#simplyagreste

Hello, khai! Thank you so much for sending in your ask! c: I understand there will likely be confusion, so I’m glad you came to forward with your concern. And also thank you so much for complimenting my art! (⁄ ⁄•⁄ω⁄•⁄ ⁄)

Important thing first: Reblogging and Reposting are NOT the same.

I definitely won’t be mad if you REBLOG my work! In fact, I’ll be really happy if you did. I highly encourage reblogging for every artist/content creator out there too. Reblogs make us happy, my friend. Reblogs make us feel appreciated, supported, and inspire us to keep sharing. c:

The thing with reblogs is, we encourage it because it comes directly from us. When you reblog something from me, no matter what kind of blog has it, it will link back to me. This means, those who look at your blog and can find me as the source of the work you posted, and they can easily click my name to find me. Which is great because it means you not only shared the one work you reblogged, you also indirectly shared the rest of my work too. And that’s super awesome! (╯✧▽✧)╯

The reblog button down there is all the permission youneed to properly share the work on tumblr, so make sure to utilize it.

So never be afraid that a content creator will be mad if you reblog our work from us. We won’t! I promise. c:

As for REPOSTing, to really hammer in the difference and help you understand the purpose/source of the blackout more, I’ll tell you about what’s bad about it.

Reposting means you either take a screenshot of the post/save the post and reupload it either on another tumblr account or another social media account. Under a different name. Now, with permission of the creator and proper credit/linkback, reposting to other social media isn’t so bad, but the main problem is this:

There are people out there who simply take without asking and reupload other people’s works as their own. Often, they remove the watermarks/credits of the creators and put their own, thereby linking back to their own page, instead of the person who actually made the work. In essence, they are taking credit for something they did not make.

There are reposter accounts out there that have up to 60,000 followers, and they have done absolutely NONE of the work they’ve uploaded. Imagine that. Imagine all that work the artist did, and some other person just takes all the credit for it. Hours/days spent on a comic/artwork, and another person takes it as their own. And the original artist? Lost in the background, no recognition for their hard work to share with us something great.

Now that you know this, you can see why a lot of creators are sick of it. :c

Even if there were people who properly credit, there will be people who will take from THEM and not credit/remove credit altogether. That’s why there are a lot of creators who discourage any kind of reposting whatsoever.

Overall, reposting gets way too complicated in comparison to simply reblogging. And annoying, besides. A lot of creators have left/are leaving the fandom, electing to stop creating ML fanart, because the problem has gotten so bad that people are even making MONEY off work the artist did for FREE. And that’s why we have this protest going on. To raise awareness to this sad fact. :’c

Content creators are human too—they’re not fanart/fanfic robots for people to take from whenever. Make them feel like they matter as people too. Support the creator! Show them you care. Show them you love their work. Support them against reposters and art thieves! It’ll be worth it. c:

TL;DR--- Reblogging = GOOD! Reposting = BAD! Directly support creators by REBLOGging. Ask permission before REPOSTing. Pineapples on pizza. Eggs on toast.

Thank you for your wonderful ask!Again, another lengthy answer, but I hope it was informative. If you or anyone has any more concerns or need more information, go ahead and visit @miraculousblackout or feel free to send another ask either to me or other people in the protest! We’re here to guide you. Just remember to be respectful!

thanks so much!! im in no way an expert but i can try to give some tips/advice!

i would say that one way of striking the perfect balance between keeping a story engaging but also keeping it full of details is to avoid explaining too much. i think the compulsion is to pack a story full with details so that your reader knows what’s happening, but sometimes if you do that too much you’re just left with walls of text, info dumps, and descriptions that go on for entire paragraphs. 

one good principle to follow is Chekov’s Gun, which essentially says that every element of a story must be necessary, and anything that is unnecessary should be removed. so, for example, it’s often not necessary for you to go into a paragraph long description of the physical appearance of one of your characters unless it’s somehow relevant to the plot or affects a character’s motivation. and it’s also not necessary to give us an in depth description of the fireplace in someone’s house if that fireplace is never going to reappear again. 

when it comes to like describing setting, i would say two things. one: figure out how to say more with less by picking good words/metaphors to describe what your characters are seeing. so perhaps “the marbles scattered across the floor like rain down a window pane” instead of going on for a paragraph about how the marbles scattered everywhere all across the room. say something is “putrid” instead of giving us full sentences about how rotten and smelly something is. things like that. 

and then two: integrate description with action or filter it through the eyes of a character. so if you’re looking around someone’s room, maybe have them stop in the middle of the room to breath in the smell of old take out containers, have them hear the sound of the fan sputtering to counteract the humidity, have them pick up and read one of the mugs of stale coffee/tea. makes your descriptions more engaging that way. as a general rule, descriptions of your surroundings shouldn’t ever stretch on for paragraphs at a time. 

integrating description with action is also a good way to avoid info dumps in regards to like psychological background, history, or pure information about something necessary to understand the plot. dialogue is a really good way of avoiding info dumps. need to explain some strange monster you created for this story? turn it into a conversation. have other characters ask questions and use another character’s answer as a way to give the reader information. want to tell us that a character is in the middle of a divorce and is having constant fights with their partner? show us that. show them talking about divorce papers while arguing about who didn’t pick up the mail. 

simple rule of thumb: less is more. when you edit, try to find dense sections and/or long sections and see if there are unnecessary things you can cut and shorter ways of saying the same thing. 

!!!!!!! oh!! thank you so much for the sweet message!!! >///////< 

Cross-Court Strike is my first fic ever! so it’s my lil much-loved, much-neglected baby!! ARGH!!! I CANT BELIEVE HOW SLOW IVE BEEN TO UPDATE!!! but the next chapter is slowly coming together! ill probably get back to updating it--along with mari!!! on ice after chlonath week!!

No, I won’t! c: I can’t speak for other artists out there though, maybe they’ll be okay with it, maybe not. But I won’t be mad, so don’t worry! Just don’t repost them without permission, and we’re good. (≧◡≦)

I actually used to do that before, in ancient times, when I had really bad internet and it took maybe 5 minutes to load a nice, huge pic (10+mins for a gif). Also, I was afraid back then that the thing would disappear from the internet so I totally get the want to save and keep really nice art/pics you’ve seen in offline folders.

Now I just... reblog and tag them and then look at the tags later (when I have time). >w>