#if anyone reblogs this add my tags they should be in the caption but i don't feel like retyping it asjfdfd

[stanfordsweater]

new kripke lore dropped

[robo-dino-puppy]

saw a tag wondering about my gradient text in captions, so if you've ever wondered how to do that on tumblr... here you go!

fun colors for captions!

I use this site: https://www.stuffbydavid.com/textcolorizer

put your text in the first box (step 1), then pick your gradient type (step 2) and colors (step 3). (I don't mess around with step 4 because you can change all of that in tumblr's native editor if you need to.) once you're happy with the result, copy everything in the last box that says "HTML code for this text" and return to your post on tumblr.

now I don't use mobile or the app, so, uh, I can't exactly help you there, but wherever you have the gear that lets you see content source/blaze/reblog settings etc. for your post, click on that. at least on desktop, it's in the upper right corner of a post when you're editing it. there should be a dropdown box that says "text editor" and the default setting is rich text. we need to switch it to HTML.

once you do that, go back to your post. if you've never seen HTML before, it might look scary ^^; but don't worry! assuming you already have an image (or text or whatever) in the post, just put your cursor at the end of everything, hit enter to start a new paragraph, and paste the code you copied from the website. you can cut and paste the gradient text into a different spot later if you need to - switch back to rich text and you should be able to read everything like normal.

now you might be finished if everything looks good, but what I like to do is save the post as a draft, then cycle through all the dashboard colors (shift + p on desktop, way more complicated on mobile as far as I know because you have to go into dash settings, and I have no clue about the app) to see if the gradient is still visible. I personally use the "low contrast classic" dash color scheme and sometimes peoples' gradients don't work very well with it... if something looks too pale/dark/same-y to one of the background colors I go back to the gradient generator website and tweak the colors a bit, then copy and paste again. (remember to go back into HTML editing!)

let me know if I missed a step or something is confusing! I can try to add screenshots if needed. and if anyone does this on mobile/the app/has a different process they like better feel free to add on :D

[tasteleeknow]

hihi jade !! i’m fairly new to tumblr and wanted to ask what’s the best way to reblog a post? i want you and my other favourite writers to get the attention + support you deserve but i’m still quite not sure on how it works ><

hihi !! that's really nice to of you make the effort to understand ! i'll put a little tutorial under the cut for you and anyone else that would like to learn. this is one of the best ways you can support writers on tumblr and i really encourage readers to stop and read this !

main or side? if you have no problem reblogging fics onto your main blog you can skip this section! this is just for people who don't feel comfortable putting fic on their blog for whatever reason.

tumblr has a thing called sideblogs where you can make secondary blogs on the same account. no one else looking at that blog will know it's attached to your main unless you tell someone. it's a great option for people who want a blog only for fic they read. the downsides is that you can only reply to posts from your main and send asks off anon from your main. but it's a great option for reblogging fic.

on mobile: just go to your blog then press your name and then 'create a new blog'

on web: click the profile icon then 'new'

how to reblog this part is easy! the best way to help writers is to reblog any fic you read and enjoyed. leaving a little comment in the tags is a lovely bonus and i'll show you how to do that soon. first i'll show you how to reblog really quickly with no comments. it's as easy at liking!

on mobile: at the bottom of a post, HOLD the reblog button. the icons of all your blogs will appear. DRAG then RELEASE over the blog you want to reblog the post to. your main or any sideblog you've made. that's it!

on web: hold the e key on your keyboard and icons from your blogs will pop up. then hover over the icon you want to reblog to and click. same deal as mobile. will reblog to the blog you clicked, quick and easy.

adding feedback/tags this is the bonus step that will make any writer's day. i read every single comment people leave in the tags of their reblogs! here's how you can add comments to your reblogs!

bonus: using tags is also how you can organise your blog. if you add tags like 'minho' or 'favourite' and then search them on your blog later, you can find your favourite fics. much easier to organise than likes.

on mobile: press the reblog button instead of holding it.

where it says '+ add tags to help people find your post', click and add any and all thoughts about the fic you just read. it can be a little keysmash or it can be an essay. adore anything you feel like offering. type a sentence or word then hit return on your phone keyboard then type the next word or sentence. and so on and so on. (this is also where you can put your organisational tags). then when you're done press reblog.

on web. click the reblog button. you'll get a popup like this. type your tags. all your thoughts. then any tags to help you find the post later. hit reblog!

bonus: if you really do want to write an ESSAY (always welcome). this is where you can put your thoughts into the caption instead of tags. where i've written 'long comments/essays here' on mobile screenshot and where it says 'go ahead, put anything' on web.

when should you reblog? whenever you finish a fic that you enjoyed! tumblr works by sharing posts with others through reblogging. when you follow people any posts they reblog will show on your dashboard. it's great for organically sharing content without algorithms like other sites use. fanfiction is all about fandom and community. writers write. and readers share and comment on the writing they enjoy. healthy ecosystem!

what are likes for then? exactly what it says on the tin. hey, i liked this! a lot of people use them as bookmarks. i can only see this being a good use of it if you also reblog fics once you've read them. i can only imagine how many liked posts some people have. they must have to scroll for ages to find anything. i use it just as a like button. literally, i liked this! or to just show support for my mutuals personal posts. if i find a fic i want to read later, i'll use it for that sometimes too.

what if i'm shy? firstly, tumblr is entirely anonymous. i don't know who you are and all i'm doing is reading whichever tags you've decided to add to my work. no one you know can judge you for the fic you read if you make a blog just for fic. and i'm certainly not judging you. i have anxiety myself, i understand the struggle. exposure therapy! just give it a go, see how you feel. i really feel you if you just make the effort to start doing it, you'll realise it really is okay! writers on here adore feedback and they'll appreciate you a lot for being a reader that reblogs and comments. reblogging with no comment to start off might help you ease into it.

writing takes a lot of time and effort. the only thing i've ever seen asked in return from the people that write is for you to let them know what you thought of it in the tags of a reblog! it's a very minor action compared to the time and effort it took to write the fic as well as the time and effort it took you to read it!

anyway, appreciate anyone who made the effort to read this and understand. readers who reblog and comment are the reason anyone is still on this site writing! ♡

ps. if you use desktop you can add the extension 'xkit rewritten' to chrome or firebox and use the feature quick reblog which makes tagging and reblogging even easier. the quick reblog feature looks like this. xkit rewritten is also how i make tag bundles that i can add to posts with one click instead of typing 20 tags out everytime i post a fic.

[dumbdomb]

Hi, by using numbers and symbols to alter keywords in your content it makes it impossible for people to use important tools. Importantly it makes it impossible to screen out content by keywords or tags that might otherwise be pushed to a person's feed.

It also makes it impossible to use a screen reader. A dni list says r@pe will read as "are at p-e" not "rape" for example.

I know this, and I'm sincerely very sorry. I understand how this site works, but many other people do not. I've received messages about this before, which I just reblogged before answering this one.

I try to add captions on my images, and type appropriately in my original posts. I use legible tags whenever possible, unless a censored version is being used temporarily because that tag got wiped.

I think more people need to learn how to use tags here, and turn off any settings that show posts based on likes, etc. I think many people rely on search results, that now use keywords in post and tags, instead of actual tag results.

I'm just trying to exist here, and lots of people keep telling me how I should write my boundaries. It doesn't seem to matter to anyone that other people are choosing to ignore those, previously legible, boundaries and instead focus on telling me what to do and how to prevent being harassed.

Whether I write my boundaries clearly and simply, or use inaccessible and censored versions, many people still do not observe or honour my boundaries. I am truly at a loss, because either way is somehow incorrect. The best I can do at this time is add a line for people to send a message to me if they want to read that section uncensored. Hopefully, from reading the previous messages I've received, this will make more sense.

If I add the uncensored, legible part here or in my pinned, more people will tell me that it is attracting those users to my blog. I've been told my blog was one of the "top recommended" for having an uncensored word listed in my "do not interact" section! You may have good intentions, and certainly an important point about accessibility in text posts, but you are acting as another person telling me exactly how to write things.

I need a real, functional solution. That, or people should spend more time posting PSAs and messages like this to those who do not respect boundaries, instead of trying to pull my strings like a puppet. "Use this word! No, not that one! Write it like this! No, spell it wrong. It doesn't matter what you write because I'm going to harass you anyway! Just don't exist!"

You understand? It's difficult when it needn't be. And, I recently updated my pinned post YESTERDAY to be more streamlined, and easier to read... 😞

[envythepalmtree]

I see an image and want to describe it: a step by step guide

I've seen a lot of guides explaining why image descriptions are important, or vague things like "describe the text!!", or extremely detailed guides that might be confusing for someone just starting out. I wanted to make a specific, step by step guide that I feel comfortable sending to someone regardless of their experience.

Note: This post might seem long. That's because I explain some Tumblr features for people who might not know them. If you don't need me to explain how notes and reblogging work, you can skip steps 1 and 2.

The format I describe in steps 4 and 5 is the simplest version of how I normally write IDs. I'm calling it Aure's 2-sentence IDs.

This guide is written with the assumption that the reader already knows what image descriptions are and why they're important - if you don't, here's an explanation. I wrote instructions specific for Tumblr, but the format works for other sites as well.

Everything from this point on is written in first person. So "I" refers to anyone doing an ID, and "Aure" is me, the writer of this post.

TL;DR: When I see an image, I

1. Check the reblogs to see if someone else has IDed it

2. If someone hasn't, I hit reblog and start typing

3. I start with "[Image description:"

4. Then a sentence that's "(Image type) of (subject)."

5. A sentence with one verb or adjective about the image (info about when it needs to be longer than 2 sentences under the read more)

6. I end with "End ID]"

So

[Image description: (image type) of (subject). (Subject) is (adjective and/or verb). End ID]

The detailed guide:

1. I am scrolling through my dashboard and see an image without an ID (if I'm just here for the ID tutorial, skip this)

Before I go "time to write one myself," I stop and remember that I might not have to!! If someone else has done one, there's an easy way to find it and reblog that version.

Say I come across this meme on my dash. (note: the version linked does not have the ID attached.

[Image description: Cropped screenshot of an image on Tumblr, with a caption and tags. Underneath on the left is a link that reads, "152 notes" and on the right are different buttons. End ID]

I click on the bottom-left link that reads, "X notes"

That takes me to a little box that shows me information about other users' interactions with that post.

[Image description: A notes box. It shows the total number of notes, the number of individual likes and reblogs, as well as every reblog with comment on the post. End ID]

Whenever someone reblogs a Tumblr post and "adds" something as a comment, it'll show up here. This is slightly different from replies, where reblogging isn't necessary. The image above has no replies, only reblogs with comment.

In the notes, I see a reblog that starts with "[Image description:"

so I click on the URL of the person who wrote it.

[Image description: a cursor on the url of the blog that wrote the ID. End ID]

I then reblog that version.

If I don't see an ID in the notes, I move to step 2.

2. I need to describe the image and attach my description to the post

I click the reblog button.

[Image description: the Tumblr reblog button, a rectangle made of two bent arrows. End ID]

I'm taken to this field:

[Image description: The Tumblr addition box. End ID]

The field that says "go ahead, put anything" is where I type my ID.

3. I start it with a bracket, identifier, and colon

My description should start with "[Image description:" or "[ID:"

This helps differentiate my image description from a usual caption. A screenreader won't pick up the bracket, but it will read "image description" so make sure that's there. The bracket and colon aren't entirely necessary, but it looks neater and helps sighted users.

4. First sentence: (image type) of (image subject)

Categorize the image. If I'm stuck, it's probably one of these:

Meme

Reaction meme

Fill-in-the-blank meme (describe this with the meme name. For example, "'is this a pigeon' meme"

Screenshot + text post meme (these are the ones where you have a screenshot from a show, and a Tumblr or Twitter post edited over it)

Art

Digital art

Comic

Paper and pencil art

Painting

etc

Graphic

Infographic

Photo

Black and white photo

Gif

Screenshot

and if I can't tell, "picture of" works fine.

"Subject of the image" just means what's the main thing in the image. It's what I would mention in passing to a friend, like "oh I saw this drawing of a cat yesterday." The type of image is a drawing, and the subject is a cat, so this would be "[Image description: Drawing of a cat"

5. Second sentence: Something about the image.

Either something the subject is doing, an adjective about the subject, or an adjective about the image in general.

For example, here are 3 ways this image could be described:

Verb: what the subject is doing

[Image description: Digital art of Roy Mustang. He's showing off his top surgery scars.

Adjective about the subject

[Image description: Digital art of Roy Mustang. He has top surgery scars.

Adjective about the image in general

[Image description: Digital art of Roy Mustang. The background is the trans flag.

Aure's ID above didn't follow this format exactly, and had two of these three pieces of information. I definitely don't have to follow this format exactly if I want to include more info, but if I'm in a rush and/or am just starting out then this is how I identify the essentials.

What if it needs to be longer than two sentences?

Sometimes my ID can't be pared down to two sentences. Some gifsets need more, as do most screenshot + text post memes, comics, and other images that need text transcribed.

When describing a series of images, such as a gifset or a screenshot + text post meme, I number the images. Here's an example with a gifset, and here's an example with a screenshot + text post meme.

When my main thing is transcribing the text, I format it however seems simplest. @princess-of-purple-prose described this lovely poem snippet dump using indent to differentiate every snippet. Aure is a fan of "[Text: XXX End Text]" as shown here.

Here's how to do graphics and comics.

6. I end it with an ending tag and a closing bracket

The most most common one Aure has seen is "End ID]"

I've also seen "End description]" or "End image description]"

Aure uses "End ID" because it's shorter. I just need to make sure it has the word end and closes the bracket. This specifies when the image description ends and when the next content begins for someone using a screenreader.

After that, I add my tags, hit "reblog," and I'm done!

In conclusion

Aure's 2-sentence ID format:

[Image description: (image type) of (subject). (Subject) is (adjective and/or verb). End ID]

If there's an image I'm not sure about, anyone can feel free to send Aure an ask. She can either ID it for you and answer your ask explaining what she did, or just give a suggestion, depending on what you prefer.

If I've been doing IDs for a bit and want to look at a more detailed guide, @thequeerwithoutfear has an excellent one here. They talk about context and purpose of images, which Aure didn't really do in this guide.

Perkins also has a guide that talks about alt text here.

Lastly, please boost this! This post is chock full of links, meaning it'll never show up in search. But it'd be awesome for people to see this if it helps them get started. So a reblog is appreciated!

[wellfine]

Check for Alt Text!

While I'm glad there's a growing awareness for alt text/image descriptions on this site, please check - before you tag something as "undescribed" or add an image description in the caption - that there isn't actually alt text embedded in the image itself.

Tumblr's beta post editor now allows us to add a very generous 4k characters of alt text to images. This allows for more fluidly integrated image descriptions than putting a description in the caption, because they'll be read along with the rest of the post instead of summarised at the end. Also, people cannot delete alt text in a reblog the way they can delete reblogged captions.

I don't know how it goes for every browser, and I'm sure on mobile it's useless, but on Firefox, you can tell which images on Tumblr are using alt text from the little "ALT" infographic which appears in the bottom left corner of each described image. If you hover over this it will light up, and if you click on it, it will display the alt text in plain text. Twitter has also utilised a similar system which does work on mobile, but unfortunately Twitter only allows for 1000 characters of alt text per image, so on that front, Tumblr is much better - if you use it.

Here's a screencap of what the "ALT" infographic looks like on Tumblr, with the left being hovered over by my cursor. In fact since this image itself is also captioned with alt text you should be able to see if it's working on your browser in real time.

Anyway - again, glad we're all more aware of image descriptions now, but if you're tagging things as "undescribed" etc. in case anyone following you with a screen reader would like to filter out those posts, they may potentially be missing accessible posts if you're not checking for alt text. Likewise, if you write a whole new image description in the caption of a post that's already using alt text, a person with a screen reader has to sit through the same/similar descriptions twice.

Also, start using the alt text feature of the beta post editor lmao. As far as social media accessibility tools go this one is pretty good.

[utilitycaster]

On character design, what are your thoughts on there being official art? Not the art itself, though if you have thoughts please share, but for example, my own opinion is that while it's a good tool and help for cosplay and nice as a base for artists to use when drawing, I feel like it stifles a lot of creativity. When you have a "correct" template to follow it's so much rarer to see any designs that don't match up, and if they do they easily fall into samey stuff or stereotypes like characters that are infantilised being chubby or having big round glasses (as was mentioned with Imogen and Jester). I think it'd be really cool to see what all the talented artists in this fandom would do with character design if there wasn't anything but descriptions as to what characters looked like (I've seen one person do that and it's easily some of my favourite c3 art out there). With official art it just sort of feels like every piece of fanart ends up being a bit of a dtiys of the characters. Imagine how many cool robot designs of FCG there'd be for example, since that is a race that really lends itself to unique designs as it doesn't follow the humanoid forms everyone else has. I think it'd also lend itself more to small variations that end up happening during sessions, like imogen being blue or bald. And while I'm not sure if she started wearing them, Fearne got those glasses of charming people and I don't think I've seen any art of her wearing any yet

This is going to sound pretty harsh, but: I like having official art, and I like seeing other people's interpretations within the bounds of that art but a lot of "interpretations" go into the realm of "literally an OC" and often in ways that are like...actively worse. I've seen multiple people try to tone down Ashton's obnoxious outfit or draw his hair as regular hair rather than purple crystal and it's like "literally just make your own character at this point, who is this bargain-basement imitator that you captioned with Ashton's name."

Like...I recognize this sounds rich coming from me, a person who can just about draw a stick figure, but if someone wants to draw creative aeormatons...no one is stopping them, but at the same time, FCG is a yellow robot with a sort of cylindrical head and big blue glassy eyes, with an image of some blades of grass on their chest, and that's what they look like and if you draw something else I'm just like "maybe make an original character then? If you say it's Aeormaton concept art you can even still tag it as Critical Role in good faith."

It's also worth noting: I don't reblog a ton of NADDPod or TAZ art, but those are both fandoms that by and large haven't had very prominent official art (at least not until TAZ Balance's graphic novels). The following two things have happened pretty often:

The art still is largely all very much the same - which, I should point out, I don't mind! I mind when people all do the same thing and I think that thing sucks, but like, you can look at my blog and see tons of reblogs of renditions of Imogen looking largely the same throughout (ie, very similar to the official depiction), but they're interesting and enjoyable for reasons of composition and art style. I have a stronger musical background than visual arts, and the idea with music(unless you're doing like, improvisational jazz) is that you add your own self-expression through the interpretation, but you are still largely hitting the same notes as anyone else, and I don't think that's a bad thing! I think it shows judgment and talent to work within parameters in a way that is still unique to you. Toddlers can easily scribble outside the box and frequently do. It takes some skill to actually add something inside the box that makes people go "oh hey I never saw the box that way."

People get, shall we say, self-righteous and terrible. I think representation in art is important, but this is where you get headcanon depictions being treated as canon, and then, if canon art comes out later and conflicts with that hc depiction, a certain segment of people start bringing out the accusations of bigotry and the creators are like "literally I was just hanging out". I've mentioned how absolutely bugfuck people got about Taako having blue-green skin. I also love NADDPod but people who complained about the lack of diversity in CR often touted NADDPod, a show that is also entirely made up of cis white people over 30, as some shining unproblematic example; at least part of this was, in my opinion, because there was no official depiction of the characters and therefore people felt more validated in their headcanon depictions - there isn't, actually, any more representation. (This is not the only reason why this happened, nor should "fandoms having some obnoxious people in them" be a reason for creators to do anything ever, but, on a practical level...having official fan art is my preference).

I guess the tl;dr is: if you truly want to let your creativity roam free...why have you chosen the medium of "art based on an existing work." I say this as someone who writes fanfic - it's great! It's fun! Also if I wanted to write a story that deviates significantly from how the characters are depicted in that work, I would write original fiction rather than a fan work.

[swarmkeepers]

hello! i’ve been meaning to start adding image descriptions to my art and i know that you describe images and art fairly often, and i wasn’t sure who else to ask, so i was wondering if you would be able to answer a couple questions i have.

i think i more or less have the actual description part down but how should i embed IDs? should i put it in alt text, in the text of the post below the image, or in the text of a reblog? if i put an id in alt text should i still format it like [ID: …] or would i ditch the brackets and preface? im not sure if any of this is obvious, i couldn’t find anything answering these questions.

hi lumens! long answer incoming—thanks for describing your art, and i'm so excited to see your blog become accessible!

tl;dr IDs should go in the text of the post below the image like you suggested, in plain text of normal size!

alt text alone doesn't work for people who use large print instead of screen readers (or other people who depend on descriptions). putting it in the text of the reblog is less accessible because it means the original version of the post that shows up in tags is inaccessible + people may reblog before you add the description, creating inaccessible versions floating around. IDs also should not be in small font, under a readmore, or after your artist's caption (it should be the first thing after the image).

i'm actually not sure if it's helpful to add an image description in alt text in addition to an in-text image description. folks who use accesskit (via xkit rewritten) may have a toggle on to view alt text as captions, so maybe? i'll punt this part of the question to anyone with relevant experience/insight?

if you do use alt text: good alt text practice is to omit the brackets and "ID:" because a screen reader should already flag alt text as a description. alt text also shouldn't say "image of" or "picture of" for similar reasons. some screen readers also cut off alt text after 125ish characters so it helps to ditch those extra ones. here's a good resource on alt text for tumblr that also has writing tips, and this is a good guide to how alt text works for screen readers in general.

i'm also not an expert but you absolutely are fine to ask similar questions any time! resources on this are hard to come by, but in case these help you like they've helped me: JD @ keplercryptids has a ton of resources here, an art museum's guide on image descriptions, and the ones linked above!

[hournites]

Blog PSA

Hey its tkv I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed right now with the engagement levels on my blog. I don’t need to explain myself to anyone but as a reminder I’m a graduate student, I’m employed, I write, I make gifs, I have other interests and other blogs. Maintaining hournites is beginning to feel a bit like an extra job when really it should be a space where I can have fun. I can’t put my 100% everywhere all the time. I considered turning asks off but I don’t want to do that, I like getting asks and hearing from you, but in moderation. It’s getting too much. 

My Requests: 

1. Please don’t send me more than 3 asks within 24 hours (If it’s Stargirl day I’ll bump it up to 4 but after that just hit my DMs lol)...They pile up. I removed my anon feature because I have been receiving up to 8-9 asks at once during intervals several times a day. I’m going to assume that these are mostly the same person, I’m not naming names but if you think this might apply to you can we use my asks in moderation? 

2. Don’t expect me to answer every ask that gets sent my way. I don’t owe anyone answers and I don’t have to respond. This is my blog not the public’s shared stargirl forum. If you have a great idea, why not make it a post yourself? I’ll most likely see it the stargirl tag anyway lol. 

3. Please don’t send me prompts unless I ask for prompts. Don’t ask me to gif scenes unless I specify I’ve opened gif requests. If you have concerns about this just ask me in a DM, please just don’t use my askbox to ask me to do something for you. Or maybe I should phrase it as don’t expect me to be able to do things for you. 

4. I can’t control how others will interact with my posts but I’d appreciate it if you have comments that you keep them in the tags and not add as a caption in a reblog, especially if it’s not anything that directly has to do with me or what I said. I still see and read the tags which serves the same purpose. For example, I really don’t expect that for all of my posts I see my own tags screenshot and added as a reblog on that same post. 

5. In that same vein please don’t screenshot my tags/ private DMs and share them as a post without asking me first. 

6. ...This should go without saying but please don’t steal my content or post it on other platforms.

7. If you have questions just ask.

I hope you all can understand. I just need a break (the feeling is very close to claustrophobia ...weird, I know) and am trying to make this space manageable for me! ❤️Hopefully I can return to anons again in the near future.

[a-captions-blog]

Hi! I saw you reblogged a recent illustration of mine 1. Thank you! I really appreciate it. 2. I saw you captioned some text I had typed in a colorful font and was wondering why or if I should just avoid colorful font in the future? I'm relatively new to captioning things and would like to learn to caption better. Thank you!

Hi! As I understand it, the main issue with coloured text is that it can be very hard to read for some people, so that’s why I added the plaintext. If you want to use coloured text, I would encourage you to add the plaintext too by adding it in brackets after the coloured text. I’ve also seen blogs that tag it with ‘#coloured text’ (aka ‘#colored text’) or ‘#eyestrain’ so that people can filter out posts with coloured text if they want to. I haven’t been doing this in the hopes that adding the plaintext helps with the problem (as a more general note to anyone reading this, if it would be better for me to tag posts with coloured text, please let me know!). Also: Tumblr’s gradient text feature is additionally inaccessible to some screen readers, which will read each letter individually instead of the entire words. You can read more on that in this post which I will also reblog again so it should be right after this ask on my blog. The OP of that post suggests adding the plaintext after the gradient text as well. Thanks for captioning your art and contributing to accessibility, and thanks for the ask!!

[purenguyening]

Just felt like doing it

From idontonlytalkaboutdcmk’s [post]

1. Why did you choose your URL?

It’s a pun of my name: Thanh Nguyen

Thanh usually has two meanings either Blue or Pure There’s a similar thing in Chinese and Japanese: think (青) vs (清)

Nguyen in English will often approxomate to “win” so...: pure win(ing) led to “purenguyening)

2. Any side blogs?

An art blog where I keep tabs on the art I draw.

3. How long have you been on tumblr?

Probably about as far back as 2012. Though this account I’ve only had since about 2018? There’s some complications and I can’t get back my first account.

4. Do you have a queue tag?

“qq art” (because there’s just a lot of art I want to reblog but forget to)

5. What did you originally start this blog for?

The first time I didn’t really have a particular goal in mind, second time around so people I’ve met from my first time around could stay in touch. This is blog now kind of functions a little bit like a diary.

6. Why did you choose your icon pfp?

[It was an old piece I made for myself]

The caption is from Nodey’s Đôi Khi ❤️’

But personally I would like to redraw it at some point and caption it with this lyric instead:

Đôi khi ta lén ra ngoài xem

“Sometimes we sneak out, contemplating”

In context it was referencing to sneaking out to see the world, which, i can’t help but feel like it’s a bit better for how I imagine Futo tried to talk Tojiko into Miko’s plans. I like the idea of Futo pitching to Tojiko it was a plan to see more of the world beyond the Asuka period....

7. Why did you choose your header?

It’s honestly an accurate image of how I “blog” these days. Executive dysfunction is....something alright.

8. What's your post with the most notes?

[Apparently it’s this one] I’m so sad my crack ship, Kagerou/Nazrin never caught on...well maybe if I tried harder....

9. How many followers do you have?

562...uh, somehow.

I really live in ignorant bliss and pay 0 attention who and who doesn’t follow me. Sorry.

10. How many blogs do you follow?

526, but the amount of active posters might be lower....

11. Have you ever made a shitpost?

There are some shitposts that I think should have gotten more popular than it did:

[x] and [x]

12. How often do you use tumblr every day?

I should keep tabs on that...

13. Have you ever had a fight with another blog?

Not in public.

14. How do you feel about "you need to reblog this" posts?

I reblog as I can but I also really want to try to maintain an archive of some sort to make it easier to go back and find things.

So, I understand it’s importance, there’s some part of me that struggles because I want to be able to find specific things at a later date. Case in point I spent more time looking for my own shitposts because I’m so bad at maintaining an archive.

15. Opinion on tag games?

Fun, would like to do more and add my own art, but it’s been hard to do that lately...

16. Opinion on ask games?

I like them because I like the oppertunity to draw different stuff but it’s been hard to override the internalized perfectionism. 

17. Which of your mutuals is more tumblr famous?

No idea. I do like tumblr because you can just....vibe.

18. Do you have a crush on any of your mutuals?

Not in a romantic sense, but there’s a few when they praise my art I feel extra giddy.

Anyone who wants to is free to take this and run.

[mzminola]

Most of the time on here when I talk about racism it’s about the kind done by the creators of a given piece of media (author, writing team, marketing department, etc) but today I’m gonna talk about racism done by fans.

Specifically erasure and sidelining/downgrading characters of color in ensembles. The three examples I have are from the sort of tumblr-specific multi-fan reblog works. Gonna put this all behind a cut, with links & descriptions.

Example 1 [https://mzminola.tumblr.com/post/161130456813/sperari-foundloveinbudapest-obsessiforge]

The OP made a four-panel comic of Sam Wilson, Natasha Romanoff, Bucky Barnes, and Steve Rogers sitting at a table to play D&D, with a caption stating they headcanon Guardians of the Galaxy as the Avenger’s D&D campaign that Bucky DM’s. Sam & Natasha are only visible in the final panel, but they are very clearly there, and no other Avengers are.

Other people reblogged this with their own match-ups of which Avenger is playing which Guardian, and this particular reblog someone has done Natasha=Gamora, Tony=Quill, Thor=Drax, Bruce=Groot. 

Completely ignoring that the comic to kick this off features Sam Wilson, not those three other guys. When I first reblogged this, I tried to find commentators that included Sam, but it was a needle-in-a-haystack situation and I gave up.

Example 2 [https://mzminola.tumblr.com/post/186125797093/if-were-gonna-keep-rebooting-things-in-2019-then]

The OP suggest a Leverage reboot for 2019, lists a few ideas, and ends with “Sophie becomes president”. The first commentator points out that Sophie can’t, because she’s not an American citizen, and suggests Hardison instead, including the idea that with the voting machines un-hacked, Hardison wins in a truly fair election.

The third commentator says we can’t do that because of Hardison’s age, referencing a single episode where a character who is not Hardison himself says he’s 24. A fourth commentator suggests Parker or Maggie instead.

My objection here might seem a little nitpicky; if we rule out Sophie because of her nationality, why not Hardison due to his age? If we tweak canon to make Hardison old enough (since this is a reboot suggestion), or change what year the election is, why not tweak it to make Sophie American?

Well, that’s the thing: a lot of fandom racism of this type (erasure, sidelining) is easy to ‘justify’ or downplay in the particular instance, but is still part of an overall pattern. Much like how slash fandom still has a massive problem with sidelining women characters; sure a single fic might have decent reasons, but when it happens over and over and over again?

This Leverage thread had someone suggest the only black main character in the show become President of the United States in a fair election, and the response by some other fan was to immediately say that couldn’t happen because of one contestable trivia point.

Example 3 [https://mzminola.tumblr.com/post/189671198448/kaylapocalypse-lonepower-thrawn-thrawn]

OP suggests a Star Wars AU in which Rey is a hockey player and Finn is a figure skater. A+ concept, love it.

Then we get someone copying another reblogger’s tag of “Poe drives the zamboni” and someone else adds “poe “i just work here””.

And okay. Maintenance staff is fucking vital to everything, everywhere, but it’s still questionable to take a post about “what would these space action adventure characters do in an ice athletics AU” and assign the hotshot pilot a role that isn’t also athletics, you know? Its’s not like hockey and figure skating are the only ice athletics in the world, if you’re trying to give everyone a different niche.

~

So those are the examples I have on hand; first two are someone includes a character of color, other people ignore them or downgrade their role in favor of white characters. Third is someone playing with an AU (that gives a fun, positive role to a character of color, heck yeah figure skater Finn) and someone else brings up a character of color just to give them a less glamorous role than the originally mentioned characters.

So, what do we do with this?

Couple suggestions:

If you’re creating content with an ensemble, double check who you’re giving attention to, and if you notice yourself ignoring characters of color...include them! If you’re only including them with a bare nod, go back and include them more! If you’re giving them less interesting, glamorous, important, etc roles than the other characters, examine your own reasoning for a bit, to shake your assumptions up...and then go give them equally cool (or even cooler) stuff to do!

If you’re in a group participation setting like tumblr, don’t knock down what other people set up. Someone says “let’s have Character do Cool Thing!” and you know some canon factoids that get in the way of that...leave it be. Don’t jump in to say why it doesn’t work. I totally get the urge to correct people about canon, I really truly do, but this is not the moment to do it.

“What if I’m using the canon facts to suggest an alternative cool thing for the character to do?” Awesome, make a new post! So you know that “XYZ Canon Facts means Character cannot be Empress”? Maybe that’s worth including in your post, maybe it’s not, but either way making a new post of “Character could be Democratically Elected Prime Minister and Secret Princess!” is awesome! Now you’re contributing fun content without raining on anyone else’s parade, yay!

If you see someone else doing the “ignore or sideline” thing don’t reblog it with no comment. The examples I used in this post are all instances where I reblogged it and added my own commentary. Did I flat out go “hey you’re being racist”? No, I didn’t. I could have! I might in the future! What I did do:

I questioned where the hell Sam was and pointed out he was in the original comic, dismissed the age issue and re-asserted that Hardison should be president, and suggested an ice athletics role for Poe.

You know what I do even more often? I go back up the reblog chain. That’s one of the reasons why I have so few examples. It’s not always possible to go up the reblog chain; url changes, deletions, or the racism being embedded in the middle of a long reblog chain with unracist and cool stuff further down all mean that sometimes, I’m going to reblog a post that has these problems.

So I comment. I refuse to let the erasure and sidelining slide by.

Do you, hypothetical reader, have to do that?

I don’t know. I’m not you. But now you know about this pattern (if you didn’t before), and you know some responses to it, to make informed decisions.

[fl-oralfawnarchive]

DNI CHANGES

hi beanies!

i’m making some additions/changes to my DNI and ofc they’ll be added to my official DNI on my carrd but i wanted to make a detailed ish post as to the reasons for these additions!

the first and biggest change is that i’m now adding k!nk to my DNI!

i’ve been around and had this blog for quite a while now, and when i first started it i felt that anyone who had a blog with exclusively SFW content should be able to interact with me. i still have absolutely nothing against adults that participate in any k!nks(as long as all parties are safe) but from now on any blog that indicates in any way that they are associated with any k!nk community will be blocked regardless of whether or not the posts on their blog are SFW. this is for my comfort and bc unfortunately many past experiences have shown me that k!nk blog runners(even those that contain only SFW content) usually cannot be trusted to follow all DNIs and be calmly educated regarding cross tagging and things of that sort.

the other additions are smaller but still very important to me. you are now on my DNI if you...

POST/RB/SUPPORT STOLEN CONTENT(if you “just found it on pinterest or google”, it’s still stolen. if you post content with the caption “not mine” or similar in an attempt to cover yourself, it’s still stolen. none of it is okay)

add your personal DNI to other’s original content

self promote on others posts(for me this includes both blatant advertisement of your blog/service on others content AS WELL AS those that just add a signature ie. “-Name” or just an emoji to every post they rb in order to get their blog name more prevalent on every post)

in my personal opinion all of these things are extremely disrespectful to those that put time and effort into creating content and it is not something i want happening to any of my OC or the OC i reblog from others if i can help it.

(people have come at me for being “petty” about this latter part before so if you have anything to say along those lines stay away. i never “call out” people that do these things, i simply block and move forward like i do with anyone on the rest of my DNI list, apart from reporting p3dophiles and sometimes attempting to educate those that post stolen content, but i will not act like this stuff is okay🤷🏼‍♀️)

if you took the time to read this thank you sm!!🧡

[asterekmess]

S3A - E1

Okay, instead of making like massive reblogs of thoughts as I have them for the episodes, I’m gonna just make a massive bullet point list that I’ll add to throughout the episode, so you get One post per episode instead of “Like all nine million of them.”

I put Read-More’s because I care.

Thoughts (of which I have far too many):

I’m in the first ten seconds of the fuckin episode. Why the fuck is Braeden electrocuting Isaac? Like, look, I wanna like Braeden. I have issues with her entire moral system, but I still wanna like her cus’ she saves Isaac. But...how am I supposed to do that when the literal first thing she does is electrocute my boy??? He’s knocked out, not DEAD (not that that’s how shocking someone’s heart even Works) and it’s not like she needs to trigger the healing process. He’s already got Gaping slash wounds on his chest. He’s hurt enough. ALSO. “Be quiet”?? R U Serious? You’re electrocuting him. YOU try being quiet with fucking jumper cables on your chest.

The CGI...is so bad. Oh my god. What the absolute fuck. it looks like Sharkboy & Lavagirl. And why aren’t Ethan & Aiden’s claws doing anything to the bike?

I AM CONFUSION. If the twins don’t have to take their pants off to do the Transformers shit, why do they have to take off their shirts? Can...can I just skip that? Make the big bad werewolf wear an ugly hybrid of two of their stupid ass sweaters? Or do Ethan and Aiden really just like being shirtless that much? (I wouldn’t put it past them)

What is with Braeden and the electricity?

The writing in this show, what the fuck? “I thought I told you to hold on” EXCUSE ME, ma’am. He literally just passed out. His bad I guess.

Guess who has to add the anti-scott tag to this now? Anyway, I hate that Allison’s bit in the intro is her kissing Scott and then drawing the bow. Like, they’re broken up. They don’t get together in this season. Why are they kissing in the intro? That had to have Totally pissed off Scallison fans.

There’s my boy, holding up lizard tattoo designs. Pls tell me he took a pic and sent it to Jackson with the caption “It’s YOU.” Like, yes, way too soon, but man it’s fuckin funny.

This tattoo artist is a good-ass salesman. However, p-sure he’s not a good-ass artist if he had to wrap Scott’s arm up That badly. Like...they have stuff for that. Fuck, the one I got on my ankle, they used SaranWrap and Tape. Just needs to be kept out of the open air for a bit. You don’t need like eight layers of gauze. I do feel for Scott tho. That tat probably cost him like $50-75 before the tip. Oof.

Eyyy, time to be salty. Ya’ll know I love Allison, but does it get any more clear that she totally bailed on everyone after the warehouse? She went to France! She doesn’t even know what happened to Jackson after he got cured. ALSO. Lydia says “Derek taught him the werewolf 101.” Not Scott. Derek. XP

Lydia, honey, leave Allison alone. If she doesn’t want to go on the double date, go alone and make it an orgy. Fun, right? Wait, no. Don’t. You’re 16. Don’t do that!

When exactly did they “agree to give each other the summer”? She said “I’m breaking up with you.” he said “I’ll wait” and then she cried into her dad’s arms. Like...why didn’t we get to see this apparently incredibly important conversation? (maybe because it didn’t happen??)

I fucking LOVE the “I’m just gonna say hi. HEYYYYY! You know....they probably didn’t see us.”

The most horrific thing about that moment was the bad CGI.

I WANNA POINT OUT how cute it is (in a like, sad way cus’ she’s terrified) that Lydia is close enough to Stiles now that she immediately goes for his side and they like insta connect with the eye contact. Not in like a Stydia way, but like, they’re close. she trusts him and goes to him when she’s scared, even though he’s human and you’d wonder if she shouldn’t go to Scott instead, since he’s the werewolf.

SCOTT WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING THE DEAD DEER. Your ability to smell chemosignals/sense emotions has nothing to do with touching. Stop poking the dead animal.

Wait, WHY is there a full moon in that shot? The full moon isn’t for like a week! I COUNTED.

...what? Why the fuck does Braeden think Scott’s an Alpha? Why tho? Like, seriously? WHY? He’s not an Alpha yet. Nowhere near it. And if she knows bc Deaton told her (i think he was the one who hired her) then shouldn’t she know he isn’t one yet? IF SHE KNOWS that she can tell Melissa abt werewolves, WHY doesn’t she know that Scott’s Melissa’s son? Where is the LOGIC?

Scott’s morning routine is giving me Legally Blonde vibes. ~my perrrfectt dayyy, nothing standing in my wayyy~

I can’t tell. did Allison get highlights, or straight up dye her hair brown?

This sweet moment between her and her dad. Yes. Pls.

I will admit, I like getting to see each of their mornings.

Lydia...who are you fucking? Honey, you’re sixteen. Why isn’t whoever the fuck is in bed with you also getting ready for school? What.....the fuck?

Completely different Beacon Hills High School set. I really can’t blame the writers for that.

Wtf Davis? You list Erica and Boyd as being 17...since when? They’re supposed to be entering their Junior Year of high school. They would be 16 GOING ON 17. ANd what the hell do you mean Erica’s birthday is August 16th? She said in the last season that she’d “Just turned 16 a month ago” that was Spring semester. ???? Come on, guys. Seriously. Writing 101, getting to know your characters. I don’t know anyone writing a novel who doesn’t know the exact birthday of their characters. Plus, they cut 2 in. from Gage Golightly’s actual height, while adding an inch to Sinqua’s (according to google, which isn’t always reliable) Whatever. Boooooo.

Uh...that principal was threatened by the Argents. Victoria herself promised to torture him if he didn’t resign. Why does he look so surprised by the fucking sword in his office? For that matter, why is he at the school at all? He KNOWS the Argents attacked him. This should cause problems!

Honestly, Lydia, I love you. Like, go for it. Nothing wrong with not wanting to date and just wanting to have fun. My issues stem from YOU BEING 16. Yes, teenagers have sex. But this is ridiculous. Why is there so much sexualization? I knew a grand total of like....two teenagers who had sex at 16? and like one who did at 15 (which they say in canon she and Jackson were banging before her birthday). Like, it’s not nearly as common as y’all are making it out to be. Knock it off.

WHEN DID MELISSA MEET ISAAC PROPERLY? WHEN did that HAPPEN?

....so why didn’t Derek answer the phone? They literally never explain? He shows up, so...why didn’t he answer?

I’m SO InCredibly Disturbed by Jennifer having everyone’s phone numbers. HOW? In What Way is that REMOTELY appropriate? WHY did no one question it? Why didn’t STILES or LYDIA question it?

So tiny, bugs me so much. He didn’t turn his phone off. He turned his screen off...is it that hard to have him do the right one?

uhhh. Werewolves can smell other werewolves. Wanna tell me why Isaac can’t tell a werewolf just walked in the room? An ALPHA no less?

why TF are Kali’s iris’ and pupils so fucking massive?

So...what was the deal with the birds? Don’t they say later that Jennifer like summoned them? So they aren’t from the Alpha pack scaring animals? And also, how would the Alpha pack be scaring animals if they’re like, in the middle of town? They said in S1 that “wild animal sightings are up” like what 75% or something? “As though something is scaring them out” but that made sense, bc we knew Peter was running around in his full-shift (it’s a fucking full shift, it’s just fucked up) in the woods. But these Alphas aren’t, they’re integrating. So is it Jennifer that the animals are afraid of? Like, does she have sPoOkY aura or something?

More bad CGI.

WHy is no one responding to the woman stumbling around in nothing but a hospital gown?

ONCE AGAIN. Werewolves can Sense Werewolves. SCOTT you sensed Isaac in a BOYS LOCKER ROOM. DUKE IS RIGHT THERE. WHT THE FUCK?

angry smoker doctor  “Why don’t you wheel this joker out of here?” “I’m gonna go smoke” Grrr

Sir. clearly your mask wasn’t tied on appropriately. it shouldn’t just Fall Off when you touch it. there are Protocols! STOP THE SPREAD. also, someone wanna tell me why none of these alphas can keep their claws in? A lil flashy flashy red eye would’ve done the trick just fine.

Okay no, seriously what the FUCK is up with these contacts, you guys? THEY”RE MASSIVE???

Ugh, can I just *swoons* “I’m an Alpha!” slice “So am I.” That is just so fucking smooth. Woo. I feel so safe ohmygod. PLUS. Derek KNOWS Ennis. I can’t imagine how satisfying that had to be.

Uh, Derek, honey. You’re Isaac’s legal guardian. You can just Sign Him Out of the hospital. With clothes and everything. What are you doing?

Honey, what do you mean the county took it over? If they were gonna do that they’d have done it six fucking years ago. Unless you gave it to them, it’s still yours? I did the research. Like HOURS of it.

What do you MEAN there’s a magic healing herb that helps with Alpha wounds? Since when do Alpha wounds need extra healing, I thought they just took a lil longer? ALSO why is it growing INSIDE your house???? SCOTT. Isaac is fucking UNCONSCIOUS. Can your tattoo fucking WAIT A MINUTE?

I have so many questions. WHY does Braeden know who Allison is? If Lydia’s immune to magic, WHY is Braeden able to bruise her? WHY can Braeden DO magic? and WHY is Chris allowed to take Lydia out of school?

ALLISON you had Geometry LAST YEAR why are you holding a GEOMETRY BOOK??

ohhhhmygod, Derek. Derek. DEREK. Your eyes are pretty on a normal day. That little Blink and ruby reds thing? Ohmygod. I just. I wanna take a picture and just stare at it BUT. how tf does this whole red eye thing work? You can see in the dark....but now you also have x-ray vision? You know, I could believe it was thermal vision...maybe? If Scott was still healing for some reason maybe the tattoo would be brighter? Otherwise I have no idea what is going on.

BUT SCOTT”S NOT 18??? He’s Still fucking 16, or even 17, but not 18. WTF? He needs parental consent in the first place (i should’ve mentioned this in the other note abt the tattoo)

uhh...seriously? When someone breaks up with you and tells you not to talk to them anymore...why do you need a reward for doing as they asked? Like, yeah, you’re sad, I feel that. But making it a ‘reward’ sounds kinda weird. You know what makes it really easy not to text the ex that doesn’t wanna talk to you? Delete her number.

WHY THE BLOWTORCH? SOMEONE WANNA EXPLAIN? Peter’s not covered in tattoo from when he was literally burned alive, why the FUCK would a blowtorch create a black tattoo on Scott’s skin?

DEREK. HONEY. Why would Stiles be able to hold Scott still??? Scott’s a werewolf.

All this bullshit to explain away Posey’s tattoo that he got. Like, damn dude, we all like tattoos, but you have a job that needs bare arms on the regular. That was kinda rude.

Where did braeden get clothes? I forgot to ask.

uhhhh. Ephemeral might technically work in that sentence, but that’s still really awkward.

WHY THE FUCK DID YOU DESTROY HIS DOOR? YOU FUCKING ASSHAT. And WHY the instant fucking grr face? “why’d you paint the door?” uhh, leave him alone? He can do what he wants? It’s his house? Also, don’t get all fucking rude about the alpha pack. He told you it was a rival pack.

KALI. PUT SOME FUCKING SHOES ON. JESUS.

Why exactly does Scott see the symbol and INSTANTLY put together that it’s got anything to do with the Alphas or the animal attacks? Where is the logic jump there?

What exactly was the POINT of popping your claws if you were gonna kick her in the face???

UH, Melissa? Why didn’t you tell Scott that there was a whole other person with Isaac?

What is with the face touching, Duke? I’ve never known a blind person who actually wanted to rub their hands on my face to ‘find out what i look like?’

Really not a fan of all these weird jumps and camera angles with the awkward reflecting.

WOah WOah. Allison gets to PAINT her APARTMENT? Wtf kinda BULlshit is that? My landlord won’t let me do that. Rude.

I know they’re imprisoned and it sucks, but they’ve been there for four months, they had to have gotten bored. Do you think they broke into any of the security deposit boxes to see if anything was left behind?

Last thoughts: They really went for it with this episode. I have plans to change a lot of it. Hopefully I can mesh the changes with the general plotline.

[roleplay-salt]

About; Rules; FAQ

Welcome to Roleplay Salt! This is a blog for roleplayers to vent & rant anonymously about the things that peeve or hurt them in the roleplaying community.

GENERAL

Your submission will always be posted anonymously; no exceptions. (This includes positivity submissions & shoutouts.)

Your submission’s text will be placed in a graphic and then copied as plain text as its caption for accessibility purposes.

Topics must be roleplay-related. (This can, of course, include experiences with partners doing things that may be unrelated to roleplay, but would still be considered relevant if it impacts your roleplaying experience with that particular partner.)

Anyone following our blog will be allowed to leave replies on submissions, whether in agreement or disagreement, and everyone is allowed (even encouraged) to reblog submissions, with or without their own commentary. However, we will delete any spamming comments, including ones that are or are similar to “Why don’t you come off anon and say that?” Such comments provide nothing to the discussion. In fact, they usually shut down discussion and it completely disregards the entire point of this blog’s existence. No one has to “come off anon” nor are they “cowards” for seeking safety behind anonymity. Your aggressiveness with that sentiment only reinforces the reason why they want to be anonymous in the first place. ADDENDUM: We will delete salt replies that involve simply telling others to, essentially, “shut up and move on already” and “stop sending salt replies in about this”. You’re more than allowed to say this things in the comments, but we will no longer be making them a part of any future debates.

We actively edit and restructure the wording of submissions. We read every single one of your submissions and we care about consistency and readability. We will correct any spelling errors, grammar errors, and odd sentencing structure, and we will often lengthen abbreviations and slang, and we will fill out any curse words or sensitive terms that were originally 'censored' in the submissions. Do not take it personally! Again, we aim for consistency. We will never just copy/paste your submission and then post it. That's terrible.  

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The “Flour” category is reserved for any submissions that do not appropriately fit under “Salt” or “Sugar”, often involving personal confessions and storytelling.

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A callout submission is specifically speaking nastily and meanly about someone else, regardless if it’s the truth or not.  All URLs & names in a callout submission will be marked out to preserve the other party’s anonymity as well.  We are a safe place for you to release your anger, frustration and hurt, even if it’s towards someone and not something. But we cannot and will not participate in the true nature of a callout. That will need to be something that you do for yourself if you believe that it’s important for you, your friends and your fandom community.

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All URLs & names in a shoutout submission will remain visible, and the person will be tagged & mentioned on the post so as to better the odds of them seeing it.

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Currently, there is only one operating the blog: Moderator Bull.

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Unfortunately, no. To preserve our own anonymity (for many of the same reasons as the submitters), we have agreed on the terms to never give out our URLs if requested. If we are interested in your blog, then we will follow you at our own discretion!

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Of course! However, we will not remove any corresponding responses to you (except in instances where, if yours is removed, the next comment is made to look like it’s being directed to the person prior to your comment. We don’t want to cause unnecessary conflict.) We will also not be relied upon to keep deleting comments you regret leaving behind. If you’re wanting to leave a public response on submissions, then you must be prepared to have others possibly publicly disagree with you.

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If you don’t want to be associated with us, then we recommend blocking the blog so that we don’t unintentionally follow you again!

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Unless they are throwing bigoted slurs, threats, or suicide-baiting remarks at the anonymous submitter, they are not doing anything wrong. They have just as much right to disagree with your submission as you had when you sent it to us. We are, first and foremost, a place to vent frustrations or hurts behind the safety of anonymity, and we are also a free-speech blog. We are of the belief that discussions, no matter how heated, is healthy and brings the community together as a whole. Just as your submission may provide someone else with the awareness that they are not alone in similar frustrations, someone disagreeing with your submission may provide a new perspective to you and others that had not been considered before.

“How does name-calling and swearing and being mean add to a discussion? You and your blog are what are wrong with the roleplaying community!”

Just because someone isn’t being nice to you as they give their side of the argument, doesn’t mean that it cancels out their actual argument. You’re choosing to be offended and distracted by how abrasive they are, and that’s no one’s problem to deal with but your own. You have the ability to block anyone so that you no longer have to see their comments on future submissions. Why would we police what people say, the endgame of which would be to ban them from ever reblogging or commenting on submissions again if they don’t listen to us, if you’re not even willing to try solving the problem first by just blocking them? Wanting to have the last word or being upset that your submission didn’t receive the feedback you wanted is not a reason for us to step in and step on someone else’s right to speak, rudely or otherwise. If you’re not going to block them, then why should we?

“Could you not post submissions on sensitive topics like noncon, incest, and pedophilia?”

We have started tagging posts that we believe might be sensitive and controversial in nature with the tag “#twcontroversy”. We recommend blacklisting this tag. If that is still not enough, then we recommend unfollowing/blocking us. These are topics just as relevant in the roleplaying community as anything else.

“Could you promote me?”

Certainly! But only if you are another community-involved blog (a blog that provides a ‘service’ to the community, such as advice, roleplay help, a place for confessions, etc.), and it must be relevant to the roleplaying community to some degree! If you want to promote a roleplay blog, then we suggest sending in a shoutout submission!

“I sent a confession in weeks ago. Where is it? How long will it take for it to get posted?”

It’s either sitting in the queue or sitting in our drafts, waiting to be queued. We have 1,200+ followers so far, and on average we’re sent 15+ submissions a night. We only post between 5 to 8 submissions at night. Your submission is on a wait list. That’s all we can tell you.

“Why don’t you just close your submission box until all the current confessions are posted?”

Because we’re a vent blog first and foremost. If we close our ask/submission boxes, then we’re no longer an option for people who might desperately need to vent or talk about something that could have happened to them that day but have no other options. We want to be a healthy alternative to just bottling it up or possibly lashing out at the wrong people.

“I don’t believe you! I think you deleted my submission because one of you didn’t like it! You’re not unbiased at all!”

We’ve posted submissions about highly controversial roleplay topics like noncon, racism, transphobia, and pedophilia. We reassure you that your salt submission about OCs, theme trends, blog selectivity, etc. is not on that same level, least of all to the point that one of us would delete it. The only submissions that we have deleted, so far, are the ones that have included racial and homophobic slurs.

“[insert OP/commenter] is obviously a rapist/pedophilie!”

If we find that you have accused someone of being a rapist, pedophile, or apologist of either because of their defensive views on noncon/pedophilic ships or roleplay, your comment will be removed and you will be blocked. These are serious accusations that you shouldn’t be throwing at people over fictional content and we refuse to to let you use this blog as a platform to spew such slanderous accusations.

[utilitycaster]

would love to hear about your ship tag logic if you were serious or semi-serious about that

I was like...a quarter serious but also an important fact about me is that I’m never not going to share my opinions at excessive length if I have them and am asked.

I said that mostly because I haven’t been tagging the wizard breakdown tracker with any names, but did tag it with a ship tag, and anyway the logic, with a very long background about my general philosophy on tagging, is this.

To be honest I was on Tumblr for like 2 or 3 years before it even registered that using the quote unquote main tag is how people might find one’s posts or vice versa because my thought process was always “I am posting about this thing and as such the tag that makes sense to use is the tag that describes this thing” until I said something silly about some very large property (I can’t remember honestly but like, Star Wars or Harry Potter or something like that that’s just in the cultural lexicon) and tagged it as such and someone I did not know and was not one of my like, 40 followers got very mad that I had made a joke that wasn’t sufficiently in line with their view of which characters were best and worst. Anyway as a result when someone gets up in arms about something being posted “In the main tag?” my brain immediately replaces it with “In front of my salad?”

More generally my tag philosophy is “be generally community-minded and benevolent in your intent, but also you can’t read minds, you can’t please everyone, and moreover anyone going into a tag should be aware that as with anything on the internet, a large number of people will not follow the unwritten rules either because they are genuinely unaware*, or they do not care.”

Anyway. I never tagged for ships because usually there are like 15 different possible names for ships and as such it didn’t seem like tagging would achieve much. I just usually tagged with the characters involved and called it a day.

As of quite recently, however, I’ve learned that blocking the tags of some noncanon ships has not only greatly improved my own internet experience, but also allowed me to continue enjoying those ships for the interesting dynamic they once were, without it being tainted not the creepy nice-guy/girl/person narrative that I find is depressingly prevalent for ships that now have obstacles in the form of “the character has begun dating someone else”. So I decided that if a ship is not canon**, and the post I’m making or reblogging is about that ship, it’s only fair that I allow others to do the same thing and tag it, hence tagging “shadowgast” for the wizard breakdown tracker even though I’m not tagging by character.

(I should note: if you do need something else tagged in the breakdown tracker, like if you would like to be able to block anything having to do with Trent and only look at it when you are in a place to do so, feel free to send me a DM or anon. I’m not saying I will always tag things when requested, but if my reason for not tagging was mostly laziness I will, and if I turn you down I promise I will give you my reason and it will be way shorter than this post).

I do not tag things that literally happen in canon (using the shadowgast example I’m not going to tag a gif of Caleb and Essek interacting as such unless there’s text or a caption that’s adding something that wasn’t literally said or done) and similarly I don’t tag for canon relationships usually unless it would be really fucking weird if I didn’t (eg: this, which is both about shadowgast and fjorester, even though normally I wouldn’t tag for the latter, because it feels weird to only tag for one of the two ships it refers to). I have never had any patience for people who bury their head in the sand when canon doesn’t match what they personally wanted; not that I haven’t ever been gravely disappointed by media, but I’m of the opinion the thing to do at that point is to go through whatever mourning period one needs and either stop watching and get over it, or watch anyway and deal with it.

I should also note I have no idea what this will look like in Campaign 3 because by the time I was like “oh this is a necessary addition” most ships had come up with one main portmanteau-esque tag but off the top of my head I can name a large number of ship names from earlier on. I may have to just do the traditional “/” notation like Ao3, or a Star Trek fanzine from the 1980s.

*I should also add: there is no good way I have found to make people aware of unwritten rules other than slow personal realization over time, because unwritten rules as a concept suck and I have yet to see someone break the news of “hey you’ve broken an unwritten rule” in a way that doesn’t seem either extremely passive-aggressive or extremely aggressive. The only winning move is not to play, etc, etc.

**someone could probably write at least a masters’ if not doctoral thesis on what makes a ship canon so I’m going with “mutual romantic interest with the intent to pursue it has been explicitly expressed to each other either in word or deed” which is still open to some interpretation, but like, see above re: not burying one’s head in the sand.