icebluecyanide

[icebluecyanide]

how to find literally any post on a blog in seconds (on desktop)

there are so many posts about ~tumblr is so broken, you can’t find any post on your own blog, it’s impossible, bluhrblub~

I am here to tell you otherwise! it is in fact INCREDIBLY easy to find a post on a blog if you’re on desktop/browser and you know what you’re doing:

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant. every single post, every single time. in chronological order starting with the most recent post. note: it will not find #croissants or that time you made the typo #croidnssants. for a tag with multiple words, it’s just /tagged/my-croissant and it will show you everything with the exact phrase #my croissant

url.tumblr.com/tagged/croissant/chrono will bring up EVERY post on the blog tagged with the exact phrase #croissant, but it will show them in reverse order with the oldest first 

url.tumblr.com/search/croissant isn’t as perfect at finding everything, but it’s generally loads better than the search on mobile. it will find a good array of posts that have the word croissant in them somewhere. could be in the body of the post (op captioned it “look at my croissant”) or in the tags (#man I want a croissant). it won’t necessarily find EVERYTHING like /tagged/ does, but I find it’s still more reliable than search on mobile. you can sometimes even find posts by a specific user by searching their url. also, unlike whatever random assortment tumblr mobile pulls up, it will still show them in a more logically chronological order

url.tumblr.com/day/2020/11/05 will show you every post on the blog from november 5th, 2020, in case you’re taking a break from croissants to look for destiel election memes 

url.tumblr.com/archive/ is search paradise. easily go to a particular month and see all posts as thumbnails! search by post type! search by tags but as thumbnails now

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio will show you every audio post on your blog (you can also filter by other post types). sometimes a little imperfect if you’re looking for a video when the op embedded the video in a text post instead of posting as a video post, etc

url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/croissant will show you EVERY post on the blog tagged with the specific and exact phrase #croissant, but it will show you them in the archive thumbnail view divided by months. very useful if you’re looking for a specific picture of a croissant that was reblogged 6 months ago and want to be able to scan for it quickly 

url.tumblr.com/archive/filter-by/audio/tagged/croissant will show you every audio post tagged with the specific phrase #croissant (you can also filter by photo or text instead, because I don’t know why you have audio posts tagged croissant) 

the tag system on desktop tumblr is GENUINELY amazing for searching within a specific blog! 

caveat: this assumes a person HAS a desktop theme (or “custom theme”) enabled. a “custom theme” is url.tumblr.com, as opposed to tumblr.com/url. I’ve heard you have to opt-into the former now, when it used to be the default, so not everyone HAS a custom theme where you can use all those neat url tricks. 

if the person doesn’t have a “custom theme” enabled, you’re beholden to the search bar. still, I’ve found the search bar on tumblr.com/url is WAY more reliable than search on mobile. for starters, it tends to bring posts up in a sensible order, instead of dredging up random posts from 2013 before anything else

if you’re on mobile, I’m sorry. godspeed and good luck finding anything. (my one tip is that if you’re able to click ON a tag rather than go through the search bar, you’ll have better luck. if your mutual has recently reblogged a post tagged #croissant, you can click #croissant and it’ll bring up everything tagged #croissant just like /tagged/croissant. but if there’s no readily available tag to click on, you have to rely on the mobile search bar and its weird bizarre whims) 

#yeah the tumblr tag system is great if you tag consistently #i often use it to find posts on my own blog #didn't know all the archive ones tho #resources #tumblr

[icebluecyanide]

The show really giving us some strong sub!Yassen vibes with the "You don't have to think, you just have to act" quote, him letting Alex take command, and just Yassen general attitude in the show huh

#alex rider spoilers #yassen gregorovich #also how nicely he obeys john with the 'close your eyes' #the way he gives in to alex more often than not #this is a joke to be clear #but also the show has a sub yassen agenda!!! #book yassen was super passive a lot of times but it's compensated somewhat by throwing alex in that bull ring #i'm not actually a fan of sub yassen in a yalex context but i have eyes!! i can see what's on screen! #alex rider tv

[icebluecyanide]

Alex Rider; S3, E4.

Fascinated by the fact that baby Yassen has curly hair. Is it the humidity? Does he naturally have waves that he straightens as he gets older to look less cute?

#i love him and his black shirt with rolled up sleeves #also love john gesturing for yassen to inspect the bomb #yassen playing the role of his assistant #ashdfsh the look on john's face in the background of the second one tho #alex rider tv #yassen gregorovich #john rider #john x yassen

[icebluecyanide]

"Your father never worked for Scorpia. He always worked for us. Always."

#ohhh i love this #loved this scene and loved blunt ngl #alex rider tv #alex rider #alan blunt #alex x blunt #fanart

[icebluecyanide]

AR Ship Week - Fandom in 2024

Another year, another shipweek, and another State of the AR Shipping Fandom post. This is the first weekly post leading up to the Alex Rider Ship Week. Just under 4 weeks to go!

This post focuses on pre-S3 fandom, since the data was scraped before the season was released, but we might do an update for post-S3 fics. For methodology, it can be found both on the graphic analysis pages and in the notes at the bottom of this post. For those only curious about the popular pairings this year (1), feel free to read right on.

This year, we have analysed a few specific shipping stats to get a look at us as a fandom.

We have also created an interactive dashboard of all the graphs for you to explore. This is where the following data was taken from, as well as some bonus visuals!

A Timeline of AO3

For a blast from the past, we took a look at the shipping timeline - the count of fics and authors per year for the top ten most popular AR ships - and found immediate proof that as a shipping fandom, we're still small enough that a few, determined people can make a difference. AR fandom's use of AO3 as its primary fandom purveyor is fairly recent, as most of its history can be found on FFnet, but with a total of just under 3k fics as of April 20th, we're gaining on FFnet's 4.5k of AR fics at a very respectable pace.

Some particular developments were:

The number of Yalex authors was about the same in 2021 - 2023 (just around 40) but the number of Yalex fics in 2022 was almost double that of 2021 and 2023. This was not due to a sudden, imported backlog that we could see but a handful of popular events/challenges and potentially the release of S2 in December of 2021.

Tom/Alex and Yassen/Ian both had a peak of fics in 2021, most likely because of the release of S1 that gave Tom a much larger part and offered an intriguing look at Yassen and Ian's potential past.

Fiona/Sabina had a huge spike in fics in 2023 due to a Femmeslash February event (2) that sent it firmly up the ranks of popular ships.

The State of the OTP

For the top ten AR ships, we also took a look at how many of the writers that had written other AR ships (and which ones) to look for interesting patterns and to see if there was any real difference to spot. As it turns out, the answer was a resounding yes:

At one extreme, we have Alexmis (Alex Rider/Artemis Fowl) which is a fandom unto itself. Only 20 percent of the writers of the pairing have written for other pairings in AR fandom fics, and Alexmis fics as a whole tend to lean more towards adding Alex to the Artemis Fowl world rather than vice versa (3).

In the middle range, we have Yalex and Alex/Wolf - two pairings about as old as the fandom itself, and which both have an OTP percentage around 55 - as well as (mostly) newcomers Tom/Alex and Kyra/Alex, both with an OTP percentage in the 40-50 range.

At the other extreme, we have Yassen/John with an OTP percentage of just 4. Fiona/Sabina does it one better with an OTP rate of 0 (!) but the sample size here is so small it makes no meaning to compare it.

So what other pairings do these writers enjoy indulging in, then?

Yalex writers really like their Yassen pairings. Out of the combined number of non-Yalex fics the Yalex authors have written, 24 percent of them are Yassen/Ian and 22 percent are Yassen/John. This means that almost half of their non-Yalex pairings feature Yassen in some way.

70 percent of John/Helen shippers have written other pairings, too - probably because of the pairing's nature as a background part of Alex's story and not necessarily the focus of a shipfic they're in. 30 percent of the fics written by John/Helen writers outside of the ship are Yalex (and 6 percent are Yassen/John).

The case is even more extreme for Yassen/John, which is firmly entwined with the Yalex pairing. 96 percent of the writers have written other AR ships, with three quarters of those fics being Yalex.

Text Analysis

Interactive dashboard with graphs and visuals

We also ran a text analysis on the shipfics to look for patterns and recurring details in the writing - first in general, then for specific ships. The amount of detail for each ship depends a lot on the sample size, which results in a detailed, varied word cloud for Yalex and somewhat less so for several of the smaller ships.

For that analysis, we recommend clicking around to explore the word clouds and get a feel for the different ships, but for the ambitious types, we have a word hunt ready as well (4):

Word Hunt, Significant Phrases edition:

Tools of the Trade:

Duct tape

Frying pan

Krav Maga

Sniper rifle

Zip ties

I Know That Reference:

Fer de Lance

Air Force

Albert Bridge

Point Blanc

Brecon Beacons

Getting Kinky:

Boxer briefs

Dimly lit

Lower lip

Pressed a kiss

Yes sir

Feel free to comment with any particularly entertaining/intriguing/otherwise just plain fun word cloud combinations you've spotted, and we will see you again next week!

______ 

Note on methodology:

The two Alex Rider sections (main + TV) were scraped over the course of two days in early March 2024, except for fics that were locked to AO3 users only (5). For the author specific statistics, we excluded orphan_account and anonymous authors. Median measures were chosen over average the majority of the time to account for outliers, especially in the case of the rarer pairings (6).

For ship-analysis, a fic counts under every pairing it has. This means that someone who writes Yassen/Alex, Yassen/John and Yassen/Ian in the same fic (7) will count as an author for all three pairings and under the Yalex OTP analysis, they will have an additional fic marked under both Yassen/John and Yassen/Ian.

(1) Yalex. It's Yalex. Look, we're not even going to bother posting the stats for that. It's still Yalex, trust us. Though we can talk again next year, considering how well Kyralex is currently doing post-S3. (2) Proving that a few, determined writers can make or break the non-Yalex ship rankings. Please use this power for good; if someone manages to get Sayle/Nadia Vole or something into the top three next year, I'm outsourcing that part of the stat post to a particularly enthusiastic raccoon with a keyboard. (3) Canonically, the wholesale kidnapping of Alex is pretty on-brand for Alex Rider supervillains so really, Artemis is in excellent company. (4) Technically two, but there is unsurprisingly a lot of overlap between the general wordcloud and the Yalex one. For those curious, here's the Word Hunt, Yalex edition:

Adam's apple

Bottle of lube

Cock

Index finger

Nerve endings

Pale skin

Scar tissue

(5) As of April 20th, 225 out of 2961 fics were locked to AO3 users. (6) Meaning anything non-Yalex, let's all be honest here. (7) Because sometimes, like a particularly persistent Pokémon player, Yassen also needs to catch them all. Traumas or Riders is dealer's choice.

#ohh this is so cool! #love the stuff about the otp percentage that's so fascinating #and i definitely added to the 'blue eyes' and 'boxer briefs' and 'yes sir' count lol #alex rider stats #alex rider ship week #alex rider meta #really cool to be able to look through the stats too #i'll need to study them in some more detail later

[icebluecyanide]

Alex Rider through the seasons Alex Rider, 2020-2024

((inspo))

#Ohhh very cool!! #i love the progression of his hair #it looks soooo much better in s3 #alex rider #alex rider tv

[icebluecyanide]

I don’t know which author needs to hear this right now but even if you never update your wip i would never regret reading it a time of joy is never wasted

#Oh yeah mood #I really don't mind reading WIPs tbh #even if it's just one chapter it can still give you that vibe of 'omg that's a great premise/idea/snippet' #finished stories are nice but there's nothing wrong with an interesting WIP even if it never gets finished #idk for me it's kinda what fandom is all about #yelling at each other 'omg wouldn't it be cool if X?' #sometimes simply exploring a scenario is already great fun #and like especially for longer WIPs they can get a vibe that's so unique #do i want more? yeah probably but it doesn't need an ending to bring me joy tbh #fandom #fanfiction #wips

[icebluecyanide]

42 Reverdy Road, The Rider Household.

Can be found on the gallery under '42 Reverdy Road' ID: rebecca707

Some things about the house that occurred to me whilst building this, under a read more to restrain my ramblings.

General background first;

This is the end of a row of pretty classic English Victorian terrace houses, these are the sort of buildings I've lived in most of my adult life in the UK, and if you ever take the Thameslink south of the river in London you'll see tons of houses like this; especially with the modern extension with skylights and large sliding doors on the back.

They film Alex's neighbourhood in Bermondsey, which is not quite as affluent an area as Chelsea, (because, honestly, would be wild if Alex actually lived in Chelsea) but is still definitely quite wealthy, houses like this one in this neighbourhood would sell for upwards of a £1M in the current market.

Onto design choices for the build;

The downstairs is fairly open plan, and In the show we see several scenes that more or less show the whole thing, so I tried to replicate it as accurately as I could. In the lounge, it looks like there's a desk in the back corner, and since we see Ian has an office, and Alex has a desk in his room, I thought maybe this was for Jack to study, so in the build I added some case files for her to be reading. Also, I added bikes for Ian and Alex and put them under the stairs.

I found the upstairs really tricky - we only see Alex's room, and a brief look at the hallway outside his room, which seemed to lead to more rooms, and the stairs. This made me think he was at the back of the house, as most terraces taper at the back for access to the garden. Also, the window seems to line up with a window we see on the upstairs floor in an exterior shot of the kitchen. I feel especially proud of Alex's room - I think it gets the vibe of slightly messy but active high achiever - there's a certificate by his front door in Hebrew (presumably a Krav Maga thing), so I added lots of rosettes and medals and certificates and stuff. He's also got a row of hooks above his bed with like a snorkel, and climbing rope and stuff, so I used some of the snowboarding stuff to replicate that, and gave him a desk full of hobby items for boy scout spy crafting.

Jack's room was total conjecture, and also a bit of a challenge, since I don't feel I have a sense for her aesthetic taste in furniture, I tried to think what her room would be like considering she's lived there for presumably most of her early twenties, but this also being not her house/not her family/not permanent. I definitely think it would be nice, and comfortable, and personalised to a certain extent. So I gave her some kinda Ikea-ish furniture, and decorated it with small, movable clutter, and posters, pictures, and tapestries, tapped and blue tacked to the wall rather than nailed in.

Ian's bit was also a challenge, despite being the other room upstairs that we see. His office is categorically in the wrong place, the entry door should be on a different wall. Conceivably, it should be where I put Ian's en-suite, and there's a little corridor leading there, but I couldn't make that work without squishing everything together too much. So I put it in the modern bit, thinking that Ian might have built in some extra protection when doing the extension to add more security to what might be like the 'spy hub' in the house. We also see that there's another door inside Ian's study - for the level of privacy that room would need, it only really made sense to me for that door to lead to his bedroom, which also shows how he never really gets away from his work, when he sleeps right next to his study. So I gave him this kind of self-contained suite of rooms, which makes him somewhat shut off and isolated from the others. Considering how immediately Jack complies with a request for a moment of privacy when Ian is in his office, I imagine there's some pretty deeply ingrained house rules about disturbing Ian's office for 'confidential banking reasons', which makes him harder to access when he's in his bedroom. Also, Jack and Alex share a bathroom, but Ian has an en-suite. His bedroom is nice but bland, with a few souvenirs of his travels and a rack of monochrome clothing for his grey casual wear, and his bathroom is modern and dark, with some medical supplies by the sink for patching himself up after a mission.

The garden, on reflection, is a bit chaotic - I think it should actually be larger, and have a little shed. But what we see of it in Season 3 is different to season 1, it's smaller, more enclosed, and has some pretty high walls all around. I wasn't sure which way to go so left it fairly blank, with space for the wheelie bins round the side, a little patio, some grass, a drying line, and a football. The chaotic bit comes from the bbq I gave them in the corner which, looking at the photos, my Rider Sims must have managed to set on fire and burn immediately. Oh and also to make Ian Alex's uncle in CAS I had to make a John to be Ian's brother and Alex's father, so I Immediately killed him and put his headstone in a corner of the garden, so they can all be haunted by John's ghost. Neato!

#lmaooo at john's ghost haunting them #also this is stunning and must have been so much work!! #really impressive i love it #alex rider tv #alex rider #ian rider #jack starbright

[icebluecyanide]

Since Ao3 has temporarily disabled guest comments due to very mean and pornographic bots, now is a very good time for 1) readers with Ao3 accounts to comment on the fics they love and cherish to make up for those who cannot leave guest comments and 2) readers without Ao3 accounts to join the waitlist and make an account!

#ao3

[icebluecyanide]

So this is my first digital art. I can't quite get the hang of faces quite yet when drawing on a tablet. When I get the skill of faces down, I'll deffo add to this but for now here's my little sketch. Not amazing but gotta start somewhere.

#niceee #love it #alex rider tv #alex rider spoilers #john rider #yassen gregorovich #john x yassen #fanart

[icebluecyanide]

AU where Scorpia simply don't provide Alex with a phone charger so his phone runs out of power/batteries and he can't contact his friends any more

#alex rider tv #cyan watches alex rider s3 #alex rider #scorpia #alex rider spoilers #ironically this does not change anything because he doesn't get to contact them again anyway and then he's in london already #so idk maybe it is canon #but make this an AU where also he's at scorpia longer or something

[icebluecyanide]

Rewatching that John/Yassen flashback scene and I love how calm John is, how good he is at lying and keeping a cool head to protect his cover, because of course it's what he's been doing for basically two years while he's been been Scorpia

And what he's demonstrating is basically spy skills. An assassin doesn't necessarily need to hold a conversation, they could just as well be a sniper shooting from a distance as we've seen Yassen do before and as was the case in the Amazon flashback in the book, but the fact that we see John teaching Yassen about keeping calm and keeping his cover is such a nice subtle way of already making John more spy-coded even before the reveal

#alex rider tv #john rider #alex rider spoilers #cyan watches alex rider s3 #yassen gregorovich #my favourite scene in the series for real i think #john x yassen #the fact that john still looks pretty calm when yassen messed up and is held at gun point!! #poor yassen should not have to learn to act that wasn't in his job description lol

[icebluecyanide]

No but really HOW did Yassen and Alex not notice Tom and Kyra following 50 metres behind them on the empty road??

#alex rider spoilers #rewatching some scenes and just ??? #they are SO OBVIOUS #not to mention it very much seems to be only destination traffic here #any person being behind them would be suspicious #alex rider tv #cyan watches alex rider s3

[icebluecyanide]

#omg the poor guy!! #penguins #actually a penguin blog in disguise #thanks for tagging me!!! #love when people associate me with penguins 🥰

[icebluecyanide]

If anyone, like me, is struggling to think of what/how much to write, here's the link to last year's rec post! Also some great gems there 👀

AR Shipweek - Your fave shippy fanworks

This year we’d like to highlight the best ship fanworks of the fandom and we’re asking you for your favourites!

Please submit your fanwork recs with a link and a couple of sentences saying why you rec it. The recs will be featured in an upcoming meta post!

https://forms.gle/HrEYnBeu5FwNzTv19

We look forward to hearing from you!

#some really great fics this past year too! #i ended up submitting 7 recs but i still probably missed so many #alex rider ship week #fic recs

[icebluecyanide]

Q&A with Alex Rider Screenwriter, Guy Burt 🦂

I sent Guy Burt (screenwriter/adapter/executive producer of the Alex Rider tv series) a load of questions hoping he may choose a few to answer and he VERY kindly answered them all! Incredibly grateful he took the time to do so 🥲

Sharing here for those not on Twitter!

#some interesting stuff here #love that thomas levin was good enough as yassen that they wanted to keep him alive #also this guy wrote for the borgias?? #what's up with the person asking these questions thinking there may be another season tho #i thought they already said there wouldn't be?? #glad they gave it a good ending tbh #alex rider tv #alex rider spoilers #long post for ts

[icebluecyanide]

"Your father was a hero." | "They both were."

Making a poll because I was so confused by this line (and still am) and I want to know what other people thought. Mostly interested in first reactions but if you want to go with your changed answer that's fine, don't let me stop you.

#less than two days left for people to cast their votes! #please let me know who and why because i am still so confused lol #alex rider tv #alex rider spoilers #fascinated by the person who voted julia rothman. Please explain your reasoning!!