#y'all get the idea

[defectivehero]

I want to start a writing blog kind of like this one, do you have any advice for starting out/gaining followers?

Sure thing! Here are some tips I can think of. (And, as always, remember that my word is not law and you are free to take or leave this advice!)

Reflect on your desires for a writing account and evaluate which platform will be best suited for that purpose. Investigate AO3, Wattpad, and even apps like Instagram to see if you have a specific preference. Each of these platforms come with their own advantages and disadvantages, and their own regulations on content & copyright. Furthermore, different types of content will do well on different types of platforms. Longer pieces are typically better suited for AO3, for example—although Tumblr's "keep reading" tab has certainly helped to breach that gap. Wattpad will be better for multi-chapter stories, typically about romance or self-insert pieces... You get the idea.

On that note, if you're decided on Tumblr, then try to get familiar with the platform. Chances are, if you've used the app before and have been a reader/viewer, then this step will be pretty easy and intuitive for you! But, try to observe how the writing communities in particular function on this app. Tumblr relies on things like hashtags and reblogs, so I'd say it's important to have a solid understanding of them. Hashtags will be very helpful in getting your content to the proper audience, so it's imperative that you get to know the tagging system that the writing community (and any relevant subsets) use to share their work. For example, since I write about heroes and villains a lot, I use tags like "hero x villain" and "heroes and villains"; I also use broader tags like "writers on Tumblr" and "spilled ink," which are more general tags for writing about fiction. Get familiar with the fandom lingo (terms like whump, angst, hurt/comfort, fluff, etc.)

2. Next, try to determine what you want out of the blog. Do you want to write because you enjoy it, or do you want to write to build a platform and gain followers? There's nothing wrong with the latter, but keep in mind that growth can often be slow—and you don't want your expectations to be unrealistic. I had the fortune to be writing on this platform a few years ago, back when hero/villain was a new concept and there was a small, tight knit group of users that contributed to the idea (@creweemmaeec11 , @nuttynutcycle , @the-modern-typewriter, @kactus-loves-writing, @gingerly-writing, and other honorable mentions <3) and contributed to its growth. Now, there are writing blogs all over Tumblr—and while that is far from a bad thing, that means it will be more difficult to gather and maintain a following.

With that in mind, if you're dead-set on gaining followers, here are some tips:

Try to network. Networking, in this sense, just refers to interacting with other writing accounts. Follow the accounts you like, interact with their posts, reblog & comment on their works. This will help, because other users will see your blog in the reblogs. I did this back when I was a smaller blog, and I am forever grateful to the accounts listed above and countless others for helping me get here. (I have struggles with social media, so I unfortunately don't have mutuals anymore, but know that I endlessly appreciate all my old mutuals!!!)

Have a consistent upload schedule. I think this was a super important contributor to my blog's growth. Back in my beginning days, I was posting nearly every day. This was hardly a requirement, and that's not necessarily what I'm suggesting either—it's not practical to expect that kind of activity every day, especially if you have school, a full-time job, a family to provide for, etc. But! When you *do* upload, try to pick a time and day and stick to that. Test this out, too. See what time and day your content gets more interactions and then stick to that time & day.

Fill out prompts. It can be difficult to get your writing out there, even with all these tips. Check out some good prompt blogs, reblog their prompts (giving them credit!!!!! and reading through their rules!!!!!) and add your writing in the reblogs. Users will see your writing in the reblogs, and that can sometimes be a better way of assuring your posts get more attention.

Create prompts. This is another simple, easy way to get more interactions. Prompts are nice because they typically don't require lengthy posts, and they literally encourage people to reblog, comment, and add their own writing! Just make sure that you're comfortable with the idea of people adding on to your writing (and the potential for them to take it and not credit you properly) before doing this. I learned that lesson the hard way... Prompts are practically designed for community interaction!!!!

Other blog tips:

Contemplate what you want to write about. There are topics on Tumblr that, in my not so humble opinion, have already been thoroughly explored (cough, cough) and topics that have some intriguing, exciting potential. This is going to be very "marketing" of me to say, but evaluate the current market, see what the supply and demand is, and go from there. Try to combine what you want to write with what the community seems to desire. Don't be afraid to embrace uniqueness. The more quirky and unique, the better. (But try to have at least some universal appeal. Too much quirkiness will ostracize your content.)

Make sure your blog is filled out, layout-wise. Have an eye-catching profile picture and banner, a thorough bio, and a relevant pinned post. Think of your blog as your brand, in a way. You want people to recognize your profile from the first glance. And, if they're new, you want to intrigue them with your profile—show them something that they feel they can't look away from.

Be courteous to others. This one's pretty much already implied, but it can't be overstated. Half of Tumblr's magic is that the writing community here is pretty polite (and I can only hope that I'm a shining example of that /s). If you see something you don't like, keep scrolling. If you see content that really bothers you, go to your display settings and make sure you have filtered tags/themes on so that you can avoid seeing that content in the future. If something isn't your cup of tea, that's okay—it could very well be someone else's. I hate to say it, but the world could always use more positivity. We're all constantly learning more, so don't shit on anyone for wanting to be more knowledgeable!

Those are just a few tips that I have. Hope these help, and good luck with your blog!

Best,

Hero

<3

(not me signing this like an email, plssss)

[angeltism]

"uu need to learn how 2 move on" my man I am TRYING but it's kinda HARD when uu have to WAIT FOR TIME TO HEAL and I have nobun trying to KISS ME RN to HELP ME MOVE ON

[the-real-pink-ninja]

Aurnia: Pilot episodes-first half of season 1

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[tawnysoup]

CW DEATH, DEAD BODY, STRANGULATION, BLOOD, IMPLIED SELF-HARM (in case my tags aren't enough!!!! stay safe)

(Above you, you hear Loop trying to take a breath.)

[chilope]

Ask meme for people in their 30s

What was the first piece of furniture you bought?

What proportion of your meals do you cook?

Foaming hand soap or normal hand soap?

Favorite chore?

Least favorite chore?

Most precious thing one of your pets has destroyed?

Any groceries you've been getting into lately?

What cleaning product do you swear by?

What's your emotional support craft?

Youtube, cable TV, or streaming?

What's something you saved up for and then regretted buying?

How many cups can you see from where you're sitting?

Which filter are you most likely to go "eh, it's probably fine" when you find out you need to change it?

How often do you take baths?

Do you go down each aisle when you grocery shop, or only the ones you know you need stuff from?

Where do you go when you need to get out of the house but it's raining?

What's a movie you saw recently that you liked?

Pro or anti tchotchkes?

What's your go-to tape?

What's in your freezer right now?

Last concert you attended?

Favorite grocery store?

Paper bags, plastic bags, or reusable bags?

Do you get your government mandated 8 hours every night?

Favorite old person activity?

Would you rather sit on the porch drinking sweet tea or sit by the lake drinking beers?

Do you prefer Boardgame Night, Build-Your-Own-Pizza Night, or Movie Night with your friends?

Be honest, do you like all of the pictures of their babies that your friends send you?

Go-to holiday card format?

How many pairs of scissors do you own?

Do you still own your first car?

How do you take your morning coffee/tea?

What's something you collect?

What's your commute like?

Aisle at the grocery store you never bother walking down?

Do you keep a daily journal or agenda?

Do you still listen to the same music you listened to in high school?

What's the last filter you changed?

What little treat do you always get when you run errands?

Grocery list or no grocery list?

What's the oldest thing you own?

What's an unjustifiably expensive appliance that you really want?

Favorite book you've read recently?

Honest feelings on Settlers of Catan?

What's something you wish you had more time for?

What kind of stuff do you keep on the door of your refrigerator?

Lamps or overhead lighting?

If you could build your home from scratch, what outrageous feature would you want to build into it?

Do you bring a bag with you everywhere you go?

Pro or anti throw pillows?

How many blankets do you keep in your living room?

Did your relationship with your parents get better when you stopped living with them?

What's worse, the DMV or the Social Security Office?

Do you decorate your house for holidays? Which ones?

Favorite high-effort meal that you make?

Favorite low-effort meal that you make?

Do you tend to bring an appetizer, entree, dessert, or drinks to a potluck?

What kind of bag do you use for your bag full of bags?

If you died and your ghost was stuck in the outfit you're wearing right now for the rest of time, would you be happy with it?

Do you have an opinion on your local weather reporter?

Do you have a favorite brunch spot?

Where are you on the minimalism-maximalism kinsey scale?

Opinion on Bath and Body Works?

Last time you visited a farmer's market?

Anything you're procrastinating on right now?

Do you get your taxes in as soon as possible, at the last minute, or late?

Do you keep any stuffed animals on your bed?

Are your garbage bags scented or unscented?

What are you looking forward to next week?

[shoomlah]

I'm not sure what else I can do for the apparently VORACIOUS Spies In Dresses fandom, but might I offer you the original sketches in this trying time

[tomahachi12]

Well, now I've got to know what Nori's reaction is to seeing Toma again!!!

[heatherchasesyou]

Drew sum Angela on MSPaint <333

[yrsonpurpose]

Are you intending to talk all the way through this?

[wandixx]

I've seen a lot of different takes on Fear Toxin/other fear causing stuff (Yellow Lanterns Ring or something)(later just called Fear Toxin cause I'm lazy) but here is another one.

Danny seems like he isn't affected by Fear Toxin because his biggest fear is that his accident changed him so much he is no longer human, he can no longer truly experience human things.

So when he gets lungful of fear Toxin, he feels normal. He was antsy before, because c'mon, it's a rogue attack but it's not worse. Or so he thought. Because the anxiety lingers. Not enough to register as abnormal just this slight hypervigilance that makes you see things about yourself and your surroundings that you'd never realize otherwise. He'd realize he doesn't blink as often. He'd realize that if he doesn't consciously focus, he sometimes seems to not touch the ground. Forgets to breathe. He can't feel his own pulse at time. He'd realize people will miss him when he's walking down the street as if he was invisible (people just don't care about everyone they pass by). When he'd look straight into his reflection, he'd look slightly to the left. Not enough to actually name anything that was wrong but just stretched enough to fall on the wrong side of the uncanny valley. If he just caught his reflection in the peripheral vision, it'd be vaguely shadowy creature with glowing green eyes and white smoke instead of hair. Overall he'd be just wrong enough to be distinctly not human.

For everyone else, he'd be just a dude. Literally couldn't find more normal dude than this dude. Will pass as absolutely normal human unless someone is specifically looking for ecto-ghost stuff. Even most magic users wouldn't clock him at the glance

Tldr: Fear Toxin makes Danny perceive himself as some sort of eldritch horror but not enough to make him believe he'd actually be affected, while from outside perspective he's Just A Dude™

[holy--milk]

i have a strong suspicion that this phenomenon re: fanon characterisation of sj (and other characters like him in other media) stems from some people's inability to see fictional characters as like… people? rather than a system of narrative roles and tropes.

so when someone says "sj is a victim of abuse" and "sj is an abuser", they don't see it as descriptions of his lived experiences at different points in his life, they see it as two inherently conflicting roles in the narrative.

and that's where the need to resolve that conflict comes from, with sj antis trying to minimise or straight up erase his very genuine trauma, and sj apologists trying to soften the less appealing aspects of his personality that make him come across as a "bad" victim.

which, if you think about it, is very ironic in the fandom of a story about a virgin nerd who learns that the characters in his (least) favourite novel are actually real three-dimensional people underneath the masks of narrative tropes and genre conventions.

Shen Jiu is an abuser. Shen Jiu abused Luo Binghe and (depending on how you interpret certain parts of the novel) most likely others. He was a profoundly unpleasant person to be around by his own doing, not just some poor misunderstood baby.

Just because he didn’t murder Liu Qingge or sexually abuse NYY doesn’t mean that he was innocent of everything. Especially not his abuse of LBH which is a fundamental part of SVSSS’s story— about cycles of abuse and how someone’s life experiences can shape them in different ways.

Learning about Shen Jiu’s backstory humanizes him. It explains his actions and how he got to where he was.

It does not, and should not excuse him.

Humans can be both abuser and victim. That’s how the cycle of abuse fundamentally works.

I love Shen Jiu. He’s one of my favorite characters of all time. He’s still an abuser.

You can feel sorry for him, but don’t make him innocent. He knew what he was doing. He did it intentionally. He wanted to spite LQG, he wanted to hurt LBH, to destroy his cultivation and even his life.

Shen Jiu is a brilliant portrayal of a truth people are afraid of— that sometimes survivors are not inspirational. Sometimes they’re mean. Sometimes they’re bad people. Sometimes they carry the worst parts of their abusers with them because that was what they feared, and if others feared them then they would have the control they so desperately needed.

Shen Jiu is not a one dimensional villain who is evil for the sake of it. He’s a human character with complex reasons for being the way he is, and a traumatic upbringing he didn’t choose or have any control over.

He’s still an abuser.

[kamaluhkhan]

I CAN STILL CHANGE THE END (spider-woman!vi x spider-woman!reader)

LET'S DO THINGS DIFFERENTLY THIS TIME....her name is violet lanes. she was bitten by a radioactive spider and for the past 10 years, she's been the one and only ghost-spider spider-woman ! she joined a band, saved the city, fell in love, saved the city again, graduated college, argued with her sister (teenagers are the worst), moved in with her girlfriend in hopes of saving their relationship, got into grad school, broke her leg (do not text and swing, regardless of how late you are for an anniversary dinner), saved the city some more, maybe too much, but couldn't save the love of her life.

no matter how many hits she takes, no matter how much guilt she carries, vi always, always, gets back up, even if it's hard to keep fighting when she's lost so much.

and.....she's not the only one.

(spoiler alert: you're the one and only spider-woman until an alternate version of your dead ex-girlfriend crashes a double date and introduces you to the chaos of the multiverse.... and maybe reintroduces the possibility of a happy ending, however doomed it may be.)

i. mercury in retrograde — violet lanes adjusts to a different reality; a new team of supervillains wreaks havoc around new york; and you just really need a nap, honestly, but you have a thesis to write, a city to protect, and a ghost-spider to deal with.

ii. agent of chaos, angel of death — you and vi start to appreciate not having to shoulder the responsibility of spider-woman alone. hoping to find her a way back home, the two of you visit oscorp and make some sinister discoveries; mj agrees to let vi fill in as the band’s drummer, but your show is cut short by unwanted guests; and you’re once again faced with the reality that you can’t save everyone.

iii. in the web that is our own, we begin again — in every other universe, violet lanes falls for spider-woman. it never ends well. but, there’s a first time for everything, right? you and vi indulge in fantasies of what your lives would have been if you met under different circumstances; the two of you save the multiverse before harry osborn can make his daddy issues everyone’s problem; and an inevitable goodbye isn’t as final as it may seem.

[brutally-loving]

"I'm normal about my friends and their selfships!!!" Said the stupid bitchass liar

[thingsmysplattershotjrtoldme]

*ahem*

WE FUCKIN DID IT FRYE NATION!

It's all worth it for that smile

I fuckin love you, Frye!

GIRL DON'T JINX IT!

[katiekatdragon27]

Your my fav glisten x shrimpo artist btw (and your art is epic ^_^)

Awwww thank you! I'm so flattered to be your favorite shinyshrimp artist!! Here's a doodle as a thanks!

Glisten: Hehe squishy❤️~ Shrimpo: I HATE THIS AND YOU!! Glisten: Your tail says otherwise~

But would you still like me if they were in a polycule~~~????

Yeah, polyamorous Glisten turns his partners poly too #livelaughlovepolycules (More art below cut):

So

Wanna guess who the third person in the polycule is?

You reeeeeeeeeeally wanna know?

Well...

HERE!! *runs for the hills*

So like, I've been a closeted glittermask shipper for like, idk, two weeks now?? But shinyshrimp is my mvp, so like, what if I merged them? Poly Glisten isn't too out there so this could happen, right? (says the delusional idiot).

Glisten: Teagan and Tisha helped me out. Whatcha think? Razzle: You look great, Hun~? What? Feeling underdressed "Shrimpy"?

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that Shrimpo and Razzle have beef. Razzle is petty. He doesn't like Shrimpo at all because he's bullied Dazzle in the past (and thinks that Glisten is too good for Shrimpo). Shrimpo hates Razzle for being whiney and smug to him (and also cuz he's slightly jealous of Razzle and Glisten's relationship). They work through these grievances as time passes, but it does take a while.

These doodles are from one of the many work parties the toons get up to. Glisten decided to doll up more than he usually does as do his dates (to mixed levels of effort lol). They all end up drinking and partying the whole night and have a blast.

Drinking makes everyone get along ig.

Yeah so some quick lore on glittermask: Glisten and Razzle have been in a relationship for a while now. They got together shortly after Glisten and Boxten broke up (on good terms btw). Razzle knows Glisten is poly and is chill with it, even if he questions the mirror's taste in men. Dazzle third wheels their relationship. but she and Glisten are friends so it's not too awkward lol.

Glittermask is everything shinyshrimp isn't. Where shinyshrimp is bickering, angst-comfort, and fighting over PDA, glittermask is a very PDA, lovey dovey, Hallmark movie-esque romance. Their only flaw is that there isn't open communication when it comes to darker problems. When Glisten is having one of his moments, Razzle does what he does when Dazzle is having one of her moments; he leaves Glisten alone. Which can be good, but it's not what Glisten needs (and what Shrimpo unintentionally excels at).

Both relationships are healthy but have flaws, like normal relationships lol. I hate when things are perfect. Make is messy! Give it ✨DRAMA✨!!

???: So? Who broke it?

And since I'm cringe, I made a fankid! His name is Hamlet (Razzle named him) and he's a super blinged out masquerade mask. Now Shimmer has a little brother who is insanely hyperactive and attention seeking. He would throw a fit about not being served first at the dinner lol. They get along well enough, and Shimmer is happy to have a sibling, but they tend to get on each other's nerves a lot.

But that doesn't stop the only slightly messed up family. They all care for each other in their own ways, and I love that for them.

Have a good one dudes!