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potofsoup[DW for tumblrites masterpost]
One of my favorite things about tumblr is all of the yelling that goes on in the tags. The stream-of-consciousness asides. The whispertext and the flailing. Sometimes entire ficlets get written in the tags. (And remember the days when the tags couldn't be reordered?)
So... how do you yell in the tags on DW?
Well, I guess, technically, you can still just do the yelling in the tags. Problem is, tags are actually properly sorted and counted on DW (more on that later), so you might not want to corrupt your tagging system.
Here are some other options:
1) Styling Text
A simple way is just by styling text differently. Use <small> or <s> to style text, and throw it at the end for good measure.* There's also <i> for italics, or even <font color="gray"> if you want to get even quieter. just remember to nest your tags and close them
2) Adding a comment to your own post
If you want to talk about something even further removed from the main topic of the post than usual, but don't want to create a separate post for it, you can throw it into a comment to your own post. I have two worries about this: (1) there's no good way of marking those comments as different, so people won't know that you were adding subtext, and (2) clicking on comments involves leaving the Reading Page.
That said, you can totally say something at the end of a post like "related yelling in the comments" and basically fork your own post via comments. I think it's a good way for when you have a whole other branching idea that you want to present.
3) Using the Mood box
There's a box for selecting or typing your mood, and that gets put at the bottom of the post. Sure, you can select some mood icons here (Organize->Customize Style->Display), but you can also just type some text in there. Pros of this is that it shows up in the same place as tags. Cons is that you're limited to 30 characters.
4) Using icons
This one is probably a bit weird for tumblrites, since we're used to having only 1 icon. On DW, people usually use icons to express different moods or situations. For example, if you're feeling yelly, you might use a yelly icon. Or if you are talking about a specific ship, you might use the icon for that ship. You can even choose icons when posting comments.
The fact that icon-picking is above the posting box, enabled with every comment, and factored into the paid tiers really shows that this is the DW-native way of expressing nuances of mood and providing an extra layer of subtext. (And RPers use icons to represent their characters!) When you click on someone's icon, you can see their entire icon set. (Try clicking on mine!)
Go to Create->Upload Icons to add new icons.![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
graphics is a community where people share their icon sets, if you want to grab some pre-made ones.
Here are mine:
5. Cut tag
I think adding a additional cut at the end of the post is a good way to deemphasize what you're saying but also indicate something is there. I recommend putting the cut text as something small, like a period or an arrow.
---
> Like so. Now that I've tried all of these, I think I like the cut the most. It feels the closest to the real thing.
---------
* Footnotes are another good way.i've been using these for a while, and the smaller text helps but sometimes it's still not enough flailing
One of my favorite things about tumblr is all of the yelling that goes on in the tags. The stream-of-consciousness asides. The whispertext and the flailing. Sometimes entire ficlets get written in the tags. (And remember the days when the tags couldn't be reordered?)
So... how do you yell in the tags on DW?
Well, I guess, technically, you can still just do the yelling in the tags. Problem is, tags are actually properly sorted and counted on DW (more on that later), so you might not want to corrupt your tagging system.
Here are some other options:
1) Styling Text
A simple way is just by styling text differently. Use <small> or <s> to style text, and throw it at the end for good measure.* There's also <i> for italics, or even <font color="gray"> if you want to get even quieter. just remember to nest your tags and close them
2) Adding a comment to your own post
If you want to talk about something even further removed from the main topic of the post than usual, but don't want to create a separate post for it, you can throw it into a comment to your own post. I have two worries about this: (1) there's no good way of marking those comments as different, so people won't know that you were adding subtext, and (2) clicking on comments involves leaving the Reading Page.
That said, you can totally say something at the end of a post like "related yelling in the comments" and basically fork your own post via comments. I think it's a good way for when you have a whole other branching idea that you want to present.
3) Using the Mood box
There's a box for selecting or typing your mood, and that gets put at the bottom of the post. Sure, you can select some mood icons here (Organize->Customize Style->Display), but you can also just type some text in there. Pros of this is that it shows up in the same place as tags. Cons is that you're limited to 30 characters.
4) Using icons
This one is probably a bit weird for tumblrites, since we're used to having only 1 icon. On DW, people usually use icons to express different moods or situations. For example, if you're feeling yelly, you might use a yelly icon. Or if you are talking about a specific ship, you might use the icon for that ship. You can even choose icons when posting comments.
The fact that icon-picking is above the posting box, enabled with every comment, and factored into the paid tiers really shows that this is the DW-native way of expressing nuances of mood and providing an extra layer of subtext. (And RPers use icons to represent their characters!) When you click on someone's icon, you can see their entire icon set. (Try clicking on mine!)
Go to Create->Upload Icons to add new icons.
graphics is a community where people share their icon sets, if you want to grab some pre-made ones. Here are mine:
5. Cut tag
I think adding a additional cut at the end of the post is a good way to deemphasize what you're saying but also indicate something is there. I recommend putting the cut text as something small, like a period or an arrow.
---
> Like so. Now that I've tried all of these, I think I like the cut the most. It feels the closest to the real thing.
---------
* Footnotes are another good way.
