#to start with I unfollowed the person who reblogged that post and put it on my dash. Don’t need stuff like this on my dash!

[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

[revolution-or-riot]

literally cannot stand when people act like disliking taylor swift is some misogynistic act

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[demonslayerunhinged]

Ohhhhhhkayyyyyyy.......

*claps hands*

time to lose some fucking followers

So I haven't posted in a while because I'm currently battling a cold and a sinus infection, so most of my time is spent slowly rotting away and fusing with my bed, but during this time I've had the chance to think about some things regarding this blog and the stuff I post.

When I created this blog I didn't expect the amount of follows, likes and reblogs I got and while I'm grateful that people like my work a side effect is that I'm starting to not just put pressure on myself to produce content but also to produce sanitized, censored and morally 'approved' content.

And by this, I mean not making posts and sharing opinions that I know some people would deem problematic, especially when I see the blurbs on the blogs that follow me like 'pro-shippers dni' and stuff. I unconsciously started to mold my thoughts, opinions and subsequently posts to the expectations and restrictions I placed on myself which meant that whenever I wanted to make a post I'd have all these questions banging around in my head 'like is this okay?', 'will people like it?', 'will I lose followers?', 'will people think I'm a pro-shipper?', and so on. These questions were especially loud when I posted the answer to that RenTan ask and when I posted the male fanservice series. I don't want that, I don't want to question and second-guess myself every time I want to make a post, I don't want to run my blog based on the approval of others.

This blog is my safe space, it's where I can voice my opinions, problematic or not. I like to look at things from an unbiased and objective point of view and just because I can see the basis of a 'problematic' ship or character doesn't mean I support pedophilia, domestic violence, abuse etc. etc. Even when it comes to characters, storylines and ships that I may not necessarily like because ultimately this is fiction, these are 2d characters born from someone's amazing imagination, so live and let live.

If you have a problem with this, my blog, and my posts, feel free to unfollow and block me. I appreciate your support for my past posts and I understand if you don't like my blog anymore but don't go on posting negative comments or 'ew' reblogs of my posts in a misguided, self-righteous attempt to prove to yourself that you're a 'good' person. I'll just delete them and block you.

I also won't be answering 'morality-fishing' asks, I don't have to prove my 'goodness' to anyone just to get them to follow and approve of my blog and content. As long as the ask is polite and genuine, I will answer to the best of my knowledge, giving both biased and unbiased opinions.

The #KnYFansAreFuckingStupid posts have been deleted because they're kinda mean-spirited and serve no purpose except to make myself feel like one of the 'smart' fans. I would rather make posts that debunk misinformation by providing as many links and resources as possible than condemn people who believe them because we've all gobbled and spread misinformation at some point or another. I will still condemn people who complain and say bad stuff about queer ships because fuck you.

In Conclusion, no more sanitized, censored or pandering posts. This is Demon Slayer Unhinged, not Demon Slayer Morality Reassurance or Demon Slayer Puritan and Sanitized. My goal is to try to deliver good, quality analyses and shitty memes.

And for those of you who still choose to read my shit. Thank you for trusting me with your time, your asks and your content. It means a lot to me. Thank you. 🩷🩷🩷

[myfandomrealitea]

Was your Safe Spaces post discord-(or any closed forum I guess) specific, or do you think the same should go for fandom-themed blogs on tumblr? Like, if I follow someone for Doctor Who content, I'd rather they didn't put real world issues on my dash, but otoh, it's their blog and they get to decide what they post on it (preferably tagged so I can curate). I've observed that people that run themed blogs that become popular often seem to feel an obligation to use their platform for activism (or, in the case of crypto-radfems, deliberately built their platform to recruit), and it stresses tf out of me for the reasons you mentioned, but it's not like the maintags are much safer because there will be spam relating to real-world issues, or antis trying to relate fiction to real world issues.

Realistically; the same outlook can and could be applied to any social setting. Be it online, private, public, face to face, ect.

Your point about obligation in terms of platform scale is something I've also noticed and have been dabbling about raising. Mostly because you see it a lot with celebrities or public content creators who receive a large following. Its often less that they feel obligated and more than they're usually bullied into it.

For example; I follow a trans (FTM) vlogger on Instagram. His entire online presence is based around being trans and helping to educate people and support people in regards to learning about being transgender, transgender health, his personal transitional journey, ect.

He's got a modest following, nothing ridiculous but I think right now he's sitting at around 75,000 followers.

And as of late, there are random people who don't follow him and aren't at all interested in what he has to say flooding his comment section with things like:

Why didn't you mention anything about Gaza?

All these followers and no shout outs for smaller creators?

What are you doing to raise awareness for X?

All these views could've been used to raise awareness for X.

And its fucking ridiculous. People are pressuring a middle class trans man with 75,000 followers to accept responsibility for counter-responding to a literal war when there are actual celebrities and billionaires with both the actual reach and money to make a difference who simply refuse to because they won't personally benefit from it.

I used to run a really popular fandom blog here on Tumblr. For an actual fandom, not just what I do here and now. It started off small, but I eventually grew it to the point where my follow count was creeping toward 10,000. Which for Tumblr and for a fandom-specific blog was not at all insignificant.

And the moment my notes count started going up, the demands started flooding in. People expecting me to reblog their donation links, demanding I share their friend's aid post, asking why I wasn't reblogging awareness posts or donation drives, ect.

Its largely because its easier to harass accessible people over it than it is to harass someone like Kim Kardashian, but its also because again: we have such a skewed understanding of what is actually effective in terms of activism and circulation of information.

Most of it comes down to shaming people and trying to assert that they're a bad person for having the privilege and benefits of a large following but not doing anything for other people or to 'deserve' that following. They're 'a bad person' for having 75,000 people's attention and not using it to force them to be aware of X.

A good example of proper audience targeting and activism is the page We Rate Dogs.

We Rate Dogs will share awareness posts and donation drives.

About dogs.

Because their followers are there for the dogs. Their followers like dogs. They want to enjoy dog content and help dogs.

If they started sharing posts about war and death and rape, the people who are following them to see cute dog videos will simply unfollow them.

They're using their targeted platform properly.

[savebylou]

Hi❤

I've never posted or reblogged anything at all ever because I didn't see the point and I find the thought so scary. This is like my safe space - and exept from sending an anonymous ask sometimes (It was not until quite recently I had the courage to and felt safe enough to do so.) - I kind of don't want anyone to see me. But now I am considering to start reblogging posts that I like instead of just liking them. Because I've seen a lot of posts recently about how important it is for fandom and tumblr itself.

I know that there's probably a lot of posts out there about how to use tumblr, but do you have any tips about how/where to start? And can you go back and write tags on your post after you have posted them or is that impossible?

Thank you for being here, I think you are very important to this fandom and I love your blog. Hugs from me❤

Hi anon! Sorry for the late response. First thank you for sending your ask, the last part of your message make my day, I really need it that. I think is amazing you had find the courage to send asks and interest to reblog content that is wonderful. This is a long post so answering below resources of how to tumblr and tutorials:

I totally understand the feeling of just wanting to see content, I was a lurker for months before I really have the motivation to start being active and it can feel intimidating sometimes because is not something we used to do, but with time you start to feel comfortable.

For resources here are some:

1.This post explains some basics of how to tumblr, how to use the tags, some suggestion in your profile and just general recommendations of how to behave on tumblr.

2.For personalize your blog: I recommend this post of making your dash in chronological order and this one about shorter posts. Also how to put some basic info in your bio (I will said that you don't need to put some much details of you, not even your name depending of how much you are comfortable to share, but the basic is just changing your profile pic and put some info like what you like or something along those lines so people know you are not a bot).

3. For using gifs in posts this is very useful.

4. How to find a post.

5. Protect your blog from AI resarch propouse.

6. I like this post reflecting on the reblogs, how your blog is a space to collect your shiny fandom objects. I see it as like my dairy of the fandom, post and reblog what you like to have this as a memory.

7. In case you want to make a post but don't want anyone to reblog your post.

My advice on how to tumblr:

1.Curate your own experience: Follow the people that you enjoy their content, filter the tags that you are not interested to see (I will put below how to), in case you keep seeing content for someone you disagree and don't like unfollow or block them.

2. You can reblog without the need to write tags or you can write tags, that is up to you.

3. Always be kind and if you don't like a post don't engage with it, ignore it.

4. Enjoy! Tumblr is to have fun, the moment that starts to not being fun, reflect of what you need to enjoy it or put some boundaries that you need so it doesn't affect you.

5. Don't overthink it. It feels very intimidating when everyone has their own mutual bubble but this is a very welcoming fandom if you follow people that you enjoy.

6. Try not to worry so much about follows, likes and reblogs. People come and go, you stay true to yourself regardless of who follows you or don't, is hard to get someone to follow you especially at the beginning but just try to focus on your blog and having fun.

7. Don't be afraid to interact, send asks, or talk in the tags, people enjoy it as long as your are kind. I will also say don't spam the asks hehe, if you want to share your thought make your own posts as well.

8. If you are a creator: In case you want to create something and share things do it for yourself and no one else. Is hard to get people to see yor posts but still don't lose the joy to share content regardless if people see it or not. I will add that for post of your own creation add tags so more people see it, for example if is about louis put the tag #louis tomlinson (there are also some especific tags that other blogs follow to reblog creators let me know if you want them).

Tutorial:

-Filter tags: This is super useful to not see content that either you are not interested or is triggering. First you go to Settings>Account

After this you go to the part Filter Tags and click on the edit icon on the right.

It appear a space where you can write the word or words to filter, when you are done you click on add.

After that it will show you this:

You can add filter tags as much as you want or remove them in case you need it. On your dashboard the filter content will appear like this:

Only if you click on view post you will see the content otherwise it will always look like that the filter tags. The only problem is when people don't use tags so you can't filter those posts.

-How to edit tags: About your question on edit the tags after, you can totally go back and add tags after. Here is how:

This is a post of a reblog I made, in the right corner there is a icon of a pencil that means you can edit, tap there.

It will show you either your tags or the post without tags:

You start writing in the add tags. The trick for the tags is that you write your word or phrase and to end your tag you tap the # that will automatically save that tag and let you go to the next one (there is a limit of words for each tag but you can still write in the next tag). When you finish you click on save and your tags will be save.

And because my brain is half a meme a funny post about reblogging.

I hope this is useful and not very confusing. Let me know if you have a specific question and I can make you a tutorial or share resources.

Thank you again for your ask, your motivation to want to reblog and for your sweet message it means a lot.

I hope you have a lovely day/afternoon/night. Sending you a big hug too.

[itsclydebitches]

Have you seen the posts going around saying shit like "If a mutual likes Hazbin Hotel I will block them"?? It's genuinely upsetting me tbh, not just the idea that people don't like the show, but that they despise it so much they can't even stand the thought of someone they know liking the show. It reminds me of the Steven Universe hate train only worse. They also say shit like "the show is just someone saying swear words and expecting you to laugh", and if for a second we put aside the fact that that is blatantly not true, what's wrong with that? I'm allowed to like something that's a bit trash, right? I've already seen two different people I follow reblog posts to that effect (and worse, someone saying all a character boils down to is "i love being sexually abused <3" and i don't know how they ever came to that conclusion) and it's driving me mad. And somehow I just know that they don't actually give a shit about any "controversies" surrounding vivziepop, that's just a convenient excuse for most of them. I don't even care if Vivzie is a bad person, that's none of my business. just live and let live, you know?

Sorry for ranting, you're literally the only blog i follow who posts Hazbin fan content

Rant away, friend! Luckily for me I haven't come across any of those posts yet. Plenty of discourse surrounding whether fans are allowed to make romantic and/or sexual content for Alastor, the expected shipping wars, and - as you say - vague references to Vivzie controversies (which I'm too new a fan to even be aware of yet)... but nothing that's a complete rejection of the show itself. That's probably because I've only engaged with blogs posting a lot of Hazbin content though.

I'm a big fan of old school Internet rules which includes an emphasis on cultivating your own online space. You know, the thing tumblr is explicitly designed for. So in theory I applaud anyone blocking users/tags for a show they're not a fan of. Performatively posting about it more as a way to guilt others for liking Hazbin at all... not so much. If you want to block something just block it. If you're mutuals with someone you both presumably like each others' content. Not all of it necessarily, but enough to have followed in the first place, and often being mutuals for long enough leads to friendship because you're both getting interacting with one another a lot. All of which isn't to say that people don't unfollow mutuals, or that you can't drop a mutual because they've started posting something you dislike. Obviously both situations do happen, but it feels like an extreme enough response that these posters probably aren't actually doing this very often. Most people will wait the mutual out until their interest gets hooked on something new, or block the Hazbin tag and keep the friend, or just block without making a big announcement about it. So posts like that feel more like a way to show off how much you dislike the show and guilt others for their enjoyment which yeah, can be upsetting to see. Especially when, as you say, it costs nothing to just let people like things.

Which might sound hypocritical on my part given my RWBY interests, but I think there's a big difference between critically examining a show while supporting others who genuinely love it, and simplistically blasting it. I COMPLETELY get why Hazbin wouldn't be to everyone's tastes and, like with the SU example, anything that gets popular enough is going to develop its haters (especially cartoons trying to tackle non-childish subjects. That's always going to be a fandom landmine). But if you're going to make claims about a show, at least watch it to ensure you can back up your stance? And if your takeaway is still, "This is the worst fucking thing I've ever watched"... cool. Go forth and write about that on your own, personal blog. But no one should be surprised when they're also blocked for bragging about how many Hazbin fans they've blocked.

[ratwars]

Housekeeping. Long af, but important if you give a shit about my tagging system or actively use it to filter or regularly search my blog.

When I first started this blog I didn't know wtf I was doing or how to use tumblr. However as someone who loves making things searchable and sortable I quickly fell in love with the tagging system, and started extensively using organizational tags. I quickly settled on a consistent system I have been using ever since.

I used to never talk on here either but eventually decided to do that more but when my follower count was lower (which I miss tbh) it was super obvious when ppl would unfollow me, which tended to happen after personal posting. So I created a -pers tag so ppl could shut me up but still get 24 hr reblogs. Because I did have a queue going for the better part of those 2 years.

My queue ended a couple times in the past 6 months and I haven't had the time or energy to put it back together again. I miss having it. I also have less time and energy to deal with my own tagging system causing me to do most of my reblogs in 2 parts. Drafting things when I see them. Tagging and posting them later sometimes weeks later as my drafts build up. I have been even worse about leaving compliments and comments in tags as well because of this. I am tired and busy but I miss it.

In order to combat my issues and take the burden off of myself that I put on myself, and allow me to hopefully do more of what I enjoy while still sharing lots of rbs with yall, I am doing the following:

I will no longer be consistently tagging individual bsd characters except for a few. Fyodor, Nikolai, Sigma, and Dazai (because I regularly search them on my own blog). And possibly characters who it is more of a rare treat to rb fanart of them, like Higuchi and Mori. I will no longer be tagging bsd posts that have other bsd tags in them as bsd separately (so the common "bsd fyodor, bsd fanart, bsd, would become bsd fyodor, bsd fanart.)

I will still tag new chapters on chapter release days and the day after, as well as continue to use the bsd spoilers tag for even longer.

For other series that are not bsd, I will only tag the series and no longer tag characters or use a fanart tag separately, with the exception of the dialovers Carla and Yui Komori tags.

I will no longer tag nature.

I will no longer tag quotes.

I will only use the "art" tag for non fandom related art, I will no longer use the illustration (or illlustration) tags.

I will use weirdcore or dreamcore tags but not both on the same post. It is important to me that ppl can still filter these out.

I will use -pers and -vent still, but with absolutely zero further promises that I will tag my own talking consistently. I will still put long or (things that I think would be) super upsetting under cuts like I have in the past. I will probably still delete things regularly.

I will no longer tag me reblogging my own posts as self rb.

I will keep my -whump on main tag, so ppl can filter that still. I will still tag cw eyestrain and cw flashing for accessibility. I will still tag blood and gore if it is intense and I post it here instead of my sideblog but I do not promise consistency.

I will still use my ask and tunes tags, and if I do special queues (like the friday fyo queue) I will tag those. I do plan on using my old queue tag as well or making a new one.

If I have gotten rid of anything that you actively filter please feel free to unfollow me even if we are mutuals. I also don't find it weird for people to visit my blog and interact with me without following me, so if you do feel you need to unfollow me but still want to search your blorbos on my blog, send me asks, or talk in my tags and replies, please do so and of course reblog and spam reblog from me to your heart's content. If you want to unfollow me and we have ever talked in dms before my dms are still open to you then as well. It doesn't bother me at all. This isn't so much of a new thing either in regards to my feelings about that, just a clarification I thought I should explicitly point out rn given the fact more of you might want to bail if you can't hide my bird posting for instance.

I might change or drop any of this if I feel like it. I enjoy being consistent, but I don't like feeling bound to it. And I realized I was which made me want to abandon my blog and start over without the imagined expectations. Instead I am trying this.

[bioethicists]

Your post about unfollowing people who’re really combative online made me think about someone in particular. Apologies if this is out of nowhere so feel free to ignore.

If somebody (with thousands of followers) who isn’t a part of a specific marginalised group habitually seeks out bad takes regarding them to dunk on, isn’t that a little weird? I’m not talking about defending your friends when they’re facing discrimination or dunking on the main bigot character of the day, but regularly seeking out bad takes from small accounts that’d otherwise never seen the light of day.

It’s nobody on here I’m referencing. I feel a little crazy because this person gets heralded as a huge ally and has a lot of people in this marginalised group who’re really devoted to and defensive of them but it just really rubs me the wrong way because they seem really discourse-brained more than anything else.

yeah haha ironically i think some of the ppl on that post are seriously missing the point (which i probably could have made clearer) in terms of some of them are like. people who clearly think being told they're racist is the same as the type of behavior i'm talking about.

but also yes! this is more what i meant- people who are seeking out fights with those who would otherwise never get any attention! especially when it's takes that are NOT popular or the response is just totally disproportionate. or just building a social media brand off of over-exaggerated hatred/meanness towards people who "deserve it". it reminds me of all the cis people on here who constantly reblog shit about like... putting terfs in meat grinders but then never even lift a finger (or, more likely, are part of the mob) when trans women are sexually harassed or viciously bullied.

i don't think joking about harming bigots is some grand moral wrong, but it's often just gratuitous in a way where... are you actually expressing outrage or are you using the performance of outrage to get followers? what if that outrage is directly putting people in danger (e.g, if you find a terf with 45 followers + start sending her death threats, is that helping anyone or is it potentially provoking more violence, which you know full well you will NOT be the primary target of). i can see how this behavior can result in members of certain groups defending you, because if nobody has shown their willingness to defend you, isn't it refreshing to see someone who will? it's not so simple, either, cuz i do think ppl who do this do CARE, but i'm not sure the way that they care is sustainable or would hold up to a real, complex situation where allyship is needed.

it's so contextual + i'm not arrogant enough to pretend like i'm the one who can see the context right 100% of the time. this is a little sappy but i feel like the difference is whether the root of the anger is love/hope or if its fulfilling your own desire to lash out/release tension/look good. like "i'm pissed because i care about my trans siblings + it hurts me to see them treated this way + nobody else is saying shit for them so i'm stepping up" vs "raging online meets a need in me that i'm not willing to acknowledge + here's the perfect target". not exactly that simple but sometimes u can tell someone would be a kiwifarms bro if they didn't need social capital from a different crowd, ykwim (which btw we regularly learn that certain leftists will comb through + disseminate kiwifarms shit if it fits their vibe, which is an automatic red flag to me that you only care about drama, not morals)

it reminds me of how some "callouts" are clearly written with the intention of preventing harmful people from maintaining the power to do more harm (e.g x popular artist sexts underage fans) while many others are clearly written with glee about someone turning out to be Bad (e.g x popular artist has a private twitter that i, op, SCROUNGED to find, where they say horny things about genshin impact characters)

[dennisboobs]

i think one of the biggest issues in modern fandom is that despite the abundance of autistic/adhd/audhd fans, a declaration that cringe culture is dead, and the fact that we're all watching the same show, there is large portion of people who participate in fandom as a popularity contest, where the focus shifts off of the main interest and develops almost a secondary hyperfixation with specific creators, blogs, accounts, in a way that at least borders on parasocial.

this is nothing new, but the attitude that springs from it then dictates a specific Way to interact with that fandom, meaning that those who aren't interested in following select clique leaders are outcast and seen as More Cringe because they don't speak or act within acceptable parameters. when people have a platform, there's a pressure to be funny, be entertaining, to produce more Content that your followers WANT to see, the stuff they followed you for. sometimes this leads to plagiarism, ripping off posts from other platforms or lesser known accounts because you feel a compulsion to post ANYTHING for engagement instead of what you WANT to post. speaking from experience here, i am something of a Former YouTuber with a sizeable following, and i've been through it on other social media with several other fandom sideblogs and shit.

different platforms, different friend groups, different subsections – depending on preferred characters, ships, etc. – are inevitably going to be far more insular, and especially long-time fans who are less interested in the general media and more about a selection of specific interests is going to fall into this trap eventually. however, i think social media influences this more now than it did even a few years back, especially on twitter where it's more difficult to find "content" without a well-known account attached.

a while back someone made an always sunny iceberg that had a bunch of shit i had never seen before, despite having personally trawled the waybackmachine and archived a bunch of semi-lost media, running and overhauling the wiki with its decades of collected trivia, and having been on sunnyblr. a lot of it was from the podcast, but the stuff i had no recollection of was obscure ass sunnytwt drama that only involved like. a very small group of individuals. the thing is that these few accounts are minor celebrities in the fandom, and everyone follows them. i myself followed one or two of them when i first got into the fandom because they were posting clips reblogged by non-sunny mutuals. there are a TON of sunny focused accounts on twirter, but only a few that have multi-thousand followings, primarily for this reason. this is essentially your only gateway into the sunny fandom on twitter. here (on tumblr), you can easily look in the tags and curate your followed blogs (or look at the iasip subreddit) but it's a lot harder to find fandom content without that organized space (most people don't specifically tag tweets), instead you have to rely on the few sunny accounts you followed incidentally to deliver you retweets so you can follow more accounts.

so then what happens? you follow more accounts? see a variety of sunny content? follow a tag to see fandom newcomers' posts, art, fics? no, you follow the same 5 accounts you started with and stay in the echo chamber, caught up in drama and taking sides based on your few mutuals' opinions, maybe things get a little too personal and you stay following someone even though you disagree with their posts because you really don't have much of a choice, they can see if you unfollow, and they put posts on your timeline. you make a private account and start quote retweeting them to get out your irritations, a passive aggressive reminder that they're wrong. your other mutual quote retweets someone calling them stupid, and you also decide to tell them how wrong they are, because it's a popularity contest, not an open discussion. there's a Content Draught during the hiatus and people start getting bored. it becomes less and less about the original show, and more about the cliques, the exciting new drama of the day, the actors.

new fans are lost, long-time fans who don't care about all this extra shit are alienated, and it leads to a very odd type of gatekeeping that has these Elevated fans looking down on people for actually wanting to engage with the source media. yes, this includes the fans on reddit who spout quotes. this includes the people who liveblog their first time watching the show. this includes people who care about the show because it's still fresh and exciting and they haven't yet been made to feel that it's something to hide because it's cringey or dated or stupid to take it Too Seriously theorizing and dissecting the Poop and Fart Show.

I am guilty of all of this too, i think for quite a while i've been feeling like i need to defend myself by lashing out at other people because i am extremely sensitive to being made fun of for actually caring about my special interest. but i think that analysis and criticism (within reason) are extremely important facets of fandom and we as a fandom should be trying to encourage that rather than make fun of other fans. i think this is probably the reason for a lot of the issues with fan superiority, gatekeeping, the general awful atmosphere in the fandom. it's easy to complain and make counter content to someone else's post, it's a lot harder to grow the balls to have a proper in-depth lore discussion with them, or better yet, make your own stuff. ive been joking about a fandom-wide rewatch, but i genuinely think we should organize something like that. and i think everyone should set aside the judgement and just enjoy themselves. i'm sick and tired of feeling unwelcome in a fandom that i dedicate a lot of time to because i'm unashamed about enjoying the source media and i suspect a lot of you probably feel the same. you don't need to push everything through an irony filter and self depreciate, you can just like sunny and want to participate in fandom.

[demonsfate]

guilty as charged (mun edition) // accepting // anonymous asked . . . Have you ever unfollowed a blog? What were the reasons?

All the time LOL. Most often I unfollow unactive blogs, typically blogs that have been inactive for a year or damn near it. Why do I bother? Because sometimes I'll notice my dash is very slow and I'm like "daaamn I've got [this many] followers... how come nothin's happenin?" Then I realize oh wait, a lotta my mutuals became inactive lol. So softblocking them is a good way to gage how many active followers I actually have.

Other times I've unfollowed a blog just because I personally didn't vibe with the mun's ooc posts, or content they're putting out. Or, one time when somebody was just reblogging TOO many posts that were completely unrelated to their muse, and was just spamming the dashboard with unrelated fandom reblogs as if they were a personal or somethin. I don't mind a lotta ooc posts, but I do start drawing the line when my dash gets spammed with completely different fandom posts that aren't related to their muse in any way.

The most controversial time I unfollowed somebody, and this may kinda count as drama but not really, was this K.ingdom Hearts blog. For some reason, my Riddler blog took MONTHS to pick up. I mean, I had it for 4 months and couldn't get a single follow back or anything. I have no clue why - literally nobody wanted to write with me then. (Which is really bizarre, given that, I think at one point, it had 400 followers - many ppl started writing with me later). I'm gonna guess it's because my blog had dark themes / backgrounds. (I wrote my Eddie as a CSA survivor - this may be semi important later)

Anyway, a confession on one of 'em RP confession blogs was expressin' how sad they were that nobody was writing with them, I agreed with it too, also offering I'd write with 'em too. A KH blog came up to me and saying they were having the same problem. I was about to learn a big lesson in writing with them just 'cos I was sympathetic LOOOL. So basically I followed, and we kinda talked on and off for a couple weeks, we wrote a lil. But then their topics started getting ... weirder, horrible even.

Then suddenly, their posts got super fucking crazy. Like they BRAGGED about their tags were apparently QUOTES from the Columbine shooting and the Jamestown cult tragedy?! I didn't fuckin' know 'cos who would??? And like when I went to unfollow them, they were having a thread where the character casually threatens to rape his brother and it's like holy shiiiiiiiiiit. So of course, I hardblocked 'em for that clownery.

Unfortunately, I started getting anon hate on my blog (obvs from him). I got like 4 anon hates in a row - but I blocked the anon and well, that did that lol. Some of the anon hates were like "I thought you liked dark content..." and it's like yeah, when HANDLED WITH RESPECT LMAO. My character was written as a CSA survivor as a background, I don't actually write the fuckin' act out, it's just part of his story. And like, it's also there to show how male victims handle it, and how a lot of sexual abuse survivors tend to turn to hard drugs to cope with it. my BLOG HAD NOTHING THAT WAS GLORIFYING / USING TRUE CRIME SHIT & THEN HAVING MY CHARACTER THREATENING TO UGHGHHH. And like, I didn't call 'em out, didn't mention it on my blog. They can write whatever the fuck they want, I just don't want anything to do with that stuff lmao. So I blocked them.

Then I got one of their mutuals messaging me like "why did you block [user]? they thought you were good friends with them. they're really hurt :(" and it's like?? I kinda talked to them every now & then thru DMS, that's it. We never exchanged discords ffs, we were far from "friends" never mind good friends lmao. Also don't be wildin' on your dashboard, ppl are likely to become uncomfortable and unfollow.

[shinelikethunder]

since I started following you, before I reblog any meta/headcannon/anything supernatural related I think to myself “will shinelikethethunder think i’m stupid for this?”

oh, anon. it is--genuinely and non-sarcastically, from the bottom of my heart--not my fucking place to draw conclusions based on nothing but Posts on the Internet about whether people are stupid. all i can do is exercise the same sovereign right as everybody else to decide an opinion is stupid, and try to refrain from drawing conclusions about what the fuck could've led someone to hold it. i don't always succeed, but i do deeply and fervently believe that that part's none of my goddamn business. we've all got a few stupid opinions in us.

(that said, there are some opinions that annoy me so fucking much i will unfollow and/or block blogs that hit a sufficient density of them, but to be fair i'd also unfollow an otherwise lovely person who regularly put untagged furry porn on my dash. it's a quality of life issue.)

[biggaybunny]

Several years ago I came across on my dashboard a little comic that left in me such a deep and intense sense of horror that it's haunted me ever since, though that is partially because of how my brain regularly revisits bad memories against my will for the express purpose of torturing me. Anyway, the point of this preamble is to serve as a content warning for existential horror, I guess.

The comic was simple, and pretty well burned in to my memory, so let me describe it for you first; a time traveler (a young woman) pops into frame and declares their excitement to explore the future. They are immediately greeted by a small feline robot that offers them a key to "their room", and a pill that will make them feel every kind of happiness at once. The time traveler refuses the offer, saying that they don't want simple happiness, and get their thrills from the sense of adventure. The robot explains that yes, no worry, that thrill is one of the things she'll feel once she's taken that pill. The time traveler agrees to try it for "just a minute". The comic cuts to the time traveler sitting on a chair in a small, completely barren room, with an IV hooked up to her. She is drooling and her eyes completely unfocused. We zoom out to see her room is just a small box next to many, each with a similar occupant, and we see rows and rows and rows of such boxes, implying this to be the fate of humanity. The comic ends there.

Just retelling this comic makes me want to puke, so distressing it is to me. I was also distressed by the person reblogging it who in the tags talked about how they felt this was a good fate for humanity; I blocked the post (I have thankfully never seen it again, despite blocking it multiple versions of xkit ago) and unfollowed the person who put it on my dash, and have never spoken to them again.

It's hard to explain exactly why I find this scenario so terrifying. It truly does shake me to my core. It's horrifying because it is a kind of living death, I suppose. A prison that cannot be escaped from. The mind is gone, or effectively gone, while the body remains. And there feels like there would be no saving someone from such a fate. What would happen to a person who experienced such a pure bliss, if you tried to cut them off from it? Do you think they'd find a return to existence anything less than traumatizing? That their minds would even be able to start working again, after what had happened? I don't see how. That's what makes it such a horrifying fate, to me. Once encountered, the person is lost, even as their body continues to function.

I also hate it because I've found it hard to refute as a potential fate for humanity. It gets kind of philosophically thorny. Our brains are just chemical machines; what is the difference between a sensation of pleasure earned versus one that's been chemically induced? What difference does it make if it's "real"? What does "real" mean? Is the person who climbs a mountain in a videogame not entitled to a sense of accomplishment the same as a person who really climbs a mountain? What about a mountain in vr? How far do we have to abstract away from the truth -- that every experience results in the production of a chemical cocktail by one part of our body to be processed by another part of our body -- for a sensation to "mean" something? Isn't pleasure something we all pursue, in some form, anyway? Isn't the goal of every moral framework out there to find a way so all involved can live happily? Why is it okay to imperfectly pursue pleasure of some kind -- satisfaction, ecstasy, triumph, whatever -- but not okay to pursue it optimally? If neither is okay, what are we all living for?

I refuse to accept this, because there's no room for both a world where this ultimate pleasure pill exists and a world where humanity continues. You can't say "this can exist and some people wouldn't take it". It renders all pursuits of humanity pointless. The thrill of discovery? That's just chemicals. The joy of companionship? Chemicals. All things we feel are just chemicals; we are just chemicals. This thought has never scared me before, but that's perhaps because on some level, I always took it for granted that consciousness was somehow... special. Something more important, something you can't just... bypass. But I know that that's not true.

Maybe consciousness is still the answer. Maybe our consciousness is what makes us human, and needs to be protected. I feel unsure if I've explained why I'm so sure that the scenario described in that comic would obliterate consciousness; it feels self-evident to me that the individual must be destroyed in such a scenario, because they are unable to take any action including thinking, because they have been robbed of all reason to act or think, or in other words, the very ability to think.

I do not rely on instinctive reactions to guide my moral philosophy, so my revulsion alone is not a reason to condemn it. Perhaps, however, in this case my revulsion is justified, for the destruction of the mind is truly immoral thing. It does not perfectly answer why the destruction of the mind is a horrible thing, because, again, we are not special. We are an accident of atoms in a mechanical universe, or at least so I believe (unfortunately). I suppose, when you get to the heart of the issue, I'm simply asking what is the point of it all? If it doesn't have a point, doesn't that make all the struggle pointless too? Doesn't it mean we may as well strap ourselves in and have super-heroin drip-fed into our brains for our entire lives? And if so, why do I find that so terrifying? Is my terror just an accident of my evolution-designed brain, that contains in it the same desires to preserve and proliferate my kind as the slime mold?

This is the part where I'm supposed to come up with an answer. Something that irrefutably denies the idea that some kind of super-pleasure-cocktail could replace the enormity of life. But I don't know. In order to deny it, we have to decide on a meaning to our lives that categorically excludes it as a valid option. And there's no such universally agreed upon meaning to life. But maybe that's the answer, itself. We contain within ourselves the ability to decide for ourselves what it all means. We have free will; even if the universe turns out to be perfectly deterministic on the scale we're on, we won't ever know our decisions until we make them. It is this free will that the scenario I've gone on about destroys, because as I've said, there is no way for this to exist alongside other choices to live. Maybe you don't believe that. Or maybe you're one of the sorry kinds that think we should all be living in tiny boxes, our brains turned into nothing but organic chemical processing machines that take in chemicals and produce other chemicals. If that's the case, I think I hate you. But that's the best I can do to stop being haunted by a stupid comic I saw five or six years ago now. That's really all this is about.

Sorry for subjecting you all to this, it's really just for my own sake. I just needed to write my thoughts down. I've tried writing this post a couple times over the years, and always scrapped it. It just upsets me that much. I'm a neurotic little freak and I wish I wasn't being constantly tortured by my own mind. Maybe you got something out of this, maybe I disturbed you, in which case I'm sorry. Hopefully you can find a better way to cope than I did.

Maybe in the future I'll post the other thoughts that my brain uses to torture me, like the short story I read about that taught me what autocannibalism is, or the time in the 4th grade I touched a girl's thigh by accident. It's not much fun being me, most the time. Anyway, I'll stop procrastinating and post this. Sorry again.

[running-tweezers]

You know, I never really talk about the specifics as to why I’m so cautious about fandom and what I get involved in on here. And also as a result why I’m often really scared to interact with people. But I was recently talking about my experience with a friend and doing a lot of unpacking with myself. And as tough as it is, I think I want to share, in case it might help someone.

CW: threats of death and sexual assault, unwanted romantic/sexual advances, suicide, toxic relationships

I will try to make this as concise as possible but no promises lol

It was around 2014. I was about 19/20. I had recently started being more active in a fandom that will remain unnamed. This fandom was by far the biggest one I’ve ever been a part of, but not a big super fandom, like Superwholock or Marvel or whatever was big at the time. And this piece of media was everything to me. I kept up with new content religiously. I went to conventions. I cosplayed. I have beloved memories with irl friends attached to it. It brought me such genuine joy, and there’s a part of me that’s sad it’s been so poisoned for me that I can’t look at anything related to it anymore.

I was just starting to dip my toe into the online fandom aspect of things, and I was looking for people to follow. I saw someone make a post about my favorite character, and I agreed with the take so hard, it was as if I wrote it myself. So I followed instantly. Not long after, that blog followed me back, and sent me a DM. We’re gonna call him G.

G introduced himself and asked me if I followed him because I read his fanfic. I didn’t even know he wrote fanfic. Turns out G was a WAY bigger deal in the online fandom than I realized. He had written what was, at the time, the longest running piece of fanfiction for this fandom. He was what some might consider a “Big Name Fan”. I was so shocked that someone that big wanted to follow me, a tiny blog who was better known for posting about musical theater before getting into this fandom.

We talked about my favorite character for a while, and then started talking in the DMs more regularly after that. I was so excited that I was making a friend within this fandom. And someone so well known! It was crazy! I did read his fanfic, it definitely wasn’t for me, not my cup of tea, but that was fine! I didn’t need to tell him that, that would be rude! So I lied, and told him I loved it. I also told him I loved one of his favorite ships, even though I was pretty eh on it, didn’t care one way or the other. But I couldn’t hurt his feelings! This was a new friend!

That was mistake number one, but also maybe what ended up saving me.

After a while, our conversations turned a little more personal, talking about our lives outside of fandom. That’s when things started getting weird. G seemed like he maybe wanted something more than friendship. I was pretty clear that I was in a serious relationship at the time and not available (which was true, that relationship is now my wonderful husband) and he would back off a bit. But soon he was back on it again, reblogging my selfies with strings of heart eye emojis, sending me ask game responses straight up telling me that he thought I was hot and he had a crush on me, basically pushing things as far as he could without crossing a line.

Never once did I consider unfollowing him, or blocking him though. Because after we became friends I started to see that G was not afraid of calling people out. He had enough sway that he could turn a large swath of people against someone if he talked shit in a post. And honestly, he was ruthless. If I turned him down outright, or stopped talking to him, that could be me he went after next. Thats when I became absolutely terrified of upsetting him. So I kept putting up with his advances, kept praising his fanfic I didn’t like, kept talking all about this ship he loved, kept listening to him talk shit about people who didn’t agree with his opinions, kept talking to him like we were buddies. But I was scared.

It wasn’t until much much later down the line that realized I was essentially in a controlling and abusive relationship with this guy. The fact that it was platonic and not romantic (at least on my end) clouded that for me in the moment. My life revolved around online fandom, the drama, the discourse, and making sure my opinions lined up with his so he wouldn’t get mad at me.

That’s how it went until shit eventually hit the fan. I was gone for a while and I couldn’t get online for a week or so. I remember worrying that he was gonna get mad that I wasn’t answering him. So when I got the chance to go online again I went to check. And G was gone. Account deactivated. I was so confused, so I went digging in the fandom tag.

Turns out G had been exposed for sending very detailed and personal death and rape threats to people who didn’t agree with him. People who didn’t ship his favorite ship. People who didn’t like his fanfic. He had been sending these threats the entire time I knew him.

I have never felt such retroactive fear in my entire life. I was one of the people who didn’t agree with him on everything. I didn’t ship his favorite ship. I didn’t like his fanfic. I just lied and said I did to placate him. If he was sending such detailed and personal death and rape threats to total strangers on the Internet, I cannot imagine what he might have done had he found out I also didn’t agree with him. Someone he thought was his friend. Someone he was obviously romantically and sexually attracted to.

And I realized that just because he deactivated his account, that didn’t mean he was gone. He could very easily make another account. He could find me again.

That filled me with such dread that I quit tumblr. I left this website and fandom entirely.

The next year was what I consider one of the worst of my entire life mentally. Not all of it was because of this, but I think this experience, plus a lot of things about fandom/tumblr culture in general at the time were definitely the one jenga block I pulled that knocked the whole tower down. I ended up trying to take my own life that year. Fortunately that didn’t happen and I got help that I desperately needed.

I debated coming back to tumblr for a long time. I was gone from online fandom for 8 years. And I missed it. It wasn’t all bad. I missed the joy it was capable of bringing me. So now that I’m nearly 30, I decided to come back so I could join the Redacted community, because it had become such an intense hyperfixation. I figured I had grown, and I knew how to set boundaries and control my time online now. And for the most part I have. There are for sure still times where I see things within this community that trigger old feelings, and sometimes I wonder if coming back was a mistake. But for the most part I’m really proud of myself for coming back and making the experience of being part of a fandom a positive one again.

If you feel like fandom is becoming a place that is hurting you, PLEASE. Set boundaries. Take control of your time online. Nothing and nobody in any fandom is more important than taking care of yourself and your mental health. It may seem so incredibly important but at the end of the day? It’s only tumblr. There is a great big world out there and this is a teeny tiny slice of it. Don’t let that tiny slice ruin everything else, ok? If I can help one single person by sharing this, it will have been worth it.

[riality-check]

Advice for New Fans

AKA: Things I Wish I Knew When I First Started Out

Disclaimers

I’m by no means an expert. 

This list is not comprehensive. Please add your own thoughts to it!

I’m approaching this from a lurker/fic writer perspective, so artists/gifmakers etc. might have different perspectives. 

I’m also really only on tumblr and ao3, so different advice might apply to different sites. 

This advice will not apply in every single case; it is just broad generalization that I have found to work most of the time.

General

Protect your personal information! I’m going to sound like my mother for a minute, but be aware of how much you’re sharing online. Don’t make yourself easier to dox by sharing personal information like names, locations, etc. Be careful. The internet is more good than bad, but bad still exists. Please protect yourself, especially if you’re a minor.

Respect people’s boundaries! For example, if accounts say “minors do not interact,” don’t interact if you’re underage. It sucks (I’ve been here personally), but it’s better for everyone if you scroll away. Boundaries like that are in place for people to curate their own online experiences for whatever reason they see fit. You don’t have to understand a boundary, but you do have to respect it. Be mature.

Don’t be afraid to create! If you’re debating over whether or not to hit the post button, do it. Just do it. If you had fun making whatever your creation is, and you want to share it with people, DO IT. This kind of stuff is supposed to be fun, and it’s all about collaboration. There’s an audience for everything, so someone will absolutely see what you put out and love it, even if you just made it for yourself.

Don’t feel ashamed for not creating! If you’re nervous or unsure about making something, but still want to participate, that’s totally fine! There are so many ways to do that, and I’ll talk about them later in this post. But even if you’re not creating, you’re still a vital participant in fandom (I remember all of my regular commenters!)

Two cakes! Just because it’s been done before doesn’t mean it’s been done by you. No one can make what you make in the way you make it, so even if it is similar to something that already exists, go for it! Chances are, people want more of that thing and will be happy to see it.

Don’t be afraid to join fandom spaces! If you see a link for a Discord server you’re interested in (and you meet requirements set by the mods), join it! If you see an event you want to participate in, participate in it! Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and talk to people. More often than not, you’ll make really awesome friends, and you’ll have a lot of fun. We’re all just people, there’s nothing to be afraid of.

Tumblr

Don’t be afraid to change up your blog! I’m going to be honest: most people won’t care about your blog title. Make it as silly as you want and change it on your own time. Your url isn’t permanent (though it is more recognizable), so feel free to change it whenever and however you see fit. Icon, layout, anything else, change it up. Nothing here is set in stone, so make it what you want!

Curate your experience! “Unfollow” and “block” should be your best friends. Don’t like something? Unfollow. Still keep seeing it? Block. Poof, all gone, you’re done. Don’t pick fights. Don’t waste time energy on fighting when you could be making something or doing something that makes you happy. Follow who you want, like what makes you happy, and, most importantly, REBLOG.

Reblog, reblog, reblog! You gotta do it. It’s how this site works. If you enjoy something enough that you want to show another person, hit that reblog button. It’s how more people see the post, and it makes creatives super happy to see. Likes are for storage, reblogs are for sharing.

Tag your stuff! I really, really wish someone had told me this earlier because now my blog is an absolute wreck. Use tags to make your life easier and your blog more filterable. They don’t have to be funky custom tags like some people use. Fandom tags are a good place to start, and then you can add character, ship, and personal tags if you’re feeling fancy. But please, please, please, tag your stuff, it’s going to make it easier to find it all in the long run. You’ll thank me later.

Talk in the tags! In addition to being organizational, the tags are a fun little place for you to share your thoughts, and only OP (original poster) and the person you reblogged it from. As a writer, I love seeing people’s thoughts in the tags, so don’t be afraid to share them, weird or incoherent or long as they may be!

Yes, and! tumblr has a really, really cool “yes, and” culture. Meaning, if you see a cool little post and have your own ideas that you want other people to see, reblog and add on to it! Just go for it. You’re not stealing anyone’s post or ideas, you’re adding your own thoughts, and, chances are, other people are going to find that pretty cool (and may even add some thoughts on your thoughts, and down the line it goes!)

Post your stuff! I seriously wish I had done this earlier. For a long time, I only posted on ao3 and didn’t really bother with tumblr, which I kind of regret. For example, have you written a snippet you can’t fit into your fic? Post it! Posting to tumblr is a really fun way to get engagement on stuff you may not be ready to post to other sites, like ao3, or it is the final site you had in mind. Whatever the case, go for it! Tag with your fandom, characters, ships, any personal or additional tags, and send it out into the world. More people are going to love it than you think, I promise.

AO3

Titles! Don’t sweat the title too much. Most people don’t read it. They’re going to pay a lot more attention to the summary and tags of your fic. If you are struggling with a title, I recommend song lyrics or a phrase you really like from your fic.

Summaries! This is what’s going to draw your reader into your fic. Don’t just say “I’m bad at summaries,” that’s not going to interest people. Either summarize your fic in one sentence or take an engaging excerpt from it and copy it into the summary box. No matter how bad you think that is, it’s better than no summary at all.

Tagging! Honestly, same principle as tumblr, but for a different reason. Tag your stuff so that people know exactly what’s happening in your fic. Most people filter by tags, meaning that what you put ensures that they get the best reading experience possible. Best advice I can give: tag major romantic and platonic relationships, characters, dynamics (ex: Steve Harrington Has a Crush on Eddie Munson), and themes of the fic (ex: fluff, angst, pwp, etc.). Better advice: go find the fics you like that are similar to what you’re writing and see how they tag.

Format! This is the biggest one, and it’s the thing that made me want to create this post in the first place. Please, do not give me a wall of text to read when I click the link to what looks like an amazing fic. It hurts my soul. The best advice I have for format is to read actual books and see how they’re formatted. Briefer, more simplistic advice: start a new paragraph every time someone new speaks or the focus changes. You also don’t have to indent on ao3, and if you’re in Rich Text, it’ll put spaces between paragraphs for you. Also, there’s a horizontal line button in rich text, so you don’t have to spam the underscore key to manually create one.

Comment! I personally have to get better at this, but comment! If you liked the fic, share your thoughts, even if it’s just a little heart emoji! Writers spend so much time on their fics, and they love feedback that’s a little more in depth than a kudo (although kudos are always appreciated)! If you’re able to, comment. You’ll make a writer’s day, I promise. If you’re a writer, don’t feel pressured to respond to every comment. If you want to, go for it! If you don’t, that’s okay, too. You’re all good either way.

Conclusion

Please add on to this with whatever you wish you were told when you were first starting out! And new fans, welcome! We’re happy to have you here, and we hope you have fun!

[radicheart-a]

This is a role-play blog for a canon-divergent Alastor (who also goes by "Calloway" or "Cal") from Hazbin Hotel.

There are also guest muses here: Cotton (Alastor's shadow) and Radio (from The Brave Little Toaster)!

HOME ⸸ GUIDELINES ⸸ ABOUT ALASTOR ⸸ ABOUT RADIO ⸸ RELATIONSHIPS ⸸ TAG LIST ⸸ PROMO POST

Important Things To Know (Part 1 (aka Guidelines Simplified)):

I am NOT mutuals only in terms of interaction.

Minors, do not follow me or you will be blocked.

Personals, do not spam like my posts or reblog my interactions or you will be blocked.

Smut threads will be put underneath a Read More and be tagged with 'nsfw tw'.

Triggers/squicks are: animal abuse / needless death, politics, rpc drama, anon hate, constant self-hate, visuals of eye gore, and visuals of throats getting slit.

If you’re a mutual who no longer wishes to be mutuals, it would be greatly appreciated if you hard block my blog so I can also unfollow.

Important Things To Know (Part 2 (aka How Is This Blog Canon-Divergent?)):

The main difference is his appearance. He has longer darker red hair that he usually ties up, has symbols of The Beast on either ear, freckles on his face and chest, wears glasses instead of a monocle, and has a tail. He also usually forgoes wearing the tattered jacket, leaving him in just a vest and shirt.

Alastor is still the facility manager of the Hazbin Hotel. That hasn't changed! He has his radio tower and a suite there, but he also has a personal home. He flip-flops between sleeping at the hotel and his home.

He does NOT hurt or threaten his contracted souls (see: how he treats Husk in episode 5). He treats them as if they were his friends. Whether or not they see him as a friend is up to their own discretion, but he has never and never will treat them badly.

He did NOT start beef with Lucifer when he arrived at the hotel after being invited by Charlie in episode 5. He welcomed him in and was just as eager to take him on a tour as Charlie was.

He is NOT contracted to Lilith. He IS contracted, but to whom (or what) hasn't been revealed yet.

NOTE: your muse is ALLOWED to assume he sticks to canon, but he WILL correct them!

Other Blogs I Run:

hellizens - multiverse multiship Hellaverse multimuse

tuneonin - multiverse multiship canon-compliant Alastor

devildcd - multiverse multiship Lucifer

hellfrczencver - multiverse multiship "canon-divergent" 2P!Alastor (ON HIATUS)

axcat - multiverse multiship Mordecai Heller from Lackadaisy (ON HIATUS)