#follow existing tumblr users and reblog their posts too

[jofiah]

The cruel irony of the r/196 crowd coming here and making their own posts with what they would have posted on reddit is that a lot of these posts originated here on tumblr in the first place.

A lot of them are unknowingly reposting memes that started here and have passed around for a long time, but they haven't been here long enough for the original to grace their dashboards

[ms-demeanor]

making my own post because nobody needs my bullshit on their post:

OP:

Reblog 1:

Reblog 2:

My response:

The IRA blogs were here and they were active and they were quite popular; their posting patterns did not match normal tumblr users (i was followed by lagonegirl and followed back only to be put off by the account reblogging the same five or ten posts every hour for a day before selecting another five or ten posts to reblog hourly the next day - it was clear engagement bait).

Tumblr has never been as transparent about these accounts as both Twitter and Facebook were, but several of the accounts had shared names across platforms and you can find a significant amount of data that was released by both facebook (ex: ads purchased by the IRA accounts) and twitter (over three million tweets from IRA accounts). Academic researchers have published papers on the data released from facebook and twitter. Several papers. So many papers. Soooooo many papers. We have a LOT of direct evidence that you can explore for yourself that there were hundreds (possibly thousands) of IRA accounts that were created on Facebook and Twitter. Of those accounts, some shared usernames across platforms, and of those accounts, a few had tumblr accounts that posted the same content on twitter and tumblr.

To quote a buzzfeed news article from the time:

The Russian-run Tumblr accounts used the same, or very similar, usernames as the account names contained on a list of confirmed IRA accounts Twitter submitted to congressional investigators. In some cases, the Tumblr and Twitter account has the same profile image or linked to each other in their bios. Some IRA Tumblrs and Twitter accounts also cross-promoted content between platforms, further linking them together.

Current tumblr user @ alwaysbewoke (who I don't want to tag because I'm sure he's got better things to do) is interviewed in that article and talks about following one of the blogs identified by tumblr as an IRA blog that had a matching account on twitter identified as an IRA account but unfollowing when the left-leaning blog supposedly run by a black creator started rooting for trump in the election.

Dr. Jonathan Albright is heavily quoted in the article; the data review he collaborated on is one of the only reviews of this subject that includes data from Tumblr and Reddit.

One of the claims that I've seen is that tumblr just deleted funny black people, but these were blogs with thousands of followers on tumblr who never recreated, never popped up on another social media site, never started a reddit account after getting banned; nobody ever showed up saying "hey this is 4mysquad, I got banned on tumblr and twitter, follow me to pillowfort". These very popular blogs got deleted and, as far as I know, nobody ever popped up claiming to be a person who was deleted - and it's not like tumblr users haven't figured out how to evade bans.

What you are doing when you make posts saying that the IRA accounts on tumblr never existed is *absolving tumblr of guilt for their utter lack of transparency.*

Tumblr is not the only tech company that has tried to fly under the radar as its larger counterparts face regular scrutiny in Congress and in the press. Earlier this month, Reddit revealed it too had deleted hundreds of accounts with ties to the Internet Research Agency. A WIRED investigation found more than a thousand links to Russian propaganda websites are still live on Reddit, and unearthed two suspicious accounts that Reddit immediately shut down.

So should you believe what Tumblr says? No, because Tumblr has been functionally fucking silent on this issue and the information about this subject aside from the list of blogs has come from the hard work of data scientists, journalists, and researchers.

(For the record; some of those bot accounts that were recorded by Dr. Albright also had Google+ accounts in 2017 - there is every possibility that they had myspace accounts).

Now, the reason that I'm popping onto this post as an annoyed anarchist is that I was tracking a similar group of blogs for a while and was discussing them and I stopped precisely because of the galaxy-brained liberals who are now trying to dunk on communists for criticizing electoralism. One of the people who was following my project was one of the ones who started calling out the "joe biden kills dogs" posts as disinfo and I realized they were using some of the guidelines I'd written up to "identify" misinformation and that is very a rock fucking stupid approach to what was clearly a leftist making jokes and was horrified and realized there was no way that I could continue documenting what I was documenting without someone attempting to call actual leftists russian bots.

I've seen the post that OP is referencing [it's one where someone makes a very obvious joke about the democrat presidential ticket and people jump on to call them a bot and then someone tries to do the "AI tell me a story" thing and OP is just like "I don't want to :(", proving that they are in fact a person and not an AI] and have deeply enjoyed the humor of watching liberals a) not understand a very, VERY obvious joke and b) become the unwitting butt of a joke they were trying to make, but also I am so exhausted by watching normie dems call leftists AI bots after years of watching normie dems call real live actual leftists who hold actual political views that real people actually have, like prison abolition, russian bots.

But I am also so fucking tired of left conspiracism and how stupid it sounds when leftists dismiss a preponderance of evidence that is easily accessible and publicly available for analysis as "lol so you just trust everything tumblr tells you?"

No, dipshit, learn to click a fucking link or twelve.

[loycspotting]

Leaving Tumblr

Last night, my account was terminated. I don't know why. I was in the middle of using the site when suddenly I was locked out. No warnings. No announcements. Nothing. I was an absolute wreck. I couldn't eat or sleep. There was no word from Tumblr's management team. I could only explain what happened and sit on my hands. I felt utterly helpless waiting and hoping for a miracle. I had a home here. I had friends who became family. People that I love. Fandom that was my absolute joy and honor to participate in. It was all ripped away for no reason at the drop of a hat. My work. My mutuals. My home. Gone. Just like that. I couldn't say goodbye. I didn't know if or how I'd be able to find my moots again. I was able to create a second account called @loycspotting-thee2 and wracked my brain trying to remember my friends' usernames while terrified that that account would disappear too. I couldn't focus on anything. I was completely distraught. Thankfully, a miracle did happen and my account was magically reactivated. Again, no warning. No one reached out and explained what happened. One moment it was here, gone the next, then here again. In all my years of being on social media, I've never feared that a platform would kick me off like that until last night. I stayed up reading story after story of people who have used Tumblr, some of them holding accounts for YEARS with thousands of followers, logging on just to find it wiped from existence on any random day. This is a serious and repetitive issue, but not apparently to Tumblr. I may not have been a Tumblr user for long, but this incident has irrevocably broken my trust. No amount of saving and cataloging and backing up my account will protect me from being a victim of this website's carelessness. I would always have to worry if I'd be the unlucky user of the day that got their account deleted with no guarantee that it would be reactivated. I cannot and will not live in fear that everything I've created and the home I've found will be taken from me again against my will. Therefore, I have decided that the best option for me is to deactivate my account and say goodbye on my own terms. I am absolutely heartbroken to come to this decision. This has been the most unreal online space. I loved it here! It was everything I've been looking for and I only regret not signing up the first time I heard about it all those years ago. I love being in the Ewan McGregor fandom! Where it's not just a fandom. It's a fanhome 😁. I found my voice here, as well as people who heard me. People who understood me. This was my absolute favorite place to be, bar NONE. I felt fulfilled writing and reviewing. There were so many more things I wanted to do and experience with you guys. It was you who encouraged me. You listened, reblogged, commented, and messaged. You accepted me. From the bottom of my heart I love my mutuals. Even if we don't follow each other, if we've talked or interacted with each other's posts I love you too. I love the passion and creativity flowing through this site. I don't know what will happen with the Ewan McGregor Screentime Percentage project. I'm not ready to quit just yet. Maybe I'll start a Reddit or letterboxd account. Of course, for the writing, I can consider joining Ao3. If you want to keep in touch, then I implore you to message me so we can work something out. The friendships I made here are paramount to everything else. I'm going to leave this up for 9 days (or until I'm terminated again 🙄) to give myself time to get things in order. On September 1st, I will say goodbye.

[jscwrites]

Please Follow this Backup Blog for Vendetta-IF

Hey guys, it's jsc, the author of Vendetta. I'm making this blog to backup all of the stuff I've posted over on the vendetta-if blog because I can't access my main account. Until I can access my account again, this will be the blog I'll use to interact with all of you and post updates. And in the worst case scenario, this will become the main blog.

So, please, follow this blog as I will be posting updates and answering asks like usual here. Also, for those who want to share their fanarts and other fanworks, please tag this blog too so I can see it. I'll also start reblogging some posts and asks from the Vendetta blog here in hopes of preserving them as much as I can. So, be prepared for a little blast from the past as we walk down the nostalgia road, I suppose.

I'm really sad because just earlier today, I checked my followers count and saw that we were 30 followers away from reaching 4K Followers in the main Vendetta blog, and I was thinking about what to do to celebrate it. Plus, there are also so many awesome fanarts and asks that I don't want to just be gone, which is why I'm making this blog to reblog all of them.

For those who are new and wondering what my story is all about, please check out the intro post I've reblogged. I might need to make another intro post in the future if I never get access back to my account, but for now, I hope it'll suffice.

IMPORTANT LINKS

[ORIGINAL INTRO POST]

[VENDETTA BLOG ARCHIVE]

[DEMO | Latest Chapter: 6 Part 1 | 272.8K words total] 

[FORUM] 

[PATREON] | [KO-FI]

[DISCORD]

CHARACTER RELATED MASTERPOSTS:

[CHARACTERS LIST]

[ARTBREEDER PORTRAITS] [ROs] [Other Pt. 1] [Viktor] [Other Pt. 2]

[CHARACTER PLAYLIST]

ADDITIONAL LINKS

[PUBLIC SIDE STORIES LIST]

[AO3 WRITTEN FANWORK] -> Currently 3 works

For those who are interested in what happened, I'll tell the details under the cut.

So, a few hours ago, I decided to open my iOS Tumblr app to check on notifications and stuff, as I usually do. But instead, I got hit with the Tumblr error messages over and over as it keeps trying to load in.

At first, I just thought it was my cellphone Internet connection, so I tried logging in on the desktop. At first, after I input all of my login credentials, the page loaded, but it brought me to the viewing page of my Vendetta blog as a non-user. I tried again, and this time, it said that my account got terminated. I never got any email from Tumblr about this, and it came as a shock because I just used my Tumblr earlier today to reblog some fanarts with no problem and I have never really used my account for other non-IF related stuff.

So, I scrambled to ask my members in Discord whether my Vendetta blog is still up, and thankfully it still is. But, my main account is somehow gone. The problem is, my Vendetta blog is actually a sideblog to my main account, jsclarissa.

As you can see here, when I tried searching for my main account, it says "Ghost blog! This blog does not exist." despite me having used that account to respond to comments and send asks to other authors before.

I have sent a support ticket to Tumblr support and also tweeted them on Twitter. I really hope they can give me my account back as I'm pretty sure this is some kind of technical issues on their end. I'm just worried about how long it would take them to respond and of course, the worst case scenario that it actually got terminated, so, I'm making this account.

Even if I got my account back, I'll still reblog stuff from the main blog here and maybe I can finally have a more personal blog where I can talk about stuff that is not really related to Vendetta.

[matan4il]

To the Nonnie who sent me the four anti-Israel Twitter users with blue checks, with claims to being "journalists" or similar titles... You're very right. I looked into them, and they are Assad apologists. They're literally ignoring the murder of hundreds of thousands of people by Assad's regime, including countless Palestinians who were living in Syria, while supposedly being against genocide and for Palestinians.

I didn't see something about Andrew Tate, but I didn't dig too far back, and I do believe that women who can post the following would side with a man charged with rape and human trafficking:

IDK if they're being quoted here, on Tumblr? If they are, I haven't seen that. At least not since Oct 7.

I guess the bigger issue is that when people on Tumblr see a post meant to trigger righteous rage, they don't check the source. Especially if they think they already know who the side in the wrong is, based on popular Tumblr opinion. So people automatically reblog and help spread these hateful, antisemitic massacre apologists.

Then again, the whole world is reporting Hamas' numbers on how many people have died in Gaza, how many of them were civilians, how many kids... Don't get me wrong, many people died in Gaza, and when Hamas uses civilians as human shields, many of the victims would be civilians indeed, kids included. But:

Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of fatalities

Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of civilians killed

Hamas is motivated to inflate the number of kids killed

And of course Hamas doesn't allow into Gaza any organization that can verify its stated numbers. Hamas has a complete monopoly on access to the areas affected in Gaza, and therefore on the "truth" that you get from there

Hamas has not reported a single terrorists from among the victims, they're all reported together, as if they're all civilians

Over 10% of rockets fired from Gaza at Israel are known to fail, fall inside Gaza and kill Palestinians, but Hamas doesn't report how many of the fatalities were people killed by Palestinian rockets, they're all reported together as if they were all killed by Israel

Terror tunnels built by Hamas have been well documented (there are reportedly over 1,300 such tunnels in Gaza), some sink holes that killed Palestinians are clearly the result of Hamas deliberately building those tunnels under civilian residential areas, but Hamas won't report its culpability for those deaths

There's new footage emerging from Gaza, showing people who tried to evacuate from the north, and who had been slaughtered by Hamas. You can be sure that these fatalities aren't being reported by Hamas either, so the world will be led to believe that these people were killed by Israel, too

(I'm not sharing the footage, because... it's graphic. And just like the Israelis murdered by Hamas deserve their dignity, so do the Palestinians killed by Hamas, but here you can listen to a subtitled conversation, where a Gazan says Hamas is shooting people who are trying to evacuate)

While we're on the subject of Hamas and its lack of reliability, today Hamas used a humanitarian window provided by the IDF to attack. Please remember this when Israelis point out that Hamas has broken every ceasefire ever. Including the one that existed on Oct 6.

If respectable journalists were more vocal about questioning Hamas and the numbers it reports (not to mentions their breakdown), then maybe people online would be a bit more critical, too.

I hope you're taking care of yourself, and you're not drowning in the biased material of these hate driven people! xoxox

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[goondah]

If this rap discourse has done one thing its remind me how white this website is. I have also seen a concerning amount of "I am not racist BUT..."

So, my beloved white mutuals, white followers and any other white tumblr user who sees this, this is a call to action. If you would consider yourself not racist but have found that these posts about rap make you feel angry, disgusted or threatened i suggest you ask yourself the following questions:

Have i actually adressed any of my existing racial biases or preconceptions?

How aware am I of the history of different racial groups in my community and how this impacts the political situation today? (this applies to non USAmericans too)

How do i feel when i see a stranger of a different race to me in public? How does that compare to a stranger of the same race to me?

How often do i interact with non-white people? How many of my friends or important figures in my life aren't white?

How often do i engage with art created by people of a different race to me?

Am i actually not racist or do i just think i'm not because i don't call people racial slurs?

It is a well understood concept that a man who does not harass random women (and therefore would not consider himself a misogynist) can still perpetuate misogyny by having patriarchal values and ideas. It seems that many of you have not also applied this logic to race.

This post is not meant as a callout to anyone specific, i just want to challenge what seems to be a blind spot for many tumblr users and hopefully encourage some introspection.

(white people are welcome and encouraged to reblog this post)

[goblin-social]

Changelog, 1/03/2024

It has been a while since I last wrote an update!

January and part of february has been kind of slow months. In early january, I dediced to focus on improving the compatibility with tumblr, thinking in that for a while no one would want to use Goblin on its own. And well, the tumblr compatibility (improve how tumblr posts from the rss feeds look like, optimizing then those posts are fetched, plan how to make goblin interact with reblogs and comments over tumblr-imported posts, etc) is a huge task that gets at odds with my resources to employ in goblin (it's hard to do big, complex systems when you can spend maybe 30 minutes every few days working on a project).

Anyway, the mini-implosion that tumblr has gone through this week has made change approach: I'm not focusing on making goblin stable and usable, and I'll care about tumblr compatibility (or not) in the future. That has made me regain speed once again.

What it has been done since the last update?

- It's finally safe to edit posts: The editor won't swallow your text or your tags when you edit a post. Yes, this is a recent fix. As 'today' recent.

- No longer empty tags either.

- In the post interaction view, it knows display the list of reblogs correctly

- Improved the styles of the reactions tab view too

- The post replies now show a little warning over the reply textbox to warn you are reply to an existing reply when you click on the "reply" button of a reply. Reply reply, reply? reply re ply reply re.

- Any "tootstorm" (or conversation between several people you follow) from mastodon or other non-goblin fediverse platforms is rendered as a reblog trail correctly now (yes, this was in the last changelog, but it sadly didn't work very well. Now it does)

- But if it's a string of replies between goblin users, we are not showing that in the timeline anymore.

- Changed the width of the timeline to make it a bit more narrow, avoiding images and videos looking absurdly huge.

- Fixes a bunch of bugs that could make your timeline empty of content

- Oh and you can follow any public tumblr blog rss feed. You just need to search for @tumblr-username.tumblr.com and you'll be able to follow that rss feed as if it was just another user).

[coraniaid]

OK, so, for context:

I don't like Agent Riley Finn, at all. He is one of my least favorite characters in Buffy, by quite some distance. I hated him even before the events of Season 5, and I only continued to hate him afterwards. I think the show would be significantly improved if his character had never been introduced. I think Whedon's idea that Buffy and Riley represent the show's one "happy and healthy relationship" is nonsensical.

I don't like As You Were. It's arguably Doug Petrie's worst episode (well, worst so far, anyway: let's not forgive him for his Season 7 episodes just yet).

I don't even really like Season 6 much (certainly not as much as so many people on Tumblr pretend to do). I think the concept of the season is very good but the execution is often decidedly lacking. It is not a season I often feel the urge to rewatch.

But, that being said, I'll confess it is somewhat bizarre to see so many people reblogging a post that says As You Were would have been improved if Riley showed up contrite and humble and openly ashamed of his [yes, unquestionably terrible and indefensible] actions in Season 5, or that the episode is one last attempt by the writers to force the audience to like him. To me, that is just ... obviously not true. I don't even see how it could be true.

As You Were is barely about Riley Finn at all. It's about Buffy. Specifically it's about what most of Season 6 is about: Buffy being miserable and depressed, struggling with bills and a soul-crushing mininum wage job, resenting her friends for having brought her back to life, romanticizing her past and (wrongly) convinced that she somehow 'came back wrong'. Riley is only in the episode to further that aim.

So, yes, the episode ignores all of Riley's [very real, very irritating, very hard to forgive] flaws and past failings and instead presents him as a dashing and attractive ex-boyfriend; as the perfect guy who somehow got away. Yes, it focuses on how much Buffy's own fortunes have declined since they broke up. Yes, Buffy is meant to find him attractive and be sad that he's married to somebody else already. Yes, the show deliberately sets up Riley as being competent and put together and high status while Buffy herself is none of these things. But this isn't because the writers are somehow trying to trick you into liking Riley (it would obviously be a very stupid and ineffective way to do that if it were! it demonstrably doesn't actually make anybody who didn't like Riley change their mind! why assume that it is trying to?). It is because this is how Buffy sees things herself.

The episode is about Buffy first, and Riley ..., not even third. He is a plot device. Just as in Season 3's Gingerbread (when Joyce is possessed and tries to burn Buffy at the stake as part of her campaign to cleanse Sunnydale of all things supernatural), or Helpless (when Giles puts his loyalty to the Council above Buffy's own safety and well-being), in As You Were Riley exists primarily to tell us something about Buffy. In Season 3, Buffy was afraid that being a Slayer would ruin her relationship with her mother and that Giles didn't really want to be the replacement father figure she clearly wanted him to be, and those episodes have her fears come true. Both Joyce and Giles act in pretty repellent (and arguably out-of-character) ways in their respective episodes, but those actions are justified in that they are consistent with Buffy's own view of the world. You could replace both of them with nightmare versions of their characters (like Hank Summers in Season 1's Nightmares) and both episodes would play out the same way (and have the same glaring lack of follow-up in later episodes).

So too in As You Were. The writers are probably more sympathetic to Riley than the average Tumblr user in 2024, but they don't particularly care if you like Riley or not. He's not been in the show for a year and after this he's never going to be in it again. This isn't about him. What is important is that Buffy herself misses Riley and her relationship with him: not necessarily because Riley was so great [again, he wasn't: Riley sucks] but because he's a part of her older life that she wishes she could go back to. A time when she had a 'normal' relationship and was still in college (and doing well academically!) and her mom was still alive and things seemed to be going well for her. Because she misses the version of Buffy that she used to be. (Who exactly are we supposed to think the 'you' of As You Were refers to? I don't think it's Agent Finn...)

Sure, I'd personally think better of Riley Finn as a person if he showed up looking sheepish and told Buffy he was sorry for how badly he behaved in Season 5 and he said he'd fund all her future bills and help her get back into college before dedicating the rest of his life to campaigning against both missionary work and US-backed (para)military actions in South and Central America. I'd think better of Joyce if she'd ignored the two demon kids only she could see and supported her real daughter better, too. Or of Giles if he hadn't ever gone along with the plan of hypnotizing and drugging a teenage girl he'd sworn to take care of and protect and who, less than a year earlier, he'd promised his unconditional "support and respect".

But Riley being a decent human being and making Buffy feel better about herself wouldn't make As You Were a "better" episode. It would make it a completely different episode, one that belonged in a completely different season. It would make it something that was utterly at odds, tonally and thematically, with the version of Season 6 that actually exists. This is not a season where nice things happen to Buffy, and if you think it should be I honestly don't think you like the story the season is trying to tell very much.

As You Were is not primarily "the episode where Riley comes back" (in which the writers then decided to talk about how great Riley was with the aim of making the fans like him while Buffy ends up feeling like shit and being embarrassed about how her own life is going as some sort of collateral damage). It is an episode where Buffy continues to feel like shit and be embarrased about how badly her life is going (and, in order to further Buffy's arc, this time Riley is there too to make her feel worse).

Do I think that it works to have Riley fill the role he does in this episode? Well, no, not really. Like I said at the top of this post, I don't like Riley and I don't enjoy seeing him on my television screen. Into The Woods' awful ending makes me pretty angry and it is a shame we never got any pushback on the idea that Buffy "letting Riley go" was a mistake. Riley wasn't ever the perfect boyfriend As You Were has Buffy remember him as. This isn't one of the better episodes of Season 6. But an improved version of the episode wouldn't have Riley act like a better person. That more palatable, more fan-friendly version of Riley just isn't compatible with the story the show is telling. An improved version of the episode that was still trying to tell the same fundamental story wouldn't have Riley Finn in it at all.

[teaboot]

hello this is my first Tumblr and I am quite confusef Hel me!

Hello!

Tumblr in my experience is different from a lot of other social media platforms as there is no real goal or purpose or competition in posting. You can pretty much just say or do or add whatever and if people like your vibes the follow you, and if they don't, they don't.

If you like certain topics or Fandoms (groups of people who enjoy a particular show, book, media, etc.) you can search for it and click "follow" on blogs dedicated to those things.

Whenever they post something, you can see it on your dashboard (your "feed" or "homepage") and decide to comment (add pictures or words) reply (say something without sharing the post with your followers) or reblog (share with your followers, so that anyone following you can see the post, with or without adding your own commentary.)

Beyond technical stuff, there are some cultural things you may want to know about.

If something you reblog has potentially upsetting content- violence, traumatic topics, nudity- its considered an act of courtesy to "tag" it. This is so your followers who specifically do not want to see those topics can use filters to make those posts invisible. This is handy for people with phobias, PTSD, or photosensitive epilepsy, but also for people who just don't like those things.

There are a lot of memes that will not make sense. That is because posts don't vanish when they get old, so anything that becomes a "meme" often gets referenced over and over again for years, sometimes actual decades. Posts like "do you like the color of the sky?", "Horse Plinko", "loss.jpeg", etc. are examples of this.

There is no algorithm that decides what you might like and shows you those things. You are in control of your own experience. If you see a lot of posts from people you don't like about things you don't want to see, you can block them and never see them again. They won't see you, either. It's like making friends- you can choose to follow whoever makes you happy and avoid whoever doesn't.

There is a bot problem. Bots are automated spam designed to look like other users. This is often "cute single women" type stuff, but can also be anonymous or generic fake blogs that send out a thousand identical messages that accuse you or others of wrongdoing, or just send out basic insults. They will never see your reply. They only exist to cause chaos. You can report and block them and are encouraged to do so.

There is a difference between "liking" and "reblogging". If you "like" something, it is added to an invisible list so you can go back and find it later. If you "reblog" something, your followers can see it too. Artists prefer reblogs over likes, because they put a lot of work into their art (or writing) and the only way they can reach a large audience is if lots of people share it. Artists who are trying to get commissions or develop a career depend on reblogs to continue making art.

Sometimes an update or change happens that alters the website without any warning and everyone whines about it and adapts. This happens every few months. It's kind of dumb and sometimes makes it worse but if you Google "tumblr 2012" you will see that it's actually been a slow march of improvement.

Something weird will happen on April fool's day. Sometimes this will affect the website layout.

You will not get many followers unless you engage with other users. This is a cafeteria and if you wanna eat alone you can.

If any of your posts go viral you will see it forever until you die and if it's about Beans you will live out the rest of your days getting messages like "Are you Bean Guy" so tread lightly

You will need to choose an icon and change the appearance of your blog or people will think you are a bot. (Side effect of the bot problem.)

I have no idea if you are a bot or spam message this reply is an act of faith

Good luck!

[flusterfluff]

A PSA

Hey! If you’re new here! You might’ve noticed that we have a BIT of a bot problem! And staff isn’t really doing much about it! A lot of users have taken to cleaning up the trash on their own, and some innocent people who are new to the site might get caught up in a wave of blocks and reports just for following a blog! Here’s how to avoid that!

1) Give your blog a title.

Just put a title on your blog. Your URL is one thing, but  just name your blog something. Even something as simple as “Not a bot” or “Just lurking” or even something more creative can help save you from a block!

2) Choose a profile picture

Find a picture of something you like! Make your blog unique! Google’s right there, so go get a profile picture and differentiate yourself from these random triangles and balls, or worse, the people with nearly/nude women as their picture! Most people won’t block if they sense a pulse, and having interests is a very not-bot thing to do! So express that!

3) Write a description!

You don’t have to get personal! Just put something unique! Unique here meaning “Different and doesn’t sound like something a bot would do”. Even a simple “Just lurking” or “Not a bot” will usually do. Don’t layer that on too hard though, or people might get suspicious! Just differentiate yourself so we don’t end up sweeping you up in the waves of blocking the spam!

4) Reblog things!

This isn’t twitter! There is no algorithm! Likes don’t do anything! Help the blogs you like seeing by spreading their posts via reblog! It shows you’re a real person, and engages with the community with MINIMAL effort! Know what bots won’t do? Reblog a really funny post that tumblr user beans-4-hire with a clever joke about a thing they’re into. Bots tend to reblog porn. Just porn. Share literally anything else and you’re fine

5) Change your URL!

The default urls read like a collection of unrelated words and act as a placeholder. Just choose one that isn’t “fantasticallyovertgiraffes” or something. Your goal here is just to look like you’re not a bot, and this is a really powerful step to doing so. Don’t use your real name, follow basic internet etiquette, and maybe include something that interests you. Think of it like an old AOL screen name or something. You can even use those if they’re not too embarrassing!

6) Act like a human

Humans are unpredictable. Do what you like. Share what you like. Be what you like. Interact as little or as much as you want. Variety is the spice of life, and if you’re alive, that means you’re not a bot and unlikely to get falsely flagged as one, and thus blocked and reported.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Furthermore, I’d like to apologize to tumblr users beans-4-hire and fantasticallyovertgiraffes, if they exist, for using their URLs without checking to see if they’re real.

[fuckyeah-beringandwellsfics]

Hi! I'm not new to Myka and Helena, I remembered them from the 2010s and now watched the show just for them, but I am new to Myka and Helena fanfiction.

Do you know any more fics like this https://archiveofourown.org/works/957200?view_adult=true or vaguely like this?

Is there a big masterlist of good Myka and Helena fics? I've been reading through their tag on AO3, but there are 1600+ fics 😯 so it'll take me a while to read them. I'd like to read some good ones.

Hi and thank you for asking, anon! That fic is great, isn't it! (clickable version of the written-out link anon sent: Resigned to These Histories (We Exist) by journaliar/@snake-juice)

Anon, as far as I am aware, there is no *one* big masterlist.

Several people in this fandom have made their own rec lists over time, of course, from the very beginning. (The older they are, unfortunately, the higher the chance that some links might not work anymore, but you can still try them out!) I have a "fic rec" tag on my main blog (linked in case you want to know the source; that tag contains other fics too, not just Bering and Wells, but all of them femslash), and here are some Bering and Wells specific lists that I've found going through it:

styrofoamtokyo's list, from 2014

tracybering's list of Tracy Bering friendly fics and art, also from 2014

lonely-night's lists from 2017 and 2018

wibblywobblyida's list from 2021

There's also the Ballet AU, a collaboration with multiple fics and pieces of art, from several of this fandom's best authors and artists; highly recommended, masterpost here.

I'm sure there are more fic rec lists slumbering on people's blogs! So here's my call to anyone who sees this post: please link yours!

I myself am trying to assemble recs on an individual basis. Almost a year ago, I tried to make a list of what has been already recommended through this post, but now that is way out of date, of course.

Beyond these lists, the usual tips for AO3 and Tumblr apply (under a readmore for length):

when you found a fic you liked, click on the author's name and see what else they've written for the ship/fandom, see if you like those too

check if that author's bookmarks are public; those are fics that they liked, and maybe you'll like them too

and then with those fics, you can go to *those* authors' profiles and see what else *they* have written - and so on.

Don't forget to bookmark and/or download these fics so that you can find them again. You need to have a user profile yourself to bookmark fics (and that's not the only advantage; I highly recommend it - and remember, you can set your bookmarks to private if you want).

also, please please consider leaving kudos and comments on fics that you've liked - a lot of authors are still active in the fandom/for the ship, and kudos and comments always help us *stay* active, because they tell us that people still enjoy what we create. Even if the specific fic in question is from the early days of the fandom, kudos and comments are always welcome.

same goes for reblogs on Tumblr, be it the above lists, individual fic rec posts, or posts from the authors themselves with or about their stories.

some authors with a Tumblr blog also have a dedicated "my fics" tag or link on those blogs. Always worth clicking through from an individual Tumblr post to the author's blog, and seeing if something like that is on it - and if the author is still actively writing, consider giving them a follow (and reblogging their fic posts; I've heard from so many authors that their fic posts barely get any reblogs at all to spread the word)

I hope that all or at least some of these tips are helpful to you, Anon - there is a lot of great stuff out there, and you're right, it can be a bit daunting to figure out where to start. And hey, it's always okay to click back out of a fic you find you don't like. No harm no foul, even if the fic came recommended; everyone's taste is different! There is no "required reading" that you *have* to have done to be a fan. You already are, no matter how many fics you've read!

[trashysimpaa]

GUYSGUYSGUYSGUYS

just, remember many years ago when tfp got into Asia and that's how we got a hundred of artist to arrive here-? And that now these days most of them are..offline,rip,nolstalgia hits hard,you can only find their drawings in pinterest or something like that.

So yeah let's talk ab one that I REALLY LIKE,and just for the sake of them needed to be known more today

Tokiwaakebi or zakushin(I couldn't find translations for these names)

Really much an optiratch artist,I found them by wanting to find who did this one certain drawing here with the help of Google

and then I casually found them in a site copying tumblr called tumblex,and for what it looks like,it's a site that contains stuff from the past..maybe? Because I have tried searching on tumblr itself and their user dosen't exist.

Their content is so nice like literally, most of the artist that I found do alot of bl when it comes to manga,l say also nsfw content too but for me luckily they are not accessible!!

Please go check their art here on this site and tell me if you can find anything about them,I just god i really love tf Asian artist they are my inspiration

Just really, IGNORE THE ADS OKAY,IGNORE THE ADS ISTG-

Anyways go see their art,they are a optiratch and mecha liker artist but they also draw non-mecha art too! What saddens me the most ab the past on the internet is that you find amazing people and they just..poof out of existence on the web..you can only find some posts

________________

AN UPDATE!! SOMEONE FOUND THEIR ACCOUNT HERE! SO IT REALLY IS JUST A COPY OF TUMBLR AFTER ALL.

and they just poofed out of existence ON TUMBLR,they are currently online on Twitter so go to the link above to find their Twitter pls!!!

I will be reblogging one of their arts if you wanna follow them because I think..I THINK,you can't here because it's totally customized

Shout out to @darkchestoftales for helping me find them! So it is just a copy of tumblr lol-, they explained that maybe the URL for this user for some reason is HIDDEN,and that they have found tokiwaakebi from a friend's reblog. THANK YOU SO MUCH, this is ridiculous, just why to this happen?this artist needs to be known! I thank you alot for darkchestoftales for messaging me,really,thanks alot,I hope people can reblog to know them

[mikomikomadness]

Introduction ★

Heya, the name’s Miko, but you can also call me J, and welcome to my blog of utter nonsense!

Quick disclaimer: beyond this point you’ll find a bunch of nonsense and art related to random fandoms burried among all the reblogs. Seriously, nothing here is going to be completely comprehensible it is utter multifandom madness.

Also, if I follow you or like a post or send an ask, due to how Tumblr works it’ll always be under the user @askdon-chan. It’s still me though!

DNI: Racists, sexists, homophobes, transphobes, aphobes, basically if you hate a group because of a certain trait they all have I’d prefer you don’t speak to me. I’m also not too fond of people who ship adult x child or sibling x sibling relationships.

With that out of the way, additional things are under the cut!

More about me!!!

★ Minor (please let this be obvious)

☆ She/Her

★ Aroace

☆ Artist, and writer, and sort of able to make music

Where else to find me?

✩ On cohost under the user @j-is-all-over-the-place

✯ On the Cookie Run: Kingdom OCs Fandom Wiki under the user @Jallover

✩ In Cookie Run: Kingdom (Dark Cacao server) under the user Seicho

✯ On my other Tumblr blogs! I own these blogs: @askdon-chan (Don Wada ask blog [Taiko No Tatsujin]), @righteousoutlawcookie (Rebel Cookie ask blog [Cookie Run]), @techdifficultygirl (Tamee Dime ask blog [OC]), @gumballsandgadgets (Platonic Self Ship Blog), and @inthisfuntime (Mr. Fun Computer ask blog [Sprunki])

Some of my pals!

⍟ My (online) dad Inky!!!: @theinkbunny

✪ My (online) siblings!!!: @s4gefr0g, @sharky-the-idiot, @r0und-4b0ut, @unfortunately-i-exist

⍟ My (online platonic) wife Marie!!!!!!!: @sshhitlucashere

✪ The Lilarky crew!: @sharky-the-idiot, @lilacthebooklover, @whale-the-genius, @theinkbunny, @charismabee, @weltato, @incredibly-tired-icecube, and of course the lore collecter @lilarkylore (By the way, for any and all interested, I am the (self proclaimed) Hyperfixation Deity of the Lilarky fandom!)

⍟ Taiko Buddies!!: @0n1-m0nst3r, @gooffrenzy

Credits!

✧ @miothejelly for providing the PFP mask

✵ @saradika for providing the divider

✧ @unknown-till for providing the “i love stars“ stamp

✵ Other stamps by me! The little guy in said stamps and my PFP is my OC Eris!

✧ I was inspired by my online sibling @r0und-4b0ut for the theme!

Miko’s Hyperfixation Board! (What is Miko specifically focused on this time???) ★☆★

Miko’s main hyperfixation right now is... ✧

She’s got a few! She’s obsessing over her OCs, but also recently got back into liking the retro arcade games, and now she’s interested in the cartoon Inspector Gadget too! How does she keep up with all these things she likes...???

The board updates everytime my blog theme changes! Come back here when that happens! ✵

★ ’Til next time, everyone!

[autumnslance]

Tumblr Cosmetic Customization Tutorial

You there! New Tumblr User with a default icon and header, no description, no custom URL, and not wanting to be mistaken for a bot--you just want to maybe figure out this weird hellsite and follow some people without being blocked, right?

Maybe you've been around for a little while, or are returning from that other hellsite, and don't know what the heck folks mean by enabling the custom URL and why are so many blogs opening on the dash instead of in a new tab?!

Let's sort this mess out below the cut with a screencap-laden tutorial, starting on mobile app (since Most new blogs start there these days, and many people use mobile more, or exclusively) and then moving to web browser for some other features that aren't available in the app (as of 1/27/23 anyway).

This is just going to be about cosmetic customization and accessing the correct blog URL and archive; Tumblr's many other settings and features for how you want to see your Dashboard and how much Privacy control you decide on are for your exploration (or another day and another tutorial, this one's long enough).

The tutorial blog itself literally took me well under 5 minutes to set up, and Tumblr guided me to customizing immediately. Taking the screenshots added a few seconds to the time; it's taken longer to write the first part of this post out. If you didn't customize the blog right away, don't fret! You can always tap the little art palette and cogwheel icons at the top of your blog to sort it out.

Now go below the link to see written instructions with image examples, including a few more with my cat:

TO BEGIN: In the mobile app, I make a new blog. For me, it's a sideblog under my main and existing sides, but otherwise this is all the same info. The following process also isn't actually all that different in web browser.

Now, you can change your URL later on if you want; a lot of folks do over time. Just be aware: changing your URL breaks any and all previous links to your blog, including any posts others have reblogged under "Read More" cuts, with the same result as if the blog was deactivated; the URL no longer exists, so Tumblr doesn't count it as "there" anymore.

Now that's out of the way, once I make a blog it immediately takes me to the Customization screen:

I can--and should!--give my blog a name and a description. Doesn't have to be long or fancy, and can always be changed later with no risk to your links.

I can tap the "Background" and "Accent" buttons to change the default colors, too. Let's go for something easy on the eyes by tapping on the colored circles to find some default options, or the wheel to grab a random custom one. I'm going to go to purple and find a nice shade there.

Next I will tap on the little default icon to choose an avatar photo. I can choose not to show it on my blog, and if I do, whether I want it to be square or circle.

I can also tap to choose a header image if I like. I'm just grabbing some images from my phone. I did have to redo the avatar as it didn't want to stay after selecting a header pic for some reason.

And then I made a quick post and pinned it, to let folks know that I am human and what the purpose of this blog is (lurking for now? A main blog for following while sideblogs get the content? In this case, a tutorial).

OK, so my cat for an icon, my copy of the fanzine I worked on as a header, a quick title and description, and a short post. Even if I post nothing else to this blog (and if it were a main blog; sideblogs can't follow others, nor send asks or replies), people will be fairly certain I am not a bot, hooray! And if I want to change anything, I can tap on the icons at the top of the blog and get back to these customization screens.

I CAN STOP HERE IF I WANT TO

...BUT WHAT IF I, or buddies, try to open my blog in a browser and it opens a dash panel? What if I (or others) want to access my Archive? Unfortunately, I cannot find the correct option in the mobile app at this point, so onto a web browser we go (on my phone or my tablet, or my computer).

I am using a generic default web browser where I don't have many extensions/plugins/addons enabled (though apparently I did set dark mode). When I tap/hover over my icon, it still shows my color option and everything I selected in app setup.

Here is where I am going to direct you to the side bar and the "Edit Appearance" button so I can point out some Very Important Things, even if you don't customize anything else ever.

When I open my blog's appearance tab, right away it's going to tell me some interesting things I have circled and pointed at on the below screenshot:

In RED I have circled my blog's URL: www.tumblr.com/lynmarstesting. This is why a blog opens in a dash panel instead of going to an actual blog. This is the new Default URL, I cannot access an Archive or other blog features like this.

The ORANGE arrow points to the feature we want, right below the "Blog name" and URL: "Custom Theme". When I swipe this feature to active, it tells me my URL is updated.

When I go to my blog, the URL in my browser shows the proper https://lynmarstesting.tumblr.com link.

And the blog looks...well, bare bones and empty, but a proper weblog page. And I (and anyone else) have access to my Archive! When, y'know, I have enough posts to make that a thing on this blog.

Now, if I or anyone else opens the blog by clicking my username or icon, it'll open a dash panel...but also show my actual @ and my proper URL link, so they can go to the blog itself that way if they want. Everyone wins!

I CAN STOP HERE IF I WANT TO;

there's no need from this point to keep messing around in a browser, we've done everything to 1) make ourselves look human and 2) make our blog properly linkable/accessible.

BUT WHAT IF...??

Once again, the little art palette icon at the top is our clicky-buddy, boxed below in orange:

This opens an "Edit Theme" sidebar panel where one can customize the blog. Each theme has different options, and Tumblr's default theme is honestly really modular; change colors, fonts, have multiple columns, add some pages (I've a whole other tutorial on that), etc.

There's also an "Advanced" pane, where you can mess with some other settings (the little ? icon on each line tells you what it does) and, if you're knowledgeable--or just bold--this is where you can add some Custom CSS.

Say the Default Tumblr Official isn't doing it, though; at the top of the Edit Theme pane it tells you your current theme, and there's a handy "Browse Themes" link.

This opens a drop down with multiple sorting options. I don't want to spend money on a premium blog theme at the moment, and the others are a mix, so let's check out the Free Themes options.

There's a lot of options here! Some new ones, some are sponsored, lots of variety. Even the "Accessible" theme I mainly use is there, in its barren glory, compared to what you can see I've made of it on browser (see that previous tutorial I linked above):

Again: Different Themes have Different Levels of Customization.

Some will let you change every color, the fonts, the frames, and so on. Some let you add links everywhere. Some barely let you touch anything. You can tap "Use" at the top to preview, and the "Advanced" pane will let you preview random pretend posts if you don't have many/any of your own to see how they'd look. If you don't like how something's turning out, just click back on "Free Themes" and look for another one.

PLEASE KEEP IN MIND READABILITY!!

When people follow links to your blog--like a Read More cut--they will see the post on your blog's theme and in your blog's colors. Even on mobile app, especially if you override the default mobile theme, your color choices will have an impact! Aesthetic is all well and good, but frames, fonts, colors, and so on, should be legible and readable to most people, especially if you mean to share a lot of text posts.

Another thing to note: Your theme will NOT appear on mobile app. It defaults to a basic setup in the app, keeping maybe only your colors. Any custom links won't show, and cosmetic site options and access are limited in a lot of ways. The site is usable on a mobile web browser, and will have those features there. I get around the app's inability to show my theme's links by adding them all to my informative Pinned Posts on each blog, but that's me.

And there you have it! How to cosmetically customize a Tumblr, in mobile app and browser, to seem like a real person and access the correct URL and features of your blog. Whether you're new or been here awhile, hopefully this helps answer some really basic questions about how and why to do some of these things.

Have a final full-sized silly Chel pic to say goodbye.

[helicarrier]

If someone asks me about my issues with DNIs, I think I’ll just refer them to this post from now on.

Tumblr, as a website, is designed for quick, casual content sharing. You can follow blogs, then immediately like and reblog posts from them. New posts are even recommended to you directly on your dash, so you don’t even need to look at their originating blogs to interact with them. DNIs put a wrench in this intuitive manner of using tumblr. They force someone to stop and detour and read a page before they touch any posts from a blog they don't know, and that contradicts how tumblr is intuitively meant to be used. If you see a post and you like it, and if there’s an icon right underneath it, your first reaction is to click the icon. I’m sure most of us have instinctively clicked “like” (or “reblog”) on a post we found interesting.

DNIs prevent this kind of “casual” interaction. Their existence means you have to stop yourself before you interact (in any way) with a cool post, find the DNI page of the person who reblogged the post and, if applicable, find the DNI of the person who made the original post as well (because they’ll also receive the notification, unless they deleted the post on their blog), read it, then return to the post. Nothing about DNIs are baked into the functionality of tumblr in an intuitive way; if anything, the only real “do not interact with me” function you will find here in tumblr’s infrastructure is the block function.

Because DNIs are so antithetical to how tumblr functions, they're an inherently futile way of preventing interaction with certain groups of people, too. Most people aren't going to read my rules or my pinned post before they interact with my content. I would not expect them to, because it doesn't occur to many people, and it's a lot of wasted time. Even people with certain kinds of users in their DNIs routinely interact with posts made by those very people, proving this point. It is so inconvenient and absurd to read a page every time someone so much as likes a post by a random blog. Those people you don't want interacting with you? They're probably reading your blog; liking your posts even if they don't expressly say they're x group from your DNI. They're doing the same to my posts, too. That's just the price we pay for being in a public space focused on content sharing. And I accept this. Other peoples' behaviour is completely out of my control. I just block people when needed, because it is my responsibility to curate my space.

And that is the crux of the matter: I refuse to pass the responsibility of curating my space onto strangers. I refuse to make it someone else's problem when they are using tumblr in the way it was meant to be used. Ideologically and functionally, it does not make sense to me.

Just think about it: tumblr is a public website. Unless your blog is password-protected, people can find it anytime, and if they really want to interact, they'll interact regardless of your DNI. It’s not like most people will say, "oh, drat, I'm a racist, I should leave!". Maybe they’ll just interact because the labels you dislike are not visible on their blog, so they'll fly under your radar. And at times where peoples' labels or behaviour are visible, the good ol' block button is the golden standard. It always has been.

If I become mutuals with someone, sure, we'll agree to scratch each others' backs, and tag whatever the other person needs tagged. But that's different from expecting every stranger who comes across my content, wherever it shows up, to follow demands that are all the way over here, on this blog. If someone reblogs one of my photosets way over in the Stranger Things fandom, and people see the reblogged post, they shouldn't need to come to my Marvel/Random Shit™ blog and read my pages before clicking the stupid little heart button. But imagine needing to do this with every single person, every single post of theirs. Sure, maybe you’re familiar with the DNIs of the people you follow. But what about all the posts they’ve reblogged? Those posts have OPs. Do the OPs of those posts have a DNI that’s favourable to you, too?

DNIs aren't even optional reads now, and everyone suffers because of that. The proliferation of DNIs has made a culture where if someone accidentally forgets to read a DNI, doesn't know that DNIs exist, or misinterprets the contents of a DNI, it’s considered acceptable to harass them for it. It's anxiety-inducing.

“...Shit, I forgot to like their DNI.”

It doesn't help that I never know what "basic DNI criteria" means, or what the "etcetera" means either, because it changes from person to person. Folks, I’ve seen homophobes with “basic DNI criteria” in their pages. That aside, you can say "bigots DNI", but a lot of transphobes don't believe they're bigots, so you could still get radfems liking your posts. You could say "bullies DNI", but many fanpols don't consider themselves bullies, because they believe if someone writes fanfiction from the perspective of Hannibal Lecter, of course their reaction to it isn’t “bullying”, it's just justified shaming!

Everyone is the hero of their own story, and everyone thinks they're the exception. They will be the exception to your DNI, too. Again, this all goes back to the "you can't control who interacts with your content" thing. It's maddening to try and think of all the angles, all the ways to "catch" people, all the ways to plug up all the holes. You may not want to hear it, but you never will. You can get the broad strokes, but you’ll never get everyone, you won’t even get close. Even if you do somehow manage to fit all the exact terms into your DNI, and you end up with a DNI longer than a CVS receipt, you’re still going to run into all the people who... Simply don’t read it. Meanwhile, you look a little too preoccupied with who’s looking at your blog on a public website, and even if a well-intended person comes across your blog, they may just check out because they’re uncomfortable with the micromanaging.

...If they can read the DNI. Look, I’m all for creative formatting, but I see so many DNIs (and carrds in general) that have hot pink writing on a red background, or baby pink on baby blue, or yellow on lime green, and I can’t read any of it, not to mention it’s a migraine risk among other things. I’m not reading dozens of these pages every other day.

It doesn't help that many DNIs are rude, angry, hostile pages that tell people to kill themselves. That's not right. When someone volunteers to read an information page, they are doing that person a courtesy. It is shameful people need to read things like "kill yourself", "swallow a knife", and other verbal sewage. It doesn't matter if it's directed to them or not. Simply looking for people to follow and interact with, simply liking a post, should not be an exercise in mental fortitude. Needing to read awful threats over and over again should not be a requirement for engaging on this site. Imagine having depression, intrusive thoughts, and so on, where this stuff could land twice as hard. It's gotten to the point where my eyes immediately gloss over when I open a DNI, because my mind simply doesn't want to see any more shit and is trying to protect me. I'm at the point where I don't want to open DNIs at all.

But as you guessed, there's a problem with that. Because DNIs are almost compulsory on tumblr now, ignoring them has two possible outcomes: one, you annoy a ton of people, because maybe their DNIs say they don't want you around, but you're interacting with their stuff anyways. Maybe you get labelled as the person who ignores DNIs. Two, you stop your browsing in part, or as a whole, meaning almost nobody gets likes or reblogs from you anymore, because you’re trying to not waste your time, you’re trying to preserve your sanity, etc. And this hamstrings content creators.

One of the biggest flaws in DNIs is that nobody is obligated to reveal information on themselves. Minors can easily hide their age. Bigots can hide their bigotry. People can remove info from their description until they're clear of someone's initial "new follower vibe check", then put it back. Nobody knows you're a dog on the internet. It's naive to assume people will be honest about themselves, and adhere to a DNI.

DNIs are often so incredibly vague and their attitude so charged that people can't even ask for clarification, because the writer of the DNI could be radicalized and have very unhealthy views, and absolutely attack someone for reaching out. A DNI might say, "don't interact if you support incest", but it never clarifies in real life, or fiction. There has been an enormous uptick in moral panic over fiction lately, so lots of people might ask for clarification, but if they do, the person could say "in real life and fiction, duh!", flame them because they "didn't know something so obvious, it must mean they're sus!", then flame them again because they viewed the poor person's blog and saw lots of mature content they think people shouldn't write. It's absurd, but unfortunately, that kind of panic has spread. Many people use DNIs as extensions of their unhealthy interaction, media consumption, and browsing habits.

So I usually avoid DNIs.

All in all, I don't mind if someone politely asks other people to not interact, or if they say they block for certain stuff, if there’s a clear awareness that it's not a be-all, end-all solution, and that people will still interact. As long as they put the onus on themselves, rather than other people, to curate their space, it’s cool. For example, if someone is an 18+ blog, and they ask minors not to interact? Cool, if they don’t “punish” or otherwise attack minors who find posts of theirs on other blogs, and “like” them from there without going all the way over to the OG blog to see if they’re allowed to do like it. Because again, that’s a bit of an unfair requirement to impose on people. And whatever.

Because people shouldn’t feel like they’re playing minesweeper when they want to click a heart. Between the terfs, racists, and all the other issues, we have enough on our hands already.

[shadowfoxsilver]

A quick reminder on how to spot a pet donation scam

Check the date of the pinned post. Is it a week old or only a few hours old? If timestamps are not on, tap/click the ‘…’ tab to see the exact date of posting. This will show you how old the post is. If it’s only a few hours old, take caution.

Check the other reblogged posts. Are they tagged or are they mass reblogged from only the OP? This usually shows someone is only sharing posts from a trending tag and are not interacting with other accounts. They may follow users but are not sharing their posts. Scammers like to share trending posts several times in order to look legitimate and hope no one scrolls too far down.

[tumblr] search the username. Don’t Google it. Please. Google rarely will show you what your looking for in this case and may misguide you into thinking the account is legitimate. [tumblr] search works just fine for looking up scam alerts. If none show up, the account likely is too new for any warnings. You can also search their Paypal name to see if anything shows up that relates to being a scam.

Did the ask request you to answer privately? Scammers want anonymity and don’t want anyone to find them. Their post is public. There is no reason to want the ask to be private. This is an attempt to hide how many other users have been sent the same ask. You can tumblr search the ask and see if it shows up sent to other blogs. The asks usually use emojis like 🙏 and ❤️ and even 🐈 and 😢.

If there’s a vet bill, does it match the country listed in the PayPal? Hover over the link/press and hold over it to see what the address bar says. If the post is USD it should say US or something similar. If it is something like PH, it’s likely a scammer. Legitimate PH addresses do exist! But they will usually provide a currency conversion in the post if their referring to USD. Also check the photos closely and see if the story doesn’t match up. Scammers like to mix and match a real post.

If your still unsure, ask the blog to provide more info about their pet and to write their name on a paper. Then tell them to put the paper on the pet and take a picture and post it. If they block you, without answering a legitimate concern, it’s a scammer.

Warn anyone whose shared the scam post and report the scam blog for phishing. Phishing is another kind of scam, but currently that is the only way to deal with scam accounts.