I am dead serious when I say that you guys need to start giving writers feedback more often. I have a fic here that has a total of 4015 notes and only 218 aren't likes. So, let me break this down for you a bit.
Of 4015 notes, 186 are reblogs and 32 are comments. Two reblogs, as well as comments, are mine so I'll subtract them from the equation making the total number of notes 4011 (184 rbs, 30 comments, 3,797 likes).
Of the 184 reblogs, 16 are private, meaning they're absolutely useless in spreading and sharing the piece. The remaining 168 consists of 136 reblogs falling under "other reblogs" while only 32 fall under "comments and tags." And of the 32 under "comments and tags," only 9 have something besides a copy of the tags that I included in my initial post.
The 184 reblogs make up 4.6% of the total notes, the reblogs under "comments and tags" make up 0.8% of the total notes, and the reblogs under "comments and tags" with anything besides tags copied from the initial post make up 0.2% of the total notes.
At one point, I reblogged the post, asking if anyone wanted a part two. That's when I got my first comments. The first 6 comments were in response to that, and of the 30 total comments (excluding my own), only two were unrelated to a part two. Which means I can guarantee that I wouldn't have had that many comments had I not posed the question of a sequel fic.
And if I add those 2 comments to the 9 reblogs, I get 0.3% of the total notes on my post that make up the portion of notes that aren't likes, empty reblogs, or comments about a part two. And that's me being generous because two of the reblogs actually do mention a part two.
I also posted a poll asking what people wanted in part two, and that poll got 238 votes. That is 54 people more who voted for what they wanted in a part two that didn't reblog or help push part one.
Don't get me wrong, I love seeing people in my notifs liking my posts, but sometimes it's just not enough. It is utterly exhausting waking up to multiple hundreds of notifications and not seeing a single person compliment your work. You guys will like stuff, follow, and then head straight to the inbox asking for more. I know it's been said a hundred times before, but we are not machines; we do this for free in our spare time.
The post in question was written when I was tired out of my mind, and I ended up not liking it, so I let it sit in my drafts. I briefly mentioned it on my blog and was met with one of my followers showing interest in the idea, which prompted me to revise, edit, and post it. It was a gift, as are all fics and pieces of art by writers and artists on this site, and yet it was treated like a commodity.
When people say it's unmotivating they're not kidding. When I had 100+ asks in my inbox, all of them being requests, I felt like I had the worst case of writers block known to man. I would open my inbox and immediately close it because the idea of posting anything knowing the only response would be more requests, was awful.
When people leave little messages in the tags, full-blown commentary, or kind messages in my inbox referencing posts, I feel more motivated than ever. Those responses are what drives me to write more. But when I, and other writers, are being treated like we're here to cook up whatever fantasisies you have in mind, I can't help but side-eye a little.
We wouldn't write if we didn't enjoy it, but the moment it feels like a job, it becomes that much less enjoyable, and then everybody loses. Just send a kind message to your favorite writers every once in a while. I promise it'll make their day.
I would also like to say that as I've written this, I've seen more people like that post. So, there's that.
[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]
Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?
[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*
–
Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.
Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!
Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.
* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.
What do you think you add? Do you think you make a poignant post better when after scrolling down through it we see someone saying it's "official"?
I'm choosing to interpret this ask as a genuine question (albeit one that's been worded a bit rudely) instead of a hate anon, because I wouldn't want to tarnish people's dashboards with hate anons.
Now, to answer your genuine question... The "Discworld Heritage Post" tagline I add to the end of posts has as much validity as I have authority to bestow it: none. Do I think my tagline makes posts better? Of course not! And I certainly don't think I make them official, (and neither my url or my pinned post claim that I do so).
I don't know what reasons other people had to start their own Heritage Posts blogs for other fandoms, but I will gladly tell you mine: I got into Discworld. I discovered the Discworld fandom in Tumblr. And, one day, while scrolling down some Discworld related tags, the idea just popped into my head. After checking that there wasn't a Discworld Heritage Posts blog already, I decided to make one.
I personally follow a few Heritage Posts blogs, and my reason to do so is probably the same as to why many people follow this blog: I wanted to see that kind of content. Tracking tags and being up to date on the most popular posts of a fandom is doable, but doing so for the dozens upon dozens of media I'm into is impossible, so I like to follow some Heritage Posts blogs to get some of those posts directly into my dashboard (it's also worth mentioning that sometimes, some iconic posts are made when people comment stuff on them, and those don't appear in the search tags, so following blogs that post about a certain fandom is the best way to come across some of those collaborative posts, because otherwise you'd rarely get to see them). So yes, I created a blog that, had it already existed, I would have liked to follow. Also, while other blogs with this gimmick usually limit themselves to reblogging, let's call them the "greatest hits", I've said since the beginning that I didn't care about how many notes something had. Be it cool art or a funny or insightful post, if I like it, I send it to my drafts.
However, none of those reasons are the main reason why I made this blog. The main reason is that I did it for myself. After exhausting all the content that showed up in the Popular Posts tab, I couldn't help but think of all the gold and treasure that wasn't there, buried and hidden due to the way Tumblr's search engine works. If you're familiar with the Discworld concept of "lies-to-children", that's what the "top posts of all time" is in Tumblr. A 20k post from 2016 will not be there, but a six month old post with 400 notes will show up. Surely there had been amazing Discworld posts and art posted in 2015 and 2013, but I wasn't going to find most of them unless I expressly went looking for them. And this blog was the perfect excuse to do so. As of replying to this ask, there's nearly 600 posts sitting in my drafts, and if I didn't have this blog I would have never discovered 90% of them. And those are the ones I've seen. I still have dozens of places I haven't searched.
I know that if I reblog a month old post with over 2k notes, a lot of people in the fandom will have already seen it. However, a 2k notes post from 2014, or a drawing with 40 notes from 2012 is something that is less likely to have hit people's dashes recently, or at all. When you come across the "Discworld Heritage Post" tagline in a post, please don't picture me as an uppity monarch performing the Tumblr equivalent of a knighting ceremony, or a stuffy museum curator deigning a piece worthy of being included in an exhibition. Picture me as a kid enthusiastically jumping and flailing my arms around while yelling "holy shit guys check out what I just found!!", because that's how I feel running this blog.
Ultimately, whether one of my posts does better or worse is indifferent to me, because they aren't my posts, or memes, or drawings. I'm just the intermediary. That being said, of course it's not indifferent to me, because more engagement means that was a post many people hadn't seen before, or had forgotten about, and one of my goals was to run a blog that would allow people to find those hidden or long forgotten gems.
When all is said and done, Heritage Post blogs are just another one of Tumblr's gimmicks. If we're not your cup of tea, you're free to ignore or block us. If you want to reblog something and don't want the tagline, you can reblog it directly from OP (or from another reblog if OP has deactivated their account).
I'll stop posting wips eventually but it's been five days since I've said anything and I don't want anyone to think I'm dead/dying/stuck in a ditch and withering away, so here's 10% of the reason I disappeared (the duck is stuck in rendering hell) (and my little baby laptop is screaming at me every time I open up this file)
I might still be mostly lurking for a little bit so please be patient with me in the meantime 🙏🙏
sometimes i feel like i love a little too easily. not in the romantic sense, but just in general. the threshold to attain my love is incredibly low, i have a heart that's primed for love. i love my partner. i love my parents. i love my best friend. i love the friends i haven't spoken to in ages. i love my co-worker who brought her dog into the office on christmas eve even though she was off because she wanted to make me smile. i love the employee at dunkin who remembers my coffee order. i love the greeter at our local walmart who wears bright pink butterfly clips in her hair. i love the girl in the car next to me enthusiastically pointing at my dog to her friend in the passenger seat. i love random the tumblr user who reblogs my post with funny or kind tags. i love the mutual whom i hardly ever actually speak to but we tag each other in tag games/send asks/etc. i believe humans are inherently lovable.
i have been loved too well in my life to not love others, and while sometimes that love can be taken advantage of, at the end of the day the saying is true: it's better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all. so i'll continue to love as i feel it, to express that love even if sometimes it isn't reciprocated, because i think it's beautiful thing to love other people, even if only in little bits.
Ok I feel like this is gonna be like super problematic or something but I feel like I should just get it out. I welcome comments, discussion, reblogs, and tags.
I find it really hard to talk about my own culture, because white (as in American/Canadian/British/Australian/etc) people talking about their culture has become such a taboo. And understandably so, to be fair, because due to colonization, there are a lot of cultural things that are no longer specific, and are now global in several other cultures that wouldn't otherwise have them.
I often see people in fandom from so many different countries and cultures take characters and put them in their culture: wearing certain clothes, eating certain food, doing certain activities, and so on, and I LOVE it. I love people exploring their love for their own culture and their love for their blorbo(s) at the same time. There's so much joy in it.
There's been several times where I wanted to join in, but felt like I couldn't because I "don't have a culture", as a white British person. But that's just completely untrue? I DO have a culture. It's not one that most people seem to care about, but I do. Sunday dinners, chip shops, pantomimes. Despite growing up in England, my dad is Scottish and I visited his side of the family up in Aberdeen on a regular basis, so kilts (they were worn by most if not all of the men at the first two weddings I remember attending) and bagpipes (I LOVE the sound, they're beautiful when played well) are also on there for me. My accent is a part of my culture too, and I genuinely love my accent (my strange little combination of RP and East Midlands that has people asking me if I'm Canadian...). Don't even get me started on the food (yes it's pretty bland and looks very boring but done right it's tasty and it's filling, yes i think it's stupid as hell that the british empire colonised a bunch of places in order to get spices and now a lot of white people in the UK don't even USE most of those spices)
With a little more thinking, I could probably list a lot more, but I feel like I can't so much as mention it off-handedly without someone showing up out of the woodwork to make fun of lower-class British accents (like when people say "bri'ish" (although I enjoy it when it's used in a neutral and fun way) or when people just completely fuck up and bastardise whichever already-discriminated-against English accent they're making fun of this time - honestly I think RP could stand to be made fun of a bit a lot more), or to make fun of the spices issue (like I said before YES it's stupid, do you think I colonised those countries myself????) and make horrid over-the-top gagging noises whenever "UK" and "food" are so much as mentioned in the same sentence.
I mean look at this. I just wanted to talk about my culture and how it affects me and I feel like I have to have such a huge lead-up and THEN I still feel the need to explain that the british empire sucked and that a lot of our food is quite bland etc etc etc.
With other (non-English speaking/non-white) cultures, people can just mention things and dress their favourite characters in traditional clothes and it's lovely and celebrated. Please keep doing this. Please put your favourite characters in your culture, there is NOTHING more joyful in fandom spaces than spreading your love of your own culture through characters that you also love.
I'd like to join in, is all. I'm not asking for the red carpet to be rolled out for me, I just feel like someone's gonna attack me if I mention my faves enjoying my favourite British food.
But even asking this feels like I'm being White(tm) and throwing a tantrum and whining "WHAT ABOUT MEEE?!?!?!?!" - this is NOT what I'm trying to do here. I don't need attention for it. Honestly the less attention I get the better, it feels like. I've seen some british hate on here that is genuinely horrible and disturbing. And sure, it's deserved for all of the colonisation and the many attrocities, but I didn't choose to be born here????? YES it's terrible but I'm tired of being the punching bag of everything that my country (countries?) have ever done wrong.
Is this entitled of me? It doesn't feel like it, but reading through this post, it kinda looks like it. Am I just insane and paranoid? Maybe. I don't know.
sometimes i really wish i could easily respond to tags because you guys really come through with them and just make some rough days a lot better but i don't wanna clog your dms or your notifications (i love you guys but i get petrified to engage with you sometimes 🫠 i am a big anxious weenie)
i put something kind of regarding this in my pinned post but i absolutely am so okay with you guys going deep into my blog for my old art or things or spam liking (and maybe a reblog here and there) things i've previously posted 😭 especially if you're new!
🅱️lease feel free to take a look at my older stuff!!! treat this like a museum and wander to your heart's content 🥰
i try to keep stuff circulating in my reblog side @missionkittyroyal but WAY more people follow me on here than on there and i am kind of trying keep this one more portfolio style
aaaanyway if you're reading this and you've recently reblogged something from a little while ago, your tags have basically saved my morning and you probably know who you are and i love you you