dear ao3

sorry for marking fics for later so rapidly you have to stop me occasionally for fear of ddos, I appreciate you looking out for everyone and I promise I'm neither a robot nor acting maliciously but I'll wait anyway

love sheepy

🥺🥺🥺 not 2 be sappy on main but omg I actually started off in Deviantart ages ago, that was the closest thing to social media for me until the tumblr migration lol. But I never really interacted with people on there, and even upon moving to tumblr, never really interacted with people here too often either. At first I had my main blog which was meant to be more professional since I was selling art to get a little college income, so I didn't really make too many irrelevant posts. Then I decided that I wanted to be able to reblog art and support other artists, so I made a side blog where I carefully curated and tagged the posts I reblogged. I made a few original posts but no one ever interacted, and eventually I realized that people only ever sent me asks there if I tagged anything wrong. Also I found out that adding stuff like series and character tags to a reblog on tumblr is basically useless because the op will pretty much always tag those things which makes it searchable on your own blog even if you don't tag it yourself. And if op DIDN'T tag it those things, your tags will make the post searchable on your blog but NOT in the general search, so it doesn't give op any more of a boost than just reblogging it tagless. So I made another sideblog, which I still have today, and I just rapidfire reblog literally anything I find shareworthy lol. Not any interaction there but at least I'm not wasting my time meticulously tagging strangers posts hsfjdlshfks. Since I was best friends with a big name fan in my main fandom (we became friends when I left a long emotional comment on their fanfic btw <3), I helped run some small fandom events and met more people as well. When I switched fandoms, it was a fandom event that gave me a new friend too, my posts never got any traction. Large fandom discords didn't really work for me either. But on this blog I was lucky, and for the first time people started like actually responding to my comments and posts, and get conversations going! And genuinely that's what's kept my brain rot so powerful I think, because bouncing ideas off each other and joking around and shitposting is genuinely the most fun I've ever had online!! I have to thank desta and oatmeal for the fun times especially, and hillbilly---man left really nice comments on my first few fics that really encouraged me, and I always have fun trading ideas with alienn, saikikthoughts, and crookedlyinnernightmare, plus everyone else who's on here, that's too many people to type out. AND I TYPED UP A BUNCH MORE STUFF BUT TUMBLR FUCKING DELETED IT!! Are you shitting me.... Well I think I remember saying that even if it's been getting kinda quiet and boring lately so my attention is starting to wander (I've pretty much posted all of the meta that's not deep fanfic hc at this point and my drawings take me a long time to make), I'll never delete this blog and I'll still be putzing around online until the day I die probably. And I'll always remember these days fondly and hope to find another great community like this one. And also I highly encourage everyone to post, reply, interact, and play with fellow fans! I've made lifelong friendships over blorbos and even if we don't have the same blorbos any more, we're still friends. Obviously stay safe online, never send money to strangers, probably wait like a year to start shipping each other stuff but still, reach out because you never know who you might meet! I've been lonely irl for most of my life for various reasons, and my online friends have been a lifeline honestly, they're all really important to me. Two of my best friends today come from fanfic comment sections!! Also I need to get around to archiving my meta on AO3 lol (yup, it's for meta too!) but that's gonna be a lot of work so -_-U).

joking with bf about tumblr and realized I don't understand what people get out of social media anymore - like at all.

My first real "social media" was myspace. It was short-lived. But I liked that (back then) you had your own page, you filled it out with your information, you had your music and banners etc. Not so many images back then, but the point was your page was yours. Customizing your own space was fun.

Then I moved on to livejournal which was even more self-involved. You had your journal that was just yours. You could put anything in it, anything you wanted, and it wouldn't go away unless you chose to delete it. But other people could look at it and interact with you in the comments. And you could join communities where you'd meet other people with similar interests, which would then lead them to visit your journal and you to visit them.

When lj tanked I moved to tumblr, where once again, I have my own space, I can talk about whatever I want, people can choose to interact with me if they feel like it, plus there are visuals and video and a feed which delivers new posts from people I follow. It's easier than ever to just explore, meet people with similar interests, and make connections, while cultivating my own journal/scrapbook that is a record of myself over the years.

It seems to me that self-involved element just isn't interesting to many people anymore. Even though Instagram and Tiktok are definitely very invested in the self! I guess the argument is probably that no one reads text posts anyway, the best way is to post video or images and at most have a short quick to read blurb attached at the bottom. But the attraction of text posts, for me, was never the idea that other people were going to read them. It was simply self-expression. The enjoyment of talking about what's going on with me and working through it. It's nice to get comments, but sometimes the comments, well, make you feel worse, especially on a personal post.

On fandom posts I hoped for notes, but in general I liked to stew in anonymity. I thought about having separate blogs for fandom posts and personal ones. But you know why I didn't? Because I like going to someone's blog and seeing more there than just their art or fanfiction. I like knowing a thing or two about their lives. Not so I can judge them. Because it makes them feel real, relatable, like a friend. Someone I'm not meant to worship for their skill, but appreciate and support, by my own choice, as part of a community. When there's no info at all and it's just a fandom blog, it feels commercial to me. I'm always relieved when a fandom blog links to their personal blog, although I also find that much more jarring than if everything's just in one place and searchable by tags.

These days everyone tells me to be on Discord, Tiktok, or Instagram. But in none of those places can I develop my own personal space the way I like to. I can't even find groups with similar interests on them. Maybe some exist, but if they do they're nowhere near as easy to find as they used to be. When I was in my twenties I could always find people to chill with, no matter how tiny the fandom was. Now the point is to have a sleek, clean, specific persona so people know immediately what you're selling (even when no actual money is involved). You're selling art, you're selling fanfiction, you're selling meta, you're selling activism, you're selling witticisms. That's all great. And what we've all known, even since the days of myspace, is that what doesn't sell is personal posts. Talk about yourself = followers walk away. There's nothing for them here. Multi-fandom blog? Yeah but I only like one fandom you do, so clearly we have nothing in common and shouldn't interact. Lol. Honestly there are so many people here on tumblr I'd like to interact with, except when I visit their blogs they seem like they wouldn't want to interact with me. I'm only a little bit cottagecore, not 100% cottagecore. I sometimes post about books, but sometimes about anime. So the book-lovers who stick up their nose at anime don't want to hang out with me, and the anime-lovers who don't get classical literature maybe think I'm gonna be a snob toward them. Because they know "too much" about me. If they knew less, if they knew only what they'd feel comfortable knowing, because my blog is anime-only or something, then maybe we'd be friends. Not that I'd call that friendship :) but you know, in that shallow, hyper-specific social media sense of the word.

That's my theory. I never was popular on any social media site - personal blogs rarely are! Never wanted to be either (I've been here since I was in college and uhhh absolutely do not judge me please by anything I wrote when I was stupid nineteen). And it may be that very personal feature of tumblr which makes it less attractive to people than places where the point is to be a persona, instead of a person. Persona attracts, person not so much.

I just feel sad that this type of social media seems to be disappearing when I have no appreciation for the type that's replaced it. Believe it or not, I want to see y'all's novel-length text posts. Even when I don't read them, I still want to see them. I like having my little group that I follow and the only people I unfollow are blogs which self-promote more than I have a taste for. Small spaces are so underrated and I guess that's only to be expected.

I’ve been on tumblr since 2012 and following you pretty much that entire time and have never reblogged or posted a single thing under my name. Before that I was on LJ for years and never posted anything. I send (nice) asks to people on anon, and leave (nice) comments and kudos on ao3. I used to interact some on LJ when anon kink memes were a thing. I am a part of fandom and have been for close to 20 years, I’m just not comfortable having any kind of public persona online that people can see, even if it has no attachment to my real name.

I know that the influx of new, young fans and the way they treat fandom the same as other online content creation/consumption is a problem. But fandom has always had lurkers. I do my best to positively interact in the ways that I am able to within my comfort zone, and I follow the rules of fandom etiquette. There’s so much pushback against lurkers now that was never there before, and I just don’t understand it.

It's a difficult line to walk, but there's a difference between going to a blog that has zero posts, zero likes, no header, no icon, not even a note that says "just lurking," and a person that's here to look at stuff that displays at least enough humanity to say "hey don't block me I'm just looking."

And look... yes there's always been lurkers. And there probably always will be. And it wasn't an issue for you or for creators or fandom in general, because it didn't hurt anything before. In just my living memory, fandom spent a while just being mailing lists- so creations/discussion went to everyone. There wasn't really anyone else to pass stuff on to, so it didn't matter if you just signed up and never said a word. Webrings based the spread of creation in the site itself, because everything was small back then. Livejournal had public and private communities that were searchable and creation was based inside of those communities, and interaction was based on commenting - what you're used to doing, and okay doing - meaning community was based in the comments and people linking to various communities. Back when places like deviantart and ff.net were pretty staple major sites for everyone, community formed in comment sections there as well.

And as much as I do love social media and the advent of community messaging systems... it's changed the face of fandom in ways that make lurking - and I do mean straight up no interaction, if you're sending messages and commenting, you're participating - break the links of community.

Look at it this way:

Back on LJ etc, it didn't matter if you, personally, lurked. Or even if 100 people lurked. Creations and community were centrally located. People all gathered to the same stable location (a post, or a community feed) to look at the things, and comment etc so if you commented or didn't, they could still find the creations. Sites like that brought people together. Now? *shakes head* Social media sites have divided us, and AI/Bots/Algorithms are conquering us because we disseminated too far.

Where do you go, on twitter, if you want to find fic? How do you find a conversation about something? Where do artists go so you can find groups of them and their galleries? You can scroll a tag, but anyone can put anything in that. I have literally no idea how tiktok works because every time I go on it, things just start scrolling past and playing videos for me that I didn't click. It's kind of horrifying. Instagram is... god, I don't even know how to classify that mess, but it's not a community. it's a museum. don't touch anything.

Tumblr is... it's not livejournal, it's not deviantart, it's not mailing lists or webrings but... it's people touching real people still, or it has the ability to be that if we continue to fight for it. As much as there are shitshows around here on occasion, it's still largely neighbors passing notes over the fences separating us.

But for as much community potential as it has, with the way it can function - with the way it USED to function, the way I REMEMBER it functioning a long time ago - it still separates us. There's tags, like on twitter, but anyone that tag dives (like me) knows what a hot fucking mess the tags can be, and there's no other central collection.

Tumblr's saving grace, though, is the ability we, the users, have to interact like humans. To share what we can with one another. To create networks that still kind of resemble the webrings of old, where you can come to one location (someone's blog) and find gateways to other blogs the way one page/site used to lead to the next so the separate, divided things spread across the world WIDE web don't get lost.

Except the link gets broken here, when folks just have empty blogs. There's (thankfully) no algorithm deciding what we should look at, but the trade off is that we have to be responsible for that step in fandom again. The way we used to be.

Not to mention that... there was never really a point for bots back in the LJ days. It would have been hard for them to survive because everyone knew at least some of the people. Not that there weren't, but it was harder and not rewarding for them to exist en masse. Now? Now bots use social media sites and users. Here, on tumblr, they follow accounts to make it look like they're legit to search engines. Whatever central account they're using to scam people, it collects the bots and the network the bots make, and uses them to look legit, so they can scam people, so they can spread viruses, advertise porn or whatever they're doing. They're exploiting users here, and they do this by following us.

And the ONLY recourse we have? is guessing that they're bots and blocking them. Because reporting a blank blog won't get tumblr addressing the issue. So, when someone lurks in a completely faceless, anon way, a way that makes them look like a bot, then the people who are being followed are going to learn to treat them like the bots that are trying to exploit them to do bad things.

And that's not on you! It's not your fault that they're doing those things, or that people have to react the way they have to react to curb that nonsense. And it's not your fault that social media wants to separate us so it can sell us whatever it wants and keep us from communicating and forming communities where we can entertain ourselves instead of feeding on their ads or whatever. It's not your fault that the way community functions on a human level has been backed into a corner by algorithms/bots.

But that IS the lay of the land these days. You and I have both been here long enough that we've watched the landscape shift. It's not the net we knew. And that's unfortunate. But it's probably not going to go back to the way we knew once upon a time. So people are pushing back against folks being quiet, because the alternative is to let algorithms win and do the talking for us. To let bots use us to hurt others. To let fandom founder because it's being directed by whatever AI is in charge of telling us what to look at.

I'm not going to tell anyone they can't be in fandom if they don't reblog stuff or make stuff or whatever. Just... that fandom is going to have a LOT harder time existing in this new breed of divided space if we don't reach out and connect and help one another connect to others, too.

In today's installment of unnecessarily complicated bullshit coded by your local compsci reject at 5am: literally every* rwby ship tag ID on AO3

If you've ever wanted to be able to search for all fics tagged with an OT3 or all three of its composite pairings, well. uh. here's how to do it

Long post incoming!

Tag IDs are unique numbers associated with each tag, and if you chuck this:

filter_ids: 12345

into the "Search within results" field on AO3 (or "Any field" if you're in the Advanced search), it will filter for all fics that have tag #12345. This is basically useless unless you know what numbers go to which tags (we'll get to that in a sec), but if you do, then you can do fun stuff like this:

filter_ids: 1072769 OR filter_ids: 994409

(Which translates to Bumbleby OR Whiterose)

This lets you search for fics with either tag A or tag B instead of only fics that have both. Afaik not something the nice filtering UI is able to do.

Searching for Bumbleby AND Whiterose just involves tossing two of those "filter_ids" thingies into the search together like this:

filter_ids: 1072769 filter_ids: 994409

You can also combine them like so:

(filter_ids: 1072769 filter_ids: 1325904 filter_ids: 1059208) OR filter_ids: 2397525

((Bumbleby AND Freezerburn AND Monochrome) OR Bees Schnees)

to look for all fics with either both of the first two tags or the second tag. I've been messing around with this a bit and so far it's been letting me make my searches as long and complicated as I want.

(EDIT: okay so trying to put 683 tag filters in at the same time will return an error...)

Anyways, getting back to what the fuck are these numbers even, I put an explanation of how I found them over here (sort of, in practice I used python to do most of the legwork because jESUS FUCK THERE'S OVER 2,000 OF THEM). But for those who don't want to spend ages poking around in html code, I present:

The Fuckoff Giant Text File Of RWBY Relationship Tag IDs

It should be possible to download it if you'd like, but at least for me google docs is willing to show a searchable preview! Just hit ctrl+F and type in the ship you're looking for.

Keep in mind that these are mostly** going to be listed the way the canonical tag appears on AO3, i.e. "Blake Belladonna/Yang Xiao Long" will get a hit, but "Yang Xiao Long/Blake Belladonna" is not in the giant text file at all.

**(I did get rid of parentheticals clarifying the fandom, i.e. "Summer Rose (RWBY)/Reader" is listed as just "Summer Rose/Reader")

Also, these are sorted by tag ID, so this is (I think???) a list of every ship tag in this fandom in chronological order of when they were first tagged, since the tag IDs are assigned sequentially.

*(this file contains every single ship to the best of my knowledge. I probably did miss some and I could only scrape the ones that had already been created at the time but. but.

Amber/Ilia Amitola/Blake Belladonna/Maria Calavera/Elm Ederne/Pyrrha Nikos/Penny Polendina/Ruby Rose/Salem/Weiss Schnee/Ciel Soleil/Emerald Sustrai: 101267707

but I REALLY DID GET A LOT)

so uh. yeah! someone take python away from me askjdflskjdf

how do you deal with hate? like from what I understand, you posted your first "controversial" post knowing that people might hate you for it, and you did so anyways. even tho it might have felt like you were the only one who believed those things at the time. where do you get the confidence? cause honestly that was such a slay.

Like, obvi we all have our own opinions and I don't agree with everything you said but the confidence you had.. grrrr i like it so much 💗💗 i love it when people are real with their opinions.

okay ty, im sorry for rambling, gonna stop here now 😭😭

I really want to play it cool and say something like “I just don’t care what people think of me,” but honestly? Yeah I was terrified of posting my first BSD-related post.

I had been enjoying the BSD fandom from afar for about a year before posting anything about it. I’ve always had this personal pet peeve when (fictional or real) bullies get a free pass to be assholes when they’re conventionally attractive, but that applies to all fandoms, not just BSD and not just Dazai. 

(Note that that’s not a moral stance, there’s nothing wrong with liking a morally grey character, and there’s nothing wrong with finding a bad (fictional or real) person to be physically attractive. This pet peeve of mine stems more from how (fictional) bullies who aren’t attractive are seen as the biggest evil unleashed upon the world, while fictional bullies who are attractive are seen as The Ideal Boyfriend)

One day I saw a post pointing out one of the things Dazai did that bothered me, and I really wanted to add to it via reblog, but I was concerned I’d derail the original post, so I screenshot it and wrote a whole follow-up rant. 

Then I saved that post in my drafts for three days.

I posted something vague like “I really want to talk about this one character from this one fandom, but the fandom is very aggressive and they’d burn me at the stake if I said anything too controversial”

I don’t think I intended to explicitly tag it with anything searchable, but I must have said something like “#yeah this is about bsd those guys are scary”— apparently that counts as tagging it #bsd by tumblr’s standards, and someone from the bsd fandom (who I’m now mutuals with) responded with something like “most of us are nice! We wanna hear what you have to say!!” 

That was enough motivation for me to get that post out of drafts, and even then I didn’t post it immediately. I scheduled it to post for a time when I wasn’t home, so that if there’d be backlash I wouldn’t have to witness it live and I could just delete the post later.

Not only was there no backlash, but hardly anyone saw the post. Iirc it got between 3-5 notes. That was what gave me the confidence to continue talking about my (admittedly controversial) fandom opinions. 

My main blog is primarily a Shakespeare/Classic Lit blog, and the online fandom for those things encourages controversial opinions (as opposed to the standard anime blog, where it seems like posting controversy is a taboo). So once I had the confidence to interact with an anime fandom in the first place, it wasn’t too hard to post my controversial opinions, because that’s the internet culture I’m more used to.

As for how I deal with the hate, you’ll be glad to know there’s only one person on this entire site who sends (bsd-related) hate. If you’ve received any hate, it’s from her. So while I have received hate messages (everything ranging from “your blog sucks” to graphic suicide bate and murder threats), knowing it’s all from the same person makes it all pretty meaningless. Everyone else on tumblr just blocks what they don’t want to see, either by blocking blogs they’d like to avoid or by blocking tags for subjects that annoy them. 

Since I tag anything that speaks of Dazai in a negative way as “#anti Dazai,” I don’t often run into people who don’t want to see negative character analysis who’ve discovered my posts accidentally.

If you want to post about something, go right ahead! The people who enjoy the content you make will follow you, and the people who don’t will block you, and everyone will curate their own tumblr experience to make this site something we can all enjoy. Admittedly if the fandom you’d like to post to is bsd, you WILL get harassed by that one person, but everyone else in this fandom has gotten harassed by her too. We mostly just ignore her at this point. 

Posting controversial opinions to fandom spaces can be scary, but if you have something you’d like to post, go for it! I personally would recommend starting a side blog for it, that way if things really do get out of hand you could delete it easily without losing your tumblr account. But the most likely outcome is that it wouldn’t gain enough traction for anyone to be overly bothered by it. Controversial things are more often ignored than hated on.

(For context, I’m referring to this blog too! I’m a tiny little blog. So please don’t interpret that as some veiled insult, I’m in this group of “tiny controversial fandom blog” too)

Anyway. Best of luck to you!! And remember, the point of posting things is to have fun! If it’s causing more stress than enjoyment, there’s no shame in taking a break or logging off for a bit. I’ve taken multiple breaks, and I only post to the Anti-Dazai Series when I enjoy what I’m posting. 

[Also. I absolutely love controversial fandom opinions, especially if they’re well written. It doesn’t matter to me whether or not I agree, so long as it’s a cool or original take on the source material. So if you wanna dm me, I’ll definitely follow you and your blog full of all your hottest takes]

dbh-adjacent writing-program nonsense under the cut, a.k.a. let's talk a bit about WriteMonkey 3

I've used WriteMonkey 2 and 3 on and off for. hm. I guess it's gotta be eight or nine years now? but those instances of use have always been erratic and short lived, and I've usually returned to either Scrivener or, more frequently for many reasons, MS Word. (I also did just a ton of first-draft writing in discord back when I had an account and c/ped my writing from there into Word. near-peerless syncing between devices, appalling security practices. what can ya do 🙃)

anyway, due to ~circumstances~ I've switched to writing on a computer that isn't my writing program–filled work laptop, and so I've been experimenting with WM3 again because it's super lightweight due to plaintext markdown instead of rich text and I have a license key for it, which = fun plugins. it's also way less complicated and labor intensive to set up per project and use than, say, Scrivener. I love Scrivener! but scriv can be overwhelming and distracting when all I want to do is write, especially if I want a unique, quick-to-set-up theme (and I always do, because Aesthetic Is Everything), which is one of the reasons WM3 is so handy

in addition to the gorgeous stripped-down UI that showcases whatever background I choose (mine can be found here!), WM3 has some really neat little plugins? I don't actually use the word-frequency checker myself, but WM3's shows you where each word appears in the document via the little indicator bars to the right of the word, which. rad! (you can tell at a glance which chapters are written in whose POV based off name usage alone and I think that's neat.) also, when you click on a given word in the frequency list, it'll highlight that word throughout the document and also display all uses of it vertically over the scroll bar path. lots of nice little visual indicators of what's going on. I just really like the design, it's simple but extremely useful and intuitive

admittedly, Scrivener cannot be beat when it comes to how easily you're able to make notes in it due to its multitude of note-taking locations, plus it has internal splitscreen capabilities that make referencing a second document a breeze, so there's definitely a mental transition involved when it comes to WM3 and its single-document-at-a-time system, on top of switching to markdown-style comments/reminders. that said! being able to not only see those comments below the headings in the left-hand sidebar but also jump to them when they're clicked? stellar 10/10 would use again

finally, the repository. I <3 the repository. being able to quickly toss whatever text I'm not quite ready to delete or info I know I'll want to reference at some point in the future into the repository is great. it's a seamless process, only a couple seconds' worth of effort required, allowing my focus to stay on what I'm writing instead of distracting myself by tabbing my way through various open files to find my notes. plus the repository is searchable(!!!!!), and using it also keeps the actual text editor clean visually, especially since the right-hand sidebar can be hidden too:

hm! possibly that is a sneak preview of chapter one! who can say!

so yeah! if you're looking for a stripped-down, highly customizable, portable writing program, I absolutely recommend it. there are downsides, of course, the biggest one being no official WM3 mobile options available at present, but since the program is both portable and plaintext, you can toss it into a syncing service and access it via your handheld devices that way. it's also not open source, and you need to pay to access the truly useful plugin features. with all that said, if you don't mind fiddling around with some CSS to make everything look juuuuuuuuust right, you can get yourself a really snazzy setup with relatively little effort. but maybe that's just me—aesthetic is king and all that

Twitter Tagging System =/= Tumblr Tagging System

I know a lot of people are moving to Tumblr from Twitter after all the chaos, so I’m writing this in hopes people will be able to interact with others better if they understand the tagging system for Tumblr as it is when I’m writing this.

Your biggest reminder for tags: This is a blogging website.

General tagging system and how people use it:

On Twitter people have always written #theirtaghere to tag their posts within the post itself. Tags on Twitter exist for people to find your post - in other words, directly for engagement of the content posted.

On Tumblr, tags (not written directly in the post itself) are used for two things primarily: Getting your post out to a wider audience outside of just your followers, and for blog organization as well as to be able to find posts on your blog later.

Twitter has never had an archive system where you can search a tag to find all your tagged posts later. Tumblr has this. In other words, for example, if you’re in a fandom, you may find posts where two or more characters are interacting. The post may be tagged with all of the characters involved in the post, but you may not like whatever opinions or comments are on the post. However, it’s not necessarily tagged specifically so people who are fans of what was tagged will see your hot takes. Chances are, it’s so they can access it at any time via their blog, as tags are searchable on our own accounts here.

What you can do to avoid your not necessarily positive fandom commentary (or hot takes you don’t want people seeing) from going into searchable tags is to avoid tagging the fandom or characters involved in the post that you don’t feel highly about, only tagging the one(s) you aren’t being negative about (ex. I love this character but I hate this character, so I’ll avoid tagging the character I hate so it won’t show up in people’s search results where they’ll be looking for nice, positive content or they probably wouldn’t be in that search).

This is NOT the same as tagging on Twitter (or writing out full search keywords on Twitter which also picks things up and puts them in searches where people will be looking for positive content of what they like). Tags on Tumblr only go into searchable tags if the post is a new post and not a reblog. If you do hate that one fandom or character, you can write the name out in full in your tags if it’s a reblog! Reblog tags are literally just there for archiving purposes. They won’t show up in searches.

Another way of being able to tell if someone is just tagging a new, non-reblog post for archiving: are they using the fandom/character’s full title/name? For example, are they using only a fandom abbreviation (ex. some people might tag Attack on Titan as AoT, The Umbrella Academy as TUA, or A Song of Ice and Fire as ASoIaF)? They may be trying to avoid putting something into the main tag but want it available to be found on their blog (this is not always the case, but you should always keep in mind that it might be before engaging with their post).

Same with characters name: for example, since this blog is fandom specific, I don’t need to use full names because I know who everyone is within this blog’s fandom, so I only use first names. That’s an example of tagging for archiving purposes - only tagging it so it can be found later and not necessarily for it to be found in searches. Unfortunately some characters do have very unique names that you won’t find in other/a lot of other fandoms, so they’ll show up in tags using only first names, but generally if you’re actively looking for post engagement, you’re going to be typing out the character’s full name if they have one.

Also, people tend to use tags to continue their thoughts if they’re offhand thoughts less related to the topic in the post (such as going off on a semi-unrelated tangent but it’s on their mind). You may see lengthy conversational tags! It’s just something people here do to add to their thoughts and express them without mixing those thoughts with the main post when they may not totally fit in with it.

On that note, you may also see people reply in the tags instead of directly on the post. Often this is a way of adding one’s thoughts to the post but not necessarily wanting it to circulate on the post. Your tags will stay only on your blog, so the next reblogger that finds the post through you won’t reblog it having your thoughts all over it (unless they really loved your tags, in which case they may reblog it with your tags, which is generally a compliment here). If you want your thoughts to be potentially reblogged you can of course reply on the post itself - just remember that those thoughts may be seen by a lot of people depending on the post going around. Some people also use tags as a way to compliment artists and writers. When people reblog art and writing, they probably don’t want some random person’s comments on the art or writing they’re enjoying (and will have to go to the OP’s version of the post from their blog to get the original without the comments on it). They probably want to just reblog the OP’s work. Your tags can be seen by the OP in their notes activity, so leave all your kind, warm, fuzzy compliments in the tags so they can read them! Sometimes they may even send you an ask or a message in response if they have something to say!

One last thing to note for general tagging: USE SPACES IN YOUR TAGS HOLY HELL YEEHAW MOTHERTRUCKER TRUCKING ON THE HIGHWAY. Do NOT write “AttackonTitan” or “ASongofIceandFire” as a tag, because Tumblr users don’t use the search function that way! You’re not going to get engagement if that’s what you're looking for! When you’re writing in that little #tags bar under your post, just write out the full series name/character name with spaces.

Avoiding negative interaction:

So say you want to avoid people finding your content altogether because people can be jerks and will send you hate. You can make your own tags for things. Tags you can consider trying out are things like “[user’s name here]’s rambles” or “[fandom name/character name negativity]”.

Now, if people look up “x fandom/character negativity” despite loving the thing in question and engage with posts in there, that’s their own fault and they deserve to be upset for looking into the tag in the first place. Maybe don’t look into a tag you know you won’t like the content of.

On that same train of thought, if you see a post with commentary about something you like but it’s negative and you hate it, make sure you check how it’s tagged before flying into a rage on the person. If you looked at the Attack on Titan tag and you found hate for Armin or something, but how dare they, you love Armin!... don’t reply to it with your bullshit. Don’t send them hate. Don’t even interact with the post. Scroll past it and move on. Why? Because you found that post in the general fandom tag, not the Armin Arlert tag.

Now, if you do find hate for Armin in the Armin Arlert tag, let me tell you, that’s super shitty of the person to tag his full name with their hate. If you’re tagging something that you’re hating on, you know people are going to find that post when they look through the tag. People look through tags to find content they enjoy, not to see someone bitching about what they love. Don’t be the annoying asshole who tags your hate with a character’s full name. Yes, even if it’s for archiving purposes for your own blog. Just use another tag, such as just his first name (as people will usually be searching for full names when looking for content they enjoy due to some names being very common throughout fandoms/series). If you prefer to use a totally custom tag, that works too!

HOWEVER! Dearies, if you see hate in a tag and you love the subject of the tag, please just block the person and move on. Don’t waste your time and energy sending them anything about it just to let them know you’re angry/upset. If you think it might have been an accident/unintentional because the person is not aware of how the Tumblr tagging systems works, feel free to drop them an ask or message (if messages for non-mutuals is allowed by them on their blog which can be found in your  blog’s settings), but BE POLITE about it. Just kindly inform them in case they’re unaware. If they reply to you being a fuckwad jerk about it, block them and move along. Again though, just do your best not to engage with tagged negativity (or negativity at all if you can help it).

Tumblr is a blogging site for long form content (the complete opposite of Twitter) and nowadays also artwork, so people are going to want to tag their posts to find them later! Just be mindful of how you tag things, and be mindful of how you interact with posts that you may not agree with.

Tagging and Community Labels

I just went through and tagged all my posts to make them searchable so that I can find things, but as a result, Tumblr has decided to put most of my art behind "mature" community labels whether I wanted it to or not. I'll just have to trust that everyone who has decided to follow me is as much of a nasty little freak as me and has thus adjusted their settings from default so that they can actually see mature posts, if they want to.

I think I have improved a little bit as an artist since I arrived, and I do say a little bit. Not as much as I would have liked, but apparently I have to be nice to myself. -_- Which feels weird. And wrong.

I was never able to dive too deeply into biology as a kid but as an animal lover with a vast knowledge of assorted animal facts your stuff and knowledge absolutely blows me away. Wanna try studying biology and animals leisurely for my own enrichment so are there any biology books you’d personally recommend?

that's so kind of you to say!! unfortunately, i'm really not a big books guy- i'm pretty awful at reading anything longer than a short story- and most of my knowledge comes from classes and casual research (honestly, a lot of the stuff i post about i check details with quick searches beforehand), so i can't recommend much. i've recommended my comparative vertebrate anatomy textbooks in a similar ask if you're into that nitty gritty sort of stuff, i think just searching up "anatomy" on my blog should come up with it.

if you're into dinosaurs and their ilk, mark witton's "pterosaurs" and art books are good, as is darren naish et al's "all yesterdays", a short little book of wonderfully speculative illustrations. i have "the complete dinosaur" textbook, since ive heard good things about it, but it's An Entire Huge Textbook and i haven't delved into it much. mark witton's blogspot is also a treasure trove of paleontological reconstruction talks, they're really cool.

if you like modern birds and can get yourself some way to have access to it (ie via a school), the "birds of the world" database is an incredibly detailed look into..basically every bird, in nice digestible and well-structured formats. if you're in north america, the sibley guide to birds is a great field manual, too.

with regards to plants, see if your state's department of forestry has published a field guide to native trees or other plants. virginia has the native tree and native shrub/woody vine guides available for free online, they're incredibly helpful to me. any sort of illustrated native plant guide should be good to have, and i recommend starting with trees, personally.

other than that, uhhh.. find published papers on niche biology topics you enjoy. you can use search engines like google scholar, or even universities may have searchable library pages without a login to help you find those sorts of things. sci-hub is your friend for anything behind a paywall, check wikipedia for the most recent url.

that's most of what i can think of off the top of my head, i hope it helps!

Hi! You seem like you know a lot about Johnlock fic, so I was wondering if you knew of any good fics that have both John and Sherlock slowly coming to realize that they are attracted to each other, and from that, then figuring out that they have feelings for each other.

Almost everything I've read has one or the other pining away, or immediately knowing that they are in love with the other, or going crazy from sexual attraction that they don't think the other one reciprocates. That's just not normal. (I know it's a fic/fantasy, but I am hoping that there's just a regular relationship for them somewhere). I just want to read something where they start as strangers forced to be friendly because they live together, but become friends and get closer faster than normal due to the fact that they are always in dangerous situations, but attribute it to being best friends. Where they are both clueless about their developing feelings and attraction for each other, but they know something is different. Where they discover everything together, instead of one being so far ahead of the other.

Not all fluff, of course there's angst and hurt/comfort... It's Sherlock and John 😂 but a nice fic that is realistic about falling in love.

.... I'm gonna have to throw another lifeline to hunt for this one?!

:D I love the idea (slow burn, oblivious friends to lovers) ... but since personally - I got enough of that from the show - I can't say I've read or searched for any in this vein?

In most respects, 'Juxtaposition' is just this, in a teen/boarding school setting? (If you havent tried it, I can honestly say its the best).

But I feel ya ... For some reason I wanna pull out the wild cards @7-percent @shelleysprometheus @ohlooktheresabee and @jbaillier as a good place to look? And @kitten-kin or @mydogwatson might have some?

I can't wait to read all the amazing works they all are famous for <3 as I'm about 1,000 sherlock fics in ... trying to spreadsheet them to be searchable (soonish!?)

But DO check out AO3 under: 7PercentSolution, shelleysprometheus, ohlooktheresabee, J_Baillier, KittenKin or mydogwatson? in case you find it right away! 😎⭐

Dalax Stained Weathered Wood Shingles - Color Tagged

There are some nice hues in this roof recolor by Dalax on ModTheSims. Unfortunately the colours aren't tagged/searchable, and the creator has been inactive on MTS since 2016, so I fixed the tags. All credit to Dalax.

Colours include: Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, pink, purple, lt brown, white, grey and black

Download on SimFileShare

All downloads by puremorphin

I'd like to mention that the app I used (CamScanner) to scan Book 15: Heatwave and will be using to scan Book 14: Loch Ness Leap (unless I find a better one) has a stupidly high paywall....

BUT!

It has a three day free trial, so once the other two Quantum Leap books that aren't on the Archive arrive, I'll turn them into PDFs all at once, activate the free trial, and then *properly* make them into proper, searchable PDFs AND Word documents so they can be made into nice EPUBs all at once :) then I'll update Heatwave on the archive with the cleaner PDF version since the app has a program to erase my fingers from the edges of the page lol

Saw your post about where the TGM fandom is and if you're using Tumblr correctly.

I have been on this hellsite (affectionate) for twelve years now so let me share my hard earned knowledge with you:

The first thing you have to remember is that your main dashboard has absolutely NO algorithm. Tumblr does not fill your main dashboard with things it thinks you'll like, you have to find your own. Which means everything you see on your dash is totally dependent on who you follow and what they post and/or reblog. Because people will only see your stuff if a) they're following you b) someone they're following reblogs your stuff or c) they come across your stuff when searching through specific tags. Basically, unlike almost every other social media app/site, likes do absolutely NOTHING for engagement. In fact, most people use likes as a way to save something to read or look at later (that's I use them 99% of the time).

Now for tags, keep in mind that only the first 20 tags on a post are used by Tumblr to make your post searchable. Any tag after 20 is you just shouting into the void because Tumblr won't use those. Lots of people also use the tags to add their commentary on a post they're reblogging so as not to clutter up the original post. And lots of people also use the tags to just shout out their emotions and feels into the void as well.

Some people are extremely methodical and super organized when it comes to tagging their posts, while others either don't tag at all or tag randomly and haphazardly. It's also common for people to have a very specific tag for specific types of posts to make it easier for people to both search and/or block certain types of posts. Examples of those would be people having a specific tag for when a post is about their personal life or using a specific tag for posts that are just about writing or tagging all ask answers with a specific tag.

Also keep in mind that reblogs don't show up in tag searches, only original posts do. But it's still a good idea to tag anything you reblog since people can search your blog for specific tags. Another thing to remember about tags is that anyone can see what tags you use on a reblog (you can sort the notes on a post to show you just reblogs w/comments & tags).

And if you really like someones tags on a post you want to reblog, feel free to either copy them into your reblog or take a screenshot of them and post that to your reblog. Doing so is very common and seen as kind of a badge of honor on Tumblr that someone thought your tags were good enough/funny enough to make sure more people see them. Common things to add when doing so are phrases like "why are you hiding this perfection in the tags?" or "you can't just say that and hide it in the tags". It's also common courtesy to tag the person whose tags you're sharing.

It's also common courtesy that if you want to rant about something you don't like you either a) don't use it's tag or b) tag it as anti-X. For example, there is a ship or fandom you don't like and you decide to post a rant about it. Don't tag it "ship name/fandom" but instead tag it as "anti-ship name/anti-fandom". That way your negative post won't show up when people who do like the thing are searching that particular tag.

Tumblr also likes to be really weird sometimes and randomly hide posts from tags for no apparent reason. And since people from all over the world use Tumblr, sometimes you have to post things at different times of day for more people to see it. It's not uncommon to see someone reblogging their own post with a tag or comment that says something like "reblogging for the morning/evening crowd".

Just remember that for the most part Tumblr is a fun and unique corner of the internet. Hope all of this helps! ☺️

Oh wow this is a chunky one I feel like I need to take notes.

So I need to follow people I think are funny, tell people they're funny, show I'm funny, be nice and generally not a dick.

Shouldn't be too hard. I'll just keep doing what I'm doing and cross my fingers??

Thank you so much for this lovely long tell, I cannot tell you how much it means to me!!

Who is Jessie Anyway!!?!?!?

January 9, 2024

So, on Saturday I got Covid.  (I'm no longer a unicorn - so sad and so much for Gale's theory that the Gorcey genes are somehow protecting us. And I got it magically from Toby who is in St. Paul and I haven't seen since Thanksgiving.  I don't know how that happened, but it's true.  Here's how I know.  Toby got Covid from his in-laws over Christmas.  His symptoms were that he had a huge headache and was super tired.  Being the father of at least one child who doesn't sleep through the night, he didn't give it much thought.  But then, his mother-in-law tested positive, so he decided to test and yikes - there was the little purple line!  So, on Saturday, I was dead tired, like "will someone put that baby to bed" tired, almost-face-planting-in-my-dinner tired.  And it just popped in my head - I have Covid.  Dave said "no you don't", I said "yes I do", Dave said "impossible", I said "I'm testing" and yep - I have Covid and Toby gave it to me. That's my story.  If not for Toby, I would just be sick and not in quarantine for 5 days.  And I would still be a Covid unicorn.  oh well.  What can you say, that's the risks of having children.)  (btw, the true story of where I got it is from Dave, who also has Covid, but didn't think he did, so he didn't test when he got sick last week.  It's his second annual New Year's Covid. He probably picked it up on New Year’s Eve at the Seldom Scene concert. He's out of the quarantine period and didn't get the Paxlovid because he passed the 5 days onset of symptoms when I got Covid and he got tested.)

But this is a big digression - the point is that I'm not quite well enough to do anything, despite the Paxlovid, but that's your gain.  I can write Egg Counts!!!  Everyone wins.  I get to write Egg Counts, you get to read them.  I'm a little less bored and you are hopefully a little entertained.  I'm sure everyone is shivering with delight!

Back to the topic - who is Jessie anyway!!?!?

We lost a lot of chickens in 2022.  And ended up getting four new ones in October 2022.  Jessie was one of those girls.  But before we get to that, I really need to catch you up on the year before we got Jessie.  Fortunately, I still communicated with my kids about the chickens on WhatsApp and WhatsApp, as Maurie just informed me, is searchable.  So, I have a lot of information - dates and even pictures!   Get ready to be updated!

Of most interest to everyone will be Henrietta’s brush with death at the beginning of 2022 – dramatically called “Henrietta gets bumblefoot, nearly dies, but is ok now” or “How Greta brought Henrietta back to life.”   Henrietta’s name should be familiar to everyone.  She’s, well, she’s of blessed memory now, but back in January 2022, she was the last of the hand raised chicks that we got in April 2014.  And she had bumblefoot which is horrible staph infections on the bottom of the foot which causes the hen to limp. You have to cut them out.  Good thing for us, Greta is a pro at bumblefoot surgery.  And also, Carolyn Preyer, our neighbor and vet, is OK at bumble surgery. But not so good a thing for us, is that we were leaving for St. Paul  to attend a Kathan Clan gathering for Alice’s birthday leaving Andre to watch the chickens so the surgery had to be done NOW.  We booked Greta with Carolyn coming over later to help if Greta had problems. (She also brought a lot of vet tape!).  After a nice soak in the downstairs sink, the bumble was taken care of, but Henrietta was not ok.  In fact, she was really not ok.  Carolyn did an inspection, and discovered a giant puncture wound.  It looks like she might have been attacked by a fox and now the wound was infected.  Honestly, we all thought she would die   She was that not ok.

Here’s the problem.  We were leaving the next day. If she died that night, that would be sad, but ok. If she didn’t die that night, she would need nursing for the bumblefoot and for the wound.  Daily soaking, and bandage changing.  Greta was willing to do this, but not willing to take her home to die.  Carolyn, although she was 100% convinced that Henrietta would die, was not willing to “do the deed”, as she doesn’t know how to humanely end a chicken’s life.  That was super important to her.  In her opinion, Henrietta was very comfortable in a box and surely would pass peacefully in the next couple of hours.  Her breathing was shallow, her eyes were glazed, and she just had that end-of-life look.  Greta agreed to come back the next day to get her in the unlikely event that she lived.  I agreed to stand vigil over her and make sure that her passing was peaceful.  Dave agreed to bury her before we left.  So, we had a plan.

As it turned out, Henrietta had her own plan and after a few hours of looking like it was “the time”, opened her eyes, lifted her head, assessed the situation - the warm house, clean box - and decided not to die.  She gave a little peaceful coo, and went back to sleep. What a roller coaster of emotions.  Instead of burying her, she was off to Greta’s house for a week of healing.  Greta set her up in the basement and hand fed her until she was strong enough to feed herself.  Twice daily baths to soak the wounds were part of the prescribed treatment and Henrietta came to love floating around in the tub.  Greta’s cats were jealous.   We got daily updates and returned home to a glowing and ready to rule the roost Henrietta.  I think she was a little disappointed not to have daily baths, but excited to see her sisters. 

And now I am feeling better from the Covid, so you’ll have to wait for more updates! 

btw, the huge hens are happy.  They are not integrated into the flock yet, but follow us around and come when called. Daisy is a little skittish with Jessie, but she’s not even laying yet – still a pullet.  I’m pretty sure when she comes into adulthood, she’ll realize that she could stomp all over Jessie and Jessie will – well, we’ll see how it goes.  Annabelle has not had to engage Jessie again and takes good care of Daisy.

Love to everyone,

Sarah

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Caribbean Joe Men Hawaiian camp shirt pit to pit 22.5 L aloha luau tropical silk.