#and here we are on Tumblr shitpost central

[hippychick006]

Ok, but Tumblr potentially being the last surviving social media site that refugees of other sites flock to was NOT on my bingo card ngl.

[combines]

hello again!! as someone who comes from the 2020 fandom resurgence I am. SO SORRY. that happened a lot unfortunately. yeah we did NOT know how to act early on (ToT). I had the vibe it was a lot of people's first online fandoms.

the ship with two guys in it being dubbed butter pecan because of something something 'a lot of nuts' is again, so, so funny. Thank you for enlightening me on this, I know it's probably wild to be asked about this stuff like a decade after. This is like honestly a bit of a mystery in the fandom so it's insane finding out the source!! A real miracle the person who coined it so long ago is still active on tumblr

And speaking, it is and was INSANELY hard to dig for any 'fandom history' or even just any sort of Old post on here and I hate it.

another little question if that's okay- I'd assume that seeing the change in reception to freemance and freehoun kinda swapping around must've been bizarre as an older fan considering this was a fandom for a fps game in the early 2000's-early 2010's, in my head the vibes were kinda reversed where freemance was the big ship and freehoun was less well received by most

hiii again!!! i'm so sorry it took me a few days to answer this sdkfsmdk

i think it's super funny because both half-life: alyx and hlvrai came out within weeks of each other so you had this sort of resurgence on here of old fans returning/posting and getting excited for alyx and then a huge wave of people getting into hl in general because of the audience that hlvrai introduced. personally, i still haven't watched hlvrai because it doesn't really seem like my thing, but i'm still glad that there were so many people who enjoyed it to the point where they actually ended up playing and loving the games too!!

freemance definitely was the big ship on tumblr back in the day so yes it was very interesting to see that reversal!!!! honestly i don't think i was on tumblr too much during that time where hlvrai/freehoun really took off, and so the drama surrounding ship wars or whatever was mentioned to me secondhand. 2020 was just like the worst year of my life for personal reasons, as i'm sure for a lot of people, and i can't remember really any of it tbh LOL but you've got nothing to apologize for! i think you're definitely right, it seemed like a first fandom for many people, and that generally skewed younger. i think (hope) it's a better now at least!

tumblr's tagging/tracking/search is HORRIBLE i completly understand. i still think tumblr is the best place for fandom centralized stuff (pictures, art, gifs, etc) and until there's a new platform that does it better, i'll probably still be here, if super sporadically!

if you are interested in uncovering past hl fandom posts or just looking to follow some great people, i've tagged just some that were active in the hl fandom back in the day!!! :') i'm sure they wouldn't mind if you combed their archive looking for hl stuff/shitposts <3

@mbelyakova @littlewitchbee @temunade2 @loplins @angels-heap @anndromedea @skellagirl @bioticbear @cortnan @duamuteffe @protokol @cerviceps @axiolotl @clodiuspulcher @caramujotan @drgertiefremontphd @jauffre @owligator @saikkunen @utopianoverlord @failssafe @brogineer

[tenebrius-excellium]

1. “Tumblr is not easy to use” the rest of us got it, didn’t we? Also it got significantly harder and messier to use based on what changes were made since 2017!

2. “Experiment with logged-out Tumblr” take it back to how it looked in 2017 where the signup page promoted a single, classy-looking work of art (left), instead of whatever this is (right):

3. "We must deliver great content each time the app is opened." Yes but No. Yes you want the content to be representative of what Tumblr is about and to be of high quality. But don't go searching for something forcefully. CREATING that content is NOT your job. That's OURS. You need to encourage Tumblr users to produce so much high quality content on their own (again) that it simply becomes the average view upon opening the app. That happens by making the users relaxed and worriless, by giving them ease and control. Right now, the very crashing use of this site seems a hotter topic than to make art and write poems. Why are we engaging in the Twitter war instead of baking elephant-shaped raisin bread? Because we're too worried we could lose this site. STAY AWAY FROM ALGORITHMS.

4. "Addressing the confusion within replies and reblogs." We tag each other. Problem solved. The only real problem that makes everyone very uncomfortable and sents them rightfully running from a post is this:

We'd rather see everything than wonder what happened. This creates too much insecurity and is the start of censorship. If there's an unwanted comment there, we can just block the person. Just get rid of the pornbot infestation.

5. "Lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs." No. Lack of feedback stems from the fact that I can't search for new blogs (also a feature from back in 2017). I haven't really followed a new person in years. Why? Because blogs aren't recommended in the search function. WHERE I SEARCH FOR THEM. Which I want to do. Which I don't anymore because unwanted stuff is shoved onto my dashboard. Now I just want to get rid of the annoyance. Let people search for what they want.

There's also the aspect where Tumblr has lost almost all its visual appeal due to the shitty blog view. It was a calm side drawer which allowed a quick overview, like this (left):

The central pop-up (right) is so messy and non-functional. Notice how the description and the first post are entirely cut off. You don't know where to look first, where to click, what to do.

Alternatively, clicking on a blog was used to open a new tab. In 2017, people made use of their blog page filling the entire screen. They made elaborate and complex blog designs, bought templates and experimented with the HTML. Every blog was beautiful and showed the user's investment like a Carrd (left). They also counted on the entire internet reading their blog, not just Tumblr users. With the sign-up wall, this is no longer possible, so why bother? Now, everyone uses basic templates because nobody actually goes on people's full blog views anymore (right). The art of blog design has been lost. Gosh we had music players on there! Less artsy pages means cheaper memes and shitposts which means less quality art and less engagement with fanart, which makes Tumblr slowly become a text-only-based site that talks about nothing but its own function. It's as if Whatsapp users kept saying "Whatsapp is so shitty why are we still here" instead of messaging others, which is its use. A site's use must become an art or become invisible, but it can NEVER be the content of its own conversation.

6. "Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral." Turn off notifications, done.

7. "Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr." I don't want to be spammed by e-mails. People will come when the site is amazing enough. It used to be (guess when. Guess). And it can be again. People need to be drawn to this site, not to be reminded that it exists. Tumblr has the potential to be fascinating.

8. "Improve performance, stability, and quality" Yes. But don't shove Tumblr Labs on us. We will come, attracted like mice, if something is good. THAT'S HOW TUMBLR WORKS.

Please think about what "letting the user control their experience" means.

Social media becomes an increasingly passive advertising game. The user has no control over their experience. The user must receive tools to create, not have their experience thrown at them by math. Users like to act intelligent, not to look at artificial intelligence.

TLDR: @staff If you went fully, 100% back to 2017 Tumblr, I would scream with joy. The crabs and frogs felt like that. That's why we liked them. Because it was harmless art. Fix the following things: Bot infestation, blog view should be sidebar not central, enable people to search for blogs again, don't hide replies, get rid of the sign-up wall and bring the more beautiful log-in page back. Additional: Get rid of Community Labels and Tumblr Live.

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.

[hizznbyte]

NEW PINNED POST

“We’ll get there when we get there, but we haven’t gotten there yet so DON’T GO THERE” 🫧

HEY HEY HEY!! Welcome friends, foe, and freaks to my blog!! I’m Captain Nerium of the SSS Autism.

I am a man of many names. Feel free to call me whatever the fuck you want to, but I also go by Neri/Nen/Null/Eff or Typewriter/Type. I do not have a sense of identity and will have a crisis if you question me so uh, don’t do that. I use They/Any pronouns!! I’m a professional shitposter and endless yapper. Oh also I like art, writing, music, and cats n stuff. Yeah. I’m an Indonesian American Muslim, just don’t bring it up too much I’m Whitewashed asf.

Hey, I’m a minor! Please DO NOT INTERACT if you’re part of the following: NSFW, Pedophile or Pedophilia supporter, Incest supporter, Zoophile or Zoophilia supporter, Homophobic, Transphobic, Islamophobic, Pro/Com Shipper, Pro AI, Conservative, Zionist, or Neonazi. Y’all are weird asf IDK what to tell you. But if you respect my boundaries I’ll respect you. Feel free to block me for any reason I truly don’t GAF unless you bother me about it. I block freely too, anyone and everyone I don’t like. Nothing personal but if something pisses me off I don’t wanna see it aight?

I am VERY reblog heavy and will reblog anything I like. I sometimes use tags like #neri reblog or #neriblog plus other related tags, though right now I’ve been lazy so I’m leaving them untagged. If I sound crazy and hopped up on coke in tags it’s because I’m very excited and enthusiastic about a subject that I get annoying about it. Ignore me

Uh hey, being serious for a good minute, I have ASD, RSD, and crippling social anxiety, plus I’m in the process of recovery due to previous trauma so please PLEASE be kind and patient with me. I’m sorry for any trouble I cause and I seriously don’t mean it. Tumblr is my comfort and I don’t want negativity.

I post sporadically about whatever the hell I want. My blog contains a lot of multi-fandom stuffs and things I’m hyperfixated on. Some topics most prominent on my blog right now are Spy X Family, DanDaDan, Ace Attorney, Mouthwashing, Fake Type, Hetalia, and The Karate Kid/Cobra Kai to name a few. I also post stuff about my original series worldbuilding project called Blood Magic! I love my OCs a million they are very precious to me!! I yap about it a ton don’t mind me I’m just passionate. There’s some art and doodles here and there with the occasional essay long post. Happy reading LOL!

Yoyoyo!! Don’t be shy here bro, I don’t bite! Feel free to slide into my DMs for a chat, send me an unhinged ask, tag me in stuffs I might like or whatever!! I love interacting with y’all you guys are so cool. I have so much fun answering asks and stuff. Also fanart of my OCs is cool and I will treasure it forever. My art trades are currently closed ATM but feel free to reach out once they reopen!!

I have a main blog at @efftothefourth. It’s currently inactive and going through a full rebranding/cleanup. My other main socials ‘n stuff are listed there. Go subscribe to my YouTube or something.

My bestest friend in the whole world finally has a Tumblr!! Be warned, it’s Drarry central over there. Go and give her a nice warm welcome @yalkyu

Ah, I think that’s it for me LOL. Thankies for reading till the end, it’s been fun. Have a good rest of the day. Free Palestine. Much love from your local Typewriter guy!! Mwah!!

[queerlilchinchin]

My Blog Intros: A Masterpost

Because I have so many blogs that it's hard for even me to keep track of...

And also because I've spent so much time and effort on blog intros 😂 so here we go:

Blog 1: @iloveyou-writers - https://www.tumblr.com/iloveyou-writers/711609044602896384/new-intro-post-iloveyou-writers?source=share

Blog 2: @mywritinggames2pointoh - https://www.tumblr.com/mywritinggames2pointoh/713024018715918336/i-used-to-run-a-writers-ask-games-blog-called

Blog 3: @quizcentral - https://www.tumblr.com/quizcentral/713579372372705280/blog-intro-quiz-central

Blog 4: @dailywriterdiscussions - https://www.tumblr.com/dailywriterdiscussions/713908254555750400/daily-question-events

Blog 5: @fromyournotsosecretadmirer - https://fromyournotsosecretadmirer.tumblr.com/post/699691941239111680/for-all-new-viewers-andor-people-that-may-have

Blog 6: @locomotivetoyourfate - https://locomotivetoyourfate.tumblr.com/post/694492552086323200/dear-followers

Blog 7: @hyperswitchation - https://hyperswitchation.tumblr.com/post/707995536425451520/hello-everyone

Blog 8: @tmblrtnt - https://tmblrtnt.tumblr.com/post/698102651603337216/tumblr-tips-n-tricks

--

Blogs without Intros:

Blog 9: @queerlilchinchin (this blog) - just my "main/writeblr" blog. Lots of shitposting with occasional writing posts.

Blog 10: @hannahactuallywrites - a blog where I ONLY post writing. I very rarely post on it, just because I usually post my writing on here. I mostly post my favorite pieces of writing that I post on here on there.

Blog 11: @hannahspositivityblog - exactly what it says. An enocuragement/positivity blog for LIFE.

Blog 12: @fightme-negativity - a blog for a comic I plan to start at some point, with food as the characters, representing my internal monologue and how my friends help me through my mental health problems. ❤️ Some of the foods are actually my friends as foods that they picked ❤️

Blog 13: @dialogue4urocs - prompt blog. Pretty simple, really.

Blog 14: @hannah-deactivated20220725 (archived) - my old writeblr that was archived so I and my long-time followers can find my old works. Who knows if I'll ever want to bring some back?

Blog 15: @hannahs-deactivated-ramblings (archived) - my writeblr right before I started this one. Also archived so I can find old WIPs & characters easier.

Blog 16: @assistedwritercide - a writer advice & game blog I have yet to really start up.

I believe that should be all of my activated blogs throughout all of my accounts 🤔😂😅

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing (December 26, 2021 - January 1, 2022)

@incorrectgundamwingquotes still Welcome to the near year Gundam Wing family!  Here’s some good stuff for all of you!  

--Mod LAM

PS: don’t forget to send us your stuff directly!  Tumblr is as Tumblr does, which means we miss stuff in the tags. :(  We want to make sure all you awesome creators get time in the spotlight!

Fanfiction

The Life of the Immortal Jellyfish (CH. 35/35!!) by @lemontrash

Characters: 5 pilots + Relena, Hilde, Sally, Noin, Une

Pairing: Duo x Wufei

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: post-canon, post-Endless Waltz, insomnia, PTSD,  developing relationships, canon-type violence, grief/mourning, UST, friends to lovers

Summary:  Is it chance that lands Duo and Wufei in the same university dorm room? They’re not stupid enough to believe that but too tired to fight it. Duo’s dragged himself back from the brink of going too far and remains teetering on the edge while Wufei’s doggedly trying to prove himself to the ‘good guys’ in the aftermath of the Eve Wars. Sleep and normalcy eludes them both. As they become increasingly aware how damaged they are, they start to edge towards friendship, or something more, but all too soon the peace seems jeopardised by a new and manipulative threat.

a living fire (to lighten the darkness) (CH.7/8) by @gemstonecircles

Characters: 5 pilots + Relena, Hilde, Howard, Sally, Mariemaia, Une, Mareen Darlian

Pairing: Heero x Relena, Duo x Hilde, Trowa x Quatre

Rating: EXPLICIT

Tags / Warnings: graphic depictions of violence, death, corpses; PTSD, trauma, survivor’s guilt, post-canon, post-Endless Waltz, angst, injuries, sexual situations, and then some

Summary: In AC 219, when Liam begins his internship at the Noventa Memorial Earth Sphere Central Libraries and Archives, he finds his supervisor, Heero Yuy, both strange and a bit frightening. He has no idea what the past 25 years have been like.

Many Happy Returns by @expewrites for @deathscythehell​

Characters: Duo, Quatre

Pairing: Duo x Quatre

Rating: Teen and Up

Tags / Warnings: fluff, drinking, new years eve, developing relationship

Summary:  In which Duo has a plan to spring Quatre from his boring New Year's Eve office party, and they share the spoils—plus a little more.

Title by Author Characters: Pairing: Rating: Tags / Warnings: Summary: 

Title by Author Characters: Pairing: Rating: Tags / Warnings: Summary: 

Title by Author Characters: Pairing: Rating: Tags / Warnings: Summary: 

Fanart

Christmas Heero and Relena by @alphaikaros

Happy Holidays from Treize and Zechs by @noromax​

New Year Heero and Relena by @noromax​

New Year Heero and Relena by @gemstonecircles

Chilly Winter Heero and Relena by @gemstonecircles

Cathy-centric comic featuring Dorothy and Quatre by @2pcbart for @a-special-unicorn

Other Fanwork

Gunpla and Cosplay

Deathscythe by @erika-mr​

Other Fun Stuff

@janaverse continues to post screencaps of their GW Sims, so be sure to check them out!

@utamonogatari continues to share some awesome screenshots from the show. Be sure to check out their tag.

@incorrectgundamwingquotes still making us giggle.  Some examples:

Relena staging an intervention

Love is Contagious

Trowa knows what buttons to push

Understanding Donald Duck (with @lemontrash)

‘babe’ but like platonically... from @gemstonecircles

GW Shitposts by @vivi-mire

Discord Bot silliness by @helmistress

Duo plays third wheel again by @a-river-of-stars

An Endless Waltz Throuple by @tennyboo

Nun’s don’t work on Sundays by @the-reanimated-bhg

Yee Olde Memes from @the-reanimated-bhg

Calendar Events

@gwcocktailfriday is welcoming the new year with this week’s prompt.  Post your responses on Friday (January 7) between 3-5PM EST!

The 2021 Holiday Gift Exchange with @thisweekingundamevents is wrapping up!  Posts will go live between January 10-16, so keep an eye out!

The so-called “Big Gundam Server” is hosting the year’s first server meet-up on January 29-30.  Be sure to watch @lifeaftermeteor​ for more info. 

[heroofthreefaces]

Tagged in a you’re-tagged-if-you-wanna way by @iwilltrytobereasonable

1. Why did you choose your url? 

It’s the name of my fanfiction webcomic, a play both on the title of Joseph Campbell’s seminal work and on that they’re stick figures except they’re triangles.

2. Any side blogs? If you have them, name them and why you have them

The only one which has remained active past its first few months or years is @not-caused-by-those-who-love. About a year ago in the middle beginning of the pandemic and the presidential campaign cycle, I finally bit the bullet and did what I thought I perhaps should have done at the beginning of this blog, and began to separate out the activism and heavy matters reblogs and posts onto a sideblog, so that my main hopefully is safe for people who tumbl to get away from all that. The blog title is an allusion to dialog in my concluded general interest webcomic, Arthur, King of Time and Space, “The problems of the world are not caused by those who love. They’re caused by those who hate.” This is my summation of both the fall of Camelot and the present state of the USA (where I live) and the world.

3. How long have you been on Tumblr? 

Since the end of August 2012.

4. Do you have a queue tag? 

Never. Some years ago I began queuing almost everything by default anyway so it wouldn’t have any significance.

5. Why did you start your blog in the first place? 

I logged onto Tumblr with the idea that this blog would be primarily focused on The Hero of Three Faces with reprints and the kind of reader-and-creator discussion you get on a webcomic’s bulletin board, but it hasn’t turned out that way. 

6. Why did you choose your icon/pfp? 

I’ve been using this icon, with progressively less color in the hair, on all my social media for fifteen or twenty years.

7. Why did you choose your header? 

It’s a panel from Three Faces meant to summarize it (as well as any single panel could). It has the Doctor from Doctor Who, my favorite and the central character of Three Faces and in her latest incarnation, because I love crossovers and there’s no better literal and literary device to facilitate crossovers than a time machine. It has Michael Burnham, the lead of the current most long-running series of Star Trek, my other lifetime favorite; and it has Spock, the most popular legacy character in the franchise if you go by number of appearances in other series than his own, as he appeared in Burham’s series. And it depicts Spock’s first meeting with the Doctor, though because timey-wimey it’s not the Doctor’s first meeting with Spock. This is actually a year or two out of date and I should prolly pick a newer panel.

8. What’s your post with the most notes? 

I think it’s The Solution of Susan, a short Doctor Who/Narnia crossover.

9. How many mutuals do you have? 

I wouldn’t know how to start going about guessing that, except perhaps to page through my followees and count which would take more time and effort than my emotional investment in the question warrants.

10. How many followers do you have? 

Counting any bots because I don’t take the time and effort to purge them, about 1100.

11. How many people do you follow? 

714.

12. Have you ever made a shitpost?

I’m too uncertain of what constitutes a shitpost to confirm or deny.

13. How often do you use Tumblr each day? 

I live here.

14. Did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? Who won? 

Once, and I’m pretty sure we each think we won.

15. How do you feel about ‘you need to reblog this’ posts? 

I reserve the right to exercise my own judgment.

16. Do you like tag games? 

Some of them.

17. Do you like ask games? 

Yes.

18. Which of your mutuals do you think is Tumblr famous? 

I think the only Tumblr-famous blogger whom I know and have seen to have followed me back is argumate.

19. Do you have a crush on a mutual? 

Several of course but they’re all taken, too young for me, and/or hundreds of miles away.

20. Tags: 

You’re tagged if you wanna.

[beevean]

SEGA and the eternal issue of “Sonic’s girlfriend”

[Translator’s note: here is the original article written by @latin-dr-robotnik​​, originally written on the 18th of May 2020]

Today we’re going to talk about one of the aspects SEGA is more secretive about: Sonic’s relationships.

[Translator’s note: this article was written to celebrate Seaside Hill Paradise’s 200th entry. If you’re fluent in Spanish, I highly recommend you to check it out! And if you aren’t, go follow Latin’s Tumblr blog if you haven’t already and you’re into Sonamy, analyses, gushing about music and shitposts.]

This article concludes my Sonamy trilogy, and I recommend you to read the previous two articles: “SEGA and the eternal issue of the Sonamy dynamic” and “’I love you’ – forbidden words in Sonic”. This means this is a shipping article – if you’re not interested into another essay about the love life of a blue hedgehog, I can redirect you to other articles such as “Sonic and speed: are we misunderstanding them?” and “What went wrong with Classic Sonic’s music in Sonic Forces?”.

Everybody else, welcome to today’s article!

It should be noted that this article focuses more on the semi-official and strictly official aspects, since there is really not much to say about the fandom. Nowadays the fandom has a relatively peaceful coexistence, creating art, fanfics and more, for all kind of ships; sometimes there’s an occasional fight between ships or a ship that clearly is not appropriate… but besides that, everything seems relatively calm, at least in my experience and compared to other fandoms.

Too cool for relationships...

Few things are as mentioned and yet silenced by the official SEGA media as the fateful words “girlfriend” and “Sonic” put together. In official terms, Sonic has always been this young, cool hedgehog, with a pure love for nature and never too worried about life, but with a moral code that makes him fight against injustices. During his first years, Sonic was almost impatient and a little emotionally distant, although as it was the ‘90s and things were not so clear for the young SEGA star, different interpretations would take the character through different paths - some more radical than others. As the years went by, and going through many redesigns, certain aspects of his personality would be perfected, exaggerated, or even flanderized. His position on relationships, on the other hand, would remain relatively constant over the decades, with a few particular exceptions.

The this is that Sonic, in the words of his own creator Naoto Ohshima, has always been considered “a young man with a child's heart”, which has helped to substantiate and understand why the character would remain relatively distant from his feelings, and much closer to his own interests associated with the life of adventure.

... or is he?

Despite everything I just said, they tried in many occasions, if not succeeded, to give Sonic a girlfriend, with various results.

As carefree as Sonic is, and as much as SEGA tried to clarify this point over and over again, the people behind his character have always tried to introduce one or more relationships into his life. Even Naoto Ohshima himself has made his own suggestion as to who might be a hypothetical partner for his character. The different interpretations I’ve mentioned have tweaked Sonic’s character to make it more apt to certain types of dynamics, and the cultural gap between the East and the West (which I analyzed a few years ago with the first article of this “trilogy”) also has a considerable impact on the type of relationships that would be established for Sonic from very early in his history until today.

Author’s note: the concept of “Sonic + human woman” of 1990 wasn’t completely forgotten, no no, it was brought back 16 years later, in… well… the worst way possible.

Let’s see an example. Going back to his very origins, in his pre-Sonic 1 sketches Sonic was often depicted with a stereotypical damsel in distress, Madonna, his own “Princess Peach” that ended up being scrapped for many reasons, including the similarities with Super Mario. As the years have gone by, this concept has not disappeared, but rather the writers and directors of the series have taken it down different paths over time. While Madonna was too cliché, other candidates for the role of “Sonic’s girlfriend” would quickly appear to try different dynamics, directly or indirectly endorsed by SEGA.

Sally Acorn

For many years, Princess Sally was for Western fans the first person who came to mind when they thought of “Sonic’s girlfriend”. Since 1993, and for 2 more decades, her relationship with Sonic has gone in many directions, but fundamentally the most amazing thing about this whole situation was that she was Sonic’s official girlfriend (at least in the Archie Comics canon). It was also one of the many headaches for SEGA in the last decade.

Originally a fellow fighter against the macabre Robotnik from the 1993 animated series Sonic The Hedgehog, Sonic and Sally’s relationship was always marked by their opposite personalities; while Sally tends to plan ahead and is much more focused on the seriousness of the task, Sonic was the type to destroy robots first and think later. “Opposites attract,” they say, and by the (premature, I might add) end of that series both were already more than friends. They had already kissed a couple of times.

At the most critical moment in their relationship, Sonic, after a year of being missing in space and presumed dead by everyone, returns to Mobius only to end up back in potential danger, decides to ignore the wishes and warnings of Sally, who’s clearly emotionally traumatized and stressed by both the general situation and the responsibilities she had to carry out for her kingdom in the absence of her parents. The result of this explosive cocktail was one of the most infamous scenes in all of Archie Sonic, "the Slap", where Sally finally reacts violently to Sonic's selfish statements. The hedgehog's response? Well, a long exposure to the screams about her experience - also traumatic - up to that point. In the end, both end up screaming and crying in front of virtually everyone.

What followed in the next decades was an expansion of that original SatAM canon in the Archie Comics, in which its various writers introduced varying degrees of drama and increasing conflict to demonstrate the strong bond between them, destabilizing or even stabilizing it again, multiple times. They would be together for some time, then they would be apart, eventually rekindling the flame of love passionately, until a final sacrifice on their part and the eventual resetting of the entire Archie Sonic canon.

In their last years, after the Super Genesis Wave, Sonic and Sally’s relationship went back to being platonic. a good friendship with the advantages and disadvantages of their personalities - Sally’s leadership and Sonic’s extreme confidence - while the focus was put on the flourishing relationship between Sally and her best friend (and old computer!) Nicole.

Regardless of the way their relationship ended, it's undeniable that Sally has left a huge mark. Being a product of the West, her existence was never really accepted by the Sonic’s Japanese creators, but because the bulk of the fandom is here in the West, Sally's presence has been strongly associated with Sonic, the Freedom Fighters, the comics... and also the ship wars between her and the character we’re going to talk about next. Her very existence was a living contradiction to the Japanese central canon, an official girlfriend who broke all the ideas that existed for Sonic in terms of his conception of relationships and lead him through unique paths. Whether for better or worse, Sally broke the mold.

Eimi. Rosy. Amy Rose.

On the opposite side of the spectrum there’s Amy, a character that was originally conceived as the Minnie to Sonic’s Mickey, but with her own dynamic.

Despite Amy’s existence being strongly tied to Sonic’s, once again Sonic Team tried to avoid the classic cliché (in this case to copy Mickey and Minnie), opting then to establish Amy as the one interested in a relationship, while Sonic runs away from this idea. For this dynamic to keep working, Sonic’s feelings have to be kept hidden, with excuses like his “shyness”, which leads to ambiguity, or because, as said before, of his “child’s heart”.

The most interesting thing is that Amy kept her canonical status of “self-proclaimed girlfriend” since 1993, which makes her “official” and “not official” at the same time, but there are some traces left from the Sonic manga of 1992 (which in turn influenced Amy’s original design), where a prototype version of Amy (or, as it was spelled there, Emi/Eimi) played the role of Sonic’s girlfriend (or Nicki’s, to be more precise). With this detail in mind, Amy can be considered, at least in the East, the very first “Sonic’s girlfriend”, even before Sally – but her situation is much more complex.

Sonic Mega Drive (top) and Sonic Boom (bottom), representing some differences in different Sonic continuities.

In any case, the manga would be the first and only time Amy was officially considered “Sonic’s girlfriend”, because in the following decades and in several continuities the core of their dynamic shifted to Amy chasing Sonic. Both would get closer or further away depending on each case (in Fleetway, for example, Amy ends up marrying another character, while in Archie Sonic there would be only a few instances of potential interest, quickly overshadowed by convenience or other things directly or indirectly related to Sally), but generally no continuity would establish an official relationship. In some cases, such as Japan, it wouldn’t even be necessary to clarify the state of the relationship, since their cultures accept more easily the dynamic that Sonic Team proposed as an “official relationship”. Just looking at the artwork highlighted on Sonic Channel (run by SEGA of Japan) shows how much more accepted the relationship is, even though Sonic Team’s official artwork still avoids any kind of public confirmation. (Author’s note: I’ve written more about Amy according to the East and the West in the first article of this trilogy)

Unlike Sally, there is no “opposites attract” situation between Amy and Sonic, and, at first, there is no prior friendship from which a potential relationship could flourish. We witnessed their dynamics from the first moment they met, and it would not be until years later that there would be a minimal basis for interaction from which various official continuities would bring both characters closer together.

Technically Amy already knew that her destiny was tied to Sonic and the events of Sonic CD on Little Planet, thanks to her tarot cards (an element that has disappeared since then), but for Sonic it was just another day of adventure, and although we’ve seen how Amy's feelings have progressed, mostly in Adventure 1 and 2, Sonic has never reflected on his personal feelings; it’s an aspect of the hedgehog that to this day remains a mystery to the audiences.

Also unlike Sally, Amy has appeared in multiple continuities of all kinds and because of that her relationship with Sonic has been affected in various ways. The main videogames canon has remained ambiguous and unchanged for 25 years: Amy would stay close to Sonic and offer some good moments to reflect on her feelings about him (some of which I mentioned in my post about Sonic Unleashed and Amy’s emotional support), while Sonic would remain distant, uncomfortable, shy, and, more recently, potentially affected by her apparent loss.

Sonic X is the first official attempt (by Sonic Team no less) to offer an expanded view of our characters. There’s a lot of discussion about how Sonic is slowly opening up to Amy’s advances, and these developments follow a line that we discussed in previous articles of this trilogy, and how, during the 2000s, the Japanese writers of the series kept slowly deepening the interactions between the two, reaching very important symbolic moments like Sonic X Ep. 9, 52 and 76, among several others. I am purposely leaving out specific details to direct your attention to this fantastic thread by Yvanix Rose that highlights some key details about how this continuity worked the Sonic-Amy dynamic. [Translator’s note: the thread is in Spanish]

Sonic X, episode 76.

Another essential continuity for the development of this dynamic was Sonic Boom, since, despite having been a separate continuity with its own interpretation of the characters, its existence managed to influence the main canon in some way in the years that followed its original release in 2014.

Sonic Boom made two important changes in the dynamic: Amy did no longer externalize her feelings with the same frequency or intensity (speeding up a process that already started in the main canon in 2008), and Sonic was noticeably more nervous and insecure of his feelings for her, even being jealous in several occasions. These changes got the dynamic closer to the “friends who have secret feelings to each other but they’re too shy to admit it” trope, and in the second season it could even be said that there are signals of the “secretly dating” trope. Nothing was officially confirmed yet, but the changes to the dynamic offered a fresh perspective to work from: winks and inferences about a relationship that was not talked about but seemed to happen behind the scenes.

Sonic Boom S1E16.

Sonic Boom’s approach also opened the door to working a little more on the characters’ new personalities. Taking a little inspiration from the original foundations of Sally and Sonic’s relationship, Boom now presented situations where Sonic and Amy’s perspectives actively clashed with each other, leading to discussions and moments that showed a little more of the mundane details of the friendship they had, rather than appealing to more classic behaviors of the main canon, like Sonic leaving the scene in a hurry. Considering the way things turned out the last time we saw this kind of dynamic on screen, it was pretty safe to assume that their new opposites were now attracted; the implied secret dating and so on only helped to give it more sustenance - which the fandom would eventually take to the extreme.

And lastly there’s IDW Sonic, the comic series that replaced Archie Sonic after its cancellation in 2017, and the most recent arc that offers an interesting perspective. Starting its continuity from the end of the events of Sonic Forces (which at the same time took on certain characteristics from the post-Boom era, particularly as far as Amy is concerned), IDW Sonic didn’t waste any time in presenting the way in which it would carry out its dynamic between Sonic and Amy.

Amy makes her feelings for Sonic very clear, and he is surprised but unable to match them. However, Sonic doesn’t want to outright reject her, and suggests that she come with him; she refuses, claiming that she has duties to the Resistance, setting the tone for the rest of the series. (IDW Sonic #2)

“Sonic’s girlfriend” today

As I mentioned earlier, after the reboot Sally was no longer considered Sonic’s girlfriend, and her disappearance after the cancellation of Archie Sonic in general is a sign that we may not see her ever again, even as a friend. As of today, in 2020, only Amy has been left in her “unofficial, but…” state, with various minor events taking place both in the main canon and in IDW Sonic:

In 2018 the official SEGA shop wrote a description for a piece of Amy Rose merchandise that said “celebrate 25 years of Sonic’s girlfriend”; the mistake wasn’t immediately corrected, despite the fandom pointing it out immediately.

The video game canon has remained dormant, with Team Sonic Racing in 2019 featuring more of a regular friendship between Sonic and Amy, sharing rivalries and quiet moments alike.

On the other hand, since IDW Sonic and Sonic Boom laid their foundations, we've begun to see a certain shift in the way the two characters are presented. While we’ve talked about IDW Sonic already, Sonic’s social medias have done multiple “Twitter Takeovers” where Sonic characters answer questions from fans, and Sonic has always answered more like his version of Boom to the inevitable question about Amy and his “feelings”.

Recent official animations like Sonic Mania Adventures and Team Sonic Racing Overdrive have shown Amy flirting with Sonic in a more casual way.

The current dynamic seems to be pointing towards “Sonic’s hidden feelings”, and I think we are at a perfect point to change the approach. SEGA in general seems more open to the idea of bringing these characters closer, probably as a marketing strategy, but without yet separating themselves from the central ideas that defined the dynamic for the last two and a half decades.

Conclusion

The idea of “Sonic’s girlfriend” has been one of the most experimental and controversial in the almost three decades that this series has been around for. SEGA has opened the door to all kinds of ambiguities, developments and interpretations, all with their pros and cons, instead of settling on a definitive position. As iconic as these characters, conceived as Sonic’s “romantic interests”, have become, they have also had their share of criticism and controversy, especially in the fandom.

The presence of Amy as the only “official but self-proclaimed girlfriend” today says a lot about the control SEGA (specifically SEGA of Japan) regained over the characters, after decades of interpretations that offered different alternatives with various degrees of success. At her best, Sally represented an ideal relationship with Sonic, much more complete and profound than the back-and-forth game between Amy and Sonic. But at her worst, this same relationship represented everything wrong that could happen by associating Sonic with the emotional spiderweb of a romantic relationship. SEGA hardening its control over the characters seems to have put an end of this type of situation where Sonic ends up being involved in a romantic telenovela, but at the same time it has revitalized the flirting game and the implicit associations that give fuel to the fandom fire.

From my humble interpretation, I think we’ve reached a point where Sonic and Amy have shared enough stories and moments to solidify the core aspects of their personalities and their friendship, allowing them to take the next step, which is to play around with the idea of “something else”. 25 years ago it was hard to see how these two characters could work together beyond “it’s SEGA’s word”; today there’s enough of a story to find a rhythm and chemistry for them, and the series of situations they've put themselves in (e.g. IDW Sonic’s plot arcs) are increasingly helping this case. The topic of “Sonic's girlfriend” may be a controversial one for SEGA and the fandom in general, but the doors have slowly been opened for this debate to develop and be investigated with interesting results, and I think that, in this new decade of 2020, there’s a unique potential to explore this kind of discussion, without sacrificing in any way the central principles of Sonic as a character. Thank you for joining me in these 200 entries, and hopefully we’ll see each other for many more.

[blessedluna]

i was talking w a coworker about the fact that we have been using this site for ten years and i had a chuckle internally since she said her tumblr was mostly books and aesthetic blogging and im out here weeb and shitpost central and yet we both witnessed the night of national news being conveyed by supernatural memes

[samueldays]

“Democracy is when you promote immigration and transgenderism. The more you promote immigration and transgenderism, the more democratic you are.” -pseudonymous internet shitposter

The above came up as a commentary on the latest crock of shit that is Freedom House’s democracy rankings, where we are told that Hungary has left the group of democracies entirely. This is patent nonsense.

As best I can tell, Freedom House is stubbornly refusing to use a thesaurus or read any political science tract more complex than ‘DEMOCRACY GOOD’, because FH is using the word “democracy” as a catch-all for every good thing they like in a government or state, such as an independent judiciary. The lack of an independent judiciary, according to FH, is undemocratic. In their own words:

Antidemocratic leaders in the region continue to pay lip service to the skeletal, majoritarian element of democracy—claiming that they act according to the will of the people—but they do so only to justify their concentration of power and escalating violations of political rights and civil liberties.

The skeletal, majoritarian element of democracy. What a wonderfully evocative, emotive phrase. What a fascinating way to brush off the defining element of democracy.

Dear Freedom House - you don’t appear to have a tumblr, so I don’t know if you’ll read this, but it’s mostly my rant to the world at large and setting my own thoughts in order anyway - read another book, and get a bigger vocabulary. Hold a rectification of names. Practice using phrases like civil society, liberalism and constitutionalism, and learn about how they are distinct things from democracy. Stop using “democratic” to mean what you like, and “undemocratic” to mean what you don’t like, you God-damned emotivists. Cut the ridiculous hyperbole. Look at the Hungarian parliament, for example. Look at it, rather than trying to brush it away with colorful pejoratives.

[Illustration from Wikipedia: Seats in the Hungarian national assembly, featuring a majority center-right party, and minority center-left, far-left and far-right parties.]

There’s several more minor parties that didn’t make the cut to get a seat. This flourishing multiparty system with free elections, Freedom House calls undemocratic because the two-thirds majority governing coalition (orange + supporters) is getting its way and the very small minority parties are not getting their way. Freedom House puts it this way:

Prime Minister Viktor Orbán’s government in Hungary has similarly dropped any pretense of respecting democratic institutions.

The supermajority ruling coalition IS THE DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTION, you midwits, that the other institutions ought to be the ones respecting!

Here is Freedom House’s seven-factor measure of good government, which they call a measure of “democracy”, probably because that’s the magic word which roots many people’s brains.

National Democratic Governance. Considers the democratic character of the governmental system; and the independence, effectiveness, and accountability of the legislative and executive branches.

Electoral Process. Examines national executive and legislative elections, the electoral framework, the functioning of multiparty systems, and popular participation in the political process.

Civil Society. Assesses the organizational capacity and financial sustainability of the civic sector; the legal and political environment in which it operates; the functioning of trade unions; interest group participation in the policy process; and the threat posed by antidemocratic extremist groups.

Independent Media. Examines the current state of press freedom, including libel laws, harassment of journalists, and editorial independence; the operation of a financially viable and independent private press; and the functioning of the public media.

Local Democratic Governance. Considers the decentralization of power; the responsibilities, election, and capacity of local governmental bodies; and the transparency and accountability of local authorities.

Judicial Framework and Independence. Assesses constitutional and human rights protections, judicial independence, the status of ethnic minority rights, guarantees of equality before the law, treatment of suspects and prisoners, and compliance with judicial decisions.

Corruption. Looks at public perceptions of corruption, the business interests of top policymakers, laws on financial disclosure and conflict of interest, and the efficacy of anticorruption initiatives.

Lots of things in that list that sound great, I’m sure. But if you haven’t been conditioned to reflexively cheer when you hear “democracy”, you might notice some odd things about this list.

For example, the points awarded for legislative independence, executive independence, press independence, and judicial independence. Without here getting into the reactionary weeds of whether or not these things ought to exist, can we at least recognize that there’s some double-counting going on here?

Moreover, the judicial independence in particular is smuggling in a very particular definition of democracy since it’s precisely the will of the people, the elected bodies and the [spongebob voice] ‘mAjoRITariaNISM’ that the judiciary is normally expected to be independent of. Again, “democracy” is being used as a catch-all applause-light.

Then there’s that bit about human rights protections, a loophole of vagueness wide enough to drive a tank through, as well as being a kind of definitional security hole where a country’s supposed democratic-ness can be altered without altering any trait of the country itself, only altering the benchmark. Hocus pocus, I added a new human right, your country is now less democratic because your people didn’t vote for it!

Libel laws are another standout element that have a lot to do with good governance, and little to do with “democracy”, where it is very easy to imagine the people getting dinged for undemocracy because they voted the wrong way.

Let’s go back to that point about press freedom and editorial independence for a moment. Meditate on it. Then consider Freedom House complaining out of the other side of its mouth later in the same report:

In Central and Eastern European countries, Chinese diplomats have been given free rein to publish misleading op-eds that push a pro-China narrative.

Here, let me put that in a larger context screenshot:

“Weak or nonexistent democratic institutions.” As if it weren’t bad enough for Fuckwit House to conflate democratic with free press, Fartsniff House then complains the free press is simultaneously undemocratic when the Chinese get a turn at it.

The quip at the top is probably inspired by this sentence from Freedom House’s report:

In the EU, member states’ failure to tackle rule-of-law violations inside the bloc has been coupled with a slow erosion of the rights of migrants and asylum seekers.

[ngame989]

After shotgunning all of Parks and Rec in like a week and a half for the 2nd time not too long ago, I’ve come to the conclusion that my own preferences for Starco, SVTFOE, the fandom, and romantic fiction in general (or at least my SLIGHTLY self-caricatured Brand™ on display here on tumblr dot com fairly often) is basically “Ron Swanson but with Starco and fluffy/wholesome romance in general instead of manly libertarianism”. So I present to you the start of a new series of shitposts:

Ron Swanson as a Starco fan

Also, hot take: Parks and Rec’s handling of Leslie, Ben, and Pawnee is INCREDIBLY similar in so many ways to SVTFOE (in terms of broad concepts if not every individual detail). Girl who has a genuine drive to make her hometown a better place for everyone and a guy who falls for her because of how much her passion energizes him and helps him find his calling, and who in turn is a constant rock and perfect support for her goals. Jake and Amy from B99 are probably closer to Star and Marco in terms of personality and exact relationship dynamic, but Ben and Leslie’s general role of growth/development/”plot” has the exact same spirit as Starco (also we shouldn’t ignore the fact that both of those couples have at least a full 1.5 seasons of steady relationship growth AND are together as a couple for many seasons afterwards, although it’s worth noting that Starco is far more central and gets more focus in SVTFOE than Ben/Leslie or Jake/Amy do in their shows).

[otto-von-stirlitz]

Wicdiv #45 notes

 I It’s all so... weird and surreal. One last post to honor the tradition that really did keep me hooked on here for years. Something about those 5 years just ending. Having followed wicdiv almost from the beginning, I really feel attached to it and view it through a VERY personal lens of all the changes that happened during those years. From a depressed and passively suicidal 17yo in a highschool, to an almost graduated 22yo, trying to figure out it all with a bit more hope and a bit less of mental health issues. Eh, let’s cut it out and move to a standard spoilery bullet points format, I’m too wordy and pretentious

Of course this issue had to be happy and sad at the same point, as both life and death shine through as central motifs of the whole book, especially underlined here. Two sides of the same coin (no Yavien, you will not say ‘alexa play hyori ittai by yuzu’ to cry over hunter x hunter. no)

You know how as an urban activist I’m ideologically not a big fan of cars, but damn, that McKelvie design! Reminds me of prototypes of future cars I saw in the BMW musuem, kudos for capturing that futuristic tech feel.

I like the subtle implication that Eleanor did grow and change. But then again, she had so much time, so it’s not even that high of a bar.

‘What’s a funeral without morbidity?’ after all those years Cass stayed THE #1 goth of the cast (but Umar gets pretty close with channeling Cam). Yes, I love Cass and I love how after the kiss from #44 we got a whole ass lauracass feels issue, amazing, showstopping, incredible etc etc. You know, Im just a fan.

Gotta admit, reading the issue the first time I did miss that Laura says ‘them’ to refer to Zahid. It really explains why Kieron was so cagey about the pronouns ask back during Fandemonium. They did have time to explore thier gender and pronouns after all of the ‘2 years’ baiting. It’s a win for the nbs (sobs and cries on the floor)

Also goddamn McKelvie really popped off with all the older character designs? All those little details and shout-outs to their youger selves? And all the Minanke practice in drawing basically the same character but as a teen and as a grandma did pay off. And this all while chasing deadlines with hypermobility? Chapeau bas. Although I’m sad that Jon got his fathers aging genes, however his mom looked that age must’ve been better...

‘Every time it rains’ yes A CHRISTMAS SPECIAL SHOUTOUT BUT I AM ALRIGHT I REPEAT I AM ALRIGHT ITS NOT TEARS, IT RAINS (haha both baal ref and fma hughes funeral ref IA M FINE)

Also I’m crying for Aruna, she was in such a bad place by #13 and this issue? HEr new body? The way she learned to mix miracles and songs? And in general finally having this authority over her life? And deciding to use it paritally to help people she often barely knew? I am fine i repeat

Meredith and Zoe, glad to see you and your names confirmed and a confirmation that you were also a part of the Pantheon

Umar’s line about hospitals (and the picture from #16) seems to imply Cass passed away after some illness. Eleanor saying it’s unfair that she smoked and ‘got away’ with it and Cass being prepared she’d die soon kinda ties into that theory? Was it cancer or something else?

Also yeah re: that pic (and the invitation to Was It Cam Or Cass debate) - Umar has two hands, period. And like the fact that Umar literally quotes words Cam said moments before his death in Umar’s hospital room? Yeah, it’s really raining, lieutenant...

Delivering your own eulogy via a hologram is exactly this level of gay panache that Cass would embrace, I LOVE HER SO MUCH. Also being nice AF to literally everyone but in the snarkiest way possible? PEAK CASS. But yeah, something more changed because she wears a white (!!!) shirt. Now that’s a massive wardrobe change

Zahid being one of the closest friends of Cass? I love this song

Also ‘you were never my type. until you were’ should be An Iconic quote of gay tumblr and twitter and yes i will be using it as my lauracass otp tag from now on.

Also Cass focus on how everyone changed themself and tried to change the world, so the future people are born into a better one.

And yeah, same, I also didnt always want to be buried beneath a tree but now as I’m growing out of my old edgeperson ways? It sounds wonderful, I want to be an acorn even after death.

Also yeah, the final themes of growth that takes time, becoming better and finding hope... they resonate with me now, as I also feel like I’ve been through hell for 2 (or actually more, i think) years. But you know, rip to that old me but im different (now). Thank you Kieron for luring me into a flashy colorful YA, then a messed up and depressive story, and then climbing up the walls of hell back when I did. It was not always going to be okay, but then it was okay.

And yes, to the whole fandom, fandom that let me find so many friends all over the world and grow up as a person and have so much fun with our stupid puns and shitposts: I love you. I’ll miss you. (but honestly, still feel free to HMU etc, its not like we actually die. We just lost a source of monthly engagement, thats it. Im just a dramatic lil shit too)

Also yeah, one last word: may Two Slow Dancers by Mitski be the final, ultimate Lauracass song. Let’s all play it now, and cry. No, it’s not raining anymore, I really am crying thinking about Them.

[lexosaurus]

Hey, Lexx! So I'm just another DP phan but I just recently discovered the Tumblr danny phandom. As the unofficial official meme central of the group, do you have any idea how I could join the phandom?

WELCOME TO THE PHANDOM MY DUDE! 

This is it this is how you join. You just show up and declare “I am here” All-Might style and yup now hacker voice you’re in.

There’s some blogs you can follow if you want. I’ve made a comprehensive list of them here but honestly there are more blogs that I forgot to put in there so I’m just gonna redo that list below.

We also have a discord server which is open to the public, just DM me for the invite link. 

Ok some blogs I personally find enjoyable to see on my dash include but are not limited to:

@totallycorrectdannyphantomquotes (typical fake quote page)

@reallydumbdannyphantomaus (funny phandom au’s)

@awkwarddannyphantomphotos (funny screencaps)

@awkwarddannyphantomscreencaps (also funny screencaps)

@phandomphightclub (event page, semi active atm, event happened in january)

@dannypocalypse (biggest phandom event page, event happens in april)

@dpreanimated (dp fan reboot)

@danphanwritingprompts (writing prompts page)

@dannyphandump (phandom member, amazing artist like 11/10 art)

@earthphantom (lawful good artist that u need in ur life trust me)

@diddly-darn-ghost (meme legend, cartoon artist, creator of diddles piddles)

@d-o-t-s (phandom member, literally so good at art i crie)

@heyheyitsstillgay (phandom member, actually rlly good at shitposts but they don’t do them often, just a good person all around)

@lumanae (phandom member, all around A+ individual)

@ladylynse (like unfairly good at writing, just ugh yes 👏)

@cordria (probably the best phiccs ever in my unbiased opinion)

@imekitty (again with the amazing writing, like superrr good at angst)

@haikujitsu (author of the most well-known DP fanfiction of all time)

@ceciliaspen (amazing art AND fanfiction, legit like 2 qualities wrapped into one human being I Can’t)

@ectopusses (just great memes like come here for a good time)

@going-dead (phandom member, great writer)

@ghostboyconceps (phandom member, a wholesome individual)

@qlinq-qhost (phandom member, another A+ individual all around)

@ghostgothgeek (straight chaotic evil i’m not kidding she printed out this hell post i started and MAILED IT TO ME and it took up the entire length of my living room)

@narwhalsarefalling (one of the creators of the dannypocalypse)

@elmerthotman (chaotic evil in a blog)

@elmerbutchhartman (birch tree fartman receipt blog we stan)

@phantombreadproject  (a wholesome individual, 10/10)

@what-is-love-babey-dont-hurt-me (our phandom mother)

@mostlikelynothuman (great art, great fanfiction, cosplay, just ugh yes a trifecta of a human 👏👏)

@ectoplasmbender (great DP blog we stan)

@imdeadtiredtm (great writer, just ugh yes get those words 🙏)

@daddyphannypack (yet another great quality DP blog and person)

@quishaphantom (great writer honestly tho)

@babypop-phantom (just in general a solid DP blog)

@wastefulreverie (fucking outstanding fanfiction)

@gostriley (a memer, funny human being)

@grimgrinningghoul (phandom member, good DP blog)

@rayhoosier (just a good person all around tbh)

@phan-pheeking-tastic (good writer, great fic recs)

@phanboyo (another solid DP blog)

@gggoingghost (great artist and human being)

Ok I’m gonna stop here but even with this more detailed list I for sure missed some blogs so feel free to rb with some more recs! 

Welcome to the phandom, Anon! Hope you enjoy your stay!

[windlion]

Tumbling in 2020

Well, Tumblr, I’ve been here since . . . 2011.  (Yikes.)  I don’t think I’m going anywhere very soon, especially now that we have somewhat more benevolent overlords.  I did try Twitter this year, which is good for the sporadic shitpost, but it doesn’t have quite the same wallowing in the decadent mudpit qualities.  There’s a certain je ne sais quoi to Tumblr that we’ve all chose to be in here together.

This was a year I haven’t been particularly active--  and I do regret that a bit.  I’ve gone cruising through several different fandoms in lurker mode.   And then I pass through out the other side with no souvenirs to show for it, which is vaguely disappointing.  I would like to try and do better about embracing in-the-moment-ness for 2020- and being braver about posting tidbits of whatever the hell I am writing regardless of what it is.

I most miss doing prompt fills, weirdly enough?  But without centralized places to post prompts/responses like memes, I don’t really know how to go about that.  Hn.

At any rate, goals for 2020: - Actually use my own dang blog - Write and post said writing more - Try not to care about what other people think when they chose to be here too

*Salutes* May your 2020 be brave!

[speedtacular]

♕ ☣ ✆ ❥ 回 ▽

QUESTIONS FOR MUNDAY – ACCEPTING

♕ Do you like magic!anons? Why or why not?

I liked them back when I first started RPing  on tumblr but that was what? A long time ago in a galaxy far far away? Even then I had problems sticking to them because they involved being really interactive with your followers and maybe your followers weren’t interested or you just weren’t that active with your mutuals. Also, if it was a joke anon that last like x amount of days the joke could get stale and you could lose interest in even writing anything. They were nice for shitposting but that was about it, but I don’t need magic!anons to shitpost and I don’t even have time to do them like I did in the past so nah— I don’t like them that much anymore. 

☢ Are there any ships that you would like to write for one day? Any that you wouldn’t?

Romantic wise? Halbarry again, I haven’t written that in a long time. In General ( non romantic )? Barry’s relationship with the other Leaguers, His relationship with Jay Garrick and the other Flashes, His relationship in general with Central City ( as both a CSI and Flash ), and of course his relationship with his rogues. 

I never want to rp romantic thawne x barry if that’s what you mean by what I wouldn’t. I would rather rip off my own arms.

✆ Other than RPing, what’s a hobby of yours?

Playing a shitload of video games, crying over said video games, and reading a bunch of comics. Oh! And just learning stuff. I used to draw and I guess I want to slowly start getting back into that but it’s a process, so I’m just doing small craft projects on the side and learning how to program video games. I’m actually in the middle of making my first game! It’s fun breaking code. 

❥ Has something ever happened for you to hate a ship? Why? 

I really, really dislike Linda x Barry from CW Flash. I really really don’t like Patty x Barry from CW Flash ( or even the Flash Comics. ) This is mostly because when I was a mostly CW Flash Barry blog a Linda and a Patty popped up that were trying to force ship with me even though I told them that I wasn’t really a fan. If I remember right too I stopped reblogging shippy ask memes on my blog at that point because when I did they would always send stuff and I was just– I was tired. I wanted a nap from them.

回 Which muse was the worst to play? Why?

Reaper. I love the muse with all my heart I do but Overwatch’s lore is a jumbled mess and it lives on basically headcanons while we get trickle fed anything from like two events per year. It’s honestly hard to write someone too with a bunch of fanon interpretations cause if you get something wrong you get the mob on you for not following their idea. I think I made his blog, made a few posts, get super high anxiety about it all and just quit. 

▽ Why did you create this muse? 

I was bored one day during my sophomore year of college. Daredevil s1 just came out and CW Flash started to air later and I was deciding between some avocado url I had for Matt Murdock and the alwaysxlate url I had for Barry. My friends eventually picked Barry so… here I am. I’m actually kinda glad I went with Barry, he helped me to get into DC comics and I wouldn’t be in this hell if it wasn’t for him. Wait… I wouldn’t be here… dammit barry.

[futurist]

hi! spread some positivity and @ your favorite blogs + why 💖

i got carried away yieks!

@seokiesgf​ nive my mf main hoe,, love her sm and she’s the cutest sweetie pie and a literal child considering the fact that tumblr raised her. she changes fandoms like every two weeks but she loyal :”)

@ian-mcewan​ ella my side hoe,, love this bitch 24/7 she weird almost as weird as me but we go together like fucking tom and jerry lmfao she my thirst channel tbh and im hers 

@iron-gauntlet​ mal,,, meme central. she told me she wanted 2 b friends by sending me tons of memes and after that there was no coming back. this one is so supportive :((( love u 

@arcmjolnir​ MYLENE THE SWEETEST OF THEM ALL!!! she checks up on me and sends me cute msgs just to let me know that shes always there and vice versa :”)

@capntony​ tana aka big sis™ the best tony blog out there and shes so nice and honestly will always be there when u need her :”) the realest and wont be afraid to say whatever the fuck she wants

@bannermd​ jay!! omg sis,, feisty bisexual from yeg. smort and very adult! quality blog and rarely shitposts lmfao i adore u sm jay :”) lets talk more

@asianstark​ levi i just started talking to you but this hoe right here just gets me you know? i weird him out 24/7 but that’s okay bc it’s always such a fun time when i talk to you

@shell-heads​ mari ,, my strap on buddy. strap on, buddy :) the bts stan next door, always sweet and i know theres a dirty side of u i just need 2 pry it out of u ok love u babyyyy

@daysoffuturepast​ omg nums i haven’t talked to u in a while but imy!! wish you all the best bc its less than what you deserve ! uve been thru a lot but you never let it get you down and i love that :”) 

@lanatm​ save the best for mf last,, god andrea ur just, so gorgeous in every single way :”) ive told u so much shit n im so glad that ur still here by my side !! i will always love you and treasure u and im always here if u needda talk and i know i can count on u to do the same. u deserve the entire world and you’re such a sunshine baby and i love u tea drinker spaghetti head