thawn submitted: Info on Louis' Dagger from the Bondi Ink Tattoo Artist !
Hi there!
Iâll try keep it quick, but basically I came to you first because this (to me) is pretty breakthrough stuff. If anything it confirms a lot of our beliefs and I thought you could handle it/spread it accordingly.
So basically, I live in Sydneyâs Eastern Suburbs and I got my nose pierced tonight at Bondi Ink (notorious in this fandom for the venue of Louisâ long awaited dagger tattoo) and as I was sitting in the chair I struck up conversation with the guy doing the piercing. I asked if he was a tattoo artist and he said no, but âthis guy isâ and pointed to someone next to him. So I started talking to that guy about drunk tattoo requests, etc, small talk.
Then I asked âDid you do the tattooâs for the boys from One Direction?â and he was like, âyeah, I did one of them. Lewis i think?â And my heart started beating cause it couldnât have been a better opportunity to ask questions.
On the topic of âdrunk tattoo requestsâ I asked about Louisâ tattoo (playing dumb of course, otherwise I would seem like a creep) so I joked around and said sarcastically âwas it a sentimental oneâ and he said âActually I was really surprised, he wasnât even drunk, he had it planned out and it seemed extremely important - weird for a late night tattoo around hereâ
at this stage i was struggling to contain myself because jesus christ ?? ? ?
Then i decided to try and go further, and I asked âdo you remember what the tattoo was?â and he said âyeah it was a daggerâ and I said âwhy would he get a dagger thatâs bizarreâ. To which he replied, âwhen I saw the design, I said that Iâd known of a different but similar design with a rose incorporated into the dagger - being a tattoo artist for a living every now and then we have to try and up the scale of the tattoo - but then he just said that âthe rose had already been taken care ofâ, so maybe he already had a tattoo of a rose somewhere elseâ
I have to note that afterward I said âwow itâs strange that you can reveal all this stuff to me, what with his status and client confidentiality and all thatâ and he just said ânah, itâs a tattoo after all, itâs there forever and itâs not exactly in a hidden place, everyoneâs gonna see itâ
So make of all this what you will, but I thought it was pretty significant. I was with a friend at the time who has absolutely no idea about Larry, but me being a pretty avid Larrie in this fandom I thought it was pretty good news for us⊠I must stress that this is real! I wouldnât want to make up this even if I really wanted to, false hope tears us apart nowadays.
okay okay but i just need to mention one little thing:
fan site dynamics work like this: twitter reacts first, usually dramatically, thinks later. tumblr thinks first, analyses to see exactly what we're working with here, puts it in perspective with their YEARS of experience in this fandom, then reacts.
therefore if you're coming here from twitter, you should have that in mind, as well as keep in mind a few guidelines that worked great for me as someone who lurked around fandom since 2013 and only got REALLY involved in quarantine:
1) RESEARCH PEOPLE RESEARCH. i don't care if you've been part of fandom on twitter for five years, tumblr has so much more information. on absolutely everything. and it all comes back pretty frequently in some way or another. so, to avoid making the Knowledgeable Veteran Larries want to smash their heads into a wall at every "wait what happened in xxx?" message they get even though they've discussed it 1000 times already, just do your research. @larrytimelines has, as you guessed it, timelines for shit that happened over the years so that may be a good start. otherwise, @daisiesonafield-blog has a very well organised blog (how, i don't know, lowkey suspect she's a witch) so just look through her many useful tags for larry resources and you should be good to go for a nice long while.
2) don't come here thinking you know better than the people that have been around for 10 years. that's the main one. it's as simple as that. these people have lived through the worst stunts, they've seen it all, they know what they're talking about. they know better.
3) if you're gonna be ageist you can fuck off. i've lost count of how many people on twitter have said that after 25, you shouldn't be a part of fandom anymore. you do not lose your interests as you get older. if i see you being ageist anywhere in my or others' blogs consider yourself blocked because i do not have the mental stability to handle idiotic children (and i promise you that it's possible to not be asshole to people older than you. at 19 i'm a baby larrie here and i get along with the veterans just fine so you can do it too, it's really not that hard to be respectful)
4) don't be a dick. don't judge people for liking or doing things that you wouldn't like or do. most recent example is the hs3 leak. don't wanna listen? don't. blacklist the HS3 LEAK and HS3 SPOILER tags and just get on with your life. do not be a dick to people who choose to listen to it.
5) before sending an ask to a blog asking about something, scroll for a bit to check if they haven't answered that question already. or check their blog for key words related to that subject. AND DON'T USE PEOPLE'S ASK BOXES AS GOOGLE SERIOUSLY IT'S ANNOYING WE'RE NOT GONNA FEED YOU EASY-ACCESS INFORMATION ON A SILVER PLATTER YOU CAN GET UP AND GO GET IT YOURSELF (that one is particularly annoying to watch so i can only imagine how it feels to get them) (I just make one tiny distinction: if you've genuinely tried looking for the information on Google, on other blogs, etc. then it's okay to ask for help, or to ask if they have any tips on how to better find the information you're looking for, I just get really pissed when people ask things without even trying to find the information themselves.)
6) go look at just general tumblr do's and don'ts. take the time to do it. tumblr is not twitter we do not work the same way and i don't want my beloved hellsite to get like twitter, as fun as it is at times.
and that's about all i have for you at 8.30am, feel free to add some more if you have anything else in mind, dm me or send me an ask if you want more information on why twitter and tumblr are different as someone who's in both
A probably incomprehensible, certainly incomplete list of what you need to know; whether youâre coming from a different platform or discovering Larry for the first time.Â
My credentials
Hello! Iâm Emmu. Iâve had tumblr since⊠2008? Maybe 2009. I moved over from deviantArt and used Tumblr as a personal art blog for many years. I joined the One Direction fandom in 2014, so my 1D blog has 8+ years at this point. That being said, I will get on my soapbox a bit during this. Please excuse me, Iâm quite passionate about cultivating a happy and healthy fandom.
What makes Tumblr different
The biggest thing that makes Tumblr, as a site, different from Twitter or Instagram is the rejection of algorithms. The âfollowingâ tab on your dashboard is in chronological order (and if it isnât, you can â and should â change that), and the âfor youâ tab is both a recent feature and rarely used. Tumblr has very little algorithm, and the algorithm they have isnât very good. It means that youâll get the most god awful ads youâve ever seen on this site, because they donât utilize your data well. And thatâs to your advantage.
Tumblr is a great place because you can curate what you see more than other social media. The people that you choose to follow are the only people that you see on your dash (unless you choose to follow tags, which I guess is an option? @lululawrence says âit is and it used to not do anything unless you went to the search page and then it would like autofill your followed tags options, but NOW they take those followed tags and plop them on your dash... SOMETIMES. usually only on mobile. but if there's only one new post in the tag, it shows you that post OVER. AND OVER. AND OVER AGAIN. IT'S SUPER ANNOYING ACTUALLY. SO I STOPPED FOLLOWING TAGS. lol anywayâ).
So, the site is in chronological order. This is its biggest selling point.
There is also the opportunity for long posts. Masterposts. Things that are searchable without having to read through pages of screenshots or condensed twitter threads. You can write a whole lot more without worrying about character limit. People publish whole fics on here (I suggest ao3 for that, but tumblr is technically an option!).
Another important thing to know about tumblr is that the archives on tumblr run deep. There are newer larries here, and a lot of them, but you can also find older larries. People whose 1D blogs go back to 2010 or 2011. You can dive into the archives and read firsthand accounts of what was happening with One Direction or larry at that very time. Doing a bit of research means you find cute fetus pictures of the boys, but also youâre able to figure out for yourself whether something actually happened. Rumors always seem to spread quite easily and fandom memory always seems impossibly short, but here on tumblr youâre able to find out for yourself. That means the next time you hear about how xyz thing happened a long time ago, check out some of those archives and see what you can find.
Also, my personal favorite part of tumblr is that old posts are just as valid as new posts. Find a masterpost about RBB and SBB from 2015? Go ahead and reblog that; bring it back to the circulating dash. People will love that. Find a fanartist that you really like? Search through their tags, reblog anything you want. Itâs not considered stalking or weird in any way. We love bringing back old posts here. Tumblr is a website where youâre not meant to just talk about the present.Â
The cultural difference between Tumblr and Twitter
Speaking of the ways that tumblr and twitter are different, letâs talk for a moment about the 1D fandom in particular.
Iâve held this theory for a while that the twitter (and instagram) algorithm is fracturing the fandom. Because twitter is so dependent on the algorithm, people are more likely to split apart and join smaller and smaller communities based on smaller, more specific opinions. Tumblr, being a place where you donât just get a post on your dash because someone else liked it, doesnât have those smaller cliques. There are larries, and there are antis.
(if you get really in the weeds, there are also larry shippers [who donât believe theyâre together but like to read it in fic], and houis [who think they were together but broke up], but I just donât hear about them as much).
While I do occasionally hear about blouies on my dash, for the most part this is a culture that exists primarily on other sites.Â
On another note, because tumblr doesnât have that handy algorithm, we have to work to make it a more active space. Likes donât do anything here for anyone other than you, and it doesnât really change anything about what youâll see on your dash. Think of them more like the bookmark setting on twitter or instagram. Reblogs are necessary to get anything spread. Anything that you enjoy, or that looks interesting for any reason? Reblog it! Thatâs the only way other people will see it! And leave a happy comment in the tags if youâve got one (more on that later).Â
And, while lurkers do exist in this fandom (and we love them), itâs important to get an icon and blog header that make you look like a real person. People on tumblr have long been in the habit of blocking shady blogs, mostly because of a bot problem, so if you want to lurk, you have to look like a lurker. Maybe reblog a post or two to establish yourself, and make sure you donât accidentally look like an icon-less bot posing as a sugar daddy.Â
How to set up your account
Okay, so youâve got a tumblr. Letâs take a minute to fix up the settings so that youâre not getting, well, the worst version of the site.Â
My advice is to start by going into your dashboard preferences and:
Turn off the best stuff first (itâll just show you things youâve already seen)
Turn off âinclude stuff in your orbitâ (youâll see terrible posts that are mostly NOT in your orbit)
Turn off âIncluded based on your likesâ (again, youâll see posts you hate)
Turn off âshorten long postsâ. Itâs a ridiculous setting that, like many things on tumblr, had potential but was rolled out in an incredibly unhelpful and user unfriendly way.
Once youâve got that squared away, go into filtering and block any tags and content you donât like, as that is always proper fandom etiquette. Not seeing things you donât like is your responsibility, not the responsibility of the person posting them. I personally suggest adding the topics you donât want to see to both the content list and the filtered tags list, as that gives a much better likelihood of posts that are particularly unsavory for you getting caught by the filters. Please also note this might need to be done on both desktop and the app separately as, depending on where tumblr is at the moment, these filters do not always carry over from one application to the other.
Now scroll down to tumblr labs. These are their experimental things. Some are good! Some are very bad. They do change, though, so this might get out of date pretty fast.
Personally, I enabled fast queue
And disabled everything else
ALSO, an important note, if you are using the apple app, you need to go in and turn off the adult content filter. No idea offhand where that is, but it means posts that include tags like âmineâ and âgirlâ are blocked. Itâs ridiculous.Â
Who to follow and how to find them
So, youâve got a new tumblr and need people to follow. This makes sense! To really fill up your dash, Iâd suggest the following
Find one person you like. Thereâs a good chance you know at least someone from twitter who also has a tumblr, so you can start there. If youâre not from twitter, or are looking to start fresh, you can dive into the search function (Iâve never tried finding someone this way myself, but searching larry stylinson or something similar would probably get you started)
Find the people they reblog from and check out each of their blogs! Follow people that make you happy
Follow some update accounts! Thinking of some off the top of my head, thereâs @HLUpdate, @Stylesnews, @dailytomlinson, @HLDailyUpdate, or @neilswaterbottles (thereâs definitely more though).Â
Follow some fanart or fic rec accounts!Â
Iâd always suggest @1d-fanart or @hlcreators for art.Â
For fic, you could check out @hlficlibrary, @ficsyoumayhavemissed, or @thelarriefics.Â
Or, recurring fic fests! @onedirectionbigbang or @wordplayfics, which happen every year.
And if you end up not enjoying someone youâve followed? Unfollow them! Itâll make you happier.
How to interact with posts
Tumblr is all about tags. Do you have a comment or thought? Reblog a post and say your thought in the tags. That way anyone you follow will see it, and the person who made the post will see it. This way a post doesnât end up with a lot of cluttery additions that donât mean a lot to the average person reblogging it, but if you browse the tags of posts youâll find lots of interesting things. Tags can be used to keep track of things, too, of course â some people tag all pictures with whoâs in them, or tag art or fic with tags that mean they can find them again. Tags are versatile! But reblog, donât just like, and tag! The more you interact, the happier content creators are!
What not to do
Donât repost. If you see something you like on tumblr, reblog it. Even if itâs a really old piece of fanart (like circa 2011). Reblog that old post! Reposting means people donât get credit, and it doesnât link back to them. Thatâs not cool, and in the long term makes fandom less happy.
How to cultivate a happy and healthy fandom
Send happy anons! Ask how people are doing, do question memes, say how much you loved fic/art/edits, etc.
Reblog art. Reblog fic. Reblog what makes you laugh. The more you reblog, the more other people see, the more the fandom moves! Content creators just want their things seen; every time you reblog, their phone gets that little notification and youâve given someone a bit of happiness.
Unfollow people who annoy you. Follow people who make you happy!
If someone has a take about 1D that you donât agree with, donât tell them or send them argumentative anons. Find people who will agree with you, and complain to them privately. Or make your own post, not shading anyone, just presenting your own opinion and theories!
Remember that everyone is a real person. Cut them some slack when you find them being annoying. But also, unfollow. Curate your dash.
