#it’s not even really exclusive to tumblr I see it on other platforms too

[megapotion]

I wanna know how tumblr advertising works bc mine have shifted from “hunting game demonstrating very graphically wolves being shot” to “there are hidden cameras everywhere!! Are you scared?? Here’s an app to find them” and I just think that maybe there’s something nefarious going on in their targeting

[valeriehalla]

at this point I just categorically have 90,000,000 times more fun on tumblr than the smoldering wreckage of twitter. like, twitter was already becoming kind of a drag for me before the hostile takeover, and now that cohost (hallowed be her name) is shutting down, it's like, well—i guess we doin’ tumbls again!! “it’s obviously the best one”

honestly, while the queer internet may never recover from the sucking wound that was and is tumblr’s NSFW ban—at least not as long as the united states of america continues to fail to take antitrust action against apple, google, and the payment processors collectively serving as the final boss of what’s allowed to be posted where on the internet—i’m starting to feel like tumblr is moving back into position as The Best Site For Artists regardless. my thoughts on this are half-formed, but it’s like this:

every other social media platform is either 1. tiktok, 2. hyper-obscure, or 3. slow-motion self-destructing to a degree way beyond even what tumblr inflicted upon itself in 2018. this is not a new sentiment i don’t think.

i think the fact that tumblr is unable to capture the literal billions of users every other platform is chasing makes it arguably a lot nicer for the users who are here. there is no way for an application to achieve a tiktok-sized install base that isn’t just naked manipulation and skinnerboxing. tumblr’s leadership seems either too incompetent to pull it off or too wise to try, and so we have what is effectively the last microblogging platform on the internet that’s actually still usable for microblogging.

also, a smaller-but-not-too-small audience is more engaged with what they’re seeing. simple as. a thousand notes on tumblr means more than a million views on tiktok and it always will.

of course, i am in fact making a living off of sexually-explicit art right now, and so tumblr cannot be my One Platform. i get away with it because the art is in service of a story hosted off-site, and so i never need to post The Whole Pussy on here; if i was exclusively an illustrator i’d be even less thrilled with the current state of things than i already ain’t. i guess this is just a testament to how truly bad The State Of Things has gotten, though. congratulations, tumblr: you really did win by doing absolutely nothing.

[icypantherwrites]

Given my last post, I wanted to take a moment to say thank you to those who reached out to me. It means a lot ♥ I don't have the energy to respond to each person individually, but please know that for now I am okay. Full disclosure, I actually meant to post that on my private 'shouting into the abyss' blog where I try to get more of my negative feelings out without potentially upsetting or hurting anyone else, but I apparently didn't select the correct profile this time. I'm super sorry for both the concerning content and also for not responding as I don't have Tumblr alerts on my phone and was unaware until I came on today for the mix-up.

Below is an author's note that I just uploaded along with chapter four of Here that I wanted to post here as well given it's not exclusive to that fanfiction (but to note it was written for an update hence some of the wording) and in a way relates to my previous post and where my mental health is right now.

Thanks for reading and thank you again to those who reached out. I truly appreciate it and your concern.

Author's note:

A more of a serious note now and it is a bit long, but if you can, please read as it’s important. As you may have realized, this chapter is a month out from the last update and the main reason for that is I have been really, really struggling with my mental health. I’ve been trying to get some space from some of these key culprits online (which is pretty much fanfiction) as unfortunately I can’t do the same with a lot of the one I deal with on a daily basis of family and friends and work, but every time I try to come back there’s just another nail there in the coffin reminding me of why I stepped back. I’m a giver and always have been and unfortunately the vast majority of the fanfiction world and people in my life are takers. And I’m just… drained. I feel stretched thin and worn down and taken for granted and to always have people asking for more more more and not appreciating all that I am doing and have already done just makes me feel even worse and then guilty I’m not able to do more for the people that are supportive and it’s a constant cycle. I’m exhausted. I’m depressed. I’m really hurting.

And unfortunately I know there’s a bunch of people on here who don’t care and won’t care and will bitch at me for expressing these feelings because they can only compare what they see of my fanfiction to their own and heaven forbid I dare feel upset about a lack of engagement or thoughtful comments because it’s more than they get. I don’t care. I’m not comparing it, they are. It’s the same concept of saying ‘what do you have to be depressed about? You have a well paying job and own a home and don’t have cancer (thankfully biopsy came back negative) and aren’t starving so you can’t be depressed. It doesn’t work like that (and for anyone who knows even an inkling of that feeling personally, hugs to you) and I’m so tired of being told what I should be feeling and attacked when I don’t measure up to some impossible standard. I’m trying. I’m trying every day to stay here, to be the support pillar I’ve always been for everyone in my life, online and in person, and to try to find the joy and positivity that always drags me out of my black hole before I’m lost to it. I am trying to continue to post my stories even when there’s barely anyone engaging on my other platform and same here where there are far less engaged readers than hits and kudos would indicate because I know how much it sucks to have a story be abandoned and I also know how important a lot of the support in my stories is to many (believe me, I know because that’s how I got into this genre and niche because I needed it too). I was trying to engage myself with readers in comments, find that spark again for my writing that I’ve come to just feel sad about. It’s hard. But I’m trying.

And all I can ask is that if you are a fan of my works, please, help support me. Leave a thoughtful comment about the story/chapter when you read it (you can always come back too, story will still be here). Have patience and kindness if updates take a while. Don’t post comments demanding an update or saying you never comment but wanted to let me know you were commenting now because you want another update (that is not the support you may think it is xD). If you can't say anything nice than say nothing at all (that includes unsolicited advice and attacks upon my person and character that too many folks think is okay to do in an online forum). Remember that authors are people too and we have a lot of stuff going on that you don’t know about in our own lives. Please just… be kind. Be thoughtful. And be a bright light against this black hole ♥ Thanks for reading and look forward to hearing what you thought of the chapter :)

[watercolourcritters]

How have you found so much engagement on social media? I’ve really struggled to get my art out there.

Your art is beautiful, but I’ve also seen other accounts with beautiful art with much more or less followers and engagement. I don’t really understand it and I was wondering if you had any insights. Thank you

Hi there!

So - very long reply incoming - I have a couple of thoughts on what has worked for me, but I also wanted to break down what engagement actually looks like and means, because I think it is very easy to look at a post with a couple hundred notes and think "wow, they must have a huge following."

I think it is also very easy to look at someone's art and go, "well, it's good, but why is it getting engagement when mine isn't." Which - well, more below - but isn't really how online engagement works.

1) What does well on tumblr? I think it's helpful to recognize what kind of my art, specifically, gets a lot of engagement. My art that gets Tumblr engagement - reblogs and likes - is almost exclusively my encouragement style art (simple art with an animal and some text), which hits 3 boxes: cute, animals, and text that is either funny or meaningful.

However - my more traditional art styles? Canvas art and watercolour? Rarely hits above 30-50 notes on Tumblr. The same goes for my fanart. It's just straight up not as popular.

And it varies between platforms. On Instagram, all of my art is typically between 25-50 notes. On twitter, it's only fanart that gets notes. It varies, and it depends on the community you've embedded yourself in.

Above all though - what gets notes on Tumblr is a bit of a crapshoot, and reflects little on the quality of the art. It depends on who reblogs it, how big their following is, etc. Sure, art quality sometimes helps - but I see fucking amazing art every day that has very minimal engagement. There is no sure-fire way to get engagement, and the shit that does the BEST for me in regards to sales has almost no notes here.

2) Engage in the community

I think something that I'm still learning is that for the most part, no matter the platform, people will encourage and engage with your art more if you're a part of the community. And that requires you to engage, too.

I am not always good at this one, because this is not my main blog - but I get a lot more followers and engagement when I also reblog other art & posts, because most Tumblr folks want to follow blogs that make their dashes richer on the regular in a variety of ways, rather than every so often with just art.

Reblog things. Like and comment on other people's posts. Make friends. Be a part of Tumblr's community, rather than expecting community to grow around you.

(Note: This is not me saying you don't engage, I don't know anything about your activity on tumblr. Just, y'know, engaging helps get engagement.)

3) Having a brand??

Honestly, I kind of hate this one, because I'm an artist who likes trying lots of new styles and fucking around with different things. BUT, in regards to social media, having a recognizable brand/style makes people more likely to follow you.

For example - my encouragement style art, with plain white background, an animal, and encouragement text, is my most recognizable style on IG, Tumblr, and in my local art community. Probably 95% of my followers on Tumblr are for/from that style of art. It is what it is.

My caveat to this is - while having a brand helps, don't let it limit what you do! Try new things, experiment, etc.

3) Recognize what "lots of engagement" does and does not do

So - it probably looks like I have a lot of engagement on Tumblr, because I have many posts with 500+ notes. But, honestly? I am pretty small fries as an artist. I really, really struggle to get engagement beyond this platform, and even what I get here is pretty minimal in comparison.

I don't have a ton of followers - I've had this blog for 2.5 years, and am currently sitting at around 525 followers. My encouragement art on Tumblr regularly gets hundreds of notes. The exact same art on IG, where I have a similar following, gets typically between 25-50 notes.

However - Tumblr, where I get a lot more "engagement," does not translate to art sales or commissions. Or at least, it very rarely does. On the other hand, Instagram, where I have much less engagement, gets me both more direct sales and commissions, because more people on there know me personally.

TBH, doing local craft style markets has been the most helpful thing in regards to actually making any money off my art. Engaging in my local community has also been the best for connecting with other artists, getting encouragement for my art, and validation.

4) Recognize that engagement means very little about the quality of your art

Y'know, I've gotten inbox mail before that is essentially "your art is shit how come it's getting notes." People see my art (especially my more minimal stuff), think about their own art, and get frustrated that they aren't getting notes.

And I mean, I get it! I think we've all had similar thoughts at certain points. Kind of the "my art is at least that good, how come they have such a big following and I don't"?

But it is really, really helpful to disengage the connection between "good" and "engagement" in your head. Because engagement means very little about the quality of something, and is more tied into "right time, right place, right audience" type of shit.

It's also really helpful to do as an artist, because otherwise it becomes really, really easy to do one of two things:

a) "well, I'm not getting any notes, therefore I'm a bad artist/I make bad art."

Or

b) "Other people getting notes is unfair to me, because my art is good, and I deserve more notes."

I've done it. You've probably done it. We've all had those thoughts/feelings. But they are unhelpful thoughts/feelings, and doing whatever you can to nix both thought patterns is helpful as fuck.

Because a) engagement means nothing about the quality of your art and b) other people getting engagement means nothing about the quality of your art.

Engagement is great! It's nice! I want every artist to have tons and tons of engagement! But an artist getting notes reflects nothing on your art.

And - it's really important to find ways to feel good about your own art that have nothing to do with engagement. If it's the external validation you seek, try and find one or two friends to send your art to who will tell you how much they love it. Start a spreadsheet of the tags/notes that people leave on your art. I dunno, get creative.

But find ways to validate your art that have nothing to do with other people, too. Create something that you don't share with anyone. Spend time making art that's just for you and your own enjoyement. Make something that makes you laugh or smile. Above all, set aside time to fall in love with your own art.

This got really long, but:

TLDR: Fuck, buddy, I don't know lol. What does well on tumblr varies, but people like silly, encouraging, cute shit. Build a consistent style. Engage in community. Know that engagement doesn't necessarily mean much, both in regards to art sales and in regards to the worth and value of your art.

Good luck out there!

[bellaxgiornata]

hiiii

this might seem like a bit of a weird ask, but you seem super nice and i thought it would be okay if i asked you ! (also sorry if this is long)

i’ve been part of the daredevil fandom for a long time and i’ve been writing about dd for over a year and a half now. before i was writing for this fandom, i wrote fanfic about an entirely different genre for like 10+ years. when i was in the other fandom i wrote exclusively on wattpad, and i made a lot of online friends and was a part of writing communities and it made the experience so much better ! but since i changed directions (and started posting on ao3 first and wattpad second) i’ve had a hard time getting into the dd community.

i’m still new to using tumblr for fanfic so i haven’t posted anything of mine here/ followed many writers here (and i’m working on that !). but i was wondering if you had any advice on how to start chitchatting with other people in the fandom ? it feels super cringy for me to be like “i love your work, maybe you’d like mine !” bc i don’t want people to think i’m just trying to promote myself (i promise i’m not). but i miss being involved in online writing communities. it was one of my favorite things in the other fandom and now i’m struggling to find a place here. i try to respond to comments and have reached out to one or two writers before but it didn’t really go anywhere /:

so, tldr; do you have any advice on getting into the writing community/ making friends in the daredevil fandom ?

(and side note i love your work and have been reading your stuff almost as long as i’ve been writing— i’ve reread FFTD so many times and CANNOT WAIT for more updates on TDAYW and ATY !)

thank you !! sorry again this was so long

Hey friend!! This is actually a really great question that I'm sure you're not alone in wondering about! I definitely agree with you though, making friends in the fandom makes the experience so much more enjoyable. I used to write on FFN until I took a couple of years break from fanfic when I was in grad school. I had never made friends in fandom back then because I hadn't found communities and ways to accomplish that via FFN. Even when I came back to fic on AO3 and shortly after I started writing for Matt, I hadn't made friends right off the bat. But I always tried to respond to comments on my stories which is when I started to realize how fun the community was.

My answer is going to be long, so I'm going to put it below the cut! Also anyone else here reading this, if you have tips for making friends, please feel free to share them!!

Honestly tumblr I think is the way to go for making friendships. I have never used wattpad so I can't speak to the way it is set up, but AO3 doesn't quite allow for that too well because we can only communicate via comments. Tumblr gives so many more opportunities to meet lots of others and comment or send messages or share others' content with reblogs.

It's totally not necessary to share your stories on here, but I think that does help. Or to maybe even just promote your updates on your other platforms with links. Because it gives people an opportunity to come here and talk about your stories with you. But I think content creators, whatever you're making, probably make friends a little easier because we are providing something for others to (hopefully) interact with and consume.

As for reaching out to others, I cannot speak to how everyone would react because I know we all have different boundaries, but I think commenting/comment reblogging regularly on writer's or artist's work that you like is a good start. Or sending friendly messages or asks to someone. Just always be sure to be friendly and respectful.

I personally tend to notice the people I'm always seeing chatting in my notifications and then have made friends that way. It just seems like a natural progression if you're often talking to some people, conversations start to shift outside of just that content. Maybe to the show and then to other things. It's how I also tend to interact with others on here in order to make friends; commenting and sharing their work, sending asks or participating in their events, sending a message with something nice in it.

Though I agree, I think your initial comments to someone shouldn't be something about coming to read your work because it feels pressuring. I had a negative experience with that and didn't know how to handle that when I first got into the fandom and it made me uncomfortable because I never want to be rude or hurtful. So instead, maybe find ways to relate as a writer if you see them talking about writing in general, or other ways to make a comment that mentions that you also write. If they have time and want to read your work they will! And if not, that's okay too! I personally have a growing list of TBR and I mean nothing offensive if I can't get to someone's work, I just personally don't have as much time to read for example.

For me, I just sort of fell into making friends on here because of my writing. And I met so many other talented artists because of that and I've become "fans" of them as well and have had friendships form that way. And it's not just content creators, I've made friends with many wonderful people in the community who are reading my works too! It's fun to chat and dissect the show or to relate about other things (I'm a mom and have met other lovely moms here).

So my advice is to just keep reaching out and talking to people! Some conversations might lead somewhere and some might not. And that's okay! Everyone is different. I personally think the Daredevil fandom as a whole is absolutely amazing and full of wonderful and talented individuals who are more often than not open to making friends ❤️ I always am!

And like I said above, for anyone that has any other tips, please feel free to add them!

(And thank you so much!!! ❤️ I'm so glad you enjoy those stories!!)

[trapastrology]

My Decision has been made...

Good Afternoon, my beautiful astro babes!

A Week ago, I made a poll asking if you'd all rather me go the route of Patreon or Twitch. I want to take a bigger step in my career esp given my upcoming transits and other circumstances.

The poll has officially ended and there was a weeks' time to vote.

Patreon was the WINNER

I actually prefer this over twitch being that i can do more and there be a huge bang for your buck!

My Patreon will include a lot such as...

Lives (will be available to watch even if you missed it)

Exclusive In-depth information

Merch (towards the end of the year)

Discounts for readings, books and classes exclusive to patreon members

YouTube style videos (so those on Patreon will be seeing my face lol)

Classes strictly for Patreon members (the classes will be chosen by them)

& way more!

There will only be one tier. I find that this is the easiest way for me to post quality content between 2 platforms (Tumblr & Patreon) as well as not having people feel "left out" who may not be able to maintain the purchase of other tiers they may really like to join.

The only Tier will be $9. Being that a lot of quality content and such will be produced every month, I find that this is an amount that isn't too, too much but can still be sustainable for me.

I will be very ecstatic for those of you who'd like to join. I will be able to do more with something that I love to do without any outside sources intervening. This will also help me better interact with everyone one on one and giving a specific group of people what they want and need. The information i'll have on my Patreon will definitely be things that you can (& should) apply to your daily life to better your quality of life. This will also be towards people trying to get into the deeper parts of astrology.

I hope that everyone who wants to join is able to join!

However, there is one more thing I'd like to address. As a 1H Jup, I like to ask for signs from the universe for if I should do something or not. I was wondering if I should go on to Patreon/Twitch or if I should continue to stay on social medias strictly being that I've been on here for years.

Yesterday, I was accused of "stealing" my book title name from someone handle. For those of you who have been here for a while & came from twitter, I released Written In The Cosmos, on May 1st and was working on it a month prior to posting about it on April 1st. Nothing about or from my book was ever stolen from someone or something else. The title? Came from my mom. I asked her to help me with title and chapter names and she gave me a few and Written in the cosmos was supposed to be a chapter title but I switched it to a book title. The Artwork? If you've read any of my book promo, you'd know that it is Watercolor Painted by me! I also posted the whole tutorial on my personal TikTok and I painted it way before I thought about my book. The contents? was all me. Experiences I had and gathering information from people I interviewed! This is the first and last time I'll speak on this being that I honestly don't have the energy or anything to prove becuz as I worked on my book, I posted about it all the time. However, she commented on my post about my book, so I dm'd her asking her to clarify the issue and then I was blocked instantly. Furthermore, I took this as a sign to do bigger things becuz as a Scorpio/8H plmnt, if you aren't doing your thing and someone isn't trying to accuse you of something you didn't do...are you doing it right??? LOL

Nevertheless, everyone here knows I only post original content and I'm usually out and about when I think of posts info and ideas so I'll put it in my voice memos and type them out later.

Thank you for everyone who has purchased my book becuz it's meant the absolute world to be being that I thought it wasn't good enough to share! You are very appreciated by me forever and always!

I can't wait to start my New Patreon journey while also continuing my journey on here!

If you got this far, I love you and more content will be loading!!!!!!!

[unknownteapot]

My unpopular shourtney opinion is that I really hate the way the Smosh fandom polices its shippers. It's the ship that smosh themselves arguably fanservices the most, yet you hop onto any social media platform and there's this weird clique-y negative attitude when it comes to anyone shipping them. Which is extra ironic considering: put 'smosh' into the tag search here on tumblr and ALLLLLL you're scrolling through is rpf ship content. But, oh, guess we're all down to clown over shaymien 'cause it's fun but it's invasive when it's shourtney? But not iananthony or shayne/chanse or amanda/angela or spencer/courtney or or or etc. There's such a huge hypocrisy when it comes to Shayne and Courtney and the double standard of "don't ship real people, it's weird............ except for these real people that iiiii've deemed shippable" is a huge turnoff from making me want to participate in the fandom. Like, we're all little weirdos at the table. You don't have to police the party. AND ADDITIONALLY: people overanalyze interactions and videos and pictures ALL THE TIME. Yes, I wish the shourtney fandom in general would chill with freeze framing videos and doing crime scene level analysis on them, but I see that happening with every ship mentioned above too. It's the nature of shipping, it's not exclusive to shourtney✌️

ooofffff anon, hello hii and thank you for sharing <3

i do understand where you're coming from with the irony of it being okay to ship certain couples but not others, and while i haven't experienced much of it myself yet as i'm fairly new to the fandom & tumblr, i do see the double standards. but, i also think there's a reason they exist and it's a valid one (even if it is a little sad)

people who've been fans longer than me can correct me- but i'm pretty sure there was a strange discord(?) where invasive shourtney 'proofs' were being posted and discussed and so on for a while, and as we know c has experienced their fair share of stalker-ish behaviours. due to how immensely popular the shourtney ship is/was in the early days of smosh and the behaviours of some members of the fandom, shourtney shippers gained a reputation of being overly analytical and invasive. that's where i think its important to draw the distinction between shipping and trying to prove a relationship.

i think a lot of shourtney shippers fell/fall into the latter category, where 'shipping' treads the line of seeking to expose them somehow or 'show the truth' -> in my eyes that's not really shipping, that's just an invasion of privacy, so i do understand where others' hesitation or disdain comes from when talking about shourtney shippers in this context.

however, of course some of us are here because we just love them, love their dynamic, find them to be a safe space for us or want to rant about how cute they are or the look they shared in a video- that's just standard fan behaviour in my eyes. i don't even have that much of a problem with people analysing (public) interactions/freeze-framing videos of cute moments or whatnot, because that's just looking into their dynamic, that's shipping culture at its core. every ship is entitled to cute gifets and loving rants, like u say:

"Like, we're all little weirdos at the table." anon i love u hahahahh

it can be frustrating feeling like we're looked down upon as shourtney shippers, but i think now its up to us to build that reputation back up of respect and boundaries, and lean more into the shipping side of things rather than the 'proofs' side of things <3

(god this was long, i hope this answered your ask anon :)

[snowball-maltese]

I’ve been having some anxiety over stuff I see about trans stuff here on tumblr. Mosty just intrusive thoughts. But I always get uncomfortable when I see stuff about ftm bc it makes me feel self-conscious and anxious. Like I have to do that stuff to be happy. And I’m not trying to say trans people shouldn’t express themselves on this platform bc it makes me uncomfortable. That’s just wrong and disgusting. Everyone should be able to express themselves freely and be able to share their experience here :)

But I feel like sometimes this platform makes me feel like because I like to play as boy characters in games or because I’m attracted to women that I’m trans. Like I almost feel pressured into the LGBTQ. It’s not like people are doing it on purpose. No one is saying “you have to be gay to be normal” but I feel overwhelmed by it sometimes and scared that I might do something drastic that I’ll regret or that I’ll do something that I’ll later realize this isn’t the way I really wanted to present myself.

And after thinking about it a lot, I realized my gender dysphoria is deep rooted and a side effect of my upbringing and society as a whole. I grew up in a household that was pretty old fashioned. My father was 47 when I was born and my mom grew up in the Philippines, which can be conservative about stuff like that. I grew up thinking that only girls can like hello kitty and princesses and that boys can only like superheroes and cars. As a result of having an older parent, I grew up watching some pretty sexist shows without realizing it. I saw women in sitcoms doing girly things and figured since I don’t wanna do that “girly” stuff like doing my makeup that I wanna do boy stuff instead, later coming to believe, because of tumblr, that I might be trans.

I just now realized that this all came from the fact that society, especially in the eyes of people controlling a lot of the world’s economy like toy companies and fashion companies, see women as a certain thing and men in a certain way. Stereotypes of women and girls and stereotypes of men and boys are so normalized in the world we live in that some people don’t even realize they’re present and harmful.

I believe that no one should have to worry about whether they look too “girly” if they’re AMAB or worry about not being “girly” enough if they’re AFAB. I feel like there is a deep flaw in society if a young individual feels pressured by what they see in media about what it means to be a boy and be a girl. And coming onto such a diverse place like Tumblr at a young age such as 14-17, they might connect what they see about gender roles in society and what they see about people transitioning on tumblr (or any platform really, it’s not Tumblr exclusive of course!) and feel like they must be trans because they don’t fit the gender stereotypes of their assigned gender at birth.

People should be able to like whatever they want and not have to worry about feeling like they don’t fit in for liking ponies when they’re “supposed to” like spider man.

People should be able to love wearing clothes that makes them happy. Dresses, suits, hairclips, or ties, no matter their assigned gender at birth!

And if you feel like transitioning is for you, then yes! Go for it! I am so proud that you have fully chosen the path you think is right for you. But I feel like this world is fundamentally flawed if someone has to worry about how they dress or what they like just so they’re “normal” or otherwise they’re trans!

The other day my dad was telling me a story of an individual who was wearing a dress and saying things like “he’s embarrassing himself.” Let the bro wear a dress if they want! Let’s break down the stereotypes of men and women and just let people be people! People shouldn’t have to worry about people going “oh that person is so weird for liking the wrong stuff” “oh that man is so cringe for wearing that necklace” “that girl really should stop pretending to be a boy” I wish all hes, shes, theys and everyone else and in between would be able to express themselves without having to feel scared that they’re doing something wrong by being themselves!

LET PEOPLE LIVE THEIR LIVES WITHOUT HAVING TO FEEL PRESSURE BY GENDER ROLES

Tl;dr- Society’s gender stereotypes are harmful to young people who might be having body image problems, and no one should have to feel pressured into thinking they have to transition just because the world thinks they “don’t do the right things” for their gender.

You should love your body the way it is and you should feel comfortable in your own skin! Your body is beautiful just the way it is!

And if you feel changing it is what is best for you, then go for it! Because at the end of the day you are still beautiful no matter what the world thinks you’re doing wrong!

Gender roles do not equal gender identity!

This is just my take of course! I don’t want to offend anyone at all, I am just sharing how I feel about this and what my experience with this topic are. I’m scared to post this… but I feel like it’s important to put out there!

Is anyone still reading this?

[all-my-ocs-are-evil]

Howdy hey, call me Skipp!

I'm relatively new to tumblr despite having an account for years. I was always a little scared of this platform, but now that I know more about how it works I've come to adore it!

I figured I should just clarify what my blog is like. This blog is far from currated! It is simply the dumping ground of my mind. This ranges from ocs, to fandoms, to random inner monologues put to text. The only truly cohesive thing about this blog would be the art. I love to do the art things and will post and repost it constantly! So the best way to navigate my blog for anything specific would be through the tags :)

With all that said, you weary travellers who are interested in my wears (fandoms), below the cut you will find a list of things that intrigue me.

Tales of Arcadia

my obsession with this series will come and go in intense waves but will never truly fade.

Percy Jackson/Rick Riordanverse

show reignited my adoration to intensities they definitely weren't before XD

Mystery Kids

I love this and all of the different possible iterations with other media as well. So much angst and fluff material too!

Secret Trio

I constantly remember and forget how much I love this au. Same as with Mystery Kids, I'm a sucker for all the different interpretations and inclusions of other media in this au.

Indie Horror Games (Sally Face, Slay the Princess, Fran Bow, etc)

This isn't, like, exclusive to horror exactly, but games of a similar vibe and nature to those are what I find myself liking the most!

Undertale/Deltarune

been a fan since it first came out and I don't think I'll ever really stop

TMNT

got into the fandom through Rise and, ever since, I have been making my way through the other shows slowly, one by one. Currently on 2003, which I've heard is collectively believed to be the best, and am very excited.

Also looking for any good Rise!Raph angst fics, so if you've got any suggestions lmk!

Flying Bark Productions (ROTTMNT, LMK, MOON GIRL)

I am an animation nerd and my current nerd obsession is everything this studio has made in the last, like, ten years! Everything they make is just so...ashsreuvbevui!

Detentionaire

I don't care if everyone else has moved on, because I haven't!

Unus Annus

Momento Mori. I'm always down to reminisce and grieve with those who were there. This channel had such a profound impact on me so I'm not sure I'll ever be able to truly forget it, but that's fine with me.

Grojband

I'm totally normal about this show that no one around me seems to even recall and have totally not made a hella angsty au about it to cope.

Fashion

Like a crow, I like pretty things. Fashion is one of those pretty things. I repost a lot of couture.

Sims

I repost a lot of cc on here not just for me, but for anyone who might find interest in it as well (it's definitely just for me).

PowerPuff Girls

While I oddly enough don't remember much of the show, I have always been pretty deep into the fandom. Been reading fics and fancomics since, like, the early 2010s and just never really left lol

Miraculous Ladybug

I can't escape this show! I love the fandom, it's great. Love all of the artists and aus and fanart, but I've fallen out of love with the show itself. I will watch every single episode, I just won't talk about it because that's not where my interest lies.

These are definitely not all of the fandoms I am or will be a part of but these are probably gonna be the ones you see the most of!

[krpgarden]

hello! would anyone be interested in a high fantasy rp on mewe, specifically? all the ones i've seen are always modern fantasy, university fantasy, or they're exclusively using tumblr as a platform. i'm talking about a rp akin to a scene ripped from the witcher (not so much game of thrones) with a time period to match. elves, nymphs, humans, etc. maybe two opposing kingdoms? broken royalty elements and the eventual downfall of one of the kingdoms causing its citizens to seek out places outside of the castle walls to call their new home. getting lost in the woods, discovering independently owned blacksmith shops and taverns along the way, setting up small camps to make it through cold nights, i could go on and on! magic wouldn't be the main focus but it would be a given in a world like this. also, i imagine the mewe post feed to be more of a personal diary? no need to comment on others' posts, no need to emoji unless you really want to. this would help with time period immersion, i think! at the end of the day, this is the only theme i've not seen represented to this extent on a platform like mewe (or even discord!). i'd love to put something together if enough people are interested, even if it's a smaller rp. i'd love to see if there's any interested admins, too, but my main goal is just gauging interest for the idea as a whole. anyway! thank you for reading! please let me know your thoughts or how i can improve upon this idea to make it more appealing. i can't get this rp idea out of my head, and i really hope there's other people around who like this sort of thing!

wow! i love this idea! i personally love high fantasy and would join on a whim! 🧝‍♂️

krpers, if you’re interested in a mewe high fantasy roleplay (witcher vibes) please interact with this post, send an ask or message, or if you’d like to keep your account anonymous: please press the poll button below (poll duration is one week).

dear anon, if you have any more ideas or questions, or want to find co-admins please feel free to send us a message any time.

thank you for your support!

[tommywllliams]

𝐆𝐄𝐓 𝐓𝐎 𝐊𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐔𝐍

———  BASICS! ♡

(PEN)NAME:  ashley (i spelled my own name wrong on first try oh my god)

PRONOUNS: she/her! i guess if you wanna use they/them that's fine too tbh i don't care

ZODIAC SIGN: taurus

TAKEN OR SINGLE:  single & looking to mingle tbh!

———  THREE  FACTS! ♡

1 -   i am distantly related to edgar allan poe on my mother's side!

2 -  i was once supposed to be in a production of grease, but we were too poor and couldn't afford it :c i would've been jan, and i would have nailed it.

3 -   i got my rp start in the once-ler fandom .... may god have mercy on my soul.

———  EXPERIENCE! ♡

PLATFORMS USED: tumblr (hi!), discord (w/ very close friends), text (see previously)

PLOTTING / WINGING IT / MEMES: i like some light plotting & then we start up something thru memes! i'm also good with winging it.

———  MUSE  PREFERENCE! ♡

GENDER: i used to write like, almost exclusively women. now this man lives in my brain rent free.

MULTI OR SINGLE: i'm awful with multis tbh, i applaud people that can manage them!

LEAST FAVOURITE FACECLAIM(S): i don't really care about fcs tbh!

———  FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT! ♡    

FLUFF: i love fluff, fluff is good shit. my big fear when writing it however (and this is solely for myself) is that it'll grow stale and the other person will get tired of our thread. so pepper in some bittersweet shit in there too.

ANGST: i love angst, i want to scream at my laptop and not be able to tell anyone else wtf is wrong with me.

SMUT: I THINK I'M SO BAD AT WRITING SMUT!! objectively i'm not, but when it goes on for long periods of time, i worry i'm becoming repetitive/losing the timing/forgetting what positions they're supposed to be in lmao. i will write smut, but i prefer knowing the mun a little bit first! even just a few ooc conversations.

stolen from: @euphoriabled! tagging: @typhoidcaught, @bctclgevse, @infernalrampage, @nancewheelr, @heygutlcss, @ycllowhaired, @laebyrinths, @arcaneprophesied, @legacysouls, and you!

[inoppositionflorien]

I know I've been promising to articulate my opinions on anarchism pretty much since I joined Tumblr, but seeing as that's not happening today, I'm instead going to complain about complaining.

In particular the "ha the US is unique in its evilitude and it ought to stop being a thing, remember that time it did xyz" brand of complaint. Notably, this particular brand of weird political stance is almost exclusively seen in Canadian, Western European, and Australian leftists.

It is not particularly commonly held among US leftists. (This is not to say there are none who hold that opinion, there definitely are some, if just by osmosis of opinion, merely that they are far less commonly seen than ones originating from other countries, often ones with very similar colonial legacies.)

As that parenthetical says, every country that tried to be a world power and many that never made it have remarkably similar skeletons in their closet. Further, the individuals in question often make no effort to understand the US political system. This ties back to the myth of the All-powerful executive branch, the President being in charge of everything. They usually buy this wholesale, which, as said in some previous post I made is certainly an appealing idea, but a broadly wrong one. They also make no effort to follow the news beyond the headline, or occasionally the first article.

This often leads to "The US is axiomatically bad and thus any force that opposes it (even nominally) is axiomatically good." It doesn't always go there, but more often than I think anyone should be comfortable with, it does. That way lies support of authoritarians and occasionally actual fascists simply because they oppose the US out of a xenophobic nationalism, or, if they're a LatAm populist, used the specter of past US intervention (which was broadly a disaster, and pointlessly installed many authoritarians who did nothing helpful, for the record) to claim that any problems they're having came from the apparently all-powerful and illusive CIA, and not from poor management choices that necessarily come from incoherent populist policy platforms which are either ill-defined to the point that anything can be claimed as part of the policy, or a mess of contradictory ideas that don't actually work because the smart ones almost invariably rely on the perpetual existence of a macroeconomic money sink in a naturally unstable global economy or a misunderstanding of the problems raw extraction countries face in the international market, and then when they are technically workable, they trip over the really bad unworkable ideas (see what happened to Venezuela's healthcare system when they attempted to run two parallel ones at once to preserve jobs while also trying to fix inefficiencies in the old system. Essentially, it became more inefficient and more expensive to run, which dumped an enormous amount of money into an economy with few actual money sinks because taxes had been cut and the money sink that high oil prices provide to a petrostate disappeared when oil prices crashed. It would have been more effective to either fix the first system or completely restructure it if that seemed too hard)

The point is, I don't actually think it's a coincidence how in many of these cases, it's the authoritarians and populists with no coherent policy platform being praised or at least grudgingly accepted. Notably, those are both strongman positions, and strongmanism is broadly popular, pretty much wherever you go politically speaking. (Interestingly, you can find it even in many branches of anarchism!) It's also often a messianic belief system, a "someone, one person who leads, they will do it right, defeat a great evil, and then everything will be good forever" sort of thing.

The reason the US in particular is targeted, I think, is less because of its particular legacy, (After all, remember, nearly every country that didn't get colonized on heavily and several that did all have similar legacies if you're willing to look, though not necessarily to as great a recent extent simply because they haven't been major powers for a while, or haven't made it there yet) but simply because it's visible. It is THE power in the world. It is not a hegemon, nor has it ever been, but it is very capable in its own right and has been economically dominant for nearly 150 years. Incidentally, this, (and some racism) is why the US right is obsessed with China, a country that's apparently the second largest power. It's visible. In practice, there's actually plenty of evidence China has been struggling with the problems authoritarianism brings, and has been overreporting its economic strength for years, and it will probably be overtaken by India soon economically, but this is irrelevant to their position. China is visible, so China is the target. Much the same, the US is visible, certainly culturally (it has a culture so dominant that many people don't even realize they're in it. This is not a unique issue to the US, most non-minority groups in a given country don't realize they're in a distinct culture. Part of this is the "white as default" thing, but this is also much more broadly true than that particular phrase implies) so the US is the target for people who aren't in it.

It is in fact, closely related to the all-powerful executive I brought up earlier. It is very, very easy and fun to ascribe all or many problems to one position or one country or one people. It is also very easy when you're doing that to start to believe in strongmanism, because whether they know it or not, strongmen (who are almost invariably isolationist nationalists) will win international acclaim for pretending to be an underdog against the biggest power they think they can get away with taking issue with, and for many places, that's the US.

And strongmanism and more general authoritarianism, as I'm sure everyone knows by now, don't actually work very well at achieving their intended ends (not to mention the ends they intend are often bad to start with)

There could be the criticism of this made that the US school systems do not teach of everything bad the US has done, and this is why the US left broadly disagrees in the way brought up in the start... Except oops that's true of pretty much every country's education system. They very rarely go into much detail about all the various terrors their country wreaked until college level, and occasionally not even then. Further, the US left is broadly just as aware about all the past atrocity as international ones. Often more so, in fact, because people tend to know more about their own country than others. There is, in truth, no one target that must be hit to fix everything, whether it be a country as in this particular complaint, or something else, and the pervasive belief in that is a major issue across nearly all political groups that goes largely unaddressed.

This actually leads into another whole long post that I'll probably make some day about how systems of government, economic systems, and baseline happiness interact to create a whole situation where the events of the Great Disappointment of 1844 but for anticapitalism is going to happen in slow motion if capitalism ever stops being the dominant economic system, but I'll save that for another post. And maybe someday I'll actually talk about my feelings on Anarchism.

[mariska]

hello again beloved tumblr friends in my phone i am still absolutely physically and mentally exhausted this week and do not have much to offer or share of substance for my lil blog here but i needed to hop on and say that lately i've been using this site called Watchlist Picker to help me decide on watching a movie before i go to bed at night (the watchlist it picks from is whatever Letterboxd profile u have it search thru so i've been having it pick stuff from my profile's watchlist obvs since i have like 1000+ stuff on there and i am so so so very indecisive)

anyways i usually re-roll it one or two times 'cause lately i have been so low on energy that i cant get myself to pick up my laptop and do a brief google search to see if the movie the site picks is on any streaming things or just find it on my......Definitely Legit Alternate Streaming Sites I Use To Watch Things.........so i let the site do its thing and then go on letterboxd for a min and see if the movie listing on there mentions it being on one of the few streaming places i have apps for on my phone since thats much faster and more accessible, and last night it picked a movie called Psycho Goreman thats on Shudder (i lov Shudder btw out of every stupid streaming platform there is it is the only one i would actively recommended to other ppl cus its all horror or horror/thriller/suspense/horror adjacent etc etc and its the cheapest one too with the best selection imo ✌️)

and i just. i have to tell everyone i know anout this movie ok. again it is called Psycho Goreman and i am not even slightly joking its one of the best movies i have ever seen in my life so far, its so fucking funny genuinely and very much lives up to its title name and its not too short or too long either, it was an absolute blast to watch and made me tear up laughing multiple times and the main kid actors (aside from the title character who is also incredible) are actually great actors with hilarious comedic timing abilities, especially the main girl character Mimi shes so good. this is just me rambling abt a movie theres no point to this post i just need everyone who likes stupid weird funny gorey comedy/horror stuff like i do to watch this if u havent already it is so worth the hour and a half. its also very visibly an independent production (its a Shudder exclusive i believe) which it is very self aware of and it uses that to its advantage for the comedic factor but is also just a joy to watch because you can really visually see the passion that went into every practical cosplay-esque character design and costume and the style is very much an homage to corny cult classic horror and sci-fi stuff of the 80s-90s while still successfully blending a lot of modern digital fx/cgi (and some traditional stop-motion claymation too!!! i thought that was awesome) and it is just. its awesome and i felt like a lot of you who follow me on here more for my horror related stuff i reblog/post would probably enjoy it too so! def watch it if u get a chance its wonderful. ok that is all goodbye for now love u all stay safe xoxo

[fauzhee10069]

Hey I saw your post in the beefleaf tag about why you don’t ship beefleaf and I’d just like to say that even though I find your argument interesting … perhaps you can keep entire paragraphs about not shipping beefleaf out of the tag meant for shippers of beefleaf. It’s sort of impolite and I’m sure many shippers were upset by you tagging it that way and then saying “don’t like don’t read.” Yes they can avoid reading it but something against the ship just doesn’t belong in the tag. Hope this doesn’t seem too aggressive - I wasn’t sure if you knew the usual protocol for this sort of thing and I’m not good with words.

I already answered why I won't remove the tag here.

And again, I'D RATHER HAVE YOU BLOCK ME THAN REMOVE MY TAGS if you think that my post is an eye-shore to you.

Thank you for respecting my opinion but you're more disappointing than previous anon (who agreed to just block me) because I already give major warning in CAPSLOCK and bold for those of you who can't handle criticism for your favorite ship (Yeah, I think I have to add more "to block me" because of this).

Yes they can avoid reading it but something against the ship just doesn’t belong in the tag.

It still belongs to the tag because it’s about beefleaf. It’s not even an anti-post because it’s not all negative about them.

If you think the tag is exclusive for 'favorite things' or 'shipping' for liking, you need to learn more about tumblr in general.

I need the tag to sort my archive, it's more important than to satisfy you which you can handle it yourself by just hit (...) then block and...

...your dashboard page is clean again from negative posts about beefleaf.

I’ve been in tumblr for a decade and as long as I know ‘the tag’ is not equal with ‘the fanclub’, it’s equal to ‘related topic’.

And tumblr will always be like this.

Unless the feature of creating exclusive group/fanclub can be realized.

Sorry for eventually dragging other fandom, but even ‘Final Fantasy 7′ with massive ship-wars handle this better, tag like #cloti or #clerith are not exclusively for what's good for them, even valid criticism often uses these tags.

I never experienced anything like this when I was criticizing #cloti, and over the time I actually grew to see the good side of said pairing.

The FF7 fans maybe just brushed it off or block the haters in silent idk, because I still can see the variety of the contents using those tags.

Or these #destiel posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 that should’ve offended destiehellers in ‘Supernatural’ fandom.

And with this much fandoms I’ve never experienced this tag-keeping before.

You need to realize that there must be a moment when someone doesn’t like what you like.

Do you think I’ve never experienced it? Many times I’ve accidentally found things that I love got severely criticized by others.

You may hate to see dust on your table, but you can’t just expect dust to never get on your table, you need to clean it by yourself.

You may hate to see a post you don’t like, but you can’t just expect people to stop posting it, you need to filter it by yourself.

If you really need a special space that contains only positive things you like, you need to figure out which platform that is suitable for that.

Tumblr is not a fanclub, it only provides you feature to block posts you don’t like.

Go make fanclub/livejournal/group/subreddit etc dedicated for beefleaf, anything that you have the right to moderate. Trust me, you won’t find me there to badmouthing them because I know my place.

Now, you add another reason why I dislike beefleaf.

I won't respond post like this again in the future.

Or probably stop writing TGCF related all together and leaving the fandom.

Thanks for being polite at least, but I still stand in my stance. At least you won’t find me writing about beefleaf or anything that doesn’t conform your expectation anymore.

[thehealingsystem]

was just going to comment but I figured this deserved a more in depth response. so now I ask users of tumblr to STOP MAKING POLLS LIKE THIS

for warning there is rampant aphobia in the notes, as expected but really fucking sad because I thought most of our community moved past this shit. but apparently not

asexual and aromanticism is inherently part of the lgbtq+ community. no ifs ands or buts. not on the condition of being queer in some other way, not on the condition of how much oppression they experience. and from reading the comments, people need some reminders

gatekeeping who is "lgbt enough" based on how badly a group is oppressed is bullshit. first off, a bunch of you obviously haven't read into any discussions or research on aspec folks and the experiences they've had with this. because I can assure you that we ALSO are on the receiving end of the harm from heteronormative views of society and having our orientations questioned, criticized, and rejected. just because you refuse to even LOOK at what aspecs are saying about their own lives and don't experience that yourself doesn't mean you can completely deny that we aren't oppressed.

and to be fair, I am queer in other ways and being aspec isn't the most important part of my identity for me BECAUSE I've been a lot more hurt for those other parts, such as being lesbian or being trans. but I obviously don't speak for the entire community

but secondly, it's not the best thing in the world to base whether or not someone is allowed in the Exclusive Minority Group around how badly they've been hurt. this has been done to hell and back and has shown to only be harmful. transmedicalism bases itself off of this, and I see it in a lot of transmeds to this day. that they're hurt and suffering due to being trans, therefore anyone else who is trans has to be hurt and suffering too or else they're not REALLY trans. Not REALLY a part of the group. Because if they're not oppressed enough obviously they don't belong here right? literally the logic people are putting in the comments right now

And by god, people NEED to get normal about alloaros. if a guy doesn't experience romantic attraction and is just sexually attracted to women, that is it. he cannot choose his orientation. he can't change anything about who or who he isn't attracted to

seriously there's replies saying with their full chest that he's just trying to distance himself from women while still being sexually active with them in order to use it as a scapegoat for his misogyny. which also shows that we still see asexual and aromanticism as an ACTION rather than an actual valid orientation. what the hell do you want this hypothetical man to do??? suddenly gain romantic feelings??? pft

so many have problems with split attraction for so many reasons that go straight into basic plain old queerphobia. towards non-aspec sam and aspec sam alike. that the labels aren't valid and we would just use something else, to that no one can actually have attraction like that because romantic and sexual attraction are always the same definitely (/sar), our labels are useless and there's no point in them, we're trying to invade some sort of community, that we're literal predators and trying to make people attracted to us, the list goes on and on

please stop giving these people a platform to spout their queerphobia. I've seen so many polls like this asking questions of whether they think xyz identity is valid, and while I may have let loose with the contradictory identities one bc it was mostly positive and I just wanted to express pride in it, there's so many that go all wrong, asked in bad faith meant to bring out hateful discourse

this is a poll with 15980+ votes so far with 4746+ voting no. are you kidding me. aphobia? in our year 2023, nearly 2024? literally just stop already

[milfbrainrot]

constantly comparing tumblr to dreamwidth is kinda just exposing how much i use tumblr exclusively for social media these days lol, like i probably should exist elsewhere as well more than i do.

but dreamwidth being entirely original posting rather than the ability to reblog (or reshare or retweet or whatever) is making me think a lot about what was so nice about deviantart socially.

on deviantart it was all original content. these days you do get a lot of muddied algorithmic weirdness mixed in based on other people's own interactive activities, but at least a decade ago it was slower paced and all original? so it made it easier to actually connect with people because you weren't seeing some random person's post in your feed, but someone you personally follow and can personally address.

it's harder to do that with reblogs cluttering the dashboard as well sometimes, even though i do think there are x-kit ways of showing only originals... but even then i think people worry about coming off Weird/Stalkery if they're responding to original posts in such a frequency given that the norm is to have to wade through reblogs for a slower ride.

dreamwidth can get cluttered with more news-related posts from fandom update accounts and so forth as well so it's not all posts from people you want to get to know better unless you curate it that way, but it is so much easier to actually stumble upon those posts because they're not hidden 92389 reblogs down, basically.

i guess there is something to reddit being like this as well, but reddit doesn't scream social to me since it's more common to follow subreddits than people imo. you have to kinda get lucky and recognize people in the comments of communities you both frequent if you want to pick up on individual people to get to know better i guess? and reddit gets kinda surreal at a certain point because you rly don't know anyone so if i spend too much time on there it feels ungrounded because these are all so many different people but all i know about them is this half sentence they've said and it's hard to remember there's a different person behind each comment whose thoughts and personality etc i do not know in the way you can sorta learn about people on tumblr.

anyway. not to sound like someone who gained consciousness a mere week ago and does not understand that different social platforms have (or at least used to have) different purposes. it';s just that tumblr and twitter and other places have this constant stream of reshared content are very good at the whole happy chemicals thing bc the posts never really stop, but i do wonder what that does for social perception mentally compared to something slower and more personal like dw. i do think it is nicer and easier to take in with more of the "social" part that social media used to feel like it had.