#art references in media my beloved

[cuteniaarts]

The face you make when your best friend sings a song about how the woman who killed your gf is actually his ex wife:

This is from like, October, and I waited so long on posting bc originally I was planning to draw all four of them but looking at my current state of mind... yeah that ain’t gonna happen like ever

ANYWAYS I’ve been in love with this man since I was 2 and I’m not ashamed to admit it

#my art #artists on tumblr #d’artagnan and the three musketeers #d’artagnan #mikhail boyarsky #soviet cinema #MIKHAIL BOYARSKY MY BELOVED #I literally refuse to consume any other type of musketeer media bar the book bc he’s not in them #I believe in soviet d’Artagnan and the three musketeers three-parter movie musical supremacy #I’m screaming into the void here but I’ve got an irl friend who’s just as obsessed with the movie as I am #and all the people at my dad’s job said they liked my drawing #so it doesn’t matter I’ve got my validation already #I highkey painting in this semi-realistic style with photo references it’s so fun #this is literally my friend’s and my favourite scene #she loves the song cause she’s obsessed with Athos and I love the facial expressions d’Artagnan makes throughout #and the song too ofc

[q-theeccentric]

Sampo Koski Lore Notes

Because we love our HSR conman, Trailblazers all over the internet have begun to form many theories surrounding our beloved scammer. There are a lot of details about this man that are peculiar, and for those like me who love to overanalyze their favorite characters and how they contribute to the lore, I have created a list of notes about Sampo that point to him being downright suspicious.

Warning: Very, very long post ahead.

He is has a lot of intel apparently... where does he get them from?

Knowledge Voiceline: "Come on, how did you guys end up in the middle of the Snow Plains? UFO? Let me guess, you took a train, haha. Seriously though."

About Natasha Voiceline: He's not from the Underworld.

He loves money; money is considered to be a form of pleasure; does this refer to the Masked Fools being hedonists?

Turn Begins 1: "We're just having fun." Elation??

Hit by Heavy Attack: "Hey! W-watch the face!" Sampo is not really the type to be narcissistic… unless this is a pleasure-related matter…

Ultimate: Unleash: "Betraying the king" is often seen in literary works and other similar fictional media, and these types of things are often used for pleasure and entertainment

Return to Battle, Health Recovery, Natasha's About Sampo Voicelines: He's also… altruistic?

Hook's About Sampo Voiceline: He can be everywhere

Character Story: Part I: He slips away easily

Character Story: He is good at disguises, as if he's an actor… as if he were wearing a mask… because actors and masks and roles… Masked Fools foreshadowing?

Character Story: Why did they choose this specific story to be the one in his profile? The tale seems so random… or is it?

Character Story: Everything is purely dialogue… almost as if it were a script. If we compare it to the others, they have character stories that match them well, such as Bailu, whose character story is in the format of a prescription because she is a doctor.

Light Cone - Eyes of the Prey: "In reality most prety don't realize when danger is encroaching. This one's no exception." After reading the description, it may seem weird since Sampo noticed the sniper BUT what if the sniper is the REAL prey?

Light Cone - Eyes of the Prey: "So that's what greed looks like. That amount is equal to several of my contracts already… No wonder someone wants him dead." Another reference to money being a form of pleasure.

Light Cone - Eyes of the Prey: "As if these thoughts were broadcasted out loud, the an in the scope turns his head, looking straight into the eyes of the sniper. 'I've been waiting for you. Would this much be enough for you to hear me out?'" The EYES of the PREY refers to the SCOPE of the SNIPER. The light cone depicts Sampo from the EYES of the PREY.

Splash Art: The city in the background is likely NOT on Jarilo VI

Splash Art: It looks like he's jumping off a ledge or something similar

Design: @littlekiara96 noticed that his design refers to death a little too much due to the amount of skeleton imagery on him…

Kit: His technique is to blind enemies, which may call back to the fact that he slips away easily without anyone noticing

Kit: Why are his weapons blades that turn into boomerangs and not anything related to his obvious line of work?

Kit: His basic attack is called "Dazzling Blades"; I might be overthinking but the word "dazzling" is something I would hear when one describes an actor…

Kit: His skill is called "Ricochet Love"; "ricochet" often refers to projectiles bouncing more than once off of a surface (verb) or a shot that bounces more than once off of a surface (noun)---so where does the "love" come into all this? Love is another form of pleasure; I don't know but this skill reminds me of the Masked Fools again just because of all the bouncing more than once off of a surface and the love thing..

Kit: His ultimate is called "Surprise Present"; Sampo can be called a master of the element of surprise as he often appears suddenly without anyone suspecting him to---the present can also be something unexpected and weird (like a RICKROLL) which gives off MAJOR Masked Fools vibes…

Kit: Why is his element Wind?

Kit: Why is his path Nihility? @gachagen pointed out that Nihility characters hide secrets (Welt, Pela, Silver Wolf, Kafka). For my own observation, Nihility states that the universe is meaningless while Elation states that the universe is one big joke; both paths seem to infer that the universe has little meaning…

Kit: Half his Eidolons are about his scamming business and the other half are about… love and enthusiasm; both aforementioned concepts seem to call back to the Masked Fools and Aha the Elation…

Achievements: Versatile Joker is a hidden achievement until it is unlocked… does this fact and the achievement itself indirectly infer to Sampo's secret connection to the Masked Fools and Aha the Elation?

Missions: Besides Pela, Sampo is the only other 4-star character from Jarilo VI who does not have a companion mission yet

Character Traits: He BOWS like an actor (as seen in the Jarilo VI Trailblaze Mission), as if he is bowing for his PERFORMANCE

Character Traits: If I had a penny for every time Sampo was aware that he was being watched like how Aha did in the Simulated Universe (Jarilo VI quest conclusion, Eyes of the Prey light cone), I'd have two pennies… which isn't much but it's weird that it happened twice…

And that's pretty much it! Feel free to add more observations in the replies, or reblog too.

#sampo #hsr sampo #sampo koski #honkai star rail sampo #honkai sampo #sampo honkai #honkai star rail #star rail #hsr lore #hsr theory #cw long post #cueue's other thoughts #cueue's eccentric theories

[ask-artsy-oncie]

For Everyone New to Tumblr

So! Your shitty social media website has become even shittier? So much so that you’re running to our beloved little hellsite? Welcome! Despite all the jokes, this is genuinely one of the last good social media websites out there that has a considerable userbase, and it’s probably for the best that its growing and people are beginning to grow used to experiences that aren’t dictated by advertisers and algorithms. 

BUT

If you want to be welcomed with open arms from said userbase, you are going to have to learn how to use and navigate Tumblr. 

Having been stuck here for almost 11 years, now (the fact that this is a retired Once-ler askblog should be proof enough), I feel like I’ve seen a lot of posts that have touched on many different aspects of Tumblr that new users should be wary of, but none that have put the entirety of new user advice into one big post. I feel a little bit of a lacking in both content and convenience that might make taking all this advice in difficult.

So here I go, making a big long post that new users can have as reference.

I strongly recommend that new users at least start the account-making process on a laptop or desktop computer, as opposed to a mobile phone, for reasons I will get into later, but it’s not a requirement.

(PLEASE NOTE: Table of Contents only functions properly when you view this post on my blog, sorry for the inconvenience!)

TABLE OF CONTENTS

MAKING YOUR BLOG

   - Editing Your Blog’s Mobile Appearance

   - Editing Your Blog’s Desktop Appearance

   - Your Blog’s Settings

APP VS MOBILE VS DESKTOP

MAKING POSTS

   - Types of Posts

   - Content in Posts

   - The Tagging System

FINDING OTHER BLOGS

   - Following Blogs You Already Know

   - Finding New Blogs

INTERACTING WITH OTHER BLOGS

   - Reblogs, Comments, and Likes

   - Asks, Submissions, and Messaging

   - Blocking

YOUR INFLUENCE AS A TUMBLR USER

   - You Have None

TUMBLR CULTURE

   - Post Circulation

   - Miscellaneous Etiquette

   - Tumblr-specific Memes

Let’s get started, shall we?

Making Your Blog

So, you’ve just finished making an account (or you’ve been using Tumblr with the bare minimum as a blank blog that only likes posts since creating your account) and you’re met with a screen that looks something like this:

(please note, I will be using the desktop site for the majority of this tutorial)

You have, presented to you, a dashboard full of popular, recommended blogs, with more recommendations offered to you either on the side, or, on mobile, during short breaks in your dashboard. Maybe you’re already following a few people or tags - cool! Right now, we’re not going to focus on the dashboard, there are a few important steps that we’ve neglected in making our Tumblr blog!

To get started, we’ll need to click on this little icon, here:

(on a mobile browser, you’ll instead want to click on this menu icon)

You will get a menu that looks like this - with general options above, and a list of your blogs, below. Right now, what we want to focus on is “Edit Appearance” under your blog, which, for whatever reason, is actually how you access your blog’s settings (whereas “Settings” just takes you to your general account settings)

The page will look something like this - scrolling down will offer you a myriad of options!

Editing Your Blog’s Mobile Appearance

What we can do, here, to get started, is edit the appearance of your blog for mobile devices - this includes mobile browsers and the Tumblr app. This includes changing your icon (which will not change across platforms), adding a header image, blog title, blog color, and description. (Note: If you want to include any HTML-specific content in your description, such as links, images, or special text formatting, please forgo working on your description until we move on to editing the appearance of your blog for desktop sites)

It is highly recommended that you do not use an independent artist’s (including fan-artists’) work for your icon or header image without their permission AND credit. Art theft is a huge issue on social media, and while most sites don’t actually do much to punish you for this, I will tell you, right now, that if an artist recognizes your icon or header image as someone else’s (not your) art, and notices you haven’t credited said artist, they are very likely going to be wary of you, and will possibly block you. To avoid going on a tangent, if this concept confuses you, please feel free to check the #art theft tag on my blog.

Ideas for what to use for your icon and header:

- A screenshot or stock image of your favorite fictional character

- A drawing you did

- A photo of your pet

- A photo you took

I personally like to use backgrounds from shows or games that I like as my header, and my own art as my icon. 

Next, you’ll want to click on the “Background” option and select a color that compliments your header and/or icon (your header should probably take priority, though, since it’s pretty permanently attached to your background color when people go to view your blog). The “Accent” option next to it should be a color you can see clearly against your background color. 

Once all the visual elements are done, you’ll want to type out a blog title. This can be anything from your online pseudonym, a quote you resonate with, or some shitpost-esque descriptor of yourself. Your description is equally “do whatever you want”. Most people give their online pseudonym or any name they’re comfortable using online, their pronouns, their occupation (most artists or writers will list that they’re artists or writers), their interests, etc. There are many things you can do with your description.

Here’s an example of what I’ve done:

(The header image is from a picture book, and the icon is from a TV show)

Looks a lot more nice and personal than the blank appearance it had, before, huh?

But WHY should I edit my blog’s appearance? Tumblr has had an issue with bot accounts which, buy and large, do not edit their blog appearances. When you, a human being, don’t bother to do this either, many long-time users will assume you are also a bot (and probably block you). Plus, having a custom-looking page is part of the fun of Tumblr! If you’re going to be here for a while, might as well make it a place you actually like the looks of!

Now, the nittier-grittier part of blog customization - editing your blog’s appearance for desktop browsers!

Editing Your Blog’s Desktop Appearance

In order to see how your blog will look outside of the Tumblr dashboard or mobile browsers, You’ll need to go to “[blogURL].tumblr.com”. By default, the desktop version will look very similar to the mobile version - but there’s a lot you can do to make it better for desktop browsers, specifically. This part is a lot more optional than editing your blog’s mobile appearance, but if you like the idea of having your own personal little website of sorts, you should definitely give this a try!

You’ll want to get started by clicking on the little paint palette icon. 

If you do not use a laptop or desktop computer, you won’t be able to access this icon, which is why I recommended earlier that you start your blog-making process on a laptop or desktop computer.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll end up with a layout like this:

Look at all those options!! I suggest toying around with all of them in order to figure out what you like best - most features and options are self-explanatory. However, it might be good to go over a checklist of the things most users like to change for this version of their blog:

Theme - Selecting the “Browse Themes” option will allow you to find a number of different layouts you can use for your blog (Free themes can be found under the dropdown menu that says “All Themes” and changing it to “Free Themes”). My personal favorite theme is “Accessible” by eggdesign, as it has an option to use a font that’s easier for dyslexic people to read, and is very customizable.

Background - Can be either a color or an image, but this is what will be displayed behind all your posts. It’s best to use images that were either designed to be tiled, or very large images that will cover the whole screen.

Fonts - Most themes allow you to choose a font for your title, your description, your posts, pretty much any text that will appear on your blog. It’s best to make a short “test post” so that you can properly see what your posts will look like when you’re selecting a font and color for them.

HTML Description - In your blog’s description on this page, you can use HTML coding to make text bold, italic, add a hyperlink, add a picture, pretty much anything you can do with HTML coding. In the old days of tumblr, people used to design little HTML widgets people could copypaste into their blog descriptions, like clocks, or even simple virtual pets! If these still exist, go crazy and add whatever the hell to your blog!

After messing around for no longer than 7 minutes, I’ve got a blog that looks much different on desktop than it does on mobile!

When you’re satisfied, just make sure you save your changes before exiting!

Your Blog’s Settings

Now let’s go back to our blog settings - there are a few more options that have nothing to do with appearance, but will change our Tumblr experience a lot.

“Share Posts You Like” will create a tab on your blog that will allow anyone visiting your blog to scroll through your likes. Most tumblr users prefer to keep the posts they like private (consider the drama that people have caused on Twitter over people liking posts from accounts that a mutual might have beef with, though, most things that people choose to hide on tumblr are more for just having the option of privacy, we like privacy here!). Either way, as you’ll see later in the Interacting With Other Blogs portion of the post, leaving this option switched to “on” is not a viable replacement for reblogging posts.

Similarly, people prefer to keep the accounts they follow private. Again, mostly just for privacy’s sake.

The “Featured Tags” option is something most often used by content creators. It’ll just give anyone viewing your blog a list of suggested tags to search for on your blog, so many creators will list their art/writing/photography/what have you content tag through this feature.

Replies, asks, submissions, and messaging will be discussed further in Interacting With Other Blogs, so until you fully understand these options, I would wait to activate or change them.

Your queue is a set-aside list of posts you’ve either made or reblogged that will not be posted immediately. Instead, they will be posted at a time you chose until the allotted time or post count has been fulfilled, or your queue is empty.

Your timezone will affect the timestamps on your posts and reblogs, so if you care about that, I suggest making sure it’s accurate to where you live.

Your blog’s visibility is another privacy feature. You can choose to make your blog inaccessible to anyone who doesn’t have a Tumblr account (this will also render the desktop appearance of your blog inaccessible to everyone), and/or you can also choose to hide your blog from search results, meaning that any time you use a tag on your post, people will not see that post when they search for a tag on Tumblr’s “Search Tumblr” system.

With all that taken care of, your blog is complete! Congratulations, you’re finally recognized as a real person on Tumblr!

App V.S. Mobile V.S. Desktop

Before we get into using Tumblr, I do want to talk a little about what platform you might be using Tumblr on. You have a few options: the app, using your mobile device’s web browser, or using your laptop or desktop computer’s browser. 

The Tumblr app is heavily pushed by Tumblr, itself, and sees a very popular usage, but it’s also known as the most broken, most limited, and most censored method of using Tumblr. Its draw is convenience.

Accessing Tumblr on your mobile browser is pretty much the half-way point between using the app and opening Tumblr on your computer browser. The look is very much built for mobile use and its menu system and new post layout is closer to the Tumblr app’s, but it isn’t as censored and tends to only be affected by bugs that also affect the desktop site. Its search system, as far as I can tell, is also closer to that of the desktop site’s. 

Unlike Instagram and Tiktok, Tumblr was designed first as a site to be accessed by desktop users, and then was later adapted to mobile devices - closer to how Twitter is. As such, using Tumblr on your computer’s browser is probably the best way to use it. It doesn’t glitch as often as it does on the app and tends to load faster, too. Additionally, making different kinds of posts is more clear-cut on desktop. Additionally-additionally, most of Tumblr’s annual April Fool’s Day hijinks are designed for desktop, and usually don’t get mobile support. 

My recommendation is obviously to use Tumblr on your computer’s browser, but you won’t lose too much using a mobile browser. Just don’t let Tumblr trick you into using the app.

Making Posts

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, it’s time to delve into actually putting some content on your blog!

Why would you want to do this when you’re just here to look at other people’s content? Well, again, it kind of boils down to you coming off as a human being. Surely you have thoughts you’d like to throw out into the void - opinions on media you like or dislike? Thoughts on how your day went, or something you’re excited for? Maybe you have photos you’d like to share? A place you went to, an animal you saw, or an article of clothing in a store you thought looked nice? 

Making your own original posts aren’t nearly as necessary as editing your blog’s appearance, but it’s part of the Tumblr experience and helps makes your blog feel more personal. It can even help you make friends on Tumblr if that’s something you want to do. The anonymity of Tumblr means that you don’t have to worry about your real-life friends and family reading your inner thoughts, or that you can say stupid things as a teenager and won’t have your face tied to it like you would on Tiktok. It’s a free-for-all, here, and things are more fun when you join in!

Types of Posts

On the desktop site, you can begin making a new post by clicking on one of various options listed at the top of your dashboard

These are all different types of posts you can make. 

(On mobile, your only option is to select “Create a Post” from the menu, and then embed whatever kind of media you want into a text post)

Text posts - The vast majority of Tumblr posts, as far as I’m aware, are text posts. You can add an optional title to your post, and then fill in the body with text. Additionally, you can embed other media into the body of text posts and utilize HTML coding.

Photo posts - Kinda close to the way posting on Instagram works, a photo (or series of photos) will appear at the top of the post (and if users click on the photos, they can access a larger version of them), with optional text in the body of the post. The body of photo posts essentially function like the bodies of text posts.

Quote posts - Not used very often anymore, but still have their place if you ever want to share a specific quote, the header of these posts are any given quote, while the body is the quote’s source. Again, the body of quote posts function like the body of text posts, but I really don’t recommend you use this particular post this way unless the source is tied to a video or image (or you’re doing some next-level shitposting)

Link posts - Are also not used as often (most people just embed links into text posts) but tend to get used to share news articles or other situations where a post’s sole purpose is to share a link.

Chat posts - Used for dialogues. The vast majority of “incorrect quote” blogs use chat posts. This will automatically format a post’s body in an ideal way for sharing a script. Chat posts can not have text added to them in reblogs without adding to the original post, itself. This means that someone can reblog from you and add onto the dialogue you write, but the post wouldn’t mark them as the one who added it, nor would it explicitly label your post as edited, which can make some users believe that this was part of what you wrote. Tumblr etiquette usually dictates that it’s rude to add to a chat post.

Audio posts - For sharing MP3 files or Soundcloud links. As far as I know, the use of songs within the copyright system are a messy, gray area. Blogs have been deleted for reuploading large amounts of songs within the copyright system, before. Yet my sideblog full of early 2000′s Eurobeat has survived for many many years. Just be careful, I guess.

Video posts - For sharing video files (preferably MP4s) or links from video hosting sites (YouTube, Vimeo, etc). Like photo posts, the media is at the top of the post, while you have a body that functions like a text post.

Content In Posts

For this section, I will be using a text post as an example, as most other posts have text post qualities in them.

The most you’ll ever usually worry about when making a post is simply typing out the words you want to appear in your post

But you have a number of options for formatting and embedding available to you! Highlighting text will show you various formatting options (bold, italicize, headline, link, strike, list, and blockquote) which will change the way your text looks within your post (or, in the case of linking, functions). On mobile, you will also see options to change the color, font, or size of your text. This can be done on desktop, as well, through HTML coding (to access this, you’ll need to select the settings button and change the editor from “Rich Text” to “HTML”)

Starting a new line of text within a post offers you some additional options before you start typing anything. This will allow you to embed a photo, video, or read more link into the body of your post.

So you could theoretically make a post like this, instead

(this post is formatted very poorly, don’t make posts like this. I’m just trying to show off your options, please put some thought into your post formatting.)

One final note - you do not have to (and should not) censor your words on Tumblr, no matter how controversial. Tumblr has a rather infamous history of censorship and random shadowbanning, but for the most part, you will not lose your blog if you type out words like “kill” or “suicide” or swear words. If you don’t want to use these words, don’t talk about these subjects. If you want to talk about these subjects, use the damn word. Self-censoring prevents people from effectively filtering out words they do not want to see on their dashboard, so you’ll be doing more harm than good if you censor yourself.

Now that you’ve made your post, you’ll probably want to tag it

The Tagging System

Tumblr’s tagging system is... unique. Not in it’s functionality, but more in how it’s used in the context of Tumblr’s culture. This will come up again, but tagging is only used as a method of sorting posts half of the time, here. The other half of the time, it’s used as a sort of “whisper mode” where you can add commentary to your own posts (or other people’s posts) without directly altering the body of the post.

Let’s use another example post:

In this post, the text “Wow, I had a great day, today. I got to walk my dog” is the body, and the only part of the post that people will see if someone chooses to reblog it. The tags “#dogs” and “#my ramblings” serve to categorize the post on my blog, and Tumblr as a whole. If someone were to search “dogs” on Tumblr, they would eventually see this post. Similarly, “#my ramblings” serves to mark this post with a personal tag for my own text posts that I use to organize my blog in this hypothetical. 

However, the tags “#i love my dog so much she’s such a little porker” and “#but she is a very good walker” are not tags meant to categorize. They instead exist as an aside where I’m adding text to the original post without actually altering the post, itself. It serves as an afterthought, a different way of talking on this site.

Similarly to how you shouldn’t self-censor in posts, you definitely should not self-censor in tags. Tags are the most common way that people filter content on this site. If someone is sensitive to discussions of death, for example, they will filter out the tags “#death”, “#tw death” (trigger warning death), and “#cw death” (content warning death), and won’t see any posts tagged this way. But if you tag your post as “#tw unalive” or “#d34th″ then the person trying to avoid your post will actually end up seeing it, and probably won’t be to happy about that, best case scenario.

Another thing to note is that characters like commas and quotation marks don’t work properly in tags. Commas separate different tags, so typing one will end the tag you’re currently typing and start a new one. Quotation marks prioritize tags, so anything you have in quotation marks will immediately be brought to the front of the tags portion of the post (not very helpful if you’re typing a string of sentences).

Finally, in order to use the tagging system to find a post on your blog, or on Tumblr, in a way that doesn’t rely on Tumblr’s kinda broken search system, you would need to type “tumblr.com/tagged/[tagname]” for generally searching the website, or “[blogURL].tumblr.com/tagged/[tagname]%20[tagname]” for searching a specific blog, into the URL bar on your browser. (A “%20″ in a URL represents a space in a tag, so if the tag you’re using is more than one word, you’ll have to type a %20 for every space in between words)

Finding Other Blogs

So now you know how to exist as a Tumblr user on your lonesome, but how about existing as a Tumblr user within a larger Tumblr community? Well, you’ll have to find some other blogs to follow. 

By default, Tumblr will put posts on your dashboard from popular blogs or blogs that might have aligned with some interests you listed when you signed up (ironically, this dummy account I made ended up getting posts from a blog I co-own on its dash without me following said blog), but part of the appeal of Tumblr is that you don’t have to be forced into an algorithmic feed of content.

In order to achieve that, though, you first have to turn the algorithmic feed options off (in the “Dashboard” tab of your “Settings”, your preferences should look like this):

From there, you can start following people and properly tailoring your dashboard to your liking!

Following Blogs You Already Know

If you already happen to know some users on Tumblr, or have a favorite that had been popping up in that aforementioned algorithmic feed, your best course of action would be to actually follow said user rather than rely on that feed to continue to show you their posts (the algorithmic feed doesn’t show posts in chronological order, anyways, so you’ll more than likely miss out on some of their posts if you don’t follow them). This can be done in a number of ways, and I’ll use the co-owned blog I mentioned earlier as an example:

From your dashboard, you can click the “Follow” button displayed next to the blog’s URL

From Tumblr’s menu, you can go to the “Following” tab and manually type in the URL of the blog you want to follow

Or, from the blog’s page, you can click the “Follow” button found in the top-right of the screen

Finding New Blogs

But maybe you don’t already have a set list of people you plan on following, and are looking for new content? There are another number of ways you can find new people to follow!

As briefly mentioned at the very beginning of this post, your dashboard will not only display posts from people you follow, but also make suggestions on new blogs you can follow. The top portion are people Tumblr thinks that you, personally, will like, while the Radar consists of posts hand-picked by Tumblr, and are usually from artists.

Another way you can find new blogs is by searching tags relevant to your interests and looking for content you like. If a blog consistently has posts you enjoy in a tag, odds are you’ll probably want to follow them!

But if you’re going to be a participating member of a community on Tumblr, you really should know the etiquette of how to interact with other users, rather than jump in blindly.

Interacting With Other Blogs

This is the main subject I see come up over and over again on posts trying to explain how to use this site, and for good reason. Tumblr’s “ecosystem” relies very heavily on user engagement, and, unlike other social media sites, likes alone do not register as engagement. Content creation and online communities are a give-and-take social environment - if you want creators to keep showing you content, you should engage with it to show them that you want to see their content in the first place.

Reblogs, Comments, and Likes

When you find a post on Tumblr that was not made by you, you will find a number of buttons below the tags:

The number is the amount of “notes” a post has, which take the form of comments (the speech bubble), reblogs (the recycle symbol), and likes (the heart). The arrow button allows you to share a post via private messaging or external websites, but this more often than not doesn’t affect the post’s engagement, so we’ll ignore it for now.

The most important button in this case is the reblog button. This allows you to add the post to your blog (which will put it on your followers’ dashboards) while the original poster retains all credit for making the post. This directly gives the original post proper exposure and leads to more people seeing it, which leads to more people reblogging it, and so on. Think of this practice like growing a tree: Every time you reblog a post, a branch keeps growing. If you only like a post and don’t reblog it, the branch stops growing.

You’re never obligated to reblog posts - but you should consider the effect it has on posts. If everyone who saw the original post only gave it likes, then the tree would essentially just be a stump.

It’s also possible to reblog posts more than once, unlike retweeting.

When you reblog a post, you have the option to add something to the body of the post and/or add some tags that will only stay with your specific reblog of that post. Most people tend to use the tags to write additions to the post as a way to not “impose” on future reblogs of said post, but it’s ultimately your choice. If you feel like you can or should add to the body of the post, feel free to!

Another option for commenting on a post without affecting the body of the post is, well, comments (also known as replies). This will keep your comment contained within the notes of a post without you needing to reblog it. A lot of people will both comment and reblog a piece of work in order to show the original poster that they enjoy the piece, and also support the piece, but leave their comments about the piece off their blog.

It’s not uncommon, though, for people to just use the comments to get into arguments with one another without having to reblog a post over and over again, so I guess be prepared to see that.

Finally, both last and least, are likes. It’s not wrong, by any means, to like a post. It’s nice to know that you enjoyed a post enough to pay even a little bit of attention to it. Just know that it doesn’t do much for the person who made the original post. Liking on Tumblr, due to the lack of people using an algorithmic feed, and the fact that nobody cares about checking your blog’s “likes” tab, is essentially like bookmarking a post for yourself (as you can always view your likes in chronological order from the menu at any given time). Liking can even be a way to politely but quietly acknowledge a post. Say a friend of yours posts that they’ve had a bad day. Many Tumblr users would leave a like to let their friend know that they’ve seen their post, and they’re there for them. 

It’s always nice to get likes, they just do nothing for engagement.

Sometimes, you might see a coin button at the bottom of a post, this means the original poster set up an option for you to tip them. This is entirely up to your discretion on whether you want to do this, or not, and many people have expressed concern with giving your financial information to Tumblr, citing worries about security issues. Again, this is your choice, just know the risk. Many creators also have links to their Ko-Fi, Paypal, or Patreon, if you’re looking for another option in supporting someone, financially. 

Asks, Submissions, and Messaging

But say that you want to interact with another user without engaging with a post they made - you’ll have to send something to them, directly.

In your blog’s settings, we skipped over a few options - replies, asks, submissions and messaging. Replies, or comments, were covered above, but the rest will be covered, now.

Asks are one-time messages you can send to a blog, or others can send to your blog, so long as the recipients askbox is open (which can be toggled in settings). 

If the sender has a Tumblr account, is not blocked by the recipient, and does not choose to be anonymous, then the message functions similarly to a text post, where you can embed media into it. 

If the recipient allows anonymous messages, and the sender prefers to remain anonymous, and/or is not logged into a Tumblr account, then the message can only be comprised of text.

If the recipient does not allow anonymous messages, then only people with Tumblr accounts that they have not blocked can send asks.

Submissions function very similarly to asks, except anyone can send them, regardless of whether they have an account or not, and they take the form of posts, any posts that the average Tumblr user can make. It is recommended that, unless your blog is themed around submissions, you do not open your submission box, due to people having used it to send malicious links or shock videos.

If you get an ask or submission, you will get a notification above the envelope icon at the top of the screen (or next to the “Inbox” tab in the menu) that will look something like this 

To answer an ask, you must simply click the “Answer” button and type out your reply. For whatever reason, there’s currently a glitch where, if you right click while answering an ask, the entire post gets deleted before you can post it, so avoid that. Once you’ve finished typing your reply, you can choose to answer if publicly or privately. You can only answer non-anonymous asks privately, and it will be sent back to the sender’s askbox with your reply.

To post a submission, you click the “Post” button, but you also have the option to edit that post by clicking on the pencil-shaped button before you post it.

Messages are a private instant messaging option on Tumblr. Only other Tumblr users can message one another, and people may limit who they allow to message them (for example, some people set their blog so only their mutuals can message them). To message someone new, you need to click on the smiley face button (or select the “Messaging” tab in the menu) and select “New Message” before typing in the recipients URL. 

Please remember to be respectful when you interact with other users. Like, I know this site is pretty infamous for its vitriol, but, I dunno, the goal with this post is to keep the newcomers from ruining this place, y’know?

Blocking

Okay, so say you come across someone who hasn’t taken the advice above, is just a total dick to you, or maybe has some ice cold takes that you keep seeing in your favorite tags, or maybe you just plain don’t vibe with their content. That’s where blocking comes in.

When you block someone, they cannot message you, interact with your posts, or send you asks off-anon. You also do not see any of their posts on your dashboard or in the tags, but it’s sometimes possible (for whatever reason - likely a glitch) for you to interact with their posts. If your blog is private, then they can no longer see your blog at all.

There are a few ways to block someone. First, if you see one of their posts, say, while browsing a tag, you can click on the dots at the top-right of the post and select “block” (on mobile, this menu also appears at the end of their blog description while viewing their blog).

You can also go to your blog’s settings and type in their URL, manually, next to “Blocked Tumblrs”

Finally, if they send you an ask, you can block them from the dots at the top-right of the ask (Note: blocking anons on Tumblr used to block their IP address from accessing your blog, this feature hasn’t worked in years and blocking anons today is essentially useless. I would recommend turning the anon option off for your askbox)

OR, if they send you a private message, you can block them via the three dots at the top of the messenger window

Stay safe out there!

Your Influence as a Tumblr User

So, I am aware that most of you are coming in from Twitter and Tiktok, where the concept of a social media influencer and brand presence is very normal and common (almost oppressive). You might be wondering, what kind of influence might you have if you become a prominent Tumblr user? Well,

You Have None

Tumblr is a community that is actively and vocally hostile towards the very idea of social media influencers and brands. This site’s userbase has infamously been impossible to advertise to, and even if your non-creative (non art/writing/fan-edit/etc) posts start to get massive attention, it rarely leads to you gaining significant amounts of followers (quite honestly, all it does is get very angry people in your askbox who either willfully misinterpreted your post, or just flat out don’t agree with you). Prominent posters are rarely even known by name unless they’ve earned a degree of infamy (typically by being so weird that a lot of people will avoid them or cringe when they show up on their dash). If you make a popular post, you are “OP” (original poster) and nothing more. 

Everyone’s follower amount on this site is private and there is no way to toggle it to be public, and, quite frankly, it doesn’t really matter how many followers you have, to begin with. I’ve seen people who admit to having over 10k followers average around 50 notes on their post. I have over 2k followers and I get lucky if a post I make gets to 20 notes, let alone 50. Posts you don’t want to get popular will get popular, vice versa, and you have no way of controlling anything. There is no “For You Page” that you can tag, the explore tab is underused by the vast majority of people here, everyone tends to stick to just their dashboard and maybe a few tags they like to check. There isn’t even a good “time” to post on Tumblr like there is with Instagram and Twitter.

Tumblr recently released a feature where you can sponsor your post to improve its reach, however the entire process is random and you cannot target any demographic whatsoever. We are random, anonymous hermits here. You cannot beat us, you just have to join us. 

Tumblr Culture

To close this post off, I’d like to bring up a few things that you’re very likely to run into in your time, here. Basically, here are things you might want to get used to during your stay on this site.

Post Circulation

As mentioned above, non-creative posts getting popular rarely have positive effects for the original poster. As such, many Tumblr users actually abhor their posts in this category getting popular. This is usually because it floods their activity feed (especially for content creators, it drowns out the attention we get on our creative posts) and sends very angry people who didn’t like our post for whatever reason to our inboxes. This isn’t to say you shouldn’t circulate these kinds of posts, go ahead and do it, we resigned ourselves to this by joining this hellsite, but it will probably happen to you, especially if you’re noticeably the new guy (and use mannerisms specific to other sites).

On a related note, Tumblr is an ecosystem where posts circulate regularly. What I mean by this is, it’s very common for posts from years ago to continue to circulate (be reblogged over and over again) as if it were a tradition. Every Thursday I’ll likely see the Out of Touch Thursday post be reblogged again. And not, like, the video being reposted like it is on Twitter where people just make a new post, but the original post from years ago brought back to my dash through reblogs. Or fat/flat fuck Friday every Friday. This website loves its unofficial holidays, and a lot of people queue old posts to be reblogged on specific days. This is all normal, and you’re going to have to get used to it.

Additionally, posts that used to circulate a lot but were considered annoying or weird (the first ones that come to mind are “Do You Love the Color of the Sky?” for being annoyingly long, or any of the “Werewolf Boyfriend” posts for being weird innuendos) tend to survive as jokes or references in new posts, so they still end up circulating one way or another.

Miscellaneous Etiquette

In line with “annoying”, the majority of long-time users on this site have repeatedly shown annoyance with this newer trend of: liking someone’s tags, reblogging the post, and instead of screenshotting or copying the tags in the reblog, typing “prev tags” or “previous tags” in their reblog. Not only does this out you as a Twitter user (the practice is a rehash of the “LRT” or “last retweet” practice on Twitter because of the discouragement of making quote-retweets, which aren’t a problem on Tumblr), but it’s just not intuitive. Sure, someone could follow the reblog chain to whatever tags you found amusing, but just like making your likes public, people don’t want to do that, and they won’t. 

On Tumblr, we don’t hold some kind of claim to tags. It’s nice if you @ the person you copied the tags from, but not really necessary. Just copy or screenshot the tags and put them in the body of the reblog. 

Another miscellaneous thing related to interacting with posts: spam liking and reblogging things from people isn’t considered a worry here like it is on Instagram. You won’t get flagged as a bot or anything, feel free to do that as much as you want. 

Reblogging your own posts are also considered fine, and most people will tag these reblogs as “#self rb” or “#self reblog” so that people who don’t like seeing them can filter them out.

Additionally, long posts are often tagged as such (#long post) so people don’t have to worry about spending a long time scrolling through one post if they filter the tag.

Asking popular bloggers to reblog your post is generally considered rude, but there are bloggers out there who are open to it, especially if it’s a post regarding an emergency financial situation you may be in. Still, please recognize that no one is obligated to circulate your posts for you, and many times, it isn’t personal (most people simply don’t want to open the floodgates of having all their followers and then some demanding they reblog from them, too).

Tumblr-specific Memes

There’s a lot of humor specific to Tumblr that doesn’t tend to leave this site, but you’re definitely going to find it here after staying long enough.

Gimmick accounts - Vary from accounts dedicated to specific niches of information (eg. suppermariobroth), a variant of the former except there’s a running gag that the blog will not break character on (eg. pictures-of-dogs), bot accounts welcomed by the community (eg. the-haiku-bot), and blogs designed specifically to interact with posts to induce a punchline (eg. post-store). Though some may get annoyed by the latter, these types of blogs are generally accepted as part of Tumblr’s ecosystem.

A type of gimmick account that’s died off in recent years is the askblog, which is where someone will run a blog roleplaying as a specific character and answer asks in-character. These are usually accompanied by art (usually made by the person running the account) and can sometimes end up telling narrative stories through their answers. You’re less likely to run into them nowadays, but you might find them here or there.

Ironic roleplay reblog chains (Open RP) - are instances where someone will, as a joke, prompt people to roleplay with them in completely ridiculous scenarios (or scenarios that start off seemingly serious, but devolve into silliness). One of the more common trends as of late in this category have been wizard battles between random users where they get into disagreements and then begin casting spells at one another. Related to these is the wizard council (usually posts made by user normal-horoscopes) where spells are regularly “approved” or “banned” (this is all for fun and make-believe, and the purpose of banning spells is usually so you can catch someone making an illegal spell in an RP and “report" them to the council for it in an “I’m telling mom!” sort of way).

Tumblr Scandals - Tumblr has had a pretty meme’d on history of scandals and drama that many outside of the site know of, but they still get referenced here a lot in a tongue-and-cheek manner (think “Oh, a Tumblr convention, that sounds like such a good idea! ;)” ). People aren’t big on tone-indicators on this site, so just assume that 90% of posts that propose something overly grand or something that sounds too stupid to be successful are being made in complete sarcasm. 

April Fool’s - Every single year, on April 1st (EST), Tumblr staff will add a gimmick to the desktop version of the site for the sake of fun. This year they gave us a button to spawn crab emojis on our screen and we all pressed it thousands of times, until we couldn’t press it anymore because the button was covered in crabs. Sometimes users come up with jokes to play on their own (”Mishapocalypse” refers to everyone spamming a specific picture of Misha Collins (of Supernatural fame) on their followers’ dashboards, many April Fools’ ago). It’s all in good fun, even the more “mean” seeming pranks (many people tried to crash the site this year just to see how staff would handle it. It was unsuccessful and staff congratulated them on their effort) have a pretty amicable tone or conclusion. If you’re on the desktop version of this site for only one day a year, let it be April Fool’s Day.

That’s all I can think of, for now! I know all this information can be pretty overwhelming, I hope that the way I formatted this post at least made things easier to digest. If you have questions, you can always send me an ask! I genuinely do think that, despite how intimidating this site can be, a lot of you are going to enjoy Tumblr as a breath of fresh air from the algorithmic, corporation-infested, ad-ridden world out there. If you keep these basics in mind, I’m sure you’ll be welcomed here. 

#tumblr #tumblr basics #twitter #tiktok #I'm going to sponsor this post tbh #I spent all day making it because my arm hurts too much to draw #For Everyone New to Tumblr

[lazleylazarus]

A bunch of my monster high redesigns💀💀💀!! mostly g1-inspired

pt. 1

there were so many things I wanted to write about them but I couldn’t (im still working on it, text and pics may be edited later, there may also be mistypes)

FRANKIE!!!⚡️

even though frankie is basically the result of her father’s experiment, she doesn’t like being referred as an object and tries living her life as a normal ghoul. frankie was made to be a perfect humanoid student. though she actually isn’t perfect and constantly struggles with social adaptation issues and some of her studies (such as swimming and other disciplines that require contact with liquids), frankie also sometimes confronts other students who demonstrate their disrespect to her for being “too good” and beloved by many teachers so that she wouldn’t give others a chance to shine bright (even though that’s not 100% true). oh, and for being “just a rag doll”. however, that doesn’t stop fran from being herself. she eventually learned to ignore the bullies and even managed to become friends with a bunch of meanies thanks to her lack of social adaptation evolving into pure ghoul simplicity and kindness. as well as that, frankie sometimes shows signs of overprotection not realizing that it potentially may cause problems or may be simply annoying. loves stem subjects, handicraft, helping others sincerely and obscure media no one talks about

note: frankie herself rarely uses they/them pronouns, they’re mostly used in reports of frankenstein and his wife and official documents. frankie is ok with it unless she’s referred as “it”. that’s just how she feels

DRACULAURA!!!🦇

a little bat crybaby aristocrat who sometimes faces disrespect from others for being a human-born vampire. it’s not like a sin or something, just teens being assholes to each other. she’s mostly seen with frankie and clawdeen or clawd wolf, drac’s boyfriend. draculaura becomes very anxious when she’s not with her friends. she and clawdeen founded a club for “hermit” or “rejected” monsters (they haven’t decided on the name yet) but they were the only permanent members until they met frankie who not only became a part of the club herself but also helped to bring new monsters and even friends, which is quite ironic. draculaura is a vegetarian and her current eating habits presumably developed from the illness which almost killed her before turning into a vampire. well, more like they were caused not by the illness itself but by the cause of this disease. kinda theatre kid. loves romantic stuff, gothic lolita fashion, sweets and writing her own novels which she rarely shows to others

note: later I remembered vampires don’t tolerate crosses but I really love it how they turned out so maybe there would be unholy unconsecrated crosses which do not affect them?? they’re not demonic, they just can be used as accessories by vampires. yeah that’s it. im yet to figure it all out

CLAWDEEN!!!🌖

a sassy werewolf who appreciates fashion, art and also designs her own clothes. clawdeen is a fashionista who dreams of becoming a popular model and designer. but she’s not a typical high school hyperfeminine diva girl, she really loves sports and she may act like a tomboy. clawdeen’s biggest flaw that makes her different from other werewolves is her inability to fully transform into a wolf at her age which is seen as some kind of rare disability. clawdeen doesn’t like talking about it and rarely hangs out with other werewolves except her siblings. as an extremely loyal ghoul, she also seems to have some traumatic experience in romance. that may explain why she tends to avoid romantic interactions and looks seemingly anxious when she witnesses them or when someone flirts with her. clawdeen is secretly envy for some of her friends and elder brother being happy in relationships but she can’t do anything about it. who knows, maybe she’ll find her happiness one someday. loves fashion, art, grunge music and true crime documentaries

#monster high #mh #frankie stein #draculaura #clawdeen wolf #redesign #fanart #fan art #monster high redesign #character design #artist on tumblr

[miru667]

How do you manage to stay in a fandom for so long? I'm always mario jumping from fandom to fandom every 3-6 months

Oh, so many reasons. I think I've answered this before but in a much more concise way so idk what happened here when I tried to answer again from scratch but uhhh I wrote a lot lol?? Long ramble time. 😂

I found this fandom at a point in my life when I really emotionally needed it, so I got really attached to it. I stayed because of the friends I've made in it and because of the OCs I got invested in, both mine and other people's, and every so often something invigorated my interest like a new roleplay I got to join or new concept art that got discovered.

I'm also just a really dedicated person (for better or worse) and I still have ideas that I want to get out there creatively. I don't get a lot of free time, and I rarely have energy for hobbies after work so my time passes slowly in the sense that I may still be in the middle of appreciating a thing, meanwhile everyone else has already sped through and processed it and moved on.

So I've gotta be really careful about choosing what to spend my limited time and energy on. It sometimes takes me a whole month to draw a piece of art that I'm proud of. It would be a huge waste of my time to spend so much energy on a fandom that after 3 months I think I might not care about anymore.

And like, if it's going to take me a month to draw 1 thing, what am I going to choose? Fanart of a character from a show that I just finished that I might possibly move on from in 3 months? Or art of my darling Audrey OC that I've been developing for years and whom I know will always bring me joy for the rest of my life? It's not a hard choice! Like I'm sure it's obvious by now but I really love my oc. It's gotten to the point that I look for her in every media I consume. I like characters because they remind me of her, and I like plots because they remind me of her. When I watch a movie and end up loving it, I'm not going to be drawing fanart for that movie, I'm more likely going to be drawing Audrey Grace in some way that's consciously or subconsciously inspired by that movie. I'm sure other people with beloved ocs can relate to that, too.

Back to media consumption: I'm constantly watching new things, shows, movies, letsplays, and I'm able to love them just fine, but I never participate in their fandoms (unless you count reblogging fanart as participation. I personally don't). I just don't feel motivated to and I feel like it's unnecessary. I shouldn't need to prove anything. You can appreciate media without engaging in fandom. In fact, I encourage it, because a lot of what I see in fandoms these days is just stressful, at least to me. And I don't want that stress. I'm much happier as a person when I don't have to read other people's opinions, discourse and drama over some show's themes or ships or whatever. I can just quietly revel in my own enjoyment of the show without being tainted by anything else, and my love for it is not any less valid than the person who's livetweeting their loud emotions while watching the same show and putting out fanart 1 hour after every episode. Bless them, though.

And I guess that's mostly what I do these days with the Onceler fandom, too. Appreciating it more quietly these days, I mean. It's just that...I have a fandom related oc so I draw her. And I have friends here so we do stuff together and we reference fandom inside jokes no matter what activity we're doing. If I encounter art that deeply moves me personally, I reblog it, just like I reblog art for other media on my sideblog. When anyone has a fandom history related question, I'm eager to answer because I don't want the past to be misrepresented or misunderstood. And also, since it's been over a decade, this fandom has long ago become my daily normal. I can do whatever I like but I can't really "leave" this fandom unless I delete all my social media and cut off all my online friends. And delete my memories of the past 12 years of my life as well. Just become a completely different person.

So I guess I can reverse the sentiment: I can't relate to people who hop fandoms every 3 to 6 months. 😭 All the power to you, but that's just not the way I happen to live my life, nor the way I engage with the media I consume! The Once-ler fandom was the one exception. It was special.

But who knows, anything can happen in the future. I'm not so proud that I'm purposely blocking myself from looking at other fandoms or anything. I just go with the flow! Right now I'm slowly making my way through jjba, an omori playthrough, a Plague Tale playthrough, and urusei yatsura season 2 (the new anime). Probably nothing will come out of any it except for a bunch of Audrey inspos, but again, who knows. XD I'm also going to an idkhow concert soon, and I've bought merch from their store already. Does that count as participating in a fandom? Maybe not. But now that I think of it, even if I "join" another fandom, it doesn't necessarily mean I'd leave the onceler fandom either, so maybe it wouldn't matter haha.

Thank you for the ask and thank you to anyone who's read my entire answer!

#miruask #long post #lovestruck enby #i probably sound insane but o well #reference

[rapturesbest]

Fort Frolic is becoming more and more popular the longer the games are out, much to my thill, as this means people are looking more and more into the muses, the Disciples, the quartet. Which is delightful. I have seen a lot of posts ranging from early 2015 blogs and art pieces as well as forums to modern, recent takes and character dives.

Of course, fandom is a space in which to explore and grow our own thoughts and theories. Some of the posts I have seen are certainly… choices. I have been putting off a brief character study of the muses until my wife and I have finished editing and splicing together our complete comprehensive history of the Disciples.

I have been working on breathing life into these characters for years now. Pulling from every media as well as looking into any rabbithole I could.

The reason behind this post is not to claim others work and ideas as incorrect but instead is to bring my findings to light. Share with you what is one of my two life’s works.

A brief character study of Kyle Fitzpatrick

Oh where to begin with my beloved boy. His canon appearances are so short lived. With three canonical lines I all but built him from the ground up. He is mentioned during DLC Burial at Sea 1 with no voice lines BUT that does give us where he was on New Years Eve, which I will talk about later in this post. He is not mentioned at all in Rapture by John Shirley. But this doesn’t mean that we don’t have clues and context for him as a character.

Let’s start with his name, Kyle Fitzpatrick.

Kyle is a Scottish-Gaelic name and FItzpatrick is an Irish surname. Coincidence right? No. Based purely on his name we can place his origin in either Ireland or Scotland, which comes into play when we dive further into his place within Rapture’s society.

Now I know what you’re thinking, “Oh but he doesn’t have an accent! In his voice lines he doesn’t have an accent.” and you’re right. He doesn’t. Let’s talk about that.

Kyle was employed by Sander Cohen, we know that as a hard fact. We also know as a hard fact that Sander Cohen was heavily on the side of Andrew Ryan when it came to the Ryan vs Fontaine bias. After the Death of Frank Fontaine who rose up in his place to challenge Andrew Ryan? Atlas. Atlas is a working class Irishman. Now, don’t you think it’s rather unseemly to have someone who is in the inner circle of Ryan supporters having a similar accent to his biggest adversary?

Of course, the scottish-gaelic accent is actually quite different from Fontaine’s accent as Atlas, but we also know for a Hard Fact that there is still racism within Rapture. Therefore by piecing together the racism as well as Cohen’s connection to Ryan we can deduce that Fitzpatrick was trained to cover his natural accent to keep up appearances within Fort Frolic and Rapture as a whole.

Next, Let’s talk about his age. We know Cohen referred to him as “Young Fitzpatrick.” I have seen a million and a half headcanons and ideas on how young “young” is. For this I’m pulling from the book, Rapture, with Martin’s POV. While the Rapture book is not considered Canon, it played a very important part in my construction of Kyle. We know from that that Cohen and by proxy, his disciples, are not only privy but are actively involved in a lot of skeezy, under the table, unorthodox practices and circles. Why does this matter? Because it feeds directly into Kyle Fitzpatrick’s age. In my construction of Kyle I placed him very firmly at the age of 21 when he died. So young right? Yeah I agree, but I have several reasons behind this. The first being that I do not believe that his prefrontal cortex is completely matured; I will touch back on this later. It’s not unknown that I am an avid fan of BaS and I really liked Elizabeth’s line of “This city values children. Not childhood.”

Kyle is the youngest of the muses. Being 17 at the time of Cohen scouting him, 18 when he was made an official disciple and 21 at the time of his death. I’d like to explain my reasoning behind the gap between him being scouted and him being debuted as a proper disciple. We know for another Hard Fact that all four of Cohen’s disciples (as well as others) had a physical, sexual relationship with their employer. Martin mentions it, Silas mentions it. Hector’s audio diary mentions it. Kyle was not excluded from this though I think he was not actively sought after by Cohen as much as other muses were. Cohen is smart, very smart, he knew that bringing on someone under the age of consent would not go over well with Ryan nor a number of the other key players within the social hierarchy. Kyle was groomed for the months leading up to his official debut. Which we know many went through but only 4 have managed to pass. I can go into further detail into his test. But I will spare you the details. He was pushed into the spotlight the second he turned 18 in 1956.

Let’s talk about why he was so young. Kyle is nothing less than a musical protege. He is incredibly talented, especially at such a young age. He is *young* he is not *stupid*. I’ve read a lot of people saying that they think that he’s naive or trusting and I’d like to counter that by saying that he’s impressionable, not naive. Cohen chose him because he knew he could mold him into something special. Which he did. Kyle is brilliant. But don’t think for one second he was stupid. He had three people constantly telling him that he was being manipulated by Cohen, by his Sponsor, by several players in Rapture. But he *chose* to ignore them.

Let’s break that down. Kyle was a victim of love bombing and near constant manipulation from almost everyone around him. I plan on doing an indepth dive into the mental illness within Rapture and the effects it had on those within the city.

Kyle was pulled in two separate directions. After working extensively on fitting him into the world created by 2K as well as John Shirely I chose to have his Sponsor be no one less than Frank Fontaine.

I do have a reason behind this. We know from all media types that Fontaine is an opportunist. Ryan always kept him at a distance. Never really trusting him. Not allowing him into the proper inner circle of Rapture like some of the other businessmen. I think especially in 1956, once things were properly starting to get heated, Fontaine would have looked for a way to worm his way into the inner social circle. He had a lot of people on his payroll, this we know for another fact. But how far did that really spread?

In order to explain the next part of Kyle’s backstory I have to derail to talk about Frank Fontaine. I can cite several occasions where Frank Fontaine openly or internally admits to blackmail, manipulation, sexual favors and paying off several people within Rapture in order to get ahead or get his way.

We know for a solid FACT that he had someone in nearly every part of Rapture with the exception of Fort Frolic. I always found that interesting. Why would the person with his hands in nearly every part of Rapture not be actively seeking out someone within the gossip hub of Rapture.

Unless he did.

I pride myself on fitting my work into being completely canon compliant. Fitting Kyle into the greater canon of Rapture was… difficult. I had to play fast and loose with a lot, backbending and jumping through hoops in order to bring such an insignificant character.

Kyle was young, this we know. Impressionable. I believe that Frank Fontaine saw him as someone he could easily get information out of.

Another solid fact we know is that Cohen didn’t care much for Fontaine or later Atlas. But Sander Cohen is a connoisseur of the arts. He can appreciate people with money, especially when it comes to funding his projects. Fontaine being interested in sponsoring his youngest disciple would have been too tempting a lure to ignore and so Kyle’s ties to Fontaine began.

Let’s dive into the manipulation and abuse within Fort Frolic and Rapture as a whole. Yummy, right? I see again and again people claiming that Kyle was stupid or that he loved Sander Cohen and I firmly stand against these claims. Kyle is young but he’s not blind. Do I think Kyle was once infatuated by Cohen? Yes. He was. Especially for a kid who came from a rocky background. But I think many people forget that Martin had been with Cohen from day one, working for him topside before he joined him in Rapture. Kyle had access and very close relationships with people who had been around Cohen for a lot longer than he had been. But knowledge and outside perspective doesn’t always protect someone from gaslighting, manipulation and abuse. I think that the dynamic between the key players was… difficult. A lot happened out of the public eye, within Fort Frolic, within the Disciples relationships and most certainly the interlocking dynamics between sponsors and their subtle or active gathering of information.

I’m about to step out of my semi-formal setting to get down and dirty real quick. I know y’all Sander Cohen kinnies gonna hate me for this one but that man is absolutely an abuser. We know this. He’s a sadist. And while I *love* that for him, he absolutely took out his artistic (or personal) rage on his disciples. There is a lot of room for disdain between disciple and artist. The prime written example of this is Martin considering just fucking killing Cohen when he first started to splice in 1956. The next example I’m going to pull is from the game with Hector Rodriguez. He says, and I quote, “the things that man made me do”. Which I always found interesting, saying as until the closure of Fort Frolic on New Years, they had *every* opportunity to leave all together. Of course, I could go into heavy detail into why each of the muses stayed but I will spare you. I’m here to talk about Kyle. Why did Kyle stay?

By 1958 Kyle was very firmly rooted within the upper class of Rapture. He was renowned as a musical genius as well as held a lot of social power from his dealings with Fort Frolic as one of Cohen’s Disciples as well as his ties to the essentially untouchable Empire that Frank Fontaine had created.

He was 19 years old and was untouchable by consequences for his actions. If Cohen didn’t bail him out of sticky situations, Fontaine would. Their dynamic is extremely interesting to me and I’d love to really get into the meat of it, but again, I will spare you in this short dissertation. Kyle was feeding Fontaine information he got while in Ryan’s social circles and he was well paid for it. It was an investment, of course, but Kyle gave him valuable information on Andrew Ryan and the inner workings of Fort Frolic as well as started giving him the seeds of ideas for Atlas. Though that’s another rabbithole for another day.

Kyle was very dangerously intertwined with Fontaine, which did not go unnoticed by Ryan nor his associates. After the ‘death’ of Frank Fontaine, anyone who had any ties to him were detained and questioned extensively. Kyle being one of them. But again, a story for another day.

Kyle was young and impressionable, as I have stated before. But he was also constantly being manipulated, gaslit and abused by those who saw him as an asset rather than a person. They took advantage of his love and lust for life. Kyle was burned out in record time but that does not mean that he wasn’t an absolutely awful person. He was a teenager given an outrageous amount of power. He was making extremely questionable decisions and was facing very few consequences for his actions.

I am not defending him as a good person. Anyone who enjoys Bioshock knows that these characters are extremely flawed and that is what makes them so fucking interesting.

I can go on and on about how everyone in Rapture was a simple pawn in a bigger game in a city that was destined to fail, but that’s the beauty of Bioshock.

Kyle Fitzpatrick was not a good person but he was the PRIME example of what Rapture was made for. He was a kid who came from a backwater town in Ireland who clawed, bit and fucked his way to the top. He loved too much and it was taken advantage of, brutally. Do I think that love extended to Sander Cohen? No. Kyle recognized him as a genius, albeit an outdated one, but he did not love him. Not like he loved his fellow Disciples or his work. Cohen was a security blanket for his debauchery, he signed paychecks and Kyle was willing to entertain him until New Years.

It is my belief that it was Kyle’s plan to bail from Fort Frolic after the Civil War started. He was in too deep with Atlas and Ryan knew it. His choices had landed him directly in the spotlight. Secrets were exposed and Kyle was brutally punished for it until his death in 1960.

I plan on posting a complete comprehensive history of him as well as the other Disciples.

TLDR:// Kyle Fitzpatrick is a dirty little bastard man who’s age is being confused for him being naive or stupid. He doesn’t really love Sander Cohen and he got exactly what was coming for him.

#bioshock #rapture #fort frolic #kyle fitzpatrick #fort frolic radio

[aeoneris]

for archival reasons, and because rise has officially ended, i'm coping by looking back at the past two years and thinking about the master utsushi rabbit hole. this is based on a long reply i sent to a mutual but i think it deserved to have its own post where others can read it and i can expand further on certain details. or something. i don't know. i have no idea who will read this but if you do, please enjoy...

the ballad of master utsushi.

he was there regardless.

always watching.

waiting.

i wound up getting attached to utsushi-kyokan (master/instructor utsushi), ウツハン/utsuhan (utsushi x hunter) ship, and finding his Japanese fan community late 2021, and i've been chatting with mutuals and friends i made there since. at that time, capcom had opened up pre-orders for his nui (plushie). this plush is lovingly referred to as "Unui-kun", and people love to take him around and bring him places. here's my Unui-kun in new york city lol

fans love to dress him up and make clothing and accessories for him. had i known just how attached i would become, i would not have set my Unui-kun to ship via surface mail delivery because it took about 2-3 months extra for him to arrive... ;;

but anyway, it seemed that his popularity was growing because they continued to make more merch of him. he seems to have more than any of the other characters.

many of these are limited print/pre-order only, or were from specific events like the capcom cafe features. trying to get his merchandise became crazy, because scalpers started to pick up on how badly people wanted goodies of him?!

just how popular is this guy?! what's with the character tax!!

and how did this even happen... we're playing monster hunter, not an idol game! but i think it really speaks a lot for itself how rise had such colorful characters that you could get attached to. it seems he really jives with many female and queer players, so good on capcom for that hehe. many of the japanese fans i've met are either older women, very often mothers, or gnc, which i found to be really cool. the english-speaking utsushi fans are usually the same, too. the solidarity is real...

I found out that a lot of ppl, including myself, shared a similar experience: they missed out on a majority of utsushi's flavor text in base rise bc they didn't talk to him or the other NPCs very much during village and high rank quests, and therefore didn't even think much of him until after the fact. people double-taking when going through the game again and actually catching on to his antics... I think what really got things going was when they released his DLC voice and learned about his, uh, extremely affectionate lines towards the hunter when it comes to mew mew and blowing a kiss LOL. (the "welcome back, master!" line?!?! there's so much art of him in a maid outfit... and the way he says ace/manadeshi in his sleep at the table?!?! scandalous?!?!) even for me, he got my attention only once i saw the official art of him (realizing "hey he's got a cute design actually") and eventually encountering utsushi x hunter fanart on pixiv. another thing that got me noticing him was brian david gilbert's now deleted tweet about how zac efron and utsushi are the same. thankfully, we have the internet archive to save the existence of this post and i have to make sure people experience this lost media.

once i realized how weirdly close he was to the hunter, the gears started turning

i confirmed that ppl really did notice that it was unusual for an instructor character to refer to his pupil as "manadeshi (beloved/dearest disciple)" in the manner that he does, being so close to them in a way that felt so familiar and warm. he was already popular enough that by valentine's day 2022, fans literally sent real chocolates to capcom addressed to utsushi. i knew about this for a while, but i was shook that they wound up officially addressing that this really happened during the last update video.

after they received his chocolates, they immediately got one of the (female) illustrators on board to quickly draw that really cute valentine's day art of utsushi. the japanese tweet for that artwork had even a little bit more text than the english one…

that "i'll always be watching over you" line…

(and while i'm here, i have to mention the valentine's day art we got for 2023- i made a separate post about THAT.)

we started to suspect capcom caught on to this niche community's love for utsushi, and they started to kind of... troll us??? LOL.

throughout the previews of sunbreak last year, they would start obsessively sneaking utsushi into those chibi artworks. and when npc followers were announced, people were scrambling to find out if he was going to be one of them, but there also was some weird radio silence about him for a bit...

in one of the earlier trailers that showed the elgado hub for the first time, there was a very short part of the clip where ppl could see someone standing in the distance at the corner of the screen. all the utsushi fans went nuts because they were taking a magnifying glass and zooming up at there wondering if it was really him, because everyone wanted him to be there in sunbreak LOL.

of course we'd eventually find out that would be his perch for most of the game! it was only during the final preview trailer before the release of sunbreak did they finally announce utsushi as a follower, as if they were saving the best for last. and sunbreak dropped, we got to see him in elgado and enjoy hunting with him. and it didn't end there. he wound up being featured in two of the short stories released last summer, and we would not forget this incident.

when i think about how easy it is to just play through the story and miss out on following specific out-of-the-way flavor texts, let alone know about all this outside of the game, i wonder if utsushi joining the hunter in the battle against amatsu in the penultimate battle was strange, because he has such a spotlight on him, even being the one who allows you to ride an apex which was normally impossible. if people didn't acknowledge him before, certainly people would love him now.

his final line after you defeat amatsu: it's cute and silly in english... but in japanese, his line and delivery was extremely, almost unabashedly... romantic. many people were shocked because it sounded like a fervent confession.

"I'll say it once more... You are my pride, my beloved disciple."

finally, during the last update video…

we got this line straight from the director LOL. utsushi wound up being his personal favorite character in rise, and perhaps why we wound up seeing more and more of him in sunbreak.

all in all, if you kept up with the flavor text of rise, and if you followed utsushi's dialogue throughout the base game and expansion, the emotional pay off at the end was even better! and it is a shame when this stuff is mostly optional or you have to go out of the way for it, with so much being missable with every bit of progression. but making a monhun where story and character interactions are pushed more… i think they were on to something. it's probably something that could be divisive, but personally I think they should go all in on it more in the future. Rise proved that they could make charming and memorable (not to mention, named) characters... if they lean into it more in a future entry, then i hope they do it in a way where everyone can enjoy it and not feel like they missed out. but I also hope they would make it so that people don't feel overwhelmed with flavor text... it comes down to taste, but i think i have faith that monhun can try making more character-driven stories while still keeping the core of the series in tact.

here are some more miscellaneous utsushi things that i didn't know how to fit in earlier:

he's been featured multiple times in capcom cafe entrees. here's his matcha latte dango drink:

and for the sunbreak stories: a cake based on his fight with rathalos together with the royal guard, and then a drink that represents his... uh, struggle across the ocean to chase the hunter to elgado. because they will never let him live that down. i won't either.

here's a t-shirt of utsushi and kagami you can pick up on amazon right now. kagami was a very interesting arc when he was first shown- he was introduced as a long time friend of utsushi, training together in the past, but eventually parting ways.

his seiyuu in japanese is a sentai actor who loves monster hunter, so essentially, kagami is lowkey like a self-insert for him lol. he's goofy in english because he's voiced by a certain youtuber, but in japanese he takes a different direction of silly because he has a "chuunibyou" edgelord cringe way of talking. it's such a shame that kagami wasn't really in the game itself besides being mentioned in a few mission descriptions because i would've loved to see him interact with utsushi and the hunter, and i wish the royal knights and many of the NPCs had more cutscenes or something. it makes me think, if it weren't for the pandemic, could rise's story and scenario have been something more because of the DLC voice characters like hibasa/monju/kagami? anyway, a popular headcanon is that utsushi and kagami are ex-boyfriends lol (i personally like this one and adapted it for my utsuhan fanfics). but there are even those who ship kagautsu too (although it is rare because people overseas are a little wary of shipping characters who are based on real people).

and lastly, one of my personal favorites... the diseased kyokan shirt. this is from an online capcom shop, and you can use a proxy service like fromjapan.com to order it.

if you read this all, thank you! happy hunting! with the instructor! we love that guy! the guy of all time!

#utsushi #master utsushi #monster hunter rise #monster hunter #idk how to entice people to read the ravings of a madman like this #but inquire within for very cute official cafe items based on utsushi. please perceive them #and contained here is a selection of his merch. they gave this guy so much merch because they knew. they knew. #guy who made capcom so much niche money

[rainysflowers]

Tosses this out into the eather for the most niche audience I could think of. *NYEAH!!*

After seeing the lovely @species-whump-weekly and waiting excitedly for their Demon prompt list for the purposes of using them against my favorite Mazoku, I decided that it would be fun to do something similar. Therefore, I'd like to offer to you, the whump and Slayers community...

Mazoku Whump Week!!

This is the perfect opportunity to take your beloved Mazoku, be them canon or original, and beat them up (maybe comfort them too) for the world to see! What fun ^^ If this does interest you, please look under the cut for more info and prompts!! If not, then have a lovely day!!

CWs/TWS: Themes of Hurt/Pain, Dehumanization of Non-Humans, Neglect, and Similar Content

ALSO I feel that upon farther community interaction that I should mention to PLEASE write out/tag your entries with content & trigger warnings and the characters involved as to not offend/trigger anyone who may come across it without interest in said character/content!!

Personally, I like to give a general overview of what content is in the media much like my CWs/TWs above, then also add on SPESIFIC tags for worse things like Major Character Death, and finally PLEASE SPESIFY which character you'll be hurting in the media!!

Now, I call it a week because that's the way i formatted it, but there's no timeframe and there's no start date. I just made it for fun and my own enjoyment ^^ All I ask is that you please tag me in whatever you choose to create [Writing, art, GIFs, ect]:)) You totally don't have to be a part of either community to participate, I just made this for Slayers fans specifically because I love that anime <3 They are also more so anime-based, than light novel-based, as a side note.

Prompts are formatted as a single master-prompt, something that sets the theme for the sub-prompts under it, and three sub-prompts that you can write one, two, or all three of!! There are also seven alternative prompts that follow the same general theme of the master-prompts (I.E. alternative prompt one (1) has the same theme as master-prompt one (1) and so forth). !!! Two alternative prompts are based on my personal headcannons, but those are labeled as such, and do not have to be used !!!

Here is the prompt list:

01) Summoned.

1] I’ll Treat You Like My Pet/Dehumanization

2] Defiance/Defiant Whumpee* (*Whumpee refers to the character who is in pain, which is in this case the Mazoku of your choice)

3] Terms and Conditions

02) Used.

1] Losing Control

2] Astral Wound/Pain

3] Magical Exhaustion

03) Misunderstood.

1] Kindness Makes the World Go Round

2] Starvation

3] Botched Shapeshifting

04) Betrayed.

1] Backstabbed

2] Found Out

3] Ritual Sacrifice

05) Returned.

1] Uncaring Master

2] Can’t Go Back

3] Demonic Punishment

06) Inherited.

1] Immortality

2] Bleeding Black

3] Ingrained Morality

07) History.

1] Scars

2] War Never Changes

3] Falling Comrades

Alternative Prompts

1] Orihalcon Restraints/Weapons (Based on a headcanon where the metal Orihalcon is able to suppress the Mazoku's ability to either return to the Astral Plane or negates their ability to be impervious to physical wounds in the real world.)

2] Reluctant Caretaker

3] Presumed Dead (Based on a headcanon where if a Mazoku is injured enough, they must ditch their assumed form to return to the Astral Plane, leaving them looking like a corpse in the Human World.)

4] “I can’t believe I trusted you.”

5] Assassination (Attempts)

6] “I thought that you couldn’t love?”

7] Survivor’s Guilt

Here is the Prompt List in a Google Doc:

Thank you so much for checking out this post, sorry for the crappiness lol, I just wanted to share some stuff. Ill be back sooner or later, and if you have any questions, please send them on in ^^ luv yall with the strength of a thousand suns <3 Have a good day, night, and whatever else!!

#🌧op #🌧opwriting #whump #whump community #whump event #whump prompts #slayers #the slayers #Writing #Writing Prompts #I hate tagging things

[miaclemeverett]

Mourning Technoblade: Fans Grieve a Minecraft Star They Never Met

The expert gamer built a following of millions of mostly young players on YouTube, without revealing his name or face.

Late last month, more than 10.4 million subscribers to a YouTube channel received a notification that usually brought good news: Technoblade, an expert Minecraft player, had posted a new video.

For fans, each new video held the promise of Technoblade’s warm humor, whether he was winning a tournament or going on an inexplicable quest to produce more potatoes than anyone else in a Minecraft minigame.

But when fans clicked play on this latest video, called “so long nerds,” it was immediately obvious something was wrong. Instead of showing Minecraft gameplay, a man identifying himself as Technoblade’s father appeared. He announced that his son, whose first name was Alex, had died after being diagnosed with cancer.

The video has been viewed more than 72.9 million times since it was published on June 30 as the fans who used to look forward to Technoblade’s notifications try to process the death of someone they have known only through a screen.

Social media is flooded with fan art, tributes and links to grief resources. Memorials have been erected within Minecraft, including a digital book that had been signed by more than 377,000 people.

The grief has ricocheted offline, including into the home of Noelle, 13, and her sister Ilana, 11, who had recently told their aunt to name her baby Technoblade.

In a video call from their home near Toronto, Noelle said she learned that Alex had died on her last day of school.

“I was just a mess,” she said. “I was just sitting in my room crying. I didn’t know what to do.”

Ilana, who dressed up as Technoblade’s avatar, a pig in a crown, for Halloween, said, “I don’t like to bring up the topic when I am just sitting with others.”

They both started watching Alex’s videos in late 2020. They liked his lighthearted banter with other Minecraft players and how he would monologue about the absurdity of routine parts of life, like using, and losing, a box to carry soap to a communal shower in college.

Coping With Grief and Loss

Living through the loss of a loved one is a universal experience. But the ways in which we experience and deal with the pain can largely differ.

What Experts Say: Psychotherapists say that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a process to be lived through, in whatever form it may take.

How to Help: Experiencing a sudden loss can be particularly traumatic. Here are some ways to offer your support to someone grieving.

A New Diagnosis: Prolonged grief disorder, a new entry in the American Psychiatric Association’s diagnostic manual, applies to those who continue to struggle long after a loss.

The Biology of Grief: Grief isn’t only a psychological experience. It can affect the body too, but much about the effects remains a mystery.

Alex spoke over screen recordings of himself playing Minecraft, the immensely popular video game developed by Mojang Studios in which players can create their own world piece by piece and compete against others online. The game developer was later bought by Microsoft.

The guided gameplay had garnered such a following that the company made a tribute to Technoblade on its launch page after he died. Mojang Studios said Technoblade “became synonymous with a source of good” in an emailed statement.

Among Technoblade’s most beloved game adventures was his whimsical quest to make more potatoes than anyone else in Minecraft, a feat first documented in The Great Potato War video, which had 35.8 million views.

In the video, Alex makes several references to Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War,” as he tries to topple the top potato producer at the time, a player who uses the moniker im_a_squid_kid. After Technoblade sees that his competition has created a rendering of the Mona Lisa in his Minecraft lair, he declares that im_a_squid_kid is not just “a potato madman, but a potato supervillain.”

Shielding an offline identity

In Alex’s videos, he talked about going to college (and dropping out to play Minecraft full time) and made occasional references to his family, but there was a clear boundary between Alex, the son and brother, and Technoblade. His family has sought to maintain that privacy since his death and declined to be interviewed.

Alex announced that he had been diagnosed with cancer in an August 2021 video threaded with jokes in which he also mentioned that he was 22 at the time. He did not specify what type of cancer he had, but his followers assumed that he had sarcoma, a rare form of cancer that is found in bone and soft tissues, because he created a fund-raiser for the Sarcoma Foundation of America on his YouTube page. He had raised more than $500,000 for the organization before the “so long nerds” video was published.

The foundation, which created a special donation page for Technoblade, said that an estimated 17,000 people in the United States will be diagnosed with sarcoma in 2022, and more than 7,200 people will die from the disease.

After Alex died, his fans encouraged eligible people to donate blood to help cancer patients.

Riley, a 21-year-old in Connecticut, routinely donates blood in honor of a friend who died of sarcoma, and she made her most recent donation in Technoblade’s honor. She said his death was all the more difficult because of her earlier loss. “I was bawling like a baby for a couple hours,” she said. (Riley spoke on the condition that her last name not be used because she has faced online harassment.)

She has played Minecraft for about 10 years, but she did not discover Technoblade until the early days of the pandemic when she was working grueling shifts at a grocery store. “There was not a lot of joy in my life being an essential worker,” she said.

She liked Technoblade’s humor and introduced his videos to some of her co-workers, who were reminded of his famous potato war at work. “We were stocking potatoes one night and we just started laughing,” she said.

Technoblade inspired Riley to start broadcasting videos of herself playing video games, or streaming, under the name Notable_Crayon. It has been a great way to unwind, she said, but it has also shown her why someone as popular as Technoblade would protect his offline identity.

Occasionally people will figure out Riley’s full name and send her “creepy” messages, she said. She also has a friend who was the victim of swatting, false reports of crimes in progress intended to draw armed police to the victim’s home. Her friend was not hurt, but others have been harmed, with one man killed by the police and another dying of a heart attack.

In the “so long nerds” video, Alex’s father read a letter that he said his son wrote about eight hours before he died. In the letter, Alex acknowledged the consequences of sharing personal information online and revealed that he and a sibling had successfully convinced online fans that his first name was Dave by using the name in a 2016 video, which was later deleted.

Alex said the prank resulted in “thousands of creepy online dudes trying to get overly personal, going, ‘Oh hey, Dave, how’s it going?’”

Navigating the loss of an online friend

For some fans, the mystery of Alex’s identity has added a confusing layer to the muddle of grief.

Richard England, a vicar at Crofton Parish on the south coast of Britain, said that his teenagers were both devastated by Alex’s death and that they had a few conversations about how not knowing Technoblade’s offline identity affected their grieving.

“Through this new online, offline world we have, many of them will feel like they will know Technoblade and other members of those online communities better than they know kids in their own school,” Mr. England, 47, said. “They will have spent just as much time with them.”

In Canada, Noelle and Ilana’s mother, Janice, admitted she was skeptical at first about the idea that you could have fun watching videos of someone else playing video games. But she said the girls had educated her about the Minecraft world and its personalities, which she now appreciates.

Janice, 52, was well suited to handle her children’s grief about Technoblade because she said she previously worked with children in grief as a child life specialist, a role that helps children and families cope with stress they experience because of health problems, hospitalization and bereavement.

She said that adults tend to want to protect children from uncomfortable feelings, but that it was important to give them space to express, or not express, how they were feeling about Technoblade.

“If we help our children through grief when they experience it,” she said, “then they will be better able to cope with it when they are older and have other situations in their lives that would cause them to be grieving.”

In the video call with her daughters, Janice said her sister in Maryland had called after Technoblade died, because her son was also a big fan. The boy had decided to raise money for the sarcoma foundation, Janice said, prompting Ilana to turn toward her mother and ask: “Is there a way I can help him with that?”

#technoblade #posting this because i thought this was so well done and i know the paywall might stop people from being able to read it <3 #Youtube

[shyesterin]

Hi it's Anonymous from your Inbox. What's a game or piece of media you enioy that you don't think gets enough attention?

hi anon from my inbox!!!

it's become almost kind of a meme at this point to say it but. I gotta say please play CrossCode!! it plays SO fucking well while also having mostly simple controls that feel SO good to master (it's a little overwhelming at first because it's a very fast paced combat system, but it's SO good and flows so well once you get into it), the protagonist is one of my favorite characters in anything ever (and I honestly couldn't fully tell you why) (I'm also very very attached to a lot of the other characters!! a lot of them are pretty wonderful :) Emilie and Hlin my beloveds), it has wonderful pixel art, a bunch of very cool concepts that I hope get explored more in a future game, some really good humor (though the DLC does get a bit too "haha reference" in its writing at times; the main game mostly keeps the reference humor in the sidequests and item descriptions, which works a lot better), it (IMO) NAILS the feeling of being in an MMO (the first proper area's music and vibe in general made me emotional cause it reminded me so much of first playing MMOs as a kid!!), it has a lot of kickass music... it's just so very good and such a fantastic experience and I wish more people would give it a shot!! I got it right after the DLC came out (which fleshes out the end of the story and gives it a more complete ending with post-game things to do) and I loved pretty much every second of it, really can't recommend it enough

also it has a really cute gay couple in it. not saying who but it might be fairly obvious as you go through it? it gets confirmed in the DLC part of the story in a really cute way

play CrossCode. for Her

oh yeah shit one more addition after posting this. the game has a demo you can download on steam so you can try it out and see if you like how it plays!! it's like an old build of the game so the main thing is more polished but it's still a good way to check if you enjoy the basic controls. it's good

#tsg talks #CrossCode #I love this game so dang much man. #I still gotta get started on that second playthrough!!! #honestly if they just kept releasing more areas to explore for a bit of money each I would just keep buying them #just because the exploration aspect of the game is really nice. there's a lot of stuff to find it's real good if you're the type of person #who loves searching every nook and cranny #also most of the areas are just really nice to be in and walk around in #aaa. gotta play it again for real #oh yeah I should warn this game has puzzles out the ass. there are so many puzzles. every dungeon is VERY puzzle heavy. you gotta be ready #but if I managed all of them by myself anyone can!! #ok that's enough rambling sorry. I love this game.

[sick-ada]

24,27, and 29 for the ask game :]

24 - do your references include stock images?

sometimes! but i use reference as a loose term, mostly i look at it for a pose, decide i dont like the pose, then ship of theseus it into a whole dif pose by editing it so much. my character references are official art sometimes but more commonly i look at how other artists depict them for inspo

27 - do you warm up before getting to the good stuff

nah not rlly. ill doodle for a bit but then i get distracted and the doodle becomes what im working on and i dont get to the actual bit bc i draw so slow (mouse moment)

29 (double answer wombo combo) - media you love but doesn't inspire you artistically

i love the binding of isaac (the game not the actual bible story). i love that it doesnt flinch or soften its blows and i love that there is no good ending. characters stuck in a cycle of torment by their own hands my beloved

plus it checks all my boxes for things i love in games (blood/gore and heavy religious themes)

but despite all that i dont really have the urge to draw or create anything for it. it's its own enclosed loop and i feel like theee just isnt anything about it that makes me want to go all creativity about it. its a good story without room for anything i could make without diluting its impact

#cicadasks #tyyyy for the asks #ik i dont have any tboi mutuals but i have Thoughts about the beast ending

[halfagone]

DID YOU SAY THAT YOU READ WEBTOONS? What uh.... What are your favorites? 👉👈 I'm still trying to wean off reading manga, and the only webtoons I've read are Queen Cecia Wears Knickerbockers and Wayne Family Adventures 😂

Yes, I have read quite a few Webtoons in my day (Why do I sound so old right now?) I have not heard about the Queen Cecia Webtoon, but Wayne Family Adventures is a very good choice, in my totally unbiased opinion. 🤣

If you want more DC Webtoons, then there is Red Hood: Outlaws and there is Zatanna & The Ripper. I haven't caught up with either of them, but if you do love those characters or want to see more from them, I definitely commend checking those out. There was also the Vixen: NYC Webtoon, but unfortunately that one seems to be cancelled now. 🥺

If you're interested in completed Webtoons, then I have a few offerings. I love Siren's Lament, it's a wonderfully complicated Webtoon even if it does hurt my heart sometimes. Gourmet Hound is more of a slice of life with some drama for added effect, but I really did adore that Webtoon that the art was just so cute!! Flow has some incredible worldbuilding mechanics and it's just so tasty. If you want more hero Webtoons, then there's I Don't Want This Kind of Hero, although that one does contain some distressing themes at times so like... beware. And then there is one of my ultimate favorites, which is called Gepetto, which is inspired and based on the Pinocchio tale but more futuristic and dystopian, if that's your fancy.

As for ongoing Webtoons, there's Marry My Husband, which is one of those time travel Webtoons where the MC dies and comes back to life sometime in the past and tries to fix their future. The main story is done, but they do have side stories which have been super cute to read.

There's the ever famous The Remarried Empress, and you'll probably see a lot of references to characters from this Webtoon if you read other Webtoons with a similar premise of- arranged marriage, terrible consort, attractive male lead that is decidedly not the husband, but don't worry he will be.

There is a newer Webtoon called I am the Villain, which is part of the Isekai genre, I would say. It's a beautiful Webtoon, the art is just stunning, and I have no idea what's going on but I'm having a great time.

For more action-based Webtoons, there is Eleceed and if anything happened to my boy Jiwoo I will kill everyone in this room and then myself. And apparently I've done a poor job of that promise because this boy has gone through it, but he still a sweetheart and I love him for that.

There's also the Omniscient Reader, which was actually originally a webnovel called Omniscient Reader's Viewpoint, but has since been turned into a manhwa and it's so long but it's so good. I love my sunfish man and ugly squid king (bonus points to anyone who knows that reference).

Here is a Webtoon I have complicated feelings about: Tower of God. This was actually the first ever piece of media I published fanfiction for. It's this really incredible, complex, mind-bending fantasy Webtoon. It is very long, it currently stands at 581 chapters and counting. Unfortunately, the fandom ruined the experience for me, and I pretty much quit all of my fics and that's how I found myself here in the DPxDC fandom! There is an anime for it, currently just Season 1 is out but fingers crossed on Season 2! 🤞But definitely read it first before you watch because the pacing is a little fast for the anime and you don't get that same sweet, sweet tension. I am lucky enough that I do still have one beloved friend that I can talk about Tower of God with, or else I think I probably wouldn't have put it on this list at all.

Eleceed, Omniscient Reader, and Tower of God are all manhwas, which are Korean manga for a shorthand explanation. So if you want to wean yourself off those forms of fiction then... maybe stay away from these because they can suck you in.

Speaking of beloved friend, @midnightenigma recommended to me the Like Wind on a Dry Branch Webtoon, and I am still so upset about it because I will never be the same. 😭 The worldbuilding for this Webtoon is amazing and I adore the slow building romance and plot, and the exploration of grief and just- I am not okay.

I have more things I could recommend but that's... probably as much as I should offer now. lol I hope you find a treat to read from the bunch, though!

#halfagone replies #webtoon recs #never thought i'd get to do this

[twistedtummies2]

The Price May Be Right - Number 19

Welcome to “The Price May Be Right!” I’m counting down My Top 31 Favorite Vincent Price Performances & Appearances! The countdown will cover movies, TV productions, and many more forms of media. Today’s choice might be a bit confusing. I give you two performances for the price of one, with Number 19: Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”

The names of Vincent Price and Edgar Allan Poe are practically synonymous, at least in cinematic circles. While Price made many, MANY movies in his long and storied career, arguably the ones for which he became best well-known were the special movies produced by AIP for what is now referred to colloquially as “The Corman-Poe Cycle.” This was a series of eight films, all directed by Roger Corman for the company, which were based – some more loosely than others – on the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Vincent was the nominal star for seven of the pictures within the octology. The only one which DIDN’T feature Price was the third film of the bunch, “The Premature Burial.”

Most of the movies in the series were treated as more or less straightforward horror films of the time. However, the one exception was the movie inspired by the great author’s most famous “Poe-m” (I am so sorry), “The Raven.” The original poem is easily one of Poe’s greatest pieces of work, telling in short verse the story of a lonely man, mourning the loss of his beloved wife, Lenore. He receives a visit from a mysterious raven, which turns out to be a supernatural harbinger of doom and despair. It’s a tragic, ambiguous, deeply perturbing poem, and still a classic to this day. Corman’s 1963 movie interpretation, however, eschews much of the pathos, as the film is actually a horror-comedy, with emphasis on the latter half of that equation. In essence, the picture is meant to be a tongue-in-cheek spoof of all the others in the eight-part series, which is sort of a clever idea. In the film, Price plays the main protagonist: Dr. Craven, a physician and ex-sorceror who, like the narrator in the poem, has seemingly lost his precious Lenore. Also like in the poem, he is visited by a talking raven…but this is about where all similarities cease, for the raven turns out to be a fellow dark wizard, by the name of Dr. Bedlo. He reveals to Craven that Lenore is apparently still alive, and in the grasp of their shared nemesis, the evil Dr. Scarabus. The two magicians thus set out on a quest to confront Scarabus, so Bedlo can get revenge on him for past humiliations, while Craven ascertains if his wife is, indeed, still breathing…and if so, what she is doing with the evil wizard. Much like “House of the Long Shadows” would do many years later, the film acts as something of a “Who’s Who?” of classic Gothic horror pictures. Not only does Price play the lead role, but the perpetually-drunk Bedlo is played by Peter Lorre, while the redoubtable Boris Karloff tackles the part of the slimy Scarabus. Future Joker and star of “The Shining,” Jack Nicholson, also appears in an early role, playing the part of the romantic interest for Craven’s daughter, who is played by the much-less-famous (but no less talented) Olive Sturgess. It’s more fun than frightening on the whole. Price’s Craven is an interesting protagonist for the story: despite being very gifted in magical arts, and coming from a long line of distinguished warlocks, he’s a very mild-mannered individual, most of the time. The film gives him a story arc of essentially growing more of a spine, as he learns to fight more fiercely against the injustices around him, and accepts his destined place in the world: an atypical hero’s journey.

All this is well and good, and the movie is definitely worth checking out, if only for the novelty of the adventure and its stellar cast. However, this was not the only time Price would tackle Poe’s Raven onscreen. Many years later, Price would get a chance to theatrically perform a reading of the original poem for a Halloween Special during the 1980s. Unfortunately, I cannot remember what the name of the special was, nor the exact year it came out: I actually tried to look it up, since I DID learn that information…but I can no longer find the source, and I sadly never wrote it down, dummy that I am. Whoops. Whatever else is in the special in question, however, it’s hard to believe much could top Price performing Poe’s greatest poem the way it was always meant to be performed.

In my opinion, Price’s reading of The Raven is the definitive interpretation of the poem. He brings the right amount of melodrama and emotion to the work, giving the Narrator a sense of both decadence and dismalness befitting the story as it happens. From his tragic nostalgia to his wonder at the appearance of the talking bird and even to his moments of desperation and spooky loss, he runs the whole gamut of the poem’s emotional breadth with marvelous aplomb. Others, such as Christopher Lee and James Earl Jones, have done masterful interpretations and readings of the poem in their own rights…but for me, Price is the eternal voice of Edgar Allan Poe’s work, and no single take on the poem has ever matched his reading for me. Bottom line: whether it’s the movie or the poem, when I think of “The Raven,” I think of Vincent Price. End of story. Tomorrow, the countdown continues with Number 18!

#list #countdown #favorites #best #the price may be right #top 31 vincent price performances #vincent price #acting #actors #edgar allan poe #the raven #poetry #film #movies #horror #comedy #tv #number 19

[dontvap0rdawave]

How to come up with your own OC? Please help me with this

There's a lot of methods for it, both from what I've seen and the one's they taught me in art school- But, for me, personally I like to look at surroundings/media/anything that I like and that might inspire me to create something.

It can be meshing up several concepts together, reimagining of certain ideas or designs I like in media with my own twist, just drawing something on the go, or even paiting something out of my dreams I write down sometimes

Some suggestions I can give is: Make a lot of designs, keep whichever you like the most

Mix and mash parts if you feel like spicing up things

Draw the innitial idea, if you're happy with it keep it, if you start coming up with a lot more things experiment with them until you find a design you like (that's why I've been remaking a lot of my old characters recently)

Find a theme for the design, keep it as consistent or wild as you like (depends on what you're trying to convey or the story you want to tell), and so on

And use references, a lot of them, whether visual or written, it saves a lot of time and helps with ideas

That's some of the stuff I do that helps me create, again, there's a lot of ways to do it and this one's just how I mostly do it. In the end, do whatever you think looks best and get creative, you can come up with a lot of cool stuff just like that.

Some of my most beloved characters came out that way and now I have field days with them so, just try things out and play with your art, don't be afraid to experiment and try with different stuff

Sounds a bit cliché, but it really is good

#reply #reply post #watchy talks #what's this? #genuine advice!? #on this blog!?!? #it's more likely than you think! ;) #normally didn't do this because people used to barrade me for it but- #i hope it helps! #draw whatever critter you want! #make them weird! #have a little art as well #to not leave you with a wall of text #doodle

[zorlok-if]

I got an ask recently inquiring about any suggestions I have on learning to write/improving your writing. Since then I've been trying to come up with a helpful, coherent, and relatively concise answer, but that's taking a long time.

So, for now I'd say my biggest piece of advice is the cliché: if you want to become a better writer, read (or watch/listen to/etc.) everything you can. Everything. Engage with media from as many different creators as possible and from as many different backgrounds/experiences/cultures as possible. Seek out things you don't know a lot about. Venture into new territory and always try to expand your horizons. This includes engaging with media you would never drift towards naturally, even towards things you don't expect to enjoy (which isn't to say read things that will disturb you or be dangerous for your mental health, more that you should try reading things you know you won't love or that fall way outside your genre comfort zone). You can learn a lot about writing from things you don't like or aren't blown away by. I imagine it like XP farming in a video game. Even if some of what you're doing/reading isn't particularly exciting or interesting, it'll level up your writing skill all the same. You may come away with a better understanding of what you don't like and don't want to do. You may come away with some new idea you wouldn't have thought to include in your normal body of work. You may discover a love for something you never expected. Who knows?

This advice applies to more than books—watch shows or movies, play games, listen to podcasts or free YouTube lectures/video essays, whatever you want. Just try to reflect critically on what you encounter (for example, "how can I incorporate (or avoid) ___ in my own writing?").

If you want any recommendations, I'm more than happy to give some. If you want me to clarify any of these points, just let me know. And since it may interest someone/provide a point of reference as to what stuff I'm reading, here's an incomplete, visual (and hopefully somewhat helpful or interesting) snapshot into some of the media I'm engaged with. I present to you...

All the Items I Currently Have Checked Out from the Library:

(A Cautionary Tale)

Currently Reading:

Hainish Novels & Stories, Volume One by Ursula K. Le Guin, Frank Herbert's Dune the Graphic Novel, Book One by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson (illustrated by Raúl Allén and Patricia Martín), Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir, American Gods (graphic novel) by Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell, and Scott Hampton, The October Country by Ray Bradbury, The Books of Earthsea, The Complete Illustrated Edition by Ursula K. Le Guin (illustrated by Charles Vess)

Just Read In or Found Through My Current Courses:

Nat Turner (graphic novel) by Kyle Baker, Beloved by Toni Morrison, Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn (play adaptation of the novel), Bad Indians by Deborah A. Miranda

Fun Stuff/Miscellaneous:

How to Slay a Dragon by Cait Stevenson, The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening (2019), Neuroqueer Heresies by Nick Walker, Unmasking Autism by Devon Price, PhD, 100 Prompts for Science Fiction Writers by Leslie and Jarod Anderson

Writing Books:

How to Write a Mystery edited by Lee Child with Laurie R. King, On Writing Romance by Leigh Michaels, How to Write a Damn Good Thriller by James N. Frey, Writing Fantasy & Science-Fiction by Orson Scott Card, Phillip Athans, and Jay Lake, The Art of Time in Fiction by Joan Silber, Writing Without Rules by Jeff Somers, Fabulous Monsters by Alberto Manguel, The Art of Description in Fiction by Mark Doty, The Essential Guide to Freelance Writing by Zachary Petit, Beginnings, Middles, & Ends by Nancy Kress, Mastering Suspense, Structure, & Plot by Jane K. Cleland, 45 Master Characters by Victoria Lynn Schmidt

Cooking/Food Books:

Pure Vegan by Joseph Schuldiner, The Soup Book (new edition), Neuroenology by Gordon M. Shepherd, The Italian Vegetable Cookbook by Michele Scicolone, Wine Simple by Aldo Sohm with Christine Muhlke, Cook Korean! by Robin Ha (graphic novel)

Coding Books:

Sams Teach Yourself JavaScript in 24 Hours (7th Edition) by Phil Ballard, CSS: The Definitive Guide (4th Edition) by Eric A. Meyer & Estelle Weyl, CSS: The Missing Manual (4th Edition) by David Sawyer McFarland, Learning JavaScript (3rd Edition) by Ethan Brown

#36 books and 1 video game #(this is what working at a library does to you I guess) #on writing #resources #recs #queued #albie's corner

[aro-bird]

The Alienation of being a Filipino Aro

There's a kind of cultural alienation that comes with growing up aromantic and no I'm not just talking about how most aros and arospecs would note experience relationships the same way an allo person would.

I'm talking about an isolation away from community and culture that becomes apparent when you really sit down and think about it. A sort of disconnect from your community not for the fault of your own but just by the mere fact that most of society didn't even know you could possibly exist.

I'm Filipino. In the Philippines, romance is an inseparable part of culture. It's not only liked by many as a concept and theme in their stories and discussions, but it's put on a pedestal. It's a pedestal that I could never achieve.

Most media references romance to some capacity. Children's media would have a lot of focus and emphasis on a romantic subplot even if that shouldn't be the main focus of the story. TV shows for adults, even if it should have little to do with romance like game shows, would make references to romance as a universal thing.

Despite the Philippines being one of the top producers of movies, you'd probably have a hard time finding anything that isn't romance save for the few horror films and the occasional comedies and action movies that constitute maybe about 3 movies a year out of the dozens made by the industry. Even indie films have a huge focus on love, romance, and relationships with the extremely few being dramas that drag or depressed the audience. Don't get me started about how 99% of music is about love and loss.

Outside of media, Filipinos are extremely romantic and not just exclusively with their partners. PDA is everywhere and is even encouraged. It is not uncommon to see students at school holding hands and cuddling on campus being tolerated and even celebrated as long as they don't kiss in front of a teacher. This would be fine if people weren't force to participate in it.

From early on in elementary school, children would exchange gifts during Christmas as they sing out loud "I love my Monito/Monita, yes I do!" as they play secret santa, with gifts exchange between kids of two different genders being met with typical romantic teasing. It's a pretty common question in playground discussions to ask who your crush is and if you didn't had an answer, you would be called a liar if they don't outright call you weird.

Friendships with someone who isn't your own gender (heck even friendships with someone who is of the perceived same gender too) are often met with romantic teasing and ceaseless inquiry. Even people you've only talked to once, without any indication of goodwill, or even positivity, gets you years of teasing and harassment from school boys that think they're being cute. Some of these people even thought it appropriate to drag me into a "chain booth" where they would tie me up with another boy in class just to tease me. The fact that this is seen as something romantic let alone acceptable is beyond disgusting.

Even adults push this narrative of romance and relationships to the point that you probably couldn't last a single day in school without teachers talking about the woes of romance and love to try to seem hip with the kids. Poetry nights arranged by language arts club are filled with desperate cries about their beloved and love that could never be which extends not only to the artistic events of the month, but even just the casual school-wide assembly. Poems that portray the unresponsive as a bad guy, as the heartless who dares not return affection. It was all alienating.

What happens to a person whose entire existence is not seen and not only not seen but dismissed entirely by the community? What happens to a person who can't find themselves in their own local media? To the person who can't relate to their community and peers? To the person being pressured to desire something that doesn't make sense to them? To the person being forced to be something they're not? All by their community and culture?

It's different for everyone, but in my case, I looked to somewhere else.

I found comfort in foreign media that didn't feel like it was talking down at me for not pursuing romance. I found comfort in English communities that didn't harass me and forced me to conform to an idealized romance. I found comfort in a place foreign, outside of the Filipino culture that does not have room for people like me.

This has made me avoid a lot of Filipino media, discussions, and communities even online. Why should I seek out a place that would fundamentally misunderstand me? That would alienate me and make me feel unhuman just as it did while I was growing up? That would pressure me to do things against my will?

It was empowering to find a community outside the community. It was as if I had found a secret club that understood me more than the people I knew for literal years. It was welcoming and warm and nice. Until things felt... off.

I look at this new community, this community away from community and realize something that has been bugging me for a good few months now.

This place also feels alien.

Discussions here may not revolve around a constant stream of love, romance, relationships, and heartbreak, but they are in a language spoken that's foreign to me. Not that the words being typed in English is the problem, no, even the shows back home speak loads of the language. It was something else.

The discourse was alien. The discourse was American.

Most of the discussions and the media around being aro places it squarely in the west. I've noticed that I even try to lessen my Filipino-ness at times when I would discuss my aro experiences despite the two being quite intertwined. I felt a bit of embarrassment just even thinking of bringing it up since it felt out of place. This didn't feel like the appropriate time to discuss this, but if not now, then when?

Discord servers, although international, are mostly filled with American aros and if not Europeans. Major blogs and resources are run by westerners who primarily discuss western issues and discourse. Those that try to cater to a more general discussion about aromanticism feels hollow as culture and community is stripped to its very basics to avoid alienating everyone else.

Now I'm typing this all out to reflect in it further. I'm still at this awkward place in figuring out how to handle these ideas. The reality that I'm not truly a part of my Filipino culture as someone aromantic, and the reality that I'm a foreigner to the aromantic community as a Filipino still messes with my brain.

I want to be clear, this is no one's direct fault. It is definitely more of an issue that a person only encounters when they don't fit the larger culture's idea of the standard, whether it be being an alloromantic Filipino or a western aro. I am not calling for all of the aro community to make space for me specifically just because I feel weird and awkward as a Filipino and I'm not calling on all Filipinos to keep checking on their amatonormativity just because I can't relate with their gushy romance.

Either way, I guess I have to try my best to create spaces for myself and open the discussion on both sides. Maybe I would finally start to feel less alien in my own skin.

#mayaposts #aromantic #aro #arospec #philippines #filipino #amatonormativity #filipino aro #queer #lgbtqia+ #long post