Soā¦I know thereās a lot of people that get pissed off when people tuck their thumbs in doing a vulcan salute. Yes, this is incorrect, but Iām not sure a lot of people know why! Iām here to explain it!
So Vulcan philosophy is based on five main concepts, all of which are represented in the hand sign.
Nome: The ring finger represents Nome, meaning āallā. All things in the universe combined make existance worthwhile.
Idic: Invinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. This is the pinky finger. To achieve knowledge, one must accept all diverse possibilities.
The Doctrine of the Domination of Logic: The middle finger is the belief that Logic should dictate every thought and action.
Reverence for Life: This is the index finger. Vulcans respect every aspect of life, no matter what the circumstances.
Privacy: This is the important part. The thumb stands alone to represent the high regard that the Vulcan people have for individual privacy.
Nome-Idic together is to represent the joining of diverse things in order to create more meaning. This is separated from Logic-Reverence for Life because Nome-Idic includes emotion. It recognizes that emotion creates meaning and beauty and is part of the Nome.
This solute, combined with the phrase āDif tor heh smusmaā(Live long and Prosper) is essentially a Vulcan telling you that you may believe anything you like and that he or she is respecting any opinion or way of life you may have. It is also them offering to teach you about themselves or anything they know, hoping for some knowledge in return, so both parties may better themselves.
Just thought this bit of information might be interesting/helpful!
This is a great and serious post, but now I just want Spock and other Vulcans to go around punctuating what they believe to be a particularly impressive use of logic with a raised middle finger.
sorry I fell off the face of the earth, i mostly hang out over on @strings-have-been-cut. upate: iām teaching in a hybrid setting now and i binged ds9 and garak ruined my life. anyway, i hope everyone is safe and good!
sci fi that only shows you the interesting parts of an alien culture is i guess doing its best to actually tell a story and thereās nothing wrong with it but iām definitely one of those people whoās likeĀ ābut what are the regular people with boring jobs doing about thisā. what do people in star wars who arenāt criminals or soldiers do all day. whatās it like to be part of a klingon house that DOESNāT have drama, if such a thing exists
This morning Iām thinkin about how Miles dislocated his shoulder on the Enterprise and Crusher was like Ugh Okay Iāll go get the Osteotractorā¢ļø and then Miles dislocated his shoulder on DS9 and Julian just fucking cracked it back into place then and there
Iāve been getting a lot of questions lately, so hereās my complete walkthrough on how to create a Tumblr RP blog.Ā
If youād rather view on a Google Doc, hereās a link.
Enjoy.
Create Blog
Howdy, so the first thing youāll have to do is click āregisterā and make yourself a blog. You also have the choice of making a sideblog instead. Iām a person who likes to have this separated, so if you are only thinking of playing a couple characters, this might be the way to go for you. Hereās the difference between main/side blogs (taken from Tumblrās help center):
Choose any url for now (weāll talk about that later), and go to the next section.
Please note: When you make a new blog, it wonāt show up in the search/peopleās notifications for a bit of time (a day or so). Make sure you validate your email address asap.Ā
Get xKit
If you havenāt installed xKit, I highly suggest it. Go to their blog here, and get it for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, or Opera.
What is it? A little toolkit to make Tumblr easier to use.
When you install it, itāll pop up on your top bar thing next to the lightning bolt like this:
Itās that thing with the xās on it.
When you click the xās this pops up:
Brill.
You can click āGet Extensionsā at the bottom and basically choose whatever you want, but may I recommend the following:
1) Editable Reblogs allows you to edit reblogs. Right. This is good because when you are replying to RP threads they tend to get rather long. Some advice that was given to me when I started: when you add your reply, delete everything before your partnerās last reply. So you should have your partnerās post and your post and thatās all. You just click āreblogā and it pops up like normal, except now thereās this little guy:
If you click that, it will make everything in your reblog box editable.
2) One-Click Postage gives you a little box if you hover over the reblog button. It lets you reblog, queue, draft, tag, and add replies right from that page. You can even choose which blog (main/side) you want it to go to.Ā It looks like this:
The rest I will just say play around with! They are easy to add and take away.
Decide what kind of blog you want.
Multimuse Vs. Single muse:Ā
Do you want to play one character or a bunch of them? If you choose one character, your blog icon and theme will presumably feature that character or something to do with them. If you choose to focus on one, you should have info about your character available on your blog somewhere. If you choose to have more than one muse, youāll need a list of the characters you offer and some info about them.Ā
When choosing a url for a multimuse, choose something that encompasses the spirit of you and your characters.
When choosing a url for a single muse, I go for quotes, nicknames, something about where they are from, what they like, their name, etc. Note: if you have dashes in your url (like mine @strings-have-been-cut) these wonāt work with tags. People will have to turn them into separate words or one big word.
I do not have a multimuse, but I have seen them done all sorts of ways. Some people offer characters from all different fandoms, some are just one fandom, one genre, OCs, canons, a mixture...you can do what you like.Ā
If your blog is not affiliated with any sort of organized game, this is referred to as āindependentā often shortened to āidieā.Ā
Your blog description should mention which kind it is. For example: a sci-fi multimuse blog; a Star Trek OC blog; an indie Bill S. Preston Esq. from Bill and Ted RP blog. Details help sometimes.Ā
Canon Character Vs. Original Character
If you decide to make a canon character, make sure you have it clear somewhere where they are from! Canon characters can be canon divergent (your own version), they can crossover into other fandoms, they can be exactly as they are in your favourite book/show/movie/podcast...each version of a canon is unique and lovely.
If you decide to make an original character, make sure you give plenty of info about them! You want to tell people what fandom they fit into or if they are fandomless. āAboutā pages are really important for OCs because there is no fanbase for them (yet!).
What should be in your description?
When someone clicks your blog, they will first see a dash preview sort of thing. It shows a description and a small header, along with the posts youāve made. This description also shows up somewhere on your actual blog and on the top of the page on mobile view. Itās a great spot to give all the info about your blog real quick. I always include the following:
What is it? (Independent Data from Star Trek RP blog)
Age restrictions (21+)
Who you will RP with (mutuals only is called āprivateā and choosing who you follow back is called āselectiveā.)
Munās name (played by [insert your name])
Possibly a link to your about/rules for easy access on desktop and mobile. Iāll talk about this more below. I call this ānavigationā, but it varies. Note: if you edit your icon/dash header, any html links seem to go away. Iāve needed to go back into the theme customizer and add them back in. To add a link to your description, go into your customizer, go to the description section, and add the html as follows:
<a href=āurl goes hereā>link text goes here</a>
So mine is: <a href=āhttps://data-all-in-one.carrd.coā>Indie Data from Star Trek blog.</a>
The description for my Data blog reads: āIndie Data from Star Trek RP blog. Click here for navigation. 21+. Private/selective. Played by Fool.
What should be on this blog?
In my experience, you need a couple of pages on your blog to get you started:
About the character - basically a biography
Rules - so people know what you are about
About the mun - so people can know about the person they are writing with
Possibly a link to your āask memesā tag - see below.
These can be organized however you like, but people tend to look for a few specific things.
About the Character
This should read like a biography. Back in the day, we used to call them ācharacter appsā and they had all your basic info about the character. Sometimes this section contains a subsection called āversesā in which the mun spells out what universes they exist in. Say I had an AU where Data owns an arcade in San Francisco in the 80ās. Iād list that as one of his āversesā. This is extremely important for OCs, but very helpful for canons too.Ā
Data has four: TNG era, TNG movie era, AU where he lives after Nemesis, AU where heās around during Star Trek: Picard. I gave a little info about both.Ā
Rules
Rules are usually organized into the things people are looking for before they start playing with you. Some good info to include:Ā
Mun age
Your policy on adult content
How you deal with tagging triggers
Your policy on following back
Your policy on writing with mutuals vs. anyone
Do you allow personal blogs (non RP blogs) to follow you?
How fast do you reply?
How does your tagging system work?
How do you deal with shipping?Ā
Here is a link to my usual Rules page for reference. Remember, itās not wrong if itās different than mine!
Note: People will look for how old you are. Many people in the RPC are adults, and they want to write with people their own age. If your age is not posted somewhere clearly, they may not follow you back.Ā
About the MunĀ
This is really just a little blurb about you. Some people include their age here. Some people include links to their other blogs. Some people include their Discord info, as thatās really popular right now. Itās just nice to know who you are writing with.
Itās important to note that there are different ways to present all of these blogs. Some people have them as pages on their Tumblr blog itself, some people put all of this (Bio, About, Rules, etc) in a Google Doc and link it, some people use Carrd.co - there are a ton of ways. A friend of mine did this amazing post about some options out there. I personally go for Carrd.co, seeing as I am on mobile a lot and I find it very helpful, but itās up to you.Ā
Now I have a blog with all the info. How do I get started?
Well there are a few things you can do to get yourself out there.
Make yourself a promo. Itās basically an advertisement for your blog. If you arenāt good at graphics, you can head to an RP Resource blog and see if they have any you can use with their permission. You can also just post a picture with some info. For me, the info on this promo matches that of my blog description - I want people to know what Iām all about as soon as they look at it. Then you can tag for your appropriate fandom RP. Your mutuals will likely reblog to help spread the word. Yay.
Find a directory for your RPC by searching in the search. This will allow you to a) reblog your info and be listen in a place where people can find you and b) allow you to find others in your RPC in an organized way. Then you can go through, find people you think youād like to follow, and follow them.Ā
Make a starter or plotter call. This is, again, just a picture or graphic and some information about it. Here is one I made for Data specifically asking for Picard threads:
I asked for a specific universe and a specific character here. I also put all relative tags in case someone is just searching Tumblr (although I think itās more for the people who follow me). Hereās a simpler one I made for B-4 thatās a lot more open.Ā
They donāt have to be super fancy.Ā
When people see a starter call, they can like your post. This is a quick an easy way to let you know they are interested in a thread.Ā
4. Ask Memes. Asks are invaluable. There are whole blogs dedicated to ask memes that you can post to your blog, and these can be really easy ways for people to come up with plot ideas or just to read some of your writing. I always keep a link on my blog to everything tagged āask memeā so if people want to find a meme they have choices!
It seems like thereās a certain aesthetic on these new fangled RP blogs. Do I have to do that?
No! But you can, if you want. If you arenāt good at coding and graphics, there are a lot of RP resource sites that can help you. (Can I recommend this one?) It is nice to have things like a face claim, a nice looking promo, a cool theme, etc. but at the end of the day, we all just want to write and have fun.
Advice?
Look, Iāve only been RPing on Tumblr for a couple of months and I am by NO MEANS an expert. I have gotten all of this knowledge through the help of friends and nice strangers willing to answer questions for me. Here are a few things I have picked up:
Respect peopleās rules - We are all shy and all have our own thing going on. If someone says theyāre uncomfortable doing one thing, just like...donāt do it.
Talk to other people - Donāt ignore the mun! Unless they really want you to. Itās better to ask questions, compliment writing, talk about your plots and stuff...itās so much harder than trying to figure out what the other person feels/wants.
Ask questions - Iām a 6th grade teacher, and I get a million and fuckton questions every minute usually. Itās been eye-opening, because now Iām all about asking questions about everything all the time. I think knowledge is amazing. People know all different things, and the most logical way to be a productive society is to share knowledge (thatās one of the main teachings of Surak) so ask some questions! Hell, ask me some questions! Reach out to someone who seems nice!
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