#anyway. public diary function of tumblr

[deanmarywinchester]

pointing at my younger self. you will escape the labyrinth. and you must. but you WON’T like it

[spikeinthepunch]

Well, I didn't expect to be sitting down an deciding to write a lengthy personal post about the app, Vent. But its shutting down for good in literally two days. If this was any other situation where it slowly just became inactive but stayed up, I wouldn't mention it. But an app shutting down for good is a big deal, and I'll cross my fingers that I get sent the data I requested.

Vent is an app I feel like everyone seems to be aware of but left and forgot after its boom in 2016-2017. no one really says that they use it, most left it after that period. its pretty well known for weird and absurd kin posts and drama and other nonsense. having been on it since it launched, i saw... so much. so so much.

Having gotten to it around age 16, that app houses a huge amount of personal posts I made on an app I considered the best place to dump some of the most private, venty things. Boy does it catalogue a huge series of development and mental growth. And above all stands as a lesson to myself on how to manage such personal things around others online. What is to be said isn't me forcing a lesson on the reader, but just expressing what I learned- because in those teenage years it was easy to want to have all my online friends involved in seeing my vent posts. That Age on tumblr, that culture around validation and mental illness- I wanted validation and post interactions. I vented a lot, teen years sucked- this seemed fine to do from my unaware mind but it caused so much tension, stress, and drama in my closest relationships that I still wish hadnt occurred- but can accept that behavior years later... i was just a teen, it wasn't surprising. Getting your bestest friends in a private closed circle of venting is not as good of an idea as you'd want it to be, to say the least. Especially when you're teens and dont have therapy.

But that is to say- Vent became its best to me when I closed it off entirely to everyone except for one good mutual I had gained purely through Vent, and eventually one key IRL friend. Me, two other people. That was it. It turned into a diary for years after I chose to do that and it had been very useful for me. One or two people I didn't mind getting a glimpse into things, especially after i matured and learned to...better control and understand how to vent in a healthier way. It was somewhere I went to maybe once a month, maybe less frequently, to just... throw out a huge post documenting my feelings and important thoughts from the last many weeks. Great big summaries I'd have no energy to split up into a priv twitter thread, or post on public blogs.

Growth. So so much growth. So much in all those posts and all that time. Almost 8 years of my incredibly personal thoughts sit on that app and it sucks knowing that place will be gone for good. There could be a miracle but it seems unlikely.

For those never on the app, or stopped using it ages back- Vent has been a mess for a long time. It has gone through various changes in hopes of keeping it alive- for years its just been all over the place. It barely functions most times. It's been limping for years now and it was always a joke to me that it hadn't gone down yet. It seemed inevitable- and here we are! Gone on the 28th of Feb, and it was only stated a few days ago. And theyd been promising they had an alternative..

Losing things like this sucks, because it is a part of the internet. People love to say nothing truly goes away on the internet- and thats just not true. Time and time again we lose apps and websites with no backups or way to view them reliably. Newer age technology makes this especially harder to preserve. While I and others have requested our data, there will be hundreds if not thousands of accounts left to vanish after Vent shuts down, especially given the incredibly short notice.

So, RIP Vent, you were already dead for some years anyways. But I appreciate what I made of it and its a shame I can't think of any place where I could keep this kind of diary up still.

[girlhorse]

in college when i had my first major ocd breakdown and had to go on meds i thought i had really bad GAD lol. that was my only diagnosis. but um i now recognize that it was absolutely full blown ocd lol

tw below for some OCD stuff i feel like sharing for some reason. may delete later bc i am going to get very ~vulnerable~

i was really scared to explain my thoughts to anyone bc 1) i knew logically they were bizarre and that embarrassed me and 2) i was scared talking about my intrusive thoughts would make them come true

basically i was obsessed with thoughts that my now ex was going to be in harms way or die, especially when it had been like. idk. more than 20 minutes from texting me

my intrusive thoughts were so strange..i would come up with really whacky ways that they could be fatally injured. like slipping in the shower or choking to death.

I knew these were unreasonable and weird and I did my absolute best to not pester my ex or make it weird. I didnt want to pressure her to do anything because of my out of control anxiety but it was getting super out of hand

I was getting so sick that I was having panic attacks if i hadnt heard from them in a couple hours, i threw up a few meals because of it

eventually i just stopped sleeping. Every time I started to fall asleep, my body jolted me awake. I had very little appetite and was holding back gags while eating.

The things I didn't really consider to be compulsions are pretty obvious to me now. on top of like intense magical thinking (believing my unusual thoughts were either going to cause something bad or that I had some sort of clairvoyance) i had begun publicly checking my pulse any time i was anxious. I thought i was being discreet but honestly my friends noticed it and asked me wtf i was doing ☠️ i was putting my two fingers on my jugular vein to see if i was panicking or anxious.

i also had a problem with compulsively reading the news in their area if i thought they had been hurt. in the attempt to get ahead of it. I was checking traffic data and friends blogs. It was honest to God a bit stalkerish and i knew that but i was terrified

I did tell them about it eventually and they were very gracious about it.

but this went on for a long time, probably months. Somehow i still coped with college classes and didn't fail anything but i was in a pass/fail school so no pressure to do substantially well

eventually i finally got my as to the doctor bc the therapy i was doing did Not work (it ws self guided CBT. I do not think the campus therapsit was equipped to handle the Brains issue i had)

i got put on a low dose of prozac, but when that didnt work (literally threw up a pill due to anxiety lmao) my doc increased the dose significantly and that helped quite a bit.

Anyway i stopped having so bad of OCD that i couldnt function, but of course i still have my moments

it took me like a couple weeks to figure out my fear was largely surrounding uncertainty and the inability to control things.

i think to be honest it is still present. and it seems to be triggered by major life events. Enzo is my new Subject but I'm better able to cope. It was hard when he was little leaving home, i was always scared I'd come back to a d*** puppy bc of something I did wrong. But! hes fine, we're fine. Him getting sick has been hard to deal with Because of this but im dealing. Im doing my best to just accept my obsrssions instead of fighting them or letting them spiral out of control

IDK what the point od this post is i just feel like i have to get it off my chest and i dont have a therapy appointment this week ❤️❤️❤️ my public tumblr is my diary:)

[protect-namine]

I was gonna put these tags in tumblr's feedback form but like. if I was someone reading feedback, I'd honestly rather read something that's actionable (because sentiment is easy to understand but hard to make solutions for) so I'm just gonna draft here some suggestions before sending, because apparently, I have opinions. anyway this'll just be one of many, I'm sure staff will see a lot of suggestions in their time, so I'm not really expecting anything to come out of this. but uh, my two cents:

okay, first of all, what is tumblr? (I promise I'm going somewhere with this, it informs the actionable points later). I think it's obvious now that the tumblr userbase wants tumblr to stay true to what makes tumblr unique instead of copying what other social media sites are doing. but what is it that makes tumblr unique? why did people come here, and why have users stayed on this platform? a lot of us have been here for more than a decade now despite this site "slowly dying" and just hanging on by a miracle.

for me, what I like is how different tumblr culture is. tags function as community hubs, as ways to archive and organize individual blogs, and as quiet commentary. blogs are not treated like social media "user accounts" tied to an identity and one way of socializing. they are pseudonymous and flexible enough to function as a portfolio, a diary, an account to interact with other accounts, a collection of essays, anything really! it's a blog! you can do whatever you want! as much as we engage with other users, blogs are also a personal space just for you. this is your own little place on the internet, your own bulletin board. it can be anything you want it to be. and like, the pseudonymity thing (and not making follower count public) is important, I think, because it informs how users interact. nobody here gets influencer points. just do you. it's freeing in a way other sites aren't.

also, you can queue posts. how neat is that? I think it's cool because posts have longevity in this site, which also builds into site culture. this is why we have homegrown memes and inside jokes. posts don't disappear after 24 hours. you can reblog 10 year old posts if you think the art is really cool or the joke is really funny or the post is still relatable, and no one will find that weird.

and that's the thing, isn't it? tumblr is a microblogging site before it is a "social media" site. customizability is built into the platform. don't want an algorithm? you can opt-out on so many ways your dashboard can show posts. you can customize your blog theme and create your own tags to organize posts. you can change your dashboard colors. posts don't have a character limit and they give you so many tools for formatting. you can make sideblogs!! double, triple the blogs!! maybe you have a public fandom blog, an aesthetic blog, and a personal diary that you keep private. so many tools to make your experience flexible.

okay, so what are actionable things we can do to double down on what makes tumblr special? mind you, these are all just suggestions and like, I didn't really think of how easy or fast they will be to implement nor how much money this will rake in. but like. also, even if these suggestions are stupid hard to do, I believe that just showing the general direction of changes to do and prioritize should be reflected on showing off what makes tumblr different. and I hope to illustrate that here.

so, sticking on that theme of blogging and customizability:

we have a blog system. cool! you know what blogs have? about pages. tag pages. we used to make custom pages for this, now newer users just link their carrd. yeah, that's easier, but what if all tumblr blogs just had a default about page and tag page? like, you know what frustrates me about the mobile view for blogs? I have to manually link about and tag pages there (or carrd links, but I don't have a carrd). why can't it be a default thing? make all blogs have an about page and a tags page. users can turn it off if they don't want it. users can customize the pages further if they want to make it fancy. the tags page can list your top 10 tags or whatever as a start. we already show popular tags in a blog's search bar, so just take that to the next level. and this has the added benefit of reminding people that, hey, you have a blog and this is your playground for self expression. playgrounds are fun when there are toys! give users toys for their blogs, tumblr!

a functioning blog navigation system. what do all blogs have? well they have submissions and asks, and users will usually have some custom tags for them. blogs have a whole archive system that's underutilized and rather hidden. why not create a system that makes it easier to find all of these when scrolling through a blog? let users set their custom tag for asks and make that visible in the blog navigation menu, or just make them more accessible and easier to find. I don't want to go to the web version and type /archive in the url anymore. also, users can decide which ones to enable/disable in the nav system (maybe users don't want submissions or archives there, that's cool too).

users can see the top posts for a blog. cool! how about we make a customizable version of that? like, we can still keep the tumblr-generated top posts, but what if we let blogs have a user-generated highlights page as well? keep the highlights page limited to a couple of posts, maybe 10. artists can put their favorite art there. writers with their fics. fandom blogs with their meta essays and funny posts. aesthetic blogs with gifs and moodboards they're proud of. random posts about their day that they want people to know. maybe a blog has a combination of all of them to show the variety in their blog. give users a way to show what's generally on their blog in a flash. like top posts, but users decide which ones are the top one. like pinned posts, but longer.

we have a badge system. cool! how about we let users create their own custom badges? and let them share those badges with others? heck we can even make it a paid feature. I buy a badge from the marketplace, tumblr gets a small cut for distributing, but the creator gets most of the payment (this is important! pay your artists!). I mean, this is already a thing with blog themes (though idk, do people actually pay for themes these days?)

this one is just a personal thing, but aside from badges, can we get little hats for our icon/pfp/avatar/whatever people call it these days? like the top hat from that one april fools'. just a lil hat on the dashboard, I think that would be cute. :)

create an onboarding experience for new users. show users a guided tutorial on what settings they can opt in or out of, what they can customize on their blog, how to follow tags, and so on. maybe we don't need to appeal to how users from other sites use those sites. we want them to see what makes tumblr unique and how to actually see it. and I know what you're going to say. "oh, but the friction, protect-namine. the onboarding experience means it takes longer for users to start using the site". one: make it optional then. two: honestly, we probably should have more friction because we have a spambot problem. one of the best deterrents for spam is making it harder for them to start using the site.

tumblr is a playground and playgrounds need toys that are fun. tumblr live/tv? hate it. polls? love it, it builds community and everyone likes clicking buttons. layout change? don't like it, it makes tumblr look like other sites and it looks cluttered and takes attention away from the dashboard. ability to set popular tags in a blog search bar? love that, it makes my blog mine, now can we just extend this concept to every other change we can do for the site?

I am suggesting these things with love. maybe some of these suggestions are too hard or we don't have resources for them, maybe some of them are already in progress. I have no fucking idea. but I just think tumblr already has something going on for itself, and I would really like for that thing to keep going and be prioritized instead of seeing this site be cannibalized into something it isn't (a twitter clone).

[headsemptysys]

Got things set up, sort of. Close enough for now. Maybe I'll do something fancy with the description or title later, or change more specific things about the theme.

Right now all I want is to get this started. I'm so tired. Vent shutting down has taken absolutely everything out of me and now I've functionally lost the support of my closest friend. I hate it here. He recommended a private Tumblr right before that, so... Yeah, okay, that's what I'll do.

If you found me somehow, uh... This is not a safe place, sorry. I've got so so so so so many mental health issues I cannot even begin to tell you how mentally ill I am. I hope to god any tagging system I invent would be utterly unfindable, if I even bother with one because I do NOT want anyone stumbling across this when all I'll ever post about is how mentally ill I am.

Anyway, yeah. Theoretically public diary, realistically no one will find this and that's probably for the best. If you know me no you don't please god look away. You do not want to be here I promise.

[itsjeicelleswayblog]

2023 So Far...

4:27 PM and I don't have anything at work to do so I'd rather start penning before I start losing my motivation to do so. lol. So I had to "forget password" before I access this account. :( idk but I always like writing what i feel atm I even jot down all the thoughts I have on my "notes" so I can get back to it anytime I want to make an entry here in my blog. IDK when did it start but half of me feel so tamad like most of the time, I can't function at all. No, I'm not depressed it's just that I'm not in the mood of doing anything. I guess that's one of the changes about this thing called "adulting" that I must embrace. After pandemic I can feel some massive changes in me that I can't explain. I felt like there's a rapid and frequent changes in life that I can't fathom but I have to keep up so I can't be left behind. I mean, I'm contented in what ever i have in life now, at times I'm happy I don't even remember the last time I cried, okay it's me justifying that i'm not sad or jealous 'bout life lol it's just that, I get tired and worn up easily mentally and physically for what reason? that i don't know. Getting old huh.

Before, I really like blogging because I can share whatever I want, tumblr has been my public diary, no judgment or anything. I can talk to my self and at the same time i can document all the feelings I've felt. This has been my go-to when most of my friends turns their back on me. I can still remember how terrible and depressing my life in my early 20s is. It's something I can't comprehend how did I get through it without losing my mind. I was literally going with the flow in life not nowing what's gonna happen next or what tomorrow will bring. It's when I accepted that no other person can stick with me. I felt so alone then. the thought of it makes me cry lol

Anyway, what did is the main reason why i write today? Nothing.. I just want to kill time before going home. I was about to make an update of my life since 2023 but ofcourse it's me I won't be able to finish or accomplish anything lol. So instead of a life update, it's just a random thoughts I had atm.

Love, self.

[venhedish]

In light of the anti reaction to this reclist that I reblogged, which apparently had a secret wincesties dni addendum, I would like to tell you that I am not responsible for going into your stupid blog on a website designed for the PUBLIC sharing of content to check and see if you don’t want my little tiny goblin hands on your post! Even if I did go out of my way to do that, I can still reblog your shit if I want! If you don’t want your precious pure thought-policing sweet baby wholesome ideas to be tarnished by the words of strangers with their own opinions, don't post on the internet? Keep a diary? Use a different website with friends-only functionality??

I am NOT responsible for your experience on Tumblr. If my actions make you uncomfortable, it’s on you to block ME. (Also just as a side note: the reclist in question contains links to works that are hosted on AO3, which is the ultimate proship wincest-positive fanfic safe haven, so maybe stop being a hypocrite and learn some fandom history.) ANYWAY. Since I’m a good responsible internet boy, I’ve been keeping tabs on a post about how gross wincesties are that was made in response to this kerfluffle so I can block any accounts that interact with it in an effort to curate my experience, and I just want to share this fun comment someone left (names blocked because this is NOT a call out post. Everyone on this website is, unfortunately, welcome to their terrible opinions):

THE WHOLE POINT IS TO NOT KEEP THE ‘SUBCULTRE’ TO OURSELVES YOU ROTTEN CUCUMBER-BRAINED FOOL! IT’S FICTION, YOU SAID IT YOURSELF! WE’RE ALLOWED TO SHARE FICTION! THE WHOLE POINT OF STORIES IS TO SHARE THEM!

Just as a thought experiment: replace “fiction” with “harmless” and “wincest shippers” with “gay people.” 👀 not a great look, is all i’m saying, chief.

[tripstaysnoided]

Flow Just Like Water

Story and writing-related transparency update and my many shames...

The Question on Everyone’s Mind

“Hey you haven’t updated No Stars over Uptown in almost a year...”

Hmm, I hate it when you’re right. (This section has been rewritten ad-nauseam to curb back the bitchiness by the way)

So back in early/mid 2018, the idea was to divorce Uptown from a person who influenced it (and myself) heavily. She was my most important audience member, the closest friend I ever had, and unfortunately someone who used her power to bully, ostracize, and hurt others with my help. I cut contact when the hurt + some self-awareness finally reached me. Apologies were made and I feel like my work will never be done with it, but there was still Uptown.

Between censored comments, entirely recasting Axel’s save, different plot threads, and a load of disclaimers, there was nothing that would scrub her influence from the story. There was no way to cleanly drop everything because of how deep her influence went. It disgusted me to look back at it, and I had to private the blog because I feared what it endorsed, even if just in the past.

I pulled back from that sims writing community. I had its main thread on the Official Forums removed too (I guess if that was a mystery to anyone). It was a surrender that I never wanted to do, but I had it in my mind that if I was gone, then she wouldn’t be there either. Uptown became this cursed item, and as I quietly retired it, I noticed that she went quieter too. Not gone, but enough to make me sleep easier at night and even occasionally say hello to old friends.

And I hope deep in my heart that no one else is getting hurt in my place, but now this is gonna haunt me all day huh!

The two paths forward...

1) Complete Uptown rewrite that I’ve been threatening everyone with all year. While it won’t ever be clean because I can’t undo time, I do have a sound outline for a story that is much more true to my actual vision and how I’ve evolved, with a few necessary boundaries in place that are going to be there for all stories moving forward: no more casting calls and no more collaborative efforts. I am not going to open myself up to this happening again, even if the people have changed.

2) Same as above, but I continue the original Uptown as a favor to loyal readers alongside the rewrite. I would try to put the effort into it that I initially did, but with no promises on an update schedule and no advertising. I did ask myself “is there Patreon but without pledging money, just the private posts function” but it could operate as part of a private forum, a members-only part of a website, etc.

Also readers of the original would be beholden to a rule of “don’t spoil the rewrite for new readers, c’mon guys”. I mean, not really, but it is a good courtesy to extend to people.

Priority on this isn’t high but you at least will see what is!

I will probably make the blog public again either way due to the many broken links on my Tumblr but we’ll see. There are other things to deal with as I shall list!

Where Life’s Been Regardless

Been spending more time with my grandpa every weekend. Life’s pretty good and he’s warming up to my dogs.

Shiny New Webbed Site

Cucumber Fields Forever is a site I own now. We have a full domain, cucumberfieldsforever.com, a blog with one post, and the framework needed to host stories the way I want to and still through WordPress. The functionality of likes, comments, and following should still be the same but you know...I’ll take feedback too...

The main blog still has an undefined purpose though I do have drafts sitting around about:

The maybe/maybe not hoax band that was on the Metal Archives and the history of Funeral Doom Metal.

The curious case of when Sims 4 babies get their genetics and my only collaboration (read: was talking about it with a friend and might quote her if needed, it’s actually a bit of a doozy)

Amazon.com’s fake dried udon noodles, an actual issue by the way.

Things I’m reading! (This’d be a monthly feature if so)

For the sake of unity, I am thinking of solutions for hosting old and shameful content there including Uptown and for the real fans in my followers feed, Eight Cicadas...a world I totally have plans for too (not really). I don’t want them to be front-and-center, and that’s why I mentioned forums/members-only content. I finally have that power! Maybe.

Ooooh but what are the costs? Not too much to handle, that’s what. 😉 (Like really, I don’t need any hand-wringing about this, I can manage my finances)

Project Queue (In Order of Confirmedness)

Outrun the Scythe: have you seen me post out-of-context Sims 3 pictures? Did you want more? Did you hope it was Linda in Custody? If the answers are yes, yes, and “meh, whatever you want”, then you’re in luck.

Outrun the Scythe is a Sims 3-based tale of a young gay man and his zombie grandma, as they are both offered separate roles of being the undying intermediaries between the world of humans and the influence of a race of space daemons. It’s pretty familiar if you’ve been following me pre-Uptown, taking some cues from stories I’ve kept under lock and key like Eight Cicadas, The Chains of Lyra, and the not-so-locked-up Ironstar Immortals (of which Outrun is just the direct sequel to sans any retconning...ah the smell of early 2013 and performative heterosexuality)

Ah, back to my roots.

It’s a hybrid of gameplay, story, and lore about my little race of daemons with a lot of my own idiosyncrasies that I’m not really ashamed of: basing it off a super-polarizing Sims 3 challenge from a site I moderate, using a lot of EA’s pre-made townies and their genes, lots of unnecessary posemaking, stupid references. It’s a comfort to have in my roster.

While the first few chapters are in the middle of revision, I have around six in the queue and will be making this public when I have ten. I’m guessing December then?

Undocumented Black Widow Challenge: I just did this for fun/forum kudos (yes, in fact I have joined many forums), there was going to be a short story but it was quickly becoming something against my code of ethics. I mean, sims die and all. (read: I had to choose between “heterosexual widow” and “widow with some same-sex marriages that still end in tragedy, reinforcing negative stereotypes to the public for the sake of me not getting bored and detached during gameplay” so there were no good choices. Except for her affair with the mailwoman, 10/10) I hope to finish this before October ends and get my medal on Boolprop, I’m pretty far through it all. I might upload the sims involved anyways. This is for TS4.

I mentioned it because it’s keeping me busy. But not for long!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Dipping my toes into that again! It’s not sims-related, just a tale of lesbians, nosy neighbors, a haunted beach house, and some light murder and kidnapping. And I actually got my brother to scout out locations for me this weekend. If there’s any demand, I can share chapters as the rough drafts are finished, especially for the sake of proofreading.

Not saying I’m publishable, but wouldn’t it be nice? Will keep me occupied for much of November.

Untitled “Dear Diary” Challenge: Tired of feeling left out of the fun on the Boolprop forums, their “Dear Diary” challenge was the one that appealed to me the most on first glance. Why? Probably once I found an idea that let it be set in the early/mid-2000′s to begin with and explore some interesting characters through diary entries (which I have mixed feelings on as a literary device but I think that’s just me saying “well I didn’t like Dracula”, yes you get bonus points for writing it like a diary)

Also writing is the one skill I’m good at across multiple games. Wanna hear me bitch about the cooking skill tree in TS4 or riding in TS3? I’ll spare you.

I guess I could have included “spending time on Boolprop with old and new friends” in where my life has been. It’s a nice lil community if also a place with its own idiosyncrasies as well. So it doesn’t feel like I’m promoting another community if/when I make a thread there for Outrun the Scythe, I want to have a couple chapters of this ready to go by Outrun’s release, though it’s not gonna be the highest priority compared to it nor as long because I think I can blast through the gameplay quickly.

This one will be played in TS4 due to it having the easiest writing skill/I dunno variety is the spice of life. And hopefully another December release.

Defunded or Forgotten?: Oh shit I actually released stuff in 2020 and told no one? I do have a “mortifying ordeal of being known” sinking feeling whenever I get a site hit because it’s not my best work (but good enough) and veered sharply into issues I may be over my head in, though I try to be a good noodle with research and listening. Maybe hiding is bad after all.

Being based off a very flawed and incomplete Sims 3 challenge I found in the annals of the Official Forums, there’s a lot of behind-the-scenes work just making sense of things. And I’m scared of working on reconstructing the house but I haven’t abandoned the project yet. The story has eight chapters so far and is pretty game-based with some additions here and there. Scared of how long it could be though!

Date for this unknown.

Untitled Sunlit Tides Decadynasty: another year-long abandoned TS3 project with a much stupider reason why. Last update was about Hua getting ready for her wedding, and I wanted to do some poses for a bait-and-switch wedding chapter because to put it mildly, her real one was an absolute disaster.

Blender decided to fuck up its interface again, I got discouraged (this probably does account for some of the Uptown delays too), and when I decided to plow forward, it was for other projects instead.

Meanwhile I played all the way to Gen 5′s teenhood and the only thing stopping me is time (it takes almost 30 minutes to load the file right now, though they’ll be looking at moving towns in a couple gens) and maybe fear of the Logic skill.

Date for this also unknown but it’s easy to pump out updates once I’m in the groove for it. My third heir had a difficult life so maybe I’m just trying to bury it.

Also I just noticed the view count there was really good and probably because I linked it here on Tumblr last year. Thank you so much guys. I can’t really fret over views on Carl’s forum these days thanks to the years-long death spiral pretty much every forum anywhere has been riding on. But it’s a nice surprise. And it’s an alright little challenge recap to read during your lunch break or whatever.

The Wawas

I figured I’d end on the real news everyone wants! Both the chihuahuas are a year and a half now and reached their adult size around a year ago. For the most part, they are happy and healthy dogs.

[shego1142]

Hi I’ve been on this website for almost 10 years and I still don’t know what I’m doing

For starters, yes please use tags! You don’t have to “earn the right” to use tags at all, so long as you aren’t like spamming unrelated tags just for visibility’s sake! 

Also this is an older rule that’s not thought about as much these days but if you don’t like say a certain ship or a certain tv show or something, it’s perfectly valid not to like things, but don’t spam hate in the tags of said things!

The old saying was “that’s like going to a cheese convention in Wisconsin and shouting about how much you hate cheese.” Idk where that mentality went but I sure would love for it to come back, it’s really just a respectful sort of thing!

Also, you can just make your own tags up! Like I have a tag that’s called “law aesthetic” on my blog and it’s about a character named Lawrence, not about like the legal system.

A lot of people far more organised than me have unique tags for their own posts (like if I were to do one it might be something like “shego1142 talks” or something lame like that)

But basically, treat tumblr a lot less like a public meeting and a lot more like your house/diary/inspiration board/personal garbage fire! Don’t treat it like a popularity contest or you’ve already lost! Nobody really cares about our numbers here.

If you want to, you can tag for triggering stuff, it makes it easier for the peeps that want to follow you but are triggered by certain things to go through your blog, but you don’t actually have to either. Your blog is your blog.

Like, be nice to people, but you don’t actually have to do much else.

If you do want to tag for triggering content, please please please do not censor the words! Whatever triggering content it is, don’t censor it! Not in the main post and not in the tags. Otherwise people who have the word “rock” blocked but not the censored version “r0ck” will still see the post with “r0ck” (and yes, I’m using the word rock to avoid using anything more triggering so this post will stay visible to as many peeps as possible)

Also, please don’t trigger warn for flashing lights or gifs or whatever with the hashtag #epilepsy, that makes it difficult for people with epilepsy to have a place to talk about their condition. Tag strobing effects with #eye strain or #flashing lights instead!

Also yeah, putting a tag in the body of a post does nothing lol! You gotta put it in the notes!

Personally I kind of trigger tag sporadically. I tried to tag for everything a while back and realised I was both burning myself out and making my experience so much worse and not really helping anyone anyway tbh. Because I was so afraid to post anything that I kind of just stopped posting. I had to take a step back and say “this is my blog, if you need to block me for your safety that’s okay but I’m going to run my blog my way.”

That’s sort of the thing about tumblr in general, people will block you and it will have to be something you’re okay with! People curate their own experience! It happens!

It’s rarely anything personal!

I once blocked someone who made a post saying lasagna was gross.

Someone once blocked me because I referenced a character from a comic (Shitty from Check Please) and they thought I was calling them a mean name!

Block as much as you want! Don’t feel bad when you get blocked! Make your blog yours, not anyone else’s!

As for reblogs counting as the op’s post, yes they do! Again it rarely matters, because tumblr is not exactly a popularity contest. In fact you’ll often see posts sort of tongue in cheek being like “Eugh how dare this website give me this many notes” also just because someone has one post that gets a lot of notes doesn’t make them any different to any other tumblr user

But no, adding stuff to a post isn’t seen as rude, but tumblr does function somewhat on like improv rules, like “Yes, and” or “No, but” at least on the joking posts anyway, so keep that in mind I suppose!

You will occasionally get someone saying “make your own post” and if you genuinely don’t see anything you did wrong (like for example you weren’t speaking over someone or derailing a post) then it’s probably a joke because “make your own post” is sort of an inside joke in and of itself. But if they’re like actually mad at you for adding something harmless onto their post then just block them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Reblogging is preferred over replies also because that’s like… the mechanism of this website!

Your blog is like your house and your posts are like the art you made as a kid that got put up on the fridge. It’s not necessarily all great and requires no credentials to qualify as art but it’s hanging up because you value it!

Someone replying to a post is like someone leaving a sticky note saying something on your art. Someone liking a post is like a friend coming to your house and complimenting your art.

But a reblog? That’s like someone coming to your house and getting super excited about your art and taking a picture of it and being like “I love this so much that I’m going to put this up on my fridge too!” And then everyone who goes to their house will also see your art on their fridge!

That’s a bit of an oversimplification but listen, that’s basically how it works. Especially with actual art/fic! See, for artists on tumblr, especially peeps who are trying to make a living making art, a reblog is soooo much better than a like. That’s probably where you’ve seen the whole “likes are bad” rhetoric the most. Likes aren’t really bad exactly but a reblog actually shares the art, which for the average starving artist, is invaluable!

Also yes! Following anyone is okay!

You can totally make a post that’s like “hey I’m [name] and I like These Things: [list of things you like] follow me or like or reblog this post if you like any of those things too and I’ll maybe follow you!” And tag it with the tags of all the things you like!

That’s one of the best ways to find peeps to follow! Also just searching the tags of the things you like in general is a good way too!

Although some tags may be… not what you’re expecting them to be (for example, I’m autistic but I wouldn’t search #autism to find other peeps like me, I would search #actually autistic or #neurodivergent)

Sometimes communities have interesting/unexpected tags either because of inside jokes or for other reasons.

Like with my example, the autism tag was at one point overrun by non-autistic people complaining about their autistic children and speaking over the actually autistic people. So peeps tag #actually autistic now to show that the person who is writing the post is autistic.

So tldr: don’t censor anything, use tags, use weird tags even, talk in your tags if you want to, reblog stuff, likes aren’t bad they’re just bookmarks and are not gonna share the post, make your blog your own, follow and block to your heart’s content and without remorse, and don’t take any part of tumblr (or the internet) too seriously!

Okay so basically let me restate what I think I’ve learned from reading some “how to tumblr” posts.

Making random “my random tossed-off thoughts of the day” posts like I would on twitter is not discouraged. I don’t have to worry about being the funniest dude ever before I start tagging my posts, especially when I am on this new account. Right? I don’t have to, like, “earn my tagging rights”?

Reblogging is preferred over replies because it puts it on my timeli—dashboard, but also still counts as the OP’s post? This is the weirdest thing to me, QRTs on twitter are sort of like me trying to shout over the OP and in this it’s the encouraged way?

Meanwhile, liking a post without a reblog is bad because… I guess because all it does is tweak my algorithm but not boost the post? I guess I’m unclear how liking is bad.

Also, following just about anybody is okay? Seems like I’m gonna have to spend some time curating what I see.

I’ll be perfectly honest I’m currently paranoid that I’m a 2-followed account and therefore am Totally Invisible even when I put things on tags, so I don’t want to make a Bad Post and get totally blacklisted

[deanmarywinchester]

in retrospect it’s really easy to see why my adhd got missed until I was an adult and it’s definitely bc my parents put me in sports minimum four days a week from a pretty young age, and the designated activity on non-sport days was “sprint around the neighborhood with neighborhood kids.” task initiation is much easier for me if I’m consistently active, have a time crunch like “be done with homework by soccer practice time or else,” and have an immediate carrot and immediate stick like “if you finish you get to go ride scooters with the neighbors and if you don’t finish your teacher will chew you out in T-minus twelve hours.” the difficulty for me now is getting the incentives to line up like that, not to mention that now exercise Itself is a Task I Need To Initiate (sometimes several tasks!) rather than just letting an adult pack me off to swimming/basketball/soccer/tennis/track/field hockey/cross country where another adult would put me through my paces

[keporkak]

koi’ve decided to write a little diary here again, since 1. i need to practice my english 2. i really need to declutter my brain 3. i miss being able to remember little day to day things, and revisiting my thoughts even years later. so here goes - this is i suppose kinda private, but not really, it IS on a public tumblr - however one that nobody visits much (hello arlet!)

so this is a ramble about my new job, a long bit about my plants and my garden.

i’ve been at this new office job (scoff!! why, again?) for 2 weeks and i’m not sure i’ll last more than a month. after the whole quarantine thing, i realised how much i love just... not having to wake up in the morning when i’m least functional, getting ready (i hate how much effort i have to put into my appearance. i know i dont HAVE to, but I feel like once you set a standard at a new workplace you kinda... can’t go below it without people actively noticing it), and taking 40 minutes by buses to get there. this was supposed to be a remote job!! and i don’t feel competent at it at all!! and people are pretty dismissive and rude!!! and i wrote like 3 paragraphs just complaining about it, but i deleted those just now. idk, what’s the point, right. i just don’t like it here, and i will last till the end of the month so i get one proper payout and then i might just quit and REALLY try to survive on freelance. if ONLY i was more successful at building an audience, and potential customers!! jesus. i don’t know. i don’t draw because i don’t feel like people care to see it, and obviously if i don’t try i won’t gain anything. why am i like this

anyway, a nice thing is that i feel like my plants are trying to cheer me up?

first of all, pretty much all of my 16 houseplants are doing well - my monstera deliciosa is SUCH a good lil bugger, she keeps sprouting new leaves every week! soon she’ll have to be repotted at this rate. and my finicky calathea, whom i recently treated of mites, which involved meticulously scrubbing every leaf with a toothbrush, is also sprouting two new leaves - something i have NEVER seen her do in the months of owning her. i guess this is her way of thanking me!

in addition to that - after my balcony garden got SCORCHED by the sudden heatwave this month, it’s finally recovering - i threw out the ugly little flowers that completely dried out and replaced them with fresh herbs (more my style, the flowers were a gift from my dad). i planted my some lemon balm, chives, oregano, mint, and my favorite herb - parsley. in addition to that, my strawberry plant has waken up from its little coma - after the insane harvest of spring berries it exhausted itself and went dormant - and now it’s round two, baby! she’s full of fresh leaves and flowers and everyday i get to snack on at least 4 new ripe strawbs. i can’t believe my dad suggested throwing her out after she stopped bearing fruit and got burnt leaves from the sun! look at her now. beautiful. dad’s jealous now, too, we bought the strawberry plants together from the same store and his never did this well.

i still have an abundance of cherry tomatoes and my bell peppers are finally ripening too, which is nice. on top of that, i planted some raddish and kohlrabi (turnip?) and to my shock, after my weekend camping trip, i found that they have both sprouted already! that’s like, four days! damn.

my heart still aches after the tragic loss of my favourite one  - the pea plant that i managed to, in record time, raise from a seed into a full grown plant that gave me exactly 12 delicious pea pods before succumbing to sudden 35 celsius heat. I nearly cried when i had to throw it out, but i kept the pot.... and like a phoenix from its ashes, it has risen again!! a little sprout, but we’ll see how it does. we do love a good comeback story!

today i also bought an ivy plant that i planted next to the herbs (is that a good idea? idk we’ll see) and some seeds that i planted, too (basil, more parsley, more chives, spinach, and some pea seeds that i sprinkled around my pea plant to give it some company hopefully, haha). we’ll see. i enjoy growing plants from nothing - it feels incredibly invigorating to see baby greens poking out of the dirt where there was nothing before. it’s not easy, but it’s rewarding.

random cute stuff from the past week that i can think of :

-camping trip was nice. saw a lot of gorgeous nature, went for a really nice long bike ride, ate some really good ice cream.

-biking is still amazing, i love my bike (i named him lestat, cause he’s got sass) and i go almost every day. thank god petržalka is such a heaven for cyclists. 

-cashier lady in billa complimented me on my stag beetle brooch that i have on my bag strap. it is a not much of a brooch, it is literally a 10 cm plastic beetle that i glued pin closings to, and he’s very visible on my chest. looks pretty realistic. it was nice to see him appreciated!!

-i might start streaming, just for my friends? like, videogames. i’m good at some, very good at others, and i can talk passionately about most, and that’s why throughout my life many of my friends and family members really enjoyed watching me play. i don’t know, but i don’t mind. i don’t really want an audience of strangers, but i don’t mind the occasional company and giving my friends something to fall asleep to. i mean i play vidya often anyway, so there is not much extra effort there haha

also, not cute, but tomorrow i have my 3 hour dentist session. i’m not excited for it, but i guess it’ll bring me a bit closer to my new teeth. jesus, i can’t wait. i know it will take like 2 more months to have it all done, but i really really want it to be done.

[phoenix-is-the-hottest-thing]

well that’s… good??

I think it might be a combination of her being well liked by a large portion of the fandom (more fans = percentage of idiots becomes a significant number of people), you having a lot of eyes on you since you’re a pretty popular honkai artist and you’ve been featured by mihoyo before, and you not… actually hating on a lot of characters aside from Elysia? Like, Otto has a majority of haters so he obviously doesn’t count. If you shit-talked Kiana you’d probably get the same reaction on twitter.

As for shoving it in anyones face... you kind of are but it’s not your fault? Social media, ESPECIALLY twitter, is a public space, not your private diary. You have a pretty big platform. Almost everyone on tumblr reblogs your art, if I get a notif from you or someone who reblogs from you I won’t know what it is until I’ve clicked on it. If it’s that Elysia stuff, well, sucks to be me. On twitter you have quite the following as well, you even show up in recommended sometimes. tbh Twitter is even worse because there’s no damn way to filter it what it is you’re saying. And you are very skilled and your art is really good! so most people are going to WANT to look at your stuff, too, or it’ll show up in servers and group chat, it sucks to block a cool artist for one little thing, don’t want to be missing out. Maybe they just want to look at HoV art and get smacked with Elysia hatred. Maybe sometimes people will follow you having no idea what your Hot Takes are and get disappointed and upset. Dunno, it’s not really important, point is you’re kind of everywhere no matter what you do.

None of those things excuse treating you badly. It’s not like you’re doing it on purpose. I’m just trying to explain where they’re probably coming from =-=;;;

someone nuke twitter pls that website is barely functional you can barely curate your tl

Anyway when I say “fair” i mean as in “it would be fair to politely ask you not to keep spreading negativity about a character (or give a way to filter it)”, not talking behind your back or whatever the hell. bullying is never acceptable. Elysia is pixels, you’re a human being, your feelings are more important!

But also this is the internet, talk shit get hit. Talk shit get ratio’d? You can’t control a mob. If you wave a red cloth (or here, pink) in front of the bull… sigh

I am a strong partisan of “if you have nothing nice to say, then you should say nothing at all”, and that’s why I really, really feel it’s no use for you to keep talking about a character you hate. Ultimately it’s your choice, I’m just happy if I can keep it out of my sight, but it’s going to keep making people upset to come across that content and treating it as a magical mob of assholes unjustly going after you isn’t helpful either

tldr they’re reacting to what they feel is an attack on something they like, and they feel it is not the first one. it’s understandable that they might feel fed up, but for every ten people who are quietly repressing their negative feelings like rational people, there might be one immature asshole who’s going to act on their feelings and attack you “back”, and that rude motherfucker’s actions are uncalled for but they’re not coming from nowhere either. you can’t control immature people other than blocking them yourself; all you can do is basically block block block or just drop it.

It’s not about being in the right or in the wrong it’s just about public spaces and boundaries.

twitter people trying to insult me for that "shut up elysia" meme with mei be like "cloudya thinks mei would like her but she has yet to find out that she wouldn't"

like I'm pretty sure none of those fictional characters would like us if they were real and I am fully aware of it

but ok