#yeah. tagging my own post with my blorbo tag. what are you gonna do about it. i'm the sheriff around here.

[jopzer]

experiencing symptoms

[unadulteratedkr]

~Let's talk about credit~

(not financial credit trust me you don't want to take financial advice from me lol)

No, today I am inviting y'all to the table to talk about the importance of crediting other creators in fandom!

Because, listen. We don't have a peer-review system. We don't have to submit our stuff to a plagiarism checker or go through stringent editing when shitposting on tumblr; we operate in an honor system of crafting folklore using our favorite blorbos, and that means that inspiration and using the specific words and images from canon creates a grey area on what ought to be credited, and how to do it in a way that creates a solid, strong community.

Here's a little of my philosophy and how I give proper credit where it's due, so I figured I'd share them to hopefully encourage others in making sure no one out there ends up becoming fandom's James Somerton

1. Links are your friends, use them enthusiastically

Drooled over a gifset that made you write a poem? Read a fic that made you pull out your embroidery hoop? Saw some art that made you write a song? Link to the original! Tag the original artist, hyperlink to the giffer, share the fic via the amazing shortcut button on Ao3, it's what those creators deserve! Even if it's a shitpost, that creator is where your idea started, and it's the right thing to do to share directly where your audience can connect with the person who inspired you.

This holds INFINITELY true if you are directly quoting someone. If you've used someone else's words to create your own work, link back to the original. No one wants to be sent a fic or a funny post on tumblr and then feel the sinking pit in their stomach when they realize that post is their own words with someone else's name on them.

2. Ask for permission when you can

Now, the reason I threw the addendum on this with "when you can" is because knowing when to ask for permission is more of an art versus a science. I myself have written more than one fic inspired by art where I didn't reach out to the artist before I shared the fic because I had no contact with them (the joys of me refusing to touch the garbage that is the bird site). BUT this is why point number one is to always link back to the original inspiration, because I believe that should always be the bare minimum.

THAT BEING SAID.

If you have a way of contacting the original fellow fandom person who inspired you? Reach out and ask them if they'd feel comfortable with you creating something! 999 times out of 1000, they're gonna be over the MOON you want to create something inspired by what they made, and they'll be really fucking pleased you reached out to check.

3. Ask yourself: is this a "two cakes" situation or am I putting my name on someone else's cake?

This is another one that can absolutely fall into a bit of a grey area. I have written many a fic that started out with me reading a take or a fic that went in a WILDLY different direction from what I was expecting or wanted, and I went "okay, fuck it. I'll write my own." And that's absolutely been a great motivator for me to start a project!

HOWEVER.

That is me creating a different flavor of cake, putting my own frosting on it, and probably adding something weird like lemon zest and instant coffee for a lemonade cappucino chiffon that shouldn't work (but definitely does, trust me)

If I were to have read a fic or a take and then gone, "Oh, yeah, definintely, here's the same idea but now I've rephrased it juuust a little and now it's under MY username on my blog".... that's slapping a different color of frosting on the same cake and claiming it's mine. If you find yourself doing that, I really invite you to pause and consider why you felt the need to do so instead of sharing the original post.

Like, not to bring Shakespeare into it (they say, poorly concealing their icon), but fandom can be exactly like how Juliet views love. Sharing joy in what others have created absolutely can be as "boundless as the sea [...] the more I give [...], the more I have, for both are infinite". It does not take away from the joy your fellow fandom friends will have in your own original work to share the work of others.

4. Hyping up your inspiration is FUN

Finally, this is more of me going "no really, proper credit isn't going to mean people love YOU less" because I truly believe in the power of how much FUN it really is to give credit where it's due. I was buzzing for WEEKS in anticipation of publishing Objection! and The 'I Duoy' Newlywed Special because the marvelous @jackuntiljune had brainstromed with me on the name for the boat my boys eloped on. And I get so fucking giddy when I see someone comment on those fics about the name of the boat because I get to take a giant breath and go "MY FRIEND JACK CAME UP WITH IT, AREN'T THEY AMAZING?!"

If you practice giving credit where it's due, I promise promise PROMISE it will become a joy. It's FUN getting to bring more people into the sandbox to play, and I know I love it when there's more than one person out there I can yell at (affectionate) when I've been emotionally destroyed (again, affectionate) by a gifset or art or fic <3

Thanks so much for reading this far! I can't wait to keep sharing inspiration with all of you out there

[vigilskeep]

the negative comments about a character in posts about a character are sooooo fucking annoying especially if it's already a disliked/controversial character whose tag you can't enter without being bombarded with negative takes anyway. like listen i get being a hater i do it all the time but idk do it in private. i personally censor the names so it doesn't show in tag but i'm not asking people to do that but can y'all maybe not comment "yeah i dumped them for [the main fandom guy] lmao" under a character romance gifset. litcherally who asked. all this does is makes me dislike the main fandom guy bc somehow it's always their fans acting like dickheads. and the guy himself is like fine i don't hate him he's pretty neat but he's covered in the fucking Ooze™ bc the people who like him are toddlers who don't know how to behave. not to mention doing all that on a post of an artist [as in person who makes any kind of art and not necessarily drawing] who spent their fucking time and effort on something clearly dear to them and you just go "yeah i think they suck" the only one who sucks is you dear commenter. i swear i try to be a nice person but if this goes on i'll lose my shit and start being such a cunt to those people i'll end up with a bajillion callout posts about how i'm soooo negative and ruin the fandom and get in the way of people having fun. WELL THIS WOULDN'T HAPPEN IF Y'ALL WEREN'T GETTING IN EVERYONE ELSE'S WAY OF HAVING FUN. idk what this is and why only fans of characters like g*rrus or ast*rion do it and everyone else has the braincells to have some decency and be a normal human who doesn't comment their very important (no) negative opinion on people's work. MAKE YOUR OWN FUCKING POST TELL A FRIEND HOW MUCH THAT OTHER BLORBO SUCKS COMPARED TO YOURS IDK TOUCH GRASS

you're probably gonna look at this and go "anon what the fuck" and yeah i don't blame you i'm just. very tired. feel free to ignore or respond with that mcdonalds cashier meme idk i just needed to say this

i’m patting you on the head consolingly. yeah

[thatonefatgumsimp]

Important tags for later reference in case I forget or in case you'd like to scroll through and look at a certain tag:

• "#my art" is for tagging my art (alternatively, #not my art for art that I end up reblogging that isn't mine...although I've gotten lazy about tagging so I usually don't tag things unless I speak in them-)

• "#my writing" is for when I post stuff from ao3 that I wrote or just little things I wrote and decided to share here

• "#for later" are things I'm saving for later that might be important or also for cute animals in case I get sad later and need cheering up

• "#shitposting" is for random thoughts I have and shitposts (alternative tag for this: "#random shitpost")

• "#life update" for random life updates and updates on things I'm doing that day...like baking cookies!

• "#songs stuck in my head" is for all the times I've reblogged the "the current song stuck in your head .. go !" post with songs currently stuck in my head that I'm convinced I'm annoying op about at this point by continually reblogging, but I also need to document the songs stuck in my head. for science.

• "#ask tofs" I don't usually get many asks, but I suppose I should have a tag for those, so-

• "#voting time with tofs" is for all the random polls I start because I'm bored and very indecisive. that's it.

• "#last song i listened to" is for the person's post that I rb'd where they so politely asked what the last song listened to was.

• "#a master tag of the insanity" is some random c!mcyt brain thoughts I have occasionally (c! NOT cc!, or in other words, not about the actual real life people, but the cubitos, the sillies, the blorbos, etc.)

• "#tumblr stories of old" are basically like the old legends or old wives tales of tumblr. Myths and lore of old told by great and revered storytellers. Things that future historians may eventually look back on as the Gilgameshes and Illiads of our time... (they can also be found under "#for later", but it's faster if you just use this tag if you don't wanna also be bombarded with art stuff and recipes and cute animals)

• "#rizz for thee not for me" basically the "no b----es" meme for me cuz I for some reason have never been on a single date in my life even tho I've been told by MULTIPLE friends that I'm very cute and my best friends tell me I've got good game and decent charisma...basically me trying to help you get a date if you want one and/or decide to use my pick up lines (also I don't rlly get out much sooooo I don't rlly have any use for them currently-)

• "#dnd stuffs" is for when I post about my dnd OCs that I'm developing my own story for cuz I have no friends (/lhhj...hj BC none of them rlly play dnd-) and autism be damned I'm gonna make my own story! I don't need friends to make up pretend fantasy scenarios!!

• "#out of touch thursday" is for out of touch thursday...obviously- /lh

• "#it's crismin! happy crimis. merry crisis! merry chrysler :p" is what I'm making my Christmas tag riiiiiggt *checks watch* now.

• "#Sasha the Christmas Tiger" Sasha the Christmas Tiger. That is all.

• "#sparkle on its wednesday" is for the sparkle on its wednesday meme

• "#ides of march" is for the day we all collectively stab Caesar again :³

• "#yoooooo happy flesh prison friday" for flesh prison friday

• "#well‚ it's thursday" for the well it's thursday meme

• "#Tuesday 🔁" for the Tuesday 🔁 meme

• "#watermelon wolf wednesday let's gooo" for the watermelon wolf wednesday meme

• "#stoat saturday" for stoat saturday

• "#Today's Sunday" for sunday

also not all my posts are currently tagged with the corresponding tags, I'm trying to work on it. (← lie, I have pretty much given up on tagging my posts from the beginning/earlier this year correctly. There's too many- ╥﹏╥ )

Oh yeah also I added the hyphens to the tag part, but the tags don't have hyphens so uh...yeah jsyk (EDIT: this ↑ has been changed, there are no longer hyphens in the tags in the pinned post)

Also both picture of the perfect lemon slice (my pfp) and my bakusquad banner are by me (lemon was photographed, banner was drawn, felt like I needed to credit somewhere in case anyone was curious...maaaay or may not be working on a new banner, but shhhhhhh 🤫

EDIT 2: I changed it to the new banner ^^)

[en-chi-la-da]

I'm glad I'm not the only one simping for the Overlord of Ice. Since you did it with Kaz, what are your thoughts on Gundham? Like fav ships, moments etc

my thoughts on gundham? looks at you. looks at my icon. well anon,, :)c read more cause it got kinda long

the MOMENT we are introduced to him in the game, my VERY first thoughts were "omg LOOK AT THIS OREO COOKIE HAIR HAVIN' GOTH ASS CRINGE E-BOY REJECT LOOKIN' ASS GUY LMAO yo wait..... this fools name is gundham?? sick. and this guy has HAMPTERS?? also sick." and then my likeness for him kinda snowballed from there lol i like hearing him talk uwu (there were a few moments during the trials where he says something fuckign silly out of nowhere and i thought to myself "GUNDHAM BABE I LOVE YOU BUT I NEED YOU TO SHUT THE FUCKUP IM TRYING TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENED HERE" 😭)

as we progressed through the chapters, it was a lot of me seeing gundham still alive after a kill and going "OH THANK GOD" BUT as we got to chapter four i was getting real nervous for him :( i was thinking "there's no way gundham is gonna survive to the end... he's too cool and funny/likeable as a character plus he hasn't really had an Arc™ happen to his character yet tbh :( oh no :(((" and then sure enough... OH THE MISERYYY 😩

i hate gundham's execution 💔 i love gundham's execution 🖤 i almost cried by the end of it, it's in my top five dr executions list tbh

LMAO as for ships. well anon,, looks in my gundham tag. if you can't tell what my FAVE ships with gundham are by now then i must not be doing a good enough job posting about it 😔 LOL but yeah, obviously i love hajime/gundham and sonia/gundham the MOSTEST along with some variation of gundham/hajime/chiaki/sonia ship square whoa! i also enjoy him with nekomaru and gonta! and not necessarily as SHIPS but i love seeing him with ibuki, peko, chihiro, shuichi+gonta(and kokichi), celeste, sakura, hifumi+kiibo (his dangan S/UTDP events with them are such fuel lmao)

in the end i LOVE!!! this guy!!! love his design, love his voice, he makes me laugh, he's GOTH, he loves animals and his friends even if he denies feeling anything for puny mortals (or even sacrificing his own life to help get them out of a killing game) bc of how EVIL he is as a dark overlord! >:) my favorite moments with gundham are ALL OF THEM (although his final fte/island mode ending are my top fave moments with him hmmmm i wonder why 🤨) and sometimes idk what the FUCK he's talking about but i dont care, this man has ENAMOURED me :) with his SILLYNESS :///) the blorbo of all time!!! sigh <3

but anyways anon, hope this was enough of an explanation for you ✌🏼

[hellbraiser]

top 5 ocs and/or blorbos <3

Shoot I'm gonna do this in two separate lists, but the OCs is gonna be like rating my favorite children since I only really have like 5 actively lmao

OCs!

1. Max: ok yeah we can all tell he's my favorite he's my right hand arm man, my silly rabbit. Max is me in all the ways that are most vulnerable and cathartic and raw. I also made him very sexy in a sort of self esteem psychic double reach around

2. Ace: she's been around the longest by far. She's like, a mean old undead bisexual gambler cowboy crime boss John woo character and I think that's very sexy of her

3. Quincy: probably the least morally reprehensible of the group. I've been thinking a lot about his recovery storyline and making myself emotional. Also he's sexy as hell. His sexuality is strict bottom cenobite

4. Easy: fucking love this guy but the more I write his story the worse of a person he becomes. I mean, also that's very sexy of him and kind of The Point of being a cannibal butcher

5. Deaghlan: sorry kid you got last place. Deaghlan is also me, maybe even more so than Max. He has all the parts of myself I find annoying and difficult. That said I love him to pieces and he's sexy the same way I am.

I've got more info on em on my art account and my carrd:

BLORBOS I DO NOT OWN:

1. Balalaika from Black Lagoon. She's not really a blorbo she's far too capable as a person but I'm obsessed with her I just love a mean blonde

2. Leatherface Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Bubba my sweet cheese my rotten soldier my good time boy

3. Chrissy Moltisanti from The Sopranos. He's such a cock but I just want what's best for him ok

4. Estraven from Left Hand of Darkness. The way Ursula k leguin writes about love fucking kills me. Estraven is this beautiful little puzzle of culture and affection and I love getting to live in his world and his heart

5. Harrow from The Locked Tomb. Absolutely neurotic little beast. Tears my heart up getting caught in all her Shirley Jackson protagonist internal machinations

[marshiestars]

Tag 9 People You Want To Get To Know Better

thank you @scrawnytreedemon for tagging!! let’s begin, shall we? :3c

Three Ships: ughhhhh this is real hard because I JUST invented the most horrible, wonderful “why does it work” crackship a few weeks ago, but if I want to include it, I have to ignore one of my three big zelda ships :C

1. Ghiralink. because of course. I feel like it’s illegal to leave this one out or put it any lower. it’s the good food. it’s well-established. I can afford to be picky with my content. it’s great :D

2. Astlink! sorry Kohlink, but Astlink is less likely to scare half my audience away 😔.

tbh I’m still VERY surprised that Astor and Link aren’t paired together nearly as often as Zelast (Astor / Zelda). don’t get me wrong, both are rare pairs, but somehow Astlink is even *rarer* shksjhdjhsshs, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. either way, it's 'moody goth bitch rejected by society (or maybe he rejected society first, it's a chicken or egg situation tbh) with the perfect golden person that everyone admires who secretly has their own issues'!! and it's about how they're on the complete opposite sides of this huge conflict and yet they find unexpected parallels in each other! and having everything fall apart but deciding to be a better person, even when the rest of the world says it's too late, because that one person believes in you and is willing to give you a chance! darkness and light! it's GOOD FOOD

(...man, I really gotta finish chapter 3 of swordsman and the seer.)

3. ...fuck it. scrawny, I hereby challenge you for the title of Weirdest Fucking Crossover Ship. Ghirahim x Godrick? Sephiroth x the Hollow Knight? I'm intrigued, but not crumbling to ash at the thought.

and so I give you this in place of gushing about Kohlink, which is unbelievably rare, but damn it, at least they're from the same source material! besides, I wasn't the first person to pair them by a long shot, no, no, no.

but there’s a special, lonely sort of pride in knowing you’re probably the first of 8 billion people in the world to ever even think of a pairing. ready? here it is:

R*x D*ng*rv*st x S*np*i from FNF.

(censored their names like that because if this shows up in the tags I’m gonna jump out a window)

yeah, man. I don't even know either.

I mean, I do know, somewhere, and my original train of thought is buried in the memory slush of a few months ago, gone forever. so now we're here. fuck. kill me. why am I writing shit for these two. girl what the hell is this

everyone who reads this post, I want a brick emoji in my inbox to simulate getting one through my window

First Ever Ship: ANYWAY, fuck, I don’t even remember at this point, I've been in greater fandom for so long. wait... oh, son of a bitch, nevermind, I do.

*sigh*

it was Billdip.

DO NOT COME AFTER ME, I DON’T SHIP IT ANYMORE. haven’t for years. I was 12. but I loved Bill Cipher (still do, he's my funny meow meow blorbo <3) and was very upset when the finale happened even though I knew that was how it had to be. but every time Billdip art came across my screen, I saw cool art where he: # 1. was still around and # 2. was more often than not a pretty human / humanoid (this was at the height of his sexymanification). hell, I didn't even give a shit about Dipper honestly, I just wanted more Bill content. and again, being literally 12, I didn’t really stop to think abt any moral implications. but yeah.

(also nowadays I hc Bill as ace sooo)

Last Song: 'She Had The World' by Panic! very nice to sing to, it's right in my range <3

Last Movie: does ‘My Little Pony: A Very Minty Christmas’ count? it’s a childhood film and practically tradition for me to watch it every year for christmas lol. although this year I’ve been replaying it for... research purposes. yeah. totally not for a lethally cursed fanfic, no sir.

if that doesn’t count, then ‘The Lego Movie’!

Currently Reading: nothing atm!! even as my 'to read' pile gets taller by the day, hhhh

Currently Watching: Minty Christmas, again, but definitely not so I can copy the dialogue verbatim to use as the base for a coked-up christmas crack fic

Currently Consuming: soup <3

Currently Craving: instant ramen, good god, especially if it’s spicy. they have cups for sale in vending machines around campus but they’re all beef and chicken flavour :C

I won't tag anyone else in this because nine people is a lot; far too many to bother with this wall of personal nonsense shdhdj but thanks anyway for tagging me scrawny, my beloved mutual!!! <3

[fandoms-of-a-random-existence]

I posted 11,108 times in 2022

That's 6,733 more posts than 2021!

41 posts created (0%)

11,067 posts reblogged (100%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@primeministerofantarctica

@gender-snatched

@thisisnotjuli

@cipher-fresh

@kaweeella

I tagged 1,042 of my posts in 2022

#ofmd - 84 posts

#twisted wonderland - 70 posts

#kitc - 64 posts

#kings in the corner - 58 posts

#&lt;3 - 57 posts

#ofmd spoilers - 36 posts

#a3! - 20 posts

#otterson kitc - 18 posts

#yeah - 15 posts

#zoran kitc - 10 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#you might be a genius in one area but you fail hard in other things. you try to apply your knowledge of one thing to something you aren't g

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

can't believe kitc has a canon roleswap!au universe sitting pretty right next door and all of the alternates with any sort of dream/veil/joker related powers have just decided "you know what time to come poke around" /pos

7 notes - Posted October 15, 2022

#4

actively cannot stop thinking about Otterson telling Zoran she'd fuck his mom and then ae going "I don't know how to respond to that! Enjoy the nightmare dimension! Good luck not going insane!"

9 notes - Posted October 6, 2022

#3

it's been a long while since I did art but Raevyn KitC lives in my brain rent free. I should do some Raeran art sometime those two drive me insane /pos

11 notes - Posted October 2, 2022

#2

Yeah I kitc:

Kiss gayly

Inflict horrors

Traumatize

Crime

11 notes - Posted November 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Is this that thing that you like? (/j but also where would I be able to find it it looks interesting)

FSJFHSKFJSKHH I-

okay I will admit i was not expecting anyone to ask but holy shit/pos

Okay, so confession time, Kings in the Corner is actually a closed discord ARG that is actually on hiatus right now because of IRL things, however the mods decided to leave it as a sandbox for the players and we have steadily been descending into madness and brainrot (dreamscapes arc my beloved)

And so, I don't actually remember how we got on the topic but eventually a bunch of us came to the conclusion "being insane about the blorbos on the discord isn't enough, we need to subject the rest of the world to our brainrot, what if we posted on tumblr like it was an actual fandom with no context" and well I am giving context now but shhh don't worry about it sorry I took so long to reply, I just. there's so much...this is gonna be long- anyways since there really isn't any way to get kitc content besides the players brainrot spilling over, here~! (apologies for the way this is. not likely all that comprehensible)

The basic plot is you/your character has been invited to the Kingdom in the Four Corners where we have a King, Queen, and Jack for each card suit, and each player is/was assigned a suit based off of your vibes, and later on, just got shunted into diamonds due to the uh. tragedies. Anyways! Because of the way the invitation works, all the characters have the potential to be from different worlds and universes which has led to the colorful cast of characters including [looks at notes]

-Fallen London OC

-Twisted Wonderland OC

-An actual Warriorcat

-Doctor Who x the Beatles OC

-Charas from players own original worlds <3

-The personification of healing from grief who is also from pathologic now

-AND FUCKING HOMESTUCKED

All I really have to say about the last one is don't take any orange pills the Jokers give you. (The Jokers are... actually I should preface this with the information none of us take drugs irl, but they are the closest thing to medical doctors we've got so uh, if you want to take some joker drugs to get a funky hallucination to learn more details about the rebellion/experience the previous Ace's executions for yourself as a side effect for your stomach ache, well are they they guys you wanna see! Apparently Jokers start their training at age 10 and it's very fucked up and also there are domestic and feral jokers??? I am concerned.)

Honestly so much has happened in a relatively short period of time I don't think I could summarize all the important bits but some of the highlights so far include: -The Bitchless Allegations: King Dani of Diamonds (Incredibly Bitchless, the Universe told me-) accosted a group of candidates (Ash, Hugo(ne), Raevyn, and Riyo iirc) who proceeded to get his ass. He stabbed Hugo in retaliation with his fancy magic sword that he shouldn't have even really had, Hugo was spitting up red jewels for a while, and almost died. All Spades got free access to Diamonds tower though so uh,,, winning I guess??

-There was a bit more lore in the interim and some puzzled solved but to be honest I don't remember much-

-The Bear.

-Also the Hearts' resident gays Salem and Luci (Saluci beloved <3) (admittedly not together yet) hatched a plot to fake a fight so the could befriend everyone despite the wild and horrific state of relationships between the candidates. They fucked it up. Luci and Riyo's friendship will never return. Esp after the Hugone incident-

(And oh yeah, Riyo punched Luci at one point, breaking her face revealing the fact she's an artificial being made of porcelain and some sort of magical energy and I may be getting the lore wrong but she's so cool-)(Salem helped patch up the hole in her face with a pretty glass mosaic and waaaaa)

-At one point the 8 year old Diamond, and 11 year old Club stood on each others shoulders wearing a trench coat and called themselves "Painsley" (Paeden-Ainsley) to try and get joker drugs. They failed and only got glitter, and it was hilarious

-Olive the scientists experiments with almond water, I genuinely have no recollection of the details alas, but i have been told it was very neat and was unknowable by science. Also he got an entire almond out of it.

-One of the Most Days Ever: our small 8 year old boy made of clay had been recently possessed by a 45 yr old catholic man, who, while he was cooperative at first in helping getting Paeden back, soon realized if this went through he'd die, and so he ran off into the woods after burning the notes, and so candidates were sent to chase after him. It. Did not go well. (while the chasing him down and catching him went quite well, after the catching... not so good)

See the full post

25 notes - Posted October 4, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[lancerious]

Saw this post, wanted to answer it, yeah lol

Lancer & Spade King (shocker), each in their own ways. Almost nobody hcs these characters exactly how I do therefore everyone else is automatically wrong (jk you do what you want within reason lol). Those are the 2 big ones, I can't think of many other characters to put here

As an aroace I am obligated to not reply to this one :P

I don't want to push any buttons here, but I DO NOT like seeing fanart depicting Lancer & Spade King in animalistic fashions. Idc if they mostly resemble their canon selves or if they're something else entirely, this gets on my nerves either way. Really though, I'm against any characters having an "animal-ification" if they're not explicitly resembling an animal

I don't block people rly often tbh, I mostly block bots lol. I usually block people who are overly clingy, if anyone at all. That's as specific as I'm getting :P

Idk man, I don't actively seek out bad Discord servers

Ship FANS? Can't rly think of any, I tend to stay as far away from the shipping portion of any fandom as possible. I can think of SHIPS I hate, but not shipping fans

Noelle. I'm sorry y'all, I terribly dislike Noelle at this point ONLY because of how popular and adored she is. She takes attention away from TONS of other characters! That's not right. I kinda feel the same way about Spamton, but to a lesser extent

Spade King is a irredeemable character. I bet the ONLY reason people say this is because Deltarune isn't finished yet. I've said it before and I'll say it again, other characters have done FAR worse things and are still treasured characters. There is hardly ANY basis behind this opinion

I think the fact that I can't think of anything to say here after a few minutes proves there's not a lot I dislike about canon, at least when it comes to Deltarune which is what I'm basing my answers on

Does the over-popularity of maybe 3 specific characters at any time count here? Because if it does this is my answer 100%, I HATE THIS TREND

Had to look in my settings for this one lol, I'll list all my Deltarune-related filters: #lancer rpg (<- may seem weird but people who post here don't talk about the Deltarune Lancer at all), #noelle, #noelle holiday, #queen deltarune, & #spamvil. I'm considering getting rid of the "#queen deltarune" tag since this was added when I wasn't keen on Queen, whereas Idrc much about her now

Uh, SPADE KING? HELLO? Who else should I put here, Lancer? Yeah it's these two again, don't be surprised. I would say more but I think most who see this get my points already

Uhhhhh I have literally no idea, I don't follow blorbo stuff too closely

I admittedly don't read a lot of fanfic so I don't know what to put here either  ��\_(ツ)_/¯

See number 3, alternatively I also see a smaller trend of people having Spade King & Lancer be thinner than they canonically are which I also disagree with

Headcannoning Lancer as being too old or too young. Imo, 6 or younger is too young, while anything above 12 is really pushing it. I even think 12 is pushing it a bit, but I can accept it

PEOPLE WHO DRAW LANCER & SPADE KING HOW THEY ARE CANONICALLY. Yeah I know I keep bringing this up, but this is one of my largest issues with both characters, ESPECIALLY Lancer

Dare I mention Spade King & Lancer again? Yeah I'll just stop here

Idk, Spamton maybe? I was against his character for so long because he was SOOO popular (still is lol that hasn't changed about him), but it does kinda irk me that I like him a decent amount now. My opinion of him has definitely gone down since I last ranked him, but still. I guess I was worn down or something again Idk :P

Idk man

Oh boy, I think I'm gonna have to say Suselle. This is LARGELY due to me generally not giving a literal damn about ships, canonical or not. And it definitely seems like Suselle is--or at least will later be--canon. Sorry ship lovers, I don't see eye-to-eye with you on this one

Not my fav part of canon, but the fact that Lancer is CANONICALLY PART OF THE FUN GANG. HOW DO PEOPLE MISS THIS. HOW DO PEOPLE FORGET TO ADD LANCER TO FUN GANG FANART SO MANY FREAKING TIMES. DO Y'ALL HAVE DEMENTIA AND FORGOT LANCER WAS THERE OR NOT?

Literally none. The only ship I can possibly think of is Queen x Rouxls, but I spend 0 time thinking about this ship, plus I don't even know the official ship title for this. This is the ONLY SHIP I have SOME positivity for. I either outright despise or feel absolutely nothing for all other ships

People arguing about Spade King and whether he's a decent character or not. Admittedly I haven't seen too much arguing on this, partly because most people I know online either love his character or are neutral on him. But I imagine this topic would lead to all sorts of chaos

Don't really have anything to say here tbh

Ok I'm done now :P

🔥 choose violence ask game 🔥

the character everyone gets wrong

a compelling argument for why your fave would never top or bottom

screenshot or description of the worst take you've seen on tumblr

what was the last straw that made you finally block that annoying person?

worst discord server and why

which ship fans are the most annoying?

what character did you begin to hate not because of canon but because how how the fandom acts about them?

common fandom opinion that everyone is wrong about

worst part of canon

worst part of fanon

number of fandom-related words you've filtered

the unpopular character that you actually like and why more people should like them

worst blorboficiation

that one thing you see in fics all the time

that one thing you see in fanart all the time

you can't understand why so many people like this thing (characterization, trope, headcanon, etc)

there should be more of this type of fic/art

it's absolutely criminal that the fandom has been sleeping on...

you're mad/ashamed/horrified you actually kind of like...

part of canon you found tedious or boring

part of canon you think is overhyped

your favorite part of canon that everyone else ignores

ship you've unwillingly come around to

topic that brings up the most rancid discourse

common fandom complaint that you're sick of hearing

[dashboarddiaries]

DASHBOARD DIARIES, EPISODE 1 - Tumblr, the Supernatural Website

In our inaugural episode, we delve into our own Tumblr origin stories and skim the surface of one of Tumblr's longest lasting fandoms: Supernatural. Warning: many, many incorrect things are said about Supernatural in this episode. Proceed at your own risk. And drop questions/comments/corrections about ways Dean Winchester has died in our ask box or email us at dashboarddiariespod@gmail.com!

Find the posts discussed in this episode in this tag!

Credits and transcript under the cut. You can find transcripts for this, and every other episode, here.

Dashboard Diaries is a production of Atypical Artists, hosted by Lauren Shippen and Cherokee McAnelly. Our theme was composed by Lauren Shippen and mixed by Brandon Grugle. Art by Shae McMullin. Transcription (which can be found on our Tumblr) by Laudable.

[intro music]

Lauren: Hello, last of the classically trained tumblr’inas. I’m Lauren Shippen, professional writer, and veteran stucky shipper, who is surrounded by not one, not two, but three artistic renderings of the line, “I’ll be with you until the end of the line.” I like to surround myself in stucky love.

Cherokee: I am Cherokee McAnelly, professional tumblr’er and veteran Twihard, who once brought a team threesome sign to a midnight viewing of Eclipse. And I’ve also re-blogged more than 50,000 posts not all about Twilight, but there’s an influence. 

Lauren: Wow. That’s, that is hefty. 

Cherokee: You know ... Can’t stop. Won’t stop. 

Lauren: And this is Dashboard Diaries, your deep dive guide into the wild, wonderful world of Tumblr. And this is our first episode, Cherokee. 

Cherokee: I’m excited. Are you excited?

Lauren: Me too. I’m so excited.

Cherokee: I feel great. (laughs)

Lauren: And for this first week, this Episode Zero, if you will, we’re gonna hit on some Tumblr classics and also talk about our own relationship to this wonderful website. I guess to start us off, Cherokee, do you want to tell me about what the last week on Tumblr was like for you?

Cherokee: Absolutely. 

Lauren: We’ll start there and we’ll work our way back to the origin story. 

Cherokee: I would love nothing more, Lauren. So, this has been a big week on Tumblr, as it always is. Last week, Stranger Things - Part II premiere. And we did a big Stranger Things takeover. It was fun. I spent my entire day re-blogging community posts about Stranger Things. And this week has really been about Eddie. Big Eddie week, I would say.

Lauren: Yep.

Cherokee: And on top of that, and most recently, Thor: Love and Thunder came out today.

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: I have not seen it yet. But I did do some light scrolling to prepare for this and I have sadly seen spoilers, but I’m kind of okay with it just because I feel a little more attached now. 

Lauren: Yeah, that is a risk that we take when we scroll our dash. And a risk you take listening to this podcast. Let’s be honest. We might get into some spoiler territory. I also saw a bunch of Stranger Things stuff this past week. And I did watch the entire Volume II of Stranger Things in, like, a day. So, I was prepared to dive into the Tumblr world. And have been seeing mostly Eddie.

Cherokee: Yeah.

Lauren: A lot of love for Eddie. 

Cherokee: I think Eddie is perhaps blorbo of the week?

[fanfare music]

Lauren: He might be.

Cherokee: He’s big. I feel attached to Eddie. I also watched Stranger Things Part II in one sitting and have a lot of emotions about it.

Lauren: Yeah. (laughs)

Cherokee: Yeah. 

Lauren: I ... Oh man, speaking of a lot of emotions. I guess this is a little bit of a spoiler for a specific scene in Stranger Things Volume II finale. The scene with Max and Lucas and the house ... That got me real good. I was crying pretty hard at that. Just some fantastic acting from those two actors.

Cherokee: Oh my gosh, truly incredible. I did have to pause it to breathe a couple times. Sometimes when scenes are a little too intense-

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative)

Cherokee: ... intense, you take a step back, take a moment, before ...

Lauren: Yeah, you maybe gotta stand up and walk around your apartment. Take a lap before coming back to it.

Cherokee: And that’s when Vecna gets you. That’s when you’re most vulnerable.

Lauren: Yes. Yeah. 

Cherokee: What would your Vecna song be? What would get you out of The Upside Down?

Lauren: I’ve been listening to the Boys of Summer cover by Atari a lot recently. (laughs) 

Cherokee: Specific and I love it.

Lauren: Yeah, so I feel like that could get me out of Vecna’s grip in the here and now. That’s what I’m feeling currently. What about you?

Cherokee: Well, I’ll preface with roughly quoting a Tumblr post, which said if I’m stuck in The Upside Down, just let me go because I can’t for the lift of me pick one song. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: And honest ... there are two. And I’m still gonna say two. I think they would be equal. Dreams, by The Cranberries. 

Lauren: Oh, great song.

Cherokee: And Torn, by Natalie Imbruglia. 

Lauren: Oh! Great song!

Cherokee: Two favs. I think those would help me get out.

Lauren: A strong showing from the ‘90s here in this podcast recording today.

Cherokee: Yeah. I mean, always. I would always run back to ‘90s. What, ‘90s kind of like rock pop. Pop rock? I don’t know. I love The Cranberries. 

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: And I love Torn, by Natalie Imbruglia. I couldn’t name another one of her songs but Torn, I mean, that’s all you need.

Lauren: That’s all you need. That’s all you need.

Cherokee: Look at that. Yes. 

Lauren: We are two nineties babies. 

Cherokee: On the same wavelength.

Lauren: And we understand each other. (laughs) 

Cherokee: (laughs) 

Lauren: While we’re delving into the depths of our past, I feel because it’s our first episode, we should talk about our Tumblr bona fide’s. You know? How long have you been on the site? What has your relationship to the site been? Give me the whole bio. 

Cherokee: Oh, we go way back. We’ve had ups. We’ve had downs. We’ve had preppy eras.

Lauren: Sure. (laughs)

Cherokee: (laughs) 

Lauren: The hipster, girly things phase of Tumbler.

Cherokee: Yes. I’ve changed now. Just not for the better, unfortunately. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: I actually was going back on my archive to prepare for this pilot recording and I realized I’ve been on Tumblr ten and a half years now. So, big anniversary.

Lauren: (whistles)

Cherokee: I joined in January of 2012.

Lauren: Wow.

Cherokee: And ...

Lauren: Congratulations.

Cherokee: I mean, thank you. 

Lauren: Ten years.

Cherokee: It’s been an honor, really, to haunt the halls of the dashboard. (laughs) If you will. But yeah, I actually looked back at my first ever post was an extremely high contrast early Instagram, like square photo of the beach that I’d added the Veranda filter onto or something. You know? 

Lauren: Oh, perfect.

Cherokee: I feel like the perfect way to kick myself off, or kick it off on Tumblr. I actually got on Tumblr because my freshman year of college I decided, “Look, I’m going to reinvent myself.” She’s different. She’s 18. She lives in New York now. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: My style needed to change, too. And I was saving inspo for outfits and whatever in a Word document like a collage. 

Lauren: Oh ... my ... goodness.

Cherokee: Yes. And my freshman college roommate who is my best friend to this day ... So, she introduced me to Tumblr ... said, “What the hell are you doing?” And I was like, “Oh-“

Lauren: [crosstalk 00:06:23]

Cherokee: “I think I need a room transfer if you’re going to continue doing whatever this is.” 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: And she was like, “You’re gonna be shocked. I need to tell you about Tumblr.”

Lauren: What a good friend.

Cherokee: And so, yeah. And then I got on Tumblr and never stopped. And have not stopped as it turns out.

Lauren: And now work for Tumblr. 

Cherokee: Yeah.

Lauren: I mean, you’ve turned that love of Tumblr into a job.

Cherokee: Indeed I did. They can’t get rid of me. They tried. Not actually. So, essentially I interned there my senior year of college and they didn’t have any open roles after I left and I really wanted to work there. So, I essentially just kept refreshing the jobs page and going to every single event possible. Like, they had happy hours, they had stuff, I was there all the time. My new internship was a few blocks down the street. And finally a job role opened. I applied within probably seconds of it opening. 

Lauren: Incredible.

Cherokee: And thankfully got hired as the on-boarding associate. 

Lauren: Ooh.

Cherokee: When they were presenting me at All Team, our team meeting where they introduce new people, multiple people came up after and were like, “You left after your internship? We were not aware, ‘cause you are always here.” 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: (laughs) And so that is the story of how I got my job at Tumblr. I just hung around enough honestly. (laughs) Everyone interviewing me was like, “You seem dedicated enough. I don’t really have many questions for you. I feel like you get it. You’re here anyway. So, we might as well add you to payroll.” 

Lauren: Yeah, might as well put you to work. 

Cherokee: Yeah. How about you?

Lauren: I have been on Tumblr a long time. I joined sometime in late 2008, early 2009. So, it’s been 13 or 14 years for me on this website. And I never left. I never left. And that’s partly because I just sort of move from hyper fixation to hyper fixation. So, I always have a fandom that I’m obsessing over. 

But I also just really like the vibes in there. You know? Is the one social media that I’ve had since I was a teenager that I never want to give up. And I also just love diving into parts of Tumblr that I’m not necessarily a community member of. Many years ago now at this point, this would have been 2013, 2014 through 2016, 2017, I had a YouTube series, which you can no longer find, because I scrubbed it from the internet, called “According to Tumblr,” which was me trying to explain Tumblr fandom’s or trying to explain TV shows, books series, et cetera, based on what I was reading in the Tumblr tag. So, trying to summarize TV shows basically based on what the fandom is talking about. 

So, it was a humorous series about differences between fandom and canon and all of that kind of stuff. And that’s sort of also how this podcast started. (laughs) Because I came to you a couple months ago and then said, “I kind of wanna bring this back in some form,” and you were so game. Because you feel as passionately about Tumblr as I do. 

Cherokee: No, I am obsessed with Tumblr. It is unfortunately/fortunately imbedded in my personality at this point.

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: I love it so much. I talk about it all the time. My friends are definitely ... which my entire friend group, by the way, were/are Tumblr employees largely. 

Lauren: Right, of course.

Cherokee: We stick together. But yeah, they’re probably very tired of me talking about Tumblr constantly. Because it’s, “What’s going on this week? Guess what? Miss Marvel premiered.” Whatever it is, I’ve already ... (laughs)

Lauren: Yeah. 

Cherokee: So, yeah, I’m really excited to be really earnest with you biweekly.

Lauren: And while you work for Tumblr, this is not an official Tumblr podcast. I feel like we should mention that disclaimer. But it’s got the Tumblr stamp of approval, as it were. They’re happy we’re doing it.

Cherokee: Yeah, it’s like a friendship.

Lauren: They’re into it.

Cherokee: Yeah.

Lauren: It is.

Cherokee: But yeah, this is just me fangirling over the place that I already work, as it turns out. But this is not an advertisement, folks. This is just being miley. 

Lauren: Yeah. Pure earnest excitement. All Tumblr, all the time. 

Cherokee: Always be fixating. 

Lauren: Always be fixating. Oh, that’s great. We should make a sticker with that.

Cherokee: Absolutely. We could add it to the poster, the little [crosstalk 00:10:48].

Lauren: Oh, yes. Yeah. Please go and look at our art. We will post the banner version of it because it is so gorgeous. Shay McMullen, our artist, put all of these beautiful little Tumblr jokes in the art and it’s incredible. And I keep staring at it because I love it so much. 

Cherokee: It really is wonderful. I almost made it my LinkedIN header and I was thinking, “Is that too far, perhaps?” It’s not my whole identity, maybe? It was a consideration, though. Maybe I’ll just make it my computer background to really ... 

Lauren: Yeah. I mean, listen ...

Cherokee: Experience it.

Lauren: This is the first episode. There’s plenty of time. All right. One segment that we are going to be doing repeatedly on this show is dashboard confessionals. 

[guitar riff]

Which is when we dive into our own Tumblr archive and pick something at random that we were blogging about X years ago on this date or on any random date. So, Cherokee, what do you have for me?

Cherokee: I have something that I also just Slacked to you, or messaged to you, via Zoom so that you can experience it as well. 

Lauren: Excellent. (laughs)

Cherokee: It is an oldie but a goodie. The post is, “I love high contrast photos of fruit floating threateningly in the night.” I’m sure if you’ve been on Tumblr for any number of hours you have likely seen this one. 

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: And someone replies, “I don’t believe such a thing exists.” And Coco Lou who is the OP said, “Of course it does exist,” and shared some high contrast photos of fruit floating threateningly in the night. Which I think should also perhaps be a tongue twister that people do before, I don’t know, recording a podcast.

Lauren: No kidding. It’s really amazing how it’s impossible to image based on the description what that photo would look like, and then you see the photo and you’re like, “Oh yeah, that is fruit floating threatening in the night.”

Cherokee: Obviously. Yeah. (laughs)

Lauren: That’s exactly what that is. 

Cherokee: Honestly, it may be one of my favorite classic Tumblr posts. I think I re-blogged this in 2013. 

Lauren: It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it. Thank you for bringing it back into my life. Because I do very much enjoy it.

Cherokee: You’re so welcome, to be threatened by that fruit. My gift to you.

Lauren: It’s very threatening. 

Cherokee: And we will be re-blogging it to DashboardDiaries.Tumblr.com – so you, too, can be threatened by fruit floating in the night.

Lauren: (laughs) So, seven years ago I re-blogged on this day a compilation of Jean Ralphio singing. I will also re-blog that to our DashboardDiaries.Tumblr.com because it is excellent. If you are unfamiliar with Jean Ralphio, he is Ben Schwartz’s character from Parks and Rec. He is probably most famous for, “the worst.” That’s kind of his tagline. And also, “Don’t be suspicious.” Don’t Be Suspicious with Jenny Slate. It’s fantastic. Just so many good moments. 

Cherokee: I love Jean Ralphio and Ben Schwartz. That character ... one of my all time favorite television characters, to be honest. 

Lauren: I mean, so meme-able. 

Cherokee: So meme-able. 

Lauren: Even now, today, in 2022 we are still meme’ing Jean Ralphio and I think that’s beautiful. What was your very first fandom on Tumblr would you say, that you kind of participated in or were very active as a viewer?

Cherokee: Hmm. Very first fandom that I participated in on Tumblr ... Gosh, what a multilayered question. Because honestly my first few years on Tumblr I was want to say in the preppy lifestyle fandom. 

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: I re-blogged all the, “If you’re a preppy blog follow this.” And that was my jam. But I think when I started actually working at Tumblr, which was in 2014 and I became full time in 2015. That was when a lot of ... I think that was around the time that Thor: Ragnarok came out in 2016. And so the MCU, especially Taika Waititi and his tie in to the MCU. I really participated very, very actively in that fandom. And I would also say another fandom that is a little, I don’t know ... I don’t know if you would even consider it a fandom. I would. I think the 2000s and ‘90s fandom, in general. 

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: Like, 2000 ish is one of my favorite Tumblr’s. And I just really love the kind of like throwback, Lindsay McGuire, and That’s So Raven kind of content.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: I think the nostalgia in 2000 ish fandom is the one that really I started with and have continued through. But if we’re talking about specifics I would say the MCU just in general I think that me starting, working at Tumblr and being just really into the MCU kind of probably aligned very well. [crosstalk 00:15:45]

Lauren: MCU is a great fandom to be on Tumblr for because, what, it’s been around for as long as Tumblr has. I mean, because Iron Man came out in 2008 and Tumblr launched in, what, 2007, 2008? So, they come hand in hand. And also there’s always something going on which is really nice. There’s always a new thing being added to the MCU. Which is fabulous.

Cherokee: Always something MC-new.

Lauren: (laughs) In case it’s not clear by this point, Cherokee will be the pun captain of this show. 

Cherokee: I apologize.

Lauren: You are so good at coming up with puns. No, it’s great. I love it. I love it.

Cherokee: No, it’s a passion, I would say. If I was in that fandom, too, I would say ... I mean, I was once a semi finalist at the Punderdome, not to brag. 

Lauren: Is that a thing? Are you making another pun or is this is a real thing?

Cherokee: It is a thing. No, unfortunately, it is a thing, and it is a thing I’ve done multiple times. 

Lauren: Please explain this to me.

Cherokee: (laughs) So, the Punderdome, it was, pre pandemic, I’m not sure if it’s still happening, but every Tuesday in Brooklyn there was this free-for-all pun competition. It went for four hours. Anyone could join-

Lauren: Oh ... my ... god.

Cherokee: ... you had to ... But there were people who had been punning there monthly for years. And essentially how it worked was everyone, you’re called up on stage in kind of like waves, groups of six, and you’re given a topic. For example, “old Hollywood.” And you have a whiteboard and you have 90 seconds to write down as many puns as you can think of that tie into this and then you have to go up and say your puns, but in kind of like a cohesive story kind of way. 

So, you would be like, “I was walking down the Marilyn Mon-road today. And what did I see but the Holly woods.” You know? That kind of-

Lauren: Oh my gosh. 

Cherokee: ... thing. And it was judged by clapping, essentially. So, a very scientific way to judge it. And the prizes were generally made for TV or “as seen on TV stuff. Really random shit. 

Lauren: That’s perfect. 

Cherokee: It was excellent in every way. I really actually like being a semifinalist because it did sometimes go till 11:30 at night on a Tuesday and semifinalists, you know, if you get cut you’re out by 9:30, which was a respectable Tuesday evening, I feel.

Lauren: Oh my goodness. 

Cherokee: But I hope one day to become a Punderdome winner. That would really be my biggest accomplishment.

Lauren: A real feather in your cap. 

Cherokee: Yeah. (laughs)

Lauren: (laughs) That is the most specific form of improve I’ve ever heard of in my life. I love that. 

Cherokee: I didn’t even put the two together and now I’m realizing, yeah, it’s just ... Which honestly, if I was going to get into any specific kind of comedy or improve it would be punning. I’m sure. We’ve gotten so sidetracked and I apologize. What were we ... Oh, we were on fandom’s.

Lauren: First fandom’s.

Cherokee: What was your first fandom, if not the punning fandom, Lauren?

Lauren: (laughs) Deep, deep into the punning fandom. I was also very much in not necessarily the preppy side of Tumblr but kind of the aesthetic hipster side of Tumblr. I was really into nice photos and music. I was blogging a lot about music. And I didn’t really get into fandom Tumblr until I guess it had been early middle or college. BBC Sherlock came out in 2010. End of 2010 it came out in America. Because I remember I watched it over Christmas break. And that is absolutely my first Tumblr fandom. It was a slow burn at first. You know? After the first season I dove into some fan fic and dove into following some Sherlock blogs, but there wasn’t a ton of activity going on yet. And then by the end of season two it was just enormous. And I would say SuperWhoLock is a massive part of Tumblr culture. And we’re gonna get to a big part of that later on. 

But the Lock part of SuperWhoLock was definitely my initial interaction with SuperWhoLock and also my main fandom. I was not necessarily a very active blogger within the Sherlock fandom, but I followed a bunch. I re-blogged a bunch. I made a couple of memes that did okay notes wise. I won’t tell you which memes they were because then you’ll be able to find all of my old blogs. But, yeah, I had a great time. And I am sure that one of these days we will do an episode on the Johnlock conspiracy because that is a huge part of Tumblr lore. And boy was I inside of that when it was all happening. An insider’s perspective. 

Cherokee: I cannot wait for the expose episode on that one. As an outsider, I have thoughts as well of course. Well, an inside-outsider I would say to the SuperWhoLock community. So, you started with Lock and then did you go to Super or Who next?

Lauren: I have always been a scattered viewer of Who. I have not seen every episode. I have seen some episodes of every Doctor. And I’m absolutely going to jump in and watch the new one, because Mizero Ncuti Gatwa from Sex Education, the new doctor, is amazing. I’m obsessed with this character in Sex Education. So, I’m very excited about that. But, yeah, my next fandom of the SuperWhoLock that I dove deep into was our main topic for today. 

[game show trill]

Supernatural.

Cherokee: Woo! A show I know so much about. 

Lauren: So, my relationship with Supernatural ... For those of you that don’t know what Supernatural is ... (laughs) ... First of all, how did you find this podcast? 

Cherokee: Are you okay?

Lauren: And second of all, are you okay? Did you just wake up from a coma? Supernatural is a television show that ran on the WB/EW for 15 years. It ended last year. And is a huge, huge part, even to this day, post the show being on, a massive part of Tumblr culture. And I hadn’t seen the show until about 2016, 2017. But the first video I ever did for recording Tumblr, this YouTube series I used to do, was me trying to explain what I thought the plot of Supernatural was as just as passive Tumblr user who wasn’t even following any Supernatural blogs but still absorbed a lot of Supernatural. 

So, we thought for our first episode of the show it would be fun to have Cherokee do the same thing and have you try to explain the plot of Supernatural to me based on Tumblr and as somebody who has never actually seen more than a handful of episodes of the show. Right?

Cherokee: Yes. So, I’ll give you a little context on my experience with Supernatural, ‘cause it does go way back despite me not seeing the vast majority of episodes.

Lauren: We all go way back with Supernatural.

Cherokee: Yeah. If you’ve been on Tumblr for more than a minute or so you go way back with Supernatural. You’re part of the community, I really think. And it is an open and accepting wayward community. I know some things. 

Lauren: Oh yeah, you know some things. 

Cherokee: (laughs) So, essentially, my first thing I ever did when I started at Tumblr, my first big kind of partnership entertainment kind of campaign was with Misha Collins for Dish Whiz which is the Greatest International Scavenger hunt the world has ever seen, if you’re not familiar. And he does this big scavenger hunt and so we decided to do a virtual one on Tumblr during a Supernatural convention. 

Lauren: [inaudible 00:23:14]

Cherokee: And so we were doing this big 48 hour massive scavenger hunt with a whole bunch of the cast of Supernatural involved and people from other shows like Once Upon a Time and shows like that, I think William Shatner briefly was almost involved. He didn’t end up being involved, but that was going to be really exciting. But anyway, so I went to this Supernatural convention and spent 48 hours locked in a conference room with Misha Collins. Locked ... no, I was willingly having a great time in this conference room. But essentially running this scavenger hunt. And so one of my co-workers, the great Amanda Brenan, who you also may – if you’ve been on Tumblr for a while – be familiar with.

Lauren: Love Amanda!

Cherokee: We love Amanda.

Lauren: She’s fantastic.

Cherokee: She’s a gem. Our meme librarian was her title at the time. I think it might still continue to be.

Lauren: Incredible. 

Cherokee: Icon. And she is also a huge Supernatural fan. She said, “Look, you can’t go to this unless you have seen key Supernatural episodes.” So, this was back in 2016. I can’t even remember the specific episode she showed me anymore. I think it was maybe the first episode and then a few ... I think she picked five and we booked a conference room at the Tumblr office and piled in. And she would pause it-

Lauren: That’s incredible.

Cherokee: ... and be like, “Okay, this is this character. He’s a cinnamon bun.” (laughs)

Lauren: (laughs) 

Cherokee: And so that’s kind of the experience that I have so far for Supernatural. I’ve seen probably six to seven episodes in total.

Lauren: Okay. All right. And spent a day in a conference room with Misha Collins. 

Cherokee: Yes, which is all the Supernatural knowledge you need, really. I feel like I got it by osmosis. 

Lauren: I mean, honestly. I do feel like we should both make a disclaimer that we both have worked with Misha Collins personally. 

Cherokee: Hi, Misha!

Lauren: Hi, Misha! I was literally speaking to him yesterday about Bridgewater, season two. I write a podcast that Misha stars in. He is the sweetest man on the planet. Just absolutely great. It’s always a nice thing to discover that a Tumblr fav is a fav for a good reason. He’s just a lovely person. 

Cherokee: Truly such a gem. Have loved the few times that I’ve gotten to work with him. And I am so sorry, Misha, for not having seen every episode of Supernatural. I’ll do better.

Lauren: (laughs) There are a lot of them. 

Cherokee: Yes. It’s a process. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. You know?

Lauren: It really is.

Cherokee: If I start now I can be done by the time I’m 40. 

Lauren: Exactly. Just pace it out. 

Cherokee: Yeah, exactly.

Lauren: So, I mean, based on those six to seven episodes that you’ve seen of Supernatural and your many years on Tumblr, give me the highlights? What is Supernatural about? What are the big moments? Let’s go. 

Cherokee: Okay. So, Supernatural is about two brothers: Dean and the other brother. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: Who’s mom dies on the ceiling and then ... by fire. And then decide that they must ... They are demon fighters or they must fight demons or they want to find who killed their mom. I think their dad is briefly involved. I think he comes in at one point. They have a car. It’s an Impala. It’s gray.

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: No, brownish? Beige? They have a car. It’s an Impala. They like the song, “Carry On Wayward Son.” And in every episode they go around slaying the monster of the week, or the demon of the week, but apparently after season two or three it’s less demon of the week and more these big Heaven/Hell kind of threats, big existential threats, all the demons have arrived. And then there’s Misha who plays Castiel, who is an angel of ... he’s an angel. And he comes down in a trench coat and I can’t decide if he helps or hinders them. I think it might be a mix of the two. So, he’s around and there’s a big ship, Destiel which is Dean and Castiel, which became vaguely canon on November 5th, 2019. 

Lauren: I thought it was 2020.

Cherokee: 2020? Okay, sooner than I thought.

Lauren: It was 2020, because it was also election day. 

Cherokee: Oh, god.

Lauren: Or it was the Thursday after election day. Right? It was when ... the pandemic. We’ll get to that. We’ll get to November 5th. 

Cherokee: So, yeah. Remember, remember, the fifth of November. 

Lauren: Exactly.

Cherokee: So, they fight these demons and there’s like purgatory, I think some of them may be stuck in it. There’s a lot of puzzles and clues I think. There’s some relics from the dead. Osric Chau plays Kevin Tran who can read the Bible. I forget what his thing is. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: (laughs) And he sadly dies, RIP. And I think that they really love Kevin Trans because that’s a big plot point as well. I saw those episodes and it’s been a minute. And so anyway, yeah. Dean and, god, what is the other brother’s name. I swear I genuinely know.

Lauren: Oh my god, did you legitimately forget?

Cherokee: I legitimately ... I’m trying to remember. I’m like, god, I know this. But my brain just keeps being like, “Dean and Eddie.” Which obviously it isn’t ... I’m merging Stranger Things. But it’s Jared and Jensen and Misha and they’re all buddies. How did I do?

Lauren: So, I was taking notes on my phone during that. Because there were so many things that ... it’s so funny, there were so many things that you said that were so similar to the way that I described supernatural, as a person who hadn’t seen it. Which that video actually is still online and I will share it on our Tumblr because I think it will be a funny comparison point of how I define Supernatural based off of Tumblr back in 2014. Obviously, the show wasn’t over yet, so you had more context. I think my favorite thing is the idea that the Impala is beige. (laughs) 

Cherokee: Is it not? What color is it?

Lauren: No, it’s black.

Cherokee: Oh. (laughs) I think I’ve been in it.

Lauren: Oh my god, Cherokee. So, the Impala, “Baby,” as she’s known, thank you very much.

Cherokee: Beige-by. 

Lauren: (laughs) Is a black Chevy Impala that is mostly driven by Dean, although sometimes Sam, the other brother, does drive it. 

Cherokee: That word had completely left my head. I never would have gotten “Sam.” 

Lauren: It’s so funny. Yeah, I would say that probably ... Obviously there are Sam girls out there, we love you, we love all the characters, we love everybody who loves the show. But I would say, at least in my circles, I think Dean is probably the main borbo of the two brothers on Tumblr. And then of course Castiel who’s name you got right. I, having only seen it typed out, thought it ... I pronounced it CAST-YEEL. He is an angel. He’s the angel of Thursdays in actual Christian lore Castiel is the angel of Thursdays. I don’t know if that ever comes up in Supernatural or not. Not to my memory. 

Yeah, I think actually helping and hindering is a good description of Cas. He normally ... I mean, he usually helps. He’s definitely on Team Freewill as it’s known, which is the three of them, and then eventually Satan’s son, Jack, which is a whole other thing ... but sometimes Cas get possessed by Leviathans or Satan or goes crazy, or what have you.

Cherokee: It happens to the best of us.

Lauren: It happens to the best of us. Everybody in the show is possessed at some point. And which is fun, because you get to see the actors try different things, which is always exciting. And, oh my gosh, what else did you say? Oh yeah, Kevin’s skill being able to read the Bible. You’re not wrong, but that’s just the funniest way to phrase it. As if the Bible is something that only certain people are allowed to read. (laughs) 

Cherokee: It’s like the Declaration of Independence in National Treasure where it’s like secret codes.

Lauren: Well, I mean, that’s actually pretty close. Kevin is a prophet. And so he can read angel texts basically and he hears voices. It’s been a couple seasons since that was a thing. So, I’m forgetting the finer points of that plot. But I would say you did pretty well. I mean, you got the big stuff. They do go to Purgatory, or rather Dean and Cas go to Purgatory at one point.

Oh and then Dean and Cas go back to Purgatory in the final season to get a flower. That’s a very emotional episode. But I don’t know that Sam ever goes to Purgatory. He does go to Hell. But ...

Cherokee: Who’s the one who dies all the time? Is that Dean?

Lauren: Dean. Yes. 

Cherokee: Yeah.

Lauren: Dean dies ... I think the count is like 157 times or something like that. I forget exactly what it is.

Cherokee: Yeah. Normal. 

Lauren: About 100 of those happen in one episode, to be fair.

Cherokee: Which, I have seen that episode. 

Lauren: Okay, mystery spot. 

Cherokee: I’ve seen the episode, the meta episode where they’re on the set of Supernatural. 

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cherokee: You know what I mean?

Lauren: Mm hmm (Affirmative).

Cherokee: And I did enjoy that one. I’ve enjoyed every episode I’ve seen. It is very enjoyable to watch. 

Lauren: And over 300+ episodes. They really hit every possible genre, fun trope, weird upside down world, I mean, they do everything. They go to a Supernatural convention. They see a fan fiction musical of their own lives. They fight god. It’s a whole thing. This show has everything. It really has everything. 

Cherokee: It must have been ... like, what a fun project to work on for 15 seasons. To be able to think of every potential story and do the meta fandom driven episodes. I mean-

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: ... that must have been so much fun to be like, “How weird can we get? What can we do here?” Especially because you have this dedicated audience who loves it and is like, “Yeah, get weird. Try something. When is the musical episode?” You know?

Lauren: Yeah, exactly.

Cherokee: And so, yeah, that’s what I really obviously having an embarrassing lack of knowledge about Supernatural despite having been chronically on Tumblr for ten years. I really love the Supernatural fandom and have jumped at every opportunity I’ve gotten to do something with Misha or just any Supernatural related anything, because it’s always just so much fun and everyone is just having the time of their lives, honestly.

Lauren: Yes. 

Cherokee: I mean, even at the conventions with the karaoke and everyone dresses up. Everyone is so much fun. It’s, yeah. It’s wonderful. It’s a really wonderful community. And I love that it kind of continues, it’s continued on. It will continue on. Destiel continues to be one of the top ships on Tumblr. Supernatural is consistently one of the biggest TV shows talked about. I really love that it’s taken on a life of its own. Maybe Season 15 closed but the show isn’t over. And the stories definitely aren’t. 

Lauren: Exactly. And there is a prequel show coming, we should mention. The Winchester is on the CW/EW. Jensen Ackles, who plays Dean, is producing it and narrating it. But you’re so right. It is its own thing in such a beautiful way. Destiel is not only one of the top ships on Tumblr consistently, but also the most fic’d ship on AO3. As far as I know, I think sometime early this year or late last year it crossed over 100,000 fan fics on AO3 for just the Destiel tag. 

Cherokee: Incredible. 

Lauren: Which is amazing.

Cherokee: I am a super fan of the Supernatural fandom. I think that is the perfect way-

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: ... to put where I fall in this equation. I really love ... it is just wonderful that so many people are experiencing these characters and there is so much source material, so you can really-

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: You really can kind of guess and know how someone will react, how someone would handle a situation, which means there are infinite stories that can be told from infinite POV’s. No wonder there’s a 100k fics on AO3. That’s incredible. Has anyone read them all? This is a challenge. Someone?

Lauren: Yes, please report back to us.

Cherokee: Yeah. (laughs) We will do [crosstalk 00:35:20]

Lauren: dashboarddiariespod@gmail.com – email us! Well, yeah, and also there is a running joke on Tumblr that there’s a Supernatural gif for any situation, any kind of reaction, and it’s true because everything has happened on that show. And not only do I sort of think of, when I think of early days of being on Tumblr and getting to the fandom side of things, I think about Supernatural gifs, but I also think of November 5th as in some ways the beginning of our current Tumblr renaissance.

I want to hear what you were doing on November 5th. Because I remember where I was. And to me it still sticks out in my head as one of the most fun nights I’ve had on Tumblr ... maybe only with the weekend of Dash Con. But this was November 5th, 2020. So, we’re, what, six, seven months into the pandemic. I am in my one bedroom apartment in LA that I have been inside of for eight months straight without leaving. And the presidential election ... very, very high stress presidential election has taken place two days before, but we don’t have results yet because of the pandemic slowing all of the results down. 

So, I’m stressed out of my mind. And me and my partner sit down to watch Supernatural. And watched the episode. Loved the episode. It’s a great time had by all. And then I got on Tumblr. And between the US politics and Destiel going canon, or somewhat canon, and everybody having the most cabin fever ever – just the memes were off the charts. The sort of 15 year mass catharsis that was being experienced all at once on Tumblr was unmatched. I mean, it was just the absolute fourth wall breaking, meltdown, excitement that was happening on that platform. I can’t quantify it. It was beautiful.

Cherokee: What a perfect way to put it. I think, yeah, as someone who is obviously not in the Supernatural fandom, but is a fan of the Supernatural fandom, I was obviously on Tumblr while this was happening. I knew the finale was that night. And our fandom blog went ...

Lauren: It was the third to last episode, not the finale.

Cherokee: Oh, it was the third to last episode. 

Lauren: Yep.

Cherokee: See, I’m over here on November 20th. Oh my gosh. I apologize for not realizing that it was the third to last episode where this happened. I genuinely, to this day, thought that was the finale. 

Lauren: Oh my gosh. That’s amazing.

Cherokee: Continuing with my lack of knowledge. But anyway, I have never seen my dash be so one topic’d and overtake everything else happening. It was just chaos. As someone who is not in the fandom, I have FOMO. I feel like I would have more fully experienced that if I had been ... ‘cause I didn’t even watch the episode. I just got the gifs and the kind of canon but not canon ... from my feed. And I feel like I kind of get what happened in that episode. Do they become canon in Purgatory? Is that ... they shared a little Purgatory kiss? Is that, or?

Lauren: Well ... (laughs) ... I mean, in fan fics, I’m sure.

Cherokee: (laughs)

Lauren: So, they go to Purgatory earlier in that season and they get separated in purgatory and Dean ends up praying to Cas to try and find him. And it’s like this very emotional ... like, he kneels down and is praying. And then later in the season Cas has made an agreement with the Empty, which is angel hell, that when he experiences a moment of true happiness he will be taken into the Empty, where he will live out the rest of his immortal life in an empty blank space, basically.

So, Cas tells Dean that he loves him and experiences a moment of true happiness and gets taken by the Empty. 

Cherokee: It makes sense. Yep, that makes complete sense. No, with the limited knowledge I have, that sounds right. Yeah.

Lauren: Yeah. Can I share with you my absolute favorite post? I still think these words to myself on the regular. This was an exchange that happened on Tumblr either on November 5th or in the days afterwards. But somebody ... it’s just a great series of responses. Somebody blogged:

“I can’t believe Castiel went to super hell to turn Georgia blue.”

And then because Georgia went for Joe Biden that same night. And then somebody responded with, “Please god, let me find these things out normally. I am begging you.” 

And then a third person responded with maybe my favorite thing that anybody’s said on Tumblr which is, “If you go to the circus for news, don’t complain if a clown tells it to you.” 

Cherokee: That is ... I want that on a shirt. I want it like as a cross stitch. That is so perfect. And I really like ... yeah, regretting. I am regretting my lack of action in the Supernatural community on this day. I would have really loved to be a part of the revolution and not just a viewer on the sidelines. 

Lauren: And you were there. You were witnessing the history as it was happening. Not everybody can say that. Some people weren’t even on Tumblr at all. 

Cherokee: I would say probably maybe most people.

Lauren: Yeah. 

Cherokee: Even though I did think it was the finale. 

Lauren: You did think it was the finale. That’s so funny. It can be your finale if you want it to be.

Cherokee: Exactly.

Lauren: This is the great thing about being a fan. It is what you make it. Throw canon out the window and do your thing.

Cherokee: Throw canon, make it fan-on.

Lauren: Speaking of fan-on versus canon. I have a quiz for you. 

[synth music]

Cherokee: Oh, I’m ready. Is it Supernatural related?

Lauren: Oh, it’s all Supernatural related. So, every episode, probably, Cherokee and I are going to do a game. And one of our main games is going to be fan fic versus fan fact. In which we quiz each other on essentially two truths and a lie situation. So, I’m going to ask Cherokee a question and there’s going to be three options. Two of them will be true and one of them will be a lie, and she has to guess which, as somebody who is not deeply entrenched in Supernatural. Are you ready?

Cherokee: Never been more ready. 

Lauren: Okay. So, the first question is:

Which of the following is not the title of a Supernatural episode?

A Very Supernatural Halloween

Everybody Loves A Clown

Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester.

Two of those are real, one of them is not an actual episode title. Let me know if you need them again.

Cherokee: Hmm. “C.”

Lauren: C. Are You There God? It’s Me, Dean Winchester?

Cherokee: Yeah. 

[buzzer]

Lauren: Wrong. That is a real episode title. 

Cherokee: Oh. I was like, “She’s gonna think I think it is an episode title, so it won’t be,” ‘cause my other thought was “B,” but is “B” also wrong? “B” is also wrong. Cool.

Lauren: This one was a little bit shady of me. Because ... So, the answer, too, which is not a title of a Supernatural episode is, “A Very Supernatural Halloween.” That is not a title of an episode. There is an episode titled, “A Very Supernatural Christmas.” So, it was a little bit tricky.

Cherokee: I got both my options wrong, which is on brand and wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. (laughs) 

Lauren: Perfect. Listen, we’ve got two more of these. So, you still have time to get two out of three. I believe in you.

Cherokee: I’m going to ace it. 

Lauren: (laughs) All right. The next one is:

Which of the following is not a character in Supernatural? 

The Easter Bunny

Misha Collins

Hitler

Which is not a character that appears in Supernatural? A character.

Cherokee: Okay, I know Misha Collins appears as himself at some point in Supernatural. 

Lauren: Because you did see that episode. 

Cherokee: Because I did see that episode. So, that’s eliminated. So, we’re between the Easter Bunny and Hitler. 

Lauren: Yep.

Cherokee: (laughs) I’m gonna go with Hitler did not appear in an episode. 

Lauren: So, I’m gonna give you half a point for this, because this is also a little bit shady. So, the Easter Bunny is not a character in Supernatural. There is a killer bunny at one point. But as far as I could find. And I have seen every episode of Supernatural, but you forget things. But I could not find that there was the Easter Bunny in an episode. But Hitler technically is a character in Supernatural. Because Dean kills Hitler and then he talks about how he killed Hitler a bunch in later episodes. Because it’s a cool thing to have killed Hitler. 

It is the soul of Hitler in somebody else’s body. So, technically nobody is dressed as Hitler in Supernatural. Thankfully. But, yes, that is a whole episode in which there is Nazi necromancers and Dean kills Hitler. So, that’s a half a point.

Cherokee: Good for Dean.

Lauren: Because the way you phrased your answer, he technically doesn’t appear, but he is a character. 

Cherokee: So, I found my way around it. Also-

Lauren: You did.

Cherokee: ... is there a Tumblr that has the log line for every single Supernatural episode? Because I’m gonna need to go to that. I’m sure IMDB-

Lauren: Ooh.

Cherokee: ... has it, but I want to stay organic.

Lauren: No, we want the fan perspective.

Cherokee: I want the fan written log line of each episode.

Lauren: Yes.

Cherokee: Another ... please, someone if you do it, let us know. 

Lauren: Please. All right. Final question:

Which is not a way that Dean Winchester has died?

Shot by a fellow hunter.

Crashing his beloved car, “Baby.”

Slipping in the shower.

Cherokee: “B” Crashing the car?

[chimes]

Lauren: You are correct.

Cherokee: Yes! Oh my gosh! Wow! 

Lauren: Although, now I’m actually second guessing myself.

Cherokee: (laughs) 

Lauren: As far as I know he was never driving Baby and crashed her and died. But now I’m remembering that I think he and his dad, John Winchester, were in the car, got into a car accident at the end of season one and he’s dead at the end of season two, and that’s the first time we see Reapers. Supernatural fans? Help me out here. It’s been a while since I’ve seen the early seasons. So, the internet may have steered me wrong on this. But that ... as far as I know, you got that answer right. So, 1.5 out of 3 points. Hell yes. 

Cherokee: 50%. A solid 50%. 

Lauren: All right. That ties up our Supernatural segment. How do you feel? Do you feel like you know Supernatural better now?

Cherokee: I am not gonna lie, I feel like I need to watch a lot more of Supernatural, because I can’t be this not in the know these days. I’ve got to get deeper. And so I feel motivated to go beyond being a fan of the fandom and become a member of the fandom. 

Lauren: I love that. And, hey, if you do, this is the place to talk about it. We can do a little sum up of your Supernatural journey. That could be very fun.

Cherokee: That would be fun. I’m in. I’ll start with season one, episode one. And just-

Lauren: Hell yes.

Cherokee: ... work my way. Hell yes. Purgatory yes. Super hell yes. Heaven yes. Empty yes. All of the yeses. 

Lauren: (laughs) I mean, in terms of fandom forecast, as we round out. I think you do have some Supernatural on your horizon, but what else are you looking at in the coming two weeks in between our episodes that you are excited for?

Cherokee: Hmm. Well, first off, I know I mentioned Thor: Love and Thunder, earlier in the episode, but I am so excited to see just ... it’s trending number three right now as we speak on July 8th. But it just came out today. So, I think for the next couple of weeks I feel like that is really gonna be just a big moment, kind of like the main thing being talked about and then also this is coming out on July 22nd, but the new Jordan Peel film.

Lauren: Jordan Peel movie. That’s right.

Cherokee: I’m so excited to see that. It’s one of those things where I have no idea what it’s about. And I cannot wait to find out.

Lauren: As we round out our episode this week, let’s end with Feels Corner.

[music]

What is giving you the feels right now? What is the thing that you are obsessing over that you are crying over the gifs, that you are reading the fic of, tell me your hyper fixation of the moment?

Cherokee: So, I have a very specific hyper fixation right now that I don’t know if it’s really broken onto Tumblr yet. I’ve seen some whisperings of it. But I just watched ... I have two more episodes left of The Bear on Hulu.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: Which is that show about the sandwich restaurant in Chicago. I will preface this by saying I’ve followed a lot of people who watch The Bear and the biggest piece of feedback is, “Excellent show, so inaccurate of sandwich shops. This would never be in this part of Chicago, and this part of Chicago is nothing like you’re seeing it is.” Kind of thing. Which is so funny because that is all the feedback I’m seeing. But even the people who are saying this are still loving the show. And I am unhealthily obsessed, maybe, with Carmine who is played by Jeremy Allen White. You may know him from Shameless.

Lauren: Oh yeah.

Cherokee: The show is excellent and very well done. Ayo Edebiri is in it. Super, it’s really well done. I am watching it for one reason and one reason alone and that is thirst. (laughs)

Lauren: (laughs) And we respect that here on Dashboard Diaries. I totally get that. He’s got a real certain something about him. He really doe. 

Cherokee: [inaudible 00:48:53] energy. It’s really powerful. (laughs)

Lauren: (laughs) That’s totally it. Oh my gosh. 

Cherokee: It’s visceral. Not to get too horny on ‘mine here. (laughs)

Lauren: That’s amazing and you have two episodes left.

Cherokee: I have two episodes. So, I hold out for finales. I don’t watch them right away for some reason. I get close to the end of something and I put off ... I watched Stranger Things, Part Four, Part Two, days after it came out. I don’t know what it is, I just need that ... it lasts longer that way. But I have two episodes left and I will probably watch them this evening, this weekend. I’m excited to see what happens. It’s mostly just like, it’s really well shot and very stressful of a show. It’s kitchen intensity.

Lauren: Yeah.

Cherokee: But just him making beef sandwiches. Into it. I’ve never had a beef sandwich in my life, but I would ... I would do it for Carmine. Oh, so what are you obsessing over at the moment?

Lauren: Speaking of stressful shows, last night I watched this week’s episode of For All Mankind, the Apple TV show. And it’s so funny, because it’s a show that I don’t necessarily actually engage in the fandom of, or I haven’t yet. And it’s a show that’s sort of between seasons, I didn’t think all that much about. And then when it’s on and I’m watching it, it’s one of my favorite viewing experiences. It’s this alternate history of 1960s through 1990s America, NASA specifically in the space race, if we have way more advanced technology basically. 

It is so incredibly stressful and I love it. Like, every episode I am clutching my face. I am moving around on the couch, total frenetic energy because I am so nervous about what’s happening on screen. And it’s the most fun I’ve had watching a TV show and being stressed by a TV show simultaneously ... well, since Barry. So, not that long. But it’s the same kind of thing where it’s like, “Oh, I can’t look. I have to look. I can’t look. I have to look. I’m loving this so much. I wanna die.”

Cherokee: What a great endorsement. I have to watch this show now. I love a show about space. I have seen it and just haven’t gotten started for no specific reason. But everyone I talk to who watches it just vehemently recommends it. 

Lauren: It is so good. And if you all listening have feels that you wanna share in our Feels Corner, go ahead and send a voice memo talking about, 30 seconds or less, the thing that you are obsessing over right now to dashboarddiariespod@gmail.com. We wanna hear from you and we might put it on the show. 

Cherokee: I can’t wait to hear the feels. I hope some of them are for our boy Carmine from The Bear. 

Lauren: (laughs)

Cherokee: Come on. Come on, Bear cubs ... I don’t know, what’s the fandom called?

Lauren: Oh, that’s cute. Bear cubs is cute.

Cherokee: Yeah, I like it. 

Lauren: I feel like you just named the fandom. 

Cherokee: All right, Bear cubs. Let’s rock and roll. (laughs) Bear subs. 

Lauren: Oh, that has layers of meaning.

Cherokee: Oh, there’s too many layers there. (laughs)

[crosstalk 00:52:06]

Took a moment to click, but yeah. 

Lauren: And with that, as we say this week and every week, may your anons always be loving. 

Cherokee: Your dash always refreshed.

Lauren: Your gifs always be loading.

Cherokee: And your ships always canon. 

Lauren: May the fics you’re reading always be finished.

Cherokee: And the answers you seek always in the tags.

Lauren: And we’ll see you next time, or in super hell, this has been Dashboard Diaries.

Cherokee: Thanks for signing on. 

[outro synth music]

[mostlymaudlin]

self-recs 💫

prompt was: post your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. thank you @urban-sith @nightimedreamersworld @you-remind-me-of-the-babe for tagging me! i feel like im late so idk who has done this already but i tag @starwarned @seducing-a-vampire @otherpeoplesheartachept-2 @prettylightsbigcity @sillyunicorn

i'm only gonna do snowbaz, and also these are just in order of how recent they are bc i dont know how to rank them lol

1. Something's Gotta Give Now (T), 7k

this is my most recent snowbaz fic and i really really liked writing it. it's an au, and i don't really want to give too much away because part of what i like about this fic is the way the backstory unravels. but the gist is: baz plays a sexy, angsty vampire on a popular tv show, and simon is very bitter and very funny about it.

i did this after not writing snowbaz for a while, so i feel like i was able to return to the characters with fresh eyes and some broken bad habits. the third person is nice too -- i definitely write more cleanly in third. it's definitely not crack (which was my original intention lmfao, it's technically my crackfest entry), but im not really mad about it. i gave up on my ability to not to take it seriously about 500 words in. also, there's a second chapter that it just unhinged shit lmfao.

2. The Places We Build (T), 4k

this fic plays with the idea of: what if simon and baz decided in their first year at watford that they didn't want to hate each other? what if everything was the same, except nothing was the same, because they were friends? i like it because i feel like it has a strong heartbeat. i love to see how much of a world i can create in the least amount of words, and there's a looooot of history packed into these 4k words. very tender. very cuddly :)

3. love means slowly using losing your mind (E), 8k

this one was so fun to write. another au -- baz is a wedding planner, simon is penny/sheps best man (yes, both of them). it's loosely based on THAT scene from the movie 27 Dresses (iykyk) but it stands on its own. i like how i leaned into the setting here -- it feels like a very accessible world to me, like you could close your eyes and see the pub. and also i really just like to put my blorbos in a situation where they get drunk and have fun hahaha. as always, shit gets kind of real and snowbaz are their usual intense selves. also there's awkward car sex, which was hilarious to write.

4. Jump Up, Chosen One! (T), 8k

dude. what the FUCK was i on here..... this is perhaps the most plot-driven thing i've ever written, while also being one of the WEIRDEST things ive ever written. the premise is: simon goes off, trapping him, niall, dev, and baz in a Super Mario Bros game. and like. it's silly, yeah. but when i read back through im always like -- oh, ok, there's a lot of heart in this! good job rory! more reasons to love: lots of fun niall & dev screen time, simon solving problems thru the power of Being Determined, a tender moment that i interrupt several times by reminding you that simon and baz do indeed look like mario characters, penny solving problems thru the power of Being Clever, and a surprise tonal shift at the end lmfao. idk man. there's a lot going on here and i think it's p sweet.

5. In black ink my love may still shine bright (M), 5k

even though i hate that i used a fuckin long ass shakespeare quote as a title (lmao. like it fits and i love that sonnet but still. tacky !), this fic is great. @starwarned and i talk a lot about the power of The Slutty M-Rated Fic, and this is my best work in that regard. post-awtwb, date night -- they get ice cream and go to a bar and... shenanigans ensue. it's sweet and happy and nothing bad happens. NICE. the e-rated sequel is the first smut i ever wrote. i was so nervous about it. look at me now.... our resident blood slut LMAO.

honorable mentions, because im a dirty cheater. these probably belong in top 5 but ive been talking about them already recently so i didnt want to be repetitive.

closer to the sun (E), 6k: simpard taken seriously. investigations and road trips and finding purpose and... dragon-fucking.

Nothing Equals The Splendor (T), 52k: my longest fic! gbbo au. a labor of love.

[theminecraftbee]

i am on my knees and holding your hands in my own shaking ones and im trying to kiss ur knuckles but i cant see shit through the tears. im so happy. im so so happy im gonna be freaking out for literally months. you dont Know how happy i am theres literally no way to describe this happiness god. god. good god god god i love you i love your work. your thoughts. black box has my whole heart you don't get it im gonna cry. fuck

also i would love to know why its never getting finished if u dont mind talking abt it. which u dont cause u alluded to asking abt it in the tags but yk.

augdhsgdjdhr

i am so glad you are happy. honestly a bit worth it to post the scary unfinished thing to post for the fact that a few people are happy about it (and getting to hear a few friends ramble at me about it one last time, hahaha.)

as for why i won't finish it... the easy answer is "sometimes i just stall out on writing/doing something and often when that happens i cannot get the machine to start again". however there are also several like... concrete reasons. reasons i'm going to put under the cut with a warning of "there are a few fandom salt-y things that are happening here so if you don't want to see that, look away".

so the easiest to identify reason this won't be long? yeah it'd have to be WAY longer than black box. you saw how glacial the early pacing is, and there was still a lot i needed to get through. the length started getting daunting and like... that chilled me a bit on writing it, especially as i started getting distracted by other things.

the next reason is... hm. i don't know if i like how it plays next to the actual prison arc. something something, i played it dead straight and dark in ways that the actual prison arc did not... which is wild, given that the prison arc is one of the darkest arcs of the dsmp. but you know, somehow i did. and i knew i was doing it when i wrote it! i knew it would be way darker than the dsmp itself would actually play! but at the same time, the combination of "i am taking this really seriously" and "but the character who was actually in the prison is the villain of this fic" makes it all play... weirdly. it's weird. i have mixed emotions.

i have mixed emotions about some of my writing too that i won't get into just know "i like parts a lot i don't like parts a lot". i will say that i am still the only person who can write techno's chat even reading this now,

but also... honestly? the tommy stuff.

so i like c!tommy. i also like c!techno. i am aware black box is mostly popular with techno enjoyers. i know tommy is not currently well-liked by a lot of techno enjoyers. i know i couldn't write some of techno and tommy's relationship here - ESPECIALLY the argument they have when tommy leaves, in which both of them are meant to be wrong to some extent - without having a few people yell at me for it. and like... maybe no one would have yelled at me. lord knows that my fears of people yelling at me for daring to put character death in stuffed bird have not come to pass. but at the same time... the way the fandom acts around tommy and techno is exhausting.

and the only way to rectify that would have been to gut something kinda core to what i was writing, which is to say, that everyone's messy, fucked-up relationships as a result of what had happened were core and tommy and techno's was one of them. and that their relationship is messy. and neither of them are wrong, they're just messy, a thing that i don't trust people to like, get. so that... soured me on writing it, a little bit.

(god i wish c!techno wasn't the single biggest lynchpin of controversy on the dsmp. god i wish that my funny little blorbo was someone i could talk about in this fandom without it becoming a lightningrod of. whatever the hell techno discourse has become at this point. alas. ...you may be getting a sense for why i'm not super interested in the dsmp anymore, alongside the fact that i flat out do not believe them when they say they're going to do things anymore.)

uh, other than that, some of the other ones include "i disagree with what wilbur did with ghostbur and was going to just ignore that and am still just going to ignore that into the future, but that was important", "sbi in general is sure a thing", "i have some mixed emotions about the fact that parts of the ending of this universe arguably end up better than the dsmp does given the catalyst for it", and "canon after i started writing suggests ranboo should be somewhere but hell if i know where".

anyway that's all probably STILL secondary to "this thing would probably need at least another 30k words and that's probably what ultimately stalled me out in the end, glacial pacing and the needed length". but as you can see, there are also... other things.

ultimately i did end up taking your anon suggestion, i think sharing what i had was a good idea and i'm glad people liked it (and seem to like what i was planning on doing with it), even if i can't really bring myself to finish writing it anymore! so that's good.

(finally, disclaimer: please don't use this to bounce off and ask me any dsmp discourse-y questions, because i just won't answer them on this blog. lol. i just figured i could give this answer and explain a bit of where my dsmp stuff went.)

[ser-rctslcyer]

NO SAY YOUR DRAGON PIECE I WANNA HEAR

AAAAAAA!!! I REALLY WAS JUST GONNA GET SAPPY FOR A MOMENT IS ALL BUT FUCK IT NOW IM GOING!!!!

truly didn't think anyone wanted to see my bullshitting in the tags but uh here we go

LONG POST AHEAD (SPIN WENT FUCKING BRRR)

[below the cut is me being very sappy about my love for dragons]

Intro 

Okay so I know you might mean about got/hotd (and i will get there) but I very much adore dragons and just need to scream about them for a sec.

Ever since I was little, I always had a huge affinity for dragons. I don't know what exactly drew me in but it probably had something to do with their amazing designs, colors, and personalities they got to have. I own like several different dragon books (4-7) because that's how obsessed I was as a kid. I wanted to know anything and everything about them, not realizing dragons have such a vast lore and change between depictions-- but little me did not give a fucking shit. I collected a book that went through like the basic overview of dragons, I got another book (drawing book) that went through different types of dragons, and a few more that I can't remember off the top of my head. Anything remotely dragon related I wanted because I was that kid. Not to mention the vast amount of drawings and writings I did about dragons. I made oc dragons, backstories, came up with a different language — I’m pretty sure I even talked about dragons in my school work. I was obsessed man (still am).

Now I watched a lot of different shows/movies/games even that had some dragon in it-- and it would instantly become my favorite thing from it. So obliviously , I grew attachments to a lot of them but here a just a handful who mean the most to me, the dragon kid--

Mulan - Mushu

I will never not love this funky lil man, okay? Like who the fuck doesn’t want a little pocket sized dragon to follow you around?

He's giddy, exuberant, and most importantly funny. Honestly, why I probably love Mulan so much is for him alone. I know I wished, for like the longest time, to have a lil dragon who would follow me around everywhere/talk to me— that was the dream for me. Although the boosts himself up to sound all big and bad dragon, he really comes across as friendly which I enjoyed a lot. He’s comedic but in the end proves that’s he’s truly has a big heart. Most book depreciations I had read had always either made the dragon big and scary or like all-knowing and untouchable. For me, as a kid, Mushu was a little hilarious red dragon that could keep me company, give me advice (albeit maybe a little bad), or just chill in my company. He was the almost ideal dragon in my brain I wanted to bond with and take on grand adventures.

Spirited Away - Haku/Kohaku

Now, I preface this with I have Spirited Away in DVD— and would put that disk in religiously; that was my movie.

I love Spirited Away (one of the first anime movies I ever watched) for all the incredible character designs and to the sheer magnitude of the fantastical setting it take places. As a kid, I wanted to explore those strange worlds between and see all different types of people, creatures and just experience fantasy. Like, yeah is it pretty fucked up watching your parents turn into pigs-- but holy shit, yall see No-Face???? My fucking beloved right there; I adored them immediately when I watched that movie. like their design, although “basic” is very fucking cool and they’re such an amazing fucking character, even without having to say much. Absorbing creatures and using their voices to speak but also gaining their personality-- there is so many layers to No-Face, it’s impossible not be intrigued and infatuated with them. (

I say all this  (not cause i was drawn off subject) to say--

Of course was also drawn to Haku. Yes, kid me had a big fucking crush on him(i mean truly who didn’t have a crush on hm bro); he fits my lovely lil blorbo niche perfectly. The stoic yet observant character was very interesting to me and I wanted to know more about him upon immediately seeing him. Then there was his dragon form, which is one of my favorites till this day; the white and green fur is iconic. He’s a bit more feral in that form but he’s not feral for no reason. His name has been stolen from him, forgotten so he acts accordingly; untrusting, aloof, and callous until Chihiro saves him from Yubaba’s control. Once gets his real name again, he’s free again and he does what he is meant to do. The reveal of him being a river spirit, and the way in which his dragon moves, smooth and flowing like water-- it’s simply perfect!!! 

HTTYD - Toothless

Now I wasn’t the biggest biggest fan of How To Train Your Dragon (I say having seen the 2nd movie in theater), I did enjoy the seeing all the varied types of dragons in the show, especially Toothless. First off, Night Fury is a hard name for a species of dragon. The concept of a disabled dragon was something I’ve never seen before, and it was very cool to see a dragon adapt to having an artificial limb. Then there was also the retractable teeth, which I thought was fucking cool too. Toothless’s curious, cat-like, personality was very nice to see and I enjoy the little goober. 

Hobbit Trilogy - Smaug

I know The Hobbit  trilogy gets a lot of shit but I can’t help but to like it for a bunch of different reasons. One of those being Smaug. Look I know every other dragon on this list has been actually either sweet or they’re not really mean but I just had to like this motherfucker. 

Foremost I absolutely adore his design, I think he also has another great and amazing dragon design. The sheer eyes scene at the end of ‘An Unexpected Journey”, had lil ol kid me wiggling in my fucking seat. He’s so fucking big (even though he’s one of the smaller ones in the universe) and seeing how easily he tore about Laketown in meer seconds was terrifying-- but also super cool. His look and movements are very fucking creepy too. The way he shifts around when talking to Bilbo when he first discovers him, it’s very clear it is a predator stalking his prey. He knows he’s intimidating and uses that to his advantage; keeping his movements slow so his “victims” can get the idea that he is this massive, undefeatable being. He’s proper and respectable, his ego and pride getting the best of him because he knows there’s nothing they can do to hurt him; they can’t possibly kill him. Then when he’s finally angered, his stature changes and he begins using his body like the weapon it’s designed to be. He’s agitated and swats with his tail and tries biting a whole lot more because at this point he doesn’t give a fuck. 

Smaug is such a douche of a dragon too, he embodies the typical dragon instincts (wanting his big ol pile of dwarf gold) whilst being a snarky bitch about it. He’s both archetypes of dragons in one, all knowing and an asshole, who doesn’t care who the fuck he’s got to hurt to get to his fucking gold. He toys with Bilbo, simultaneously warning him of Thorin’s downfall but also making him fear the things to come. Then when he finally sees Thorin again, he eggs him on-- knowing how easily he gets under his skin, knowing that really he can’t do anything to hurt him; he does the same thing with Bard. He uses his words to pick and pry at people’s head because he’s got a superiority complex; he is a high being, why should he listen to anyone else? I love how strong his ego was, how much he really gave no shit about anyone else and how even visceral his death was-- like watching a flame finally die out. 

GOT/HOTD - Rhaegal, Viserion, Drogon, Syrax, Caraxes (spoilers btw)

What you’ve all been waiting for!!! So funnily enough, I did come into the GOT scene pretty late (around s6-ish) and I really enjoyed lots of things about the series-- especially the dragons. 

I adore the design of these boys so much-- they huge, different colors, spiky and look like they can (and very much will) turn your ass to dust. But at the same time we can see their thoughts and emotions through their eyes, how they process the words from Dany or the emotions from others. I truly think they have a level of empathy, besides with Dany, and their little softening expressions as they recognize those emotions and then go about doing their dragon business. 

The depiction of dragons in GOT is really one of my favorite, because just like humans they have bonds, whether it’s between their rider or even each other. Rhaegal, Viserion, and Drogon being Dany’s children was so sweet to me because even through the struggles they recognized her as their rider, their mother and wanted to protect her and they also see each other as family. They’re a unit! It did hurt badly seeing their reactions to Viserion’s death and then Drogon’s was painful because their own little family fell right a part through their fingers. We see how badly Dany takes it but also Drogon who loses his brother’s and his mother in the process. He’s hurting just as bad but there is no comfort as he still wants to follow his mom to the end, and there’s no sympathies for him from anyone. I like to think him burning the throne was a way for him to process his ever growing grief, destroying the thing that had destroyed the only family he had ever known. 

Okay so with HOTD I am very happy to see dragons back again, like bro I missed them so much.

I love the relationship that Syrax and Rhaenyra have, it’s so sweet and perfectly mimics how Dany was with her children. It’s very clear the dedication the two of them have between each other and she easily picks up on Rhaenyra’s emotions. I love Syrax’s color, although there is something about her face shape that I don’t really like, she’s a beautiful dragon. 

Then there’s Caraxes (i apologize for the bias that is about to come out). I fucking adore Caraxes, his design is literally everything, like god he’s so fucking badass. The blood red color, the horns; truly a magnificent dragon indeed. I read somewhere that he’s deformed which is why the way he looks like how he does and also sound like that and I still think its amazing. He works with his elongated body, using his long neck like he’s a snake. He’s so fucking beautiful, I adore him. 

It’s very clear he’s got the same strong bond with Daemon and he’s clearly very protective of him. Perhaps they bond in a way because they both feel out of place in the family (dragon lineage for Caraxes) because they’re so different from everyone else. 

In conclusion - i think got/hotd dragons and their riders should go off  and chill on beaches and be happy because they deserve it. 

Closing

Now if you made it this far (or just scrolled all the way down), I congratulate you; you made it through me losing my entire fucking mind. Truly I haven’t had a big time to talk about dragons like this in a while or in such detail and if you read I hope you enjoyed my thoughts. There are so many cool and interesting things about these creatures and I always and happy to see all different sorts of approaches to them. Anyways ramble over.

[multi-lefaiye]

happy blorbo blursday! can i hear abt the witch character from ur new wip both of which ive forgotten the names of? i remember smth w/ addison but i think its not that–

also in regards to ur tags on the hypno post, i would literally die (/pos) if you were to draw him

happy blorbo blursday to you as well!!

fuck yeah fuck yeah!!!!! i would love to talk about them <3 also you are correct the witch's name is addison!!!! :> the wip itself uh. still needs a new name. but the tag is blackwell and linwood because that was the original name.

(also looks like i'm gonna have to try and draw hypno sometime soon ASDFJKL;)

but YES my darling addison... addison is actually one of my oldest ocs that i still use today!!! i created them in like.... 2016... wrow.....

anyway addison wasn't originally made for any wip specifically, but then one day i had a brain blast and decided to make a specific wip for them.

so uhhh addison! yes! i need to brush up a little on my research but one thing that i think is kinda neat with addison is that they are... incredibly casual about their witchcraft. what exactly do i mean by that? WELL!!!

essentially they just. they don't take it super seriously. a lot of the other witches they know are really uptight and insist everything has to be done Very Properly, meanwhile addison's like "fuck it lol if it works it works lol this isn't rocket science."

also addison very much does unethical and dangerous magic just for fun and to see if they can do it. their honestly really blase approach to magic might come off as laziness, but really it's a matter of the fact that addison is just. so fucking confident in their own abilities that they know they can do it without following the rules exactly.

plus, addison's more casual approach to magic actually gives them a lot of freedom in how they use it--unlike other witches they know, for example, addison can actually use magic in combat if they have enough prep time. it also has,,, some downsides, unfortunately,,,,,,,, addison's magic use has an effect on them that they're not completely aware of yet at the time of the story :3c

maybe at some point i'll explain more how magic n' such works for this 'verse but sadjfkl; yeah <3

oh and last thing. a picrew of addison. my darling.

[Image Description: A picrew of a character named Addison, who has dark skin and dark hair pulled back into a ponytail. Addison is smirking at the viewer with one eyebrow arched. They have a distinctive mole on their right cheek and dark shadows under their eyes. Addison wears crescent moon earrings, a black skull choker, and a purple sweater. behind Addison are the bisexual and non-binary flags. End ID.]

[dreadfutures]

I realize that likely this post is about an artist who draws character A and character B interacting platonically and says "don't tag it as a x b ship" because they're squicked out about that ship, and in true fandom style goes ballistic when they see a squicky ship and get very very upset when someone tags their art to recontectualize it as shippy when it wasn't intended to be. and that's right, you can't control that (I don't think it's wrong to *request* that it not happen! lol cmon, we can request decency from each other.)

This post would mean a little more if 90% of the time I saw "don't tag as a x b" on someone's art, it wasn't MOSTLY about people tagging art purposefully as the wrong fandom. It's to combat the "oh, I'm gonna say that this vaguely blond person and this brunette person in this art piece by OP look exactly like the main characters I ship from (completely unrelated media)" (I AM LOOKING AT YOU CRITICAL ROLE FANDOM) and the characters do not, in fact, actually look like those characters. It's *at best* the cringe equivalent of your relatives going "oh, you draw anime?" at *any* art style you might do, a testament to the fact that people doing the tagging are like idk face blind and genuinely can't tell the difference between people/characters who don't look alike at all lol. But it usually isn't a genuine mistake, it's a willful mislabeling and it makes me as the OP/artist feel like shit about my abilities to depict distinct characters. do all my characters look exactly like Generic Blond #5? do I have sameface syndrome?

Sure, we can't control if I draw, say, Cassandra and my Lavellan together, being misconstrued as shippy art. That's really annoying to see in the tags if it wasn't intended or if it becomes a flood of that tag in my notes, but yes I can't control that. Going after somene for tagging that is a futile effort.

But a majority of the time it's people from an unrelated fandom tagging an art piece as their ship because of the absolute vaguest resemblance, and that does offend and hurt a bit.

Sure yeah you can't control it, still. You gotta learn to live with the shit people say in your tags. But again! it's not crazy to ask them not to, or to be personally annoyed when they do 🤷‍♀️

And I do think it's crossing a boundary when someone tags art of my OC x Canon ship with their OC, when it's not their oc; it's mine. People steal OCs and co-opt their imagery and characters all the time. It often ignores or absolutely stomps on really personal details that we've put into the visual development of our characters, and it feels really nasty for someone to be projecting themselves all over my custom character. It's not a matter of recontectualization, it's very very very often a repossession 😔 You can make your own, thanks, instead of coopting mine. The most innocent take would again be that they think my art is so generic in appearance they can happily imagine that it's their blorbo.

And all of this would be better if tags didn't show up in our notes, if tags weren't something that we pay attention to bc that's where a lot of people leave their compliments and conversations here. If we didn't have to *know* that people were projecting onto custom art then it wouldn't matter nearly as much.

So yes sure you could move to a platform with no reblogging and tagging (lmfao tho, what alternatives are there now, helpful op?)

But the tone of these kinds of posts make it sound like it's insane, selfish, pathetic, and irrational for someone to ask that their art not be tagged as something it's not. We can request that of each other, can't we? And I am fairly certain that for every 100 artists who tag their art as "don't tag as a x b" only a handful of them are the kind to do it for squicky reasons or to take it to an extreme.

Can we not paint all of these feelings with the same brush? lol

How do you feel about people telling others ‘don’t tag as x ship’ about their posts? It seems genuinely unhinged to me but a lot of people on here do it.

They do know someone tagging a post on their own blog as a ship name isn’t crossing a boundary right? I need to understand why this is a thing. People act like someone shipping something they don’t and using the tag on someone’s post is an actual offensive thing or a crime.

--

I think if a person really cares about that, they need to get off of tumblr and onto a platform with no reblogging/retweeting.

"Don't recontextualize my art" (gifs/words/whatever) is an emotion one can understand, but there's no point in trying to make it into an actual rule. Nobody has ever won that battle.