#i reblogged the last poll with some general replies at people if you want to see that

[shwarmii]

okay, ill make a new one 🤡 ive personally only seen off-shoots of Booboo The Fool (somehow. dont ask me how. i have no idea either) that shortened it to Bobo. but also, some of these pronounciations make me laugh so i needed an update to better include them too (also, no, this isnt a case of that "bullying works" joke lmao the people who were polite convinced me, the people who played along regardless of spelling convinced me, the people who gave me new pronounciations convinced me, and the people who affectionately called me as "from the Bobo-verse" convinved me, not anybody else; i didnt feel bullied at all lmao rip)

i just heard one of my favorite youtubers say this meme out loud in a video and the pronounciation FLOORED ME so now i gotta know:

poll is just "which way do you say it"; tags are "which way is right", assuming your answer to "which way is right" is different to "which way do you say it". or i guess tags are also uhhhhhh if your answer is complicated and if you wanna explain, if you have a diff way of pronouncing (pls tell meeeee), or whatever else you want, im not your parents, idk

[t00thpasteface]

hey sorry i’m sure it’s a little dumb but how did you find a community/make mutuals on here? i swapped from twitter to here last year & haven’t been able to make friends like i did on twitter ;v; sorry if this is all silly but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. love your art & blog !!!

as i like to say, it's like lifting an anvil: it's very simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. as someone who's a 12+ year veteran that lurked for a couple years and remade a little while ago, really it all comes down to putting yourself out there!!! don't just sit around twiddling your thumbs and lurking. it's tough to do it without coming off as a pandering tryhard, but honestly as long as you're polite, upbeat, and posting regularly, then you're golden.

if you want a big list of wordy bullet points, here's what i've got, and i think you'll find it's pretty applicable to basically any site/community you want to get involved in:

post a lot. this is number one with a fucking bullet! POST! POST LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. but crucially...

post GOOD STUFF. don't bash yourself in the caption/tags, don't say "sorry this is shit" or whatever, don't self-deprecate, and don't admit to posting low-effort stuff just to hit a quota. imagine it's open mic night and go crazy. this is a good site to use like a journal and a scrapbook, but if you want to actually get some traction, you need to bring something interesting to the table. of course, just being funny and nice goes a very long way.

encourage audience feedback. people LOVE to tell you about themselves and give their opinions. get them responding and make the questions and calls for engagement so interesting or fun they can't help themselves.

tag effectively. use both fandom/content tags for searches, and organizational tags for your visitors' use. the tagging system is tumblr's bread and butter, so make it work for you.

follow a lot of blogs you like. then see who they follow, and add those to the list. build a good circle of engagement and keep your finger on the pulse of the site culture for whatever niche(s) you're in... or want to get in.

reblog a lot and be funny/kind in the tags. generally leaving a lot of comments/replies to post is kind of hit-or-miss, but tags are a good harmless "inside voice" to use that doesn't clutter the post itself and yet still engages with op and people seeing the post

engage with people when they ask for engagement. things like polls, ask games, etc... scratch people's backs and they'll scratch yours. and it's just a nice thing to do regardless :)

panhandling is not always the best route. people will balk if you look desperate or openly beg for engagement, like directly asking people to reblog something or being passive-aggressive about how much engagement you are/aren't getting on something. a genuine joke about it is fun and relatable, but snarky comments just kill the vibe and scare people off.

REMEMBER THERE'S NO ALGORITHM. lurking will not put you or any of the stuff you like out there!! REBLOG POSTS! SEND ASKS! this site will NOT SPOON FEED YOU ANYTHING. like taming a wild stallion, you can make this work for you, but you have to put in the effort first.

some people will think you're annoying, and that's okay. probably not very many, but they'll be loud. this is an unavoidable part of Being Known. you can be the sweetest peach in the world but there'll still be people who just don't like peaches. don't take it to heart, and if you do happen to drop the ball or rub a few people the wrong way, don't let that keep you from trying again :)

i've enjoyed the many friends i've made on this site in the past decade-and-then-some, even though both this site and my blog are both something of a ship of theseus. here's hoping you can make it work for you and your interests, too!

[gatheredfates]

What's this? Two updates in a weekend? Yes, and I regret nothing. I'm going to try and do bigger updates where I can, but I also don't like waiting to promote resources where I feel like they can be useful and utilised. Because of that, here is update round two. 🍹

I forgot to mention this last post, but I'm trying to get a headcount going with Dawntrail's release! I probably did it a bit too early, to be fair, but I'm insane like that. If you're looking for people to follow, I highly recommend replying to that thread because I'll reblog any that come my way.

With that said, however, as of today (07/07), the following resources have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives.

FREE COMPANY / COMMUNITY FOCUSED / EVENT SPACES

Final Fantasy XIV Roleplay (Tumblr Community) — A Tumblr community focusing on XIV roleplay! Share your LFRP posts, partake in the polls, prompts and whatever else FFXIV-Related RP stuff you can think of.

LORE

Dawntrail Pronunciation Guide — Ignorance begets strife, understanding begets fellowship. A guide on how to pronounce the various locals, concepts, societies and other content in Tural. Will contain spoilers for the expansion. Created by @pimpylala on Twitter. Constantly being updated as they play through the expansion.

SEAFLOOR

We're a Tumblr Community now! For people unfamiliar with the concept of Communities, I encourage you to check out the tumblr post by staff made about them here. However, copy/pasting what I have written in the Compendium, the Community functions as so:

SEAFLOOR (A FFXIV Community) is a Tumblr community whose duel-purpose focuses on my projects — the Compendium, question drives and screenshot events — whilst also reblogging member created works, resources (including events, commissions and looking for content/roleplay/free company posts), affirmations and other xiv-related content. If you are interested in supporting my projects without the social aspect of a Discord, I highly encourage you to join the Community. Everything hosted on the Discord will be cross-posted there; you will not miss out on anything. As Communities are still in beta, members need to be manually invited. If you would like to join, please like the tumblr post here. Once Communities are out of beta, I will remove this section to better reflect its true public status.

I'm hoping the Community will function as a member-curated dash, resource hub and visual diary for my projects and member created works. There are no hard feelings if you want to leave the Discord and only join the Community. Please do what makes you comfortable!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all the below information is accessible on the document! 🦈

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include in-character tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[purplekoop]

Okay so question:

As I'm posting more and more about War Bots, I wonder if that would warrant getting its own side blog, while this remains as my general personal blog and the hub for smaller projects like Role Requeue.

The main pro to this is organization: War Bots posts are almost always super long, often have big images, and are for a pretty niche audience at the moment, so for people scrolling through my blog backlog I can imagine they're a bit of a nuisance. While you can easily find every War Bots post just by searching for the tag on my blog, it'd be easier to find stuff on its own separate blog where the Overwatch takes and twitch links and random cute dog videos I find aren't clogging things. I'd also be more willing to tag more specific things, like individual characters, different types of posts, and so on, which could be useful for later organization.

There's also the more subconscious benefit that if I have a dedicated War Bots blog, I'd be more encouraged to post to it regularly. I'd feel awkward if I had the second blog and never used it, so... motivation by avoiding mild embarrassment?

The cons are... a little more numerous.

The main issue is that I'm lazy and have never had a side blog before. While I'm aware Tumblr makes having a side blog relatively easy, it's still more of a hassle than I'm used to.

A more serious issue is that it's less convenient for other people too. If anyone who wants to follow the project wants to keep seeing posts for it, they have to go follow the other blog, which I'd have to advertise here and also would probably cross-promote posts. It also hurts how many people in the future could get their eyes on it, since just by virtue of being a variety blog (granted with a heavy Overwatch lean) more people follow this blog than a new blog dedicated entirely to a project with its own specialized tags that wouldn't get seen by anyone not already aware of it. If I want more people to know about War Bots (which, to be transparent, I do), then it'd be more probable for people to see it on the blog that uses established popular tags like Overwatch.

The last big thing that discourages me from going ahead and making a War Bots sideblog is a little more silly, but is still a concern in my head. So like. If I make a separate blog for War Bots... why don't I make a separate blog for, say... Role Requeue? That's another project with a dedicated sub-audience that might prefer a dedicated blog for it. What about one for my Splatoon OCs? That one definitely could benefit from both urging me to post more about them and also better organization, and I don't think anybody follows this blog currently for the sake of Splatoon content, so it would warrant getting a separate audience there. And those are just the things I actually post about on here, there's way more original projects like War Bots that I have in mind and wanna talk about some day. Obviously those don't warrant blogs now, but what about later? It's kind of just opening pandora's box for someone with so many random projects like me.

I dunno, just things to consider. Right now my current stance is to not make a separate War Bots blog yet, but I want to hear specifically what people think. I'd make it a direct "yes or no" poll but that feels to harsh, so I'd appreciate feedback in the replies or reblogs on this post. I'll make a separate poll in a moment, but that'll be more for fun and vibe checking than any serious decision making.

[buttercuparry]

I think people are truly misunderstanding op's "tumblr is dying thing". And then being petty because they feel that they are being personally attacked. This cannot be denied that the fandoms are getting less and less engagement. The only time a particular fandom is at its peak, is when it is the newest flavour of the season. And it is only particular blogs (bnfs) who seem to draw the host of notes. Or if a blog clicks for a particular fandom then those as well. But tbh I don't think fandom creators are talking about or even OP is talking about a creator not getting 25k+ notes. It's about creators now barely getting 100+ notes ( especially new artists who aren't well known in a fandom) and most of those being likes. Like no of course not- you don't absolutely have to reblog but damn it seems like gif makers ( even long time ones), meta writers ( even those who make general observations relating to the book or show in total), artists are getting less and less engagement. If a gifmaker says that they don't feel any motivation to create when their 15 hours of work barely got to 23 notes, then that's a problem ( and you clearly see that it is a good gifset, great even!).

I think there's something to say about shows dropping one after the other and therefore nothing sticking to our minds (?)...like idk if this is a thing. I mean okay so when a show drops, it has its casual viewers right? Like if I watch 5 shows back to back it can happen that I just casually watched all 5. Or one or more out of the five might stick to my interests which then would have me examine all it has to offer more closely. But I feel like there's less time for us to sit with something now. Like Last of Us didn't even end before the Mandalorian came in with their new episodes. Within a few days Succession dropped and now Yellowjackets is here too. Maybe this was always how media worked. Surely a show network won't wait for another show network's series to end before dropping in theirs lol. But I feel like it is more clustered now and we don't really get to sit with something unless we want to ( again completely my own conjecture with literally no proof to back it up). I think sitting with something is more likely to help along the casual viewer to be a more contributing member of the fandom.

The other thing people in the replies are being like really petty because of op guilt tripping them. Like yeah maybe this shouldn't have been done but this poll did bring me a couple of takes where people refuse to believe tumblr is dying because this poll has decent amount of notes. They are sarcastically going "yeah sure just because I do not reblog things from the fandom I am in, I am killing tumblr lol", not realizing that they aren't the only ones with this attitude. That there are thousands of others. But while one reblog won't change anything it may bring the post among other bloggers from amongst whom another one would reblog the post taking it to the dashboard of another host of bloggers- thus creating a chain. And if there are some common mutuals in a fandom, and if a post circulates enough on a dashboard we might even deem to give it another look which we might have dismissed previously. That's the importance of reblogs. If y'all are being personally offended by the poll and not even trying to look into the point of the poll...that truly helps no one. Someone even boasted that they cackle evilly when they go past posts without reblogging anything and periodically lose followers because of how unactive their page is. Why are you here then? Like this isn't the place for you. If you think that you are doing something with this, that you are helping cut down your followers' obsessive need to refresh social media...then honestly it can go either way. Maybe you are helping or your followers are just getting their fix elsewhere. What you are definitely doing is being another twig in the rapidly stagnating website.

[colorfulcast]

I’ve been a lot on Tumblr lately. This post is for me.

Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza. Over the last couple months, I’ve come to believe that the Israeli government is exterminating Palestinians on purpose, because they want Palestine to no longer exist. They want both Gaza and the West Bank to be Israel.

I’m not sure Israel wants this because, after the October attack by Hamas, the government wants to make absolutely sure something like that never happens again, or if they have wanted to get rid of Palestine for the last few decades, and are using Hamas as an excuse. Or something in the middle.

But it’s clear they are committing a genocide for their own end. It is clear that the Israeli government cares little, if any, about Palestinian lives. And it is clear that they will do nearly anything to control the news that comes out of Gaza. That they are willing to tell lies and kill journalists in order to keep that control. And none of that is acceptable. I think the state of Israel should be dismantled.

But there has been something on my mind.

In the above paragraphs, I talked about the Israeli government, and not it’s people, because that’s more comfortable to me. I dislike authority, and government. I think people are generally, inherently good. So if an army occupies a city, killing hundreds, that’s the governments fault for making that decision. And if the Israeli population goes along with it, then that’s because they’ve been lied to. Or mislead. Or brainwashed. Or suppressed.

But I’ve seen interviews with Israeli people on the street saying that they think what the army is doing is good. I’ve heard stories of them celebrating the deaths of Palestinians. Maybe the population of Israel knows what’s happening in Gaza. Maybe the majority of the Israel population is in favor of a genocide.

One tactic the Israeli government and media use, is that they label any criticism of Israel as antisemitism. It’s a smart tactic. No-one wants to be antisemitic. Anti-antisemitism caused the holocaust, which is like, the bad thing.

And so. You should specifically criticize the Israeli government. The Israeli government is doing a genocide. But not because they’re Jewish, but because they’re settlers. Israel needs to be stopped. The fact that they’re Jewish is insignificant.

And it’s important that you don't turn that criticism towards Israel into criticisms about Judaism in general. Judaism didn’t cause this genocide. Jewish people are not to blame. The Israeli government is to blame.

But what if... Israeli Jewish citizens are also to blame?

If most Jews in Israel are in favor of the genocide, and the government listens to what they want, then these Jews are at the very least complicit in the genocide, right? That doesn’t mean that I wish any harm onto them, it just means that like. I lay the blame with them. This is their fault. They have blood on their hands.

The reason why I’m writing this is because of a post I saw. Specifically this one.

It’s about how 95% of Jewish Israelis are pro-genocide. A writer named Zachary Foster made a Twitter post about it, and a Tumblr user named shashiatnight added that this genocide is “not just the work of Netanyahu but the culmination of the hope and work of every Zionist and their ancestors”. She ended the post by saying “Death to all of you.” It was eventually reblogged by a blog we follow.

It made me uncomfortable. I don't wish death upon them. And I feel like 'every Zionist and their ancestors' is too vague of a group. I read some replies and notes, and I wasn’t the only one who felt uncomfortable, which made me feel a bit better. Still, it got me thinking. Should I blame the Israeli Jewish citizens who believe the genocide is justified?

One thing I noticed is that the post didn’t share a link. So I tried to find out where the figure came from.

There is a program called The Peace Index. It’s a group that runs monthly polls on the population of Israel. Often around the question of the likelihood of peace. They choose the people not completely at random, but search out many different people from many different backgrounds in order to create a representative national sample of the adult population.

In the poll the Tumblr post was about, about January 2024, found here, they had 502 Jewish respondents and 103 Arab respondents (in Israel). Enough in my opinion to say something, but not necessarily completely representative. A few interesting results:

- 26.7% of Jewish respondents were in favor of peace, and 9.0% thinks it will happen.

- 74.8% of Arab respondents were in favor of peace, and 51.5% thinks it will happen.

- When asked to predict what the other group would answer to the first question, the Arab respondents correctly predicted that the Jewish respondents would not be in favor of peace. The Jewish respondents incorrectly predicted that the Arab respondents would not be in favor of peace.

- 38.4% of Jewish respondents were in favor of annexation of the occupied territories by Israel. (compared to 7.7% of Arab respondents).

- 66.1% of Jewish respondents think the number of casualties on the Palestinian side have been ‘completely justified’ and 21.3% think they have been ‘relatively justified’. (Arab respondents responded with 5.8% and 6.8% respectively)

- 50.8% of Jewish respondents responded that the The Israel Defence Forces have used an appropriate use of force, and 43.4% responded that they used too little force. (Arab respondents responded with 20.4% and 3.9% respectively).

A few questions are still going through my mind after reading this. If ‘only’ 38.4% of Jewish respondents want to annex Palestine, but only 26.7% of Jewish respondents want peace, what do most Israeli Jews want the war to accomplish? I feel like I’m still missing things here. The Jewish respondents also seemed much more opinionated then the Arab respondents (the Arab respondents answered ‘Don’t know’ far more often). And… how is 'Arab' defined, exactly? Is this anyone living in Israel that is not Jewish?

But let’s put that aside from now. That last point in the poll, about 50.8% + 43.4% = 94.2% of Jewish respondents thinking that the Israeli army used either an appropriate amount or too little force, is the point that was shared online.

Zachary Foster took that point and made a Twitter post, saying “95% of Jewish Israelis are pro-genocide. Let that sink in.” And then that post got screen-capped and shared on Tumblr by shashiatnight.

Zachary Foster, wrote an article a few days later where he goes into more detail. One part that caught my attention is this:

And this part at the end:

The article argues that yes, Israeli Jews believe the propaganda from the Israeli government. That's why they're scared of Arabs and in favor of the war. But there is a deeper problem then that, where Israeli Jews believe Jewish lives to be much more valuable. Where killing hundreds of bad Palestinians is justified if it means saving one good Jew.

So... ok. Alright. I wanted to know why most Israeli Jews support the extermination of Palestinians. And it's because they value Jewish lives above anything else, and believe the Israeli propaganda about the army being a force of moral good.

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from all of this, other then: Ethnostate = Very bad. Like. A nation that exists to protect one group of people above all others is very bad. Any nation that has it laws favor one group of people over the other is very bad.

A government of an ethnostate can convince its people a genocide is justified, because it's people already believe that some lives are more valuable then others. The only remedy for this is to make ethnostates not exist. Israel should never have been founded. And now that it exists, it should be dismantled. Or at least: It should treat members of all religions and ethnicities the same. A two-state solution isn't good enough.

I don't feel like my actual opinions have changed since the beginning of this post. But I've grown more confident in them. I feel more at peace.

I guess I was still doubting some things, about how exactly I want this conflict to resolve. Like... sure, I've donated a little bit of money for Gaza. But what do I actually want, beyond the end of this genocide?

I want no ethnostate, ever. I want Israel to either stop existing or change to such a degree where it no longer resembles an ethnostate.

Does that put me at odds with people saying "Palestine will be free from the river to the sea"? I don't think it does. I think if Israel would stop existing that would be a good outcome. It's just that I'm also fine with Israel changing into no longer being an ethnostate. Which... hmm... If Israel changed that radically, would it really be 'Israel' any more?

I think the phrase 'Free Palestine' it can be broad enough to encompass my feelings and opinions. I'll add it to our Tumblr and Discord bio from now on.

[bringbackwendellvaughn]

Some Light Christmas Fun

i saw a bunch of my posts had been flagged as inappropriate by tumblr and appealed all of them so they now can show up. even the one about my obsession with psylocke. one i couldn’t appeal though (because it was a reblog) was a reply trying to identify all the characters depicted in The Raft as candidates for the Thunderbolts in Thunderbolts #155.

So now I am going to repeat some of what I said, add some more thoughts and try and identify them all.

This is actually one of my favourite past-times working out what stock background space fillers could reasonably be established characters. Let’s be honest, most of these were probably not meant to be anyone and were just people Kev Walker drew to fill up a room. But, within the story itself, they all have to be established super-villains who would be considered as applicants for the Thunderbolts. For identifying these, there are a few things to refer to here - the characters who are ultimately chosen to join the team are probably there, the next issue identifies some of these people who don’t make the cut, there was a poll featuring a vote for who you wanted to join the team (Shocker won, i voted for Madame Masque), some of the characters appear in other issues of Thunderbolts, some star in a preview story in Enter the Heroic Age and then in Heroic Age: Villains, Steve Rogers proposes several inmates of the Raft as potential future recruits for the Thunderbolts - some shown here.

1. Bison (Billy Kitson) or Man-Bull (William Taurens) Bison is a Thunderstrike enemy who later showed up on Crimson Cowl’s Masters of Evil in Kurt Busiek’s run on Thunderbolts. What we can see here is that it is an orange furred man, but the face cannot be seen. I am inclined to say that this would be Bison since Steve Rogers recommended him as a potential addition to the Thunderbolts in Heroic Age: Villains. This would be slightly off-model for him and it seems we should see his horns poking out here, but Bison is confirmed as being at The Raft and has that reason for being there. Alternatively it might be Man-Bull who is later shown to be at the Raft in some issues of Hercules. Then there is also Griffin (John Horton) who was a poll choice but like Bison’s horns, we should be able to see his wings, so I am definitively removing him as a possibility here..

2. Shocker (Herman Schultz)  Shocker joins the team next issue and is depicted with this hair. I’d lock him in as a definite.

3. ? We don’t have much to go on here besides a sort of faux-hawk hairdo. I’ve ran down the list of who could be there and turned up squat. Maybe in prison, Badd Axe grew a mohawk style. Badd Axe was another of the characters Steve Rogers proposed as a possible team candidate. Blizzard is confirmed as being there next issue - maybe he shaved his head like this to try and look more tough in prison.

4. Bloodshed (Wyndell Dickinson) Bloodshed is a Spider-Man baddie and another member of Crimson Cowl’s Masters of Evil (there’s a lot of them here). He’s apparently grown a goatee but I’d be confident to lock him in as another definite here. He was another of Steve’s candidates from Heroic Age: Villains.

5. Grizzly (Max Markham) I am a bit obsessed with shoving Grizzly into the background of this run. It’s not without precedent, he is depicted in Enter The Heroic Age as being at the Raft, Steve Rogers nominates him as a team member and before this run he was a full-fledged member of the team. This character design mostly suits being Grizzly, he’s the right size and has his soul-patch. The one thing stopping me from saying it’s definitely him is he appears to have some form of faceplate on him. Maybe this was an inking or colouring error? Maybe - just maybe - it is bandages from when Ant-Man climbed into his ear and beat up his ear-drums in Thunderbolts #143. That’s really reaching, especially considering Grizzly had appeared since without his ears being wrapped, but I really want to say this is Grizzly.

6. ? This character receives a fair amount of dialogue bullying pre-transformation Mr. Hyde in the next issue. Possibly trying to deflect their own lack of power by bullying Mr. Hyde when he thinks that Mr. Hyde is a weak timid guy worse off than him. We have a very generic black-haired guy who would bully a weakling, so who could it be?

7. Mr. Hyde (Calvin Zabo) This is kind of how he is depicted next issue when he is in his non-Mr. Hyde form. A small man with black hair cropped at the sides. He is also shown in front of 6 in a line and is bullied by him for looking weak and nerdy. Here he is shown stood in front of 6 again, so this would make sense as being Mr. Hyde.

8. Amazon (Katrina van Horn) or Titania (Mary MacPherran) I want to say this is Amazon, formerly Man-Killer, as she is an ex-Thunderbolt who despite only being on the team briefly always kept showing up in the book. She was again recommended as a possible Thunderbolt in Heroic Age: Villains and while her hair has grown a bit longer here, this would make sense as being her. I’d still hazard a bit to say lock this one in though because, alternatively, it could just as easily be Titania who is seen as an inmate in Thunderbolts #144.

9. ? This one has been bugging me for a while. I so know this character. Has black vertical lines on the eyes, right? Or it might be Armadillo (Antonio Rodriguez) which someone seems to have identified as being in this issue on terrible website ComicVine (I think they just confused 11 with Armadillo though). He’d be a good choice to be here though.

10. ? There is a few characters this could be. Next issue depicts a character with a hairless head with a less human face which might have been the intention here but it’s in the back so never required this detail. If we’re going with that one, the guess would be Headlok (Murray Singleton). At the other end, if you want to say he’s wearing a mask and again it’s the result of lack of detailed, Scarecrow (Ebeneezer Laughton) - next issue shows his mask as being biege. He was a poll choice and actually receives dialogue next issue.

11. Blood Brother The survivor of the two Blood Brothers, we saw this character in Enter The Heroic Age and in Thunderbolts #156 he is identified and given dialogue. He is depicted speaking to 6 and Mr. Hyde (7) next issue. There’s no area of debate this isn’t Blood Brother.

12. ? Short guy with long hair. This seems like it could be an easy one but I’m coming up empty. Dare I suggest this could be Grizzly again?

13. ? A tall woman with nice black hair. Possibly Titania again. Otherwise, the best I can think of is that Moonstone acknowledges Black Mamba as being there next issue. It’s maybe a bit too built for her but it’s also the one that looks the most like Black Mamba. 

14. ? I’m pulling this one out of nowhere but this could be Asp. The hair matches and she is Black Mamba’s bff, so it’d make sense they’d be near each other. 

15. Powderkeg (Frank Skorina) Powderkeg is a real Z-list villain fodder guy. He is confirmed as being a Raft inmate in Avengers Academy #4 (a light crossover issue with Thunderbolts) and I want to say this is definitely him even if it requires a little bit more footwork.

16. Super-Skrull (Kl’rt) Confirmed next issue.

17. Skeleton Ki (Alisher Sham) One of Steve Rogers’ picks and this one is wearing a skeleton face mask so it seems quite evident it is him. Lock in Skeleton Ki as number 17.

18. ? This character is also depicted next issue, stood behind Blood Brother and 6 during the Mr. Hyde bullying scene. Based on that, it’s clear he is a male with long hair.

19. ? Absolutely no idea. Woman with corn-rows.

20. Dark Beast (Hank McCoy) AOA-verse evil version of Beast. Jeff Parker originally wanted this character to join the team but was blocked by the X-offices. Centurius filled his role instead. Dark Beast is shown on the cover to #156, was also one of the poll choices and him being drawn a bit poorly here might have been a last-minute alteration to try and change it to NOT be Dark Beast. This is definitely meant to be Dark Beast though.

21. Poundcakes (Marian Pouncy) Poundcakes is shown as a inmate of the Raft in Thunderbolts #159. The body type is a match and the hair is consistent with how she is shown in #159. Lock her in.

22. Boomerang (Fred Myers) He joins the team next issue. This is another case where this is obviously the character. 100% definite here.

23. Ox (Roland Bloch) Member of the Enforcers (and briefly the Thunderbolts Army). This is how Ox was drawn in Enter The Heroic Age. The colour of his hair has slightly changed but put him in the definite machine.

24. Mandrill (Jerome Beechman) This is Mandrill. Easy.

25. Troll (Gunna Sijurvald) She joins the team. This is undebatably her.

26. Bushwacker (Carl Burbank) Bushwacker is a former Daredevil and Punisher foil. This is definitely him. He was depicted exactly like this in Enter the Heroic Age. Definitely lock him in.

Here’s the bit in issue #156 which features some roll-call with not necessarily the character models depicted. 

Of those I can’t identify the first one (Blizzard because she mentions him? Really, any number of other bad guys listed below can fit this design), the next one is either 6 or 7, then up-front in that mask is Scarecrow (confirmed next 2 panels). Next that would b Bloodshed/4, and then possibly a miscoloured Ana Kravinoff, and finally Headlok and Super-Skrull.

Extra notes: - Centurius (Noah Black) is not depicted but joins the team.  - Blizzard (Donnie Gill) is confirmed as being there in this room as seen above but I don’t see any character that could really really be him. - Scarecrow (Ebeneezer Laughton) is as well but he’s been speculated all over the place. - Black Mamba (Tanya Sealy) likewise. - The leftover Steve Rogers’ suggestions from Heroic Age: Villains are Absorbing Man (Carl Creel), Answer (Aaron Nicholson), Badd Axe, Hydro-Man (Morris Bench), Lady Stilt-Man (Callie Ryan), Mad Dog (Buzz Baxter), Redeemer (Shep Gunderson), Ruby Thursday (Thursday Rubinstein) and Vector (Simon Utrecht). Some of them like Ruby Thursday are clearly not there. - He also recommended the Young Masters but none of them were ever even arrested. - The cover to issue #156 also features Abomination (Emil Blonsky), Absorbing Man, Batroc (Georges Batroc), Ana Kravinoff and Sandman (William Baker/Flint Marko) - none of these appear to be there and Abomination had been dead for a few years by that point. - I can’t find the poll itself, I can find a link to it but it just redirects to Marvel.com, and other than the winner (Shocker) and who I voted for (Madame Masque), the other choices are sourced from a forum post. Absorbing Man, Batroc, Brother(s?) Grimm, Dark Beast, Doctor Demonicus (Douglas Birely), Griffin, Ana Kravinoff, Living Laser (Arthur Parks), Madame Masque (Whitney Frost), Mr. Hyde, Sandman, Scarecrow, Shocker and Other. Noticeably nearly all the ones on the cover to #156 were listed. Other allowed you to write-in a choice but they shouldn’t really count towards this. Of these ones, Absorbing Man, Doctor Demonicus (deformed face with horns), possibly Griffin, Ana Kravinoff, Living Laser (stuck in energy form), Madame Masque and Sandman are obviously not there. - Some other confirmed Raft inmates at this time from other Thunderbolts issues include Axe (Jerome Hamilton), Corruptor (Jackson Day), Mr. Fear (Alan Fagan), Mo Money, Purple Man (Zebediah Kilgrave) and Titania. #159 gives us 3 previously unseen characters: Big Roy (a Walrus monster man), Man-Mountain Mario (Man-Mountain Marko’s cousin) and Indali (a normal looking woman who is the Queen B of the women’s wing of the prison). In other books we see Basilisk (Basil Elks), Blackout (of the Lilin), Crossfire (William Cross), Griffin, Hecate, Man-Bull, Vermin (Edward Whelan) and probably much much more but those are the ones that come straight to mind from Avengers Academy #4, Hawkeye and Mockingbird and a Hercules story. - While Crossbones (Brock Rumlow), Hyperion, Nuke (Frank Simpson) and Norman Osborn are all being held at The Raft, they are not eligible for the team.

Feel free to contribute or ignore this.

[totallyboatless]

Poll is over, reason reveal time:

So this situation is happening in my friend’s boyfriend’s place, where she stays most of the time. He thinks her anxiety is stupid and has shamed her about it horribly. Additional details are that my friend is immunocompromised while also having severe arachnophobia. The infestation is in a storage space that they both use regularly, and spiders have begun to make their way into the proper living area in small numbers.

She’s been trying to deal with the infestation all on her own (reminder: in *his* place, she’s not on the lease) because she wanted the issue resolved and felt beaten down by her boyfriend’s dismissal of her anxiety, thinking “maybe he’s right and I’m overreacting.”

I put up this poll to show her that, even with the extenuating factors of her health and specific phobia aside, almost everyone in this situation would have *some* amount of anxiety. At the very least she shouldn’t accept his take that she’s being irrational.

Btw i also was trying to keep the infestation language relatively neutral because I was trying to prove a point that anxiety is normal regardless (and I didn’t want to oversteer answers in one direction), but the scene she described to me was straight from a horror movie. It’s *bad* y’all.

I think even the small amount of people who voted that they would have no anxiety would (hopefully) also vote that they would understand if their partner did. If i was going to redo this poll, that’s probably that phrasing I would focus on

Anyway, my friend has said multiple times how much this poll has helped her get perspective on the situation and how terrible her boyfriend is being. It makes her feel so much better knowing she’s not an outlier feeling this way. She’s currently staying with her mom and has been more adamant about her request that he fix the problem (which, again, is in *his* place of residence where he’s the sole person on the lease). He’s pitching a fit but is at least taking her more seriously now. So thank you all for voting and reblogging, she was reading all the tags and replies and in general is feeling a lot more empowered.

The last thing i’ll say (based a reblog chain and reactions to it that came out of this) is that, even tho I don’t doubt fear of black widows is exaggerated and bites are less likely to be as seriously harmful as we tend to fear, please please *please* go to the doctor if you get bitten by a black widow. I get wanting to be kind to all animals and fight fear mongering, but they absolutely can make people sick. Go to the doctor if you have the means to do so in that situation

Listen I deeply hate when people say “please reblog I’m trying to see something”

But please reblog I’m trying to see something. Or more accurately trying to collect data for a friend who is currently dealing with a black widow infestation

[thedoctornumber11]

Survey results

A few weeks ago, I did a Tumblr RP survey.  I posted a link on here, reblogged it a few times and asked people to answer a few quick questions.  I was curious about how people found new RP partners, particularly since I have a few different friends on here who I know sometimes struggle to find new RP partners.  I also had a theory on the tags that I wanted to confirm, which was indeed confirmed, specifically that we spend a ton of time making sure we tag things and that those tags work correctly, but rarely anyone actually looks through those tags.  Well, here’s the results of said survey.

I put this under a read more since it’s a bit screenshot heavy.  First wanted to know what type of people we were looking at here.  The big reason I included this question was that I know sometimes people who classify themselves as “private” aren’t even really looking that heavily anyway and was curious how true that is.  As it turns out, I didn’t get much evidence on this because barely anyone who took this survey classified themselves as “private.”

If you are wondering about those others, it’s mostly people telling me they are “semi selective,” which what’s the difference between that and selective?  Not sure.  Someone also mentioned that they are generally open to everyone except for specific characters/fandoms, which is fair, although I’d personally qualify that as selective.

This question surprised me a bit.  While the option for “yes please message me first,” was selected the most, it didn’t entirely dominate the poll like I would have expected it too.  Also, most of the others are people who say they prefer first interactions off of a meme, which how the heck did I forgot to include that as an option?  Regardless, it seems the best thing you can do to interact with new people is to just message them.  Some people may prefer to be tagged without messaging first or just have a meme sent to them, but it doesn’t hurt to message first unless someone’s rules say otherwise.

So, the main point of this question is that your open starters are almost useless.  They are great if you are just wanting to get new threads with existing partners, but not a whole lot of people are actually looking through the open starter tag in search of new partners, so if that’s your goal, it might be better to go looking through that tag yourself to reply to other people’s stuff.  This was VERY surprising to me, as it was quite the opposite when I first started RPing on here.  Most of my earliest RP partners I found through posting open starters, which means they were looking through that tag quite a bit.  Now, I’m not saying open starters are completely useless.  As you can see, people do respond to them when it’s posted by people they are already following, which is quite nice by itself.

I think this question speaks for itself.  If you have a few partners that you really enjoyed RPing with but maybe your thread just sort of dropped itself after a while, you should just tag them in a thing!  People apparently love that sort of thing.  There is a small percentage of people who don’t like this, but the overwhelming amount actually like it perfectly fine.

Here’s the big one that really peaked my interests for this entire survey really.  This entire survey was made mostly so I can ask this one question.  Who reads the tags?  And the answer is not many people.  Out of 26 people, only 6 mentioned that they check it more than once a week.  This is almost a bit alarming to me, because like I said before, a lot of us do spend a lot of time working on tags for our posts for they’ll be discovered and that’s almost meaningless since so few people are actually checking those tags.

Since I saw this, I’ve actually been making a point to check the open starter tags and starter call tags semi regularly to respond to a few of those semi regularly.  It’s gotten a lot of new threads started with me and is quite a bit of fun and I do hope it makes the day of a few people.  That being said, the big thing I grab from this is that if you are wanting to find new RP partners, check tags.  You can’t just post an open starter or a starter call and expect it to bring in new partners since so few people are actually checking tags.  However, if you go through tags yourself and respond to other people’s stuff, it’s likely to get you some people interacting.

The next question was an open ended one.  I can’t really include screenshots of these because of the way the website is formatted.  I would have to do it in four or five screenshots and it’s more trouble than it’s worth, so I’ll just paraphrase.  I asked “ If you do look through roleplay tags, which ones do you look through?  If not, feel free to say so. “ and most of the answers were just the fandom related RP tags.  Very few people mentioned open RP or starter call or any generic RP tags.  So if you do insist on posting your own open roleplays or starter calls, make sure you include the fandom related tags, as these are much more important than the generic tags.  If your OC is fandomless, I’d suggest trying to figure out what fandom it would work best with and use those tags.

The main thing I get from this is that it’s unfortunate that so many people struggle to find new partners.  If I had more questions (you can only ask 10 questions per survey without paying money) I might have asked another question about what type of character people were playing to see if that affected this specific result or not.  However, the fact that so many people struggle to find partners is part of the reason I’m making this survey.  It is nice that so many people are also willing to approach new people however!

The next two questions were open ended.  Question 9 was “ How do you usually find new RP partners?  And how often do you go to old RP partners to start new threads?” and this one is a lot harder to paraphrase because I got so many different answers.  A lot of people are nervous to go to older RP partners because they feel stuff may have been dropped for a reason.  Some people also avoid older RP partners not because they are nervous but because why interact with someone who just dropped something already anyway?  This seems a bit odd to me, because I know sometimes muse is lost for specific threads and it just makes sense to start new ones to continue the relationships.  It can be a bit annoying to have things dropped without notice, but generally speaking I enjoy having lots of threads with people so it all works out for me personally and a lot of people also agree with me on that.  The question was pretty half and half as far as this goes to be honest.  As for finding new RP partners, a few people mentioned tags, but a LOT of people mentioned that they find new partners by just seeing who their current partners are interacting with.  This doesn’t really help anyone who’s struggling to find new partners I suppose, but it is something to think about.

The last question is “ Lastly, what is your Tumblr URL?  This is completely optional and more so out of curiosity than anything.  This particular question and information won't be shared with anyone. “ so I’m not sharing that, although I do want to tag @withgutsandglory​ for reblogging the survey and passing it along to a few other people.  They are a great avatar Korra that I enjoy interacting with and I’d love to have more threads with Korra <3.  I also want to thank everyone else who took it.  I’m going to keep the link on my profile for other people to take and maybe come revisit the results in a few years or so to see how it changes.  I think it’s a fascinating subject and I’m glad to have accumulated some of this information and do hope it helps at least one person out there at some point.  I am also going to try and message everyone who did leave their name for this survey so they know the results were posted.

Thanks again for taking this everyone and I hope everyone is having a great day! :D

[chaosbcrne]

actual info under the cut !

general

if everything works out smoothly, the event will begin friday, august 16th

it will last either 8, 12 or 16 days, depending on the participants’ preference (8 days being shorter but harder to keep up with, 16 being less crammed but stretching until september 1st, 12 being something in-between) (please let me know what you prefer as soon as you confirm your participation)

interactions can be anything from one-liners to multi-para, depending on your interest/convenience.

no format/icons required beyond trimming your replies and minding your grammar

there is no minimum activity required; as long as there’s genuine interest, you can make only one or two updates throughout the whole thing, actively interact with everyone or just write a drabble based on it - whatever liberties you must take for it to be enjoyable, go for it

organization/content

prompts, ideas and other matters of happenings will be published through a side-blog created for the occasion (much like for the camping trip event, for those who took part in that)

the side-blog will also be used to gauge interest and organize group threads/activities for things such as sports, games, etc.

some surprises and improvised additions may or may not be published on the side-blog along with the prompts

you’ll be welcome to send ideas through the side-blog’s ask box, whether they apply to anyone or to your muse specifically, where they’ll be approved, negotiated or declined (e.g.: can omega accidentally set everything on fire, can the group have to deal with a flat tire, etc.)

more details will be determined through polls, also on the side-blog

much, much more details will be included on the side-blog in regards to the itinerary and all the activities and possibilities that will be available to your muse at each moment and location ahead of time. they are not included on this post as i would rather restrict the access to all those ideas to people who will participate (and therefore who have a link to the sideblog)

rules

don’t take game-changing initiatives without first going through me/the event side-blog. it’s totally cool to come up with your own ideas and instigate some interactions from them, but try not to start things that will affect everyone without getting it approved first

be open-minded and inclusive; don’t wait for people to come to you all the time and try to give attention to those who receive it the least

don’t share posts from the side-blog and its URL publicly, to avoid people who don’t participate using its content and stirring confusion

now for the the less fun part. as stated before, this will be a closed event, as i wish to personally ensure that whoever takes part enjoys it. that means there are certain restrictions to participate. depending on interest, however, i may lift or loosen some of these, so please, if you want to participate and are stopped by one of these criteria, message me so that we may perhaps work something out.

(and for those of you who are just unhappy that i do things this way, please don’t bother vaguing about it or whatnot. i put a lot of work into this and i have the right to run it in a way that will make it enjoyable for me as well)

you have to (ideally) be mutuals with me (chaosbcrne)

no duplicates (some exceptions may be made for characters such as the Avatar from Forces or highly AU characters bearing different names/aliases than their canon counterparts, so long as everyone involved is comfortable, we can talk things out)

no villains/assholes, unless they’re willing to make a truce/effort for the duration of the trip. this is meant to be a good time for both muns and muses. being snarky or in a bad mood is fine; openly insulting others and actively trying to ruin their day is not.

ocs are welcome so long as they are sonic-based and aren’t based on/related to/etc. canon characters (unless the people writing said characters are 100% comfortable with it)

you have to follow the side-blog (once I give you the link of course), and ideally be willing to add me on discord

you don’t have to, but reblogging this post to show your interest and spread the word would be highly appreciated

if all of this is okay by you and you want in, like/reblog this post and/or message me and we can get you sorted !

you can find the list of people confirmed to participate here (x) 

[terra-writes]

Blog FAQ

Figured I would set one of these up this time around! If I make any additions or edits to this I’ll make a post letting you guys know! 

You’ve said “Terra” is just the name you go by online, so can we know your real name?

Simply put? No. My real name is incredibly unique and I would rather keep my online life and real life as separate as I can since where I live, fic writing is largely frowned upon. Also, I’m probably going to explain this bad, but I was told if I wanted to get published I’d have to delete all my fics or write under a different name so there was no crossover between the two. I choose instead to write my fic under a different name to save myself some trouble later on. To those that have learned my real name, I ask that you please don’t spread it around.

What is your general activity like on this blog?

Well last November I started a job where I work a standard 40 hour week. I’m generally away from home from 11am to about 9pm 5 days a week. I do have a pretty set schedule, so for now I’m always off Mondays and Fridays. This blog isn’t my main one, so the only times I’m online and able to check it, is when I’m at home and on my laptop. So except for the days that I’m off, I’ll likely only ever be online in the evenings. If I go to post a work, I’ll likely always schedule it to post between 12 and 1pm the following day.

What is your timezone?

I live in, and operate out of US Central Time. If you don’t quite know how much to add/subtract, the United states is divided into 4 timezones: Eastern time is one hour ahead of me, Mountain Time is one hour behind, and Pacific Time is 2 hours behind me. I don’t quite know how to calculate it for overseas timezones but if people send in the calculations for their timezone I can always edit them in here.

What is your uploading schedule like?

I can’t really say I have one. Every time I’ve tried to keep to one It hasn’t always worked out for me for some reason or another. 

How does your tagging system operate?

I always try to keep the tags as relevant and to the point as possible, since tumblr has a limited amount of tags you can add to a post. Here is a small list of what I will tag:

Characters with a significant relevance/presence to the current plot. I might not tag certain characters if they show up in a work if their plot relevance was minor/they only spoke like once in the entire thing to save space.

The fandom

The type of work (Headcanon, ask game, etc. This might be combined with he above bullet point ex: “mha headcanons”)

if the work is fluff, angst, nsfw. Side note, my nsfw tag for this blog will be the word “sin” so works would be tagged with “mha sin” or “haikyuu sin” and things like that.

If the work is part of a series, I will tag the name of it.

If the work involves any oc’s of mine, I will tag their name like I would any other character.

If I reblog a work from someone else, I will try to include all the tags they used as well as what type of work it is, such as “AU,” “reader insert,” “oc story,” etc. Reblogged works will always contain the tag “other people’s writing”

I will always try to tag trigger warnings/any potential triggering content. However, if I run out of space in the tags, all potentially triggering content will always be listed at the top of the work in bold. And all content of the work will always be below a “read more.” If there is anything you want me to tag/list at the top of my work. Please DM or send in an ask letting me know what content you want me to provide additional warnings for. I will never purposefully not tag a trigger, so if a work I’ve posted is missing a tag, please notify me as soon as you notice it so I can add it!

Writing will always be tagged with “terra writes” while almost every other kind of post will be tagged with “terra says.” This includes asks, announcements, updates, etc. I don’t recommend blacklisting the “terra says” tag, but most of the time other types of posts will be tagged with an additional secondary tag (update time, answered asks, poll time) So if you don’t want to see specific types of posts like polls, I would recommend blacklisting the “poll time” tag instead of the “terra says” tag.

You didn’t tag x trigger in your story/Can you please tag x in stories going forward?

Of course! If I forgot to tag something/tagged something wrong, please notify me! I often use the New X-Kit tag bundle extension and don’t always remember to delete a tag or include one. I’m only human and am prone to making mistakes even when trying to be as diligent as possible! I am also aware that people can have very different triggers, and I’m not always aware of what may or may not be a trigger. So if there’s something you want me to tag, send me an ask! I’ll always tag thins as “cw: <insert trigger>” 

Also please don’t ever assume I’m purposefully not tagging a trigger. Sometimes I genuinely miss putting the tag in/didn’t know the story needed it included.

Do you have a tag list?

Not currently! If you’re interested in being added please feel free to send me an ask or IM letting me know if you just wanted to be tagged in stuff involving a certain character, fandom, type of writing (drabble/headcanon), or series or any combination. I’ll keep a list in my drafts of the usernames and what you want to be tagged in. If you ever want to be removed, you’ll have to send me an ask letting me know.

What fandoms are you in?/What fandoms will you write for?

You can find a complete list of fandoms that I will write for here!

However, there are a few other fandoms I’m in that I just don’t feel like writing for. Those include: DC comics (mainly Young Justice), Pokemon, and Attack on Titan. I’m probably forgetting some, so I’ll update this list as I remember them. If you want to know if I’m in a fandom/will write for one, please send me an ask!

Do you write m/m, w/w, nonbinary, different ethnicities, etc?

Yes! If I’m writing a reader-insert story, I always try to keep the reader as gender-neutral and vague as possible unless something is specifically ask of me in the request itself. However to some degree I take liberties with the background of the reader. I will often make up a family situation, living arrangement etc. Again if there is anything specific about the reader you want me to include, please let me know. 

In the case of sin, I always default to a female gender/parts since that is what I am most familiar with. If you would like it to be non-specified/male parts/etc. you will need to tell me in the request itself.

Can I get a shout out?

You can! There’s absolutely 0 things wrong with asking for one and don’t let other people make you feel like shit for it. I know it can be hard starting a blog and getting your name out there, especially after the most recent updates which make it even harder for works to show up in the tumblr search function. This is why reblogging people’s works is even more important now than it had been in the past. I’m more than willing to give your blog a shout out if you need it! Feel free to send me an ask off anon from the blog, send an IM so I can make a post with the blog’s name, or even just ask me to reblog a story I liked from your blog. 

Do you have any Fic/Blog recs?

I’m pretty terrible about having the time to go and read as much fic as I used to be able to do, so I can’t really promote many other blogs than one’s I’ve already been following for a while/blogs of friends. Maybe one day that will change and I hope it does but as of right now I don’t think I’d be able to put together a very good list for people.

Do you write Dark Content?

I do not! However, this doesn’t mean I’m on a crusade against writers that do. As long as the people who write content like that keep everything tagged so that people who don’t want to read it, can skip over it, I literally do not care what they write about. But on a personal level, I do not want to write content like that, so I will not write or reblog dark content works on this blog.

If any dark content blog want to interact with my blog/works, they can do so. Just because I choose not to engage in dark content does not mean I am going to bar people that do from reading/interacting with my works if they enjoy it. I do ask that any dark content writers don’t reblog/reply to any nsfw posts of mine and add dark content to them.

[uter-us]

i do agree with you a lot, like basically everything you said i agree w. I phrased the poll that way because the better questions you provided weren't what I actually wanted to know. I'm curious about your last part though about how applying them to specific people is regressive. what terms or phrasing would you use instead? for example, I don't shave and that is a masculine thing to do as a woman in my area/culture. I think it is accurate to use that word because (while I do NOT agree w this) socially for me, shaving is reserved for women and men typically do not shave. when I'm trying to explain this discrepancy in what is expected of men and women, and that my not shaving is masculine and therefore I'm looked down upon for not behaving femininely, how should I explain it without using masculine/feminine since I'm using it on an individual (its myself though so is it different?)? cuz (in this area of my behavior) I am seen as masculine for it, and I can't think of a different word or phrasing that conveys the fact that people are genuinly saying I'm "like a man" for that, yk? or does this example of calling an individual masculine fall under "speaking generally of systems of oppression"?

like is it only regressive to use the word on an individual in certain instances? (like is it appropriate in feminist discussions like my example? what about in non-feminist discussions, could someone describe a woman as "dressing masculine" or a man as "dressing femininely"? I sometimes see SSA women say they like "masculine women," is that not good?)

also would you want people to rephrase this: "women can be masculine and men can be feminine"? and if yes, how would you do it do you think?

im genuinely asking btw! cuz we really do agree on the first part so I'm curious where we are differing in our conclusions

(fyi I also recognize my examples were abt more external things and not things like how being dominant is masculine (or "manly") and subservient, feminine or ("womanly.") I could not bring myself to call an outspoken woman "masculine" for that unless I'm talking about it in some feminist conversation and thats the point of the conversation or something.)

lastly, do you think it's better maybe to say (for example) my not shaving "is considered masculine" rather than "is masculine"?

thanks for your reply! i know i asked a bunch of questions so no pressure on replying. your reblog already had great insight. thanks again!

i see radfems disagree on this so I'm curious yalls thoughts. fyi I'm NOT asking if only females are feminine and males masculine.

[madatobiweek2019-2021]

Hi! I just wanted to share some ideas for future MadaTobi events and see what people think about them.

My main thought is if it is possible to maybe spread the event over a longer span of time? The last event generated over 70+ entries on AO3 alone. Apart from that there was also a lot of Tumblr entries. That makes over 10 entries a day. And to be honest, I was overwhelmed. Between touching up on my work and posting it, I spent some time on tracking fics on AO3 and, I am ashamed to admit, giving up on the Tumblr part of the event, because everything was coming a little too much and a little too fast. Especially, early and late day entries were easy to loose in the quick posting schedule. I feel that in all this business, there was little time spared to actually appreciate the work put out by the participants. At least I know that I haven’t appreciated some of the works as much as they deserved and I am still feeling slightly guilty about that. Especially, when I’m reading and liking an update to a fic that I don’t remember being entered in the event.

I don’t know about other participants, but posting an entry a day took quite a toll on me especially when it was a long work day in real life. It was difficult to include posting, reading, commenting and replying in a particulary busy daily schedule. And you had only one day to do it, because the next day brought in another set of prompts.

The shortness of the event also resulted in quite a draught in content before the event (everyone was getting prepared) and after it (I guess a lot of people felt burnt out). While the week itself overflowed with it to the point that it was difficult to keep up at times.

So I’d like to put forward an idea of having the MadaTobi event over a span of a month or two months with weekly prompts. This way we could have a steady content flow throughout a month. It would also give the participants time to post their entries at their leisure and appreciate/engage with the works of other. One thing I was really missing from the past event was the time to engage with other participants over the works being shared.

(Submitted by @mantykora14)

Since we try very hard to remain impartial (we’re here to curate, not to dictate!) we will leave it up to all of you to decide one way or another on these subjects but here are Mod’s humble opinions on some things here. 

The event takes place over a week simply because it was modeled after other similar events and from observations most pairing or character celebrations take place over a single week. Not all, certainly, but most. Usually spreading these events out over more time ends with being given even more prompts to work with or fulfill. Should others speak up and ask that we spread out the time frame then we are certainly more than happy to switch things up a bit next year.

If you are worried about keeping up with everything we urge you not to sweat it! That was the idea behind having a separate blog dedicated to MadaTobiWeek: we gather the content for you to peruse at your leisure! I’m sure each and every creator would understand if you need to take your time going through everything, even if it take a while after the event is over for you to reblog or read all the entries. That’s the beauty of the internet! Once it’s posted you are free to enjoy it at any time!

As for the effort it takes to get a post ready for every day, you certainly aren’t required in any way to have something ready for every day but we do understand that people like to challenge themselves. That’s why we started getting things ready so far beforehand! Popular vote placed the event in August so we all have six whole months to prepare as much content as we can! Hopefully that large time frame will also help with the draughts you mentioned.

But as always, Mod asks that other people share their opinions as well. If no one speaks up then it will be address in poll form when next year rolls around. 

[asexualzoro]

so you want to make a twitter (part 2)

tweeting

i’ve seen a few guides on twitter for new twitter users, which is nice, but something about having the posts being things you had to finds on twitter--a new site for the people who needed those guides--seemed unhelpful to me. so, i figured id make a small series of guides of my own here for anyone considering a move (or just making an account) who dont know how

this is a series of posts, since im going to be sort of detailed, so feel free to use just the pieces you need. ill tag them all “lews twitter tutorials” so you can find them on my blog

this is written under the assumption that youve read part 1 of this mini guide series, and dont know anything about twitter or any other social media site but tumblr

ill put it under a cut to save your space, but here’s the most important feature of twitter: tweeting!

so, tweeting. this is something you obviously have to know how to do.  this is how to make a tweet, differences between tumblr and twitter, and how to interact with a tweet

so, making one! when you make a new tweet on mobile, the screen looks like this

(the icons are p much the same whether you use mobile or desktop, so it doesnt matter which i use)

first, the tweet itself! tweets can only be up to 280 characters, and cant be edited once you post them. theres no feature to bold, italicize, underline, or add linked text in twitter, so its not as good as tumblr for stuff like that, unfortunately. 

here’s what the icons at the bottom do, from left to right

- pictures! this is sort of straightforward: it lets you add pictures. a tweet can only contain either 4 pictures, 1 gif, or 1 video. you cant have a gif and a picture, or a picture and a video. 

a note for artists! twitter is known to compress image quality when images are uploaded, BUT there is a workaround! if you have even one single transparent pixel, your image wont be compressed. 

a note for everyone! you can enable image transcription captions in settings (Settings > Accessibility > compose image descriptions). this allows you to type a short image description to any image you post, if you choose to. it’s a feature i recommend you have on and try to use for your followers who might have worse vision!

- gif keyboard! this image is a search for reaction gifs, basically. i almost never use it bc i can usually never find the specific gif im looking for...

- polls! tis is a feature i like about twitter! it allows you to conduct anonymous polls with up to four options. you can set a time limit and leave it up to allow people to respond. settle arguments between you and your friends or get opinions!

you cant post an image and a poll in the same tweet, so if you want opinions on something in an image, just have the poll be a reply to your tweet

- location! you can add your current location to any tweet. ive had this disabled for so long i genuinely dont know like... anything about this.

listen, im trying my best

- the little circle at the bottom which is grey with a dot of blue is the character counter. the circle is grey when empty, and gets bluer as you tweet. it wont count out how many characters you have left until youre within 20 of being full, in which case itll let you know so you dont go over the limit. 

- finally, theres the + icon, which is for making threads. it lets you edit multiple tweets at once, connected in a string. threads are helpful for a lot of reasons!

if you have information to share, then put it together in a thread! if one tweet in a thread is retweeted, it’s marked as being part of a thread. this will encourage readers to look at the rest!

if you like to livetweet series, put it in a thread! this allows you to keep all your livetweets in one place, and also allows people following you to mute the thread if they arent interested

- i also know on mobile if you close out with the X, you can save a tweet to drafts to edit and post later. i dont know if you can do this on desktop because i never use desktop, and when i have, i couldnt ever find the drafts thing. i know if you delete the app, all your drafts are deleted, too

WELL, now that youve got the basics on a tweet....

interacting with the tweets of others

okay, heres a bit on what buttons do what, and some Twitter Manners

here’s our sample tweet, posted. this isnt how it appears on the timeline, but how it appears once you click it, so i can show the full range of things you can do with a tweet.

you can see the tweet, who posted it, and the date/time, and other stuff

- profile. top left. if you click the icon/display name/handle of the op, you can go to their profile!

- menu. see the little arrow in the top right corner? thats a menu. 

on your own tweet, you can delete the tweet here, pin it to your profile, or mute it. muting a tweet means you no longer get notifications when someone interacts with it

on someone else’s tweet, you can follow or unfollow the op of the tweet, mute the op, block the op, or report the tweet

in the bottom row....

- theres tweet activity. it only shows up on your own tweet, and lets you see how many people have seen your tweet.

- below this would tell you how many likes and retweets your tweet got, but no one liked or retweeted my wonderful tweet for some strange reason, so i cant show you

worth noting, if your account is on private, you wont show up in the notifications of people who arent following you

now for the buttons

- the speech bubble is replies! that lets you repy to the tweet

worth saying, if you reply to a retweet or conversation, its important to be sure to un-@ the people who you arent talking to. when you reply to someone, at the top of the reply it will list everyone youre replying to. click the little names and unclick the check boxes by the names of those not involved, and youre good to go! not doing this is considered rude/annoying

- next, retweeting! retweeting is sort of like reblogging. you retweet another tweet so it shows up on your own account. you can retweet without comment, which brings the tweet as is, or with comment, which allows you to add your own sort of caption. the op of the tweet will nto be notified for any replies, likes, or retweets on a comment retweet

a note! people often do retweets with comments on stuff like news stories to add their own commentary/jokes

another note! DO NOT do this to art by artists, even if youre doing it to be nice! a lot of artists, especially international artists, find this incredibly rude, as it takes away attention and retweets from the art itself. if you want to share art, just retweet. if you want to say something nice, just tell them in replies!

its not uncommon for people to retweet something without comment, then make a tweet of their own to comment on them.these tweets generally start with LRT (last retweet)

- likes are pretty simple. you press the like button and you like the post. one thing thats different from tumblr to twitter, though, is twitter has a feature that shows your likes (and that you liked them) to your followers (if they havent disabled it). 

- the share button allows you to share tweets! you can DM them to your friends, bookmark them (this is good for articles and such), or copy the link to share elsewhere.

and... that concludes tweeting!

[foundfamilyhq]

Hello! I usually don't reply to tags on here, since I don't want people who are just here for the polls to get bogged down by too much talking, but I thought I'd reply to this one, since a lot of care has gone into it and it is such a shame that you folks missed the poll The truth of the matter is that I don't check if any of the posts appear in tags. None of them could be appearing in any tags and I'd never know unless someone tells me. My honest assumption is that the vast majority of engagement on poll blogs come from reblogs. Polls that don't leave the blog itself tend to get between 100-150 votes, while ones that do get passed around can get a lot more. Which is obviously where tags come in, so it would be helpful if the posts do appear in the tags in a perfect world, but sometimes that's not the case I find it interesting that you'd said here that if a popular ship had been tagged, then the poll probably would've reached more of the characters' fans. We had two characters who were ditched last time (Dean Winchester and Katsuki Bakugou) who were both asked to be tagged with well-known ships for the Redemption Event. Both characters did get adopted this time around, but I know some people weren't happy with me tagging the ships (in the same way I personally feel kinda uncomfortable tagging real actors - so I get it, even if it doesn't bother me personally). My general rule of thumb is that I don't want to make a habit of tagging ships unless they're submitted as tags, because people browsing those tags might find it annoying to see something not technically related to the ship in the tags. But both of the times we did it here, it did help the polls reach the characters' fans. So yeah, that does align with what you're saying here that some people don't follow the character tag, because there's a lot of negativity on it, but they do follow the ship tag Anyway, I'm getting off on a tangent that I don't have an answer to. Admittedly, when that poll didn't get engagement, I'd assumed that the people who'd wanted to see him get adopted maybe weren't following the blog anymore and didn't think further about it. But the fact that you folks did want to see him get adopted and missed out really sucks :( It'd be unfair on everyone who had their blorbos ditched to run a poll for the same character again so soon. But it is frustrating that you've been waiting since September only to miss out All I can say is, there's a loophole here that you possibly already know - because the character was only submitted as "ravovid" (not specific) the first time, you could feasibly submit specifically the Netflix Radovid next time and I wouldn't object to that. However, submission openings are few and far between. The reason for this is because every time I've opened submissions I've received over 200 submissions in less than an hour. I want to make an effort to open them more often at different times of day, so more people in other timezones get a chance, but we still always get a lot. There's still about 140 submissions from 2023 that I need to get back to after the Redemption Event, because those people have been waiting a long time as well. It sucks, but that's how it is However, if you do miss the next time submissions open (whenever that is), I'll keep Netflix Radovid in mind. I'm not sure what I can do about the post not appearing in tags, but at least it'll mean he'll get another shot without having to wait until next year's Redemption Event

Definitely missed that poll too!

Yeah, I'm kind of really sad about it, because I'm the one that had asked for a version of the poll specifying if it was for the TV show or the videogame character, back in September.

Since then, I had periodically been checking on the @foundfamilyadoptionagency blog to see when submissions would reopen, so I could submit Radovid with a picture and description of the character, specifically from the TV show this time, and was planning to rally other fans (especially those that I know have a large number of Radovid/Radskier fans followers) of the character to reblog the poll so fans of the TV show and the character would hopefully see it.

I'm thinking of one person, in particular, that tends to make the notes on my own Radovid posts soar whenever she reblogs them.

But Destiny apparently had other plans, I completely missed it (therefore didn't vote, nor did I get the chance to increase its visibility among fans of the TV show and the TV show character) and, at some point, it would be ridiculous to just keep insisting for it to be reposted again and again, expecting a different result.

That being said, I was extremely surprised and very touched that they'd remembered it, though!

I was not expecting they'd be doing a second version without a reminder, or someone giving a proper submission, so a part of me went "OMFG! They're so sweet!", while at the same time face-palming that most fans I know seemed to have missed it.

I have a feeling that a lot of Radovid (show version) fans tend to check out the Radskier (Jaskier/Radovid ship) tag more often, too, since that allows us to avoid posts about the videogame character (and most Radovid posts are also connected to Jaskier and their relationship anyway).

Or they simply follow the few main blogs that keep creating and reblogging content about Radovid and Radskier directly to get their fix.

But yeah, given said main blogs did not appear to notice or repost the poll, I'm actually not at all surprised by the results.

Because "The Witcher" 's fandom is a bit of an eclectic mess of clashing ideologies, values, and extremes.

Including hardcore videogame fans that were expecting the TV show to religiously follow the narrative of the games, rather than create their own adaptation of the books.

So, while you will get people disliking Radovid for the usual (and perfectly valid, BTW) fandom reasons, such as:

They simply fail to emotionally connect or relate to him,

They feel like the show had been building a romance between Geralt and Jaskier for the first 2 seasons, only to instead pair him up with another newly introduced character in season 3.

You also have some videogame fans that are having a hard time treating these two characters as two completely different persons, and will even readily admit that they have an irrational dislike of Radovid based on his videogame counterpart.

Again, a fairly reasonable thing to happen that does affect the character's overall popularity, but usually those fans are pretty laid back about it and don't mind that people that only read the books and never played the games, or have only been watching the TV show, fell in love with the show's version of the character.

Videogame Radovid and TV show Radovid, are essentially two very different original characters that were created to serve very different purposes, that were vaguely inspired by a few lines from the books.

One is a villain people love to hate.

The other basically Netflix's version of a Disney Prince.

But then, you also have a very passionate and extremely vocal group of gamers (type "The Witcher" on YouTube, and get ready to enter incel territory!), that will be losing their shit over the fact that they made Radovid a super gentle and sensitive gay prince that admits to being scared, huddles and weeps in a corner when he finds out his guards have all been slaughtered, has a romance with Jaskier on the show, and is ready to leave his life at court behind to go chase after love; instead of the cruel, paranoid badass hypermasculine dictator king that was written for the 3rd videogame.

And then, there's also the argument that: "Jaskier is straight in the books and videogames! How dare they make Jaskier queer by having Radovid be written as Vizimir's adult younger brother instead of being his 12 y.o. son? They aged up a character just to make the show more woke and gay! It's so wrong! " we keep getting from queerphobic audiences.

Basically, TV show Radovid has been getting a large amount of hate from toxic subgroups of the gaming community ever since Jaskier was announced as being in a M/M relationship with him.

It's not even an issue they have with Radovid specifically, but the show in general.

There are entire YouTube channels devoted to hating on the show, it's creators, and everything they deem to be wrong with it, such as the way it focuses too much on Yennefer and Ciri when it's supposed to be called "The Witcher" (not "The Sorceress" or "The Child of Surprise"), having chosen to cast women with healthy and diverse body types (and ethnicities) to portray sorceresses that are described as the most beautiful women on the Continent in the books (when the videogames gave them more "conventionally attractive looking", and often white, in animated form), etc.

And that sort of general resentment towards the show for wishing to explore its own themes, being more inclusive, and taking their adaptation in a different direction than the games (and the books, at times, like most TV show and movie adaptations will do), means they'll take any opportunity they have to express their discontent.

I remember a poll, at some point where the "Radovid's character was screwed over on the Netflix show" option was winning, until the fan I'm talking about earlier reblogged it, and then the "He was treated just fine!" option won (I think the "he was screwed over" ended up with only 15% votes after it was reblogged by fans of the TV show).

So, you have gamers that hate everything about the show and the way it's different from the games... that are sharing the same space/tags as people that love the show, and either have no interest in the games, or are able to appreciate each as two very different takes on the same shared source material.

Of course they positively hate the way the TV show ignored the King Radovid from the 3rd game and created their own character. So they'll wish to "ditch" that version.

And, of course they hate videogame King Radovid, given he's meant to be hated on! He's an awful human being!

Radovid might stand a chance in a context where the fans of the TV show and of the new romance with Jaskier are given a chance to mobilize on their voting.

Otherwise, the fact that he got close to half the votes without help from any Radovid/Radskier centric blogs is actually... rather impressive!

He's actually more popular and beloved than I thought! 😆

So, don't worry too much about it. It's already extremely nice and considerate that you (the poll creator) were willing to give his TV show version a chance, so that it was clearer which one of the two characters we were voting on.

But yeah, "The Witcher" 's fandom itself is a very strange and sometimes scary place to navigate.

[astrofantastic]

The New Year

Today is the last day of 2017!!  And as such, we have closed our end of 2017 poll, and want to address some of the suggestions we got.  If you have anything to add onto this, or any more suggestions, please send them to us through an ask!  We want to always have an open line of communication with our followers so we can make this the best blog ever!

Suggestion: Specific tag for fan cafe posts

We now have one!  Our tag system has changed slightly, and you can now find all the tags we use and none that we don’t on our tag page.  For fan cafe posts specifically, they will be tagged as s: fan cafe (though we haven’t updated the actual tags on posts yet, sorry!).  

However, these will only be official photos.  We aren’t allowed to repost letters on the fan cafe from the members of ASTRO.  There’s a general rule of thumb to consider when reposting things from the fan cafe: if you can view the posts as an associate member (the little green icon), then you can repost it.  If you have to be a higher level member in the fan cafe (regular member = diamond, aroha member = purple icon), then you aren’t allowed to repost from that section.  Associate members (green icon) can view the official BEHIND photos, but not the FROM.ASTRO letter section.  If you have an other questions about how the fan cafe works, you can send us an ask!

Suggestion: Better organization

We’re trying!  2017 has been a rough year for the astrofantastic admin, especially closer to the end of the year.  A majority of us started college, and we’ve also had to part with some of the mods who were with us.  However, we are going to be fixing this!  Soon we will be looking for new mods to help us on the blog with posting, and we will also be getting on top of translating posts for all of you!  As far as “better organization” goes, what else do you guys think we can do to improve?  Send us an ask, or reply to this post~

Suggestion: Regional group chats

This is a really interesting suggestion that I really liked!  I was thinking that we can find representatives from each region to start a group chat, and we can add people to it!  If anybody has a good idea on how to organize this, let us know in our inbox or by replying to this post!

Suggestion: Translated articles and tweets

In 2017, we had to part with one of our translators and our translator who stuck with us got quiet busy.  I can translate things myself, but I’m in college so I found I didn’t have the time.  However, we will be on the hunt for Korean to English translators to help us improve the blog!  If you know Korean and want to help us out on the blog, please send us an ask!

Suggestion: Posting group photos

Unfortunately, we haven’t found a fan site that’s dedicated to posting only group photos.  It wouldn’t be right to request from fan sites that we do have permission from to post more group photos, as they’re already working hard.  However, we’ll make an effort to post more group-oriented things!  Would you guys like us to make an ot6 tag as well?  Let us know in an ask, or a reply to this post!

Lastly, I want to say THANK YOU to everybody following us.  This blog is still running because of all of the people following us, sending us supportive messages, and reblogging our stuff!  I want to encourage everybody to be more open about what they think of this blog, too!  If there’s a link that’s broken, tell us!  If you have a suggestion for something we can do on the blog to make it better, we’re all ears!  2017 has been a massive year for this blog, despite the disorganization of the admin.  In the last month alone we’ve gained 300+ followers, and that’s just outrageous.  I can’t really wrap my head around a number as big as 300, so to see that this blog has grown from 8k to 12k followers over the course of 2017 is breathtaking.  Again, thank you for all of your support.  Let’s go into 2018, and work hard to support our 6 shining stars, ASTRO!

-M