#just thinking about the engagement on my art blog again | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

Visit Blog

Explore Tumblr blogs with no restrictions, modern design and the best experience.

Fun Fact

70% of Tumblr users say the Dashboard is their favorite place to spend time online.

#just thinking about the engagement on my art blog again

drtanner · 3 months

Text

You know, I think I'm starting to understand why the sharing culture on this site is such dogshit now.

As I mentioned earlier in the week, I spent several solid hours going through my art and writing tags as far back as 2012 and manually deleting everything I found, including all of my own reblogs, because I don't expect my opt out from having my blogs' data scraped to be honoured, and seeing the difference in the way people interacted with my work back then and the way they interact with it now (or the way they don't interact with it at all, more specifically) was deeply and tragically enlightening.

tl;dr, despite having had a fraction of the followers back then that I have now, as well as being an objectively better artist and writer than I used to be 10+ years ago, my work travelled further and people engaged with it more, and they also sent me asks with drabble prompts and questions about my OCs all the time, whereas none of that happens at all anymore. This place was a lot more communal back in that pre-2016 era and generally a lot more rewarding and fun.

There's been plenty of posts going around over the last few years begging people to reblog because that's how this site works, but every one of those posts always winds up lousy with people saying they just click "Like" on things because they like them but not enough to put them on their own blog, or because they don't want to clutter their blog, or because tagging things is too much effort or whatever, and I'm noticing a pattern. There's something that all of these common responses have in common:

All of these people are wholly concerned with themselves and the way their blog looks, or what their blog is supposed to be for, or some other similarly entirely self-centred point of focus.

Listen. Other people have already tried to explain to you that that's not what this place is about or what this place is for or that you can make as many sideblogs as you want if you're trying to curate something specific, and they've had little success in emparting understanding to you, so I'm going to try a different approach.

Here are ten (10) benefits of reblogging that will make this site more fun and engaging for you, personally! ( b ._.)b

You get to keep the thing for yourself, but you also get to pass it along for other people to play with, too! Best of all worlds. How often do you get to keep a thing and share it?

Look in your Activity after you reblog something you enjoy to find other people who like the same things that you do! This is a terrific way to find new people to follow.

Sometimes you'll make a comment when you reblog something and later find that an awful lot of strangers are reblogging it from you directly for some reason. This is usually because someone else later down the line made a much stupider and worse comment and those strangers are now all clicking on your reblog so that they can reblog the post without that other person's stupider and worse comment on it. I like it a lot when this happens. You can get a lot of new followers this way, too!

Even if you don't have the time or spoons to play with jpegs like dolls yourself, your reblog can put the post in front of those folks who do. Playing with jpegs like dolls is half of what makes this site function; give it a bit of time, and the jpegs will cross your dash again with new additions. As it is with anything you love, set it free, and the love will come back to you one hundredfold. 💜

Look in your Activity after reblogging some art or writing to see people going nuts in the tags. You can also go nuts in the tags if you want; everyone loves seeing this when it happens, especially the artist or writer themselves.

Commenting with your reblog is like raising your hand to share your opinion with the whole room, whereas reblogging with your comment in the tags is more like whispering to the person next to you and keeping it between yourselves. Contrary to what you might have been told by others, both are perfectly fine and good and they each have their place. You can do both on the same reblog, even! Take part in the conversation!

If you're too shy to talk, reblogging without commentary is a lot like parallel play. You're all enjoying the same thing quietly together!

When you reblog things a lot, you'll start to see the same people popping up in your Activity feed all the time. These people are your friends whether you actually talk to them or not.

Stuck for something to say? Point out something you liked about the post! It can be something small! Acknowledging things that make you happy out loud is good for your mental health and also your soul.

Reblogging also invites other people who are doing all of these things to find and follow you!

There's so much to do on here beyond checking your dash and occasionally looking at the For You tab. You can discover all kinds of people and things by making a bit of an effort and having a poke around in your Activity feed and on the blogs of people who interact with the posts you're seeing and passing along! I promise you don't need an algorithm to do this for you; the action of exploring the landscape around you on this website is fun in its own right!

Get out there and see who your neighbours are. 💜

#Tanner talks #long post

258 notes · View notes

cryptotheism · 1 year

Note

here this explains it better than my last anon https://princessnijireiki.tumblr.com/post/685619095309303808/what-happened-w-the-staff-wrt-scortched-earth

Okay let's break this down this posts and its claims. I'm gonna preface this by saying that I'm only going off what this post is providing, and interpreting it personally. None of this is meant to be some sort of objective fact.

1) being a fan of Harry Potter does not make someone a TERF.

2) Ship art does not make someone a TERF. This is irrelevant information. Enjoying an anime, even a questionable one, does not make someone a TERF.

3) Accusations of ship art with preschoolers is a HUGE accusation, backed up with no links, no evidence. The onus of proof is on the accuser, and I think it's reasonable for me to not go scouring this staff members blog to confirm or deny a single users unsupported claims of problematic ship art that has nothing to do with the core accusation of terfdom.

1) entirely secondhand hearsay. One person claiming to see something is not evidence. Random people can claim whatever they want.

2) who fucking cares if staff engages in fandom circles. That's not relevant to any of the accusations.

Again. Nothing to do with terfdom. So far this entire argument hinges on the claim that this staff member liking Harry Potter is conclusive proof that they're a TERF, which it is not. Is liking Harry Potter cringe? Yes absolutely. Does it mean you're a TERF? No.

Tumblr has a small moderation team. As someone who has personally had my blog banned and then subsequently gone through the appeals process, it is clearly an imperfect system that begets slow responses and lackluster mass action. There are reasonable reasons that staff response on even infamous blogs could be lackluster, especially when compared to direct and personal accusations of interacting with pedophilic material.

As a transfem person who has personally been the target of bad-faith pedophilia accusations from actual neo-nazis in the past. I cannot stress how deeply and powerfully irresponsible it is to make an accusation like this without thorough sourcing.

TERFs are banned all the time. Y'all just don't keep up with TERF circles because you're reasonable people. The idea that staff doesn't ban TERFs is untrue.

The only actual data point this entire post has is "a staff member was possibly into Harry Potter, and then reacted dramatically when people implied they were a pedophile." And that is FAR from conclusive proof that someone is a TERF.

I am saying this as a transfem person who has actively been targeted by TERFs, this is conspiracy thought, and you're not actually helping trans people by harassing a staff member with unsourced claims about their potentially cringeworthy media choices. Because let me be crystal fucking clear here: yes liking Harry Potter is cringe. If I could turn every TERF on the planet into a non-terf who was overly-attatched to Harry Potter, I would do so in a fucking second. The two things are not comparable.

1K notes · View notes

isahorcrux · 1 year

Text

In light of the recent announcement of the Harry Potter TV Show and the fact that this is primarily a Harry Potter fan fiction blog, the below needs to be said.

I am not excited about this show.

If you told my past self 5 years ago this, I’d be shocked. Five years ago, if they announced a Harry Potter TV show I’d be doing everything in my power to be involved some way or another. However, in the last five years JKR has shown her true colors and spent her free time and money attacking the trans community. There are many reasons why I’m not excited about the show or looking forward to it in any regard, but to me the most important is that this show gives JKR more money and cultural capital to further her anti-trans agenda. This is unacceptable.

I think a lot of us raised on Harry Potter really wanted to separate the art from the artist, dive further into fanfic and fandom and just ignore that the woman who created a world in which we’ve spent most of our lives escaping into. However, we can’t do that. It’s come to my attention over the past few days that a lot of people aren’t even aware of the active harm JKR is doing to the trans community. Most people just say, ‘oh she said some weird stuff on twitter’ right?

Well, yeah. But, did you also know she launched an active campaign against a reform bill that made it easier for trans people to legally change gender? You know what happened? The UK blocked that Bill and Scotland now has to launch a legal challenge to the government block. She’s also funding a Sex Abuse Crisis Center that excludes trans women. Yeah, that’s right. She’s using her money from a book about love and acceptance to actively exclude a marginalized group from a crisis center. She’s also publicly admitted via twitter that she funds anti-LGBTQ political activity in the UK.

So yeah, there’s a direct line of fans supporting official trademarked Harry Potter anything and that money directly harming transpeople. Sorry for that rude awakening, but some of y’all are doing backflips to avoid seeing this.

Now, is there a way to prevent Warner Brothers (and Max, lol) from making this show? Probably not? After mergers and at a point when the tv and film industry isn’t booming, they need money. You know what makes money? Harry Potter. Which is why they’re rebooting it. Another question that’s been raised, will the looming writer’s strike affect this? I would guess probably not? Most UK writers (and International writers at large) are not in the WGA. JKR has always wanted the most amount of British people involved in Harry Potter adaptations, so they’ll use the strike to find a UK writer and get them to work.

So what can we do?

Don’t watch the show. Or, if you do. Pirate it. In fact, cancel your Max subscription before the show launches.

They’re going to spend A LOT of money on this. If the numbers aren’t there for them they will do what every other streamer does with an unsuccessful show and cancel it. They announced 5 Fantastic Beast movies, and yet...where’s that last one?

Anyway, thanks for reading this whole thing if you’ve gotten this far. Please share with friends who are excited about the show. Please engage in meaningful discussions with other Potter fans. Please support our trans friends and strangers.

Once again, this blog says FUCK JKR.

#harry potter #I don't know if I'm supposed to censor her name or not but tumblr's not like twitter so I don't think I have to ?#idk let me know #my asks are open for meaningful discussion #but any anti trans retoric will be deleted and blogs will be blocked #I know I spelled retoric wrong but it's too late now #trans rights are human rights

914 notes · View notes

nicollekidman · 29 days

Note

i was not the anon who asked about a gaylor safe space but i AM unfamiliar with your lore and have now been made curious, is there a spark notes version

oh um hm. hmm. original fan (owned self titled on cd), red was the soundtrack to my freshman year of college and 1989 was my junior year at nyu so yknow i was in the trenches, reputation era i was a Certified Popular Taylor Blog(tm) (rip) which means like. i was getting FOUL anonymous messages every single day from rock star trolls but i was also getting intel from at least three people i know were legit, im 91% positive at one point (however brief) she was keeping up with my blog directly, i got interviewed by jezebel after karlie got engaged 🤪, then lover was still kind of in a boom period and then folklore/evermore dropped and i was dating a big swiftie at the time so we talked about her for like hours every day….. now im just kind of trying to be a normal rational adult woman who has loved her nearly my whole life but also isn’t a bootlicker. i think she’s gay but i also don’t think it will ever matter in a material way because the odds she ever comes out or ever makes genuine art again is feeling slimmer by the day and that’s fine. besties is that a good Summary djdjdjcjcn

#she’s my wife and i’m never getting a divorce (horror story)#taylor swift

72 notes · View notes

kerubimcrepin · 25 days

Text

Dofus: The Production - what is left of the old movie

Originally, the movie was supposed to tie in with the game and the Welsh & Shedar series, and be a trilogy.

As we had already explored on this blog, this did not happen for a variety of reasons.

Welsh and Shedar got cannibalized by other projects due to its cancellation, and the script of the movie "Dofus Book 1: Joris Jurgen" had to be completely rewritten from its old plot;

In that movie, Joris was likely supposed to be a street urchin, who survived together with Lilotte, who was a rogue, and the trailer we have for the older version of the movie reflects that:

As we can also see from the trailer, and the poster featured earlier, proto-Kerubim is also a part of the movie, and Khan was not yet meant to be a boufbowler.

(And considering the posters, the cat that inspired Kerubim's design was also a part of the movie. I wonder if it's related to Welsh's cat from Welsh and Shedar? But maybe I'm just crazy.)

Subsequently, the movie came out at a much later date than planned originally.

(two images included because, bizarrely, there are two versions - one with Joris's tail censored, and the other with his tail uncensored. This proves that already at this point they had a draconic backstory in mind for him, though we do know that at the time of Wakfu season 1 (and, likely, the cancelled DS game, as was noted in my post about it) it was not the case.)

Also, interestingly, it is the only art of this time to include the tail. A possible error on Xa's part, or something that was considered very briefly?

In the end, Kerubim (as well as Simone) swallowed up not just the design of Welsh's cat, clothes, and Ecaflip friend;

He also got the role Julith was supposed to have, both metaphorically, and also literally.

Or not entirely — considering the fact that Joris was supposed to spend time with him anyway, since we have art of Joris on his mount from that old draft.

It's quite interesting, to think of all that could have been different in the 2009-2012 version of the movie!

But even during the making of the second draft of the movie, a lot of things have changed. From the first idea of Joris winning Kerubim back at a pachinko machine, to the concept art of Joris's non-possessed appearance.

The movie was being actively rewritten at the time of the making of Aux Tresors, so some of the early drafts were already tied in with its canon — taking place in Astrub, to be specific — but not with its ending, because the show was still ongoing.

At one point there was supposed to be a whole cast of Huppermage characters, and judging from the fact one of them is mentioned in the following text, they did play some sort of role in the plot:

It is likely that from this early draft it was decided that Joris would be a boufbowl fan, which was then worked in as a plot point in Aux Tresors.

(Stélina may be a proto-version of Bakara.)

It also seems that at this stage, it would be likely that Lilotte was reworked to be the Princess of Bonta, before eventually becoming the Ouginak we know and love.

After this Ankama once again returned to the concept of Lilotte as an orphan, though — even when the movie was still set in Astrub!

And it seems that the draft involved travel between Astrub and Bonta, judging from the usage of a Zaap to attack Luis.

And even at this point they have come up with the tragically cut "Joris and Khan go to adult industry workers and Joris (10yo boy) engages in depressed underaged drinking" scene.

(I'll never forgive Ankama for cutting this. I still argue that it's in character for Khan, our detested/beloved turbovirgin, to do this — as long as he doesn't get together with any of the women due to thinking himself "too good" for them.)

Also, at some point the gods were supposed to play a role. And personally, I am glad it was cut — it feels a bit too grand for the first movie in what was supposed to be a series.

I don't have any grand statement, or conclusion, but it is interesting to see all the ways the movie has changed.

#ro liveblogs dofus #dofus #wakfu #krosmoz #moviehistory

111 notes · View notes

andreabandrea · 5 months

Text

The AndreaBandrea UTY post

I need some place to put my Undertale Yellow (UTY for short) thoughts & criticism, and this is my blog, so I might as well put them here. If you don't want to see constructive criticism about Undertale Yellow, don't click below the readmore!

Pretty much everyone I talk to really likes this game, and honestly, I'm really sad that I don't like it more. I like some parts of it quite a bit! But I have mixed feelings about other parts-- I think the writing and characterization could have been a little more impactful than they were, and I’ll be discussing that here. I don’t want to just rag on this game without expressing suggestions and parts that I do like in more detail, so those will be covered as well.

I also want to add a disclaimer that I don't have negative feelings towards the development team or fans of this game in the slightest. I have nothing but respect for the creators of Undertale Yellow. This project was obviously a massive undertaking with a lot of love behind it, and I'm glad to see that it's found success and a community of people who do enjoy it.

The reason I’m writing this post is that, again, I liked parts of this game and wish I enjoyed it more. If I didn’t like it at all, I just wouldn’t engage with it at all anymore. I also haven’t really seen any other people expressing constructive criticism on the game’s writing, so it’s felt more important for me to express these thoughts, be heard, and see if others feel the same way.

The Good

I'll start off with the things I like. The art, the animation, and the music are all fantastic. I was very impressed by the battle backgrounds and the little touches, like the way Clover runs. Clover doing things like reaching for other’s hands, giving fistbumps, drawing their weapon, changing their expression at times-- they feel very dynamic and fun to play as.

The music is really catchy and fun. I love the iterations on the battle theme-- Snowdin’s battle theme having bells, for example.

I also had fun with most of the fights in the game! I liked the unique mechanics that came into play (e.g. the lasso in North Star's battle). I think that changing the way Clover attacks compared to Frisk feels organic and fun.

I also love the mail system. Ever since you could deliver and receive letters in Paper Mario 64, I’ve been hooked on mail as a storytelling system in video games. I think the letters you receive are interesting and clever, and it’s a great way to keep past characters relevant in lieu of a cell phone.

I’m going to be discussing criticism of the characters later, so I’m going to take a moment to talk a little about things I liked about them. I really like Martlet’s optimism and belief in humans. Starlo made me laugh quite a few times and the Feisty Five have a great dynamic with each other. A lot of the background characters in the game are fun-- I like the one who serves you at the Honeydew Resort. The fact that you can go back to these vendors later on and get four new topics to talk about is fantastic and makes the world feel a lot more alive.

The Slightly Less-Good (and more disclaimers)

The writing is where the game falls short for me-- and it’s sad for me, because the writing is the heart of Undertale. I don’t think that the writing is bad by any means! I like the characters and story well enough, but- again- I just wish that I liked them more. I’ll try to incorporate suggestions so this isn’t just a total downer post without anything backing it up.

I want to express something about the ‘suggestions’ that I’ll be offering after the criticism. I know that Undertale Yellow is now out, and the team isn’t going to go back and change it now, and that’s totally fine. I don’t want to make it sound as if the team should change Undertale Yellow just because I have some reservations about it. I’m just one fan out of many. In the very off chance that a member of the Undertale Yellow development team is reading this--

First of all, hi!

Second of all, I know that changing major parts of Undertale Yellow at this point is very unrealistic, and I wouldn’t want you to. If anything, I’m honored you’re reading my ramblings at all. I’d be touched if you’d be willing to take some of my words to heart as you move onto your next creative projects.

The reason I’m including suggestions, therefore, isn’t because I think that the team should or must make these changes, but because I don’t want to just sound excessively negative about this game without offering a little feedback.

I don’t presume that my criticism and suggestions are objectively correct or better than what the Undertale Yellow team created. This is my personal blog, and these are my personal rambly thoughts about Undertale Yellow. The reason I’m including so many disclaimers is because I’ve gotten into discourse before due to poorly thought-out posts about Undertale, and I hope to avoid that this time. I don’t want to just not post something on my own blog, though, because I’m afraid it could be misconstrued or possibly upset somebody. So, I’m trying to discuss this as carefully as I can.

As one final disclaimer, I'll say that I know that it was more likely than not that I'd be at least a little disappointed by Undertale Yellow. The original Undertale was a very important game for me, and very little could reach that standard. (I think this is one reason why Toby decided to do Deltarune, a sort of AU/spinoff rather than a full-on "Undertale 2", and I respect that decision.)

I also think that quite a bit of my criticism is subjective-- several of the characters didn't fully click with me and several of the jokes just didn't land for me, personally. More people than you might think just didn’t connect with the regular Undertale, either. I’ll be talking a little about my subjective opinion on characters, but I’ll try to explain why I feel the way I do rather than just say, “XYZ character sucks because they’re lame, moving on.”

With that said, the post. I’ll be addressing my criticisms from smallest to largest. To begin, I’ll recap the plot of UTY to better analyze aspects that I do and don’t quite like. Spoilers abound.

Undertale Yellow Plot Recap!!!!

The central story of UTY, to my memory and understanding, is as follows:

In the past, a fallen human being went on a rampage in Snowdin and hurt Kanako, the daughter of Chujin, a former royal scientist and monster who happens to be a boss monster. Dalv, an unrelated monster, was also hurt in this incident and sealed himself away in the Ruins in a self-imposed isolation. Chujin’s family (presumably him or Kanako, but not Ceroba, as she doesn’t recognize Dalv) felt bad about this and left him corn from Starlo’s farm as a gift. But, when Chujin died, the corn gifts stopped coming.

Stepping back a bit, after the incident, Chujin developed a deep hatred for humanity. He invented a security robot called Axis and told it to go kill the human. Axis did this (and we will return to this later). Chujin kept the soul (at least, for a time) to experiment on.

At some point in this, Axis failed to impress Asgore and Chujin was fired as the royal scientist. At some point as well, he began to teach Martlet how to build puzzles. Martlet got a job in the royal guard and Chujin disapproved because humans are very dangerous.

Due to experimenting on his own boss monster soul in an attempt to find a way to turn regular monsters into boss monsters so that monsterkind could potentially stand up to the threat of humanity, Chujin wound up very ill and then passed away. He left video tapes to his wife, Ceroba, asking her to finish his research. However, he asked her to leave Kanako out of this so she could live a normal life.

Ceroba agreed to finish this research, but Kanako found out about it and asked to be experimented on because she, like her father, has the power of a boss monster. Ceroba agreed to experiment on her, which injured Kanako and caused her to ‘fall down’. Ceroba sent the near-death Kanako to Dr. Alphys, the new royal scientist, who was collecting ‘fallen down’ monsters for her own experiments with determination.

Plot summary over. I’ll take a closer look at some of these aspects going forward.

UTY Plot Criticism

I don’t feel like this is a bad story, necessarily. With that said, it doesn’t feel quite as tied together as Undertale’s story does, and I think certain aspects don’t land.

First, I feel that the majority of the plot elements about Chujin & Kanako get dumped on you at the last minute. You might be thinking that the story about Chara & Asriel is also dumped on you at the last minute-- and to an extent, this is true. You do get a massive amount of information regarding their story near the end of the game, in the True Lab.

However, Chara & Asriel's story is a massive part of the narrative from the very beginning. You meet 'Asriel' (Flowey) in the very beginning of the game. Toriel is in the Ruins due to the fallout of Chara & Asriel's deaths. Asgore and the monsters are trying to kill Frisk and steal their soul because of this, and the royal guard has taken it up as their mission. Sans is aware of an anomaly that will end everything (implied to be the player), and he would have 'killed Frisk where they stand' had he not made a promise to Toriel. And so on.

I’ll be reviewing criticism of the game’s plot in sections themed around each major character. I will be discussing suggestions about each character in their respective section here, as I discuss things I didn’t quite like about each character, my suggestions are intrinsically tied to why I didn’t quite like them.

Dalv

The connections between characters and the Chujin & Kanako plot feel a bit tenuous to me. Similarly to Toriel, Dalv is in a self-imposed isolation in the Ruins due to a major incident in his past. He fears humans due to the attack he suffered in Snowdin, and he suffers loneliness after losing his friend (who left him corn). When he sees Clover, he wonders if this is ��some sort of haunting” (implying he knows that the human who attacked him was killed).

In the pacifist route, Clover can prove to Dalv that not all humans are evil and Dalv can move out and learn how to trust people again. This becomes a recurring theme-- Clover, pure of heart, proving to monsters that humanity isn’t that bad after all.

However, Dalv then disappears from the story. His motivation is to basically be left alone, but once you prove to him that humanity isn’t so bad, his role in the story is essentially complete.

I feel that, by comparison, Toriel’s motivation is more active-- to protect humans who fall down from Asgore. It’s this motivation that drives her to return at the end of the true pacifist route and ultimately make the true ending of Undertale possible.

Dalv’s passiveness makes him a weaker character to me. Now that you’ve proven that you’re his friend and humanity isn’t so bad, I would have liked to have seen him take an active motivation to protect his friend or help them in some way. We don’t have to copy Undertale beat for beat and have him dramatically save Clover from Asgore or anything, but it would have been nice to see him vouch for Clover in some way at some point.

Now, for the final time, I know that UTY is released and major changes aren’t likely. Some of my suggestions are “I would have liked to see this, but this change would require redoing the entire game,” which I don’t think should or could be done at this stage. This is just daydreaming and- if I’m praising myself highly- potential considerations for the devs’ future works (and the works of any other creatives who are reading this).

With this proposed major change to Dalv’s character out of the way, I’ll suggest instead the most minimal possible change that I would like to see, so my suggestions don’t feel entirely like just daydreaming.

I really like how Dalv sends Clover a letter about his moving out to Snowdin. This is active of him in terms of motivation-- Clover is his friend and he wants to keep in touch with his friend. I’d be absolutely thrilled to see a little bit of extra dialogue for him in an update. After you go back to Snowdin and see him, I think the dialogue he already has is totally fine! But, I’d be really happy if he’d take initiative and tell Clover a little more about his experience with the past human, or invite them to rely on him, too.

Martlet

Martlet felt… a bit restrained in terms of her writing, to me. I think that one aspect of Undertale’s writing is that it’s not afraid to go over the top. Papyrus isn’t just silly, he wears a costume every day and cartoon eyes pop out of his head when he’s surprised. Undyne isn’t just determined, she aspires to be a badass anime heroine. I like Martlet just fine, but she never had a moment where she really stood out to me in this way.

Martlet’s defining traits are that she likes puzzles, she loves reading and abiding by the rules of the royal guard, and she believes in humanity and wants to help Clover. As I said before, I really like this optimism and belief. I’d like to see more of it.

Near the end of the true pacifist route, Martlet says that she was taught in the royal guard that humans are scary, but Clover proved to her that humans are kind. This felt very abrupt to me at the time-- we know that Chujin disapproved of her joining the royal guard due to his own trauma, but Martlet had no personal involvement in the last human’s violent actions.

Martlet doesn’t seem to have any reason to dislike humans more than any other monster. We learn in her diary that she essentially joined the royal guard out of a desire to help people and build puzzles, and also because she needed a job.

If she’s just supposed to be a representative of the average monster and their feelings toward humanity, and her growing to like Clover is meant to represent how all of monsterkind could grow to like humankind, that would be one thing-- but I think that she specifically is meant to represent a person who wholeheartedly believes that humans can be good and that humans and monsters can live in harmony. In the no mercy route, she repeatedly pleads to Clover to do better, that they don’t have to act this way, that she wants to help them. That’s not the response of the average monster, who fights Clover or tries to flee from them.

I believe the intention is that Chujin & Martlet represent either end of an ideology axis (no pun intended). Chujin believes all humans are evil no matter what, but Martlet believes that humans can choose to be good. But why does she choose to believe in humans other than a sense of personal optimism?

I would have liked to have seen some defining event that made Martlet choose to believe in the goodness of humanity. I would have liked to have her being kind and optimistic to a fault be more of a defining trait-- to have that go over the top in an Undertale-style way. A lot of her interactions with other characters just personally weren’t very memorable to me.

Martlet spends a lot of the game sidelined. She loses you in the Mines. She gets thrown in jail in the Wild East. She has to go back to Snowdin once you're freed. Yes, she's there for you in the true pacifist route, but she's otherwise pretty absent through the neutral/true pacifist routes.

I recognize that the main characters in Undertale can be absent after you leave their respective sections of the game. However, you're able to call Papyrus & Undyne as much as you want, and you get a major hang-out (or “date”) with each of them and Alphys which gives time to expand on their backstory and character arc. Martlet doesn't get that. We even get a little bit of time to hang out with Dalv after we become his friend, but Martlet shoves us on a boat and hurries us to the next area as soon as we beat her. And sure, we get to talk to her on the boat, but it’s just a bit of silly dialogue-- it doesn’t really expand on her character. It feels like a missed opportunity.

So, yes, my major suggestion on her would be to zoom in more on her belief in you and let her be a liiiiitle sillier and more over the top, and give more opportunity for Clover to hang out with her.

At this stage, however? In this proposed minor ‘dialogue update’, I’d be really excited to see a little something more from her. Maybe a letter? She does send you one, but only in the neutral route to tell you to meet her on top of the apartments. It would be a good opportunity to either let her be silly or explain a bit about when she came to want to believe in humans-- or both, ideally.

Starlo

I honestly have very little to say on Starlo. He seems to be the fan favorite, and I did find his section fun! Ultimately, though, he's just kind of… there? I mean, he's on the periphery of Ceroba's (and Chujin and Kanako’s) story because he's her childhood friend (and his family grew the corn that Chujin gives to Dalv), and yes, he later on reminds her that she can still choose to be a better person because he also almost killed Clover! However, every monster in the game almost killed Clover.

There’s nothing wrong with having a silly character who wears a costume and isn’t a major player in the plot. I feel like Starlo is similar to Papyrus in this way. But Papyrus isn’t just a goofball, he’s the monster in Undertale who believes unerringly in Frisk & the player’s ability to do better because he firmly believes that you can make anything happen if you just try. This belief helps elevate Papyrus from comic relief to an actual rounded character.

I don’t feel like Starlo has any sort of strong conviction like that. We do learn that he wants to bring hope to the Underground by roleplaying as a sheriff in the Wild East town, giving them a slice of (supposed) surface life. I think this is fine, but I’d like to see a bit more of it. In the no mercy route, he does bravely stand against you because he’s a sheriff and it’s his job to bring justice to murderers like Clover.

My expectation when I first met him, a fellow cowboy (gender-neutral), was that he’d have his own ideas about justice. I expected that he would clash with Clover about these ideals, and neither of them would be quite right or wrong-- and this would prove that justice can’t be measured mathematically, and one outcome can’t be applied to all situations.

But, he’s not at all bad the way he is. He has a lot of fans, after all. The minor change I’d suggest now that the game is out is that I’d be interested in learning why the cowboy aesthetic specifically appealed to him. Maybe a diary in his room explaining that Westerns are the epitome of ‘justice’ to him? I’d like to see a peek into the motivation that transformed an ordinary farm boy into someone who could bravely stand against a murderous human.

Ceroba

I’ll be honest. I want to like Ceroba, but I don’t.

I understand that there's an attempt to mirror Asgore in that the war against humanity, in general, has taken Ceroba's partner and her child from her-- and ultimately, Clover forgives her and helps her learn how to move on. It's about letting go, just like Undertale. I get that. But Ceroba’s story doesn't land for me, personally. In order to talk about Ceroba, I need to talk about her husband, Chujin, because Ceroba spends so much of the story acting out Chujin's will.

Whereas monsters in Undertale do attempt to kill Frisk and steal their soul, and Asgore has killed other children before, it's framed in a very 'video game' violence sort of way (again, Undertale has these meta elements). Ultimately, in the True Pacifist route, none of Frisk's deaths have stuck, and Asgore's actions- while reprehensible- allowed for Asriel to break the barrier once and for all.

Chujin, in the video tapes he leaves for Ceroba, implies that Axis’s murder of the human- presumably a child, like Clover and Frisk- was very violent and bloody. It feels a tiny step beyond the 'video game violence' aspect, for me. While it’s shown that Chujin regrets this, it still doesn’t change the way that this violence is expressed in the game.

Instead of giving the human’s soul right to Asgore to bring monsterkind closer to freedom, Chujin- who has already been fired by Asgore, I should add- chooses to keep the soul and experiment with it.

This is very selfish, even though he has good intentions. He’s told nobody else about his experiments with his soul at this point- not even his wife- and Asgore has told him to cease all activities as the royal scientist.

While monsters do want Frisk's soul for their own selfish reasons, they notably do not butcher them violently, succeed in this, and still try to get painted with the same quirky and fun brush that the other characters get.

After Chujin dies, he leaves detailed instructions for his wife to continue his work-- and although he says "don't involve Kanako", he leaves her all the tools she would need to experiment on Kanako, and notably, no other way to finish his work except to experiment on Kanako.

As I said, Kanako finds out about this and asks to be experimented on. And while she does give consent, she is a child. I cannot stress this enough-- she is a child who just lost her father and is still wracked by grief. Kanako is a child who cannot possibly know what she is consenting to.

Ceroba chooses to experiment on Kanako and more or less kills her. And then she chooses to send her 'fallen down' daughter to Alphys's experiment, despite the fact that Kanako presumably has some sort of trace of human soul/determination left in her-- which could have compromised Alphys's work as well.

Let's return to how I said that Ceroba is a mirror for Asgore. She's made so many mistakes and it's cost her her family and she can't stop now or it will all be for nothing. She's done horrible things, just like Asgore.

But the difference is that Asgore is the king of monsterkind. Asgore has no desire to kill human beings. He declared war on humanity in a fit of anger and grief, but the Underground had lost hope due to the loss of Chara & Asriel. Believing that Asgore could gather seven human souls and free them all brought hope back to the Underground.

His actions, while wrong, are selfless-- and much less explicitly violent and more 'cartoon violence'-like. Chujin & Ceroba have the well-being of monsterkind as their own pure intentions, but their actions are far more selfish and violent. Axis, Chujin’s creation, massacred a human being. Yet we're still expected to find them silly and fun and relatable-- it just feels unusual.

I’m not someone who hates nuance or morally gray characters. One reason I’m so sad that I don’t quite like Ceroba is that I love morally gray women. It’s just that we’re not allowed to really dislike Chujin or Ceroba for what they’ve done, and instead we’re supposed to see Ceroba- and Axis- as silly and relatable like the rest of the characters.

Immediately after Ceroba’s boss battle, instead of processing what just happened to a greater extent, Clover chooses to sacrifice their soul for monsterkind.

I understand that the intention is that Ceroba's grief and Chujin's desperation to protect monsters from humanity contributed to Clover's decision to sacrifice their soul. However, the idea is- to me- abrupt. Ultimately, too, Clover's decision is just as much about how much they love their friends (and how it's impossible for them to hide out in the Underground forever) as it is about Ceroba and her family.

Chara & Asriel’s deaths, Asgore’s war on humanity, the war of humans and monsters-- these elements impact every part of Frisk’s journey. But Chujin and Ceroba’s actions, while impactful on Martlet and Dalv to varying extents, are only part of Clover’s journey. And Chujin and Ceroba did awful things for this comparatively minor impact on the plot.

EDIT: Further analysis about how Ceroba doesn't have a lot of agency and spends a lot of the plot just acting out Chujin's will, as well as the inconsistency in her characterization (and feelings about sacrificing Clover and the well-being of Kanako), with input from @carlyraejepsans. Thank you!

I would have liked to have seen a bit more from Ceroba without any influence from Chujin- maybe an interaction explaining her relationship with Martlet and an additional conversation about Martlet’s nearly unwavering belief in humans vs Ceroba’s inherited grudge against humanity- but I don’t know where this would fit in. Adding more time for Clover to process Ceroba’s boss fight before sacrificing their soul might throw off the pacing.

In general, though, Ceroba's boss fight- while flashy and fun- ultimately feels pointless with how little she learns from it and how quickly she changes her stance on using Clover's soul for the benefit of monsterkind, and what will happen to monsters after they break the barrier. To quote @carlyraejepsans in the ask linked above:

In addition, it's like the writing didn't want to commit to her delusions and little character development. She feels that her daughter is alive and thinks she can save her—wait no that was a lie—wait it wasn't. The moment she's defeated she goes "Agh, what was I thinking!" out loud (which is already a questionable writing choice imo but i digress), and recognizes that sacrificing Clover for her plans is horrible... and then 5 seconds later Clover chooses to sacrifice themself to break the barrier and whoops nevermind she's suddenly the one getting the others onboard with the idea... wait. didn't she say she was making the serum because the humans would've only slaughtered them again if they broke the barrier? oh wait wasn't that also chujin again? whoops.

I would have felt better if there were more room to view Chujin and Ceroba in a critical light (and time to view Ceroba outside of just being a mom and wife). I can’t think of any ‘minor’ suggestion that wouldn’t require a lot of editing.

Axis…

And... okay. Let's talk about Axis real quick.

I want to give the dev team the benefit of the doubt, but I need to point out that this security robot's name is "Axis 014." If you don't know what I mean by pointing this out, I'll just say that both of these terms are nazi dog whistles and allow you to look up the specifics.

I recognize that, by this point, it’s too late to change his name. I’d at least be grateful if the team would acknowledge this and confirm that they aren’t nazis.

Axis’s name makes his actions far worse in retrospect. He, as a security robot wants to kill a child, but he isn't able to anymore because his programming has changed. So, as a legal loophole, he forces them to hold 'a weapon' (a trash can lid) so he can justifiably kill them. This is the same robot that brutalized and murdered a human being in the past at Chujin's behest.

It feels tone deaf and ultimately the one thing I’d just outright call bad about UTY. I don’t think it was intentionally done this way, but I don't like that we're supposed to find this nazi-aesthetic police brutality robot "quirky and relatable" like the Undertale cast. In the true pacifist ending, he falls in love with a robot made out of a trash can and his eyes turn into cartoon hearts and etc. It’s even more jarring than viewing Chujin & Ceroba in a fun/relatable way.

In the no mercy route, Axis will defend himself and claim that his programming forced him to kill the human and he didn't want to. This "just following orders" defense feels weak to me as well, personally. Axis clearly delights in harming humans, going out of his way to try to kill Clover. But also, Axis spends a significant amount of the game displaying a very similar amount of free will to the other characters. He’s not just a janitor robot that sweeps back and forth.

He’s a nearly sentient being-- and the fact that there are these nearly sentient robots makes Alphys’s accomplishment of creating “a robot with a soul” (at least, so she claims-- Mettaton is only the ghost in a machine) much less impactful to me, personally. Yes, Asgore thinks that Chujin failed in creating a sentient robot, and so it’s impressive that Alphys supposedly did it. But I don’t know why Asgore wouldn’t be more skeptical of Alphys’s accomplishment after Chujin failed more than eight times and set fire to his flowers.

I think that Axis is ultimately a missed opportunity to make a really villainous character. This concept that he disobeys his programming- used as sort of a parallel for law, as a security robot- to attack Clover could have been explored to further the ‘justice’ theme. He doesn’t write his programming (the laws), he just carries it out (violently enforces the laws).

The ‘minor’ suggestion I’d make, though, is to just acknowledge the name.

Undertale & Meta Elements

Now, we’ll be addressing my largest criticisms-- the omission of meta elements and the way Flowey is written.

Undertale Yellow never quite stopped feeling like a fan game to me. And it is, of course-- but I think that it feels as if it tries so hard to be Undertale (in the writing style, the humor, etc) that it fails to forge an identity of its own, and that holds it back from being just a fangame to a fangame that succeeds in expanding on the original creative work.

At the same time, although UTY tries to feel like Undertale, I don’t think it captures certain elements that make Undertale be Undertale.

Whereas Undertale was ultimately about video games as a medium and the normalization of violence in them, UTY doesn’t have this level of metatextual commentary. UTY does have a running theme of 'justice'-- and I don’t think this is bad! After all, if Undertale already said all there was to say about video games and violence, why retread that path? I respect that UTY knows its limits and simply focuses on justice as a concept instead.

At the same time, Undertale isn’t just an RPG about mercy-- it’s an RPG about RPGs. The fact that you can talk to and spare enemies isn’t just a quirk of the game, it’s what the game is about. This is one thing that makes Undertale great that UTY doesn’t focus on.

UTY doesn’t completely ignore these elements, of course. Flowey takes over resetting for you, and you do have three distinct paths based on whether or not you kill enemies-- the ‘true pacifist’ path, the ‘neutral’ path, and the ‘no mercy’ path (I will not be calling it the ‘genocide’ route, especially in light of recent world events). Through whether or not you choose to kill enemies, the theme of ‘justice’ is explored-- who is Clover seeking justice for? In the true pacifist route, Clover seeks justice for the monsters, while in the no mercy route, Clover seeks justice for the fallen humans before them.

However, Flowey taking over the mechanics of saving and resetting for you makes concept of ‘the player’ obsolete. I recognize that not everyone in the Undertale/Deltarune fandom quite enjoys the concept of 'the player' and the meta elements of these games due to the fact that there can be implications that playing Deltarune (as an example, which ups the meta elements quite a bit) can actively hurt Kris and make their world a worse place. However, Deltarune isn’t a complete work and we don’t know this for certain. Additionally, I feel as if at least acknowledging Toby's intentions are important to analyzing the work, no matter what one's personal feelings are about them.

The Importance of the Player

The presence of you, the player, is important in Undertale. Frisk is a subversion of the 'blank slate protagonist' trope. You think that you're able to name them and control them, but in the True Pacifist route, Frisk begins to act on their own (they walk slowly in some parts of the True Lab because they're presumably afraid, etc). In the end, you realize that Frisk is their own person with their own name, and you as the player have to let go-- when Frisk & the monsters go to the surface, Flowey (a mirror of the player themselves) urges you to let them go. Don't treat this as a game anymore-- don't replay and wring out any last drops of content you can. You enjoyed it, now move on.

But many players want to see the No Mercy route because it’s the last thing they haven’t done in the game, and they don’t want to let go. And that's where the role of you, the player, becomes undeniable in the game's story. What is the No Mercy route except playing a 'typical' RPG in the way it's meant to be played? You grind to become stronger, killing every enemy that stands in your way. And when you've killed all the monsters and become as strong as you can be, you've won.

Many players didn't do this because they hate the characters in Undertale and want to hurt them-- if they hate them, they likely just wouldn't play the game. Many players did it because they like the characters in Undertale, and wanted to see what would happen. They couldn't stop playing. And this is exactly what Sans means in his dialogue during his boss battle-- to paraphrase, "you think that because you can, that means you have to."

This is one of the ways that Flowey is a mirror of the player. Flowey didn't start killing out of malicious intent, but because he had become so bored and isolated that he just "had to see what happens".

Chara's role at the very end of the No Mercy route is to call you out directly for this. They tell you that their power was yours. Their words were very misconstrued by fans for a long time, and they themselves wound up as a scapegoat for the No Mercy route-- but ultimately, there's no reason for Chara or Frisk to kill every monster in the Underground. The only reason is because of you, personally. You want to see what would happen. You want to grind and play it like a typical RPG.

They call you out for this if you don't want to delete the game world at the end. Why go back to that world that you've already destroyed? Why play nice with the monsters that you just massacred because you can?

Why am I talking about this at such length? Because I believe that ‘the player’ and how they interact with the world of Undertale is important. Characters lampshade the UI and battle mechanics often-- Flowey talking about the world as a game and ‘saving’ and ‘loading’, Papyrus telling you to “press C to open the dating HUD”, Sans explaining ‘LV’ and ‘EXP’, and so on.

This is my personal opinion, and I recognize this is very nitpicky, but I feel that not acknowledging this or adding to these meta elements in some way makes UTY weaker for me.

Flowey’s Role in UTY

Flowey essentially saves and resets for you because he's bored, and he wants to use Clover as a tool to access Asgore’s five stored human souls. His role as a mirror for the player becomes him essentially just acting as a stand-in for the player. While this in itself can invite self-reflection, I think that the execution of his role is a little awkward.

We learn at the end of the neutral route that Flowey has already reset the timeline hundreds of times by the time we first start playing the game. According to him, Clover always ends up at a dead end (they choose to stay in the Underground for the rest of their life) or they die (and they can’t reset of their own power). Thus, Flowey chose to set Clover on an alternate path by sabotaging a lever in the Ruins, which made them fall into the Dark Ruins and meet Dalv.

Flowey then tries to kill Clover and absorb their soul because they, again, hit a dead end. Yet he gives up on it after a while because Clover won’t stop fighting back, and he thinks he can just reset and try again anyway.

At the end of the true pacifist route, Clover instead opts to sacrifice their soul willingly to Asgore & monsterkind. Flowey comments that he could just reset (and you still can, if you want to play again), but Clover “earned their rest” and he calls them a friend.

This progression from “Clover is a tool that Flowey is using to access the 5 human souls” to “Clover is a friend and Flowey willingly lets them die and stay dead” feels undeserved and underdeveloped to me.

"But, Andrea," you might say, "Flowey went from trying to kill Frisk as Omega/Photoshop Flowey to hugging Frisk as Asriel really quickly too!"

Yes, but in that short time, Frisk and Flowey/Asriel had a Whole Thing where Frisk 'saved' him like everyone else and he learned he needs to let go, too. It was a short time, but it was a poignant time. By contrast, Flowey is pretty much absent throughout most of UTY's true pacifist route. Sure, you could easily say that he just got bored of Clover and gave up-- but that, too, doesn’t feel quite right to me.

I really hate to say this, but I feel that Flowey’s writing in UTY cheapens the original Undertale for me, which is why this is one of my major criticisms of the game.

Flowey's entire character arc in Undertale is about how he was stuck with the same places and same people for an endless amount of resets. In my opinion, the limited amount of places and characters for him to interact with in Undertale only adds to how trapped he is (and the Underground being so small really strengthens the concept of "there's overpopulation and the monsters are running out of time to find a solution/earn their freedom" that we see in the game, but I digress).

So when something finally changes and he meets Frisk, it's deeply impactful to him. Finally, someone new to play with! Finally, potential for change! Even though Flowey admits that, even if Chara came back, there's a great chance that he couldn't really love them due to his lack of soul, just experiencing something new for the first time in ages is as close to love as he can possibly get. So Flowey:

Starts to believe that Frisk is Chara, this person he ‘loves’ or wants to love, or some manifestation of Chara.

Refuses to let Frisk go, even if that means- when Asriel has the power of seven human souls- just resetting the Undertale timeline over and over instead of going to the surface or doing anything else.

For Flowey to have gone through everything that he does in UTY- all these new places, all these new people, Clover included- weakens this, in my opinion. And sure, there's very heavily implied to be lots of places that Frisk doesn't explore and people they don't meet-- 99% of New Home and its residents, for instance. But Clover themselves is the real problem for me.

No matter how many times Flowey reset with Clover, I really struggle to believe that he would get bored of a human being that easily. He even said that Clover's actions and choices would sometimes change from reset to reset, and he only recently learned how dramatically he could alter their path by sabotaging that lever in the Ruins. Clover isn't a static being-- and even if they were, they're at least a new static being.

And although we learn in the neutral route that Flowey can't really absorb Clover's soul because they fight back too much, I can't believe that would stop Flowey so easily. What about at the end of the pacifist route, where Clover has given it up willingly and it's being transported in a little jar? Clover’s body is separated from the soul, now-- could Clover still fight back?

Or, what about if Flowey tried to kill them as soon as they entered the Ruins? Or, what if Flowey played nice the entire route and then at the end tried to convince Clover that if they sacrificed their soul, he would take it to Asgore for them? With access to full control of the timeline, I don't think Flowey would give up on this. We learn in Undertale how painful it is for him to be soulless and how desperate he is to access power so that things will change.

For Flowey to acknowledge Clover as a 'friend'- maybe even a true person, not just a compilation of dialogue- suggests character growth. It suggests remorse for his resets that he isn't capable of having and doesn't have until the events of Undertale. I just don't feel like it’s earned.

Flowey is, of course, an unreliable narrator.

At the end of the no mercy route of UTY, Flowey expresses that he never saw Clover as a friend-- he only enjoyed watching them die over and over again. It should be noted that this was said while under extreme duress (Clover is LV 20 by this point and has killed everyone save for Asgore), and this route isn’t canon in the way that the neutral and pacifist routes are.

With that said, if we agree that Flowey can’t feel love as a soulless being, then I could argue that this is about as much of a ‘friend’ as anyone could be. This is how he wanted to keep Frisk (“Chara”, in his mind) for eternity when he had the six human souls + the entirety of monsterkinds’ souls-- just watch them try over and over again, for eternity.

Why am I contradicting myself? Because, let’s suppose that Flowey doesn’t mean Clover is a ‘friend’ in the traditional sense- that they earned his respect and he cares for them in some way- but Clover is a new toy that he got bored with and gave up on. I feel like this, too, makes Undertale a little weaker.

If Flowey did have some type of positive regard for Clover, but was willing to let them go, then it feels- to me- like Frisk’s role in his story isn’t that significant. Frisk helped him learn how to let go and move on, but Flowey has already demonstrated being capable of this. The circumstances are different- if Flowey gives up at the end of Undertale’s true pacifist route, it’s over for real, whereas if he gives up at the end of UTY, he can just wait for another human to fall- but I feel like the core feeling is the same. Flowey, by the start of Undertale, doesn’t strike me as someone who’s capable of letting go.

So, how would I have changed this?

I recognize that- again- Undertale already made these points about video games and violence, and Flowey has his entire character arc in that game. For Flowey to have more of an arc in this game would potentially make this game no longer line up with canon Undertale or weaken Undertale further. And why retread old ground that Undertale already talked about?

I respect the decision to tell a self-contained story, but the meta commentary about video games in Undertale is so significant for me that I personally would have liked to see a bit more of it in Undertale Yellow. I also recognize how much of my criticism of Flowey’s writing in UTY is subjective. It feels unrealistic for me, his arc feels abrupt for me, it makes Undertale less poignant for me.

A lot of people love his inclusion in this game, and it’s very novel to see Flowey as a friend throughout most of UTY and hear his snarky commentary on demand rather than having him as an enemy who’s absent through most of the game, as he is in Undertale.

The Flowey Suggestions

First, I’ll be honest. I know this is not and has never been possible, but my easiest solution to the dilemma of Flowey’s lack of a character arc- and the lack of an ability to give him a character arc- would have been to just remove him from UTY.

I think that Flowey’s inclusion in the story of the yellow soul human and his role saving and loading could have been interesting. It goes against certain story elements implied in Undertale, and popular fan theories-- and I don’t mind that, if something meaningful is done with it. But, I feel as if Flowey’s relationship to Clover isn’t impactful enough to justify including him.

To clarify on ‘implied story elements’ and ‘popular fan theories’:

While I might be misremembering, I thought that it was implied in Undertale that Flowey came into being after Asgore had already collected six human souls, and that a significant amount of time had passed since the last human had fallen down.

I won’t go into it at length because this post is long enough and I, again, am not an Undertale expert. With that said, it’s also implied that all human souls are capable of saving/loading/resetting in the Underground. If you make Frisk tell Asgore that he killed them before, he just nods as if he’s used to it-- and he’s the one character who we know has killed humans before.

Now, how did Asgore successfully kill beings that can just reset the game whenever they die? Well, Sans faces the same dilemma in Undertale’s no mercy route. There’s no way that he can permanently defeat you, the player, who is a real being. Therefore, the way he ‘wins’ is by infuriating you enough with his difficult boss fight until you give up and stop playing Undertale (or, at least, reset and make better choices).

Think about all the times you’ve played a game, got stuck on a hard boss, and never played it again. While it’s not ‘canon’ to the story- giving up on your copy of Mario doesn’t mean Bowser really wins- functionally, giving up on a game means that the story ends for you. This is how I believe Asgore captured the six human souls, even if they were also capable of resetting like Frisk is-- he fought them until they gave up.

Humans all are said to have great amounts of ‘determination’, not just red soul bearers. We don’t even know what trait the red soul exemplifies. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s determination itself.

The bottom line is that I don’t think it would be unrealistic for Clover to be able to save/load/reset on their own, or for Flowey to not exist yet during the time they fell down.

But, I get it, Flowey was in UTY’s demo that has been out for seven years. He’s in the trailers. He couldn’t be removed at any part of development, and he sure as hell can’t be removed now.

My second suggestion would have been to zoom in on him, instead. While the prequel is about Clover, the yellow soul human, I would have liked to see it be about Flowey in a significant way. I kept hoping for Clover to have an opportunity to ask Flowey at some point, “why are you helping me, anyway?”.

This is my personal interpretation, but I’ve come to believe that Flowey thinks that the reason he’s stuck as a flower is that it’s a punishment. Because he, as Asriel, refused to fight back, he failed Chara, and now they’re dead. Now he’s stuck as a rinky-dink flower with no soul, he can’t love his former family, and he can’t stop playing this game.

In the no mercy route of Undertale, Flowey feels very much like he’s trying to appeal to Frisk- the person he believes is Chara- in a way like a younger sibling trying to impress an older sibling. He says he’s impressed by how you killed everyone. He helps solves puzzles so you won’t have to slow down. He brags to you about how he’s also a heartless killer.

Notably, he talks about his past. He tells ‘Chara’ that he was afraid to start killing, at first. He said he wouldn’t enjoy it, but he just had to know what would happen.

Then, Flowey laughs and says that you (Chara) know how liberating it is to be this way-- to kill people and shape their fates. He ‘recognizes’ Frisk as being actually Chara because of how they killed everyone in the Ruins.

But we have no indication that Chara was a violent or evil person in their life. I believe that Flowey is partially projecting and partially recognizes Chara because, in the last moments of their life, they were telling him to kill. He always knew that Chara hated humanity and wanted power to better the position of monsterkind. This is why Flowey brags about how he has a plan to get the human souls, and once they do so, they can go to the surface and “finish what [they] started.”

To Flowey, in my opinion, killing people isn’t just about seeing what happens. It’s about trying to understand and appease Chara and doing what he thinks he should have done all that time ago, as Asriel.

I bring this up because I think that I would have liked to have seen this be explored in Undertale Yellow. Flowey is still a very misunderstood character today due to being an unreliable narrator. I believe that a lot of Flowey misinterpretations are due to taking him at face value-- hearing him say that he’s an unfeeling, manipulative, patient killer and agreeing with him.

But Flowey contradicts himself at several points. He gives up his “catch these friendliness pellets” trick after you dodging just a few times. These aren’t the makings of a perfect manipulative killer, but an impatient child. That’s who Flowey is at his core-- a child.

I recognize that, again, if Flowey told all of his tragic backstory to Clover and they became true friends, this wouldn’t fit with canon Undertale and his actions in that game. Flowey and Asriel distance themselves from each other, and it wouldn’t make sense for Flowey to tell this to Clover-- especially if he just views them as a tool to use and play with.

I think, however, it wouldn’t have been impossible for Clover to have learned this information about Flowey in a way that could still be canon compliant with Undertale itself. Hypothetically, maybe the “hopes and dreams” statue in the UG Apartments near the Core could have sparked intrigue in Flowey.

Maybe analysis of Flowey could have come up during his neutral route boss fight-- after all, Clover appears to peek into the minds of Ceroba and Martlet during the true pacifist and no mercy run boss fights, respectively. We already get a little of this- Clover has to run through a hallway of flowers in Flowey’s boss fight, and we hear sad and scared dialogue that’s presumably from a past version of Flowey himself. However, it’s not necessarily new and doesn’t quite add to Flowey’s character in my personal opinion.

I feel that including Flowey’s story more in some way would justify having Flowey in the game, and knowing the history of Asriel & Chara could factor into Clover’s decision to give up their soul for the sake of monsterkind. Chara, too, sacrificed themselves willingly, after all.

I don’t have a ‘realistic suggestion’ that could be implemented with a dialogue update because these suggestions are so vast-- and, ultimately, very personal and subjective. I have very strong feelings about Flowey.

Meta Elements of Undertale

In Undertale, you’re asked when you should or shouldn’t fight. As a pacifist, you can get through the Ruins without killing anyone. Flowey will then ask you what you would do if you met a relentless killer. Would you betray your morals and fight? Or would you give up and let yourself die?

Undertale is the friendly RPG where nobody has to die. While you have to kill Asgore at least once to do the neutral route, and you do have to fight back against Omega/Photoshop Flowey to end his battle, the game ultimately posits that there never is a good time to fight. You don’t beat Omega Flowey by being stronger than him, you do it by appealing to the souls and allowing them to rebel. You don’t beat God of Hyperdeath Asriel Dreemurr by beating him up, you do it by saving your friends- him included. The game, again, is about an inversion of the necessity of violence in video games to me.

I would have been interested in seeing an exploration of when it is necessary to fight, and this could be done through the lens of ‘justice’. Would Clover fight if it brought them closer to justice (on a pacifist route)? Is it morally correct to kill one person if it saves thousands?

Sparing someone is always the correct option in Undertale. In that way, the true route is quite linear-- there’s one solution that works for everyone. What if there were situations in UTY in which there is no single correct option that works for everyone? What if Clover were placed in situations in which they had to act as arbiter and decide between two outcomes and what is right? It could have been like how they get forced to solve the trolley problem in the Wild East, but with consequences.

Adding to putting a ‘twist’ on the elements that Undertale introduces with its combat system-- what if sparing someone ultimately enabled them to keep hurting others? What if fighting to weaken someone was the correct solution for once? These inversions could have built on the meta elements of Undertale, and I think that it would make Clover’s decision to sacrifice themselves to bring justice to monsterkind more poignant to me.

Again, I have no ‘realistic’ suggestion for this in the full release of UTY. I think that the plot about justice alone isn’t bad, but I would have been happy to see it tie into the gameplay a little more.

Conclusion

Ultimately, I think that UTY tries too hard to be Undertale without iterating on the aspects that made Undertale memorable. The characters feel like they fail to pop or relate to the game’s story in meaningful ways, and to me, the main story isn’t executed as well as it could have been (and far darker than the main Undertale in ways that don’t feel as if they’re handled sensitively).

I will say, again, that this project is very impressive in scope, and I applaud the dev team for finishing it and releasing it. I recognize that a lot of my distaste is subjective, and creating another Undertale is a fool's errand considering the acclaim that Undertale got. I recognize one final time that my suggestions are just daydreaming, and this game has already found a lot of success-- which I think it deserves.

I tend to criticize a lot of media I like, which might sound contradictory to some, but it makes perfect sense to me. If I don’t like something, I won’t engage with it. I think that the original Undertale has its flaws, too. At the end of the day, I like UTY, but no media is perfect. This is how I think it could have been better, and I hope that I think other creatives who want to make Undertale fanworks (or any creative works, for that matter) will take these thoughts into consideration.

Thanks for reading.

#bandrea blabbers #long post #the uty post

143 notes · View notes

rainbowsky · 1 month

Note

Hey, I'm new here and i love your blog! I was wondering if the boys see couple\sexual edits of them together and if it makes them nervous but then it hit me that they probably aren't seeing what i see on western social media. Do you have any idea if those types of homosexual posts get censored in China?

Hi Yingyangorly! Thanks, I'm glad you're enjoying my blog!☺️

I have a huge long, like, ridiculously long post in my drafts related to this topic, hopefully coming soon.

But to answer your question, I think it's impossible that GG and DD would fail to see at least some of what's posted about them as a couple, whether sent to them by friends, family or staff, or whether stumbled upon or intentionally sought out/browsed by them. It's inevitable they'll see some of it, particularly things that get a lot of attention.

I talked about this a bit a while back. GG and DD have said in interviews that they have fake social media accounts (and of course they would - how could you go anywhere or do anything on social media without one if you were famous?), and this kind of discussion has happened somewhat in relation to fan comments, etc.

You can check out my previous post for more on that stuff.

As for sexual edits, etc., like any other content I've no doubt they've seen some of it - it's inevitable they would - but I doubt it worries them all that much. It's highly unlikely to ever impact them directly, because ultimately it's not really about them, is it? It's about the creators who make it. Any backlash is more likely to fall upon creators, not GG and DD.

And just as a reminder - it's not illegal to be gay in China, it's not illegal to post homosexual content, etc. Such content is censored on TV and other broadcast media, but not online.

Porn is very illegal in China, but that's mostly only selectively enforced. In fact, China produces a lot of porn and a lot of smutty fiction and all of it is illegal, but it still manages to thrive fairly well.

Explicit content of any kind is technically not allowed on Weibo but it's still out there - although most of it is pretty toned down and tame. Actual porn of sexual activity isn't ubiquitous there, but lewd fan art, fan fic, edits and memes can often be found.

All platforms globally have rules against explicit content, and they're just as poorly enforced everywhere. I suspect a lot of that is because social media engagement makes money, and sex sells. It's not really in the interest of platforms to completely shut down all such content - even if it was possible to do so.

The supertopic rules likely have more impact on fan behavior in this regard than the Weibo TOS does. Those rules forbid mentioning GG and DD by name or tagging their accounts, and forbid sexualization, pornography, feminization and fixating on body parts. However, that's only within the supertopics. Ultimately people are free to post whatever they want on their own accounts, and they do.

Given how many antis and solos are out there trying to take down the turtle fandom, the fact that these things manage to stay up for as long as they do speaks to how weak the enforcement is. There are definitely people out there who will report things that offend them.

This is, in fact, how the whole 227 thing got started. A bunch of solos decided to report an explicit fanfic to the government, and things spiralled out of control from there.

Could lightning strike a second time and another 227 be sparked from some of this explicit content? For a lot of complicated reasons I'm not going to get into here (it would be a very long post), I don't think that's likely.

227 was a special, very complicated situation that I don't think is likely to happen the same way again. Timing and a lot of the other factors that played into its blowing up the way it did - all of that is unlikely to align in such a way. Especially since everyone in C-ent is a lot more cautious and vigilant after 227.

GG and DD are both in good standing with the government (as is evidenced by their inclusion in government and nationalistic projects), and that's a factor that will have some influence. And no doubt they and their teams have learned a lot from past experience, and have already planned for how to protect them in various scenarios that could arise.

They also have the power to have content relating to them removed, to sue content creators, to shut down the supertopics if they want to, etc.. If they feel at risk, they have a lot of recourse. The fact that we aren't seeing this happening should reassure us that it's probably fine.

We have to realize that GG and DD are surrounded by highly skilled, highly paid professionals whose entire job is to protect them and their interests. They're both in a much safer place than they were 4 years ago.

I trust them to know what's best for them and handle their affairs accordingly. We as fans shouldn't waste time hand-wringing over things that are completely outside our control.

As for what's within our control - it's up to every individual to make our own choices about how we'll represent GG and DD online.

More on that angle if/when I ever finish that other post.

#bjyx #yizhan #ggdd in the public eye #fandom reflections #thanks so much #bxg ggdd #ask

57 notes · View notes

creation-help · 2 months

Text

Actually, I think I wanna say something about the increasing censorship and removal of porn from the internet. I don't think it should be controversial of me to say, but I'll put it under the cut still just in case. But considering what this blog is like, I think it's an on theme thing to talk about.

I'm gonna get straight to it but you're completely justified in being upset that sex workers and erotic artists are being basically banished from online spaces. Some may say oh, if you want porn just go to porn sites like pornhub or whatever, but really I understand why not everyone wants to. Aside from concerns about illegally uploaded content, plagiarism and the rise of Ai, it's just not up to everyone's taste. What I mean is, that. Well, hold onto your socks for this one.

I watch porn. Gasp! I know. Anyway. From my time cruising different porn sites, any animated or otherwise artistic content is often mass produced, kinda shitty lifeless 3D blender stuff that has very little soul. No disrespect to any people who actually worked on those, but I bring this up bc personally I understand enjoying the kind of porn and erotica that genuine passionate artists make! Like, it'll immediately be more enjoyable to look at something that clearly has alot of effort, passion and genuine artistic skill put into it, rather than something made for brainless horny consumption. That is, again, increasingly often generated by machine learning algorithms, and used with art scraped from actual genuine artists who are trying to make a living off of it.

Porn art is art. Erotic art is art. We are allowed to care about it, enjoy it and definitely protect it's existence.

And btw this isn't some big judgment statement about the purity of artistic porn as compared to "That other NASTY stuff", but moreso just an acknowledgement and defence of the fact that porn art can be beautiful, meaningful and something genuinely worth engaging with. And it deserves to have it's own platform with the appropriate guidelines (so before any poor pissers come on this post, I'm obviously of the opinion that it needs to be properly filterable, behind protective measures and or tagged. Fucking duh.)

All art is valuable. Even art made to satisfy sexual fantasies or appeal to primal urges. And it truly is saddening to see nsfw artists being robbed of platforms or placed under increasingly suffocating restrictions that take away their earnings, if not even their livelihood (like in the case of many sex workers. Speak of which, I'm mostly addressing nsfw artists but you can imagine how badly this is hitting sex workers as well. That's also something you should be upset about.)

#Mod talks #sex positive #anti censorship #Too nervous to tag anything else tbh let's hope this finds its audience

63 notes · View notes

littlest-bugz · 5 months

Text

. introduction post .

Hello!

My name is BUGZ ! I am a bodily 21 year old [polyfragmented] DID system. We collectively have ADHD, Autism, OCD and a few other comorbid disorders. They all affect our day to day, but we will likely only post about our experiences as a DID system. Collectively we use they/he/she pronouns!

Get to know us more below the cut!

[ byf and dni also below cut ]

About Us !

OUR FREQUENT FRONTERS !

Things in our system change frequently!

Currently, we collectively identify as transmasc, bigender, panalterous, omni oriented DemiAroAce, and ambiamorous ! This is an agreed upon identity the entirety of The Crew and Co. and is essentially for the body itself. Names, pronouns, genders and sexualities all vary from alter to alter individually.

On our page, you will find. . .

Lots of reblogs on random topics and hyperfixations

System Content [Mostly Text Posts and Half-baked Memes]

Original userboxes, blinkies, stamps. [The link to my hoards are below!!!]

Stimboards and Moodboards

Worldbuilding and OC talk

. . . and more!

Layout, Stimboard, and Userbox requests; Closed until current reqs finished!!!

Before you interact. . .

Our account may not be fully SFW, but we never reblog or post explicit material. I have a bad swearing problem, and due to my trauma, I have a hard time telling what is socially acceptable in regards for entirely being SFW. It's something I'm working on, so please be weary! We don't mind agere and petre engagement, just please know my blog is more skewed for mature audiences.

We almost never tag who is posting! We try, but it causes a lot of anxiety for a good amount of us. Please don't ask us to sign off our posts, as we feel it invades our boundaries. We're willing to give pronouns, but we generally try to keep our names more private.

We are endo apathetic. We honestly do not care if endos exist or not, we are just vibing in our own space. We only care about the misinfo on CDDs that is being spread. PLUS anyone is welcome on our blog as long as they don't drag us into any discourse/syscourse, aren't promoting misinformation, and/or being a generally bad or gross person.

We block liberally and without telling the blocked party. It's a force of habit that proves handy on the world wide web. We also ask you don't bother us to be unblocked.

BPD/NPD/HPD/ASPD havers are all welcome on our blog! If u believe in narc/histronic/borderline abuse, leave!!

WE ARE PRO-EDUCATED SELF DIAGNOSIS!!!

Do not interact. . .

Basic DNI Criteria [this is a link.] [note: some of the items on this list are repeated for ease of identification]

If you intend to ask about stances on discourse. [note: I'm always willing to be open to new lines of thinking and new ideas, as well as be corrected for any misinfo I may accidentally spread, but if you're going to talk down to me because I don't know or don't believe what you believe, I will block you. Speak to me as an equal or don't speak to me at all.]

pro/comshippers and pro/comship supporters.

transid/transx/radqueer or supporters [transRAMCOA/transProgrammer blocked on sight]

“cringe culture” supporters

ageplay/ddlg [again sfw agere/petre fine, but please know this account has mature themes.]

MAPs/Pedos and Zoos

Transphobes, TERFs, Radfems, Transmeds and the likes

anti-xenogender/anti-neopronouns

anti-mspec

pro-forced birth (“pro-life”)/ anti-abortion

More will be added as time goes. . .

Tags!

#important - important posts to us!

#littlest_bugz og - my original posts,,, may not be very original tho LOL

#reblogs ?! on my feed ?! /lh /j - My reblog tag!! Everything that gets reblogged should be under this tag, but I don't always remember

#you asked we answered - My ask tag! Feel free to send in asks at anytime

#so real for this - I don't know how to describe this properly, but these posts are so real.

#original userboxes/layouts/stamps/deco/art/ect - All of our original content divided into specifics! [ note: they are not all lumped together like that, just putting them all together for the sake of space, you can find most of them tagged in this post ]

#system posting - Our experiences on system hood as well as reblogs and other stuff! Was formerly 'system stuff'

#kinito posting - I am obsessed with an axolotl virus [mostly kinitopet fanart]

#stardew posting - I'm an avid stardew valley fan!!! I reblog fanart and post abt it sometimes

#lps posting - I am/was an avid lps collector!! I reblog fanart and post original content [sometimes,,, but usually text posts]

#cat posting - I reblog a lot of cat pictures and art!! cats r a huge comfort for me

#the hoard - I hoard and collect deco. If the links don't work for some reason, just click this tag

more tba . . .

Links!

Deco Collection - A hoard of all our deco, which includes stamps, blinkies and userboxes WARNING; FLASHING IMAGES, BRIGHT COLORS, AND MORE! PROCEED WITH CAUTION

pronouns.cc - has [some of] the frequent fronter's pronouns, names, and sign-offs. Only the peeps that are safe to say

personal blog - a wip but where I will post a ton of journal entry stuff! but not rn, unfortunately

art comms website - two of our hosts are artists and take comms- this is their site! comms are currently closed, except for the demented chibi heads [link]

my ko-fi - commission payments go here! The chibi head listing is on here! you can also donate if you feel inclined to, but it's 110% not expected

[note: you will probably see a linktree on some of these because I get freaked out by so many links on a page, but this is different bc tumblr is like my hub, if that makes sense?]

89 notes · View notes

bettyshoweduptotheparty · 4 months

Text

My Exit Note (for now) - and A Letter to Taylor

I’m so very sorry to the lovely people on here who will be saddened to read this, but this will be my last post for a while. I re-joined tumblr in June last year to re-reconnect to this lovely community, and it genuinely seemed so much safer to do than back in 2017. I thought the fandom had gained some perspective as a whole. But after only 7 months, the fandom (and by that I mean swifties) has once again become a battle ground for us, fuelled by none other than Taylor herself, and I’m no longer willing to gloss over that. I’m choosing my own peace.

It may seem like a very fickle move after only 7 months in this space, when the good people on here are genuinely some of the kindest and most intelligent people I’ve ever met online, but let me explain why I need to take a break. I don’t intend to leave Taylor Swift and her art behind and never look back. In fact, I have Eras tour tickets for the summer and I want to give myself a chance to actually be excited about that by the time June comes around. But it’s all too familiar, pretty much exactly the same reason I left tumblr the first time in 2017. I’m here to discuss and analyse Taylor’s art with likeminded (queer) people and I can’t respect the artist of that very art when she continually gives her toxic ‘fans’ ammunition to come into our safe space and harass us and then watches as we scramble to keep ourselves safe amidst abuse and threats. They are doing this in HER name. Members of a marginalised community she claims to be an ‘ally’ to are being doxxed and harassed in HER name and she’s doing nothing. If anything she’s fanning the flames while it burns. Whatever it is that she’s doing with her brand right now, her silence when her own crazy fans are sending DEATH THREATS to people for simply interpreting her art, means that I cannot be part of that right now. I thought the fandom had changed, that Taylor had grown more confident defending what she stands for, but clearly, I was wrong.

The tipping point back in 2017 for me, was when she told those kids from the rep secret sessions that the album was all about her darling bf and gave them permission to go after anyone who said otherwise. And boy, did they take that seriously. They came after us in our little corner for gushing over how beautifully gay those songs were, fuelled by words straight from the horse’s mouth. SHE sent those people after us. Because she wrote the gayest album in history and she couldn’t deal with the noise getting too loud. And I lost all respect for her. It was only in 2019 when she was suddenly draped in rainbows that I carefully looked at gaylor spaces online again, because it seemed like she was finally actually committing to it. But we all know how that ended… So, to see one of those very rep secret session kids on my YouTube feed yesterday picking apart this beautiful NY Times article with lies and inaccuracies in the name of Taylor’s straightness, just reminded me whose side she decides to put herself on. She invited those people to her house. She caters to them, not us. She made them think they were her friends and then sent them after us. With HER OWN WORDS. And I can’t be in the trenches for someone who hands my bullies a gun and points at the target.

I will leave my blog active this time, so my content will be here for people to engage with if they want. But I won’t be on here to receive your messages or dm’s. I’m sorry that I’m leaving you guys at a time where we need to stick together, but I’m getting more anger and hurt out of this than joy atm and that’s always the time for me to put myself first and step away. I hope that we will come together again when the tide changes, I’m still somewhat convinced that the clock is ticking towards a better time for us, but I need Taylor to come through for us (and herself) before I can look at her again. And I promise if that happens, I won’t hold a grudge.

And lastly, here’s something I’ve never done because I’m not crazy enough to think that Taylor sees us on here, but I don’t have any other social media and I had to get this off my chest. (If you have twitter/instagram, maybe do something similar, you never know, she might actually see it and I think she needs to know how much hurt she’s causing with this)

Dear Taylor, @taylorswift

What are you doing, love? I wish I could actually ask you that. In fact, I’ve wished it many times throughout the decade that I’ve been a fan of your music. I’ve wished that I could tell you what your music meant to me when I was heartbroken, and how much joy it brought me when I was young and felt invincible. You changed my life when you proudly held a girl’s hand in public with a smile that showed me that love is there for people like me to find, after all. And when the world was hard on you, I wished I could ask you if you were ok. But today, I just want to ask you this: what have I done to deserve you sending the worst kind of people after me? Time and time again. And you can’t tell me you didn’t know that would happen, I know you’re smart. I know you know the kind of people I’m talking about, the ones that worship you like a God, that will stop at nothing to defend the version of you they have in their heads. The ones you built your empire on. Good on you, but when did you stop caring for the people that actually see you and read the words you put out into the world for us? Was that not what you wanted? I can’t claim to understand how you live the life you’ve chosen, but at least your art was always there to bring joy to my life and community when I needed it. I didn’t need you to be a hero, but now you’ve become part of the problem.

So, here’s the thing: choose a side. Commit to us, or let us go. This line that you’re walking has reached the end. You want to be an ally? Fine. Let me help you with that: Don’t claim to be a safe space for queer people and then throw a grenade into our community and watch it burn. That’s not what an ally does. Don’t appropriate our culture by using our pride flag colours or the colour lavender and then deny the cultural and historic significance of those colours, effectively erasing their meaning. That’s not what an ally does. And most importantly, don’t let people be slaughtered, gaslit and harassed on the internet, or mainstream news, for interpreting your music as queer. A young queer woman, who is an incredible journalist, got called ‘inappropriate’ and a liar on national news yesterday, because she picked up what you’re putting down in your music and wrote an article about it. An incredible article by the way, one that made us all feel seen and validated. And then you’re letting old white men on national television call that inappropriate and invasive. You may not have said those words, but you let them stand there uncommented, let your cultish fans think that their hero is offended by being presumed to be gay. You guessed it, that’s also not what an ally does. A marginalised group of your fans got DEATH THREATS in your name in the last 24 hours because we pick up on queer flagging in your art. And you did nothing. You handed our bullies weapons and left us to fend for ourselves. That is not a safe space for LGBTQ people. And for that reason, you’re losing me.

Because I have nothing to believe. Unless you actually choose me (and yourself for that matter). Just once.

Until then,

#lgbtq rights #lgbetty #friends of dorothea #I’m out for now #hope I can be back some day #but I need Taylor to show me why I should #i’m sorry #love our community #stay safe people

75 notes · View notes

teaboot · 1 year

Note

hello this is my first Tumblr and I am quite confusef Hel me!

Hello!

Tumblr in my experience is different from a lot of other social media platforms as there is no real goal or purpose or competition in posting. You can pretty much just say or do or add whatever and if people like your vibes the follow you, and if they don't, they don't.

If you like certain topics or Fandoms (groups of people who enjoy a particular show, book, media, etc.) you can search for it and click "follow" on blogs dedicated to those things.

Whenever they post something, you can see it on your dashboard (your "feed" or "homepage") and decide to comment (add pictures or words) reply (say something without sharing the post with your followers) or reblog (share with your followers, so that anyone following you can see the post, with or without adding your own commentary.)

Beyond technical stuff, there are some cultural things you may want to know about.

If something you reblog has potentially upsetting content- violence, traumatic topics, nudity- its considered an act of courtesy to "tag" it. This is so your followers who specifically do not want to see those topics can use filters to make those posts invisible. This is handy for people with phobias, PTSD, or photosensitive epilepsy, but also for people who just don't like those things.

There are a lot of memes that will not make sense. That is because posts don't vanish when they get old, so anything that becomes a "meme" often gets referenced over and over again for years, sometimes actual decades. Posts like "do you like the color of the sky?", "Horse Plinko", "loss.jpeg", etc. are examples of this.

There is no algorithm that decides what you might like and shows you those things. You are in control of your own experience. If you see a lot of posts from people you don't like about things you don't want to see, you can block them and never see them again. They won't see you, either. It's like making friends- you can choose to follow whoever makes you happy and avoid whoever doesn't.

There is a bot problem. Bots are automated spam designed to look like other users. This is often "cute single women" type stuff, but can also be anonymous or generic fake blogs that send out a thousand identical messages that accuse you or others of wrongdoing, or just send out basic insults. They will never see your reply. They only exist to cause chaos. You can report and block them and are encouraged to do so.

There is a difference between "liking" and "reblogging". If you "like" something, it is added to an invisible list so you can go back and find it later. If you "reblog" something, your followers can see it too. Artists prefer reblogs over likes, because they put a lot of work into their art (or writing) and the only way they can reach a large audience is if lots of people share it. Artists who are trying to get commissions or develop a career depend on reblogs to continue making art.

Sometimes an update or change happens that alters the website without any warning and everyone whines about it and adapts. This happens every few months. It's kind of dumb and sometimes makes it worse but if you Google "tumblr 2012" you will see that it's actually been a slow march of improvement.

Something weird will happen on April fool's day. Sometimes this will affect the website layout.

You will not get many followers unless you engage with other users. This is a cafeteria and if you wanna eat alone you can.

If any of your posts go viral you will see it forever until you die and if it's about Beans you will live out the rest of your days getting messages like "Are you Bean Guy" so tread lightly

You will need to choose an icon and change the appearance of your blog or people will think you are a bot. (Side effect of the bot problem.)

I have no idea if you are a bot or spam message this reply is an act of faith

Good luck!

#Long post

286 notes · View notes

funsexydb · 7 months

Text

Sorry for just popping by here in and out. I was starting to believe that it wouldn't be feasible to browse more than one or two social sites at a time... but then twitter will have an update or do something SO DUMB it makes me think... "hm, maybe I should venture out to different websites from time to time?"

I'm starting to think back on how I used to jump from blog to blog, site to site, not signing up for everything really, but instead exploring and reading different articles, comments, pictures, etc. Twitter made me miss doing that a lot. I doubt anything will change tomorrow to the way it used to be. From bluesky, to tumblr, to mastodon, to ig, to tiktok etc, things can feel overwhelming or tiresome. Do I even have the mental space to engage in multiple sites and socials? No, right?

But honestly? It's becoming tiresome to browse/scroll through only ONE site. It's almost feels like never leaving your house. Yes, I do indeed "touch grass" more often than you'd know. But I'm speaking about the downtime when I'm not outside and hanging with friends, but on the comfort of my couch or at the desk on my PC.

I always had this mindset that having everything in one place was better. Like news, art, online friends, trends, etc. And that was what twitter is (or was?) for years. But maybe browsing different blogs, socials, and discord servers, isn't such a horrible idea that I thought it was.

I don't think the "next twitter" is going to happen again anytime soon. I'm hoping it'll be something new, but not in the way we think. Maybe ironically the next big internet thing is "touching virtual grass" (no, not VR) but by "socializing" outside of just ONE platform for everything, but at least having a handful of sites that we like and enjoy visiting. Places I can rotate between and possibly discover more I like.

Tumblrs nice, bluesky is great, and twitter as much as it pains me to say this, still has some good in it, but it's clearly falling apart. And I don't want to retreat to another social media site and have it become the only site I scroll through 24/7.

Anyway, I'm ranting! My ass will probably fall back to bad habits and be stuck on twitter for the next five hours something, haha! But I sincerely hope things can change online sooner than later. For all our mental well being.

#funsexydb #rant #you can tell i've been reading one too many opinion tech articles about social media

65 notes · View notes

t00thpasteface · 6 months

Note

hey sorry i’m sure it’s a little dumb but how did you find a community/make mutuals on here? i swapped from twitter to here last year & haven’t been able to make friends like i did on twitter ;v; sorry if this is all silly but figured it couldn’t hurt to ask. love your art & blog !!!

as i like to say, it's like lifting an anvil: it's very simple, but that doesn't mean it's easy. as someone who's a 12+ year veteran that lurked for a couple years and remade a little while ago, really it all comes down to putting yourself out there!!! don't just sit around twiddling your thumbs and lurking. it's tough to do it without coming off as a pandering tryhard, but honestly as long as you're polite, upbeat, and posting regularly, then you're golden.

if you want a big list of wordy bullet points, here's what i've got, and i think you'll find it's pretty applicable to basically any site/community you want to get involved in:

post a lot. this is number one with a fucking bullet! POST! POST LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. but crucially...

post GOOD STUFF. don't bash yourself in the caption/tags, don't say "sorry this is shit" or whatever, don't self-deprecate, and don't admit to posting low-effort stuff just to hit a quota. imagine it's open mic night and go crazy. this is a good site to use like a journal and a scrapbook, but if you want to actually get some traction, you need to bring something interesting to the table. of course, just being funny and nice goes a very long way.

encourage audience feedback. people LOVE to tell you about themselves and give their opinions. get them responding and make the questions and calls for engagement so interesting or fun they can't help themselves.

tag effectively. use both fandom/content tags for searches, and organizational tags for your visitors' use. the tagging system is tumblr's bread and butter, so make it work for you.

follow a lot of blogs you like. then see who they follow, and add those to the list. build a good circle of engagement and keep your finger on the pulse of the site culture for whatever niche(s) you're in... or want to get in.

reblog a lot and be funny/kind in the tags. generally leaving a lot of comments/replies to post is kind of hit-or-miss, but tags are a good harmless "inside voice" to use that doesn't clutter the post itself and yet still engages with op and people seeing the post

engage with people when they ask for engagement. things like polls, ask games, etc... scratch people's backs and they'll scratch yours. and it's just a nice thing to do regardless :)

panhandling is not always the best route. people will balk if you look desperate or openly beg for engagement, like directly asking people to reblog something or being passive-aggressive about how much engagement you are/aren't getting on something. a genuine joke about it is fun and relatable, but snarky comments just kill the vibe and scare people off.

REMEMBER THERE'S NO ALGORITHM. lurking will not put you or any of the stuff you like out there!! REBLOG POSTS! SEND ASKS! this site will NOT SPOON FEED YOU ANYTHING. like taming a wild stallion, you can make this work for you, but you have to put in the effort first.

some people will think you're annoying, and that's okay. probably not very many, but they'll be loud. this is an unavoidable part of Being Known. you can be the sweetest peach in the world but there'll still be people who just don't like peaches. don't take it to heart, and if you do happen to drop the ball or rub a few people the wrong way, don't let that keep you from trying again :)

i've enjoyed the many friends i've made on this site in the past decade-and-then-some, even though both this site and my blog are both something of a ship of theseus. here's hoping you can make it work for you and your interests, too!

#shebbz shoutz #ask

54 notes · View notes

drawbauchery · 2 months

Note

so i just finished the first trial of the second danganronpa game and so i gotta ask. why do you like teruteru? genuinely. like i dont see any redeeming qualities in him.

unless the answer spoils anything from the rest of the game. please dont talk about what happens after this point. thank you.

im really enjoying dr btw it will be nice to finally engage with ur art again once im done with the series!

i mean.....if you don't like him then i don't think you'll wanna read my giant essay about why i adore him adsfl like someone could sit me down and explain why they like hiyoko in full passionate detail and i'd come out of it having just as much hatred for her, so. i'd rather not feel like i have to justify anything

but yeah don't look at any more art until you finish, there's a million spoilers on my blog and i don't wanna ruin it for ya!

#mintcarousel #asks #danganronpa #EXCELLENT icon btw. we can agree on chihiro supremacy

33 notes · View notes

Last Seen Blogs

er10p15

Starfighter

wildthingpoorboy

WildThingPoorBoy

sparklefairybae333

fictional people are hot

adoreakennels

Adorea Kennels

corral40823943-blog

Untitled