*awkward finger guns*

Sir Ian McKellen will serve as host to a rehearsed reading of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night with an all transgender and nonbinary cast of actors. The reading will be produced by Trans What You Will, a new Shakespearean theater company featuring trans and nonbinary performers, The Standard reports. The one-night-only performance takes place July 25 at the Space Theatre in London and will be livestreamed online. “Twelfth Night is perhaps the funniest and most moving of Shakespeare’s plays,” McKellen said in a social media post for Trans What You Will. “This is achieved through the complexity of gender and sexuality from first to last. I’m really looking forward to the impact of this latest version of the play at The Space. I hope to see you there!” Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night was an obvious choice for the theater company’s production. Cisgender female protagonist Viola disguises herself as a man named Cesario so that she might work for Duke Orsino, only to fall in love with him. Meanwhile, the duke is in love with the Countess Olivia, who has fallen in love with Cesario. “Twelfth Night already toys with gender and performance,” said director Phoebe Kemp. “It feels like Shakespeare wrote it for us.” McKellen is a Tony Award-winning actor and two-time Oscar nominee. He came out as gay in 1988 in protest of U.K. legislation that barred local governments and schools from “promoting homosexuality.” The law was repealed in 2003. You can learn more about Trans What You Will’s production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, hosted by Ian McKellen and starring an all trans and nonbinary cast, at www.transwhatyouwill.org.uk. All proceeds from the event will benefit Not a Phase, a U.K.-based charity supporting trans and gender-diverse people.

alex newell and j. harrison ghee make history as the first out nonbinary acting winners at the tony awards

Here are some strategies I use to make sure I don’t get depressed when something I shared didn’t get as much community reception:

create for writers and only writers! Usually fanfic writers will appreciate ANY form of fanart and freak out over it. i personally have plans to print all of my fanart gifts. and the key here is that all that matters is that the writer feels good about receiving a gift. don't go into it expecting anybody else to like it. and if you do get other people who like and comment that's just a bonus

create for a friend and only a friend! this is also what I did when I first joined the lu fandom. i sent everything i made to the friend who got me into LU first before posting it, and their reaction was all that mattered to me. again, any likes or comments you get from others are just a good bonus!

understand that tumblr has an algorithm! i follow so many talented people and tumblr sometimes doesn't show me the things they post! for some reason! usually i have to think, "oh i haven't seen this person's stuff in awhile" and go to their blog and see i MISSED SO MANY CREATIONS.

understand that any community reception usually has nothing to do with your creation! as someone who makes it a point to comment on other people's creations sometimes I like things intending to comment on it later when I have time or energy and then I forget about it. sometimes I decide to reblog without commenting bc I simply don’t have the energy or the brain cells to comment. I get busy and tired, and i sometimes forget. people are sometimes busy and tired.

and last! whenever im bummed about the lack of comments and such, i comment and reblog other people's creations. i don't have control over other people's actions, but i do have control over mine, and i can comment and make sure other creators get some love. it just makes me feel a better when i do.

Hello and welcome to Tumblr!

If you're new here, this post is a little guide meant to help you understand how things work on Tumblr. I’m going to give you some guidelines and explain a little bit about Tumblr culture. Hopefully, this will help you settle in, avoid unnecessary pitfalls and enjoy your time here. I hope you’ll like it here on our hellsite (affectionate).

1. First and most importantly, please change your userpic and put something on your blog.

If you don’t, other users will think you're a bot and you'll be reported/blocked. It’s nothing personal but we are at war with the bot accounts. Most older users will automatically assume that a blank blog= bot.

You don’t need to do much. If you aren’t comfortable rebloging things or making your own posts yet, just change your userpic and add a short description to your blog.

Here’s an example of a description you can use.

‘Hi! I’m new here. I’m still working out how this place works but I promise I’m not a bot so please don’t block me.’

2. Go to your settings, then to your dashboard settings and change things to how you like them. I suggest-

Make Tumber show you posts in chronologically order, rather than pushing ‘best stuff first’

Pick a colour palate that doesn’t give you a headache

Make Tumblr show timestamps on posts and reblogs. While a post is never too old to reblog, you don’t want to accidentally signal boost something as ‘news’ when it's acutely years out of date and no longer relevant.

Choose not to shorten long posts

3. Go to the top of your dashboard, press on the toggle and arrange things how you like them.

I suggest pinning your ‘Following’ first. It means that when you go to your dashboard, the first thing you’ll see are the blogs that you’ve actively chosen to follow.

Some older users will tell you that the ‘For You’ page is useless and should be ignore. This is because for a long time it was either non-existent or terrible so most older users – myself included – just don’t bother with it.

However, nowadays it’s fine so use it if you want. ‘Following’ should still probably be pinned first though because you know what you like better than the algorithm.

4. Please don’t censor your words here. Tumblr doesn’t shadow ban you for saying random words.

Shadow banning does happen but it’s mostly at random or because you were targeted by trolls. If it happens to you, you’ll need to fight to get unshadow banned.

The point is that you won’t get shadow banned for saying ‘death,’ ‘murder’ or ‘rape.’ Don’t do things like saying ‘graped’ instead of ‘raped.’ If you do, you’re just going to piss people off and make it harder for people to avoid triggers.

5. Don’t spam the tags!

You can ramble in the tags all you want and nobody will mind. However, if you tag an unrelated post with a popular tag, you will be reported for spamming. It’s against the Tumblr terms and conditions, it’s annoying and it’s something the porn bots do.

When you are making your own post, the tags you use should be to help other people find your post. When you are rebloging other people’s posts, the tags you use should be so you can find that post again if you want.

The other thing that tags are for – both in your own posts and reblogs – is for adding things that don’t really fit in the post itself but you still wanted to say. You can add paragraphs in your tags and no one will bat an eye but if you tag a post with a trending but unrelated tag, that’s spamming.

6. Please, reblog things. It helps posts spread a lot more than liking them does. Think of your blog as a scrap book where you put stuff you like.

If you aren’t comfortable adding to a post, that’s fine. Just reblog it and share it with others.

7. That said, Tumblr posts are collaborative and we like it when you add to them. It doesn’t have to be much. You don’t have to add something every time you reblog a post but it is a part of the fun to do it sometimes.

If it’s an art or fanfic post comments like; ‘good post op,’ ‘I LOVE THIS!’ or even ‘OUCH my heart!!!’ will make an OP’s day.

If it’s another sort of post; you can add your thoughts or join in on committing to the bit. Try matching the energy the post is already giving.

If you aren’t comfortable commenting directly, you can always put it in the tags.

8. The follow and block buttons are your friend. You decide what you see here. If your dashboard doesn’t spark joy, you can always follow someone new and/or follow an interesting tag. If someone is making your time here unpleasant unfollow and/or block them.

9. Tumblr likes to commit to the bit. Sharks are smooth (they are not) and the 1973 Martin Scorsese movie ‘Goncharov’ is the greatest film ever made (it doesn’t exist).

10. A post is never too old to reblog. We like old posts here.

Every now and again, you will see a post that is over ten years old. The reblogs will probably be full of people expressing delight about seeing the original post again or seeing it for the first time.

11. You don’t want to be Tumblr famous.

There are niche blogs that are dedicated to one thing and are well liked e.g. @the-haiku-bot (the one bot we love), @writing-prompt-s and @cantheykillmacbeth. However, they are either side blogs or blogs run by multiple people.

Your main blog should just be somewhere you like to spend your time. There are no benefits to being Tumblr famous on your main blog.

12. Tumblr spreads news with this meme

13. Tumblr loves dates. Whether it’s the Ides of March (it sure would be a shame if certain world leaders got stabbed), Halloween (which we start celebrating in about July) or just a random day of the week e.g. ‘Out of Touch Thursday’ there is always something happening that you can celebrate.

14. The staff always pulls a silly and harmless prank on Apil Fools Day. Last year we got to boop each other.

15. We like a silly poll

Okay, I think that’s the basics covered. You’ll get the hang of everything else as you go along.

I hope you have fun here and that you manage to avoid Apollo’s dodgeball of prophecy (try not to joke about a specific way things could get worse or you might be hit).

Yours faithfully,

A Tumblr Cockroach