#I don't have to cater to 'the community'

[gaylightisminetocommand]

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[twilightakiishi]

hi friends ♡ i hit a lil milestone on this blog recently and thought it would be fun to celebrate with a little sketch event!

rules are simple:

send me an ask with a character from the list below + a costume you wanna see them in, and I'll post a little doodle for ya !

this event will close sunday, 5/26 at noon central time. this means that is when I will stop taking requests, but I will fulfill the requests I receive up to that date + time! i work two jobs + a side hustle, so. patience, please!

and ofc, thank you all so much for following. posting my silly doodles on this blog has made me really happy; i love to be able to share my hyperfixation with people and you all make that possible for me in a really fun + fulfilling way ♡

[bloomshroomz]

Imagine:

an aro-centric friend-finding/qpr/dating/hookup/etc. app called "Cupid's Aro"

[trans-leek-cookie]

every day I lose sympathy for other trans men. Suffer in silence until you can be normal you stupid bitches

[puppyudderly-dreamy]

transmascs stop pretending that transfems are untrustworthy sources for transfeminism challenge impos- fuck i didn't even finish and you already complained about our terminology

[mushiemellows]

Uhhhh I just stayed up all night doing edits and I hit post just now before knocking out. idk if I'm going to make a proper link when I wake up, just because idk how much I'm wanting to advertise something so strange across platforms. But the Maximum Freak Nasty Perv Robot PWP is now up on my ao3, titled Handle With Care.

Good Morning. ✌︎ I'm going to bed now.

[purpldawne]

when vil said "don't look at me with those eyes" then went "ill just make everyone else uglier"immediately after. i felt that

[astralwukong]

why every time i adventure out of the bees tag there's ship drama going on that involves wr in some way. i am 100% honest with you, i have never seen a ship have beef with literally every other pairing in a show...

[asleepinawell]

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.

[pa-pa-plasma]

so this post is definitely about me lol & i just wanna say that

me only having mental illness is a really big assumption

the experiences i talked about were my own & some friends i'd had while going to an alternate school, they weren't secondhand or made up

idk what is wrong with this person but they are super fucking ableist, & going through their blog, it's clear they love to accuse everyone of faking being disabled or needing accommodation for some reason & are obsessed with interacting in bad faith.

just gonna assume they're constantly having a really bad day every day but man if you're gonna make multiple blogs dedicated to speaking about disabled issues, maybe don't alienate a majority of the community & accuse them of not being "disabled enough" for you to fucking listen to them

[edenslice]

now that the year's over and i'm transferring to a different college, i'm now admitting that my time in uni has been so empty and it's eating me up inside

[14dayswithyou]

Some long-term followers may have noticed this subtle shift already (especially those who are in the 14DWY Discord server or have read this post), but I figured I'd make it official.

I'm no longer associating myself with the yandere VN community.

The TLDR is that the energy here really fuckin SUCKS!! And I don't want to be part of something so hostile and needlessly competitive.

The constant infighting and epicaricacy between communities is deeply upsetting, and it's very disheartening to see aspiring developers cancel their projects because of the unwarranted backlash and harassment they face.

Some entitled folks on here reeeeally need to understand that constantly harassing others for updates, encouraging developers to belittle others to make themselves/their project look better, complaining about a project not meeting the expectations you specifically put in place, attacking other communities because of the parasocial relationship you share with another developer, getting mad that you chose to ignore important PSAs or warnings and faced the repercussions, or even sending in hate messages on anon because you're bored are not things you should be doing — let alone be proud of.

I try to avoid bringing up these topics as it's not the vibe I want to have on this blog (nor do I want to negatively contribute to the Streisand Effect and blow things out of proportion), but I'm genuinely getting tired of being on the receiving end of all this harassment and negativity, seeing it happen to others, and watching other indie developers encourage such vile behaviour. I'm done.

For those wondering what this means for "14 Days With You": for the most part, everything will still continue like usual. I've said this from the very beginning, but 14DWY is just a passion project I pursue whenever I feel like it. It's something I do for fun as a hobby — not because I want to publish a well-known game or turn it into a career. I've been on Tumblr for over thirteen years now, and it's taught me how to grow thick skin, so everything that I'm yapping and yammering about won't stop me from working on 14DWY.

However, this does mean that I won't be as interactive with other developers or their communities anymore; many ill-natured people have ruined this for me.

Because of them, I'm no longer able to voice my opinion on other games without some opinionated rat whispering in my ear about how the developer is "problematic" or that I could get cancelled for simply following them on Twitter. I can't interact with certain games without its parasocial community becoming hostile or gatekeepy towards anyone they don't like. I've seen communities belittle and devalue promising demos because in their eyes, nothing can compare to their favourite game (or their favourite developer). I have been harassed, bullied, and doxxed by other communities and have seen the same thing happen to others as well. I've heard about the developers who weaponise their community's loyalty to attack and drive out their competition. And I've witnessed more than enough developers expressing how badly they want to take a hiatus due to how much unwarranted negativity they receive, but don't want to disappoint their community by doing so.

By saying all of this, you can understand why I dislike being here so much, as well as why I no longer find any enjoyment in interacting with the yandere VN community.

Many people here — fans and developers alike — are so needlessly pushy about their standards and personal opinions being the norm, and if anyone else goes against them, they'll purposefully try to ostracise and bully them out of the community. This place isn't as laid-back or inclusive as it used to be, and I don't want to be associated with a community that acts so hostile and aggressive towards anyone who shares a differing opinion — nor do I want to be part of a space that caters towards developers who'll tear down others in order to have a moment of relevancy.

We're all doing our own thing and making our own games; it shouldn't be a competition. But if you see it as such, then I urge you to take a moment to stop and rethink your actions — or, at the very least, understand how it's affecting you and others around you.

So until there's a reasonable change and people can go back to being less... demanding, hypercritical, and gatekeepy about who interacts with what, I'll be stepping away and continuing to stay in my own bubble, as I have for the past two years now. I've already unfollowed everyone associated with the yandere community many months ago, but I think I'll just unfollow everyone entirely now for my own peace of mind. I will also no longer be interacting with any yandere VN communities (aside from close friends), nor will I be as public with my interests from this moment on. Everything on this blog will be strictly related to 14DWY like usual, and I will continue to block and report any spiteful "anons"/burner accounts sent my way and delete their messages.

Again, this isn't really much of an announcement — it's more so just paragraphs of me bitchin and moanin 🫶 — but I wanted to get this all out there instead of leaving things unsaid and having people come to their own conclusions as to why I've suddenly become less active, less optimistic, and why I've stopped engaging with a majority of the yandere community in the last two years.

So, yeah... ^^; If there's anything I want y'all to take away from this entire post, it's to be kind, open, and understanding towards everyone — developers and communities alike — and to spread support rather than negativity. It's what I want my own community to be known for, so please be mindful of how you treat others online.

And if you find yourself being surrounded by constant toxicity and negativity (be it from friends, mutuals, or even other developers or communities), please don't feel ashamed to step away or cut them off entirely. Put yourself and your mental health first. I also think it'll be good for me to leave all this negative energy behind and continue to kick off 2025 in a better light, so if y'all need to let out any frustrations of your own, feel free to go ham in the replies (obviously, be kind and civil though jghsjg T_T)

[agallimaufryofoddments]

Incidentally, I resent the fact that most web traffic comes from mobiles in this day and age.

Incidentally, I also resent Tumblr Live being A Thing. The degradation of the mass mind continues.

[drdemonprince]

have you defined the meaning of “white woman brain” anywhere and if not, can you? /gen

Many Black and brown feminist writers have discussed this phenomenon and I encourage you to seek out a lot of writing about this subject, because there are a variety of perspectives, but to distill it, white woman fragility brain is a phenomenon that is not exclusive to either white people or to women, but is especially common among those who can weaponize white womanhood, and it consists of the following qualities:

A view of oneself as a helpless victim that is constantly in threat of being attacked, especially by strangers (even though statistically, this is not the case).

A refusal to consider oneself as capable of doing harm to others, especially a lack of consideration toward others' body autonomy or consent. (even while being highly concerned about one's own autonomy and consent).

A generally passive or passive-aggressive orientation toward the world: seeing oneself as a romantic or sexual object to be approached, but never wanting to initiate (or feeling that one never can), never feeling comfortable directly communicating displeasure or one's desires, believing that others instead must guess at it. (and then resenting people when they don't, but never expressing it).

A tendency to cry, excessively berate oneself, complain about being made to feel "unsafe," or give up when criticized or challenged, especially when challenged by people of color.

A tendency to associate a person's body type with how much of a threat they are. For example, feeling unsafe around people with penises and expecting a social space to accommodate that fear to cater to you, a fear of people who come from cultures where it's common to speak loudly, a fear of those who are large, assertive, and/or darker-skinned.

Instinctive fawning-type responses to stress, and a pattern of feigning happiness, agreeability, and ease when one is not genuinely feeling it, and expecting all other people (but especially other women) to feign happiness as well, paired with a deep-seated resentment of anyone who violates this illusion and expresses any negativity (being especially punitive toward women of color).

Instinctively "smoothing over" conflict between other people before it even begins, even when healthy conflict is necessary and not at all your business-- often performed by gossiping behind other people's backs, triangulating information when it is not yours to share, asking people to alter their behavior in order to avoid a reaction from somebody else, presenting your concerns as if they were somebody else's ("what will people think!"), tone-policing the airing of grievances, derailing hard conversations with more light-hearted topics, and excluding people who are known to be candid and assertive.

Here are some articles on elements of the phenomenon and why it is so dangerous:

Now, I single white cis women out a lot when I am describing this phenomenon, because they have the most to gain from exhibiting these qualities, but make no mistake: this is a pattern that many types of people can and do use. I have seen white trans women use white women's tears to silence critique. I have witnessed women of color being passive-aggressively derailed and silenced by a Black manager who was in a position of institutional power over them. Multiple of the women who sexually harassed me in the story linked above were not white. And LORD knows I see plenty of t boys falling back on this shit, as well as cis men from wealthy backgrounds. It's a mindset that has deep colonial roots and we all must be on the look out for it in ourselves and others, and we must be vigilant in uprooting it.

[the-oracleof-delphi]

PAC: Your Future Spouse - their Relationship with their Parents

What sort of dynamics do they share with their parents? What are they like? We will not be focusing on genders or relations per se, rather dominant masculine energy and feminine energy in their lives. For ease of understanding I will use the term "mother" and "father". Pick a picture:

Pile One - Hot chocolate & marshmallow

For some of you, your future spouse may come from a single parent household. Their mother may not have spent a lot of time with them while they were growing up, maybe she did not get the chance to. She was busy, may have been the sole earner of the family, had to cater to a lot of people, could only take care of the material needs of her children but not their emotional needs. Your spouse sees their mother as someone who is stern and emotionally closed off. But at the same time she is wise - somewhat of a 'guiding light' for him, I sense a lot of respect and gratitude towards her. If there is a sibling, then both of them definitely look up to their mother a lot. I feel like they always consult her when making any career-related decisions. To them, she is a logical, capable, and a practical person who is rooted in reality. For a few of you, your spouse may be part of a family business. For others, they may be pursuing higher education - their career is funded by their mother in some way. The father was probably absent. For a very few of you, he may have cheated on your spouse's mother (I feel like he had a second family ? o.O) The parents may have separated when your spouse was quite young. I see a lack of communication with the father, there is quite a bit of distance, coldness and separation. For some, the father may have passed away.

Pile Two - Christmas cookies

Currently, your future spouse may be living at a distance from their family and they miss their home a lot. Especially now, during the holiday season - if they didn't get the chance to visit their hometown. Your spouse may get along very well with their mother - they may be a bit of a mama's boy. To them she is a nurturing and supportive person and I can see they are attached to her, but in a very healthy way. The mother is a source of emotional and material stability for them. They have a lot of fond memories from their childhood with her that they look back to from time to time. She is someone who celebrates your spouse. She never holds them back and encourages them to expand their horizons. Communication between them is free-flowing and easy-going. The father provides material stability to your spouse. Although they see their father as lot less emotional, and may be a bit more rigid and tough with them. They may sometimes feel like they need to earn their father's approval and that their father is generally displeased with them. This is your spouse's pov and may not be necessarily true. Overall I see a happy and satisfied family.

Pile Three - Christmas wreath

Your future spouse definitely comes from a pretty well-off family. I see the mother as bit of a prominent figure here - she has a lot on her plate. If she is working, then she is in a position of authority, if not then she probably comes from a very affluent family - I can see both power and prestige. Your spouse's relation with their mother may be stressful at times. But I don't sense any serious resentment towards her. They may feel like their mother never has enough time for them. Maybe she compensates by showering your spouse with a lot of material gifts. Although your spouse don't see their mother as much as they wished to, she still is a source of great comfort and joy for them. She is the one who makes the family complete. They are quite pampered and spoiled by her. She provides them both materially and emotionally. Communication between them is pretty direct and clear-cut. Your spouse may get some form of inheritance from their mother in the future. Their relationship with their father too is pretty balanced and stable. But, at the same time it can be a bit business-like (?) the father maybe a bit firm and emotionally detached. I feel like your spouse craves emotional closeness with their father but they feel it is out of their reach. Maybe in the past they felt like the father intentionally robbed them of that emotional fulfillment. But their views may have changed now. They definitely see their father to be someone at the top of whatever they do - well respected and secure. There is a lot of admiration for him from your spouse. edit: corrected typo, changed a few lines. Overall meaning stays the same.

Credit: @/i-hani and @/saradika-graphics on tumblr

[anistarrose]

So, it's not a moral failing to be bad at what I'm about to describe. But collectively, most of Tumblr is bad at identifying polls that function as bait for bigotry and harassment. Polls that, either intentionally or unintentionally, encourage people to spew hatred about a marginalized queer sub-community — because that sub-community is considered, at least by some, an acceptable enough target.

Most of us have probably seen that polyamory poll go around (as of September 2024). Fewer people have probably taken a look at the notes on that poll — and in many ways, that's for the best, because a lot of the notes are fucking vile. I won't link the poll itself, but content warning for threats of domestic violence and suicide in just this sampling. I don't know enough about the poll creator to make assumptions towards their intent, but that poll was functionally bait, acting as encouragement for people to spew vitriol and bigotry.

And none of this is specific to that individual poll! In December 2023, a single person made a series of polls about friends with benefits, and the "question" of whether aromantic heterosexual cisgender men were queer — and those polls led to huge waves of arophobia and sex negativity (inseparable from, let's be honest, some mask-off radfem shit). On top of that, multiple polls about people's feelings towards sex, or experiences with such, have turned into a festival for bashing both asexuals and virgins — insofar as the people doing the bashing use those words as anything but interchangeable insults.

Polyamorous people. Aromantic people, especially aromantic allosexuals. Asexual people, especially those who are virgins or sex-repulsed. That's a clear and obvious trend — they're all people who do relationships differently. People whose relationships and identities are considered "cringe." Who are considered acceptable targets to mock within the queer community. Making fun of "polycule drama," making fun of "queerplatonic," making fun of a-spec microlabels.

So many people who call themselves sex-positive refuse to extend that positivity to polyamorous people and aromantic people. To casual sex, to sex without monogamous romance. They insist that the polyamorous, the aromantic, are in fact the predators, the abusers, the degenerate queers that the conservative pearl-clutching queerphobes were right about. They tack on asexuals to the "abuser" category, too, because allegedly no one could ever be happy in a relationship with an asexual; because allegedly it's manipulative to your partner to refuse sex! Meanwhile, asexuality and sex repulsion are conflated with the completely different concept of sex negativity, twisting the language of sexual liberation to demonize asexuals further...

And yes, polls play a role in all of this! Of course, not every poll about sexual experiences, for one example, is a poll intended to bait or to harm people! But if they blow up, there is a high risk of people feeling emboldened to comment things like: "so many people are okay with casual sex, or multiple sexual partners! this is what's wrong with the world, it's all just toxic hookup culture!" Or if not that, then things like: "look how few people on this virgin loser website have had sex! this is what's responsible for cultural sex negativity! they'd all be better, more progressive queers if they just got laid more!"

And that's not even getting into the obvious, and obviously intentional bait. The "cishet aromantic men" poll, most egregiously. Clout-chasers hide behind the veil of "I'm just curious about people's opinions!" and then, put out a poll catered to the most rancid, exclusionist, verging-on-radfem opinions. At the very least, catered to platforming them seriously, when people inevitably feel emboldened to say that shit they've been thinking.

And "emboldened" really is the key word here. These polls increase the social acceptability of saying cruel shit about polyamorous people, a-spec people, and whoever else becomes the queer community's acceptable target of the year. The groups discussed in this post are by no means the only popular targets for harassment and exclusionism, but they are some of the most egregious examples I've seen personally, and they are tied together by their non-normative approaches to relationships or lack thereof. Moreover, the groups overlap — I am personally aromantic and asexual, not polyamorous — but even then, my struggles with amatonormativity overlap with those of polyamorous people.

And I bring this up because for years, I've witnessed popular Tumblr bloggers attack a-specs and polyamorous people within the same posts. With the same tactics, using cringe culture in addition to demonizing alternative types of relationships. Now, polls are another weapon for harassing us. And, it is... absolutely exhausting.

Of course, there's obviously a sliding scale of how prone polls can be to harassment. I don't think polls just asking about people's sexual experiences need to be totally anathemized and blotted off the face of the earth, for example — but you know, maybe consider searching OP's blog for "asexual" and some other keywords before you reblog one?

Furthermore, maybe just don't reblog polls about "does X count as LGBTQ," even if you're in support, because you're still legitimizing the poll to begin with. Maybe proceed with caution with posts that mention polyamory, even if not in an inflammatory way, unless maybe you know that OP is polyam themselves. Maybe block, obviously don't harass, but just silently and unceremoniously block people that make a lot of clout-chasing polls about controversial queer issues.

I don't know. I don't have all the answers. I'm not an expert on catching these red flags myself — the first time I saw the polyamory poll, I ignored it just because it was irrelevant to me as a non-partnering person, not because I clocked it as something that would generate hate and threats. So really, if I do have a plea to end on — it's just to listen to people, polyam and a-spec and otherwise, when they say that some post is generating hate and threats towards them. And then, maybe, try to learn some red and orange flags from the experience.

None of us are part of every queer sub-community that Tumblr loves to harass. We all have blind spots, and that's inevitable, not a failure of you as a person. But after seeing so many of these bait polls go around, after seeing multiple rallying effects in the communities followed by people letting their guards down, and circulating a slightly different bait poll... well? I just hope that eventually, people will be willing to learn.