#Might just mute notifications on that post actually

[thegreenleavesofspringinsunlight]

Girl help I'm being bullied about my salads again.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

heyyy girl hyd

[luludeluluramblings]

The Tape

Reader and Conner’s sex tape gets leaked…

Based on this…

Part Two

Warning: Fem!Reader, NSFW themes, no actual smut, pure crack nonsense, fake Twitter post

A/N: @fanfictionlover277353 Heard you wanted some more! Here’s some of my nonsense!

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

"Come on, Babs. Please. I'm begging. Just for a few hours. Two tops." Dick's whining could be heard through out the entire cave. The vibrato of his voice echoing off the rocky walls and stalagmites as he leaned over Barbara's shoulder and played with her hair.

She was currently sitting at the Bat Computer, looking over anything related to the family or incidents in Gotham with strained eyes and an exasperated look on her face.

"I told you, I'm busy-"

"You need a break." Dick interrupted, playing the hypocrite with a grin. "Come on, two hours. We'll watch a movie, you can even pick. No sappy Rom-coms, anything you want. All your choice." He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Admittedly, Barbara was tempted, but she let out an indulgent sigh.

"Fine. I'll set up notifications to alert me if anything that needs to get scrub gets posted." She quickly type out a few things on to the computer, having it connected to her phone before Dick whisked her off with way too much excitement.

It was a simple notification system. One that would alert her if anyone's vigilantes identities were mentioned in the media. Unfortunately, it wasn't set up to alert her if anyone's civilian identities were mentioned. That included the family's only civilian member as well.

And, a lot can happen in two hours with the power of the internet and a very interesting topic.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

You were having a good day. A very nice day. You had gone out into the world, enjoying the sights and sounds of a mid-morning Gotham. Ignoring the wailing sirens in the distance, by now you had grown used to it.

Dick, Babs, and Alfred where in the manor doing either Bat stuff or sleeping. Damian was visiting Jon. Duke was on patrol. Cass was at dance practice. Bruce was at the Watchtower. Tim was at the Wayne office. Stephanie was your chaperone (stalker) of the day. And, Jason was fuck who knows where.

A peaceful, calm day.

Until you got a Twitter notification and you realized...

"Oh, that's not good. That is really not good." You mutter, watching as the internet burns while you drink your coffee. Not like you could do much else. You still sent a quick text to Conner, just to prepare him while you mentally packed.

You warned him when he suggested filming the two of you making love in the Wayne manor parlor right in front of the fireplace.

You had suggested you’d both go to the mountains and fuck in the wild, but he just had to be kinky and want to do it in the manor. Better lighting he said.

If it wasn’t for the fact that it had been your anniversary and he had pulled out all the stops, you would’ve said no. (It doesn’t matter that he had you literally crying from the pleasure when the two of you had finally finished filming. Nope. Not at all.)

However, that mountain sex might still be on the table. You didn't want to be around when the rest of the family saw that video, so a remote location in the mountains sounded like a decent idea. You’d been wanting to runaway from the manor for a while anyway.

“Hey, Steph, hand me your phone real quick…” Best to probably by yourself some time.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Conner had a tendency to mute his notification on all his socials. Not that he didn't look at what people tagged him in or mentioned him in. He just find it easier to manage.

So when he got a text from you saying to check Twitter, he was a bit puzzled. But, he figured you had seen him tagged in something funny and wanted him to see it too.

Only for the record in his head to scratch when he realized what he had been tagged in.

"SHIT! Shit, shit, shit, shit." Could he get off planet fast enough? This was bad. Not the video. That was good. He may have thrown extra fuel on the fire by liking it and retweeting it on to his official account, but, damn it, was he proud of that. Probably shouldn’t have hired that rando to edit it for him though.

But, yeah, he was about to possibly be the only man ever murdered in cold blood by Batman. It was one thing to fuck his civilian daughter, but filming it in the man’s own home? Yeah, the kryptonite was definitely coming out and getting stabbed into his skull.

"JON! Distract Damian!" Conner yelled out before taking off, knowing that Jon's super hearing would pick up it up. Best get to Gotham and grab you before Batman came after his ass.

There was a nice planet a few solar systems over that you two could have some fun on. Maybe if he was lucky, you could visit that spot in front of the fireplace on last time. He doubted the two of you would get another chance to do it there again.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Jason had actually been at Roy’s that day, having finished some Outlaw business from the night before. Only to be interrupted when Roy suddenly choked on his drink and sprayed it all over him from across the table. Soaking Jason and the papers on said table.

“What the fuck?” He muttered in disgust whipping the dripping liquid off him.

Roy, however, was still choking. Wheezing as he clutched his phone like it was the most precious thing in existence.

“Nothing! Nothing!” Instantly, Roy was trying to back the video up the Cloud and his back up phone. He’s paid for porn with less quality than this and he was not wasting this opportunity before it was scrubbed from the internet.

“Let me see that.” Jason pushed the table and slammed it into Roy’s gut, causing the phone to clatter on to it. A video silently playing on the screen.

A video of two people in a fancy parlor. Doing very intimate things.

Two people Jason knew. In a fancy parlor that Jason knew.

A parlor that Jason had literally sat in three days ago watching the fire in the exact same fireplace.

“Did you fucking save this, asshole?”

“Dude, that is ART!”

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Back in the BatCave Alfred had come down to tidy up after resting a bit only to look at the screen in horror. Despite his many skills, socially media escaped him at times.

However he did manage to learn one thing…

“That was what was on my bloody carpet?!”

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

Tim had been in his office, going over a couple charts when his secretary burst into the room. Stumbling and falling on the floor panting. One of her heels broken.

Normally she was a serious and composed woman, not tolerating any nonsense from him. So this behavior was unexpected and worrisome.

Tim rushed to stand up at help her when she suddenly blurted out, “Leaked sex tape!”

That made him panic. Before confusion hit him.

“Wait, did I film on of those? I don’t remember filming one of those-“

“Your sister! Superboy! PR is going fucking nuts and getting calls. Share prices are fucking increasing because of this!”

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

The Justice League Watchtower was in a meeting. Quite a long one judging by the way most of it’s members sitting around the table seemed to be drifting off or subtly scrolling their phones.

Oliver Queen, Green Arrow was one of those people scrolling. Checking over twitter, catching up on the latest gossip. Only to nearly fucking scream in the middle of the meeting when he realized what Superboy had shared on his official account.

Forget man of steel, the kid has damn balls of steel.

Worst yet, the video had been posted for over an hour. A full hour. Almost two. There was no way that was going to be getting scrubbed and forgotten. He’d bet it was in a military archive already with a team of scientist documenting the half-Kryptonian’s dick size right now.

It was an impressively long video. One that Oliver was sorely tempted to watch. But, he didn’t because he knew Batman would actually rearrange his face if he did. Like fist and plastic surgery rearrange it.

So, when he heard Batman’s voice ring out in the meeting, he broke his phone in half to hide the evidence of his discovery.

Only, Batman hadn’t been calling for his attention. He was calling for Booster Gold’s.

“Booster, focus on the meeting. Put that away—“

It was amusing to see Booster get caught with his phone out watching him scramble to shut it off in a panic. Only for it to fall to the ground.

And, the sound to turn on at full volume.

Moans to fill the silent void of the room.

Oliver could only look on in horror when he realized just what Booster had been watching, during a Justice League meeting, and across the table from Batman himself.

“Conner, please, p-please, stop teasing.”

“No, I don’t think I will. You look so pretty like this. All nice and—“

No one moved. Not as they watched Batman literally work through every emotion under that cowl of his and Superman’s face went as white as it possibly could, anguish washing over both their faces when they realized who was in the video booster was watching.

Diana was the only one that stood up and moved to pick up the phone. Everyone held their breaths when she slowly looked down at the screen.

“Quite impressive. You both must be proud.” She said with a slight hum.

☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️

A/N: I apologize so much for this, but I just was cackling the entire time I came up with this and wrote it. Forgive me y’all! 🙏🏻

A/N: All the Twitter stuff was randomly generated and picked! I’m not good with it, but I added it for giggles!

[xianji]

hidden behind lines | prologue

masterlist

toge inumaki sat in his darkened room, the faint glow of his laptop illuminating his face. his fingers hovered over the keyboard as he stared at the blank screen in front of him. the familiar weight of silence pressed down on him, heavier than usual. it wasn’t that he didn’t have anything to say—he had plenty. but with his cursed speech, expressing anything felt dangerous. too risky. too isolating.

he sighed, glancing at the rice ball wrapper on his desk. “salmon,” he muttered to no one in particular, his voice barely above a whisper. the room stayed quiet, and the empty words hung in the air, meaningless. toge had gotten used to this emptiness—his world of muted conversations and half-finished thoughts. but tonight, the frustration bubbled over.

he clicked open a browser and typed twitter dot com. he hesitated for a moment, his fingers twitching slightly before he began typing again. “hiddenverse”, he entered into the username field. with a quick tap, the account was created.

for the first time in a while, toge felt like he could breathe.

he stared at the empty profile, considering what to write. no one knew him here, no one knew about his cursed speech or the danger that came with his words. here, he was just a stranger behind a screen. with newfound determination, toge began typing—a simple line of poetry, raw and honest, poured from his mind onto the page. it was something he’d never been able to say out loud, a feeling that had lived inside him for too long.

he hit post.

days passed, and his small following began to grow. among the notifications, one commenter kept returning, leaving thoughtful replies that struck a chord in him. toge found himself looking forward to their messages, curious about the connection forming in the anonymity of his online world.

yet with every post, a question lingered in the back of his mind: how long could he hide behind these words? and when the time came, would he dare to step out from the shadows?

notes:

hi guys

ik i said ch1 would be posted today but i didn’t have time IM SORRY

toge was trying to communicate with yuuji before this but poor guys couldn’t understand eachother😭

actually might post another profile today.. but who will it be..? you’ll find out🤫

this was actually supposed to be a megumi smau but i decided that the idea would make sm more sense with toge so i did it for him instead

im thinking about having this mainly written with few chapters cuz writing is more easier to me than doing all the social media stuff..

now i understand smau creators.. cuz this shit is hard

okay bye guys

taglist: @aestheticallyvini @mizuislesscringe @satoryaa @jammofsammichflip @brideads @genxnarumi @sad-darksoul @runfrme @c4ttheart @vexis-world @vorfreudevortex @kiss-my-asscheeks @diorrxluvskz @stillnotherapy @twiishaa @pxppetmxster @ch3rry-lips @walllflowerrrsss @notveevee

if i didn’t tag you please lmk!!

[iknowher]

⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀i miss you, i'm sorry ೀ

──ㅤ🤍ㅤ۫ㅤ ͏cheater! gojo who isn't loyal at all 𓉸ㅤ۫ㅤwc.ㅤ:ㅤ1,618 reader's note.ㅤ:ㅤit's quite rushed and short. also it's my first post so requests and constructive criticism is highly appreciated!!

it started with him telling you that he’d be on a mission. you didn’t think he’d be gone for that long. you checked the last time he was here. it’s been approximately 1 week, 4 days and 9 hours. you gave up trying to wait, it was miserable without him home. you decided to text him.. you, 07:24 pm: hey you, 07:24 pm: when are you coming home ??

… no answer. he’d usually respond within minutes— usually seconds. you text him again.. quite desperate now. you, 07:30 pm: gojo you, 07:31 pm: please answer you, 07:36 pm: hellooooo? ! ! ! after a few minutes, a notification sound came from your phone. you got a little dopamine rush, hoping it was gojo. and thank god, it was.. satoru ml ❤️, 07:41 pm: god do you ever shut up satoru ml ❤️, 07:41 pm: you’re so clingy i’m actually sick of you huh? you double-checked the contact name in hopes it wasn’t gojo.. but it really was gojo. you felt confused, why was he acting like this.. like a dick? you felt your eyes swell up. suddenly, yuki texted you. you didn’t feel any more energy to text anyone anymore— but you decided to open it anyway. yuki girlboss duhh, 07:50 pm: um hey girl.. you might wanna see this yuki girlboss duhh, 07:51 pm: (attachment added)

you opened the attachment, feeling your fingers shake. as soon as you open it, you felt a pang of disgust course throughout your body. the picture showcased gojo in a white suit— wait, holy shit.. is that a prada blazer..? you could just tell that his whole outfit probably costed thousands. his hair looked more well-kept than usual.

and there was a girl sitting at the same table as him, she probably also wore an expensive dress.. but you couldn’t really care less. the only thing you cared about was him basically cheating on you. you heard rumors about gojo being a player in highschool, but he was so charismatic— so you decided to ignore it. big mistake. you were so stubborn. literally everyone warned you.. however, you just ignored it. you, 08:02 pm:  oh. ty

shit, you hadn’t realized it but you were on the couch, crying till all your mascara was drooping on your cheeks. you were.. ugly crying.

you were watching your favorite show, 13 reasons why.. you probably rewatched it 4 times by now. and to add onto your already bad mood— you were playing I miss you, I’m sorry in the background.

though your phone was on mute, you couldn’t help but check if anyone texted you. unfortunately gojo did. Satoru Gojo, 01:10 pm: sorry that i said that Satoru Gojo, 01:12 pm: but i have to be real, we should break up … you were torn about insulting him or blocking him— but luckily, you took the more mature route. you, 01:13 pm: kay. why though? within seconds, he responded

Satoru Gojo, 01:13 pm: let’s be honest. this isn’t working. I’m busy and i don't see us continuing as a couple. i’m really sorry you clench your jaw before letting out a scoff, you knew damn well his ass was with another girl, having the time of his life.

you, 01:13 pm: shut the fuck up *you blocked this contact number. tap to unblock* nevermind. you took the immature route you felt the next stage of a breakup, anger and resentment. you opened your instagram, me_and_gojo it was an account where you posted basically all your lively moments with him, gojo. you changed your username to: me_and_myself before taking a good hour or so to delete every post, cleaning everything up. you looked at his account, though there were no posts of him and that girl— you still felt spiteful. you blocked his instagram account too.

…after a couple hours, you woke up at 6 am or so. you rubbed your eyes, seeing that the tv was playing a random movie recommended by netflix. you grabbed the remote, turning it off before grabbing your phone again.. but this time, it was geto, gojo’s best friend. geto, 05:32 am: hey girlieee geto, 05:32 am: i heard you broke up with gojo. I’m rlly sorry for that (i personally think gojo’s in the wrong for that) geto, 05:33 am: but anyway, he wanted his stuff back from your house.. I think he’s moving somewhere else? you let out a sigh, knowing that you’d have to talk or atleast see gojo again you, 06:05 am: oh. alright. you, 06:05 am: when is he coming exactly? geto responds in a few minutes

geto, 06:11 am: he says he can come in an hour or so geto, 06:11 am: just to lyk, i hope you can recover a faint smile appears on your face, but it quickly disappears as you see in the phone reflection how your makeup basically got ruined.. damn, i should invest in some waterproof makeup, you thought to yourself. you quickly head upstairs to your room, grabbing some micellair water and a cotton pad before rubbing it on your face, your makeup disappearing in a couple seconds. as soon as you finish, you hear the doorbell ring. that must be gojo. you felt dread, not wanting to see gojo’s stupid ass face after everything that happened. you hurried downstairs, before opening the door to see gojo, standing casually in front of your house. you felt his six eyes stare at your face. you tried to hide your expression of disgust.. but you could tell he knew you weren’t happy with him being home. he waved awkwardly, ‘’hey, i guess.’’ you ignored him, giving him the silent treatment as he walked in. ‘’oh.. I see, not being very talkative today, eh?’’ he lets out a dumb chuckle. everything that made you love him gave you the ick now. ‘’just.. do your thing.’’ you mumble under your breath. you notice him carrying a couple of big boxes, but even with that— you knew it wouldn’t be enough. ‘’eh alright. it’s gonna take some time, though.’’ he emphasized. as he walked nearby you, you could smell his jean paul gaultier cologne.

the moment you smelled it, you felt dizzy because of how strong it was. highkey, it was suffocating. you made a face of disgust, but you quickly turned around and sat on the couch, looking at him as he walked upstairs with an empty box— and in a few minutes he was downstairs with a full box you were unsure that could even be taped shut. this process continued for more than an hour, until he finally spoke up. ‘’hey, i’m done now. have a good life, alright?’’ he says before walking out the door. you quickly waddled to lock the door and head upstairs, curious how the room you first shared looked like now. you never noticed that most of the stuff in the house was from gojo. everything was and looked so empty— it didn’t feel homey anymore. fast forward to a few months or maybe a year later, you still weren’t really over it yet. honestly, even though gojo was annoying as shit, he fulfilled a spot in your heart nobody could.

he was arrogant, sure, but he could also be an absolute sweetheart at times— and let’s not forget the time when he spoiled you at your birthday. you felt so lucky to be his girlfriend.

maybe, just maybe, you wouldn’t find anybody like gojo again. all your friends told you, ‘’girl there are so many fish in the sea’’ and all that bullshit. but, you also knew, if he was really your soulmate— he wouldn’t have cheated in the first place.

after your initial breakup, you couldn’t really care to take care of your looks, usually having messy hair and little to no makeup each day you went to work. maybe being single would be better, cause then you wouldn’t have any heartbreak anymore.

until one day that you walked out the door, deciding to walk to work, it wasn’t that far from your place anyway. you saw geto, but you noticed that he looked kind of.. sad? and he didn’t even care to put his hair up into a bun.

you stopped him in his tracks, wanting to greet him. ‘’hey geto.’’ you smile awkwardly as he glances up at you. ‘’oh. hi.’’ he says, trying to act polite.

‘’eh.. what’s up?’’ you ask him, wanting to know the reason behind his dampened mood. ‘’oh.. you haven’t heard?’’

‘’gojo died.’’ those two words felt like a truck crashing into your heart. ah.. you hated him, sure, but you didn’t exactly want him to die.

‘’huh.. when.. why?’’ you ramble, before geto interrupts you. ‘’well he died, like, a couple days ago. and why? meh.’’ geto shrugs in a nonchalant way. ‘’he died because of a mission. he was being kind of cocky— he thought he’d be able to kill sukuna.’’ you cut him off, wondering how he could’ve died— i mean. he has infinity, six eyes.. he’s basically immortal. right?‘’hold on— how?’’ ‘’hey, i don’t know either.’’

and from that day forward, you had to live with curiosity. who was that girl he was on a date with? how did he even die? but deep down, you knew you would never get an answer on any of your questions. you unblocked him, just to send one, last, message.

you, 06:03 pm: i miss you you, 06:03 pm: i’m sorry. *this contact number has been deleted, your message could not be delivered*

ㅤ🗝ㅤwork belongs to @ iknowher﹐do not plagiarize my work !

[zannolin]

sorry if it seems like i interact with your reblogged posts like ALOT… youre the only person still active in narnia tumblr (that i know of) and ur the only one i can have narnia content 😭😭😭😭 ITS LIKE RUINS IN THIS FANDOMMM AHHH!!!! (bless ur heart)

let me just put this out there for anyone else who might have this concern: i promise i DO NOT care. personally i find it very cute and fun when i open my notifs and see someone has gone through my entire narnia tag or all my textposts or anything else. it's why i have those tags for one thing! it's why i go spend forever blog diving to find gifsets of highly specific scenes and things that i love! i curate my blog to be a little scrapbook of all the things i love and i organize them so people can flip through (or block) as they please and it is never a bother to get notifications on anything. if it is, i can just mute the notifs! lord knows i've done this when posts break containment. if anything there's quite a few users i end up recognizing as being Person From My Tumblr Notifs and it's like oh hi how nice to see you here. it's never annoying! i know like instagram or whatever has weird social rules but here on tumblr a true tumblrina will not care about this sort of thing. it's just part of the site.

that being said i swear there r more people still active in this fandom and not just the caspeter segment of it. if you're looking for more blogs i'd recommend starting with people you see me reblogging narnia stuff from regularly, or going through old ones if you want to find gifsets/etc. i don't actually follow a lot of people bc i get the scaries and i like to sit in my corner quietly and play with my dolls but i know there ARE still people around. monty python voice The Narnia Fandom Isn't Dead Yet.

[obitez]

Bean's Insta

Finally gotten around to completing and posting my next bean fic. (if you ever come across my dog's instagram account, you get bonus points, but I post on it very sporadically.)

Also on AO3

It was a q-word shift today, and everyone was well-aware and wise enough not to say anything about it, even Ravi (who might have had the fear of his life put into him by Hen and Chimney after what happened three years ago). So far it was nearing 1 p.m. and the bell hadn’t even gone off once. 

They had all finished their assigned station chores hours ago, Buck had helped Bobby cook lunch, and all the dishes had been cleaned and put away, and they were all left with absolutely nothing to do until they were called out. 

Hen and Chimney were in the middle of another race on Mario Kart, Buck had been kicked off three races ago after coming in fifth for the fourth time, and had Eddie take his place. So he was bored, and only slightly sulking on the corner of his couch when he felt a notification chime from his phone in his pocket. 

He fished his phone out and saw that it was some dude he went to the Academy with and hadn’t talked to in months (probably years) that had liked a photo he posted last week. He clicked on it, and before Buck realized what he was doing, he was in a rabbit hole of watching random reels on instagram. 

Over half of the reels he had no interest in. Some mid-twenties girl posting a shopping haul, someone ranting about their job and the likes. Then a video of a dog popped up that made him watch the entire thing. Buck didn’t even know why, it was just a video of the probable owner recording the dog’s butt on a walk as they probably had some voice in the background talking about who knows what since Buck had his volume muted. 

But something must have tripped on his algorithm that noticed the amount of time he had watched that video, for more videos of dogs started coming up, videos that Buck couldn’t find it in himself to skip. 

Buck didn’t know what it was about the dogs that drew him in, over half of them only had the dogs sleeping on couches or dog beds, but ever since he had met Bean three weeks ago, Buck found himself fascinated by the species. And it didn’t matter the breed either - golden retrievers, huskies, german shepherds, and of course the little wiener dogs.

“What’s got you smiling over there?” he heard Hen’s voice suddenly ask and he could feel her stare on him, knocking him out of the trance Buck had fallen into.

“What?” he said, turning his gaze away from his phone to her. 

She leveled him with a gaze. “You’ve been looking down at that thing and smiling for the last five minutes,” She said as she quietly made her way over to him, Eddie and Chimney still focused on the videogame. “Let me guess, You’re talking to Tommy.” 

Buck’s face flushed. “No,” he said. If anything could make his day better, it would be being able to talk to Tommy. But he was on shift as well today, and Harbor was actually busy. “I’m not.” 

Hen obviously looked like she didn’t believe him. “Then what are you doing?” she asked.

“Just watching funny dog videos,” Buck said. 

Hen rolled her eyes, but didn’t press the issue any more. “Sure, I’ll believe that,” she said as she walked away. 

When Buck was fairly confident that she was leaving him alone, he turned back to his phone. The next dog was cute, a small beagle that was just learning the consequences of knocking his water bowl over. Buck smiled as he watched it, giving the dog a like. Then he moved onto the next video. 

It was a dachshund, and looked very similar to Tommy’s dog, Buck couldn’t help but think. Same coloring and everything. The video was of the dog and it’s owner on some sort of hike, they had come across a muddy puddle the owner was trying to coax the dog across, and the dog obviously wasn’t having any of it. 

Then Buck noticed something else, The dog was wearing the same green and blue collar Bean wore, and the same orange harness Tommy put Bean in when they went on walks. And was that… that was the leash Tommy used!

Hell, that dog was Bean!

What was Bean doing on instagram?

Tommy wasn’t one of those people that was one for social media. Sure, he had all the regular accounts: Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Buck had friended and followed him on all of them. But that didn’t mean that Tommy was on social media a lot. 

He had maybe fifteen pictures posted in all of the ten years he had an instagram account, and two of those Buck forced him to post. Before those, the last post Tommy probably made was the day he got Bean. 

Buck swiped right on the video of the Bean doppelganger, but sure enough, it wasn’t a doppelganger. 

Bean had an instagram account.

A surprising successful instagram account. 

Only 98 posts with over 1,200 followers. The last one was a video posted this morning. 

So that left the question… 

Why hadn’t Tommy told Buck about this? 

How dare the man keep this secret. 

Buck took a screenshot of the account page and then went to the text thread he had been talking to Tommy on earlier. He sent the man the screenshot he had just taken along with a message. 

Evan: When were you going to tell me about this? 

Tommy texted back ten minutes later. 

Tommy: Oh

Tommy: you found that

Oh? 

… Oh?

What did Tommy mean ‘oh’? 

Buck tapped out a message back in response. 

Evan: Why yes, I FOUND it. 

Evan: So again… when we’re you going to tell me about this? 

Buck watched as the bubbles popped up, indicating Tommy was typing out a response. Then they disappeared. Then they came up again. Before disappearing. 

Then Tommy’s response came through. 

Tommy: I was just trying to figure out a way to tell you about it.

And what in the world did that mean? 

Another message from Tommy popped up before Buck could ask anything. 

Tommy: some people just make it a big deal

Buck wasn’t really sure what Tommy meant by that either. That Tommy felt Bean was important enough to warrant him making his dog an instagram, or that apparently 1200 other people felt that Bean was important enough to warrant an instagram account for a dog as well. 

Evan: of course it’s a big deal

Evan: Bean is worth at least 10k followers not 1200

Evan: just let me help you and we can get his follower count up

Buck then found himself back watching more dog reels, trying to come up with more ideas for videos to feature Bean in. At least until Eddie came over and knocked him out of his concentration. 

“What’re you doing there Buck?” he asked. 

“Huh?” Buck looked up from his phone at Eddie. 

“You’re looking at your phone pretty… intensely.” 

“Oh it’s just that I was looking into this thing for-”

“If it’s another one of your research spirals, I’m alright,” Eddie cut him off as he held his hands up. 

“It’s not that,” Buck said. “Or not exactly. I want to help Tommy with his instagram account for Bean.” 

“Tommy made an instagram account for a bean?” Eddie asked. “What?”

Buck rolled his eyes. “No Eddie, not ‘a bean.’ Bean. Tommy’s dog.”

Eddie lifted an eyebrow. “Tommy has a dog named Bean? He’s never mentioned it.” 

Buck held up his phone to show Eddie a picture of the dog. “Well he does. His name is Bean, and he’s a little dachshund.” 

Eddie looked at the photo. “Huh,” he shrugged. “Out of all the dogs I can imagine Tommy having, I wouldn’t have imagined one of those.”

[copperbadge]

Have we found a tumblr replacement yet? Apparently the latest “live” shenanigans were the thing that it took to break me. I’m not trying to stir shit, I’m just mostly here for you and a couple other blogs, so I’m going wherever you go.

I wish, but unfortunately not so far. I mean, I've talked a little about how I'd like to find one but there aren't really any viable ones right now, and there may not be a fandom mass-migration for years still. I'm more likely to follow the crowd than blaze a trail in this case, so it may be some time. For now my only real tactic is to simply not engage with staff or support at Tumblr in any way, and accept the changes as gradual steps towards the site's demise with as much serenity as I can muster.

I've already accidentally opened Tumblr Live twice while trying to navigate the app, which I'm sure is intentional, given I've now suddenly opened Tumblr Live twice since its inception instead of Zero. Relatedly, I would love to see them redirect that passion into making the "Mute Notifications" button actually work, but mine is not to reason why.

Anyway. There are options available, like obviously there are other social media platforms, but none have quite the combination of "easy to use" and "has a lot of people on it" and "Offers the same functionality" (photo and video hosting, an app, etc) even with an "ease of use" and "functionality" that are as crap as Tumblr's.

For example, Dreamwidth is great, but it's a Livejournal code fork so it's a very different format from Tumblr, more labor-intensive to make and share posts (no reblog function, image embedding can get a bit complicated, etc). CoHost is new and very promising but a bit of a ghost town right now -- I'm there and I've had a bunch of people find me there but still exponentially less than are on Tumblr. Pillowfort I still need to re-investigate; I'm there as well but it's been a while since I looked in, and I was struggling with the functionality previously. I had a look at Mastodon, but as positive as decentralized servers could be for the future of social media, I actively dislike the idea, and it also seems difficult to set up and complex to maintain. Discord is....there, and a lot of fandom stuff has shifted there, but its structure is very different and it's also decentralized, and also I hate it passionately and refuse to use it, so that's a no-go for me, though I suspect it's where fandom might end up.

If you're struggling with accessing tumblr directly, you might consider feeding the blogs you follow to an RSS reader -- I know people who do that and find it pretty functional, because then if they want to comment they can just pop open the specific post and deal with it directly. I don't know how much you know about RSS and I don't have the energy to fully explain it right now, but NetVibes is a pretty decent free RSS reader and it's what I use for certain blogs outside of Tumblr.

In any case, if I do find a place, or if I see the migration beginning, I'll sound the alarm :) In the meantime I'm still reading through my tumblr, stashing away posts to save off when I leave, even if that'll be a while.

[anneapocalypse]

I'm sorry for all the grumpyposting today; I do try not to make this most of what I blog about these days, but sometimes, I just can't not.

Not long ago I had to mute notifications on a Shadowbringers post I actually liked because someone reblogged it saying that the way Thancred treats Ryne is Minfilia's fault actually and I got really sick of seeing people reblog that version agreeing with it (while ignoring the point I was actually making). I'm probably missing interactions on that post I might have enjoyed because I just didn't want to see that every day anymore. And it's not even that I don't think Thancred should get any grace for his missteps; I have a lot of issues with the way his arc is written but I do ultimately like him (and I enjoy him quite a bit in EW and DT! he has some moments that I really love).

It's the scapegoating. Find a female character and blame her for everything. Everything that's wrong in the story in-universe and out, it's all her fault. She's annoying. She's boring. She too nice. She's too mean. She's too emotional. She's too cold. She's underdeveloped. She has too much screentime. She tells us what to do. We're not involved in her story enough. You defend her, and they move the goalposts. Actually it's this. Actually it's this. And on and on and on.

I try to focus on posting positively about things I enjoy, but sometimes I am unavoidably reminded that fandom is still like this about female characters and it makes me tired.

[iviarellereads]

All Systems Red, Chapter 1

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Murderbot Diaries, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

In which we meet our new best friend.

(As a preface: the story is once again in past tense, but this time, first-person. "I was". My summaries will continue to be in third-person present tense because that's how my brain works, but quotes will be verbatim.)

I could have become a mass murderer after I hacked my governor module, but then I realized I could access the combined feed of entertainment channels carried on the company satellites. It had been well over 35,000 hours(1) or so since then, with still not much murdering, but probably, I don’t know, a little under 35,000 hours of movies, serials, books, plays, and music consumed.(2) As a heartless killing machine, I was a terrible failure.

Murderbot is doing its job on a new contract, hoping the two scientists, Dr. Volescu and Dr. Bharadwaj, finish soon so it can go watch episode 397 of Rise and Fall of Sanctuary Moon.(3) It's distracted, and kind of bored, and considers trying to figure out how to backdoor the system to listen to music without notifying the HubSystem(4) as the scientists take samples from one of the many craters on the coast.

Only, then the crater explodes.

MB doesn't call for help in the way we'd understand. It sends its visual feed directly to Dr. Mensah,(5) and scrambles down into the crater to help as it hears Mensah on the emergency comm channel calling for the others to get moving to help as well.

MB gets a bunch of conflicting commands, but knowing the emergency takes priority anyway, it ignores them and all the data it doesn't need. At the bottom of the crater, it skips the small weapons built into its arms, and gets out the projectile weapon on its back. The hostile creature is more than big enough to justify it.

MB gets Bharadwaj out of the creature's mouth, and shoves the gun down its throat, then shoots where it hopes the brain might be. The creature disappears back down its tunnel, leaving Bharadwaj in MB's care. It puts the gun away, and since its base mechanical structure is still functioning even with a bit of lost flesh and armour, it lifts her, raises its body heat to help her stay warm, and thinks about how to get out of the crater.

It sees Volescu huddled to the side, terrified, and it starts talking to him, calmly. It can't touch him to move him or drag him, because it needs to keep Bharadwaj from bleeding out, but it makes its voice firm but warm and starts gently needling Volescu to get up and come out of the crater with it and Bharadwaj. Volescu stands and staggers over, and MB tells him to hold onto its arm as they get out.

By now, Mensah has managed to mute most of the alerts and notifications and data requests, so MB only has to focus on the MedSystem feed. It gets the humans out of the crater, and coaxes Volescu a few further meters before he collapses, just in case the thing can come out further. It can feel that something in its torso is damaged, and runs its visual feed back to find that it was stabbed with some sort of tooth-like thing it can't begin to identify, because they don't educate murderbots in anything but murder.

The hopper with everyone else on the team lands, and MB turns its helmet opaque so they won't see it, then says on the comm that it can't put Bharadwaj down because of the damage. Mensah tells it to bring her into the crew cabin, following the procedures that would be required if it had a working governor module.(6)

I carried Bharadwaj up the ramp into the cabin, where Overse and Ratthi were frantically unclipping seats to make room. They had their helmets off and their suit hoods pulled back, so I got to see their horrified expressions when they took in what was left of my upper body through my torn suit. I was glad I had sealed my helmet. This is why I actually like riding with the cargo. Humans and augmented humans in close quarters with murderbots is too awkward. At least, it’s awkward for this murderbot.

MB sits on the floor, bracing Bharadwaj, as the other crew bring Volescu inside. One of them, Dr. Ratthi, offers to go get the cases of equipment left behind, and MB makes a small mistake: it yells "No!" because that's accidental suicide by monster, when it should never talk-back at the clients. Fortunately, it's hidden in the cries of "No!" from everyone else on the hopper, with Pin-Lee adding, "For fuck's sake, Ratthi!"

Ratthi, for his part, remembers that they have bigger priorities with Bharadwaj's injuries, and closes the hatch so they can take off immediately.

The hopper is still close enough to see on the cameras when another hostile, or the same one, comes up right under where it sat moments before. Mensah speeds up the vertical, and everyone ends up on the floor. Pin-Lee starts telling off Ratthi for lack of self-preservation, and Ratthi finishes the argument with a sense of it being a familiar one. Mensah also tells Ratthi that it's an order to not get himself killed. MB notes that she sounds calm, but it can see on the MedSystem that her heart is racing.(7)

Arada pulled out the emergency medical kit so they could stop the bleeding and try to stabilize Bharadwaj. I tried to be as much like an appliance as possible,(8) clamping the wounds where they told me to, using my failing body temperature to try to keep her warm, and keeping my head down so I couldn’t see them staring at me. *** PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 60% AND DROPPING(9)

They make it back to the central habitat, which looks a lot less safe now that MB knows there are tunneling hostiles. Dr. Gurathin has a gurney ready, so MB can put Bharadwaj down at last. Following the humans inside, it also increases security with drone patrols and higher sensitivity on the seismic monitors, locking down the habitat so no one can leave without it.

The habitat secured, MB goes to the "security ready room" where all the supplies related to security are stored, including MB. It takes off its armour, sprays wound sealant on at MedSystem's suggestion despite that it's able to close its blood vessels automatically, and sets itself to off-duty.

It can't put on its spare armour, or even the base uniform, so it gets a survival blanket from a first aid kit and gets into its cubicle to start the repair and resupply process, as it reaches 58% function.

It's just queued up some media, not to focus on, but just to keep it company, when there's a knock on the door. Confused, it says, "Uh, yes?" Mensah enters.

She said, “Are you all right? I saw your status report.” “Uh.” That was the point where I realized that I should have just not answered and pretended to be in stasis. I pulled the blanket around my chest, hoping she hadn’t seen any of the missing chunks. Without the armor holding me together, it was much worse. “Fine.” So, I’m awkward with actual humans. It’s not paranoia about my hacked governor module, and it’s not them; it’s me. I know I’m a horrifying murderbot, and they know it, and it makes both of us nervous, which makes me even more nervous. Also, if I’m not in the armor then it’s because I’m wounded and one of my organic parts may fall off and plop on the floor at any moment and no one wants to see that.

Mensah is concerned because the report said MB lost 20% of its body mass, but MB assures her it can regrow. Mensah seems to accept this, but hesitates to leave, and tells MB it was very good with Volescu, at the attack site. MB says it's standard emergency instructions, but Mensah says she knows MedSystem was prioritizing Bharadwaj's injuries, and expected Volescu to be able to leave under his own power: it didn't account for the shock.

MB, tapped into the cameras in the main room, can see that the others are reviewing Volescu's camera feed and discussing MB, saying things like they didn't know it had a face. It knows it's stayed in its armour since arrival, mostly to maintain a distance from them. They're just contract clients, they won't be permanent, and as much as it hates people-ing, it would be pointless to interact unnecessarily.

To Mensah, MB says it's part of its job to account for the System making occasional mistakes. It thinks she should know that, it's part of the package, and why a SecUnit with its organic components(10) is a non-negotiable part of company deals. It knows she logged about ten protests, trying to get out of having a SecUnit at all.

I didn’t hold it against her. I wouldn’t have wanted me either.(11) Seriously, I don’t know why I didn’t just say you’re welcome and please get out of my cubicle so I can sit here and leak in peace.

Mensah looks at MB for objectively 2.4 seconds, subjectively twenty horrible minutes. She tells it to let her know in the feed if it needs anything sooner than its scheduled 8 hour restoration cycle, then leaves.

MB wonders why she made such a big deal of the rescue, and replays its own recording of the incident. It realizes it was talking to Volescu all the way up the crater incline, asking him if he has kids and that sort of thing.(12) It hadn't even been listening to itself at the time, more focused on Bharadwaj and the hopper's trajectory. It wonders if it's been watching too much human media. In an aside it clarifies that Volescu does have seven children with his partners in a four-way marriage back home.

All my levels were too elevated now for a rest period, so I decided I might as well get some use out of it and look at the other recordings. Then I found something weird. There was an “abort” order in the HubSystem command feed, the one that controlled, or currently believed it controlled, my governor module.(13) It had to be a glitch. It didn’t matter, because when MedSystem has priority— PERFORMANCE RELIABILITY AT 39% STASIS INITIATED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR SEQUENCE

=====

(1) Just shy of 4 years, if people are measuring time the same way whenever and wherever this is set. (2) A bot after my own heart, spending as much of its time taking in media as physically possible without giving itself away by not following an order. (3) This is a show Murderbot mentions a lot. What do we think it's about, just off the top here, based on the name and the duration alone? (4) A lot of the words in this series are gonna be kinda self-explanatory. I left "governor module" alone because, in context, it makes its own sense, a module that's supposed to override anything a construct might theoretically think about doing outside mission parameters and company rules, and punish any that happen because of organic parts being unpredictable. (Oh no, I snuck in a bonus definition.) HubSystem is, similarly, the networked system that serves as a hub for everything attached to the mission, to communicate back to the company. (5) Clearly, some sort of leader or organizer, from context. (6) MB knows its rules and regs, if only to follow them with malicious minimum compliance. (7) Do we think MB hacked MedSystem, to see information it might not otherwise have access to, or is it typical for a security unit to potentially need to monitor the biofunctions of the clients it's tasked to defend? (8) MB deliberately tucking itself into its expected role, because as we see later this chapter, it's not particularly worried about its governor module being found out, it just… doesn't enjoy people. (9) A recurring status update throughout MB's point of view. Its performance reliability, its literal ability to do its job, will go up and down based on its current condition, just like any person's. I wonder if it's possible to function at 100%. I think organic bits get in the way of that by literal nature. (10) Organic components, like a human brain, which is still superior to any algorithmic training they can come up with, which will still recognize certain flaws that you can't train out of pure machines. (11) Noooo, my heart, not in the first chapter! How dare! (12) It may not like humans, but it understands how to deal with them, at least in times of stress. Maybe it's "too much media" but it's also just... a person. I'm exactly the same sort of person, I do not recharge in the presence of other people in my meatspace on any level, but I'm very good at masking and doing what needs done, whether that's politeness and asking about the weather or playing along with deeper conversation. (No need to wonder why I love these books so much. No need for me to examine why I relate so hard to a literal robot.) (13) How suspicious... but surely it can't mean anything. Surely.

[thatsnotbeautiful]

agree with everything except:

- nah, authors don’t owe readers replies to comments. they’ve already worked hard to create something and shared it for the fandom to enjoy!!

- there are always complaints about drabbles regardless of how people post them. there are complaints about the “tons of short fics folded into one multi-chapter fic” method, but also the “post lots of drabbles separately” method. and imo drabbles deserve to be posted too, so i’d rather people post their drabbles regardless of how annoying it might be to certain others in the fandom. not sure why people don’t just filter out the “drabble” tag so those sorts of fics don’t appear in their search results.

one suggestion though is to please don’t tag everything under the sun for those compilation multi-chapter fics, bc nobody wants to have to scroll past a massive text wall of tags.

the way i decided to do it is: use the compilation multi-chapter fic method, but only append fandom and ship tags, and put other tags in the author’s notes of each chapter/drabble as a list. that means people can’t find my drabbles through additional tag search, but i can’t think of a better way to do it lol

i also state the fandom and ship of the latest drabble in the overall fic summary, so if people were interested in one of the other fandoms/ships listed, they’ll know none of those is the most recent one so they can scroll on past.

anyway, now to actual tips:

- you can get around the “do not mention paid work” thing by linking to your Bluesky from your fic or something, and having a commissions post pinned there. (but obviously don’t /say/ “go to my Bluesky for commission info”)

- your fic is dated according to when you first create your draft on AO3, not when it’s published. if you’re the kinda person who saves a draft and lets it sit for a while, you will probably want to update the date when you’re about to publish so it’s at the top of the search results

- you can always subscribe to your own account if you want to see when exactly new fic email notifs go out!

- comments can be moderated, or turned off entirely, fic by fic. if you toggle the moderation function on, comments will only appear on your fic after you’ve manually approved them. imo using this is a good way to deter haters or trolls, if you’re worried about that, since you can toss their flame straight in your fireplace— i mean, junk mailbox— without it ever seeing the light of day.

- i also recommend toggling the “require approval before adding my work to a collection” function on; i don’t know if it’s still an issue, but a while ago there were problems where people would find their fics added to a collection, then the collection would get hidden, thus hiding their fic from view as well. nobody can maliciously do that if you simply require approval first.

- a mute function also exists now! if someone in your fandom posts stuff that simply isn’t your jam, you can just mute them and they won’t show up in search at all anymore.

- a list of headcanons is not a fic; AO3 is not a blog. plz keep that stuff to Tumblr or something

- if you post threadfic, consider archiving them to AO3 as well, as a backup copy and for easier readability!

- in addition to the gdocs script linked above, online word processor Ellipsus also has a function that formats your doc for AO3!

- authors can read your bookmark tags/notes if your bookmark is public, so be nice and don’t write anything you wouldn’t want the author seeing

- you can bulk-edit fics. useful for if you want to make all your fics viewable by registered users only, or something like that

Reminders for new ao3 users (in no particular order):

- filter your searches like you would on a library website or in an online catalogue

- don’t post placeholders, fic searches, or recommendations as fics. DON’T! It’s against ao3 TOS

- there is no algorithm. ao3 sorts by date posted/updated unless you filter with specific search criteria

- ao3 is a non profit. that means it doesn’t sell ads to make money — it only survives on donations. this is why it can show you so many fics without ever flashing an ad or pop up at you!

- report fics that break TOS when you see them (I.e., placeholder fics, searches) to help other users navigate better

- the tag “dead dove, do not eat” doesn’t equate to gore/awfulness automatically. it is a complementary tag that enhances current tags. E.g., if the fic is tagged “gore” and “dead dove, do not eat” the author really wants you to mind the gore tag

- most fandoms have a variation of “no beta, we die like (x character)” and they all link back to the “No beta” tag

- publishing a new fic sometimes means it won’t show up in the fandom/pairing tag for a few minutes

- subscribers receive update emails at different times, depending on when you update/publish your fic. there’s no good way to predict when an e-mail will be sent — it can be in 30 seconds, or two hours later

- some fics are restricted by authors to those with ao3 accounts only. if you see a blue lock in the upper right corner, that fic is only visible to logged in ao3 users

- you can block commenters now! this didn’t use to be a thing

- updating a fic just to stay at the top of the pairing tag/fandom tag is a dick move. unless you’re legitimately editing or adding chapters, this just annoys readers and fellow authors, and people will skip over your fic

[nuggetthefanloser]

jesus fucking christ dude you can mute notifications on specific tumblr posts no need to throw a fit. literally just click the three dots above what you reblogged & click 'mute notifications.' easy peasy

Doesn't. Fucking. Help. The number still shows up on my dash every time. And nobody pays attention to the actual original posts I make. Why that specific reblog? Why not one of the ones where I made an actual fucking joke?

That's what really pisses me off I guess

Might just delete the reblog at this point, I'm so fucking tired of the notifications all being for quite possibly the worst reblog I've ever posted. Ts pmo 🥀

[bitletsanddrabbles]

A bit late for the annual Tumblr hiatus, but all signs point to it being time. Add in work being...yeah, I don't even know...and I'm gonna call it.

If you've followed me for a bit, you know the drill: at least a week and if you see me on here, tell me to get my arse off.

Now that Mute Notifications is a thing, I might come back with an overhauled version of my old "Excuse me as I actually think about the S6E8 Breakfast scene" post. After all, if I don't have to clear out the activity bar every time someone tells me I'm an unobservant moron for actually thinking about the plot and characters, it doesn't matter.

...then again, I should probably just start muting the notifications on everything that isn't a brain storming/research help post, since unless I'm actively looking for feedback I don't really care. Hmm...

Alright then, poll before I go away:

And I can look at the results when I get back. Go me.

[beforehappiness]

how do I willingly delete my Instagram? I hate it, and want to be free of it, but as an artist and an introvert I use it to kind of.. prove myself? Like I find it an easy way to show people who I am, if that makes sense. How can I be confident without it?

It's pretty easy you just go on Instagram and click the option to delete your account. (don't forget you can request a backup of your data which includes all your posts if you don't have them saved anywhere else).

But I'm guessing that's not the part you're struggling with.

You have to ask yourself what you want out of Instagram and are you getting it? Are you using it to share your art and socialise or are you spending hours looking at reels? Are you comparing yourself with other artists to negative effect? Are you following the lives of celebrities and hating your own? Are you being sold products with every scroll? Are you really socialising or just looking at how much fun your friends are having without ever talking to them anymore?

There are other ways of showing off your art and socialising with friends that bypass social media designed to rot your brain and sell you products.

I can only suggest what I use or have heard of.

To socialise a very easy way is to use WhatsApp. The messages are encrypted, you can have them dissappear after a chosen amount of time. You can send photos. You can make group chats. You can send voice messages. And you use each others phone numbers, so if you ever needed to reach them in urgency you can actually call them/text them. You know, like back in the day.

Another way is Discord, this has the added benefit of Servers dedicated to specific things like games, shows, dnd groups, probably anything you're interested in, you could find a group to join. But also you can just chat privately to one person or make a group chat. Or even make your own server for your own book club? One thing to mention with the servers if you don't know, you can mute the channel notifications for the whole server or specific channels, otherwise the notifications will be too much.

If you are a gamer then you may already know about Steam since it is like the number one place to get games on pc. Apart from gog. But you can also add friends on it. And see what your friends are playing and play with them.

Now, in terms of sharing your art there is of course tumblr. I think deviantart is still around. Flickr. Hitrecord might still be going? You can also make your own online portfolio. Some people use redbubble. Etsy if you want to sell your art.

What I've often seen online is a combo, where you share your art on Tumblr but have links to a more professional looking portfolio and somewhere else where people can buy your art. Again places like etsy or inprnt or redbubble you can use to sell your art. Or even if your art is more involved, maybe you make videos about it or post photos of it in progress? Then I'd suggest patreon as well.

In the end I don't think anything I say will convince you to quit Instagram because this is a choice you have to make for yourself. You have to want to choose yourself and your health and understand there are better alternatives out there. And of course, do your own reaserch to find what best suits You.

[emilreloaded]

hmmnh. I recognize I'm not the target audience here, but right out of the gate I have frustrations.

When I share a tumblr link these days, there's a JavaScript overlay for new users that says something cutesy like "you need clearance for that!" While I understand the 'top of the funnel' issue you're trying to solve here, it feels like this is the wrong way to approach it. It makes me less likely to share a direct link and much more likely to just screenshot the content and share that instead. It exacerbates the issue rather than addressing it. (Aside: this is also the reason I don't use Instagram)

Enticing users to sign up really ought to come from a place of wanting to have and see all their cool things in one place, not coercion. Which dovetails fairly well into item #2: Organization vs. Recommendation. Again, I'm probably in the minority here, but I actually do click/tap on the little carousels when they catch my interest. But I almost never follow a new blog that way because

I know the same carousel is going to come up again multiple times while I'm scrolling and

if I follow another blog, it's going to get lost in my feed. And it won't show up in the carousel anymore.

I follow several hundred blogs. If I follow them, I won't see the artist who posts once a week except through serendipity. But I will see that carousel at least half a dozen times over the same week.

If I could organize my own feeds (perhaps with some flavor of recommended categorization that I'm not forced to follow), I would gladly and readily follow and engage with creators who interest me.

And on that note, it might be easier to attract creators to the platform if it was conducive to positive interactions. Allowing "engagement with individual replies and reblogs" sounds a lot like we're just trying to cash in on the reddit exodus (Rexodus). Which is okay, but maybe consider why there was such a backlash to Reddit's policy change in the first place (hint: it was a cash grab that limited the ways people could access the content). If the changes here enrage enough software engineers and web developers, then they will take a run at a replacement. (see also: twitter clones)

Now, let's move on to social engineering and attempting to get people to keep coming back. I have push notifications on, but I mute the app during my normal working hours. I do this using an external scheduling function native to Android, and it's the primary reason I only use the mobile app. If I start getting emails because my push notifications are off, I'm adding the address to my spam filter. I keep coming back because of the few mutuals I've got here, and the few weird communities that remain post-nipple-purge. And again, I rarely add new blogs because they'd get buried in the conversations from those communities. If I could, again, have the option to organize those conversations into their own feeds, then I'd probably be following several thousand blogs instead of a few hundred.

Last point regarding stability? Good. No notes.

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.

[thesnarkerramblings]

Things Tumblr Should Add

Ah, Tumblr. The microblogging website is popular among writers and influencers of all kinds. Loved for its various uses and disliked for its semi-frequent lag, Tumblr has come to be a Twitter substitute of sorts ever since Elon Musk took over Twitter [1]. While overall a good website and app in my opinion, it could definitely use some improvements.

1: Partial Blocking

The block features of social media platforms, in general, have overall been rather basic. You either block someone and prevent them from contacting you as well as possibly seeing your posts, or you don’t. If you’re lucky, you might be able to just mute them. But that just stops the notifications from coming in.

On Tumblr, someone you’ve blocked can’t see or do these things [2]:

-See your posts while logged in.

-On that note, interact with your posts while using their account.

-Message or ask you.

-Mention you with the @ sign in a post.

-See you in search results.

-Follow you.

Perhaps this sounds rather comprehensive. The main problem here is that whenever you block someone on Tumblr, it’s extremely obvious to the blocked person they're blocked by you the moment they stumble upon your profile. 

This can become an issue if the person you’ve blocked gets offended by blocks easily and has some of your critical info. Sometimes, even just the personal incentive is enough to encourage block evasion. Another case is of the popular user who makes someone’s block of them into a spectacle.

To prevent the above from happening, perhaps different levels of blocking can exist. The full block is what the current blocking feature on Tumblr is. But lighter sentences could also be implemented. 

For example, a block that only stops interaction and not the viewing of a profile. When the blocked person tries to contact the person that blocked them, they will simply get an error message which won’t specify why the attempt at contact failed. That way, the blocked person can’t interact with the blocker while being less likely to find out. Another level of blocking could also still allow follows while preventing actual contact from occurring. This allows more people to follow and help increase someone’s follower count while preventing actual words from a person the influencer dislikes from coming through.

2: Allowing Links In Nonmedia Asks

Many Tumblr blogs have an “ask” feature allowing users to ask them questions. Sometimes, the ask feature on a Tumblr blog will allow the asker to go anonymous. Sounds great, right? It is for the most part. However, you can’t send links if the blog you’re asking forbids media. Or even on anonymous asks in general. [3]

It’s understandable why Tumblr implemented media prevention for asks. Media links and file downloads online may very well contain malware. With tracing an anonymous ask back being very difficult to impossible if the asker used a proxy or VPN, anonymity can lower the hindrances of bad faith actors who wish to sabotage someone’s online life. Even with anonymous asks off, some still don’t want to take a chance. That being said, this can become annoying when it comes to sending important links to reputable websites. The asker’s only option, then, is to edit out the punctuation in the link and have a note at the end stating what and where punctuation was omitted. 

What could be a solution? Allowing links to send while preventing direct website access from generating. This way, links can be sent freely without users having to worry about accidentally clicking on something sketchy. A simple URL on its own is just a set of text, after all. 

3: General Quality Improvement

A frequent quip on Tumblr is about the overall bugginess of the site [4]. Random hopping to unwanted posts, formatting issues, the list goes on. Sometimes, it owes to an unsupported browser, device, or poor Internet connection. But oftentimes, it’s really just the site’s fault.

It’s been going on for years at this point. While maybe not the direct cause of Tumblr’s decline in popularity in the late 2010s, it certainly didn’t help matters. Tumblr would really be better off if it glitched less.

…

What do you think Tumblr should add to improve it? Comment down below if you want!

Sources

1: Yeo, Amanda. “Twitter/X alternatives explained: From Threads and Bluesky to Spill and Hive.” Mashable, 3 August 2023, https://mashable.com/article/twitter-x-alternatives-bluesky-threads-tiktok-tumblr. Accessed 21 March 2024.

2: Tumblr. “Blocking Users – Help Center.” Tumblr Help, https://help.tumblr.com/hc/en-us/articles/231877648-Blocking-Users. Accessed 21 March 2024.

3: Tumblr. “Changes on Tumblr - Tuesday, March 7th, 2023.” Changes On Tumblr, 07 March 2023, https://changes.tumblr.com/post/711165052913385473/tuesday-march-7th-2023. Accessed 21 March 2024.

4: Geek Girl Problems. “Why is tumblr so weird?” Wikipedia, 24 January 2021, https://geekgirl-problems.tumblr.com/post/641216026025017344/why-is-tumblr-so-weird. Accessed 21 March 2024.

Medium version: https://medium.com/@SnarkyLisa/things-tumblr-should-add-810cf1ff6a9b