Choosing tumblrpon blogs to follow and not follow is something of a challenging and sometimes risky business! And sometimes, you have to use a little social grace to pick and choose. But for the most part, I have some criteria for who I choose and do not choose, and it’s often related.

Reasons I’ll follow a blog:

• Immediate characterization. If I can’t tell the personality of your character within a couple of posts, I don’t typically follow.
• Advanced or unique art. Unfortunately I am very visually oriented. I do typically choose art blogs over writing blogs, and typically blogs that have a recognizable style. Not necessarily canon, but recognizable.
• A niche premise. Blogs like Rusty’s Nail’s, whose main focus is creating alcoholic drinks for ponies, very easily catch my attention. There’s a lot of creativity that goes into blogs like these, and I appreciate the work that goes into them. Especially because they have to stand alone amongst a tidal wave of art and writing blogs.
• Grammar. I am in no way a grammar nazi, as anyone who follows me knows. However, if I am reading a writing blog, I expect care to be put into the writing—as care would be put into a drawing.
• Older characters older characters older characters immediate follow
• Good storyline is a given.

Reasons I will not follow a blog:

• Lack of personality. See the first line in the above section.
• Grimdark. I will sometimes make exceptions, but on the whole, I avoid grimdark.
• Asshole protagonists. There are times and places for them, but on the whole I’m tired of the trope and prefer not to see it.
• Porn blogs. I enjoy porn, I watch it. I prefer not to see it on my dashboard though.
• Angst angst angst
• Autoplayers. I may still follow you if you have one but I ain’t goin’ to your userpage.

There ya go. There’s a few other reasons I will or won’t follow a blog, but these are my usual guidelines!