I'm mostly stuck at work and half the time I do literally nothing and if I'm gonna waste my phone battery I might as well use it for something other than garbage tiktoks
You’re asking for advice~? I’m both flattered and honored to be able to get this question. I’ve decided to answer and post today for Mun-day. This post will be a bit long as I like to give thorough advice, or at least offer insight into what I’ve done, but I’ll do my best to break text up into palatable sections and keep topics relevant. 💜
I’ll be going over:
how to set up your core values and image
how to interact with blogs and keep audience awareness
how to keep your passion alive.
If you’re interested and in for a long read with some mun anecdotes, feel free to continue below!
♫ Core Values and Image ♫
When you’re starting up, I really encourage you to have three things in mind to make sure you cultivate a proper image and platform for your blog: Content Focus, Presentation and Goals. These are things you don’t want changing too much throughout your blog’s runtime, as they should be your “Core Values”. In other words, these are the special traits that will differentiate your blog from others out there. I’ll discuss each of my big three below, but don’t be surprised if they blend in together, as that should be the point and how they function.
♪ |---- Content Focus
This is probably one of the most essential parts of a blog and truly what makes you the most unique, along with Presentation. Find out what part of a character/muses’ personality you’d like to focus on the most.
For me, this was a focus on Ji-Woon (and Yun-Jin) with a large nod to Korean culture and K-pop music, putting them near the forefront. This is because I grew up learning the culture through popular media and was confident in how to honor it, or even have a desire to learn more of it.
Personal Mun Ramblings, will be referred to in Goals but not mandatory to read) It was so special once I learned my favorite game and scene for so long was bringing another part of life that I enjoyed. I was a year 2 player of DBD since I play on console, and I’d gotten DBD the same year of Console’s release date; roughly a few months before Nightmare on Elm Street DLC was announced. So to me, this was a blending of fandoms/cultures that made me excited and brought me back into the DBD scene after a small hiatus following other passions, because now two of my passions were mixing. To preface, I’d been a fan of K-culture: Watching K-dramas and even being a generation one/two K-pop fan; around since BoA, BigBang, Girls Generation etc.’s relevancy along with even seeing EXO and BTS’ debuts (Roughly a fan since 2000s, in my pre-teens/teens).
I wanted to cultivate and pay homage to that for my blog. Ultimately, that’s why I chose to have the name Idol-Trickster. Because I wanted my characterization of him to be immersed as an idol in k-culture. After all, that’s what differentiated him in the Dead By Daylight roster, so I wanted to reflect it. ( semi-relevant: I was a fan of Japanese-drama/pop so I knew the difference and similarities between the scenes. I’m still learning and differentiating between cultures though, and enjoy it quite a bit.)
ANYWAY, back to how to apply this advice- It’s good to look at the blog scene and see what’s out there. Understanding other personifications and know where you want to go with your own ‘version’. In Trickster’s case, maybe someone would want to play up in his narcissism a bit more, or maybe the fact that he’s a bit insane, or even making him completely evil and kill obsessed. This depends on how you want to portray and spice up the character to your liking and will ultimately give you an advantage on your blog.
Granted, I was one of the first blog runners for this character, but even then I had a solid game plan on what I wanted my focus to be. I wanted Trickster to be charming. An Idol (denounced or not in lore with his final ‘real-world’ killing). I wanted him to try to hold onto that small bit of humanity and people pleasing, despite his twisting and figuring out what that meant for him. It made for an interesting ‘plot point’ in my mind, and I figured others would like to see that.
♦ |---- Presentation
Now that you got your ideas in mind...How are you going to present them? Think of the big picture first, since it’s the easiest and most generalized. I always start out with a general theme. Like I said above, I played on Korean/Idol culture a lot. Which meant looking through blogs for existing idols or groups/band fan pages. Fun fact, the blog theme I use for Idol-Trickster was based on a One Direction fan-blog template. (Not K-pop but definitely ‘boy group sensationalists’) My tumblr theme even has header text sections like this (it made me solidify my choice):
Which reminds me a lot of BTS’
As funny as it sounds, I even use Cookie Run font for Hangul/Korean text (Popular mobile game developed in South Korea) along with Manga/Manwha text.
This is because I knew I wanted to pay homage to K-culture from text to even in my art style choices. I enjoyed reading manhwas and webtoons, and noticed webtoons are arguably been the biggest trend in Korea. (Like what Manga is to Japan, comic books to America etc.). In fact, I even remember my first webtoon when the platform was just starting (I feel so old reminiscing on these things). I knew if I could bring a bit of that in my posts, I’d be happy and would add a layer of ‘immersion’ to fans.
Granted, I knew it wouldn’t be possible to go all out webtoon style for every ask, but I did want at least an art style that looked like it could fit in or was heavily inspired by them, even if I only did big comic pieces on occasion.
All of this to say, starting out big can help focus on the aesthetic and presentation. It brings interest. It makes everything feel developed and keep you closer to your Focus. If you want a scary blog, go for scary themes, etc.
Now of course, you don’t have to change your whole art style or be particular in your font choices. Those were just BIG PICTURE things to separate from the others.
You should also focus on how you’ll make your character act. What is their aesthetic. How are they going to speak to readers or others visually. Will they voice all their thoughts and talk out loud? Do you want them to stay quiet on certain topics and not monologue those? Full sentences or Short curt ones? Large vocabulary or limited? These are all important to try and keep consistency in your characterization. Make sure you have an understanding of your character and how to present them. (This will get explained more in the Next big section “Interaction and Audience Awareness”)
☆ |---- Goals
Finally and the last of the big three, one of the most crucial elements to have that ties in everything else above is your goals for the blog. Having something you want to achieve or strive for. It’s okay to have some change or add more as time goes on, but they should always stay fairly solid.
I can’t tell you what exactly these should be, other than they should fit your interests, or how you wish people looked at a character.
Sharing my goals: I had major goals seeing how the fandom handled the release of Trickster, and k-pop culture/fans in general.
I firstly wanted to cultivate a space safe for k-pop enthusiasts. A welcoming introduction to people either wanting to get into k-pop previously in the dbd fandom, or vice versa of new faces to the game/scene.
> I was aware of preconceptions towards K-Pop fans or ‘kweebs’, and wanted to make it apparent that they shouldn’t be ostracized. Alternatively I wanted to explain idol/k- culture to DBD-enthusiasts while remaining ‘in-character’ if possible.
> Hearing that DBD fans were concerned the game was going to cater and bring ‘those’ types of people (k-pop enthusiasts) made me a bit sad, because I was one of those people! I’d just been a sleeper agent ✨. So it was a way to prove we can be normal DBD fans too. No gate-keeping here.
Show why Ji-Woon was indeed a good killer/horror icon, and why All-Kill has some of the best writing in the game, as a cohesive story line.
> People upon initial impression thought it was a marketing scheme. “Why is a pretty guy showing his abs. DBD is just catering!” When in reality that reaction was exactly what made Ji-Woon a good and scary killer! I Jokingly like to say this is the ARG effect. Audience reaction is so fitting to how they would perceive him as a real idol serial-killer. No one would suspect him, it’s so dramatic. He’s not taken seriously at all, etc. (He’d get away with it, even if it was happening right in-front of you.)
> Admittedly I adore that this is more of a non-traditional westernized take on a villain/killer or horror in general. Neither survivor or killer were completely black and white in their roles. There’s no “hero” and “bad guy”, instead it was just them both being morally gray to achieve their goals. It’s a psychological/thriller horror which is very Korean in notion. Straight from Wiki: Many of the Korean horror films tend to focus on the suffering and the anguish of characters rather than focus on the explicit "blood and guts" aspect of horror.[...]Modern South Korean horror films are typically distinguished by stylish directing, themes of social commentary, and genre blending. (To me All-Kill does this fantastically in homage to the cultural awareness)
Make people who were fans of Ghostface into fans of Trickster.
> This one may seem a bit silly. Admittedly though, ghostface is a fan favorite in the DBD roster. No one questions why he was added, in fact a large majority of the fandom was asking and wishing for him to be added in before he was. People liked the charming narcissistic side of him that DBD created, and enjoyed seeing him interact with others.
> While Trickster isn’t an exact copy, in fact I think they’re more Day and Night of each other, he had all the traits fans enjoyed about Ghostface. Ambition towards their chosen art/production, god-complex/narcissistic, an iconic appeal that only they bring. The thing that makes them charming and likeable to fans.
> I knew if I could get any type of die-hard fan to see the ways of liking Trickster, it’d be the Ghostface enthusiast. It’s good to remember the good ‘ol waffle: What would Ghostface fans like. WWGFL (joking)
Nothing will be seen as cringe on this blog.
> I don’t know how to explain this other than It’s for my own sanity and comes with safe space territory. It’s welcoming. You want broken Korean while I’m learning? Deal. You want that OC shaped like a 8? Got it. I’ve got limited energy and I’m not wasting it on if I think something’s cringey or not.
I don’t know if I’ve reached these goals on a big scale, but I do hear that I’ve achieved small successes through some friends, so I’ll take the win. I still try to implement these and think about them when I make posts, so they’re pretty fundamental in what I hope to achieve on my blog.
♫ Interaction and Audience Awareness ♫
This was touched on a bit from my goals, but I wanted to talk about how your blog will interact with others and how to be aware of your general audience. I’ve never really struggled when interacting with blogs, so I may either be the best or worst person to speak on this matter.
AUDIENCE AWARENESS: Firstly, I would say keep a general audience in mind when making your blog (especially your first blog in a community/fandom) and posts. While I see some people vouch for “+18 blogs only, minors DNI” I think it marginalizes your audience, and personally I’ve never been a big fan of it. Mostly because I like to keep things comfortable for the general populace, especially on an open social-media site. If +18 interactions happen, I’d say take it off blog or put it under a ‘keep reading’ “spoiler”. Intimate or gore pieces can scare away casual enjoyers; but if you’re adamant in your character portrayal to interact with others of that caliber and you’ve already found your community, the use of tags should definitely be your priority, as well as making a list of them easily accessible and understandable. This is keeping Audience Awareness in mind and stops anyone from feeling discomfort. It’ll allow people to feel safe interacting with your blog.
In the same vein, I understand that my characterization will be interacting with others, anons or blogs. This means that despite how much of a jerk my character would be, always make sure it’s spoken about to others before hand or explained OOC or in tags why they act that way. We don’t want hurt feelings amongst the blog community or to make someone think they did something wrong. It simply allows us to have insight into the character.
Alternatively, I’d say try going for a less intense characterization, unless you want to intentionally be the edgy blog. Edge is more palpable in small doses over a constant assault of it with only some moments of levity. We want the blogs to be a good enjoyable experience with interesting variation in the character, not a threatening one. Overall, I’d say make sure you show a full range of emotions and knowing roughly how your muse will react, and reasoning behind it. Being well-rounded makes things dynamic and keeps viewer engagement.
INTERACTIONS: Don’t be afraid to talk to other people in the fandom/community. I hear often that blogs are shy on approaching others, and it causes an anxiety of wanting to interact, but never doing so and not knowing what to ask (this section should help). We can’t expect people to just see us and come talk to us like popular kids. An effort should be made on reaching out and connecting to others first. If you want someone to talk to you, then talk to them first.
Now this comes with some loose rules of comfort though, especially if sending in asks.
Speaking for the DBD community: If you chose to interact with other blogs and run a blog, make sure you send relevant asks. Try to think of something that’s unique to your character/characterization only. Something no one else will ask. Why? Because there’s anons who can catch the basics, and you can easily get overwhelmed by people asking the same question from different blogs. This makes the mun worry over which iteration to answer, and may end up not picking yours. Simply because it wasn’t unique enough to catch interest. If you’re certain no anon asked a certain question yet, and know it might just be a quick response that won’t leave room for a response, then ask on anon, not on blog.
It’s good to remember that when you send an ask, you’re not only trying to find out more about the muse being asked, but taking a chance to show off characterization of your own muse as well. Something that could potentially lead to an actual interaction over a quick answer. A well thought out ask can spur relationship building between blogs, and that’s, in my experience, truly what people are most interested in seeing. Chemistry and relationships between characters/blogs. Not entirely just a single characterization on it’s own.
Most importantly though, try not to be afraid of the community. We’re here to entertain them and have fun with them, not stand around like an awkward kid in the corner of class. This ties in to our last section:
♫ Make yourself Happy ♫
We’re ultimately making an ask blog to make ourselves happy. It’s good to cater to an audience, but make sure you don’t sacrifice your Core Values or what you want to get out of your experience running an ask blog. Alternatively, if something isn’t working and you’re unhappy with it, it’s okay to change ideas. I’m constantly learning new facets of my character and building on them, and sometimes I wonder if it’s hypocritical, but I’ve realized it’s just growth as both muse and mun. If it can naturally happen over the course of the blog, then that means you’re doing a great job building a ‘story’ or ‘dynamic experience’.
We muns do this for fun and it’s good to try not to take ourselves or the blogs too seriously. (Alternatively, try not to make it all a joke either. We do like some character depth.) Like I said, a dynamic blog is fun and seems safer and more enticing to interact with. This is all a fun social-platform and ask blogs are just another way to stay social.
Admittedly it can get overwhelming some times, but being open about this or even knowing when to close an ask box or step away can help keep your passion from burning out. Set boundaries and limits. Maybe just try changing something up and do a meme or personal art/comic if you want to keep nursing your muse but don’t want to feel indebted to doing asks/responses or keeping a certain style.
Don’t wait for the perfect ask or interests, it’s okay to create content individually and share what your ideas are without being asked. In doing this you can draw people’s interest. So long as you keep yourself happy, you’ll do good running a blog, and will be able to maintain your run-time and passion much longer. Most importantly don’t look at numbers. I never mentioned them anywhere, but that’s one way to not have fun. If you’re doing your blog right, you’ll get big numbers.
Create for yourself firstly, and others secondly.
Bet you weren’t expecting this much. I just had so many thoughts... Still,
I truly hope this helped anyone curious in wanting to start up a blog, or even help those looking to polish up theirs.
Society: You can't be a man! Also Society: Why do you have so many skills, interests, and fields of study? That's WEIRD. Me: You said I couldn't be a man... So I became 50 men.
