Since I just gained a bunch of followers and I'm going to hazard a guess that some of you are new here (or returning after a long time away), want to talk about some Tumblr basics? First up, tagging.
You can put spaces in your tags on Tumblr! This is very exciting and often why you'll see people putting commentary in tags—because they can.
It's usually considered more polite to put commentary in tags, so as to leave the original post relatively uncluttered. I find this to be especially true of visual posts like fanart and GIFs. The best time to reblog with a comment is when you're actively looking to engage in some kind of dialogue with the post you're reblogging.
Tag commentary is kind of like a whispered aside. On my own posts, I often use that space for post-scripts of a sort. I have done this at the bottom of this post, for science.
On posts that you create, tags help other people find your post through their searches. It used to be that only the first five tags on a post showed up in a search, and now it's the first twenty.
If you are interested in a topic, you can follow its tag. So, for example, if I'm interested in [throws a dart at a board] seeing Daemyra content, I can follow that tag and posts from the tag will show up on my dashboard from time to time. Here is how to follow a tag and manage followed tags.
(It's worth noting that Tumblr uses ship portmanteaus but also sometimes longform ship names, so if you're posting your original Daemyra content it's often wise to also tag it "rhaenyra x daemon," "daemon x rhaenyra," and other variants as well. Remember, up to twenty of them count!)
Tags—of both your original posts and of your reblogs—also help organize your blog. I create specific tags for posts and answered questions about my fics that I try to use every time they're relevant to make it easy for readers (or, you know, me with my goldfish memory) to find them. Here's the tag for Out of Time.
You can organize your blog, or not, however you want. I also choose to tag characters prominently featured in a post, the media property shown, and so on, mostly just for my benefit. Here are most of my original and reblogged posts featuring Daemon Targaryen. Some people get very, very granular with their tagging, but some don't tag at all. Dealer's choice!
Lastly, Tumblr has pretty robust content filtering, so don't censor yourself in tags or in the body of your post. If you post, say, #p*neapple and someone is trying to avoid posts tagged #pineapple, you might accidentally ruin their day.
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