#should I leave these as tags or put them in the post or in a reblog

[cerastes]

A thing I see a lot of people rightfully lament is how internet safety went from "I don't put a damn identifiable thing about myself on the internet" to "Um why isn't your age on your bio? And what about your gender and sexual orientation and DNI and triggers and oversharing carrd? Where are they?".

A thing I don't see lamented as much, though, which goes in hand with this to some degree, is how blocking someone seems to have gone from this thing you do to this almost sacrilegious act where you are either unfairly cutting someone out of being able to interact with you or an admittance to having gotten, as the scholars refer to it, Owned on the internet.

Blocking is not anything as intimate or convoluted as that. Blocking is blocking, which you should be doing without it even being something you seriously ruminate on. I'm not necessarily telling you to be trigger happy with that but do you feel bad for mosquitoes when you close the window? You don't need a big reason to block someone, or having had a big enough fight or anything, it doesn't need to be personal, just someone's posts annoy you, or the comments-slash-replies they leave on your posts are annoying, or just seeing them on a tag you like checking and their posts are just not for you? Just block them, curate your space. I think there is merit in not blocking just because you don't like something a bit, but that's a personal assessment (I think it leads to being too intolerant), but if that's enough reason for you? Just block.

I've blocked people I have zero beef or whatever with just because I don't want to see their posts in tags I check, simply because I already have a good handle of what they post and it's not for me. Blocking shouldn't be a personal thing, sometimes you're just optimizing your feed, no shade. And hell if replies, tags, comments and such that usual suspects leave on your posts make you go "oh here's this mfer again"... Just block? The Better Business Bureau isn't going to audit you or anything.

It doesn't have to be personal, just block.

[theminecraftbee]

so i've been seeing this occasionally in the tags lately and i thought i'd bring up:

if you want someone to click or reblog your fic link you cannot simply post a link to the fic with either no description or a single sentence of description. if you do not put something beyond a link and a sentence, no one is going to click it.

part of this is basic internet safety (don't click links if you don't know where they're supposed to go), but a large part of this is that you have to catch someone's attention to make them click and leave the page they're on! people, in general, aren't going to click a link that doesn't interest them. you should interest them! so, how do you do that?

put some kind of image above your link in your post. this is BY FAR the most certain way to get reblogs and catch people's eye, but it's also the most time-consuming if you aren't already good at edits or art yourself. moodboards, little edited headers, or gifs can help you here (depending on fandom). art you've made yourself or have permission to use is absolutely the best option here, but it's by far the most time-intensive and difficult. full disclosure: i don't do this! that's because i am absolutely pants as a visual artist, even in the realm of editing or selecting gifsets. but if you have this skill and are sad your fics aren't getting attention on tumblr, this could be a potential answer!

write a summary and some kind of note with the link. there's a slightly cluttered cheat way to do this later in the list, but personally i find that formatting your fic post yourself is the best way to make these posts look good. i normally go fic link (making sure the link embed has the title) - summary of fic beneath that in a blockquote - an author's note about what to expect beneath that summary. however, everyone has different standards for how to do this! some people i know like to make sure tags and rating are present; some do not. some put some of this information beneath a cut; some do not. the main key here is to make sure there's just enough information above the cut in the main post that if i, a stranger, am browsing the tag and find your fic, i have enough information to know if it's something i might be interested in! i can always click to see the ao3 tags if i am intrigued, so it doesn't need to be all the information. just enough to catch my eye!

just post the whole fic to tumblr, including a link at the top or bottom. this is the most efficient non-art way to get notes on a fic you post, since, unlike a link with a description, a tumblr user doesn't have to leave the website to read and decide if they're interested or like it enough to reblog. however, there are two downsides. the first is that the fic almost always has to be short (~2k words if you use a cut, less if you don't), since most tumblr users aren't using the website expecting to read a bunch. the second is that doing this will mean most of your fic's readers likely will read it from tumblr, rather than following the fic to ao3. which, you may not care! i certainly don't when it comes to the ficlets i write directly to tumblr. however, it means i really don't recommend doing this with a multichapter fic.

use ao3's share button to automatically make a tumblr post. fics on ao3 have a "share" button, located above the tags and summary. this has a tumblr option, which you can then use to automatically post the fic link to tumblr. this is a bit cluttered since it includes all of the tags from the fic, alongside the full summary, rating, wordcount, etc. personally, i would then edit a little to remove some of that information so that it's more eyecatching and less overwhelming, but if you don't want to, that's also fine! that is still almost always going to be better than posting the link by itself with a single sentence to describe it, and isn't half-bad formatting-wise.

finally, you'll note my posts for ongoing chapters aren't normally given this treatment or fandom tags (although i almost always include a summary of some kind on them). this is because i generally don't want people finding my fic for the first time from a random chapter in the middle. i don't mind if they do, but i'm not going to spam the tag and i'm not going to make THAT much of an effort to make the post appealing. new chapters are things that might tell one of my followers that there's an ongoing fic they should look out for, and tell my current readers and followers that there's, well, a new chapter, but generally they aren't going to hook people. however, if you post chapters a lot more infrequently than i do, or if you simply have the energy to, there's nothing stopping you from applying these to chapter posts as well!

the thing is: look, at the end of the day, i agree with people who say you should write for yourself. how many notes you get isn't a big deal, i promise; the most important feeling is, ultimately, the feeling you get when you finish something and know you made it with your own hands. some of my favorite writing achievements are NOT my most popular, but are my favorites for reasons entirely unrelated to popularity. however, i see a lot of writers bemoaning how badly their fic posts do, when their fic posts are the ao3 embed and a single sentence that reads "this is my new fic enjoy"; the thing is, there are things you can do to make that link into something that someone is more likely to read and/or reblog! (i know i personally don't like reblogging links if i don't know their contents for the aforementioned internet safety reasons.)

just because you write for yourself doesn't mean that you can't give yourself a little leg up in finding your audience. it's worth it both for yourself and your readers, i promise.

[knockknockitsnickels]

I think this is one of my favorite lines from the Wraith route because of (imo) how much the meaning changes depending on if you got there via Spectre or Nightmare. For Spectre, it honestly strikes me as a genuine question. Why are you doing this to her? If you're on the Spectre route, you presumably already know the Narrator can't really be trusted, since you had to reject his reward to get here. What are you hoping to gain from continuing to hurt her? For Nightmare, it honestly just makes me sad. As the Shifting Mound describes her, "She desires only companionship, but the only thing she knows is how to hurt." This line feels like a plea from someone who genuinely doesn't understand why you keep rejecting her. She wants to be with you, but she just can't understand how to do that in a way which doesn't hurt you.

[dykepawjob]

[biblically-accurate-dca]

au where moon fills in while sun is "on vacation" and nothing bad happens

[fogwitchoftheevermore]

ok so. forgive me for a second but i've been abnormal about skizz and ren since the hiatus between third life and last life and holy shit this season is already not helping.

let's talk about skizz, ren, undying loyalty, and golden apples, shall we?

so the thing that you need to understand about skizz is that he is loyal to a fault. impulse literally says this exact thing about him in limited life, and skizz himself says himself: "you know me and my factions, i never turn." the second thing is that the first person their loyalty manifests for in third life is ren. he and ren run into each other on the second night when ren is getting accosted by mobs outside skizz's door and skizz gives him a place to stay the night. ren decides to trade skizz for his leather, for the upcoming enchanting buisness, and gives skizz a golden apple in exchange. skizz thinks this is wildly more than he deserves but is very thankful. skizz doesn't say it here, but this is the moment he swears his loyalty to ren.

throughout third life, he is willing to do or get basically anything for ren. the two of them literally die together to the tnt trap. when ren dies on the alter and everyone thinks martyn betrayed him, skizz is the first person to get there in the morning. he's in half broken gold armor and borrowed tools from bigb and he still tells ren "get behind me", still tries to protect him from martyn. when skizz is on red, he goes a bit crazy, but he channels that bloodlust into protecting ren. he kills jimmy in the red desert, he kills cleo when she tries to attack ren, he chases down impulse when he betrays dogwarts and dies trying to kill him.

when skizz dies in third life, he's got an unused golden apple in his hotbar. after he dies, he remembers the first time he met ren, etho, and martyn, and he spends quite a bit of time on his memory of ren and ren appears in his first memory of etho. after he dies, ren wields a blade named in his honor.

skizz spends third life loyal to ren- he dies for him and he dies with him.

in last life, ren and skizz end up on completely different sides, and it very quickly gets bad because when ren becomes boogey, he kills skizz. he lures him into a trap. he tells skizz he loves him. skizz literally says "i am broken hearted" when ren kills him. ren holds no regard for the relationship they used to have and yet skizz cannot help but compliment ren's skill with the trap, outright says he can't be mad at ren.

and then it only gets worse because skizz tries to storm ren's tower with impulse after they've gone red. and that! doesn't go well! and while skizz is retreating, while he is eating the golden apple in his hot bar, ren shoots him dead.

and that is the last time they've spoken. two years ago.

because skizz isn't in doublt life. and ren isn't in limited life.

and when skizz's time comes in limited life, he ensures he doesn't have a golden apple in his inventory this time. this time, he hands the apples off to his teammates, where he knows they will go to good use. and then he hands etho a diamond fucking axe (red winter is coming) and asks him to execute him for the sake of their alliance. ok! sure! fill ren's role more explicitly, why don't you!

and that first session of secret life genuinely only made it worse. when skizz is talking to tango and cleo about their alliance, skizz says he wants to give leadership over to someone else: "i want to be more of a soldier than a leader this time." cleo says she'll fill the roll of leader- she doesn't take orders well - and then seals their alliance by giving tango and skizz a golden apple each. because of course she does.

and well, we all know that didn't really work out, so that's one person off the list that skizz can fill the dogwarts shaped hole in him with, so then he goes to bdubs. he says he'll lay his sword at bdubs' feet. he says he'll win bdubs with his loyalty. he calls bdubs "my leige", jesus christ dude, you couldn't be less subtle unless you straight up called him ren's name.

skizz has been (whether accidentally or on purpose is up to you) trying to recreate the experience he had with dogwarts, and particularly what he had with ren, since the moment dogwarts fell. he can't have it with ren because he missed his only chance in last life, so he'll fill the void with whoever he can. his fellow soldier. ren's successor. ren's new kingmaker. anyone. and it's never gonna work. i need ren to come back for like, 900 reasons, but i especially need him to come back so skizz can have a shot at making it to spring.

[muirmarie]

Me: I joke about writing the same McCoy centric story over and over again in different ways

Me: and like. I love doing it and imma keep doing it because it makes me happy.

Me: but also. I do sometimes wonder if it's like. A little Much.

Me: like maybe I should branch out or something

Me: [reads another fundamental and extremely insulting misread of McCoy's character by someone who is clearly making a Choice to cast McCoy as the villain, because they have to get him out of the way of spirk, because they're too???? idk immature??? to realize that even when you're in a relationship with one person, other ppl can and SHOULD still be important to you]

Me: lmao I hope I AM too much actually!!!! I hope it is 100% obnoxious how much I love that doctor!!!!! Time to write more versions of the same story of McCoy being forced to realize that he is loved and cared for!!!!!!

Me: I KNOW MY NICHE AND IMMA DIE IN THAT NICHE, THANKS

[pineapplefulfillseveryneed]

Sparks tour 2023

[buglaur]

she's live

now you can see what everyones height is in my head because i refuse to download height sliders. look at ass <3

[lliquidllyrium]

I like seeing my favs happy as much as the next guy but like sometimes it’s not about a happy ending for me it’s about the most interesting conflict and Lucanis sticking with the job and all the drama that comes with it is ten times more interesting in that regard if I want a runaway crow I simply already have Zevran

[arcsin27]

On my hands and knees please please please have Amy be shadows classic stage counterpart

[alchemiclee]

i know this has been said 473773474833 times by the kavetham/haikaveh shippers and probably even nonshippers, but i'll say it again. I finally finished the genshin summer event and did the little after quest in sumeru and.....every time kaveh is sneaking around trying not to be noticed coming out of alhaithams house it's just such a gay vibe. he's basically screaming "I can't be caught being gay in a homophobic society!" even if that's not what the game writers are *actually* saying. that's just how it comes off and they can't make it come off any other way. with hoyo's gay history, it makes me wonder if it's on purpose and all a cover-up to have a technically different reason for it so they can get away with it lmao but we will never know.

[scattered-winter]

the funny thing about being aro is that I am genuinely afraid of being alone for the rest of my life, but if anyone even STARTS to imply that it's because I'm never gonna have a joyful and fulfilled life without a romantic partner it makes me so mad I see red

[slightlytoastedbagel]

actually On Your Feet gave us two good things (well. three if you like Realize which I do). Kohane's "it's frustrating" line and the great crack fic idea of Vivid Bad Squad getting cancelled online for skipping school to yell at The Kotaki Taiga as he was about to go back to America.

[agentark]

Jenny Han, To All The Boys I've Loved Before // Brenna Twohy // unknown // Florence + the Machine, "Long & Lost" // J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers // Aelsa Trevelyan, The Fernweh Saga, Book 1 // Euripides, Herakles // unknown // k.tolnoe // Taylor Swift, "Death By A Thousand Cuts" // Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

will you remember me when I'm gone? if we never meet again? if we can't? I'll remember you. I hope I'll see you again.

[risingsunresistance]

twitter is entering their "rts > likes" phase now that likes are private after they spent years calling us ungrateful for being demotivated by ratios lmao