#on twitter there aren't tags in the same way tumblr has them ... and the same applies to bluesky actually

[iwakuraz]

how do people consider tumblr to be confusing or strange to use whenever twitter exists? I genuinely cannot use twitter it is just so. headache inducing.

[asleepinawell]

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[horrorshow]

Can you talk about why you think blocking and moving on is a bad thing? I thought it was a way to curate your space and avoid drama

idk maybe i'm too idealistic but fandom is a much more friendlier, welcoming, supportive, creative, engaging, active, diverse and interesting space when it's treated like a community where people are encouraged to participate and talk about their interests and where there's space for niche or more unpopular opinions without these people having to worry about being blocked and feel unwelcome by the majority of the fandom they are in. i can't stand how blocking everyone you disagree with has become the first thing to do.

you say its 'to curate your experience'. but blocking people does not only curate YOUR experience. you're also forcefully curating other users' experiences. and not for the better.

people say 'i will block you for literally anything' and then those same people wonder why engagement is down, why no one sends asks, why no one reblogs, why rarely anyone talks in the tags anymore and why this place feels so dead and boring and quiet. i wonder why!!!!

people treat real people as annoying ads they can dispose of at their whim. but that's not how a fandom or a site like tumblr works. (besides, if you really care about people curating their own experience you wouldn't block people. you can filter and blacklist and never see them again while still granting them the same freedom instead of actively making their experience worse.)

you say its to avoid drama. but seeing a post you dont agree with is not 'drama'. and blocking is not solving anything except for you personally. fandom was more fun when we remembered that every user is a real person you share a space with, and probably some mutuals as well, so you find a way to live with each other. starting with a restraining order seems a bit excessive and is not contributing to anything. it's not that hard to be respectful and tolerate others and acknowledge people have different opinions and interests and still co-exist in peace. its not that hard to be nice to people and try to find common ground with them and interact with the stuff you DO like. you do this in every aspect of your real life, so why not online?

i hear you say: 'but that requires WORK and i don't NEED to do any of that bc i can just block them'.

yeah, you can try to create your own bubble and only hang out with like minded people but you wont EVER fully achieve that (no matter how much you block, social media WILL keep feeding you posts you disagree with bc it makes them money). social media WILL pressure you into an 'us vs. them' mentality where you constantly feel like everything online is a threat or an argument you have to win and where being mean and unnuanced gives you the most notes and where you don't even see, let alone be able to treat, other users as people anymore bc you don't interact with them anymore other than to block or fight them. that's not how i want it to be online. it's not fun to me. and maybe i'm a pessimist but i think it will eventually be the death of online fandom and sites like tumblr. look at the state of twitter right now. DOES blocking give you a better experience in the long run? i doubt that it does. overall, i think it makes people even less tolerable and more vulnerable to hate and fear mongering, and social media an even more hostile place.

it's everything i hate about social media and everything i want to fight against and WILL fight against. i won't pretend my meager contribution will change anything, but i LIKE to just scroll past posts i don't vibe with and not see every argument online as a personal offense. it keeps me curious. most posts aren't that bad when you know the person behind it. i mean, you do you, i'm not gonna say what you should or shouldn't do bc that's up to you, but i recommend it: free yourself of the block button and bring back supportive user communities based on a shared love for the same thing and focus on what you have in common with people, just like you would do in real life. save the block button for the rotten apples who DO keep trying to pick fights and exclude others.

(which is, now that i think about it, probably the main difference: most people see the block button as a neutral way to prevent worse. but. that's only the case on an individual level. and treating everything online as an individual choice to which there are no further consequences, especially if they happen on a larger scale, is already a loss.)

[powdermelonkeg]

Something websites (*cough* Tumblr *cough*) need to learn is that what retains an audience isn't an abundance of new bells and whistles to play with, it's a coherent experience overall.

When someone joins a website, you don't need to grab their attention and hold it. They're already testing the waters. They've agreed to sign up. You've won on that front, and they're there for something specific you already have that they're hoping works well.

What drives them away is frustration.

Frustration, frustration, frustration.

Learning curves are going to be a part of any new website experience; they're something the user comes to terms with, in their own time. But broken or bad features are going to make them jump sites.

On top of that, constantly adding new features makes them feel like all the hard work they've put in to learning what you have isn't worth it; your website looks unstable and your staff looks incompetent, because it gives the impression that you don't know what you're doing.

You are floundering. It makes your new users nervous. It makes your old users hesitate to bring anyone else on board. And why should they? Why should they put effort into it if you're going to throw that effort away next Tuesday? Why get used to a UI that you're not going to bother to keep? Why customize anything if you're going to whittle that customization away?

Between that and the broken, unattended features of this site—the tag organization failing, the inability to look up posts word-for-word, the video player either refusing to play or yanking you to the top of the dashboard, images taking forever to load, advertisements blaring at full volume when you scroll past, you have your problem.

You have the reason why your numbers are failing.

It's not that you're not interesting enough.

It's not that you're too difficult to understand.

It's that you aren't improving what you have, yet you keep adding more half-broken things and unwanted copycat features to the pile.

It's that you're losing your identity in pursuit of a hypothetical perfect customer.

It's that you are actively telling your user base that you prefer those hypothetical customers over them. And your user base, your real people who make you happen, are smart enough to know where your priorities lie.

The bulk of this post talks about Tumblr, but other sites have gone the same way. Twitter is dead and its corpse is decaying in the street. Reddit has sabotaged any trust its users had in its management. If you'd like a really old example—I used to use Fanfiction Net. It's not the most intuitive website in the world, but it was the first one I called home.

I used it to host my works. The adware now on it makes it a hassle to navigate. The bots make comment sections and private messages a dread rather than a joy. So I moved on.

I also used to use it to collaborate on stories with my now-roommate. The message limit was 300 a day. When you're writing dialogue between characters, that's nothing.

So I moved on. We started messaging on Facebook. It was better, it didn't have a limit. But then I learned Discord existed, and I could edit messages, make dedicated channels, etc. So I moved on from Facebook to Discord. And Discord had a steep learning curve, especially if you're trying to make your own server rather than contribute to one. But, most importantly, the payoff was worth it.

If Discord changed its layout every other month while I was learning it, and broke how its reactions worked, and kept shifting what it meant to create a channel? If it opted me into servers I didn't sign up for, in hopes of engagement? If its text never formatted correctly, or its search function only went back a day or two?

I would have gone right back to Facebook. Even if it's a more basic experience, basic is always preferable to unstable.

Figure out what you want, websites.

Slow growth, or a gamble?

You're paying for your magic slot machine in users.

[pocket-jack]

Finally... The day has come.

The one that you've been waiting for since... When was it? Tuesday? Tuesday.

It is time...

For

KIKITOBER2024!!!!

You know our boys. You love our boys. In fact you do it so much that you've decided to dedicate ALL of October from 1-st to 31 to doing this challenge.

SO prepare your tablets, notes, AO3 accounts, keyboards and of course... IMAGINATION!

The rules are simple:

You can write, draw, or even cosplay with this event. It doesn't matter what artistic way you'll use, just have fun

No matter what your skill are, you can participate. This event is not made to judge or discriminate. Here we all equal and do something we love

HOWEVER you aren't allowed to use AI. Hard work and passion - that's what is matter in here, not a cheap plagiarism

When posting your artwork use the tag Kikitober2024, that's how everyone can see your work

You can change any prompt with any NSFW prompt, but we know that Tumblr won't allow such artworks in here. So feel free to post them on Twitter

Every tagged artwork will be reposted in this group so you all can see how talented our Kiki artists are. The same will go to the Twitter. If you do not want your work to be reposted, state it in your bio or description to the work

You may skip the day or two. If you don't feel like it or don't what to draw, just take a rest and restore your powers. During this you may focus on the other days or just drink some tea and relax. No one is pushing. The art is something that you do willingly or else where would be the fun in that?

Know there's a whole week for you to prepare, do some drafts and sketches. Take your time, make your plan and meet the October with the Punks! Good luck and stay creative!

[lemotmo]

I don't know if you want to share this but I thought I would send it just in case. Also, I agree with this. This makes sense. Hope you're having a lovely day!

Q. How in the world is an off screen breakup less satisfying from a storytelling standpoint than an onscreen break-up? A breakup is a breakup.

A. An off screen breakup does not allow the character any agency in their own breakup. It's that simple. The audience needs to see Buck recognize and acknowledge what it is about the relationship that doesn't work FOR him. The relationship is entirely about and for Buck, don't @ me Tommy people, that is the reality. The relationship is entirely about giving Buck an opportunity to grow. You can't see the growth if all you get is a throwaway line about the relationship fizzling out. The audience has seen Buck go through relationship after relationship without really learning anything. And then we watch him repeat the same thing a few months later. This relationship and breakup needs to be about Buck finally figuring out the wrong patterns he keeps repeating. He dates people who do not actually SEE him. He dates people who like the wrapping he comes in. He dates people who are physically attracted to him but aren't interested in or are annoyed by the real parts of him. Every single relationship he has had has followed this pattern. The audience needs to see Buck acknowledge that and officially break that pattern. It's that simple. For better or worse, like or not, Tommy is always going to have been the first. Irregardless of yours or my personal feelings about the relationship, from a life lesson for Buck perspective, it needs an onscreen breakup. Especially if the show is truly going to put him with Eddie. You cannot have a season of personal growth and acceptance from Eddie and not show Buck growing in some capacity as well. He won't be heavily featured but an onscreen breakup is the correct way to go from a storytelling perspective.

Oh no Nonny, I'm definitely posting this. Thank you so much!

As much as I hate to admit it, I do agree to some extent here. Don't get me wrong, I would have loved it if Tommy had just quietly disappeared, but I guess I always kinda knew that wasn't going to happen. I always believed that Lou would be in season 8.

So now that we know for certain that he's there, I say let them play out the story the way they intended before all the craziness started in fandom. The orgininal story was always about Tommy being Buck's first relationship with a man, but it was never meant to last very long. We know this from what Tim said in an interview, what Lou himself said in his interview and Oliver's very clear hints in all his interviews.

So, let's see how they're going to deal with this. Let's see how Buck and Tommy struggle to connect and how they maybe start to realise that they might not be very compatible. I also think that Buck has very real feelings for Eddie at this point, but he has never confronted these feelings, so that might inadvertently also be a factor in BT not working out.

Let's see how they'll eventually break up so that Buck's story of growth may continue during season 8.

And ultimately, if they go with the queer Eddie narrative like we all strongly suspect, this will give Buck the chance to finally take a closer look to his feelings for his best friend and come to the realisation that the thing he has been looking for has been right in front of his nose for years now.

IMPORTANT! Please don't repost this ask and/or a link that leads straight to my Tumblr account on Twitter or any other social media. Thank you!

Heads up! For anyone who is giving me the shifty eyes for reposting Ali's updates instead of reblogging. Read this.

Remember, no hate in comments, reblogs or inboxes. Let's keep it civil and respectful. Thank you.

If you are interested in more of Ali’s posts, you can find all of her posts so far under the tag: anonymous blog I love.

[yonpote]

I feel like people are conflating continuing the joke with invading their privacy… like no one is stalking them or sneaking pictures or bothering their friends and family asking about them we’re just continuing their joke that they set up within our fandom space. Which is exactly as we should be doing imo

yeah exactly. like i think when outsiders dont understand that we are in on the bit that makes some sense, but when it's PHANNIES especially phannies who joined post coming out???? it seems strange.

oh i didnt really explain why this kinda behavior is homophobic as well. (disclaimer: me calling an action homophobic is not the same as me calling an individual homophobic.) a lot of ppl use pj and sophie as a direct comparison straight couple example. pj has only directly called sophie his girlfriend once, and it was in the context reading someone's poorly written article about him lmao. otherwise, its known that they met in uni, have lived together since then, have worked on nearly every kickthepj project together, and generally their on screen energy is really sweet and funny. they also have a cat together and call themselves a family. it's not a stretch to say they're together in the slightest. in fact, it is just natural to assume so.

BUT when dnp who are now publicly out, have been very open about how much they mean to each other, have lived together since dan was in uni, have worked on nearly every project together (even in solo projects the other would help out behind the scenes), have a clear on camera chemistry together, had co-parented a fish, a pigeon, and several houseplants and possibly plan to get a dog or other pet in the future... suddenly it's wrong to assume anything.

i understand the fear that may come from having been in the phandom since when they were closeted and it was much harder to talk about it without seeming like youre aligned with stalkers or ppl who harassed their families or dnp themselves to reveal more information, but thats not the case anymore, and ESPECIALLY if you discovered them post-gay, it's such a flimsy argument to say anyone is breaching privacy in that way.

now there are still some like unspoken basic decency and boundary rules. you probably shouldnt be @'ing them in your smutfics or even your pretty innocent theories about them being super duper in gay love. dnp themselves understand that if they aren't being @ tagged in something, it's probably not meant for them to see, and even acknowledged that in the twitter memes video. but us talking about it in our own spaces, especially on tumblr where they arent on as much but also on twitter BECAUSE THEY KNOW THAT THEYRE NOT MEANT TO SEE IT, is not the same as being like hey @/danielhowell @/amazingphil do you fuck nasty i gotta know if you fuck nasty. (but even if i were to do that, i feel like its very clearly a joke lmao)

so like just dont worry about it, if you still personally dont like seeing ppl talk abt this stuff regardless, you can mute and block people, you can blacklist tags, you can curate your own experience to fit your needs and you dont need to harass other people into suiting your needs.

[butwhatifidothis]

Harassment is horrible, it's terrible mods in this Discord aren't doing anything.

But on the other hand, what about you? You harassed a person over *fanfiction* ( to the point it's the 4th tag who shows up on your blog ). Yet, all your harassment is still there out of the open. You haven't really seriously apologized, especially to them. You're still quite active on fe3h discourse while he had to remove himself from many public online space.

How is this fair?

You're rightfully upset about harassment towards members of your community, there should be *serious* amends made... But how can you hold double standards like that?

I haven't followed the discourse closely because it's so awful, why are you all so hateful? Because you just seems like one of the "bad guy" in this story along with Raxis and the other. I'm not saying you're the same, but you're not really better than those you criticize either, and the same apply for the other blog who participed in your harassment... It's just horrible all around. You're all drowning in a cesspool of toxicity and it's making you all worst people than you actually are.

I hope you, and people around you, will at least receive amend over the harm caused to them. I hope you stop receiving troll, death threat and any other type of hate message you probably still receive. But I hope you'll sincerely recognize your faults and fully amend to them too.

Look, I know you probably mean some kind of well and that you likely spent a long time thinking over this message, so I'm going to lay it out as simply as I can:

I have never once interacted with Cap'n himself, and I have repeatedly told anyone reading my posts to do the same. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who went out of their way to make sure we saw what they were saying about us. This includes publicly admitting to using alts to go around our blocks of them so that they can keep interacting with us directly

Very quickly into critiquing Cap'n's work, a primary focus became pointing out the problematic rhetoric he was spreading with his incredibly influential, incredibly popular fanfic. This includes the justification of holding racist rhetoric, the anti-miscegenation rhetoric, the infantilization of women, the demonization of men, the justification of imperialism, and more, all which appear very quickly into the story and stay prominent throughout the story. The people who have harassed me and others, meanwhile, either deny this rhetoric exists in their circles or outright hold this rhetoric themselves. This includes the use and defense of genocide apologetics.

This post is the first time I have talked about Cap'n in over a year, and the last time I posted any notes on his fic was over a year and a half ago. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have engaged in harassing behaviors as recently as this week (as of Aug 18 2024).

It has been explicitly said by those close to Cap'n that my notes, while upsetting him, had no part in him leaning away from social media more, unlike what you say here. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have driven off multiple people from social media and have openly patted themselves on the back for doing so, justifying their harassment by saying the people they've harassed off social media deserved it.

I have kept my critiques strictly on this Tumblr, as have most of the people who have talked about Cap'n's fic. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have spread their harassment on places such as Twitter, Reddit, and TVTropes.

I have refrained from ever accusing Cap'n of ever holding any bigoted views himself, and have made it a repeated point to say that his problematic writing is far more likely due to ignorance of the subjects involved rather than outright malice. This is unlike the people who have harassed me and others, who have accused many of us as people of being sexist, racist, homophobic, etc. based off of nothing. This includes accusing at least one of us of actual crimes against actual people with no proof and on multiple sites such as the popular and public Edelgard Discord and on Reddit.

People who said they were in contact with Cap'n (as in, mods of the Discord server that Cap'n was once in, the same server that has the mod that uses genocide apologetics) have been told that I was willing to remove parts of my notes that he found too attacking or harsh, and they've been told that I would outright remove all of my posts regarding Cap'n period if he would talk to me directly and we could discuss the implications and rhetoric he had accidentally written into his story. While I do understand him not wanting to do the latter (as it involves directly talking to me), he hadn't even done the former (which does not involve directly talking to me and only involves relaying messages through his friends). And with all of the above on top of that, it gives me the impression that he feels less like "this person is harassing me and that is giving my anxiety" and more "this person is critiquing me and I don't like that." While he has every right to feel the latter, we aren't going to sit here and say that's the same as the former.

So, nonnie, to answer why I am "hateful," as you put it: I don't like stories that unironically say being two races mean you don't belong to either race being influential in a fandom, as a mixed-race woman. I don't like stories that have characters of color only be used as props for the author's favorite little white girl to be influential in fandom, as a person of color. I don't like stories saying that women just want to go back to being innocent pure little girls and not be the wilted tainted flowers they are now to be influential in a fandom, as a woman. I don't like stories that lay the blame of all the world's suffering on the shoulders of a race of people who've barely survived a genocide to be influential in a fandom, as a person with a modicum of knowledge on where that rhetoric inevitably leads to. I don't like stories saying that men who don't bow down to women will almost certainly become rapist pigs or otherwise terrorizing monsters to be influential in a fandom, as someone who rejects sexism of all forms. I don't like stories that liken the violent conquests of imperialism to the blooming of flowers, or that say that imperialism is the only way for the "good" culture to help everyone - actual, genuine rhetoric used to justify actual, genuine imperialism - to be influential in a fandom, as someone who has read any history book ever.

And I don't like how all of this and more have clearly been normalized in big 3H fandom circles and how this has led to multiple people getting harassed, in no small part due to Cap'n's influence on the fandom at large.

I'm sorry if Cap'n doesn't like me pointing out the bigotry he had engraved throughout his story, and I'm sorry if I'm not going to be convinced that me doing that is the same as people's deliberate and long-standing attempts to chase people out of the fandom for saying they don't like Edelgard in the one way they allow anyone to like her, and I'm sorry that me calling out the racism people are engaging in and are hiding behind the shield of "discourse" seems to bother you so much, but I think I've explained why I'm not exactly that sorry well enough. Hope this answers your question <3

[gunbun]

this post is about the cultural concerns regarding ffxiv: dawntrail

Hi doods. Activism has brushed up against fandom YET AGAIN but this time it punches me straight in the heritage and this time I wanna talk about it.

I'm a non-status Qalipu Mik'maq, for the record. An Indigenous American, if thou wilt.

I discuss some pretty heavy shit below the cut. I pray it persists across all devices. Please advise if you want me to tag this as something, or block the tags I have used. I do not need anyone to spread this on my behalf, I do not need anyone's defense. I just have some thoughts and I want to think them.

So it's been less than 24 hours since Dawntrail was announced and we got the Keynote.

We're going to Fantasy The Americas! Before Industrialization!

Many people went "oh hell yeah, that's Brazil, this is gonna be great! We don't usually see this!"

On Twitter especially, many MORE people lost their goddamn minds, citing CBU3's prior wobbles with depicting foreign/indigenous persons.

And of course, the White Community Leaders are out in force performing pre-emptive outrage or even asking people to quit FFXIV in light of this announcement.

I'm here to ask folks not to do that.

What follows is my tweet-thread about it.

"It is perfectly okay to be waiting and seeing how Tural is going to be portrayed in Dawntrail. It's okay to have a concern.

It is NOT okay to come out preemptively swinging and performing outrage.

Because blood quanta are their own touchy subject I usually don't bring this up, but I am the class of indigenous person what represents "what's left".

And I fucking tell you now I don't need the opinions of Concerned White People.

I do not need Concerned White People telling me what colonialism is.

I do not need Concerned White People telling me to be mad.

I do need Concerned White People to realise that the above two actions are microaggressive as fuuuuck.

"but Jai, aren't you White?"

colonialism and genocide comes in many forms. this includes forcing indigenous persons to assimilate or be killed.

also stuff like reinforcing the idea that being indigenous is shameful so that when their descendants find out, they deny it."

Thus ended my tweet thread. There's one more tweet linking to qalipu.ca.

So I want to write more about this on Tumblr.

I really want to make sure that folks take a hard look at what they're concerned about and why.

Like… a lot of White Concern about the use of indigenous motifs in Dawntrail is itself a brand of anti-indigenous racism.

Thinking that the MSQ is going to automatically be about the Scions starting a colonialism in Tural? That's a pretty gross thing to say in the same breath y'all complain about Always Fantasy Europe.

Calling "cultural appropriation" when everyday items are displayed and depicted in the manner in which they were/are used (gulal, curry)? Way to exoticise foreign and indigenous cultures by thinking that everything they make, wear, use, or eat is something of Deep Cultural Significance that Cannot Ever Be Shared With Outsiders. Saris and salwar kameez are just as culturally significant as skirts and slacks. Moccasins are just shoes.

And moreover, getting preemptively Concerned when thus far THERE IS LITERALLY NO NEED TO BE CONCERNED is actually kind of beyond the pale. I haven't seen many indigenous folks and/or folks from South America being anything but pleased that this time The Americas gets a cool pastiche like Europe, Asia, and India have gotten in the past. There's an undercurrent of "oh no, I hope it's not bad stereotypes" which is ABSOLUTELY OKAY. Reblog and retweet what THOSE people are saying. Do not add commentary.

Preemptively saying "you're worried" about your South American/Indigenous friends with zero indication that they're bothered? Come the actual fuck on. We are not a monolithic group that you can "be concerned" for to get a pat on the back later as a Good Person. Do not Perform the I'm A Good Person And The Worst Thing You Could Do is CALL Me A Racist dance.

Don't "get ahead of the discourse". Not every conversation needs your fucking input. Shut your mouth.

What is and isn't an Offensive Portrayal of Indigenous Americans is a lot more nuanced than most people who like to perform outrage make it out to be.

We can and will speak up for ourselves. Share our words and our concerns if you must. Do not go and distill our words and turn us into the monolith you hide behind to perpetuate white saviourism and neocolonialism.

We aren't a monolith of poor uneducated people who don't understand what the europeans did that need to be uwu protected.

[hermitcraftx]

I agree with your post about hermit fans in regard to things being very popular. I’ve seen more people being angry and annoyed about scarian in the last six months than people celebrating it. Not tagging shipping is shit but it’s better than harassing people. I don’t know what was put in the water but something changed drastically and I’m glad I’m not the only one who’s seen it.

IT'S FUCKING INSANE! This fandom used to be so positive and welcoming and overall way more pleasant than some... other MCYT fandoms, but now??? I can't log on without seeing untagged negative interpretations in the main tags, can't express an opinion without getting anons calling me heterosexual sympathizers and hoping that I die, everyone has turned their back on everything that used to make this fandom really... fun? Like, I don't tag ON MY BLOG, but usually I don't maintag my shipping posts, and if I do, I tag the ship name so people can filter it.... I don't maintag duo names. What the fuck happened to make everyone so- miserable. Anons are probably going to be permanently off for me, too many people comfortable with their opinions and not comfortable with mine and desperately needing to tell me that.

And like- look. I get not liking interpretations. Personally I'm not a fan of the Double Life cheating arc because of how abusive and out of character people made Grian be, and I had to avoid ao3 for a bit because of that and filter the fucking tags. Same thing with found family dynamics. Just because you don't like something doesn't make it "overrated and popular" and just because you don't like something doesn't make it immoral or unethical either!!! People have to make everything a moral standpoint nowadays and it's really exhausting-

But that's a tirade. All over all the confessions blogs there's "scarian is overrated" despite Grian having nearly 10mil subscribers and most of them being on YouTube and considering all the hermits friends or family truthing them. Yes, there is more shipping than before- that's because Hermitcraft season 8 made it very obvious that the people on the SMP and the people IRL are very different, and it's no longer considered RPF. None of the real hermits died via moon explosion, ZombieCleo often says she's doing "lore", they make different skins, even GRIAN acknowledges that he's acting and playing a part with the permit office. Despite all that, there's STILL wars on shipping and people insisting that we're shipping real people, I fought this war on the DSMP side of things and it's SO TIRING.

DND podcast listeners, do you ship the people playing the characters? NO!!!!! Unless you do, in which case, have fun with that. I don't really care about RPF and I filtered the tags for it a long time ago, so maybe they do do that.

Every other day I see "Third life is overrated" "Last life is overrated" (LAST LIFE IS OFTEN THE LEAST FAVORITE SEASON I SEE PEOPLE SAY!), "the life series is overrated" "the cactus ring is fucking stupid" "they left the desert but we didn't" "no, THIS interpretation of scarian is bad and wrong" and like... guys. Guys. Fandom is supposed to be fun. It is not supposed to be a full time job. It is not supposed to be moral or ethical and you shouldn't feel the need to police shit. Jesus Christ, every other month there's a new fad that tumblr users flock to and once it's over everyone goes "EWWW THAT WAS LAME AND OVERRATED AND I NEVER LIKED IT ANYWAY" like.... I promise you cannibalism as an allegory for love is not mainstream you are just on Tumblr.

Like Good God. If it's so bad here go to Twitter. I'm sick of all the complaining and misery and hatred and I miss when things were fun- people are so scared of being cliche that they don't want to write things that they enjoy. Where are the coffee shop aus???? Where are the fun silly things??? Where are the 100k grimdark fics with worldbuilding??? Wheres the 500k fics that aren't even about the same characters anymore but that we love just the same??? Where are the forums and people talking to each other in comments and meeting each other that way??? Where are the roleplay servers?????? What are you all doing??????

People are scared of being judged. They want to do what everyone else is doing. They don't want to be cringe or cliche and every day I see a "cringe culture is dead" post and then someone making fun of another part of fandom, an antithesis to their previous statement. They don't want to be late to things, either. Who cares if Last Life was a couple years ago? Draw the fanart anyway!

I'm scared. Maybe I'm just old, but every post I see I notice that I get maybe a 10th in reblogs of what I do in likes, and I don't even post my art or fics to this site. Every post is like that. More and more people only like posts and they die, unseen, by everyone. More and more people misuse archive of our own's functions, treating it like it has some algorithm, when it doesn't, and it never has and hopefully never will. I see fic reuploads to "gain traction" (not how it works) and people reaching out to find RP partners (breaking TOS) and all sorts of other shit on both sites and it fucking horrifies me. I'm not even that old- I'm eighteen, and I can already tell how fandom has changed for the worst for everyone. Fandom used to be a community. Not consumption.

It's just... sad. Old fandom had PLENTY of fucking problems, and we have problems here too, but at least the positives outweighed the negatives. It's so... mean here, now. Even the happy things are mean-spirited. People treat it as if certain people have invaded this fandom space, spreading horrible opinions and ruining it for everyone, but the truth is is that shipping is always going to be a thing. It's a foundation of fandom- fandom started with housewives in the 1950s writing Star Trek fanfiction. You can never get rid of shipping. You can just interact with what you want to interact with and leave others to mind their own business.

[theworldremixed]

Fic Masterpost

I figured it's about time I did this. I mean they're all on AO3, but I figured having a Tumblr masterpost might put things in perspective as regards how much I've actually written lmao. Here we go.

Disclaimer: I mean, my writing is pretty mediocre, but I honestly find that the fandom space had to be filled out somewhat, so I started writing fic.

EarthMix

This is the pairing I've begun writing fic for again, so I have the most fics for EM.

Now unlocked. I don't think Joong is looking around for fic anymore, and certainly not on Tumblr. There are tons of unlocked fic in the tag, too, so there 'ya go!

The Stars, Our Witness 'Verse

The universe that started it all, partly as a way to archive EM activity before I became a fan, and partly as a way to stave off my delulu.

The Stars, Our Witness

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: 16 (finished) Summary: They’re scared to cross boundaries. What happens when the lines blur? Tags: slow burn, friends to lovers, FWB, "canon rewrite" (in the sense of IRL being "canon" Warnings: divorce era. 'Nuff said.

2. supernova

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: One-shot Summary: the same versions of 🌏 and 🪐 as in TSOW, but basically D/s pwp. Tags: pre-negotiated D/s; still a whole lot of longing.

3. of longing and loudness

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: One-shot Summary: Oneshot set in the The Stars, Our Witness (TSOW) 'verse, and a reactionary fic post-LOL 2024. Tags: engaged!EarthMix

4. Beneath the Sunrise (in progress)

Rating: M (for now, but knowing me, this might go up) Chapters: 2 (so far, out of a slated 10) Summary: EarthMix get outed. They deal with the consequences. Tags: married!EarthMix, social media elements, bullying

General EarthMix fic

Mostly one-shots written as a reaction to a post, among other things.

laissez-faire

Rating: M Chapters: one-shot Summary: featuring Earth's obsession with mix's grey sofa Tags: engaged!EarthMix; domesticity

long distance

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: of short reunions and busy schedules (lol honestly this has zero plot. I just missed them when they were in Japan for Happy Weekend, so I wrote a fic) Tags: PWP, quickie.

so here's the situation

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: ~situationship~EarthMix (written after the Vivi interview had been released, and after they went on a museum simulation Van Gogh date literally the day after) Tags: situationship; we're dating but aren't together

househusbandry

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Dreame gets EarthMix as endorsers for their vacuum. Why are they everyone's Favorite Married(TM) Couple? Tags: domesticity Note: This was written on my Notes app in like, 10 minutes, so the link is to my Twitter post to that fic.

in pari delicto (in progress; converting to prose)

OK so let me just write an author's note here. This is an unfinished Twitter social media AU because I would be writing about a topic I knew very, very well: law school. Now, I'm inclined to transform the fic to prose and transfer it to AO3 because I have no patience for the whole edit-edit concepts of socmed AUs and I honestly respect anyone who's done it. That said, I will likely continue this once I finish Beneath the Sunrise, or simultaneously as I write it.

PhuTian

Ah, ATOTS. Why do I love you so? Of course I'd write ATOTS fic.

re/live

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: In which Tian celebrates his fifth year with his new heart in the best way. Tags: tian's birthday as an excuse to write smut, sloppy blowjobs, insecurity issues

old wives and the tales they tell

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: Mayhaps Phupha has a kink. He refuses to validate the good Doctor Nam's speculation. Tags: domesticity kink, villager!tian, headcanon epilogue to ATOTS Note: Written in response to @earthmixsclowderofcats's Thai BL Kink Meme! Please show it some love and answer the prompts too please PLEASE!!

bad behavior

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: one-shot Summary: Tian watches as Phupha grabs something from the nightstand – a pen? – and uncaps it. He holds Tian’s chin with one hand, and Tian feels the wet drag of the pen against his cheeks. “Chief, what are you—” “There,” Phupha says, “Whiskers.”

betwixt bewitched entanglements (in progress. might possibly discontinue.)

Rating: E/NC17 Chapters: 19 (out of a planned 15 lmao, I swear this was supposed to end earlier. Summary: Magic meets royalty meets a society walled off from the rest of the world. Tags: Royalty AU, Magic AU, political intrigue, slow burn Notes: Look. I got carried away writing this, and to be honest, the concept's flown so far away from me and the worldbuilding had been so solid in my head and I even know how this fic will end, but honestly? It's not getting engagement. That's not the sole reason for writing fic - of course not - but I'm not quite sure if it's worth my time and effort writing this out.

JimWen

10/31: So I just wrote this today woohoo!

the ebb and the flow

Rating: E Chapters: one-shot Summary: The first time after their last time. (Wen learns how to swim. Jim learns how to trust. A one-shot on the wandering thoughts of Wen and Jim as they navigate being in a relationship: the fear of stagnation, for Wen; and the fear of betrayal, for Jim.) Tags: introspective; plotless; PWP; alternate ending

OngsaSun

The first half of 23.5 excited me so elfin much that I'd write little tiny Ongsa character-explorations in between episodes. Here are the two I'd actually published.

gravity

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Ongsa muses on the meadows of her mind. Tags: anxious!Ongsa

nightfall/daybreak

Rating: G Chapters: one-shot Summary: Ongsa is no stranger to the dark—that is, until she gives in to the light. Tags: depressed!Ongsa TW: "dark" as a metaphor for depression

[alives]

——— BASICS ! ♡

NICKNAME : rory

PRONOUNS : they / them or any tbqh

ZODIAC SIGN : leo

TAKEN OR SINGLE : taken

——— THREE FACTS ! ♡

i was diagnosed as a type one diabetic at the ripe age of twenty one ( one of my many medical mysteries bc wtf )

i have three pets & between those three there are seven legs. have fun with that math !

i have a dancing pole in my bedroom & my favorite move i can do is a layback ( & i severely pay the price for it x )

——— EXPERIENCE ! ♡

i've been rping since like 2011/2012 without fully knowing it was called rp at the time in some weird chatrooms online with strange emojis that haunt my dreams to this day. started indie tumblr rping in like 2014 bc of my ex girlfriend , kept tumblr rping till 2017 or so , came back a few times but haven't been fully back until this year in indie at least. i've done a bunch of group rps as well as some twitter & jcink ones. i just always end up back in indie after awhile , my brain just fluctuates with what i want to write & my attention on media so honestly ?? multi is the way to go & i'm not sure why i didn't before now.

——— MUSE PREFERENCE ! ♡

for some reason i always pick muses that are extremely devoted to another in some way , one of my first & longest muses was horn skuld & my recent comeback to indie was zestial / paimon in a similar vein. magnus bane however has been by far my longest muse considering i still write him here on this account. chewbacca might actually be my other longest. some of my friends will also claim i write old men & they aren't entirely wrong.

——— FLUFF / ANGST / SMUT ! ♡

FLUFF : i'm a sucker for some fluff !! it's a nice little palette cleanser after angst. ironically will have me kicking my feet more embarrassed than smut.

ANGST : i love it. i think it's very fun to make my writing partners scream & button smash over it. > : ) there's just something fun about exploring emotions in the same way i like watching the occasional sad movie !

SMUT : also 110% okay with it !! but i also don't mind fade to black if that's what my partner prefers. some of my muses are a little spicy ✨ considering the media they're from.

PLOT / MEMES : both ? both !!! i adore plotting when we're just talking about our muses & shooting thoughts back & forth. but memes are really great ice breakers too !!

tagged by: i'm a thief tagging: steal it from me !!

[fortheloveofexy]

Hello to all my new followers from Twitter :)

If you're new here (or just coming back and trying to remember how everything works), here's a few quick tips!

Likes mean basically nothing in terms of engagement on Tumblr, so if you want to boost a post, reblog it!

Same with replies - they're great for interacting with ppl but they don't really do anything to boost a post. Reblogging is the only way anybody who follows you will see the stuff you like.

If you reblog a post and add tags, everyone can see them - including the OP.

Reblogging is NOT the same thing as reposting. Reblogs are good - use them!

Tumblr doesn't really have an algorithm. All the posts on your dashboard are chronological based on the ppl you follow. You can into settings to toggle this and customize what you see - I recommend turning off the "Based on your likes" feature.

Blaze posts are posts that users have paid to be promoted on everyone's dash. Sometimes they're weird, sometimes they're funny. Sometimes, it's just an artist trying to boost their art a little bit more!

Tumblr collects almost no information about its users. This is why ads are not really targeted and why there's no true algorithm - bc tumblr doesn't know who you are! This is a good thing and we like it that way :)

Your blog has a queue. You can use this to queue up reblogs and posts, and tumblr will post them automatically for you based on a cadence and time frame that you determine. So if you're worried about spamming followers with a flood of reblogs, use your queue instead!

You can make individual posts on your blog private, and then unprivate them at a later time if you wish.

Don't censor words here! You will not get shadowbanned for discussing sensitive topics (another great thing about not having an algorithm). If you're talking about something heavy, put a CW/TW in the tags!

We also have community labels now, for things like mature content, violence, etc. Make sure to use them when needed!

Artistic nudity is now allowed on tumblr (as long as you use the community label for it). However, porn is still technically banned.

Please, please PLEASE put some content on your blogs so we know you aren't a bot :)

My asks are open if you have questions :) enjoy the hellsite!

[navree]

I saw your post and got super worried because I assumed it was the artist I've loved since they started here on tumblr. So, I went on the dreaded 🐦 app and low & behold, stan culture ruins things once again! Kinda glad I wasn't around during the heyday of GOT because it must've been absolutely insufferable! 😖😖😖

Fandom during GOT's prime must have been insane already, but I do think it's gotten worse in recent years. There used to be the unspoken rule of "if you've got nothing nice to say don't say anything at all" that appears to have completely vanished from fandom spaces. Cuz if I see a post with an opinion I don't like/agree with, or fanart of a character I don't care for, or fic of a ship that I dislike, I'm not gonna leap down OP's throat about it. I'm just gonna scroll, maybe vague post about it on another app (I've vague posted about some dumb Twitter opinions on here on occasion), and then move on. But this idea that, if someone doesn't like the same things you like, they're not only morally reprehensible but personally committing some kind of wrong against you specifically is insane. It's more than that trend I've mentioned about trying to equate fandom with morality, it is, as I said in the tags of that post, something that reeks of insecurity. There's a bunch of people in varying fandom spaces that feel that their own opinions simply must be validated, because their opinions are correct, but it's not enough for them to think it, other people need to think it too.

And it's an issue that has dominated Team Black in HOTD specifically. Cuz I'm not seeing it from Rhaenicents, from Greens, even from show casuals. It's diehard Team Black and primarily TB book purists at that who find Rhaenicent fanart (especially ones that take Emma D'Arcy's actual appearance into account), or Team Green posts, or even regular posts expressing any sort of appreciation for Team Green actors or sympathy for some of the characters (especially Alicent or Helaena) and just lose their minds. Insult the poster or the artist, deride actor's appearances, weaponize actual political language to support their point despite no real tangible thread of connection ('killing Lucerys is basically femicide' omegas aren't a real thing and killing that boring ass boy is not, in fact, femicide, there are actual femicides happening in the real world right now, focus on those), and get hopping mad at the fact that these varied posts exist. It's greed to an almost biblical proportion tbf, it's not enough that most show casuals agree with their opinions, that most people with both book and show knowledge are on their side, that the narrative of the show supports their views (in the Jaehaera art thing specifically, that canon dictates she's gonna die and that Daenaera and Aegon are gonna be married and have a reasonably happy married life). Everyone needs to be on their side, nobody had better dare have opposing views to their's. And if those opposing views exist, well then those people have earned all the nastiness that's gonna get thrown their way for having those opposing views.

Like, you're that insecure? You need everyone to agree with you in order to hold fandom opinions? You can't just like something for your own reasons and ignore people who don't agree? Other people, people who don't even know you exist, hold that much power over you? Team Black, are you guys really so pathetically weak?

Anyway, fuck people who tag butch Rhaenicent art with snippy "Daemicent!!!" quote tweets, fuck people running TG fanartists off of social media because you can't handle drawings, fuck people going up to actors and saying vile shit to them based on their characters, fuck everyone who tries to be an asshole about Olivia's looks or TGC's looks or Phia's looks, and fuck stan culture. Everyone's who's so deranged about their fictional opinions that they act nasty to real human beings should simply find the nearest noose and hang themselves by the neck until dead, the world will be an infinitely better place and no one will miss them.

[puckpocketed]

hi!! I was wondering where or how you do you research for players and teams, and just hockey in general? do you have any favorite blogs or other resources? thank you~

okay picking thru web rot for the sharks primer has prepared me for this one lmao here's the quick answer because i really need to eat some pie and go to bed. Hockey is my all-consuming interest at the moment and I haven't watched actual television or films; or read anything non-academic that isn't about hockey in.... 9 months? If it seems like I am taking in a LOT of information in a short amount of time it's because I am. I listen to hockey things at 2-5x speed depending on if its a video on youtube (locked to 2x), a podcast (3.5x is my ideal speed), or my screenreader (5x) and often take notes, save articles as pdfs to go back to, and transcribe things for fun (only recently am putting my transcriptions as addendums to gifs... very rewarding <3). When not studying for my actual degree, I am reading about hockey or listening to something hockey related or watching hockey or writing about hockey or learning how to play hockey. i am so serious. please don't assume that this is normal, optimal, or even something I would wish upon other people. I am in Love with her in thee most wretched and irrevocable way. She's my hobby in the sense that shes my sun and im building my wax wings and looking directly at her light and thanking her for blinding me. amen.

more seriously, if I'm going down a player rabbit hole I will try many of these things - though not necessarily all of them, and not in this order (and i'm sure i've forgotten one or two things I usually try... lordy):

I go to spotify/apple podcasts and throw in player names just to see what comes up and listen to basically everything.

if they are on an NHL team, there are likely MULTIPLE podcasts dedicated to that team. trawl through their podcast archives, especially post-game podcasts where discussion is happening about their performance. sometimes there are even interviews <3

i do the same with youtube if I can...!

throw their name into reddit, tumblr, twitter and scroll. endlessly. just trawl through everything that I can possibly get my hands on. The more obscure the player the easier this is, because there really aren't that many things to find out about them and not many people are talking about them at all. <- this is how I make contact with people who are the only person that knows about this one (1) guy and then we hold fins forever. <3

find out who the teams beat reporters are. if youre looking into prospects, even juniors teams have people covering them. the writing might not be the highest quality but you WILL eventually find fun details if you go digging.

check: elite prospects articles, the hockey writers articles, find out the player's home town and see if their local paper has anything on them (basically, check any and all databases that use a tagging system or have a functional search engine)

helpful things to tack onto the end of google/youtube/database searches: "media availability" "post-game" "interview" "feature" "profile" "scouting report" "draft" "debut" "review" "highlight" "tournament"

if they're a player from a non-english speaking country it's worth throwing their non-romanized name into google to see what you can get. google translate the website // chatgpt translation are two options - not ideal and not to be trusted 100% over actual translation done by a fluent human speaker.

Instagram stories are the bane of my existence because they're so ephemeral

tiktok is a parallel universe to me. I do not have the app. any browsing I do on it is solely via googling "[team name] tiktok official" and clicking around on my desktop PC. I've only ever done this for M.Chrona's gf (who is much more famous than him) but if you're really doing down the rabbit hole of player research, some of their WAGs will post about them. <- as always, be respectful/not weird.

facebook for older stuff... genuinely makes my skin crawl so I avoid it and its a last resort LMAO but yeah teams used to post on facebook and everything!!! <- again. dont be weird and stalk peoples families or friends asjklakjl

"[player/team name] gettyimages [day/month/year]" <- substitute getty images for: flickr, hockeyshots, dreamstime, alamy

Substack is good for general hockey stuff if you can stomach the dreaded idea of subscribing via email or getting the app <3 I like: Jack Han (hockey tactics newsletter), Sean Shapiro (shap shots), Adam Gretz (adam's sports stuff), Thibaud Chatel <- for the analytics nerds, Alex MacLean <- his Scouting The Scouts series is what got me into substack in the first place, Greg Revak (hockey IQ newsletter) <- this is the one that's got me on development stuff atm SUPER rec because there's gifs and charts and many many hyperlinks included for citations <3

i should do a book rec at some point but uhhhh its getting late and im hungry <3 thank you for asking + reading if you got this far, I hope it was a helpful peek into my process?