#< is that even a usable tag. will people who know about that see this post?? whooo knows

[hexjulia]

can anyone recommend a good book about drilling for oil and gas in the north sea? I saw a few but I have limited time and i'm trying to just pick a good one. I would just like to be more informed about both the politics surrounding it + how they actually do that.

[anistarrose]

Imagine, for a moment, that your internet just stopped loading images one day. Your dash might look pretty different (and less usable), but at least you can still make posts — whether about your internet situation, or about completely unrelated topics.

Now, imagine that one or more of your posts blew up, to the tune of hundreds if not thousands of notes. Imagine people started adding images to your posts.

Imagine your post circulating almost entirely in the form with four or five images attached, and with everyone in the notes laughing about those images — except you, who started the post in the first place, who can't even see those images because you're trapped in Tumblr's loading gradient hellscape.

You're excluded from any further conversations on your own post, because someone added a mystery image with the caption "don't leave this in the tags," but you have no idea which set of tags it is, and can't tell if it's one of the good takes from the tags or one of the horrible takes from the tags. You're excluded from the Tumblr users playing with JPEGs like dolls. You can try to guess the contents of the images based on people's reactions, but it's hard. And no one adding images even seems to notice the irony.

This is, of course, a real problem plaguing Tumblr users with regularly slow internet. And it's also a huge, insidious problem plaguing blind and low vision people who rely on either screen readers, or image descriptions in combination with enlarged text on their device.

People with disabilities around comprehending images, people who have images (or gifs) disabled due to photosensitivity, and many others are also affected.

If you add an image to a post without either alt text, an in-post image description, or even both for maximal inclusivity, you don't know if OP — or the person whose tags you're peer reviewing, or whose reply you're screenshotting — will actually be able to see it. From their perspective, you might just be shoving a mystery rectangle in their face, expecting them to be able to guess — or responding to them without them being able to know.

Imagine being on the receiving end of that expectation constantly. Imagine how isolating that must feel.

We need, collectively, to stop making assumptions that everyone we interact with online will be able to access, physically see, and mentally process images. The assumption that disabled people are vanishingly rare and statistically shouldn't really need to be considered is an assumption of structural and/or implicit ableism.

Write image descriptions. Write image descriptions for every image you post, if you're able — but if you have limited energy, or you're still learning, you should at least start trying your absolute best to describe images you add to other people's posts. If you're starting a conversation, even an online conversation, you should make your best effort to be accessible.

So: Write IDs, especially if they're as simple as just text, like screenshotted tags (link to guide). Write IDs even if you think the best ID you can write is too short, or too incomplete (link to post explaining why even "bad" IDs help).

Write IDs in general (link to a huge compilation of guides). Challenge ableist assumptions and inaccessibility.

[myfandomrealitea]

Pre-emptively blocking people is good for everyone.

Seriously. The amount of times I see people whining or laughing about being blocked when they 'haven't even done anything' just tells me that not many of you know its actually a really good way to properly curate your online space, and its not something to be offended over.

Blocking is a form of protection. Its also a form of mutual protection.

Especially on websites that don't offer more extensive or usable filtering, tagging and avoidance options. Twitter, for example.

Blocking isn't some personal insult. Its a method of saying; hey, we clearly shouldn't interact, so I'm gonna build this soundproof wall between us to make sure we can't.

To use The Salmon Analogy, if I run a restaurant based on salmon as the main ingredient, and you're allergic or or severely dislike salmon, me refusing to serve you isn't a personal sleight. Its me recognising that you can't or really don't want to eat salmon, and its me protecting you from an unpleasant experience and myself from you inevitably screaming at me for serving salmon.

If you are someone who enjoys 'objectionable' content, such as gore, and you stumble across an extremely anti-gore blog, its absolutely a viable option to pre-emptively block them. Maybe your paths never would've crossed, but its better to ensure they don't than potentially wind up the victim or hate or harassment.

Blocking is an absolute sure-fire way to ensure that you do not see something you do not want to. It should be used as liberally as you want to.

[hypokeimena]

on an unrelated note, if you've been using xkit / tumblr savior for a long time, i heartily encourage you to try out tumblr's native filtering system, which is excellent.

IT WORKS ON MOBILE! (unlike browser extensions)

it's located on little person outline -> (gear) SETTINGS on dashboard or person outline -> gear (settings) -> general settings -> content you see on mobile.

this will turn any post of any length into a little block that's like "post blocked for containing [thing you have filtered]" and then you can decide if you want to click to see or if you want to simply move along.

you can filter tags - this will block a post if your friend OR THE OP used a specific tag.

super, super helpful way to find posts made by t/erfs that had been circulating unnoticed - if you block tags like 'g/ender critical' and 't/erfsafe' (with no slash, i am putting the slash in so this post will appear to people who might otherwise want to filter that content!), that'll be blocked on tumblr if OP tagged it that, even if the post is now circulating in genuinely trans-inclusive spaces.

also helpful if your friends have their own weird tags for stuff like one of my friends posts a lot of long screenshots of books and has a tag for that that i have filtered because the posts are always really long and i hate scrolling past them when i'm not in the mood to read. or one of my friends is a wonderful person and i absolutely hate one of her major ships, but she uses a weird individualized tag for that fandom so i just get to avoid her posting about that thing and still see other fandom content for a fandom i don't hate.

this one is going to filter things that are exactly the same as what you put in the filter field. that means that you may have to filter "content", "content cw", "content /" separately, but you can literally add as many versions as you need to. my friends all have slightly different systems for tagging and ykw? it matters more to me that they are consistent in whatever way works for them, so that i can filter what i need to filter, than that everyone uses MLA vs Chicago tagging style.

you can also just filter content. this is for any word that appears in the body of a post (or perhaps also tags? not actually sure)

PARTICULARLY USEFUL WHEN YOU ARE UPSET BY SOMETHING THAT ISN'T REGULARLY TAGGED

for instance: there are certain users who have a tendency to show up in reblog chains. they have consistently rancid takes and annoy me. i filter their url, and then i don't have to see those anymore! or: i know they're going to be in there and when i click through to the post it's not an unpleasant surprise anymore.

for instance: sometimes people tag politics but not specific issues, or you filter the tag "#politics" but then find it hard to click through, expecting funny uk prime minister goofs and instead get posts about genuinely bad things happening. you can instead filter words or phrases like 'crisis,' 'abortion,' 'election' and decide what you wanna see

tumblr's filtering has gotten so so so much better, it's extremely usable, it's cheap and it's easy and it's free to add as many words as you need to. literally no one can stop you and no one is going to notice. you can do anything you want.

[whyitfucks]

Why it Fucks: City of Mist's Themebooks

lateral character progression rules!

For those who don't know:

City of Mist is a 2017 Powered by the Apocalypse game from Son of Oak Games. Described as "set in a modern city where legends are real people. Heroes, tricksters, and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people, regular Joes and Janes, who gain supernatural powers connected to their legendary alter-egos."

The game focuses on telling stories that merge the fantastical with the grounded. Okay, if not grounded "lower altitude". It's the structure that you'd find any on detective/police/superhero procedural on TV. A detective game, even if those detectives are also embodiments of legends like Red Riding Hood or the Goddess Artemis.

One of the delightful things about it, and the reason behind this post. Is its use of what it calls themebooks. Every character at any given time is host to 4 themebooks. These can be powers tied to the myth you represent (Mythos) or some part of your mundane life (Logos). A Thor based character could have a "Relic" mythos for his hammer, and a "Defining Relationship" Logos with his old dad he cares for. They provide benefits to rolls when needed, have unique weaknesses and so on. Most importantly they have a mystery (for the mythos) and identity (for the logos) that tell us why we care or give little hooks. These themes get discarded and picked up throughout the game as you use them. Letting characters change without worrying about balancing difficulty.

As an example, let's look at one of the characters from the quick start, Salamander, tied to the myth of, well, the Salamander

One of his 4 playbooks is based on his job as a city water worker. We can see it has the identity "I need my job to survive" this tells us why it's important to him. I won't go in to much of the rest about power tags and such, instead looking back up to Attention and Crack.

Attention is like an XP track for that aspect of your character. There are a couple ways of gaining it like invoking your weakness tag for a penalty for example. You evolve it, expanding out the power/importance of the theme.

Whenever you take an action that goes against or would cause conflict with one of your themes it takes on a crack. Maybe Salamander has to leave his shift to go fight some bad guys, angering his boss. When the crack track is full, Salamander will lose that theme and trade it for another. Broadly, the themebook creation rules are written very generously. You can come in with a loose concept and they'll help you solidify it into something usable

Why It Fucks:

SO. What we have here are characters with 4 individual aspects that serve as side plots, mysteries or recurring beats that each have two directions they can go to (focus or conflict) that are, for the most part, entirely player directed as to which way they're going. Some MCs might twist arms for hard choices but at the right table that's just good drama baby.

This is a game that frequently references television procedurals or detective stories as big touch stones. What they've done here is empower not only the MC but the players to thread together their episodic adventures in a way that can also reflect consequence without making that player less "powerful" in game terms. Facilitating really dramatic change.

City of Mist is a game I'm quite fond of, it has it's issues but design like this is why I want to start writing these posts. Whatever I think about the game, this single little bit is SO! juicy to me.

[chacusha]

My tips to new users to make Tumblr more usable

This is kind of random but I think Tumblr is one of those websites that hides a lot of its functionality from users and comes with default settings that makes it kind unusable (at least for me). So I've decided to collect some suggestions about things to do immediately in order to make Tumblr a much more usable website:

Most important: Put the content you actually opt into on your dash. First, go to Settings > Dashboard and turn off "Best Stuff First." In general, (1) I don't think it's good to let social media sites curate your content feed (they're not very good! you can curate your own content feeds!), and (2) chronological ordering is much more helpful for making sense of information. I don't know why you would want posts on a site to be presented in any other way. Please save yourself and make your dash chronological by toggling this monstrosity OFF. Also for the love of god, turn off "Include posts liked by the blogs you follow" and "Include 'Based On Your Likes!'" too. Other people's experiences might be different from mine, but when Tumblr first introduced this feature and I tried it out for a while, it was so predictable that every time I came across a post that made me viscerally angry and think, "How the HELL did this get on my dash?" it was always always some random post from someone I wasn't even following… So yeah, get rid of that.

Second, make the "Following" tab your default, instead of the "For you" tab. How to do this is not particularly obvious. From the Tumblr homepage (not settings), you need to find the tabs at the top of your dash (For you, Following, Your tags) and then click the toggle/settings icon to the right of those tabs. This will allow you to reorder your tabs. In particular, what you need to do is click the pin icon to the right of "Following," and this will set Following to be your pinned and first tab. By default, when you open Tumblr, your dash will show the posts of people you have actually opted into following rather than what Tumblr suggests to you.

Next, make sure timestamps on posts are on. This should be the default (despite what Tumblr says?), but if you don't see timestamps at the top of all posts, I highly recommend turning this setting on (under Settings > Dashboard). Knowing when a post was made is hugely helpful for understanding the context of the post, and I don't know why websites would allow you to hide this, really, unless they want you walking around with no sense of time or context, which uh… I don't recommend that social media experience!

Turn off endless scrolling (under Settings > Dashboard): Websites like endless scrolling to keep people from leaving the site. I recommend turning this off to make it more obvious how many posts you've scrolled through on Tumblr, to make it easier to find your place in older posts, and also to make the website just lighter to load. When I last used it, the Tumblr mobile app does not allow pagination, which is pretty typical of social media apps in general. Honestly, I recommend just not using the Tumblr mobile app at all. I've uninstalled it and aside from missing the convenience of being able to attach photos from my phone onto Tumblr posts, I really don't miss it…

Things that you may or may not be interested in:

Enable custom theme on (each of) your blog(s): So fun fact: If you don't have a custom theme enabled, then when people visit your blog when not logged into Tumblr, they will only be able to scroll through a few of the posts on your blog before being prompted by Tumblr to log in if they want to see more. This popup cannot be gotten around, and so people without Tumblr accounts or who are browsing on a device/browser without a login session just won't be able to see your posts. Personally, I do not like this behavior -- I like my blogs to be archives with useful permalinks that can be browsed by anyone. Anyway, you can get rid of this annoying prompt by going to Account > (select blog) > Blog settings and toggling that "Enable custom theme" slider. It doesn't really matter what theme you use (although there are a lot of options to choose from), just use a custom one!

Turn off "Shorten long posts" (under Settings > Dashboard): YMMV, but I personally don't find this setting very helpful as the maximum length for when it starts cutting off posts is pretty short and falls far short of what I would consider a "long post" that is inconvenient to scroll past. Instead, you may want to turn off this setting and create a filter for the tag "long post" (under Settings > Account > Filtered Tags).

Mature content: If you're interested in possibly seeing mature content, you may want to review your mature content settings (under Settings > Account) as by default, Tumblr is set to hide it entirely and doesn't tell you that it's hidden posts from you and so you probably just will not be aware this setting is a thing! Personally, I use the "Blur" setting.

Hiding content from users you don't want to see: As far as I can tell, if you see someone's posts in (e.g.) tag searches and would prefer not to see any of that person's posts in public places like that tag or appear on your dash by people you follow reblogging their posts, you should block them. Official Tumblr documentation does not say that this is a feature of blocking, but it is.

When Tumblr's functionality isn't enough… External tools such as XKit Rewritten provide a whole lot of QoL fixes to Tumblr's interface like making it easier to reply to replies, hiding posts you've already seen, showing how many new/unread posts are in tracked tags, showing all tags on posts by default rather than requiring you to click "See all," etc. For me, one thing I needed in order to make Tumblr semi-usable for me is hiding notes in tag searches (because I don't really need constant reminders that my tastes aren't aligned with wider fandom's tastes lol). I couldn't find a tool that does this, so I wrote a simple Tampermonkey script to do it for me.

Hope this helps new users of Tumblr, and feel free to add other helpful tips if you have them!

[bunny-heels]

all my blogs are finally fully backed up so.

Matt is a fucking idiot. imagine being in charge of a website that advertises itself as the gayest place on the web when in reality all you do is sulk in your office being upset and whiny because people rightfully call you out on your hypocrisy, ignorance, neglect, and blatant bigotry.

there is a literal genocide happening that's been going on for years killing innocent people. a non-binary teen was beaten to death and the killers have basically gotten off free. and this fucking dumbass decides to worry about what people are saying about him online as if he isn't sitting in a pile of money like every other jackass CEO is dong. the fact Palestine isn't one of the listed trending tags on tumblr when i see news about it every 5 posts is ridiculous.

he's just like any other rich guy. he doesn't care about the wellbeing of others, thinks only for himself, puts others down when they feel threatened, and just wants more money.

tumblr stopped being a safe place for "outcasted" people years ago, even before the porn ban. in fact, maybe it never really was for outcated people. trans, black, and disabled users have been getting put down by this site for a very long time, and its fucking disgusting. this site literally houses the largest percentage of LGBT+ and disabled users i've ever seen if we're going by the polls where literally the option of cisgender and neurotypical is always under 1%. they literally are the reason this website still exist, because they've created their circles and safe spaces for them to feel comfortable sharing their life experiences and adventures through life.

most people on this site can't go a day in their real life without some form of harassment or hardship, they don't need that transferring to their digital life. every group of people deserves their own corner for them to have fun and get away from everything for a while. if that's taken away, you are left with people who are just throwing tantrums, and the actual users who made your site usable are now out there probably doing better than you and getting more respectable support than you will with your group of crying babies.

Matt is not a 13 year old kid running a GMod DarkRP server. Matt is not a 26 year old forum mod. he is a 40 year old CEO who is the founder of a well known blog creation site. he has an extremely important and powerful position, yet he is choosing to put his own immature feelings first before thinking about the safety of his own userbase that is literally used as this sites selling point.

the fucking audacity to do this shit to your own users that you literally use for a selling point when you won't even allow for certain tags to show up in the search because you claim for them to have sexual content meanwhile other tags are full of hatred, bigotry, and downright defamation of innocent people who just happen to live different lives is fucking gross. i absolutely cannot believe society and social norms have let the minds of people in power get this fucking bad. it's almost impressive, in a tortured lab monkeys way, not in an innovated and breakthrough way.

please protect all trans users, especially trans women/trans fems. please protect black users, disabled users, all people of color users, homeless/financially struggling users, harassed users, victims of assault users, Palestinian users, jewish users, any religious users-any user that you know for a fact could be thrown away by this bullshit system any day now, protect and take care of them, and make sure they know you'll always be there no matter what.

this post will be rebloggable because i want to pass these links.

palestine related links:

arab.org

gofundmes

esims

PCRF

funds for gaza

POC related links:

BHM mutual aid

american indian college fund

black family mutual aid

trans related links:

freedom oklahoma

transformationskc

trans liberation

suggestions for more plus any corrections are appreciated. reblogging and replying to add your own links for mutual aid and donations is extremely acceptable and encouraged. i apologize if anything in this is worded incorrectly.

if this is taken down despite me being a cis straight chick, you know why.

[ahaura]

i'm sure someone's already made this post but for anyone seriously new (or returning) to tumblr here are some cool tips and tricks for having a decent experience

download xkit rewritten (i think it's on github, iirc it's the most up to date xkit that makes tumblr easier to use so you can avoid ads, use quick reblogs, etc)

make sure to go to your dashboard settings and toggle off the features you don't want to see. best part about tumblr is that if you don't follow people you won't see their posts. tumblr has tried to get around this by adding "in your orbit" and "for you" dashboards but lots of people don't use these.

TURN OFF TUMBLR LIVE. it is not safe to use, even less so than social media sites typically are. you'll have to hit the snooze button on it once a week which is annoying but if you don't like it send a message to support to let them know. your can and should utilize contacting support for bugs and errors and issues. be warned that it's hit and miss tho

if you want to use a custom theme on your desktop, you'll have to contact support and ask permission to use javascript. they'll provide instructions on what you need to do to get approved

use the filter option for content you don't want to see. xkit has an option to entirely hide filtered posts on the dash rather than just showing a post with the hidden tag on it

you don't HAVE to use tags but it's strongly recommended for organizational and practical use. if you make content like art or gifs it's the best way you're going to get other people who don't follow you to see it

REBLOG, NOT REPOST! whether it's art, gifsets, scans, or something else it is standard etiquette and common courtesy to REBLOG instead of REPOST. you will get more of the content you like if you reblog instead of steal things from other people. reblogging posts is a vital part of your tumblr ecosystem. you don't have to reblog every post you see but if you take a look at blogs that aren't transplants from twitter you'll know what i mean

there are almost always bot waves on this site and you can usually tell by their empty blog and/or default blog layout. i STRONGLY RECOMMEND personalizing your blog (at least choose your title and icon) and reblog some stuff so people don't think you're a bot and block you.

if you use the blaze feature you will be blocked and ignored at best and harassed in the replies at worst. give tumblr money at your own risk

tumblr's post limit is 250 per day but the queue allows for 1000 posts and drafts to my knowledge are unlimited. utilizing the drafts and queue features is a good way to help run your blog

you can make sideblogs but if staff finds out you're hoarding urls you will be shadowbanned.

most importantly: be normal in your interactions with others. block people who annoy you or you simply don't want to see. this isn't twitter and the only reason this site is remotely usable is because it isn't a copy of tiktok, twitter, or instagram

good luck

[phospadparadscha]

a non exhaustive list of things i love about tumblr that have made it the only Usable Social Media(tm), as someone who follows the maximum amount (5000) of people and has seen it All:

-the tags. every othere sm requires tags to be uninterrupted, no spaces phrases and you can write full fucking novels in the tags on tumblr. this created a completely new ecosystem for how conversations and posts are structured on here. ppl post screenshots of tags, mention previous tags, encourage other people's writing and art in the tags, all while avoiding cluttering the original post's text with every reblog when you want to comment. you can make hushed commentary that sometimes gets noticed and adds a lot to posts when its picked up on!

-the ask system. we used to have fan mail on this site a few years ago but i don't know that it was as successful, so the ask and submissions system became the main way to go. its not as common to have themed ask blogs anymore (like "ask rainbow dash" where people draw responses, i've had a few of these kinds of blogs in the past) but it really allows people to acknowledge each other, get questions answered, and interact in a way i think is really missing from the internet in the late 2020s. its abused sometimes and anon hate still shows up on this site, but i think the culture has changed noticeably in that this kind of hate is brushed off more easily in most cases.

-the longevity of posts and how everything is archived. its so much easier to find old posts on tumblr than other places and you can sort archives of people's blogs based on a lot of different types, like photos only or text only, years posted, etc. really cool especially for looking back on your blog through the years and in the age of the New Posts Only its really refreshing to be able to revisit old posts. I see posts on here that show up from 2012 and its such a pleasant surprise since so much of the internet is being overwritten

- the absurdly customizeable color palettes and appearances of the site. its so customizeable and even though desktop blog sites aren't as common of a way to interact anymore (i miss them rip blogs with no desktop versions) you can literally edit the css and html and show your own personal aesthetics as much as you want to.

-the april fool's day rebrands

-the art is so good and photosets allow for longform posts which i never see ANYWHERE else on social media. you can post like up to 30 images in a photo set i think??? which was increased from i think max 10 and its all consecutive. also that we have a read more button to give people the option to choose to open long posts or not.

-the id system. i've seen a lot of people id posts and make posts more accessible. also people providing trigger warnings which you don't get other places tbh like i've never seen anywhere online where you could straight up choose what you didn't want to see so you don't have to encounter it in the wild! its really nice especially for someone like me who has several phobias lol

i could keep going but like.....i love you tumblr as someone who has been here for literally over a decade.

[wingedknightrose]

WIP Wednesday

Tagged by @lucien-lachance like, yesterday lol. whoops

here have another snippit from the first part of Apocalypse.

She shuffled again, and a card slipped out. She picked it up and examined it. Eight of swords, upright. Fitting, she supposed. Also not that overly helpful. With a sigh she slipped it back into the deck and resumed shuffling, glancing at her computer monitor. The transcript she’d been typing up of Safiyya��s latest vision stared back at her, black on white, cold and uncomfortable. The last sentence was incomplete, largely because Safiyya had abruptly bolted out the door before she could finish it and had yet to come back. Also a terrible sign. There was a soft knock on the door, jolting her from her ruminations. She jerked a bit, thankfully not dropping any of the cards again, and called for the visitor to come in. When Victor poked his head inside, she gestured for him to take a seat. They had a fair bit to talk about. Especially when Safiyya got back. It had been a little while, actually, maybe Cveta needed to go check on her… “You all asked to see me?” Commander Belmont got straight to the point once he’d sat, which any other time might have felt rude or made her think he was mad at her, but considering that everyone had been on high alert for days now, she didn’t blame him. He probably had a million things to see to. “We thought you might want to know the sorts of visions everyone’s been having.” The current divination branch of the Brotherhood was fairly small, only about five people. Three of them were what were informally called Dreamers - their predictive powers were entirely based on interpreting their dreams. Cveta was the only one who had any real skill with the tarot - most people assumed that tarot wasn’t the sort of thing the Brotherhood would care about, which was only sort of true. The truth was, while she wasn’t as useful for seeing a problem coming, she was good for helping to figure out the right was to approach said problem. Even the vaguest hints were better than nothing. She was also good at typing up transcripts of whatever the others saw in their various visions and helping sort them into something usable. One had to be good at unpacking symbolism to deal with card readings, after all. The last member of the branch was the only one that had actual, honest-to-God visions, and she was currently pushing through the door looking like she might collapse on the spot. The Commander half-stood to go and help her, but she waved him off, adjusting her hijab as she moved towards the sink and the coffee machine. “Are you okay?” Cveta asked, concerned. She still looked about as pale as she had when she’d made her abrupt exit. “No,” Safiyya replied, leaning on the counter. “But I’ll be better once I get something to rinse the aftertaste out of my mouth.” Oh, she’d been sick. She’d had a vision so bad it had made her physically ill. Well that was a downright terrible omen.

[dreamyghostie]

List 5 things that make you happy, then put this in the askbox for the last 10 people who reblogged something from you! get to know your mutuals and followers (ू•‧̫•ू⑅)♡

continuing with this bc asks/tag posts are starting to pile up and i want to come back to them with positive thoughts even though there is not that much positive stuff happening rn :D

so for this one ill go with five things that make me happy about the christmas season that i already very much look forward to :)

baking, which over the last years has escalated into making quite a lot of christmas cookies and sweets to then give to other lovely people - so lets see where that will lead to this year ... :D

illuminations - when i was a kid we would go on walks around the neighbourhood for some fresh air, movement and to look at all the pretty christmas lights in the windows. i still love to see the colourful lights that illuminate the dark and cold nights, its just so soothing :)

christmas music, which in my case is mostly christmas-themed pop music from the 80s and 90s that i sort of inherited from getting to listen to them through my parents over the course of my childhood, with some additions that i have made for myself over the years. always look forward to starting those tunes again :)

decorating the home - something that is sort of a tradition and a ritual for me, i will get out the box with christmas decorations right at the start of the advent, see what is still usable and then carefully put all the stuff in a fitting place. oh and the creative project of making an advent wreath (nearly) completely from scratch has been part of this for some years now as well ^^

the advent calendar, which has been one with different sorts of tea for most of recent years (and will be this year as well), which gives the opportunity to try out a new sort of tea every day for the whole of christmas time. and tbh, whats better than that :D

[bellakenobi]

Get to Know Me - Sims Edition

I was tagged by @puffkins2000! Thank you so much <3

What’s your favorite Sims death? I never thought about that but the death by freezing ghost is kinda cute '-'

Alpha CC or Maxis Match? Oh well. I like MM clothes, some EA hairs (the store's ones are the most usable) and also alpha hair, and the skins I use could be considered alpha but they're not uncanny valley. So I guess I'm in the middle?

Do you cheat your sims weight? Nope

Do you move objects? Yup ^^

Favorite Mod? The NRaas ones since the game is mostly unplayable without them, and Simler's mod that fix a lot of stuff, even the "natality" issue that one of the patches broke and now babies are being born in my saves without my interference or using Story Progression (that I'm too paranoid with the lag it can cause to use it)

First Expansion/Game Pack/Stuff Pack? Late Night because I wanted hot tubs and the bars and vampires sounded cool too (but I don't play much with the EP features 😬)

Do you pronounce live mode like aLIVE or LIVing? aLIVE, and well being a non-english speaker I never thought about this '-'

Who’s your favorite sim that you’ve made? My girl Mitsuko (the one in my icon) is my fave 💚💙

Have you made a simself? Yup, and of course she got prettier lol

Which is your favorite EA hair color? ... Black? It's the only EA color that I actually use so 🤷‍♀️

Favorite EA hair? Party on the Side from the store ^^

Favorite life stage? Young Adults I guess

Are you a builder or are you in it for the gameplay? I had a sort of builder era some years ago but nowadays it seems that my creativity for that is simply gone (even tho my buildings back in the day weren't that much, but it's stuff that I look today and think "WOW I really did that 😮")

Are you a CC creator? Apparently 💀 but mostly a converter.

Do you have any Simblr friends or a Sim Squad? I'm kinda closer to @deniisu-sims because we know each other online outside tumblr but people at the TS3 Creator's Cave Discord are really friendly. But it's a bit difficult to me to socialize even on the internet since being introvert IRL wasn't enough '-'

Do you have any sims merch? / A Youtube for sims? Nope but honestly if I was less shy and had a better internet connection I guess I would have a channel '-' And I've been delaying for YEARS to make a Bella Goth chibi sculpture....

How has your “Sims style” changed throughout your years of playing? lol I guess it's been the same, I make a family and play with them, but lately I've been playing challenges so it can give me a direction and then I don't get bored easily.

Who’s your favorite CC creator? AAAAA DON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE! But not kidding, everybody that converts the stuff from TS4 has a special place in my heart ❤❤

How long have you had Simblr? I have it since 2013 and was somewhat active around that time, went through some hiatus and now I'm back on activity since last year.

How do you edit your pictures? I use reshade, for CC previews a preset that slightly enhances color and sharpness (becuase one of my pet peeves are those CC previews that are so heavily edited that you can't see what you're actually getting), Photoscape for quick cropping and making thumbnails, and Photoshop to write stuff in previews.

What expansion/ gamepack is your favorite? I guess it's Supernatural? I like the CAS stuff, the furniture, Moonlight Falls is a nice town to play, I LOVE playing with witches, the alchemy skill and the complementing harvesteables are really cool too 😊

I tag everyone who wants to answer those ^^

[thatvictorian]

I posted 664 times in 2022

That's 660 more posts than 2021!

48 posts created (7%)

616 posts reblogged (93%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@suspiciouslyglowingmoss

@alcinas-darling

@ava-does-dumbassery

@hypo-critic-al

I tagged 323 of my posts in 2022

#dracula - 47 posts

#dracula daily - 35 posts

#lady dimitrescu - 33 posts

#jekyll and hyde - 28 posts

#lady dimitrescu x reader - 24 posts

#resident evil village - 23 posts

#jonathan harker - 21 posts

#writers - 19 posts

#the strange case of dr jekyll and mr hyde - 19 posts

#tanz der vampire - 18 posts

Longest Tag: 83 characters

#how dare you give him emotions he's not supposed to have those he is not hysterical

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

See the full post

55 notes - Posted November 1, 2022

#4

See the full post

59 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

#3

Donna's Hands

I could talk about her hands forever. The gentle curves of her slender fingers, her neatly painted nails, the way they gently rest on Angie's waist with gentle care. GOOD LORD

The way I'd love to sit and watch her sew by the fire, never faulting. The way her hands know the materials she uses, the way her hands would fit perfectly on my waist, the way she'd kiss my lips.

102 notes - Posted May 15, 2022

#2

Love Aflame

 Love, Aflame

Pov: You’re a maid who had been working for Lady Dimitrescu for quite some time. Recently you’ve caught the flu and have been reduced to bedrest. 

Warnings: Some slight anger from Lady Dimitrescu and a small argument between them. Other than that, this is fluff! A word a few might not know! Pulchritudinous! It means beautiful.  This was written for @alcinasdarling but also for @ladydimitrescuworship

Working in House Dimitrescu wasn’t exactly easy. The Lady’s daughters tended to be very aggressive in a playful way, and the Lady herself could have a bit of a temper. Although, you had worked up quite the good relationship between you. After the first year, you had been promoted to grand chambermaid due to your ability to follow orders and sarcastic sense of humor.  Perhaps the work had bored you way more than you had cared to notice, as you had taken up writing down your thoughts in a journal. 

The journal, old but usable, had been gifted to you. And by that, it was really just left on your nightstand. Usually when Lady Dimitrescu left you small gifts of appreciation, they were left with some sort of note. However when you had found it, there were none. 

December 18th, 

“I have begun my daily tasks as per usual, getting dressed and fixing my hair. The Lady has requested I clean the ballroom for she intends to host a ball. Of course, after eavesdropping   over-hearing a conversation between her and Mother Miranda, I knew this was really a ploy to hunt for test subjects and prey. It is now time for the Lady’s bath.”   

 “That’s an old entry.. Perhaps it’s about time I write another,”  You thought, picking up a pen that looked like a quill. After all, it could be quite frustrating trying to write with actual ink. The ball itself hadn’t actually been that interesting aside from sharing your first kiss with the Lady. Socializing isn't exactly easy when you know what the real reason was behind the whole event. The girls had been cleaned up and put in fine dresses, and the Lady wore a glorious red dress with fur on the shoulders.

December 20th, 

It has been sometime since I last wrote, perhaps I should do this more often now that the Lady has restricted me to bedrest. It is quite frustrating, as I can’t do any of my regular duties and feel quite useless just laying here. The ball itself was full of the usual boring guests, people from the village. No one I knew however. But I got the most incredible gift I could’ve ever asked for. Alcina had kissed me, her wine flavored lips pressed against mine. And when she kissed me for the first time, I felt something of which I could not name. At the time, I could not find the right words. Even when she had asked me how it made me feel. When I had told her I could not say, her lips upturned into a grin. As if the mere idea of making words incomprehensible to me was the most enjoyable thing in the world.

“Y/N, I have come to inspect your health,” Lady Dimitrescu’s voice called from the other side of the door.  You jumped, startled by the suddenness of her presence. The door began to open as you scrambled to hide the journal under the covers of your sheets.  Lady Dimitrescu stood high above you, moving to sit on your bed. Her weight tilting you slightly, she smiled.   “How are you feeling darling?” She purred, her golden eyes puncturing you with their gaze. You hesitated to answer her, causing her smile to drop. “I asked you a question, you are expected to answer. Or have you lost that precious voice of yours?” She growled. “No mistress, I have not.. I am feeling better.  I only ask to return to my work. It’s killing me just sitting here, I feel suffocated,” You said, clutching the sheets nervously. Lady Dimitrescu’s gaze softened as you coughed a few times, a light burn in your throat. “My dear, you are not well and I will not have you making yourself worse,” She stated firmly. Scoffing and rolling your eyes you tried to get up but were held down firmly by the woman, the journal slipping out from the covers and onto the floor.

“Oh? What’s this?” Lady Dimitrescu bent slightly to reach the item, easily holding your frantic self down. “N-nothing stop! Put it down! Hey! Can you hear me up there!?” You rambled on until she covered your mouth. Her eyes scanned the entry before she snapped the journal shut.  “Well.. isn’t this interesting..” she murmured, scooping you gently out of the bed. The urge to protest was quickly swallowed by the excitement and admiration rising in your chest. For a murderer, she truly was beautiful. Her ebony hair in soft curls, her porcelain skin, and most of all her air.  She carried you for a while through the hallways, soft candlelight warming your skin.  

Eventually you reached her room, she didn’t drop you for a moment. Not even as she bent slightly to enter the room. 

Finally she sat you on her bed. “Now pet, I want you to stay there until I return alright?” She purred. You nodded, swinging your legs. “Sure why not, after I assist you in–”, She raised a finger.  Lady Dimitrescu slipped into her bathroom, returning a short moment later in a white nightgown that, if the light landed on it right, was slightly transparent. “Wow.. just wow.. She’s.. incredible..”  You thought as she strode around to her side of the bed and slipped under the covers. Moving quickly to avoid her crushing you, you pulled the covers around you. A coughing fit racked your body as you leaned back against the pillows. 

“Easy my dear..” Alcina whispered, rubbing your stomach. Her fingers against your thin nightgown sent cold shivers throughout your body. Her smell, her touch. The way she carried herself so restrained so as to not hurt you by accident. God just her… 

It was hard not to leap up and kiss her, but the fear of destroying the relationship restrained you very well. “Thank you mistress, I appreciate it,” You whispered.  She smiled again, tilting your head over. She ran a finger across your lips before pulling you closer so that your noses were almost touching. “May I kiss you?” She asked in a breathy whisper. Your answer was pressing your lips against hers, rolling over her to straddle her lower stomach. At first you had been lifting yourself up but she pulled forward, cupping your cheeks with both hands. At last, your lips were touching. Her breath filling your lungs, the smell of the wine she drank filling your nose. The kiss lasted for a while, neither of you stopping to properly breathe. “My my draga mea, you taste so sweet..” 

All you could do was stare at her pulchritudinous body. “And you too mistress, I apologize for staring.” You tried to match her formal tone, even though your size made the romantic pose quite a funny scene. She chuckled, bouncing you slightly. In order to stop yourself from falling face forward onto her face, you rested your head on her chest.  “Rest now my dear, do not worry about your weight. I assure you, I am comfortable,” she said in a hushed tone. Soon the room had become quiet, the only sounds being Alcina’s breathy sighs of contentment as she breathed. Her skin and nightgown, warm. Sleep soon came to take you under its wing, Alcina stroking your hair.

Thank you for reading!! This is my first fic so I apologize for it being so short!

181 notes - Posted April 26, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

Mother Miranda said it's my turn on the xbox

267 notes - Posted May 23, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[traumasurvivorshelpingsurvivors]

Tw: Amber heard and JD ment, intense guilt issues, idk if there needs to be any other tw, call me Wolf if that’s not taken so I can also find my ask later in the tags

I have so many abusers. About 20. Nobody believes I’ve ever been abused bc my abusers always had acted like we were good to everyone’s faces and the very few times my abusers did act out in public everyone seemed to just forget or just to my luck didn’t notice!

And they always had a say first in every interaction with other people or kids at school. I just never got to talk about my abuse story except online. But never to a friend. My abusers are all on the same page with abusing me and calling me a liar. Most of those 20 still use DARVO, still call me a liar about my rape and other abuse accusations. People think I’m crazy. Nobody loves me except God. And nobody is on my side except God. I genuinely have no human interactions.

And one of my abusers got together and recorded another abuser of mine, interviewing him, giving some sort of “testimony of how I abused him” when I really didn’t and my first abuser uses it to give to other people to say he’s “spoken with other victims” which is what I did when I recorded REAL victims of my abusers…. So stupid and I hate them all for it.

One of my abusers was 3 years younger than me.

Every thinks I’m the bully and the abuser and some usable worthless human when I’ve never done half the evil shit they’ve done in their lives to so many victims. I’ve never done any of what they behave like.

My relatives don’t even know my parents and brother are abusive and rapists. My abusive relatives all stick up for my abusive immediate family and say they’re great people when they’ve tortured me and raped me as a child. So many of my abusers also used rape and everyone says that women lie about being raped nowadays bc it’s the new thing abusive crazy women like AH do. Except AH wasn’t the abuser. Anyway. My image and reputation are ruined forever and I have to cut all contact with my family someday which I can do any day bc I moved out at 22 and so I can actually live my life but it’s a scary thought bc I feel so guilt ridden for it. And I don’t want to see my mother cry even though she abused me sm growing up even sexually, my whole immediate family was sexually and emotionally abusive. I don’t know how to not feel sui-guilt over this…

Hi Wolf,

I'm so sorry about what you've been through. Please know that we believe you, and you're not alone. It can be frustrating when our abusers are surrounded by people who enable and normalize their toxic behavior, and are seemingly oblivious in exacerbating the situation. It's similarly frustrating when people don't understand the gravity of the situation or find it important enough to even remember.

It's important to remember that it's possible for abusers to be younger than their victims because age gaps are not the only way that power imbalances are created. Things like socioeconomic status, intellectual or physical disabilities, and even fame can also create an uneven power dynamic.

Unfortunately it's common for abusers to use their social reputation or status to slander and silence their victims. Pitting everyone against their victims can make it easy for those victims to feel crazy and isolated. It can be incredibly damaging to deal with DARVO, and so it's important to make sure that your mental health is being taken care of. If you can access or afford it, a mental health professional such as a therapist can help you process your trauma, your experiences with DARVO and being gaslit, and develop healthy coping mechanisms to take with you on your healing journey.

It's also unfortunately become easy for abusers to weaponize AH to discredit other female abuse survivors. It can be especially difficult to feel comfortable speaking up about your experience in such a social climate. It may help to remember that the truth doesn't need people's validation to exist. As much as you have been made to feel otherwise, you know what really happened. You know your truth.

If anyone has any comments or suggestions, feel free to add on. Otherwise, I hope I could help, and please let us know if you need anything.

-Bun

[readwing]

It has occurred to me that aside from off-handed tags, vague references, and the occasional poll result that I don’t really share-share stuff about me online.

So allow me to break that streak for a moment to gush about my job:

I am, without being too specific, a Fancy Data Accountant. Let me explain.

I am not a CPA and I did not go to school for this, but I did take a variety of loosely related classes when I was in college. These classes + the slow grind of being An Employee During the Recession + a general thirst for knowledge + good organizational skills = a solid understanding of business fundamentals and a willingness to learn Accounts Receivable (A/R) and Accounts Payable (A/P) without fucking it up.

If any of you younguns don’t know - A/R and A/P are positions that are always in desperate need of smart people willing to learn. If you add to this even a basic knowledge of General Ledger accounting then congratulations you are 95% more competent than most of the people currently doing that job. The reason for this being that for small businesses, it’s usually a filler job. It’s usually passed on to like, whoever seems to have the most time leftover to do it.

Receptionists and owner’s wives. Lots of times it’s those people. And lots of times, they do not want to being doing that job either.

And since accountants tend to want to actually make good money and pay off their degrees, they also do not want those jobs! They’re mostly decently paying jobs, higher than entry level for sure, but they’re not CPA-paying jobs.

So there ends up being a knowledge gap between the people who are inputting all the financial data and the actual accountants who really really would prefer it if the data was better organized. Accountant and Tax Prep people, in fact, tend to need this so much that they sometimes hire people to work for them internally who can help business owners pretty things up so the data is fucking usable.

Enter me.

So I bounce around for a bit doing my thing - which is Easy, it’s so Easy that the only challenge I get is coming into a Messed Up set of books and fixing it. But then at a certain point…they are fixed. So what now?

Well my what now was ‘you know, this business (that I was working for at the time) has a stupid amount of manual input data. Not only that, but the data that’s being input is only a fraction of what we could be using to analyze and make decisions, and that’s because the industry relies on third party software for its A/R but a completely different software for its A/P. Since the two don’t talk to each other, we’re stuck relying on truncated reports out of our A/R that are somehow both watered down and crowded with unnecessary noise. No bueno!’

So bored little me signed up for a free library class on coding. I’m kind of shit at it, but that’s okay because that was the first time in my life I actually understood what syntax was in programming.

By the end of the class what I realized was that while I was too lazy to ever properly code something, it didn’t matter. What I really needed to know was:

1) what raw data I had available from System A

2) what the simplest, bare minimum amount of functions / formulas I needed to manipulate that data-

3) -so that I could then package it and download it into System B, preferably with minimal typing!

So that’s what I did. That was my new challenge. When I had a free moment at work - and boy did I find lots of those - I would play around with my little spreadsheets and these clunky programs. There needed to be checks and balances, you see. Whatever the output numbers said had to equal the new input numbers, or the accounting would be off. If Karen down the hall accidentally fat-thumbed in a new product or department, I needed it to 1) not break the formulas, and 2) be easily identified as an anomaly. Whatever happened between export/import needed to be cleaned, checked, and verified for the integrity of both systems.

So that’s what I built. Between doing my job and browsing Reddit at work. I built this whole system that would take this very boring part of my job and make it easy.

And yeah the place I worked for sucked, and I had plenty of issues happening personally, but this I was good at!

And the results kind of made me look like a god, which is always nice. And it got me a raise.

The pay bump was almost worth the mind-numbing boredom of the variety of other tasks I usually had to do to get to the fun bit. Almost.

Then last year in a moment of fed-up-ness I applied for a slew of jobs. Just slinging rezzies into the void on Indeed like a pizza maker flinging ‘za. Mostly for the same positions, just with better perks and pay. I wasn’t hoping for much. One of them called me back. Scheduled an interview. Did the interview. The next morning I had a job offer.

Y’all. I lucked in so fucking hard.

Not only were their books a mess, not only were they running a separate A/R and A/P system PLUS ANOTHER TWO INDUSTRY-SPECIFIC SOFTWARES, but they were actually excited to hear my ideas on how to fix it.

(And they were fucking soluble as all get out, which was a first for me.)

They were so excited, in fact, that it’s gone from being maybe 15% of my job to being about 80-90% of my job to just slowly fix and maintain everything they’ve got going on. Why the investment on their side? Because they’re looking to enter a potential partnership with X-number of other companies, all of whom have messy books that I could potentially end up fixing. Also the company has just started to open up a new location. Also the main owners are looking to start X-number of ancillary companies spinning out of the current one. All of these companies, of course, will have slews of data that need analyzed, with multiple Point-of-Sales systems that need to talk to each other, and good gosh golly, they know just the kind of person who likes to do that kind of shit now don’t they?

Then there’s little old me, sitting at my computer with my chunky spreadsheets and my limited amount of Visual Basic, somehow producing goddamn magic. Because programmers don’t understand generally accepted accounting practices, and accountants care even less about best data practices and management.

I have somehow waded through mires of bad decisions and late stage capitalism to find myself an oasis. I feel like I have somehow tricked the people around me into paying me good money to let me have fun at work. This in spite of the fact that I know that no one can do or even wants my job. Even AI can’t touch me, because that would require the robot be capable of standing up and asking a room full of otherwise intelligent people ‘what the fuck is this? Why did you enter it this way. Yes, I know it was easier for you and yes it’s technically accurate but you are going to accidentally break the law if we leave it like this Kenneth’

I am a cog, yes; but I am a well-paid cog, who gets to learn and feel challenged and buy ridiculous toys for my cats and fund Patreons now. And books. And sushi. And paints. I even splurged on a gym membership.

And y’all - it’s nice. It’s really really nice. And I really hope it keeps going like this, ‘cause I’m really happy with how things are going.

[cowboylikedean]

If y'all really want to improve usability, bring the old editor back. Allow us to backspace when we accidentally hit enter on mobile. allow us to block quote multiple paragraphs without creating weird and ugly spacing issues.

Without the "quote" post type differientiation, one of my favorite stylistic features of my theme is gone. I want it back.

The editor is difficult to use not intuitive. Even the cool things about it like colors. Since you can't change colors while you're typing, you have to type your thing, highlight it, and select the color, it messes with the flow of creating a post.

I am typing this on mobile and I accidentally hit enter when Ibwas hitting the period. Insteaf of backspacing, where my thumb was already at, if I really needed to stay on that line, I'd have to go up there and click on it. That's bad usability.

If you want to improve usability, give us the option to search our DM's.

If you want to improve usability my GOD bring back the "all notes" tab so we can more easily track which reblog made a post pop off. the reblog map has no names, nor can you click on it so it's useless to tracking your post and the success of said post. This helps for conversation tracking too.

Since we're talking about conversation tracking... Let's talk about prev tags. Now, I hate prev tags, but people use it all the time. If you want to improve usability and conversation tracking, make it so I can click on the url of the person that is being reblogged from and find their reblog again. Wouldn't be hard, cause you just broke it.

If you want to improve customization and usability, allow us to fully opt out of tumblr live, which none of us wanted, asked for, or use.

If you want to improve usability, GET RID OF THE FUCKING LIGHTBOX. Which literally took away the ability to PAUSE. you know, you can pause on tiktok and instagram and youtube and twitter... but not on tumblr!!!! What????? this makes videos unusable. And we have told you we hate it, y'all habe ignored it tho.

If you want to improve customization, LET LINKS TAKE YOU TO SOMEONE'S CUSTOMIZED THEME IF THEY CHOOSE!!!! I worked on that for hours, but I'm likely the only one who ever sees it when i need to find something on my blog. Fucking why???

If you want to improve usability, let us choose which polls to subscribe to and get pushnnotifs about so we can casually vote in polls we don't care about that much without getting push notifs spammed.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.