#I migrated to twitter against my will

[arriettvs]

Love the fact that I stopped using tumblr in 2021 cuz nothing loads and when I come back after 3 years still nothing loads

Tumblr it’s actually not me it’s you

[thegalleonsnest]

OK since I haven't seen too many people talk about this since twitter news usually strikes pretty fast over here whenever e'usk does anything ever, let me give ya'll the run down on two things that will go live on NOVEMBER 15TH and why people are mass migrating to Blue Sky once more; and provide resources to help protect your art and make the transition to Blue Sky easier if you so choose:

The Block function no longer blocks people as intended. It now basically acts as a glorified Mute button. Even when you block someone, they can still see your posts, but they can't engage in them. If your account is a Public one and not a Private one, people you blocked will see your posts.

They say because people can easily "share and hide harmful or private information about those they've blocked," they changed it this way for "greater transparency." When in reality, this is an extremely dangerous change, as the whole point of blocking is to cease interaction with people entirely for a plethora of reasons, i.e. stalking, harassment, spam, endangerment, or just plainly annoying and not wanting to see said tweets/accounts. or you know, for 18+ accounts who do not want minors interacting with them or their material at all (There is speculation saying these changes are specifically for Elon himself so he can do his own kind of stalking, and honestly, with the private likes change, it lowkey checks out in my opinion)

Also, this straight up goes against and may violate Apple and Google's app store policies and also is straight up illegal in Canada and probably other countries as well.

If this ACTUALLY goes through, twitter will only be available in select countries, probably exclusively in the US, which would collapse the site with the lost of users and stock, and probably be the last push it needs to kill the site. And if not, will be a very sad and exclusive platform made for specific kinds of people who line up with musk's line of thinking.

2. New policies regarding Grok AI and basically removing the option to opt out of Grok's information gathering to improve their software.

And anything you upload/post on the site is considered "fair game" with "royalty-free licenses" and they can do whatever they please with it. Primarily using any and all posts on twitter to train their Grok AI. A few months ago, there was a setting you can opt out of so they couldn't take anything you post to "improve" Grok, but I guess because so many people were opting out, they decided to make it mandatory as part of the policy change (This is mainly speculation from what I hear).

So this is considered the final straw for a LOT of people, especially artists who have been gripping on to twitter for as long as they can, but the AI nonsense is too much for people now, including myself. Lot's of people are moving to Blue Sky for good reason, and from personal experience, it is literally 10x better than twitter ever was, even before elon took over. There is no algorithm on there, and you can save "feeds" to your timeline to have a catered timelines to hop between if your looking for something specific like furry art or game dev stuff. It's taken them a bit to get off the ground and add much needed features, but it's genuinely so much better now

RESOURCES

Project Glaze & Cara

If you're an artist who's still on twitter or trying to ride it out for as long as you can for whatever reason you have, do yourself a favor and Glaze and/or Nightshade your work. Project Glaze is a free program designed to protect your art work from getting scrapped by AI machines. Glazing basically makes it harder to adapt and copy artwork that AI programs try to scan, while Nightshade basically "poisons" works to make AI libraries much more unstable and generate images completely off the mark. (These are layman's terms I'm using here, but follow the link to get more information)

The only problem with these programs is that they can be resource intensive for computers, and not every pc can run glaze. It's basically like rendering a frame/animation, you gotta let your pc sit there to get it glazed/nightshade, and depending on the intensity and power of your pc, this may take minutes to hours depending on how much you wanna protect your work.

HOWEVER, there are two alternatives, WebGlaze and Cara

WebGlaze is an in browser version of the program, so your pc doesn't have to do the heavy lifting. You do need to have an account with Glaze and be invited to use the program (I have not done so personally so I don't know much about the process.)

Cara is an artist focused site that doubles as both a portfolio site and a general social media platform. They've partnered with Glaze and have their own browser glazing called "Cara Glaze," and highly encourage users to post their work Glazed and are extremely anti-ai. You do get limited uses per day to glaze your work, so if you plan on doing a huge backlog uploading of your art, it may take awhile if your using just Cara Glaze.

Some twitter users have suggested glazing your art, cropping it, and overlaying it with a frame telling people to follow them elsewhere like on Bluesky. Here's a template someone provided if you wanna use this one or make your own.

Blue Sky Resources and Tips

So if your a twitter user and your about to realize the hellish task of refollowing a massive chunk of people you follow, have no fear, there's an extension called Sky Follower Bridge (Firefox & Chrome links). This is a very basic extension that makes it really easy to find people on Bluesky

It sorts them out by trying to find matching usernames, usernames in descriptions, or by screen name. It's not 100% perfect, there's a couple people I already follow on Blue Sky but the extension could not find them on twitter correctly, but I still found a huge chunk of people. Also if your worried that this extension is "iffy," they do have a github open with the source publicly available and the Blue Sky Team themselves have promoted the extension in their recent posts while welcoming new users to the platform.

FEEDS and LABELS

OK SO THE COOLEST PART ABOUT BLUESKY IS THE FEEDS SYSTEM. Basically if you've made a twitter list before, it's like that, but way more customizable and caters to specific types of posts/topics. Consolidating them into a timeline/feed that exclusively filled about those particular topics, or just people in general. There's thousands to pick and choose from!

Here's a couple of mine that I have saved and ready (down below). Some feeds I have saved so I can jump to seeing what my friends and mutuals are up to, and see their posts specifically so it doesn't get lost in reposts or other accounts, and also specialized feeds for browsing artists within the furry community.

The Furry Community feeds I have here were created by people who've built an algorithm to place any #furry or #furryart or other special tags like #Furrystreamer or #furrydev. They even have one for commissions, and yes you can say commissions on a post and not have it destroyed or shadow banned. You are safe.

If you want, and I highly recommend it to get visibility and check out a neat community, follow furryli.st to get added to their list and feeds. Once your on the list, even without a hashtag, you'll still pop up in their specialized feeds as just a member of the community there. There are plenty of other feeds out there besides this one, but I feel like a lot of people could use one like this. They even got ones for OC specific too I remember seeing somewhere.

And in terms of labels, they can be either ways to help label yourself with specific things or have user created accessibility settings to help better control your experience on Blue Sky.

And my personal favorite: Ai Imagery Labeler. Removes any AI stuff or hides it to the best of it's abilities, and it does a pretty good job, I have not seen anything AI related since subscribing to it.

Finally, HASHTAGS WORK & No need to censor yourself!

This is NOT like twitter or any other big named social media site AT ALL, so you don't have to work around words to get your stuff out there and be seen. There are literally feeds built around having commissions getting and art seen! Some people worry about bots and that has been a recent issue since a lot of people are migrating to Blue Sky, but it comes with any social media territory.

ALSO COOL PART,

you can search a hashtag on someone's profile and search exclusively on that profile as well! You can even put the hashtag in bio for easy access if you have a specialize tag like here on tumblr. OR EVEN BUILD YOUR OWN ART FEED FOR YOUR STUFF SPECIFICALLY!

So yeah, there's your quick run down about twitter's current burning building, how to protect your art, and what to do when you move to Blue Sky! Have fun!

[xinyuehui]

I couldn't put on a finger on why the whole tiktok migration to xhs left a sour taste in me until I got annoyed at recent subtle sinophobic comments towards Love and Deepspace left in the tags. (It's a Chinese game that has a global/English server)

Which had me thinking and seeking out if other people felt the same way. The Americans found a new platform, the Chinese on the platform are welcoming and attempts to speak to the Americans in English. Cool, what is left? The third group of people out here that aren't Americans or Chinese in China, it's us Chinese diaspora that live outside of China (in particular the west). We learnt English, forced to erase everything Chinese about ourselves to fit in here fit in there but never fully get accepted into any community. Online spaces are no better, we get all sorts of hate even though we are all communicating in English. One comment that I read on tumblr here a while back that really struck me was op posted something regrading Chinese culture and some white person dismissed op for having a Chinese url so they must not speak English to speak on a Chinese topic.

Americans barging themselves into other people's spaces seemingly with no effort is the most white privilege behaviour ever. Some of them don't bother learning the language, the culture, or social etiquettes. To call it 'refugees' in this current climate is lowkey insensitive even as a joke. Some are just outright racist saying they are there to colonise the app. The offhanded uninformed political jokes are also on thin ice. If this was reversed and a massive group of Chinese people suddenly joins instagram/twitter/tumblr, starts posting in Chinese, the comment sections will not be as 'haha funny' and 'wholesome' as the ones on xhs.

White people posting selfies on the app is harvesting thousands of likes and compliments is the prime example of white privilege, they don't have to work hard to get far, boosting their egos further more. How am I supposed to feel even when I share something on here of my culture either get no recognition or sinophobic comments?

There's a sense of helplessness when I see my people pandering to the white, similar to when Chinese diaspora/Chinese in China on the discussion of cultural appropriation. The experiences the two groups have are vastly different. I don't blame them for this. China, for the most part, is still a very closed society, a handful of them probably never left the country, interacted with a white person or had any prejudice against them for being Chinese. To them, it's just an amusing conversation or two without much thought. At the end of the day when the Americans leave the app, it'll be another fever dream. But for us, we still have to go to work with these privileged white people, come home from work to what I thought was a Chinese safe space to find that insufferable co-worker is on xhs going 'hello China [google translate some nonsense]'.

That said, I suppose for me who is able to post this on tumblr is a somewhat privilege move. For the people in China, it is an avenue to interact with Americans on a large scale without having to use a vpn. The welcoming atmosphere gives me peace knowing that to be respectful is still in our core. For the Americans, whether they are on the app out of spite without thinking of the consequences or to learn about China with an open mind, only time will tell if they will remain on xhs after the fad dies out.

[tshifty]

anyways, I genuinely do hope that a big portion of tiktok users migrate here to tumblr. and before yall start with the "NO WE HATE TIKTOKERS" "dont invade my website" shit like. imma need you to seriously look at the bigger picture.

twitter has become x which is now a breeding ground for alt-right ideologies and is rapidly becoming state sponsored media.

meta, so facebook and instagram and threads, are now heading down the same road as twitter/x. they're no longer fact checking the content, and are scaling back hate speech protections.

so, what does that leave us? snapchat, bluesky... and other random apps? tumblr objectively is the best option for the type of communities that exist on tiktok.

and I'm really talking about this from a keeping connected to each other and globally perspective, from a "we need to fight against censorship as much as possible as we continue our descent into fascism". the more connected americans are to each other and to everyone else in the world the better for everyone. the less connected we are the worse off we will ultimately be. we need to know what is happening outside of the media our government wants us to consume, and the world needs to know what is happening here too.

[nerdishpursuits]

Okay, this post is all over the place. Meaning it's a collection of thoughts that span over the last couple of weeks. Simply jotting things down as I watched and as they occurred to me. So, ye be warned. Here be a case of the verbose. It never ceases to baffle me, truly, how even the best content can trigger malcontent. And when it comes to this show the best example remains Twitter: the poster app for a flaming dumpster fire. Why people don’t just migrate over to BlueSky is just as dumbfounding. Oh well. Muting and blocking certainly helps curate the experience.

By all means, shall we vent (a little?)

1. Apparently Marta and Fina are too cringe-worthy in their dialogue now, as no one in real life would ever talk to their partner that way. Do I agree with this assessment? Most certainly not.

If anything, I find such scenes supremely satisfying. They reinforce the depth of their love and commitment to each other and manage to, somehow, always sound like wedding vows. At this point, honestly, I’d take this kind of scene over the more explicit ones reserved for the family values crowd. I prefer it because those other couples lack this in-depth emotional journey that we’re being treated to with Mafin.

The way Fina adores and cherishes Marta, how she supports her unconditionally. The reverence Marta holds for Fina, how she sees in her the embodiment of peace, of home, of love, of all that is well and good in the world. They are strong on their own, but together? Together they are invincible.

To me it’s obvious you can only have this kind of relationship with your partner if your level of comfort and trust in each other is absolute (nudge nudge wink wink @midniteowlet) And this is how Marta and Fina come across to me: beautifully at ease in each other’s presence, wonderfully supportive of one another, always nurturing and speaking a language of their own. A language of the heart that's intrinsically theirs.

So when they hold each other and confess their love in such a pure, unadulterated way, holding nothing back and simply allowing themselves to speak their truth? It’s a thing of beauty.

You are my example, Marta, my inspiration. You are the staff upon which I lean, whenever I feel myself fading. You are like a bird in flight, battered by the winds that try to bring you down. But always, always you soar again

You are a water lily, for the dirtier the water, the more beautiful the flower grows, so elegant, so serene

You are my strength. I need your embraces, your kisses. To rest in your arms, if only for a few hours, for they are the only place I find solace

To me these kind of dialogues and confessions never feel saccharine. It’s an expression of longing and love, of trust and admiration. And they stay true to the essence of a relationship between two women, where such displays of emotional and psychological authenticity take center stage.

And then we get a kiss. How nuanced the meeting of their lips. For Marta, the profound need to drink from this love that soothes her, cradles her, embraces her, ignites her and brings light and joy to an ever increasing darkness. For Fina, the selfless surrender, the ardent devotion, the intense admiration and the purest love. Theirs is a kiss that heals. A kiss that is home.

Bonus. Fina defending Marta against anyone who dares question her integrity and feeling so protective of her wife who often carries the weight of her family on her shoulders.

2. Optical delusions during the Marta & Pelayo scenes? Mind boggling. Personally, I'm quite enjoying them. I mean ... Fina's gentle touch has rubbed off on Marta 😌

3. Marta sarcastically saying she'll have to meet her future mother in law? Apparently not sitting well with some people. Sarcasm and irony have always been Marta's way of dealing with stressful situations. She's always been shown to awkwardly crack a joke, especially when things feel overwhelming and depressing. Seeing anything else in that? Claiming that she was all happy at the prospect of meeting that woman? Way off mark, imho. Marta and Fina are trying to make the best of an unpleasant reality. They have accepted this is the path they need to walk, but they also admit it's a painful one. I wish people would stop seeing things that aren't there. Considering they've done nothing but reinforce how much Marta & Fina are married to each other? Maybe one day it'll resonate that Marta's marriage to Pelayo is solely for convenience and something to, hopefully, offer protection.

Will they suffer because of it? Yes. Will they be dealing with the contraptions of a marriage, even though it's a fake one? Yes. Will their time be cut short, leaving them desperate to interact with each other? Also yes. In theory, this marriage will solve x and y. In practice, it will bring a host of problems they've not dealt with before: Pelayo's political career will place them under a microscope, Marta will be expected to play the dutiful wife in public, Fina will again feel like the odd one out (even though she is the sole reason Marta agreed to remarry). The world they want to fence out is very much pressing in, invading a space they want to call their own. The world will always demand its pound of flesh. But as long as they hold steady, hold fast and hold onto each other? They can make it work.

On to greener pastures.

Marta wanting to help Gema because she understands her need and desire to work, to feel useful and in control of ones life? I really loved their scene together and I don't think they've ever had a tête-à-tête before. I also love the fact that Gema doesn't aim for a position where she'd be in charge and doesn't shy away from hard work. I think that speaks well of her character. That being said? While I love Marta interceding for Gema with Joaquin, once again proving that her generosity and kindness knows no bounds? I do worry abut one thing with Gema: she's made of gossip. She'll be poking her nose into everyone's business, soon learning that Marta & Fina are together and who knows what she'll do with that information. To be frank, I'd been hoping Gema becomes the store overseer and robs Carmen of her position. That would have made for good drama and would have served as another lesson for Tasio, given he was loudly proclaiming he voted against Marta to secure Carmen's position. We shall see what this move holds in store and if Fina warms up to her. Gema is not a bad person. Let's trust she'll make the right choice. At least we got some peak comedy from the scene between Gema, Claudia & Fina.

Speaking of. Marta is too kind. Too kind to Andres, to Joaquin, to Tasio. However, in the long run she stands to win more if she's gracious and understanding. Hatred never leads anywhere good and Marta? Marta simply isn't made that way.

Still? Team Fina here. Fina and her perpetual hatred of anyone who hurts Marta. True to her feisty nature, Fina's there, representing, staring daggers into traitors. She's strong enough to hate them all, for the both of them. Forza, Fina!!!

Honestly though, I'd dearly love a scene where these a-holes apologize to Marta. But, hey. She's smarter than I am. Picking her battles and all that. Certainly not worth it to rage against the windmills. Better to sit it out and bide her time. Her moment will come again.

I suppose it just irks me somewhat when certain plot-points, that carry weight, seem to fall to the wayside. Or do they? Time will tell.

Curious about Irene. I suspect, long-term, she'll be against her brother. It would seem she does not approve of his methods.

Best thing about the Andres drama? Not seeing Andres. I guess Marta lost the directorship so she could play detective in his case. Too bad he's back now and comes up with brilliant ideas like the families rotating leadership every 6 months. The one great thing about Marta not being in charge was Joaquin having to struggle with the damn bathhouse on his own. Remains to be seen if anything comes of that. I'm not much of a business mind but this suggestion seems off to me. It can only work if there is trust and a willingness to cooperate. Given all the bad blood between these families right now? Maybe it's not such a good idea. Curious if they'll take this idea and run with it. Oh, well. Some Mafin goodness today. A sprinkle of sour'n'sweet, a pinch of shared concerns, a dash of comfort and some good ol' domestic ribbing.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Saw you still took fandom asks (hope you still do).

One thing I've been really, really hating is that leftists have all the major social media sites on their side, including the ones most commonly used for fandom stuff (Tumblr, Twitter/X, and others), and I don't like the cultures in any of these spaces, so I've migrated to fan-created sites and spaces that, while older, are still active. I like these spaces more because other than the standard "don't be an asshole" rule, people are free to speak and write however they like and it's been this way since these spaces began because they're not under the heavy hand of censorship like social media is. I'm also in very apolitical fandoms because I don't like my entertainment lecturing me.

I haven't been on these sites or in these fandoms as long as other fandom veterans have (about five years or so), but I understand and like how they operate. Unfortunately, I've seen more and more stories being posted of "[character] bashes the fash!" or [character] is trans/autistic/kinnie uwu!" or profiles popping up with pronouns, DNI lists, and whatever popular leftist slogan in their bios when they weren't there before. And now they're walking around talking about how this and that is "problematic/bullying/toxic," bossing people around and doing what they do. "If you like this classic fic/writer who we've deemed Problematic™ in the current day for basically no reason then you're a bad person," stuff like that.

Another thing is that I like when writers take these cutesy slice of life shows I enjoy and flip them on their head to turn them dark and gritty because I'm also into horror/depressing stuff, and I think it's interesting to see where they take it. I'm not into smut but of course that's there too. I don't have an issue with it existing because I just ignore it since I know it's not my thing. They can write what they want. However, of course these new users take issue with this and are basically accusing people of being, like, mentally deranged or something for writing a gory/sad/smutty fic about these bright and colorful characters. "Oh, of course a man wrote this," is the most common insult, despite the fact I know of many women in the fandom(s) who have been there longer than I have and have been praised for writing/drawing/etc this exact content before the angry villagers showed up, and I'm a woman who likes the darker content. It just shows they don't look into anything at all.

It's funny though because the sites I use have likes and dislikes for both stories and comments. Since people are recognizing that these randos are trying to change these spaces to fit their wants instead of following the culture of the site(s), all of their political or virtue-signaling stories/comments get hella downvoted, so at least there's that I guess. No matter anyone's personal beliefs, they at least know not to let politics get in the way of a good fanfiction or art piece. The one thing I'll give the major fandom spaces is that at least they have the ability to block tags. The sites I use don't so I just gotta wade through all the new trash to find older good stuff.

Maybe I'm just bitching but these are the types of people who constantly tell everyone else to "go make their own spaces if you don't like the other ones," but when we do they try to take it over or get rid of it completely and it's annoying lol. Once again they don't take their own advice.

Leftists in fandom spaces are a virus. They exist solely to propagate their own views and opinions, bully everyone into following their rules, and drive out anyone who pushes back against them. And the sad thing is they're so easy to defeat. Just tell them to fuck off and kick them out. They have no power that isn't given to them. But people are so scared of being called an ist or a phobe or having mean comments astroturfed onto their works that they give in. And once they've completely ruined a space they just move onto the next one. I've seen it happen so many times, and it's always infuriating.

[lockandkeyhyena]

as someone who’s followed ur content for awhile, this entire situation just seems.. kinda stupid? like people would benefit from actual communication instead of just looking away and such.

i say this as a lesbian: i was previously a twitter user, left a little before the “tumblr migration” in fact. and yeah, twitter definitely has “against mspec lesbian” stuff, and joining tumblrbshocked me. seeing a community so supportive of mspec lesbians was confusing, weren’t they “wrong”? lesbiphobic? enbyphobic? etc, etc, etc. i felt awkward saying anything though, so i didn’t reblog or anything, but sometimes i’d read through them. i had realized i.. never took a moment to read about the other side, never looked at their perspective on things, just that they were “bad” and they were “harmful”.

after all this time, i’ll say it. i still don’t exactly *get* mspec gays! they’re so complicated even for me and as a lesbian i can’t understand truly, but there is one thing i’ve processed: why does it matter? where is the harm? sure, if they were forcing labels onto others (and yeah, some where forcing labels onto nonbinary lesbians, but that was SOME.) and being assholes about it, yeah i’d see harm, but if anything.. the rest of the community is the harmful one. we’re policing identities, we’re telling people how they’re allowed to feel comfortable.

nonbinary people don’t like being put in a box: they’re not a neat third gender (fourth gender? does intersex count?) they’re a spectrum of people all with relations to gender, to themselves. they can be masculine, feminine, even gnc. it doesn’t matter to other people, nobody else can control their relationship to gender, because it’s special to them.

people who identify with multiple genders or who swap between genders don’t like being put in a box: they could be “non-men” or “non-women”, but they could be both, they could be neither—anything! they shouldn’t have to or need to make a choice to what they are, that’s the entire point of their identity.

fuck, the entire point of the lgbt community is that we don’t like being put in a box!! we didn’t want to be straight or cis or whatever, we wanted to be us!!! so why should we box mspec gays??

i guess this is an apology to mspec gays for my behavior in the past, for echoing the voices of those policing their identity. they didn’t deserve that, i should have known better and hopefully i know better now.

hey, this is incredibly lovely of you anon! thanks for this ask

[roaldseth]

Need to just let some frustrations out with the “migration to Bluesky” because it’s been 3 days and I can’t dispel this by my usual means.

For the unaware, due to some TOS changes to Twitter, people really have finally started moving over to Bluesky in droves. There’s something like over 18m people now, which I am happy for, however that’s been putting a lot of positivity on my feed that… has rubbing against my grain if only because I’m a plane that got shot down and never came back to be counted amongst the statistics. Me—and probably tons of other small artists/accounts—are finding things just as equally as difficult, discouraging, and despairing as they always have been.

“Create what you like and your people will find you!” “It’s so refreshing to see that so many artists are getting love now because we don’t have to deal with shitty algorithm problems!”—they’re nice sentiments, but once again I’m forced to remember these kind of posts are not for me or regarding me, and they never will be. I’m an undesirable no one will ever care about and it does kinda feel like the “everyone deserves success, except you.”

People always say “create for yourself” but honestly it doesn’t matter if I do or don’t because the result is usually the same either way. “Create for yourself” also doesn’t consider that a point of why I create for myself is the slim hope of finding the people that supposedly will come.

And as someone who was the “weird kid” in school and found solace online because it was easier to make things smaller to then also be “rejected” by it, it really drives home that the problem is me and it always has been me and I really do wish that I was just a living vision of an average person. I certainly think things would be kinder.

It’s ironic too. There was one brief moment in time on Twitter where I felt like I was perhaps alright, had the most fun I’ve ever had, and it was when there was an algorithm and Likes showed up on timelines. But that’s no more anywhere. The rug was yanked out and I was left to go back to thinking “oh right,” and here we are. I worked from bad art to slightly less bad art, and now that I feel like I finally have something somewhat passable as presentable, it still doesn’t work.

And I know 10 years ago my art and writing was shit! I wouldn’t want to have followed me either and there were so many times I wanted to quit while being quite literally depressed! I still look back and think I should have, I should just stopped long ago because I will not be missed, but for some godforsaken reason I am still here and I hate it.

The one holdout that says it all worked out is that I do find people, they are the others like me who have dirt lawns and simply dream of having grass at all, and we find each other. And I know this is true, and honestly my ideal situation, but because it’s not the thing I think I want in my head, I reject it. But in the end I don’t know how to switch over to being okay with what is and not the vision of what I think will make me happy.

[nightlyentity]

As TikTok, and whatever these out of touch fossils deem as a “foreign adversary”, will soon be taken away from the U.S.A by it’s come to my attention that people will most definitely migrate here to Tumblr. Not only that, but people want ways to fight back.

I have not been on Tumblr for too long, so unfortunately I can’t describe all of its custom as a social media platform. I will leave to more immersed and older users of this platform, if they’re willing, to introduce the TikTok refugees to all of our randomness.

What I can say is ways to fight back against this ban ⬇️⬇️:

- Delete your whatsapp, facebook, instagram, and twitter. Doing this would annihilate the stocks of Meta and Elon. And don’t return to the app after one day. Stay away from it, maybe wait a week or two. Or better yet, don’t return until they hear your voice ringing in their ears and their wallets lose weight.

- Sign petitions! 250 million people can absolutely make news headlines and bring change. Remember, WE the people have power, not them.

- Diversify! I recommend joining Bluesky, or the upcoming Neptune, Red Note. I would’ve recommended other platforms but Instagram is incredibly miserable and evil, and Youtube’s comments haven’t changed since 2019. Unfortunately, things exclusively liked by TikTok like dry humor or edits simply won’t work on other apps.

- Stop paying your taxes.

- Make The Adjuster’s game multiplayer.

Do not let your lives become realities shown in 1984, Fahrenheit 451, The HandMaid’s Tale, etc. Dystopian fiction should not become your reality.

[chaifootsteps]

Seeing lots of artists from Instagram & Twitter migrate over to Cara (some deleting their accounts) due to instagram not allowing you to Opt out basically holding your account hostage and using/stealing your data for Ai.

Most are saying Care is going to be the “big artist alternative site” from now on due it being against Ai but I’m just reminded of how a lot of people said similar things regarding Blue sky, Thread, Hive, & Buzzy becoming the next successful Twitt/Insta replacement only to all return back to posting on Twitter/Instagram again once all the hype died down or the site didn’t match up with expectations as people hyped it up to be.

Sorry if I may have resend the same ask, I’m really sleepy rn and barely staying awake so my mind is not fully up.

Sad, but true. Call me when we're all sure it's here to stay.

[justagalwhowrites]

It feels immensely silly to be hanging out in my little fandom space working on my little fandom stories when there's a literal fucking genocide happening across the world. There's not much I can do BUT I know a lot of you read the things I write so please please PLEASE read this and then do what you can do to help.

Make sure you're educated about this conflict and understand the history. This is a good basic timeline (taking a centrist "unbiased" view) but the big takeaway is this: Palestine was forcibly partitioned into two states in the 1940s (though there was mass migration to Palestine in the 1920s and 30s) and Palestine did not recognize this partition. Palestinians were forced off their land and Israel - with backing from western powers - took control. Palestinians have been forcibly displaced in favor of colonialist settlers ever since.

Consume news responsibly to stay informed. If you're looking for a reliable western based news source, use the Associated Press. They have reporters on the ground in Gaza and Jerusalem. They report information provided by both sides with context and they are free to read.

If you're American, contact your representatives and senators! Find your representative here and your senator here. Insist on cutting off military aid to Israel, insist on backing a ceasefire, insist on increased humanitarian aid to Palestinians, especially in Gaza. You can call or email, it's very easy, I promise!

UNDERSTAND THAT BEING ANTIZIONIST IS NOT BEING ANTISEMITIC. Many Jewish people are antizionist because this conflict is not about religion. This is about land being stolen from oppressed people and those people facing genocide for pushing back against it. Yes, any loss of life is sad but the tragic death of civilian settlers (which is an inherently violent act) in Israel is a drop in the fucking bucket compared to what has been happening to Palestinians for a century. Jewish people deserve to practice their religion and be safe, happy and healthy. That does not require the genocide of indigenous people to create an ethnostate.

Use your platforms to share what's happening in Palestine. There's a communications blackout there, don't let this happen in darkness. Do your part to force the world to see it. #CeasefireNOW on Twitter is a good place to start.

I hope you're taking care of yourselves right now and standing up for the people who need it. This is a horrific act and a terrifying time for our world. But if you're able to even read this post, please recognize the privilege you have and leverage it.

Thank you for reading this. I know it's a lot but I hope it helps. When I say I love you, please know that I mean that.

Love you all ❤️

[lovecorxx]

just my personal feelings about all this, not necessarily a vent or a rant, probably a bit of positivity and reassurance as well.

amongst the US tik tok ban, it should be said that nuance is always always important. as someone living in a country where our govt is highly corrupt too (well, are there any countries without a corrupt government, should be the question...) we all should be coming together as one, despite our differences in culture and oppression.

i can understand chinese people are also people just like the rest of us while also being against their government. i can understand US americans are also people just like the rest of us while also being against their government, seriously, fuck trump all the way. as much as i have my gripes for tik tok, i will NEVER EVER side with trump. he's a pos and i'm not naive enough to think this isn't gonna widely effect other countries as well, seeing that the US is a global superpower.

personally, i won't ever install rednote, i'm not interested in it. tik tok has traumatized me enough for me to migrate over to a similar app, and i've uninstalled it months ago because my last straw was reading the comments and was met with both kids and adults being casually rude and using their slangs that it came off very condescending, something snapped in me and i quickly uninstalled it.

my point being, you can interact with those outside your culture and country, learn and study, exchange opinions and make friends. but also be aware of stuff like propaganda. we are not and will never be immune to propaganda, not you, neither am i. for now i'm staying within my own tumblr bubble and yapping about stuff i love. i'm also kinda? semi? active on instagram and twitter.

if any of the tik tok refugees here are seeing this, which i doubt, because i'm not that big of an account, i really do hope you enjoy your stay here. it can be intimidating but in my opinion i've had the most fun being on tumblr than the rest. it's not perfect, it can be shitty and it can suck, so i have a love hate relationship for tumblr, hah!

i kinda lost track of where i was originally going with this, but yeah. take this as a warm greeting from a tumblr user that's been here for roughly 7 years.

[unusual-suspects]

do u use twitter?

nope! i've tried but the platform failed to captivate my attention. and then elon musk bought it. i don't really engage in political stuff on tumblr, that's what i use meta platforms for, but FUCK elon musk and FUCK his army of shitty incels. the existence of billionaires is not only a policy failure but a symptom of the core moral failings of capitalism.

i'm also not a fan of his brand of censorship. you can't say "cis" because its allegedly a slur (it's not) but you can spew all sorts of calls to violence against LGBTQIA+ people, people of color, jewish people, palestinians, disabled people, and that's just... allowed? very not my scene. twitter has become nothing more than a circle jerk for fascists and profash bootlickers.

my personal views don't align with twitter. i'm an educated queer non-binary autistic leftist. engagement with a platform gives it ad revenue, gives it power, and uses attention as currency. i strongly suggest nobody use twitter.

i do use meta platforms despite Zuckerberg's recent alt-right midlife crisis/divorce arc because my friends and family are on there. it's easier to keep in touch with my great-grandma through facebook n stuff. if the people were to migrate to another social platform, i'd gladly move with them.

tldr, no i dont use twitter, fuck musk and fuck every billionaire.

[mousemannation]

My reasons for voting against it: My feeling is that tennisblr is already more divided than ever and giving people a platform to publish “controversial” takes they aren’t willing to put their name on, is the last thing this place needs. I know you believe you can moderate it, but people will likely still veil their attacks on the players they don’t like and that can be hard to see through. And/or controversial takes will start discourses that could quickly spiral into something worse. I know a lot of people have migrated here from other platforms precisely because they wanted to get away from that type of stuff.

maybe im missing it but I hadn't found tennisblr any more or less divided than before, granted I've only been here this year.

From my perspective we all already made jokes and sillyposts that can sound mean to outsiders so I don't really think it'd be that different if it was anon or not. It's true maybe I'd miss one that wasn't meant in jest but that's kind of true for any post. I get that bc it's anon there's no one to have take accountability, but there's a point where we're all somewhat anonymous anyway. Any one of us at any point could say something crazy then deactivate and just make a new blog. Or make a burner. If someone really wanted to say something heinous they could whether I provide this platform or not.

I will say, I know many people come to tumblr to get away from discourse in their fandoms that permeates other platforms but its not like discourse doesn't exist on tumblr, and I don't think it's necessarily fair to expect me to not open my blog up for more serious discussions if I want. Again, I will clarify that when I say discourse, the discussions I would allow would be informed, calm, and most importantly sourced- im not interested in petty gossip. There is a place on this platform for serious discussions and I am prepared to moderate my posts so it doesn't start to spiral. Maybe I'll only post them once a month or something like that too so the mood isn't always being dragged down.

When I make serious posts I am generally open to discussion, especially since I know i have blindspots. It's me wanting to start a conversation. The invitation for serious confessionals it's just me asking if anyone else wants to start that conversation first.

This blog is my only (public) interaction with the tennis fandom, I am not on twitter or reddit at all, i don't particularly interact with tennis fan content on instagram. This is the only place I talk about tennis with other tennis fans. Sometimes that includes serious discussions. I've made a couple serious posts, so it's not like it's totally out of character for this blog, and i do try to be as diligent as possible so people who do not want to see that content do not have to. I always employ read mores and tags for blocklists and my blog tag for serious posts. The same would go for these confessional posts.

Look, I'm not trying to fuck with the ecosystem of tennisblr. I recognise that I have pretty good interaction here and a decent number of followers, so my posts would generally end up on many people's dashes. I know that my posts don't exist in a vacuum. But there's also a point where it's still my blog and any of u who follow me or follow enough of my mutuals to see my posts regularly have to take ur tumblr experience into ur own hands.

This would only be one small section of the posts I make, I'm still gonna be posting 99.9% fun, regular posts. I'm hoping most of the confessionals would also be 99.9% fun, light-hearted posts. If u like those sorts of posts I'd hope Ur experience of my blog would stay mostly the same. If u do not want to see the serious posts u can filter [ #serious posts ] if u do not want to see any confessionals u can filter [ #mouse man national confession booth ] if this is a total deal breaker for u u can block me entirely, I won't take offence.

[moondragon618]

Uugh I've kind of been putting this off but since I've had a small influx of followers leak over from my rp blogs + apparently there's another Twitter migration happening or smth idk lol + my pfp seems to attract dream stans for obvious reasons + it's been long enough since October that the thought of talking abt it isn't super uncomfortable anymore I just want to be a little more clear abt this.

I do not support cc!dream nor do I particularly like him at all. And also due to personal trauma reasons I likely never will again even if the allegations are proven false or whatever (and tbh there would still be enough shit that is 100% true to make me uncomfortable). I generally block any hardcore stans and if you have a cc!dream pfp and follow me or interact with my posts you're probably gonna get blocked on sight lol.

But yeah the whole Situation in October was triggering as fuck so if anyone following me remembers when I was like a casual dream stan and then suddenly deleted 90% of my blog (and tbh it's probably a miracle I accidentally got my ao3 suspended when I did (I used "shippers will die by my blade" as a tag and that's against tos apparently) bc otherwise my one fic I had at the time might have been an orphaned work by now) then that's what happened. I was having a real bad time panicked tried to jump ship etc. but that kind of just made it worse I think so yk.

But yes I am still a c!Dream enjoyer he is a completely seperate entity with absolutely no relation whatsoever. To me. You could say I've built up an extremely strong impenetrable mental barrier between the two ig lol. Anyway I have taken legal custody of c!Dream lmao :)

[trubluebecca]

On the social media note:

I think I've gotten more activity on Cara this week than I have in previous months. I think some twitter/x users might be migrating there as well. I have not spent a lot of time looking around there. I've been using it as more of a portfolio site and somewhere to link to images. Actively against AI and does not allow it.

Bluesky is basically twitter/x. Lots of people migrating from that site to Bluesky right now. I never liked the twitter UI, but I'm trying to post and do at least a few reposts and interact some. I think getting into "starter packs" (lists of users generated by other users) is extremely helpful for gaining followers. Has made a statement saying they do not plan to scrape for AI, but doesn't restrict people from posting it.

Facebook has ended up more for dog stuff and a lot of people I know IRL. I was super bad about instagram, but then I started using the business manager and was cross posting to insta and my business page. Now I don't want to feed Meta's AI with artwork. I really don't want to do with my photos and videos but oh well.

Tumblr is tumblr. This is the only site I still make sure to check all the posts that have appeared since the last time I logged on. All of the others I just skim a couple of scrolls with my mouse, might look up a user or two in particular, and then move on, since they're algorithm based. I'm here for the long haul even if though they've jumped on the AI train.