq

credits listed in the code / credits page

please consider supporting me ♡

blog name !! important

make sure you fill out the blog name field, this is what will show on the top of all your original posts. to clarify: your blog name is your blog’s url - for example: phantomcodes

responsive sidebar

when the browser window gets too small the sidebar will disappear and become toggleable, the sidebar toggle button will appear on the right side of the headerbar next to the day/night button

explore popup

the explore menu has a search bar, bio text section, up to 5 info stats, up to 4 blogs, up to 4 socials, and up to 8 extra links

the blogs, socials, and links are all optional! leave the first one blank if you don't want these

sidebar

the sidebar will stick to the top of the page, if you use the updates the sidebar will scroll and the updates box will stick to the top of the page

general notes

many things will not show up if they’re left empty, some examples: if you don’t want the sidebar links leave the sidebar link 1 field blank

reminders

remember tumblr’s customize panel is buggy, toggle the options on/off before saving

i’m still on a sort of semi-hiatus, i’ll be around for questions but please check my faq, answered asks, etc. before asking - i will not answer repeated questions!

[desceros]

@fidgetyfawn hi hi so i thought i'd go and give you a very brief tumblr beginner/early intermediate guide since i've also seen some other people around here that may find it useful!!

i'm going to assume you know little to nothing, and this post is good both for people who are just looking to find cool art/fic/whatever, or for people looking to post their own art/fic.

click on the readmore here and i'll give you a bit of a walkthrough for how to get things set up and how to start interacting with people, as well as some basic etiquette!

THIS IS A VERY LONG POST!! pro tip: if you're on desktop, you can use the J key to skip down a post and the K key to skip up. youre welcome

so first things first, when you log in, the first thing you'll see is your dashboard. this is where posts from people you follow will appear.

dashboard management

i can't remember if this is the default or not, but i highly recommend you change your dashboard (almost typed dachshund ATD counter: 1) to chronological order. you can do this by clicking settings on the left, then dashboard (ATD counter: 2) on the right.

personally, i uncheck the 'shorten longer posts' option since it cuts things too short, and further down you'll see the option that says 'best stuff first'. turn that shit off. you'll miss a lot of posts from people you follow if you have it on. actually, everything on that preferences section can get turned off. tumblr is designed to be more curated, and those are all options the staff added trying to emulate things like twitter. they suck. turn em off.

how to find blogs to follow

so now that you've got your dash set up, it's time to get some shit showing up!! you've already started off right by following me, so i can see you know how to do that much. but in case this post breaches containment, i'll put some tips here for people:

if you see people out in the wild that you like who link their tumblrs, go check em out. see if you like what they post. if so, you can follow them. this will put their posts on your dashboard, and they'll get a notification that you've followed if they have those turned on.

once you find someone you like, check out who they're reblogging from. go check out those blogs. see who they're reblogging. go check out those blogs. search for things that you're interested in, and click on the people posting into those tags (more on this later). eventually, you'll be following lots of people who post things that you like, and now you can start really curating your own posting experience.

some people will have a DNI (do not interact) linked somewhere. if they do, it's considered good etiquette to give it a look and make sure you're not gonna step on toes. some people will have a "blank blogs"/"ageless blogs dni" on theirs, or say they'll block you if you're a blank/ageless blog. this is because a lot of bots will have a blank tumblr, so it's a good idea to make some text posts or something saying IM REAL I PROMISE and you can have "i'm an adult"/"18+"/"(your actual age if you're comfortable with it)"/"(an approximation of your age, e.g. 20s, if you arent)" before you get too in the weeds on following people.

sidebar, once you're blocked, it's a bit tacky to go find that person on other platforms or go on anon and ask why they blocked you. just move on and don't take it personally.

how to post shit

these are the buttons that let you post new shit. when you make a new post, you'll get the post editor popping up. it's actually pretty cool, hot take, but here are the important things to know:

put your post in the spot. i'm using the text post one here since i post either fanfic or nattering. you can add links to stuff, change formatting, font colors, all that. i'm not gonna get too into the weeds on that since this is a beginner guide, but there are other guides on how to do it slash you should fuck around with it a bit yourself. i will, however, show you the details of the "post now" button

post now: posts now

add to queue: tumblr has a function where it will automatically post things in your queue. you can find it in your blog detail page, which you get to via account>[click on your blog name]>queue on the right. you can change how many per day go there. a lot of people will have a cutesy queue tag (eg "i love queue" or something punny like that) so your followers will know if it's a queued post or a regular one. this is cute, but not necessary

save as draft: if you want to keep a post for later but not publish it yet, you can save it as a draft. it's in the same place as your queue, but these will stay there until you post it yourself. i do this a lot for posts that i want to keep for their information, or to save art to post for when i'm trying to break up an ocean of asks. very cool feature

post privately: this will make it so that only you can see the post. just a warning though that anything that goes online will be seen by Someone, so i wouldn't put like. deep dark secrets or your ssn here or something. (<- does not use this feature at all hahaha)

schedule: you can have the post drop on a certain time on a certain day. fun for flashbanging yourself later, or reminding yourself of something, etc.

if you put something in your post, it will be "searchable" on tumblr. that means if you have a post saying "i hate tmnt rise" then people who look for "tmnt rise" may be able to see your post. just a heads up. you can make your blog not show up in search results, but if you're someone looking to be found (e.g. a writer trying to post, or someone trying to make friends, etc.) i dont recommend you turn that on. just be aware that if you post things talking shit, you might get some people trolling you. just block them and move on.

if you click into a post, this thing will pop up. this will allow you to add a picture, a gif, a link, an audio file, a video file, a poll, or a readmore break (shortens the post like i did with this one to make it less intrusive on someone's dashboard).

etiquette note: if your post is going to be on the long side, Especially if it's a text post (for me this is around the 650-700 word mark), put it under a readmore. it's really annoying on mobile to scroll through a bunch of text. also, if you're going to post nsfw (which i will remind you, WILL show up in the public tags!) either have some kind of nsfw tag, put it under a readmore, or both.

tags

on the bottom of your post, you will see the option to tag your posts. some people don't use the tag function at all. i use it religiously. tagging serves two functions: organizing your blog, and sharing your content.

on your blog, you can search posts by tag. this is the best way to search your tumblr, which has a notoriously terrible search function. if you ever want to confidently be able to find things again, tag them something you'll remember. i have a list here of tags i use as an example for some ideas.

secondly, tumblr has a function where you can see what everyone is posting under a certain phrase. you can find this by typing a phrase into the "search tumblr" bar in the upper right. this will largely be posts that are tagged by that thing, or have tags that contain that phrase. (e.g. if you search "tmnt" you will find posts that are tagged "tmnt" but also some that are tagged "donnie tmnt"). this is how you can find new people to find, and fun art to reblog, etc. search for things you're interested in, then go through the tag and find who looks cool.

you'll also find that some people (<- me) will "talk" in the tags. the op of the post Can See These!!! so don't say anything that's rude or that you wouldn't want them to see!!! but this is a holdover of tumblr etiquette from years ago when it was considered rude to reblog art, let's say, and put your thoughts about something in the reblog as its own reblog. the old school of thought is that it disrupted the "aesthetic" of the post, so you'll see a lot of people put their commentary in the tags instead. it's not as obtrusive, but everyone can still see it. there's a joke that your tags will "pass peer review" if someone screenshots them and puts them on the post while reblogging, but that's usually something you'll see on particularly funny posts or creative posts or that sort of thing.

reblogs vs reposts

you will come across people who have "no reposts" or "don't repost my art" in their description or on their blog or on their art. there's a lot of confusion for new tumblr people on what that means.

reposting means that you are downloading the art/fic/whatever, then using the upload function and creating your own original post.

reblogging is when you take the post that the person made, and clicking on the reblog button (third one here):

reposting things is BAD because it does not give the op original credit and it makes it look like you created the thing. reblogging is GOOD because it shares art/writing/etc with the people who are following you, and encourages community. the double arrows are what keep community alive!!

on that note, likes are functionally useless. that little heart there does nothing for artist engagement. while there is a tumblr algorithm, it's terrible, doesn't really work, and! we've already turned ours off in the beginning, remember? most people will have done this. liking a post doesn't put it on your blog, it doesn't make it so that you can find it later, it doesn't boost the op's engagement. likes do the two things and only the two things:

op knows you saw the post

tumblr puts it into one giant unsearchable pile of things you've liked

that's it! so if you like a post, consider reblogging it. add that fun commentary in the tags we talked about! this is a really good way to make someone's day.

etiquette note; you'll sometimes see people who say "no spam likes". this means that they don't like it when people go through their blog and just hit like on the latest posts over and over and over. it clogs up the notification feed and makes it harder to see the engagement that actually Means something, e.g. reblogs, mentions, replies, etc. i personally don't have an issue with it since you can filter those out if you're looking for something, but if someone asks you not to do it, don't do it. also, if you do it and suddenly find that you're blocked even if you've not done anything wrong, that might be why. some people just don't like it shrug.

how to make friends

tumblr is a social media site, and while it's possible to have a great time on your own just reblogging pretty art and great fics onto your page, a lot of the joy comes from participating in community.

there's a good post here i reblogged the other day for some details, but here are some basic things for a beginner to know:

you can send messages to blogs you like called "asks". you'll find the link to it on the left of the follow button on someone's blog, and a lot of people will have changed the wording. for example, mine is called "request a song." you can send people messages, anonymously if you wish, and tumblr will let you know when the person has answered your message. they may do so publicly (which i always do!), so make sure not to put anything there you wouldn't be okay with all of their followers seeing. don't be rude. but it's the best way to start talking with someone. and most people are very excited to get messages like this!! so don't be intimidated!!

there is a dm system. most people aren't going to have it available except to people they're following, and it has a bit more of an intimate feel than an ask. personally, i only use this function for my mutuals (people whom i follow who are also following me), and i'd be willing to bet that's a common mood about it.

replies: just like you did with the post you started, you can reply to text posts. the op will see it, and you can start talking about a post without having it appear on your blog. it's a nice way to communicate without clogging up your dash/blog, and you did so perfectly!

reblogs: we already went over this, but you can also just reblog posts. the person from whom you reblog will see what you say, and op will see what you say. etiquette here is not to reblog posts if someone asks you not to, and to tag longer posts as "long post" so people on mobile who have that limited don't have to scroll as long

talk to people! be friendly! ask them about their day. if it's an author, tell them your favorite part of their last fic. ask what the inspiration was for this part or that part. i get people sending me songs in that remind them of character moments, and that's fun! draw art of your favorite scene, then tag the author in it! (to tag people, use the @ symbol, then type their username, e.g. @desceros tags me).

find people that are posting the things that you like, follow them, reblog from them, send in asks off anon when they reblog little games asking for them, just. you know. be social. that post i linked has some good ideas if you need help.

if you're coming from ao3, go to the author's profile page. a lot of us have our tumblrs linked there. go to their tumblr. follow them. send in asks about their fics. you'll often find fun fanart, or wips, or that kind of thing!

anyway i think that answered all the questions you had, but you can ask if there's something specific you were looking for i didn't touch. hope this helps!! C: