#for real though @ tumblr staff

[abaroo]

I realised I had to refine Ceroba for my au…

In the cowboy swap au, Ceroba is actually the Sheriff and leader of the Feisty Five. Clover is still the Deputy and goes by ���Lucky Star”. He loves hanging around town with his Mama ☺️. I haven’t come up with a cool cowboy name for Ceroba yet, although she probably wouldn’t use one :/

Cowboy Swap Masterpost

[clearancecreedwatersurvival]

Okay so here’s my thoughts on the staffcon thing.

I still think collapsing reblogs so posts look more like other social media isn’t gonna work as a feature but they will probably roll them back a little and at least add a toggle off for it if they try it and enough people submit feedback. Edit: this is actually less of an issue, most of the discussion is based on a misrepresentation of what’s happening. They’re just making it easier to scroll past long posts. EDIT AGAIN: actually some people already have the initial roll out of the feature and it. Is bad.

I think submitting feedback is a takeaway. There was a pretty clear effort to just remind the user base that there are real humans on the other side of a paycheck having to read and respond to the inputs of every feedback method on the site, which is fair. It’s easy to be an asshole online in any semi anonymous platform and that is something that tumblr culture takes a certain bloodthirsty pleasure in.

And yes, of course, user complaints about issues such as accessibility and the many ongoing glitches and bots and the search function, etc. are valid and do need to be addressed. But at the very least it would be cool if we as users maybe try to cultivate a slightly less pitchforky social norm when submitting feedback about changes to the site. The ceo is not reading every @ to his blog. One of his employees is. The people reading all of the feedback are just people doing their jobs. All jobs suck under capitalism, maybe we could try not to make their jobs actively worse.

Would you be rude to an overworked server in a restaurant? No? Cool also try to not be a dick to the person getting paid to answer customer or user complaints.

Related to that, funding. Many current and former members of staff have been pretty frank about funding in the past. The company is trying to at the very least breakeven, which not a single company who has owned tumblr has managed because the hosting fees for this site are insane due to all of the stuff on it.

If they don’t get it to breakeven they’ll hopefully best case just open source the website which is a method they’ve done in the past. And it would probably work, and then the website would to my understanding be being maintained by users. Now this is where my understanding gets fuzzy so anyone with more knowledge of how this would shake out feel free to chime in. But my understanding is that the source code for the site would be opened up and maintained by the community likely through mostly volunteer work. I would guess largely uncompensated.

So personally I think maybe the vitriolic response to every change they make going forward to try and monetize the site and pay even some of the cost of operation is perhaps a bit overblown, because they’re still trying to find a way to keep paying those people to work on tumblr, and I think people continuing to be paid for the work they do is better than volunteers doing unpaid labor.

I do also think there’s a secret third option for automattic and every other company finding themselves with a worse outlook now the Silicon Valley bubble has started to really burst, and that is for all existing staff members to unionize and then turn the whole thing into a worker coop. Much more stable organizational structures. Worker coops are also one of my favorite short term solutions to many other systemic problems we are currently experiencing.

I do hope this site continues to exist for many years, especially as it is one of the only places on the internet where the culture makes it safer to talk about some of the more permanent and long term solutions to various systemic issues that function within societies. Also funny text posts.

[aceghosts]

I think we should keep the boop button after April Fool's.

[mieczyhale]

"i had to surrender my cat bc he's got incontinence issues and i'm just not equipped to deal with that"

i'm stealing your fucking kneecaps

[onesaltysir]

Thanks for all of the recent feedback around Community Labels being incorrectly applied to content. In particular, we appreciate the input we’ve received from the LGBTQIA+ community and understand the frustrations from folks who felt that their content was unfairly labeled. When we realized this was happening, we immediately investigated and are taking steps to prevent this from happening again.

The LGBTQIA+ community makes up about a quarter of the Tumblr community. It is important for us to support all Tumblr users, especially those whose safe spaces are under threat in certain parts of the world.

As you know, alongside of the rollout of Community Labels we also expanded the types of content allowed on Tumblr as a way to welcome more creativity, art, and self-expression. Our goals remain the same today. Human error happens and we apologize to anyone who has been impacted by these mistakes.

We are working to better understand what happened and will follow up with more information soon.

[fiercynn]

okay, if you have ever made or reblogged a “hold your nose and vote for biden” post, this is for you.

here’s the fucking thing about these kinds of posts. i've been seeing them since i first returned to tumblr in, I think, late 2022? they've certainly increased in frequency since october 7, but they were there before too, ready to counter any kind of opposition to biden that has cropped up. many of them are not just trying to educate people about what positive things biden has done, which, like, at least I can understand the motivation behind those ones? but so many of them are directly in response to people criticizing biden, and their only real point is “sure you’re upset at this thing biden did, but have you considered the election?” starting YEARS before the next presidential election, mind you.

and october 7 only made that clearer. i don’t think it had been a week before i saw these posts cropping up. can you not see how fucking ghoulish that is? to look at the rightful pain and anger of those whose relatives and communities are being slaughtered with active american support, to respond to one of the few pieces of agency most americans have in influencing what their governments do – their vote – by saying “yes but trump would be worse.” as if the primary people you’re lecturing – palestinians, muslims, arabs, black people, indigenous people, disabled people, other marginalized people – don’t remember exactly how bad it was under trump!

and even if you think not voting is an empty gesture – something i, who studied political science at a mainstream american lib college, who has worked as a field organizer on a previous democratic presidential campaign and for several policy campaigns, who currently works in public policy in america, used to believe, but have absolutely changed my mind on – what is in no way an empty gesture is saying publicly that you will not vote for someone. the arguments people usually have about why simply not voting is bad are that you can’t tell why someone is not voting, so it is as likely to be apathy or disenfranchisement as it is a political statement. but saying publicly that you will not vote for someone, and why you will not vote for them, absolutely is a political statement, and potentially a powerful one! but you choose to negate and/or ignore that by trotting out the “lesser of two evils” bullshit.

and then there’s the whole “yes but people will DIE under trump”. PEOPLE ARE DYING NOW. even if you’re fucking racist and have decided that palestinian lives don’t count, have you forgotten biden’s ongoing covid minimalism and dismantling of the CDC’s covid research and prevention infrastructure? have you forgotten his increase in spending for law enforcement scant years after the murder of george floyd and his administration's surveillance of protesters, including cop city protesters? have you forgotten his recent ramp-up in deportations of undocumented immigrants, including the active continuation of many trump-era policies?

maybe you have forgotten all those things and do purport to care about palestinians, but you just think that biden is doing his best to influence netanyahu and is getting nowhere! but then you must have forgotten all of the things that biden and his administration themselves have done to further this fucking genocide, including:

continuing to send arms to israel

putting together a military task force within days of yemen’s red sea blockade and attacking yemeni ships

bombing yemen

bombing syria

bombing iraq

vetoing three ceasefire resolutions at the united nations

testifying to defend israel and its genocide and occupation at the international court of justice

refusing to rescue palestinian-americans stuck in gaza

halting funding to the united nations relief and works agency for palestinian refugees (UNRWA) based on israeli claims that 12 of UNRWA’s over 30,000 staff were hamas agents, even though u.s. intelligence has not been able to independently verify this

lying that he’s personally seen photos of babies beheaded by hamas when he hadn’t because they didn’t exist (and even when his own staff cautioned him that reports of beheaded babies may not be credible)

questioning the number of palestinian deaths reported by the gaza ministry of health (when even israel has not questioned them, since they are in fact proud of those numbers)

perpetuating lies about hamas having committed the attack on al-aqsa hospital

questioning united nations reports of adults and children raped by israeli soldiers while claiming to have proof (that no one else has seen) of hamas doing the same

honestly so many more things that i can’t remember them all but others feel free to add

or maybe you haven’t forgotten any of that, and think that you’re still justified in lecturing people about why they should vote for biden, because you genuinely believe trump would still be worse. if that is the case, you have still failed to see that by saying you will vote for biden no matter what, you are part of the problem of biden continuing to act like this. because biden is counting on fear of trump to win him this next election no matter what else he does. despite his appalling polling numbers, despite the knowledge that he is losing the palestinian-american vote, the arab-american vote, the muslim-american vote, the black american vote, the youth vote – despite all of that, he is secure in the idea that he will still win because he is better than trump. can you not see how that allows him to act without impunity? how it becomes increasingly impossible for his base to influence what he’s doing if he thinks that they will be with him no matter what? this is how you make yourself complicit to biden’s actions, by not affording anyone even the slightest power to hold him accountable for anything.

and in most cases, the “hold your nose and vote for biden” thing is the response of people who aren’t even being instructed by others not to vote for biden. it is their response to people saying they themselves are choosing not to vote for biden. fucking ghoulish.

[helloidkwhatimdoing-0]

i hate post limits and i also hate the new features, im in tEARS

OPENED THIS ASK AFTER SEEING YOU REBLOG A POST FROM ME 19 TIMES IN A ROW

[sequentialprophet]

😫😫😫😫😫😫

[knightinink]

we’re getting bots through our messages now? 

Lovely.

[ohnoitstbskyen]

100 songs to get to know me

I posted this image over on the bluesky, and it got like 100 likes, so now here we are. I was going to write them all up here, but Tumblr imposes a 10 video limit on embeds per post which I find infuriating.

So! You can read the first ten entries here, but you can read the entire list here: https://tbskyen.bearblog.dev/100-songs-to-get-to-know-me/

1. ABBA - Lay All Your Love On Me

I genuinely don't quite know if my enjoyment of ABBA is something I came by honestly, or something which is simply genetically engineered into my Scandinavian soul. I remember hearing my mom blasting their songs on the home stereo in my childhood, and the association has put permanent nostalgia blinders on me for all of ABBA's greatest hits. Still, I think the beat is undeniable and the mournful tone of the chorus adds some real melancholy to the dramatic plea at the core of the song.

2. Afenginn - Oestrogenmanipuleret Basilisk

Afenginn describe themselves as "bastard etno-punk" which is probably as good a description as you're going to get. There's a lot of klezmer and eastern European folk influences here, but what is more important about Afenginn's best songs is that they go hard as f*ck and it's an absolute blast to dance to them at a show. They played this the first time I saw them live, and the rhythm comes back every time I hear it again. Good times!

3. Afenginn - Ralli in D Minor

With 100 slots to fill, I am giving myself permission to allocate two slots to Afenginn, and for the same reason. Ralli in D Minor is less of a dance tune to me, and more of a headbanger, but with a sufficiently loud subwoofer and a game crowd, you could f*ing mosh to this.

4. Anamanaguchi - Prom Night

I discovered Anamanaguchi as the composers of the title track to the Nerdist podcast back in the day, and being unfamiliar with the concept of chiptunes, I was drawn in initially by the sheer novelty of hearing the squeaks and bloops of my gaming childhood employed towards rock tunes and combined with "real" instruments.

Beyond the gimmick, though, Anamanaguchi won me over fully with the Scott Pilgrim game soundtrack, and then 2013's Endless Fantasy, where the gimmick of chiptune nostalgia noise (at least for me) finally coalesced into something that felt entirely like its own thing. Plus I'm a sucker for exactly this kind of bright dance pop, and Bianca Raquel's vocals here are a perfect match for the tone of the music.

5. Jennifer Hudson - Memory

2019s Cats is a fascinating fucking disaster. Tom Hooper is the worst director of musicals in my living memory, the abuse of the VFX staff extended beyond brutal crunch and absurd challenge imposed by a director who had no idea what the hell he was asking them to do all the way into an astonishingly arrogant and condescending joke from Rebel Wilson and James Corden at the expense of workers who were the last people at fault for the disaster that the movie became (look in the fucking mirror, Wilson and Corden, your performances were rancid).

Still, the silver lining of Cats is we got to hear Jennifer Hudson shake the world on its foundations with her rendition of Memory. I don't give a shit what anyone says, this performance is transcendent and no amount of institutional failure can dim its quality.

6. Annette Bjergfeldt - Min Bærende Bjælke

Annette is one of my mother's oldest friends, and a prolific singer-songwriter now turned author. I've been going to her concerts since I was a little child, and while I am absolutely not the target audience for any of it, it has stuck with me as part of my musical vocabulary deep into adulthood.

She has experimented with brass band accompaniment a few times, but for my money, nothing quite comes close to the floating, optimistic vibe of Min Bærende Bjælke. It sounds like a very particular kind of lasting romance, which of course is also what the lyrics are about.

7. Hozier - Blood Upon the Snow

We'll get more than one Hozier song on this list, but Blood Upon the Snow stands out to me as a song which easily transcends the videogame soundtrack promotional tie-in nature of its conception. Bear McCreary's hurdy gurdy and lyrics about surviving through adversity by holding on to existence with your teeth and nails... yeah, it hits with me. There's something real in that.

"The trees deny themselves nothing that makes them grow, no rainfall, no sunshine, no blood upon the snow." Something about that feels real.

8. The Beatles - Something

idk if I really need to write anything about George Harrison's most famous love song that hasn't been written more extensively by a million dad-rock enthusiasts before me.

I will say, this is one of the few songs I listen to regularly that justify the expensive audiophile headphones I invest in. There's a LOT to hear on a good, lossless, original mix of this song, if you're the kind of pervert who gets off to listening to a song a hundred times to focus on different parts of the soundscape. (it's me, I am the pervert)

9. Blink-182 - Adam's Song

I discovered a lot of my music taste as a young man from extremely low-resolution AMVs that my friend used to download off sketchy file-sharing sites. Blink-182 entered my musical lexicon through the one above, specifically, piggybacking off of my teenage love of Dragon Ball.

I never really grokked what the lyrics were actually about, until relistening to the song years later, but something about the minor-key wail of the thing really sat with my angsty teenage soul and has stuck with me ever since. I cannot listen to this song without that music video playing in my head, the song will forever belong to Vegeta.

There's remastered versions of this AMV out there, apparently, but if it's not 144p with tinny audio, it's just not right. That's not what the song is supposed to sound like, not to me.

10. Blink-182 - Miss You

Blink-182 is one of those bands I discovered via anime AMVs and listened to obsessively for a period as a teenager (The Offspring will show up later on this list), and then fell entirely out of touch with for years until discovering much later in life that they did, in fact, keep releasing music. I Miss You from their self-titled 2003 album felt, when I discovered it sometime in the early 2010s, like a much more mature and interesting sound from a band which had gotten stuck associated with my adolescent superpower kung-fu fantasies which I was, at the time, feeling a bit embarrassed about.

The song had a resurgence on TikTok a little while ago as a meme template, which made me listen to the albums again, and rediscover yet again that Blink-182 is, in fact, still putting out albums.

---

The rest of the list is here: https://tbskyen.bearblog.dev/100-songs-to-get-to-know-me/

[ms-demeanor]

i mean realistically many people do deserve to be the victims of targeted harassment campaigns. if you're being an asshole you deserve to be screamed at by everyone present until you stop. some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

damn following up the last ask, ig it was someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out. my bad lol thought that was part of ur main post

I mean this is something that's still worthwhile to bounce off of even though you're not actually responding to me.

First of all, no, I pretty much don't think that anybody deserves to be the focus of a targeted harassment campaign. At least not the kind that are spun up on tumblr or twitter. I generally think that targeted harassment campaigns don't work to change minds, they only work to torment, isolate, and attack people, which will often further entrench them in their positions.

Sometimes people doing serious antifascist work will make a discovery like, for instance "the principal of X school is a vicious antisemite" and will run an *exposure* campaign to get them removed from a position of power, but with very few exceptions when you see an online callout post for a random internet user it's nothing but abuse and an attempt to bully them off of a specific website, not an attempt to protect victims or inform people of a genuine threat. "ABC is the new alt of this person with a documented history of starting cults, DNI, block and move on" is very different than "This specific user who is on staff posts harry potter fanart and is why fascists continue to exist on tumblr, let's make sure they know what tumblr thinks of them."

You are trying to frame bullying campaigns as normal consequences for antisocial behavior, but the antisocial behaviors under discussion here are "user posted fanart broadly disliked by the community and associated with specific ideologies long after the initial fandoms were crystallized" and "is the CEO of a social media website that is implementing features that the users dislike."

"People deserve to be screamed at until they stop the bad behavior" is punitive and shitty and so broad and open to so many interpretations that you're basically saying "it's open season on screaming at people." I think that it's bad behavior to support neoliberal political candidates who prop up capitalism but it would be horrible for me to run harassment campaigns against everyone who says "vote blue no matter who" even though I think that attitude perpetuates real world harms. (And it also wouldn't convince those people to change their minds! The fact that I think they are doing something harmful doesn't give me the social license to send hundreds of people to harass them! And it wouldn't work! These kinds of campaigns don't effect change they just isolate people and erode trust and civility jesus fuck we need to be coalition building not posting callouts over whatever activity has been deemed "freak behavior" this week)

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

oh buddy, I think I get where you're coming from here but considering the kinds of behavior under discussion this is just straight up fascist. You are literally saying that people should be banished from society for wrongthink because nobody under discussion here has actually committed an act of cruelty.

(one of the things that i'm putting under the heading of "tumblr conspiracist thinking" is "staff is currently and continually intentionally flagging certain LGBTQ tags and bloggers" - there is ample evidence that the current staff is working to unfuck flagging and blocked tags that was done long before this crew was working on it. People talk about "tumblr had to settle because their filtering disproportionately impacted lgbtq+ creators" and that is TRUE however that was a filter that was established under different owners with different policies and different staff; the implication that the current staff is guilty of trying to stifle LGBTQ+ content because a lawsuit started before the Automattic purchase of tumblr ended in a financial settlement is just bad, wrong, incorrect, faulty logic. And if I might indulge in a bit of my own conspiracist thinking: I actually suspect a lot of the flagging and tagging and blocking of trans women specifically might actually be targeted attacks of individual users by terfs - many of the things that are getting flagged as needing a community label are things that use tags that terfs follow to attack and if enough users click "this needs a community label" the post will get flagged - I don't know that that's what's going on but just operating on occam's razor I think it's a lot more likely that terfs are coordinating attacks on trans people than that there is a secret group of cryptoterfs on staff taking time out of their day to ensure that trans users get flagged, if only because I think that the vocally trans positive former members of the staff would have said something about it.)

So, given that my position is "it is unlikely that anyone on staff is intentionally targeting LGBTQ+ groups HOWEVER prior policies enacted harm against LGBTQ+ groups and there is visible evidence that the current staff is trying to repair that damage" I'm not seeing any behaviors here that call for individual employees or users to get targeted with harassment from thousands of users.

But anyway, back to the specifics of the ask:

some people commit acts of cruelty and subsequently forfeit their reasonable right to participate in society until they've made amends.

Do you have any idea how frequently amends are made and never circulated as widely as the callout post? Do you have any idea how frequently callout posts are incorrect, and exaggerate the things that need to be amended? I'm reminded of Lindsey Ellis, who was the victim of a years-long targeted harassment campaign and made multiple apologies over the years who was finally driven off of her primary platform because she carelessly misspoke and the people who had been targeting her for years were able to make a post that she had long disavowed and was a relic of her dealing with the aftermath of sexual violence go viral. The internet doesn't let people make amends; people see accusations. They see the first post, not the follow up. That's why starting these campaigns is shitty and dangerous even if you *personally* believe that you'll forgive an individual once they "make amends." (and the "amends" people usually demand are "i want this person gone from the internet forever and cut out of this part of their life" - that's not really something that's fair to ask of people when so much of the world is online these days.)

the people of wendy's have a moral right to scream at the manager if said manager sprays them in the neck with milkshake every time they go to pick up their order

No they don't. Straight up. If the manager of a wendy's sprays you in the neck with a milkshake you have the right to escalate your complaint right up the chain, take your business away and never come back, warn other people "hey the manager sprayed me with a milkshake, stay away," but you don't have the moral right to escalate the situation by screaming at them (and you certainly don't have that right if you happened to get sprayed with some milkshake while the manager was attempting to fix the frostee machine when you came to pick up your order, which I think is actually more analogous to what is happening here).

someone in ur notes constructing an equivalence between @tting staff and getting nuked to yelling at a wendy's manager and getting kicked out

A big point that I think you're missing here is that @-ing staff when there is a problem on a post or you see harassment is generally pretty acceptable (though much less effective than filing a support claim), but the issue under discussion isn't @-ing staff, it was pointing thousands of angry people at two specific people who are *part* of staff and holding those two individuals responsible for all the problems that users see with tumblr.

partyjockers got nuked because their post directed a flood of harassment at one staff member in a post where they had highlighted that user's URL and name:

This is explicitly saying "users like the one I screenshotted are the reason you're being attacked by terfs" because one member of staff posted fanart from two franchises that tumblr-the-userbase has deemed off limits.

(Do you have any idea how extreme a bubble this is? Do you walk into barnes and noble and sigh because the managers are fascists who want trans people dead because there's harry potter merch everywhere? JK rowling is a terf and a horrible fucking person and I am no longer personally comfortable engaging with that fandom but people posting fanart of a franchise are not personally attacking you even if it feels like they are disregarding your humanity; you cannot consider other people's participation in huge, popular, mainstream fandoms as a sign that they are plotting against you this is why i'm calling this conspiracist thinking the entire scorched earth conspiracy spawned from someone interpreting a staff member's art as esoteric signposts signalling their hatred of trans people. Do you remember when the stupid harry potter game came out and this entire website was despondent because it meant that people didn't care about trans people? That's not actually what it meant! What it meant is that the vast majority of people on the planet have neither a twitter nor a tumblr account and have no idea how shitty JK rowling is to trans people and they don't interpret "harry potter imagery" as "covert terf signal" they interpret it as "possibly the most mainstream fantasy series in the last fifty years")

This isn't someone calling out the manager after they spray you with a milkshake. The manager asking someone to leave after they started screaming that the cashier's earrings were hate speech.

This analogy got out of hand but please just understand that there's a difference between @-ing an account that people are paid to monitor as part of their jobs and that they have support and coworkers to help with and @-ing someone's personal account.

Nobody got a post deleted because the used @ staff, they got their posts deleted because they focused viral negative attention on individual users.

[artsekey]

I really hate how ads have taken over the internet. On one hand, I know that hosting a website costs money, right? And ad revenue is one of the simplest ways for free-to-use websites to cover their operating costs.

My question is-- and I would genuinely love an answer-- is this ever going to stop? Tumblr ran for a long time without ads. So did Youtube. I know that the cost of hosting so much media has gone up, but there are a lot of users on these websites that make the content that drives people to use the service that don't see any of the money generated by this revenue. On Youtube, there's at least a way for creators to make some money from what they do. For most, it isn't much, but the opportunity is there. On Tumblr, well... the ability to convert the visibility of my blog into any financial gain practically nonexistent, though they did at one point promise that users would be able to make money from ads run on their blogs (whatever happened to that, Staff?).

"You can pay to avoid seeing ads!" Tumblr says, as if the views on my main blog alone over the past few years have not generated more than enough ad revenue to cover the price they're asking me to pay, the person who is actively making content that brings eyes to their ads.

I'm not mad at Tumblr for hosting ads. I get that it has to happen because it's the easiest way to keep the site free, and honestly, I imagine Tumblr's staunch opposition to monetization has been a real obstacle for the team building Tumblr. But at the same time, it feels like yet another small concession in the usability of the site. I'm tired of ads that auto-play with blaring audio while I'm scrolling. I'm tired of adds that, if I touch them while trying to scroll past them, take me to an external site. Outside of tumblr, I'm tired of looking for information online only to get a webpage that's 95% ads and otherwise illegible. Hell, I recently got an ad on Discord. Was it unobtrusive? Maybe. But it was there, for the first time, and I know that won't be the end.

I know the first reply I'm going to get on this is "use adblock", and yes, that's a solution, but think about how much the landscape for media has changed in just ten years.

Popular forums are basically gone outside of reddit.

Youtube, without Red, is ad hell. You can't watch more than 3-4 minutes of video without getting sent to marketing hell.

Instagram, Tumblr, Twitter-- it's terrible. I firmly believe they've manufactured a worse experience through the implementation of ads to convince you to buy into their premium services.

Just Check out this video of Penguinz0 trying to watch a video on a third-party site.

There's discussion of putting ads into video games.

Remember when games didn't include micro-transactions? Blizzard is charging $70 for one mythic skin. You could almost buy Overwatch 1 twice-over at that price-point.

Influencers make a living by making their lives into advertisements.

Youtube has retaliated against users using ad-block on non-chrome browsers by artificially inflating the load times of it's videos.

What can we do about this? I imagine companies see it as an infinite money hack; users can't stop companies from hosting ads, and the action they could take to voice their displeasure-- leaving the site, using other competitive services-- has been all but obliterated thanks to the homogeneity of popular social media outlets. If someone is truly so incensed about ads, well-- it isn't like they have to engage with them, right? They can enroll in a cheap, auto-renewing service to get rid of ads entirely. Well, wait, the price of premium might just have to go up. Don't worry, it's auto-renewing! You won't even notice it. Oh, no, it's got to go up again, you won't even notice it.

There's no incentive for them to cap this behavior, and no way for us as users to pressure them to do so. We create these spaces; we fill them with color, art, activism, community, and the companies that ride on the tailcoat of the spaces we create tell us to give them more. What comes next?

[pitheinfiniteog]

Help Me Take My Account Back

Hi, this is Pi, Pitheinfinite, the founder of @pis3update and @pis3story & the joint founder of ts3creatorscave.

About a month ago, my original account @pitheinfinite got suspended by tumblr with no reason provided. I followed the protocol and filed my complaint but my patience got no reward. No response. Nothing At All.

It's time to take some real actions I think. Please help me by urging @staff to give my account back. Even though I've been on hiatus for quite some time and still don't have much time for the game or the community at the moment, I want to keep the place I've built for years, knowing that I always have a home here to go to.

Besides, my story sideblog pis3story, unlike pis3update, has only one member/admin, and will go down with my original account.

Please help me. Reblog this post and tag the staff, asking them to make things right. It's those porn zombie that they should go after, not the long term users. Thank you💜

[xalygatorx]

Back into a Pumpkin | Alastor x Shameless!Fiona!Reader

Requested by @skyfuldreamer (Tumblr's not letting me tag in the usual way for some reason, so I hope this works)

Also on AO3

Summary: On the day you're supposed to secure yourself to Alastor in unholy matrimony, an unexpected and unwelcome guest arrives to dredge up the past you've tried to hide from him.

Warnings: Shame (ironic?), language, reader has a past of drugs and prostitution and a heart of gold, parental abuse (verbal, brief physical in the current story but a past of physical while the reader and said parent were alive) and neglect, Alastor feels moderately inconvenienced that you won't let him kill your cruddy mom LOL, AFAB reader, Hurt/Comfort, Fluff

A/N: It might be apparent idk but I've yet to watch Shameless, so this is a quick character research job. :') I do have an ongoing crush on Emmy Rossum though, so that's helped me power through. Hope you enjoy. x

You'd made your peace a long time ago about never telling Alastor the full breadth of the life you led topside. The life you led before you'd died, fallen into Hell, and were actually given license to live for yourself the first time…dead.

You've had a complicated existence at best.

But that's all behind you now. Today, you're getting married.

Let's get one thing clear, you weren't surprised to end up in Hell after dying. You were surprised it existed at all, to be honest, but you weren't surprised that was where you were tossed after being rejected at the pearly gates. You'd done a lot in life to accrue your fair share of sins and, apparently but also not surprisingly, the "why" behind those sins didn't factor in.

You weren't kind to your body, but neither was anyone else. You smoked, you drank, you hit harder drugs to cope for a while, and then got painstakingly clean, remaining so by the skin of your teeth—whatever that saying meant. Your body was riddled with poison by the time you went.

Not only that, but you let other people use you the way you used drugs. For a price. A price that wasn't quite respectable, but it was enough to make sure your little brothers and sisters had lunches to take to school, new backpacks that wouldn't fall apart in the middle of the hall like yours had in fifth grade, and a shot at life you weren't given.

You weren't ashamed for doing what you had to in order to give them that. For the rest, yes—you still carried that shame with you everywhere you went. Including up the hill to the Hazbin Hotel, where you'd checked in as a resident when being out in Hell's general population with every available narcotic imaginable nearly caused you to relapse.

You'd met the Princess of Hell there—Charlie Morningstar. She'd welcomed you with open arms and a glowing smile. You'd also met her partner, the rest of her staff, and the other guests.

One member of management had been late to the scene of your arrival—he'd been mid-broadcast at the time—and had instead scared the afterlife out of you by materializing right outside your door as you were leaving to go downstairs for dinner. He'd apologized (laughingly), but to this day you were sure he'd done it on purpose.

Back then, you would've never guessed that your heartstopping introduction to the Radio Demon would become anything else. Much less an actual, real relationship. Something you'd never really had for any length of time while you were alive. You'd either not had the bandwidth to handle a relationship, your "side hustles," your legal work, and your kids (siblings) or the men you'd tried dating hadn't had the wherewithal to stick around for you after they learned about your past.

After you'd died, that past was something you'd wanted to leave buried with you on Earth. So you started completely over with a fresh slate and you never told anyone about the life you'd led before. Not even Alastor.

And now, on your wedding day, it's all you can think of.

Maybe because, if you'd done this while alive, your family would be here. You were glad the kids weren't here, of course—they'd have to be dead to attend this ceremony. But, if you were alive, you'd get to have your family around you to celebrate. The family you'd pulled from the gutter yourself. The one you wished every day that you had some way to check on.

You just hoped they were okay. That was the only thing you wanted.

Then again, there were perks to this not taking place while you were still alive. Because with every nice family experience comes the not-nice ones. And there was a reason you'd had to go to such lengths to provide for your siblings—you'd called that reason "Mom" up until you were probably fifteen or sixteen.

Up until she left on benders and only came back when there was a check to cash in. Up until your youngest siblings started calling you "Mom" because they'd hardly been around their birthmother as they grew and developed personalities of their own. Up until you stopped wishing that she'd step up so you could have a shot at a life of your own, at picking goals that didn't just pertain to keeping food in the fridge and the electricity on, and instead just wished she'd stay away once and for all.

You shake off the feeling and it disrupts Vaggie's careful lacing of your corset-style dress from Rosie's. "Sorry," you quickly murmur.

"It's fine, I'm almost done," she tells you and, true to her word, she finishes off her work with a neat little bow and steps back. "There!"

You do an experimental wiggle that she laughs at you for and turn to look at yourself in the mirror nearby. She's done a great job—so did Rosie when she designed this dress. You would've worn a potato sack if it meant you could marry Alastor, but he'd insisted that you have something special for the big day.

You also weren't entirely sure that Rosie would've ever forgiven him had he not allowed her to pitch in and had a sneaking suspicion that had been additional motivation to task her with your dress.

The second she'd had an inch, she'd taken a mile—flowers, decorations for the small Cannibal Town "chapel" venue, a sinner-flesh-free cake, she'd ensured you had it all while still remaining open and attentive to what you wanted when you found it in you to voice it. She was just excited for you both. In a lot of ways, she'd shown you these past months what it would've been like to have an actual mom.

Speak of the devil (or the angel, you'd argue), Rosie's quick rapping at the door precedes her entry and she immediately gushes over how you look.

"Oh my stars, honey! Look at ya!" she half-squeals, spinning one clawed finger in the air as she requests, "Do a li'l turn for me, will ya?"

You indulge her and blush as she literally applauds your appearance, showering you with affectionate praise. Vaggie stands by, just watching the scene unfold with a soft look in her eyes. You know she's thinking back to her own wedding with Charlie and it warms your heart more than words can describe.

"Alright, come on, girls!" Rosie crows, gesturing for you both to proceed out of her parlor, where you've been getting ready for the past couple of hours. "Just about everyone should be settled in their seats 'n' I know Al's all done up and ready, too."

"How's he doing?" you ask as you step out of the room with Rosie and Vaggie, following them to the front of the Emporium to make the short walk to the chapel.

"Oh, he's on Cloud Nine, honey, don't even worry 'bout him," Rosie waves you off with a tittering laugh against a gloved hand. Quietly, she adds just to you, "I get the feelin' that he might be a little somber underneath the happiness though since he's finally gettin' hitched and his mama's, obviously, not here to see it."

Your brow crumples and you nod. "Of course," you murmur back. "Thank you, Rosie. For looking out for him and for me."

"It's my favorite sport, honey," Rosie ribs you as the three of you get into place at the chapel entrance.

The doors are open to ventilate the inside, just like a chapel in the overworld may have been for both your and Alastor's southern hometowns. It hits you with unexpected nostalgia. The tiny chapel is almost comically full of both folks from the hotel and other sinners you and Alastor know separately, not to mention almost the entirety of Cannibal Town. Even Susan's present and behaving…so far.

"Wow, is the entire Pentagram in there?" Vaggie wonders offhand. "Maybe it just looks like it because the building's so small."

"Well, Al wanted to do an announcement in the paper, so I guess that brought a few more people in," you muse to her, your eyes landing on the man himself at the other end of the chapel aisle as you speak.

The second your eyes meet, what little anxiety you'd accrued at the sight of the bustling chapel fades into the background. Despite everything, it's just you and him right now. And that sounds just about perfect.

It's the downward twitch of his smile that makes you realize you're so zoned into your daydreamy state, that you've entirely missed a new "guest" approaching. And then it's Vaggie backing into you, shielding you with her smaller form until you finally turn your head and you hone in on someone shoving past the petite fallen angel to get to you.

Who it is only becomes apparent after they start speaking.

"—believe my own daughter wouldn't invite me to her goddamn wedding," the sinner was ranting. Her words make you pale. "Had to see it in the papers of all places!"

Shocked into vulnerability, you mumble for the first time in decades, "M-Mom?" You're positively dumbstruck. You hadn't even known she'd died.

"Well, obviously!" she snaps at you. Rosie's still standing behind you, not sure what to do or how far this might go. But she doesn't know your mother. She doesn't feel the impending disaster like you do. "But no, not an invite in the mail, not a call, nothing! Ungrateful as ever, Hell hasn't changed you a bit."

You're understandably taken aback on multiple levels. That she's called you "ungrateful." That she's acting as though this is your typical behavior. That she's not even upset to discover through this wedding announcement that not only is her daughter getting married, but that her daughter is dead. And that's not what she cares about.

Hell hasn't changed her a bit either.

Your lips twist in a snarl and you snap back, "I'm interested to hear what I have to be grateful to you for."

Her hand cracks across your cheek before you can blink. Like she was waiting for a reason to do it. Knowing her, she probably was.

Stunned, you hold your face and bare your teeth at her, old habits rousing from years of "living." Vaggie tries to get back in between you and your mom, but you wave her off as your mother continues to yell horrible things in your face and you take it with a stalwart sort of internalized rage. It's familiar. It's unwelcome. But it protects you.

Distantly, as if through a long tunnel, you hear Rosie shout back at your mother, something she's said setting Rosie off and making her abandon her attempt to allow you to handle the situation how you see fit.

And, when you snap back at your mom again and she raises her fist to you this time, you see the red and black-gloved hand of your fiance snatch her wrist in mid-air.

It feels like someone's blessedly (or not) removed the cotton from your ears as sound floods back in and you hear in full all the horrendous things your mother is shouting at you, at Rosie, and now at Alastor, too, for intervening.

"Get your fuckin' hands off me!" she shouts up into his face, either having no idea who she's speaking to right now or simply not caring.

The only reason he hasn't wiped the road with her is because he's put two and two together that she's your mother. That said, he'll first want the go-ahead from you to do so. It's only polite.

"Oh-ho! Au contraire," Alastor tuts down at her as he places himself firmly between you two. You rest your hands against his back to remind him you're there and maybe ground him enough to not cannibalize your disgrace of a mother before the wedding. After is to be determined at this point. "It's you who must learn to keep your hands to yourself, it seems."

"She's my daughter!" your mom fires back, yanking her wrist out of Alastor's grip and only because he allows it.

"And, had you not interrupted proceedings," Alastor counters smoothly, wiping the hand that restrained your mother's wrist against his jacket with no shortage of disdain, "she would be my wife."

"Listen, before I'm anyone's anything, I'm mine, alright?" you butt in, the streams of "my, my, my" making you feel like you've lost your agency all over again, if in small doses.

Your mother, unsurprisingly, ignores you, but you see Alastor's ears flatten a little with chagrin as he flashes you an apologetic look over his shoulder. You offer him a smile that immediately fades into horror as your mom speaks up again. One more damning time.

"Surprised anyone would want her after everything she did," your mom huffs with superiority, sneering at you past Alastor's arm. Don't, is all you can think even as she undoes all your good work to start over in the span of a sentence. "You know you're just the end of the parade of men she's had in her bed, right? You're just the first one she's opened her legs for without a fee."

Horrified, you feel numb as you whisper, "That's… That's not—"

"Unless you're loaded, then I get why she's tricked you into this," your mom continues to muse, sizing Alastor up with a glance before looking at you again. "How long do you think this'll last, kid? We both know what you're like."

"What I'm like?" you repeat, your hollow voice gaining fervor as your demonic form threatens to tear through you. "What I'm like?!"

"You're nothing but a selfish, flea-bitten little whore who spent the best years—the only years—of your life high or with a dick in your mouth," she snarls, trying to get past Alastor to face off with you again. He holds an arm out to stop her, but he's not looked at you since she started in on you again.

You're sure it's over. Just like that. And then the world starts to feel like it's caving in. So what more do you have to lose?

"You know what," you grit out with a harsh laugh. "You're right. I got into drugs and I sold myself on street corners. That's why I'm here. And you know what else?" Your voice becomes throatier as your eyes ignite red and your canines lengthen into fangs, your form barely restrained in your anger. "All of it happened because you were a shit mother with shit priorities who didn't take care of your fucking kids!"

"You shut your wh—"

"No!" you cried, furious as you felt hot tears starting to bead at the corners of your eyes. "I'm not going to! Everything I did at least started because I had to raise myself and then my siblings, too! I went to school, worked, did every side job I could find—every side job—and somehow found ways in the middle of all that to figure out how to be a mom! And you have no idea how much that fucked me up! I didn't even know until I died because that was the first free minute I'd had in years to think about myself!

"I 'whored around' because your kids needed lunch money. They needed new folders for school. A new set of kneepads for volleyball practice," you say, losing steam and wanting to get away from the source of your abuse before she sees you cry. Because you know her still and you know from a tender age that she sees tears as a sign of victory.

To Alastor, you choke out a whispered, "I'm sorry," and hurry past Vaggie and Rosie.

As you pass Rosie, she slips you the Emporium key to let yourself in and catch your breath, fix yourself back up, whatever you need. You flash her a grateful, wobbly smile and head straight there, trusting the others to smooth things over with the attendees. You honestly aren't sure what you'll come back to—maybe some of them will linger and the ceremony will go on as planned.

Or, more likely now that he knows how filthy you are, Alastor will have changed his mind and proceed to send them all home.

That's the thought that finally sends you over the edge and you're able to at least close the Emporium door behind you before you burst into tears.

As you walk back to the parlor you prepped in, you stifle sobs against your hands, eyes wide with something close to panic. As you shoulder open the parlor door and close it behind you, twisting the lock, you wonder at the unbearable weight in your chest—back again after so long without it.

You aren't ashamed of taking care of your brothers and sisters—your kids in the end—however you needed to at the time. Whatever you had to do, you did, and you're glad that—at least when you'd left the world of the living—they'd all been surer-footed and doing okay. You prayed every day to a God you knew at least no longer believed in you that they would continue to lead full, happy lives.

However, hearing those accusations spouted in front of all the folks you've come to know in the Pentagram, who you've come to love and have come to love the you they know down here—in front of the man you've come to adore and who'd adored you in turn—

Well, now you feel shame, pure and thick as shame could be, pooling like slow-acting poison in your belly.

You step over to the vanity Rosie brought in just for you to get ready today and collapse onto the velvet stool.

After a doubtful look at your reflection, you're pretty sure you have all the aesthetic qualities of a raccoon without the inherent "awww" factor. You swallow against a raw sensation in your throat as you locate one of the face wipes Vaggie used on you earlier and start trying to clear away the smudges around your eyes.

There's a quick knock at the door and you're not clear-headed enough to guess who it might be. Rosie, you imagine, as you think back to her pitying expression as you left the chapel entryway with her store key. You try to stomach her pity as something kind and not fall deeper into shame for having seen it, as much as you may want to.

Whoever it is knocks again and you sigh. "Yes?" you ask, grimacing at the rough sound of your voice.

"May I come in?"

Alastor's voice, usually something that inspires warmth from your crown to your toes, makes you curl in on yourself a little. He's surely here to call it off. He could've just left, you know that, but he's a gentleman through and through. He wanted to carry out your relationship properly and that's how he'll likely want to end it as well.

You steel yourself for what you consider the inevitable. Might as well get it over with. You surely can't feel any worse than you do now.

That's a lie though. You can and you're sure you will once it's official.

"Okay," you say, continuing your cleanup before you remember that you locked the door upon entry.

Before you can stand, Alastor's shadow weaves in through the cracks and flips the latch. The man, himself, is soon to follow. Alastor steps through the door he opens just enough to come inside, replacing the door and the lock once he joins you. You find it difficult to look at him, knowing what's coming, so you go back to smearing away teary streaks of cosmetics from your skin.

He's silent as he walks further into the room, stopping behind your perch in front of the vanity. The mirror is angled in such a way that you see most of him, but the top edge cuts off right at his bowtie, so his expression remains—for better or worse—a mystery to you.

Well, you're sure he's smiling certainly. But whatever accompanies that smile or lays beneath it remains unknown for now.

"Are you alright?" he asks, his voice uncharacteristically careful.

You sniffle a little and shrug. "I'm…not really sure yet," you admit, deciding to be honest. "I'm kind of shaken up. I was angry, but that's kind of on the backburner now."

"You've every right to be," he murmurs and you can hear in his quiet storm of a tone that he's angry, too. You're not yet sure at whom though. There's a long pause that hangs between you before he gestures to the armchair nearby. "May I?"

"You need to ask?" you wonder, implying your permission.

He hums and adjusts the chair's position to angle toward the vanity before he seats himself. You sneak a furtive look his way, wary of what expression you'll see on his face, but needing to know at the same time what sort of conversation this will be. You barely handled the whiplash of seeing your mom again. The whiplash of a similar conversation with Alastor might do you in.

As ever, he's difficult to read. His smile is thin and perfunctory. He's settled himself in the armchair with one elbow resting against the arm nearest you as he leans his jaw into his palm. The metal tips of his gloves drum lightly against his cheekbone as he thinks, staring down momentarily at his lap before his carmine gaze casts up to you.

It's reassuring that his features immediately soften upon looking at you, but you keep yourself from getting too hopeful that things can go back to how they were. Maybe he just feels sorry for you.

Alastor clears his throat and your stomach sinks. "I am, admittedly, not the best at issuing comfort," he tells you, an early apology woven into his tone. "However, I would try. For you." He tilts his head slightly. "What can I do?"

"You're not—," you find yourself stuttering, almost numb with shock. "…You're not upset with me?"

His eyes widen and his smile wobbles, nearly wiped clean by bewilderment. "Darling, why on earth would I be upset with you?" he asks, and even in your anxiety-ridden, self-doubting mind, there's no doubt he's genuine.

"Because I—" You pause when your voice cracks to try and gather yourself, your hands falling into your lap and still clutching the mascara-smudged makeup wipe. Alastor shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "I didn't tell you." A deep, long-suffering sigh falls past your lips as your head hangs. "I couldn't. Not because of you, but I…"

You force your shoulders to square up and it's an old habit that comes back with minimal effort even when you feel like falling apart.

"Everything I did, I did for my family. Not her, but my brothers and sisters. They may as well have been my kids, but I started taking care of them when I was still a kid, myself," you mumble as you run a hand over your ruddy cheek. "I don't regret that. But… I know how it seems, even without the reasons behind it. It's taboo in my time, let alone yours, and I just…" You wince and curl in on yourself just a little more. "I just wanted you to see me. I never got to be me while I was alive. There was too much else to worry about.

"But I shouldn't have hidden my past from you," you finally admit. "It's basically lying, isn't it? And no matter what reasons I had, I was being selfish when I decided not to bring it up. So… I'm sorry. And I understand if you've changed your mind about marrying me because of it."

Alastor studies you through your explanation, noting the shame he'd never seen before pinching your features and sorely wanting to go back outside and turn the sinner who'd reduced you to this to a pulp. However, knowing you as he did, he'd abstained and let Rosie and Vaggie handle her while he went to the Emporium after you.

He's still holding out some measure of hope though that you'll let him off her in some way, shape, or form. Call it a wedding present to you both.

Tsking at your closing statements, Alastor declares, "Whacky nonsense. You've nothing to apologize for and, with your permission, of course, I still very much intend to marry you."

Shocked, you meet his eyes again. "But…," you stammer.

"But nothing," Alastor says with an almost boyish tilt to his smile.

You're sure he still doesn't get it though, so you say, "B-But, I'm… I'm filthy!"

Alastor scoffs a little and hooks his fingers along the underside of the armchair to pull it with him as he scoots closer to you. As he plucks a fresh makeup wipe from the box on the vanity, he says, "It's just a few smears of makeup, dear, no need to be dramatic."

"That's not what I mean and you know it," you mumble even as you let him take your chin and angle your head to start cleaning the streaks you missed from your eyelids and cheeks. It's all you can do not to collapse into him and weep, the sheer amazement and relief you feel from the absence of his rejection overtaking you as strongly as your previous grief.

"Well, it's the only bit of 'filth' I see," he murmurs as he sets the wipe aside and tugs your makeup bag closer to him instead, unzipping it and rifling around. "It's not even filth. And neither is your past, my dear."

Alastor pulls out the products he wants from the bag and arranges them in a line on the vanity before dutifully beginning to replace what you cried off. He's personally content either way, makeup or not, but he knows you'll feel better if you return to the chapel looking put back together. So he does it.

You just stare at him in awe and surprise for a moment or two before finally commenting offhand, "I didn't know you knew how to do this," as he carefully lines your eyes.

"What, you think I simply wake up like this?" he teases you.

"Implying you sleep at all," you clap back, but it's with an adoring smile.

"Mm, touché," Alastor murmurs, using one of his claws to ensure he draws you the crispest wings possible before capping the cosmetic and swapping it for mascara. "Now, darling, you always look ravishing, but you look exceptionally so today. But if you wouldn't mind, I'd very much like to marry you before the day is out. Is that agreeable?"

You laugh softly at his theatrics. "I suppose so," you agree with a playful, put-on sigh.

"You suppose so, do you?" he chuckles, tidying up the vanity before holding out his hands to help you up. You let him and he tugs you into an embrace, dropping a kiss to the top of your head. "I suppose I'll take it."

"Thanks, Al," you murmur against his chest, wanting to burrow into his arms but also not wanting to both undo his fine work on your makeup or get any on his suit. You still feel like a hot mess, but you guess if he can look at you and see something to cherish, maybe you can try and see it from his point of view. "I love you."

You can practically feel the warmth radiate down from the smile he gives you. "And I, you, sweetheart," he says softly, keeping you close to his side as he escorts you from the parlor. "I'll love you even more if you let me paint you a heart with that wretched woman's entrails."

And suddenly things are blessedly back to your (favorite) version of normal.

[natalieironside]

A while ago, when one of y'all bought me check marks after I'd said I didn't want them, I felt real shitty. It felt real shitty to know that someone had spent real money on me trying to be nice and it had gone to waste. Like I was the asshole.

Now, though, I want whichever one of y'all bought me a month of ad-free Tumblr a couple months ago to know your gift wasn't appreciated. First of all cuz I literally didn't notice; I only found out about it at all because today I was looking for something in my spam folder and saw the email from staff letting me know my ad-free trial had expired last week. The experience of using the website was the same and I would've been blissfully unaware it had ever happened.

But Also, I feel like I've been open enough about my indigent and destitute financial situation that I have a right to be downright pissed off that someone essentially took money out of their wallet, set the money on fire, flushed the ashes down the toilet, and patted themself on the back like "I gave Natalie a nice gift :)"

I'm sure Matt appreciated the free money you gave him in exchange for nothing. I'm gonna go make a toast sandwich for dinner.

[labs]

Labs is back

Hello citizens of Tumblr! If you’ve been on Tumblr for awhile, you’ve probably stumbled upon those Tumblr Labs settings we’ve had for several years now. Originally, Tumblr Labs was meant to be a way for us engineers at Tumblr to experiment in public, in an opt-in way. Experiments inside of Labs have come and gone over the years, and some have even made their way into the product as real features (soon, Reblog Graphs will graduate to “real feature” status), and some have been discontinued.

Going forward, we’re transforming what Labs means to Tumblr. Before this week, there was no group of staff at Tumblr considered “members of Labs”; experiments were built by anyone who felt like it, and they were usually small ideas. Recently it’s become clear to us that we actually do need a dedicated group of people within the company working on prototypes of big ideas, ones that could fundamentally change Tumblr as a platform.

The core values of Tumblr are good and resonate with people. Those core values are probably familiar if you’ve used Tumblr for awhile: we’re different from other social media, we value pseudonymity and co-creation and safe spaces, folks are here for their niche more than what’s trending. However, the product itself doesn’t always resonate with those statements – we want to make it effortless for folks new to Tumblr to connect with those core values. People who love the idea of Tumblr just aren’t able to “get it” quickly enough. Tumblr needs fundamental change to be sustainable and grow more, all without losing those unique, good core values.

But we’re not sure exactly what that change looks like, so we’ve assembled a new team, called Tumblr Labs, to figure it out as quickly as possible. We’re going to be prototyping ideas, some that may feel very familiar and natural if you use Tumblr and other similar platforms every day, and some that feel totally alien and weird to us as heavy Tumblr users. We’ll be testing these ideas in an opt-in basis with people who’ve been using Tumblr for years, and more especially with people who’ve never even heard of Tumblr (a difficult group to find).

More than that, though, we want to practice “working in public” here. The @changes and @wip blogs have been our first steps in that direction, and we think this blog is the next step. Give us a follow to stay up-to-date on what we’re thinking about, what we’re building, what has worked and what hasn’t, and for opportunities to help. We want your feedback as we work, and we hope to invite many of you to try out these ideas in the future so they can be shaped by you — so stay tuned!