so i woke up this morning to be a bit of anon , how do i put it ? hate ? and instead of ignoring it , or being petty , i have decided upon myself to do what i do best as a historian , and educate . so welcome to ...
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ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย by someone who has been in the biz for 15 years .
first of all , what is formatting ? its this bud , you got it , ๐น๐ฐ๐ฎ๐ฏ๐ป ๐ฏ๐ฌ๐น๐ฌ ! small text and bold , unicode and colour ! its fun , its snazzy , its expression ! so why do we do it ? for many reasons actually . some unconscious .
when i first started rp , it looked like below ; just a block of text . and that was the norm . around 2012 though , a lot of people got more and more into the html editor of tumblr , going as far as learning how to better imbed images into tumblr text . this became more popular and we saw a rise of icons.
then we got more in-depth , with unicode and links , and the dreaded block quotes came . every rper had <blockquote> on their clipboard to paste it 7 times so the icon was in the middle of the screen . and it began to look like this .
by 2014 we were all doing it to some degree , the reasoning for it ? well , mutual exclusivity , selectiveness and activity were a thing but in modicum of what it is today . and what did that make us ? not any different than an ask blog , open to the public . despite putting rp in our profile and having blocks of text describing things , we would get easily mistaken for an ask blog . some people enjoyed it , some others preferred threads with rp partners . people would reblog our threads even though they were personals and there wasn't a clear communication that we were not open to that . ( except the signage on our themes . ) this pretty much went up to 2020 , where we continued to add little bits of editing into our writing to make them more and more a contrast , and things like exclusivity and selectiveness became more popularised .
the legacy editor had us do it , pretty much , all by hand . but , many were used to it because we all had those container themes that were custom and we actually died making them for no reason .
then in 2022 the NPF (neue post format) and new editor was released and we all had a new thing to struggle with that was very different but made all the process easier . we still had to the option for html , and we all still used it to some degree . but , our graphics had to change , our writing styles had to develop and so did the formatting . why did we continue to add and experiment ? well โฆ it was fun now . it didn't require knowledge of codes . with the new surge in space generators and text editors , we could do it with a third party that made it even more easier ! what went from a way to separate us , became just plain personal preference and self expression .
formatting is now self expression , and to personal preference , and it does not make a rper less serious or more serious . i , myself have in my rules the following :
ii. i format a lot . i use double spacing and small fonts , ( and i am stuck in lower cases with spaces mainly because i have dyslexia and it helps me . ) but please , if it bothers you , just dm me and i'll change it in my next reply - i want to rp with people and have fun , formatting is part of my fun but i will change it if it's not fun for you as you are writing with me therefore i respect your opinions .
i've had this in my rules since 2012 , why ? because it matters , because at the end of the day , this is a hobby to have fun in a world that is actually devastating . this is not a job , or is it something we get paid to do . we have common courtesy on our side . a message to ask someone to not format as much is better than spreading hate for something so petty .
so why in the end do we format ? to have fucking fun , and express ourself and our characters and solidify ourselves as part of the community ; and it comes , much like unicode , in so many shapes and sizes , with so many colours and graphics , and sometimes its basic text . and its okay to have a preference for yourself , just don't judge others for doing it different .
ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย ย just have fun !
some resources i use to format and to read peoples replies because of my disability : unicode text convertor , spacegenerator ( please support the creator if you can , they've been through it ! ) convertcase