WELCOME BACK GALĂPAGOS RAIL!!!
GALĂPAGOS RAIL: hey i took a nap whats poppin?
Claire Keane
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2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year

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@blackberrygreen
WELCOME BACK GALĂPAGOS RAIL!!!
GALĂPAGOS RAIL: hey i took a nap whats poppin?
you guys are so annoying. why do i have to see discourse every year that's like "was tolkien really a woke king or was he your conservative uncle?" the guy was a devout catholic and a genteel misogynist who maintained lifelong friendships with queer people and women, and this isn't even paradoxical because that was part of the upper-class oxford culture he was immersed in. tolkien told the nazis to fuck off (and in doing so demonstrated a real understanding of what racism is and why it's harmful, beyond simply "these guys are bad news because they're who my country is at war with right now") but his inner life was marked by internalized racism that is deeply and inextricably woven into the art that he made. he foolishly described himself as an anarcho-monarchist, and it's kind of crazy to see people on this website passionately arguing that he likely never meaningfully engaged with anarchist theory, because...yeah, no shit, of course he didn't. tolkien didn't have to engage with most sociopolitical theory because as an upper-class englishman of his position, he was never affected by any of the issues that this theory is concerned with. what is plainly obvious from reading both his fiction and letters is that tolkien's ideal political system was that the divinely ordained god-king would rise up and rule in perfect justice and humility; he didn't want a government, he wanted a king arthur, even though (obviously) he was aware that outcome was impossible. why is it so hard for people to accept that he was just some guy! his letters aren't a code you have to crack. no amount of arguing or tumblr-level analysis is going to one day reveal a rhetorically airtight internally consistent worldview spanning jrrt's fiction, academic work, and personal writings, thereby "solving" the question of whether he was a woke king or your conservative uncle. his ideology was extremely inconsistent because, at the end of the day, he was just some guy.
Youâll all sleep a lot better when you realise that actually most people, rather than being purity in human form or evil incarnate, are in fact just some guy.
i can't believe you're bringing nuance to a tumblr fight
When ao3 goes down, life loses all meaning
genuinely appalled that ai usage has bled over into fan fiction + writing in general. as if using generative ai for art wasnât already horrific enough.
the entire point of the arts & humanities is the creativity & passion imbued in human creation. the beauty of imperfection and the product of hours of dedication.
personally find it ridiculous if you think that using generative ai makes you a writer. like, at all. the entire point of creative writing as a pursuit is knowing that you get better over time. why kill not only the process (but also the environment hello??) by letting some ai spit out an entire fic for you?
shit is beyond me.
[Fandom/Fanfiction Etiquette???? Some sort of Rant????]
... Aka welcome back to Bucky screaming-
Bestie, this is a bit long. You donât have to read it. I wonât know. I wonât judge. But if you do read it, just know that FOR ONCE, this is not about LOTR/TROP Fandom. I know. Shocking. A rare moment in history. Mark your calendars.
So I was scrolling through the AO3 tag on here, right? Minding my own business, expecting the usual postsâsome fic recs, memes, some hilarious tags, some people losing their minds over an updateâand then BAM.
People are out here making review cards for fics and ranking authors like itâs Goodreads for fanfiction???????!!!!!!!!
And listen, call me a boomer, call me an ancient relic of the old internet, but... WHAT?
AO3 in popular culture
Neither Wikipedia nor Fanlore have this subsection in their AO3 entries, which makes me sad. I'm aware of N.K. Jemisin's use of "Tales of Our Own" in Far Sector
And I just found this gem in Django Wexler's Everyone Wants to Rule the World But Me:
"Fun fact for readers from the future: Before AO3 was a benevolent government ushering in world peace and prosperity for all, it was a fan-fiction archive! [star] THE MORE YOU KNOW [star]"
Anyway, I'm interested in other sightings in the wild, especially in visual media/moving pictures. Please add any of which you are aware!
I LOVE MY FRIENDS SO MUCH I'M JUST STUPID AND FORGET THAT FEELINGS NEED TO BE EXPRESSED IN ORDER FOR THEM TO BE FELT
having depression makes your friends seem like the coolest most put together people on earth like wow... you got out of bed, had breakfast, went to work, AND spent some time on a hobby when you got home....? that's so impressive you're like superman or something. can i borrow your power.
no sentence fills me with utter loathing so much as "i asked chatgpt"
Do you think I meant to write "stoopid" google docs. Do you think I meant to describe a character as "stoopid." Do you think that is what I meant to do
There's a little girl within me who still thinks that if she's quiet enough, that if she behaves enough, that if today, she's just enough to be good enough, that someone will come back for her. But the woman I've grown into knows now, no one is going back for her, except me.
Tanya Markul
Greetings Transgenders... I am happy to anounce that today you are extra visible to me. I can see you so clearly. I am looking at you. I am nodding and smiling. I will continue to look at you with both of my eyes wide open for the rest of the day. I will not blink until midnight. Happy Trans Gender Day Of Visibility!!!!!!!!
ethics of making AI images aside, I do find a bit amusing the kinds of sob stories and mental gymnastics people make up to pretend like drawing is this super technical skill with an impossibly high barrier of entry when its like one of the first hobbies toddlers pick up
suddenly a lot of people think they got the next Lord of the Rings in their head but they were never able to turn their stories into anything tangible because the evil elitist artists are hogging all the talent and skill and they need a bajilion years of training or something as if one of the most popular manga and anime of the past decade wasn't made by a guy that draws like this
âItâs too trope-yâŠâ âTry not to be too trope-yâŠâ âThis oneâs not as trope-y as the sequelâŠâ
ClichĂ©. The word youâre looking for is âclichĂ©.â Literally every story in every genre and medium ever is made out of tropes. Itâs impossible to tell a story without them. A clichĂ© is when a trope is overused with little variance to the point it becomes a predictable, boring stereotype. Just because you can identify a trope being used in a book, movie, song, game, etc. doesnât automatically make it a clichĂ©, nor does playing a trope straight rather than subverting or deconstructing it; it just means you can recognize patterns. When executed in a creative or elegant fashion, even a very common trope can still entertain and inspire the audience.
Obviously what does or doesnât count as a clichĂ© is subjective, and even something widely regarded as clichĂ© can be unironically enjoyed by someone; thatâs usually why they persist in the first place. My point is that I keep seeing the words âtropeâ and âclichĂ©â being used interchangeably, to the point where the word âtropeâ is spoken of with distain by artists who should know better. Complaining that a story has tropes is like complaining that your food has ingredients.
Where does your story begin? Whatâs holding it together? And what is it really trying to say?
Ideas are easy... stories are a lot harder. Thatâs why we dropped four new templates to help you turn sparks into structure, tension, themes, and meaningâscene by scene.
Story Opener TemplateâWhere are we?! Draw in readers and set the stage with a well-defined setting, intrigue, and emotional stakes.
Scene Builder TemplateâPlan story beats with details, dialogue, and character goals to create momentum that makes each scene matter.
Themes and Symbolism TemplateâSuss out recurring images and brainstorm the big questions that give your story depth.
Conflicts, Stakes and Tension TemplateâUntangle dramas large and small (personal or world-ending) that move your plot forward.
You can find all four templates (and others!) in Ellipsusâhead over to the blog and read more!
- the Ellipsus Team xo