#i'd use more time to search

[slingbats]

just a reminder that I have this community going here on tumblr!

The header and icon are Gotham, but I really want this place to be able to open up to a lot more verses with more interpretations of the characters

as someone who doesn't delve into the tags/tumblr's search feature very often, I want this to be a place where people are encouraged to self-promo their works that they're proud of, or share works from others that they think deserve a spotlight

link to the community, for any interested

not spoiler free!

[violet-jessop]

two nights in a row gripping ice cubes like i'm 14 this is fucking pathetic

[misc-catgirl-anatomy]

ao3's tagging system has me so spoiled bc i go basically anywhere else (like tunglr) and it's like you can execute a burnt-dogshit-quality search along a single term

so i'm sitting over here dying from lack of good f/f omegaverse stuff because nobody tags shit consistently and i can only search via tag and the ''omegaverse'' tag is mostly m/m by volume which is fine there's a market for that but it's not what i wanna read

i'd be interested to read more original (ie non-fanfic) f/f AOB but it's hard to find so.... i don't.

[snekdood]

youtube not working bc its so upset ppl wont let them abuse ads might be a blessing in disguise for me bc its just gonna train me into thinking the site just doesnt work and then just stop using the internet as much. literally helping me kill my social media addiction.

[gwydionae]

I get using no specific iteration of the TMNT in a crossover and just making yet another new version. After all, the franchise has had many, many different versions at this point, so it's easy to accept that this is simply one more to add to the pile.

But Naruto has... one. Just the one. So when all of a sudden characters are written/shown to have expertise that they shouldn't have at the age they're being depicted, it just ends up feeling weird.

I get that fitting things into the Naruto timeline can be a chore. Do it too early, and Sakura is kinda useless. Do it too late, and Sasuke's off murdering people. And if you try to set it after the series, the power levels are seriously gonna be out of whack.

But breaking the only canon that has ever existed for these characters makes them feel like... not the same characters. I might be the only one who cares about this, but it really took me out of the story, to the point where I couldn't help but focus on it. I don't want to be distracted from page one of a silly ninja crossover comic.

[shiraishi--kanade]

hi feel free not to answer this but you're one of the only chronically ill people i know and i probably need to get my blood drawn because i am having Many Issues but i am. super afraid of needles. so basically the question is are needles that draw blood like,, really big? do they hurt a lot? sorry this is probably a dumb question im just terrified auhfguhgahhf

No worries! And in my experience, no not really! My blood draws never really hurt; it's about the same feeling like if your leg falls asleep pins and needles sensations, but only for a split second when the needle comes in and out. If done correctly, you won't feel anything during the actual process, maybe just a bit dizzy & numb. It may sting for a while after the draw (mine still does) but it's really really minor, you probably won't even notice it much. It may also bruise; it's pretty normal too.

The size of the needle varies, though, so here's a word of advice: search out for a more modern, accomodating hospital/lab, and a nurse who works with pediatrics patients, if you can (regardless of your actual age, they are just chiller about anxious people in general imo). Fear of needles is super common and is absolutely nothing to be ashamed about (I actually do well with blood draws but I'm Not Good with IVs and injections, the latter ones moreso than the former), so there is a solid chance they can accommodate you by using a smaller needle or/and local anesthetic (thought I think the last one is... Rarer. My dentist did it, but that man is a force of his own. I don't know how many of his practises are like... Normal).

Getting a good nurse that puts you at ease is so, so important. I cannot overstate it. I don't mean to make this sound bad but I can't lie either, if they mess up, can't find your vein, or just generally suck & rush you & make you feel stupid for asking for accomodations, get up and Leave. Because messed up draws do hurt (not too much, though! I'd say it's comparable to like... Accidentally biting your tongue kinda hurt). I only had one bad experience and I never went to that nurse again.

In general though: the needle probably isn't as big as you think it'd be, it's smaller than the injection ones usually, and you can ask for a smaller one; it doesn't hurt! Actually when I first got my blood drawn from my vein at 10 or so, I was like, wait, that's it? Because of a stupid policy my hospital usually only took blood from the fingertips for kids (don't ask. I don't get it either), and oh god, that hurt Much More than the "adult" one. I was so relieved after being scared out of my mind three minutes earlier. You don't have as much sensation in that area as you for in your fingertips, so if you ever had a papercut and want to compare: papercut hurts more & for longer than the blood draw does.

Good luck to you!! I hope you figure whatever's going on haha. Remember to drink water before the draw to make everyone's lives easier if it comes down to it!

[blackwaxidol]

Most of the difficulty from that fight is in Morak'Al and co. trying to give me a colonoscopy, really...

[sysig]

Seán McCoin, Leprechaun-in-training (Patreon)

Bonus, do you recognize the bunny?

It’s Hayden!

[nonbinary-octopus]

hello does anyone have a good alternative to google docs? my personal requirements are:

can acess the same document from both computer and phone, without versioning issues

can handle and load long docs, at least a hundred thousand words, without crashing or taking forever to load (this is one of the points where I would like it to be better than google docs, and especially google docs mobile)

and of course your standard word processor requirements such as can handle rich text formatting, etc

[essektheylyss]

Hey, would you be cool with other people writing fics in the specific universe of tief? With Fortune Lavorre?

Hello! I just realized I had half-typed up an answer to this and completely forgot to finish it, so apologies that this is deeply, deeply overdue!

I am absolutely cool with it, with a few caveats but only of the disclaimer sort. (And that's not even to say that they're necessarily things that pertain to you, but I figured if I was commenting now I should just lay my thoughts out there, in case anyone else goes looking.)

I'm personally of the mind that transformative works of a transformative work are just as fine as the original transformative work itself, though I know that not everyone agrees. I'm not going to begrudge anyone their own personal rights for how their writing is used, but I have always felt that it would be hypocritical of me to consider it in any other way. (I'll spare you my deconstructive essay on the nature of transformative works in modern culture or I'll take another month to answer lol.)

That being said, the disclaimers! First, I will probably write more in that universe, and as such I will... probably not read other folks' dabblings in it. Not because I would be uninterested, but because I do take the author-ly point of view in that I want your works to be yours, and mine to be mine, so I don't want to find that I've inadvertently snatched up a plot from someone else without realizing. And in a similar vein, attribution of what you're riffing off of would be nice, but at the very least please don't, I don't know, claim that I've totally vetted it and it's definitely fully canon to the original work, or something of the sort. Both because of the aforementioned, I will write further things and I don't want to garner any confusion, your works are yours and mine are mine, and also because if anyone for any reason wanted to come complain to me about a fic, I'd much prefer it was indeed my fic.

(Like I said, I don't presume you need any of that noted in particular—just figured I should note it, since in general I am pretty laissez-faire when it comes to transformative works as a whole haha.)

[subjectsix]

I don't know I'm not done talking about it. It's insane that I can't just uninstall Edge or Copilot. That websites require my phone number to sign up. That people share their contacts to find their friends on social media.

I wouldn't use an adblocker if ads were just banners on the side funding a website I enjoy using and want to support. Ads pop up invasively and fill my whole screen, I misclick and get warped away to another page just for trying to read an article or get a recipe.

Every app shouldn't be like every other app. Instagram didn't need reels and a shop. TikTok doesn't need a store. Instagram doesn't need to be connected to Facebook. I don't want my apps to do everything, I want a hub for a specific thing, and I'll go to that place accordingly.

I love discord, but so much information gets lost to it. I don't want to join to view things. I want to lurk on forums. I want to be a user who can log in and join a conversation by replying to a thread, even if that conversation was two days ago. I know discord has threads, it's not the same. I don't want to have to verify my account with a phone number. I understand safety and digital concerns, but I'm concerned about information like that with leaks everywhere, even with password managers.

I shouldn't have to pay subscriptions to use services and get locked out of old versions. My old disk copy of photoshop should work. I should want to upgrade eventually because I like photoshop and supporting the business. Adobe is a whole other can of worms here.

Streaming is so splintered across everything. Shows release so fast. Things don't get physical releases. I can't stream a movie I own digitally to friends because the share-screen blocks it, even though I own two digital copies, even though I own a physical copy.

I have an iPod, and I had to install a third party OS to easily put my music on it without having to tangle with iTunes. Spotify bricked hardware I purchased because they were unwillingly to upkeep it. They don't pay their artists. iTunes isn't even iTunes anymore and Apple struggles to upkeep it.

My TV shows me ads on the home screen. My dad lost access to eBook he purchased because they were digital and got revoked by the company distributing them. Hitman 1-3 only runs online most of the time. Flash died and is staying alive because people love it and made efforts to keep it up.

I have to click "not now" and can't click "no". I don't just get emails, they want to text me to purchase things online too. My windows start search bar searches online, not just my computer. Everything is blindly called an app now. Everything wants me to upload to the cloud. These are good tools! But why am I forced to use them! Why am I not allowed to own or control them?

No more!!!!! I love my iPod with so much storage and FLAC files. I love having all my fics on my harddrive. I love having USBs and backups. I love running scripts to gut suck stuff out of my Windows computer I don't want that spies on me. I love having forums. I love sending letters. I love neocities and webpages and webrings. I will not be scanning QR codes. Please hand me a physical menu. If I didn't need a smartphone for work I'd get a "dumb" phone so fast. I want things to have buttons. I want to use a mouse. I want replaceable batteries. I want the right to repair. I grew up online and I won't forget how it was!

[fakakta-art]

I've restocked!! You can grab more Jaybirds here !

I finally have the Red Hood Jason Todd pins up in my Etsy shop! If you want to support me and check it out I'd appreciate it :)

[lifehacksthatwork]

Just a bunch of Useful websites - Updated for 2023

Removed/checked all links to make sure everything is working (03/03/23). Hope they help!

Sejda - Free online PDF editor.

Supercook - Have ingredients but no idea what to make? Put them in here and it'll give you recipe ideas.

Still Tasty - Trying the above but unsure about whether that sauce in the fridge is still edible? Check here first.

Archive.ph - Paywall bypass. Like 12ft below but appears to work far better and across more sites in my testing. I'd recommend trying this one first as I had more success with it.

12ft – Hate paywalls? Try this site out.

Where Is This - Want to know where a picture was taken, this site can help.

TOS/DR - Terms of service, didn't read. Gives you a summary of terms of service plus gives each site a privacy rating.

OneLook - Reverse dictionary for when you know the description of the word but can't for the life of you remember the actual word.

My Abandonware - Brilliant site for free, legal games. Has games from 1978 up to present day across pc and console. You'll be surprised by some of the games on there, some absolute gems.

Project Gutenberg – Always ends up on these type of lists and for very good reason. All works that are copyright free in one place.

Ninite – New PC? Install all of your programs in one go with no bloat or unnecessary crap.

PatchMyPC - Alternative to ninite with over 300 app options to keep upto date. Free for home users.

Unchecky – Tired of software trying to install additional unwanted programs? This will stop it completely by unchecking the necessary boxes when you install.

Sci-Hub – Research papers galore! Check here before shelling out money. And if it’s not here, try the next link in our list.

LibGen – Lots of free PDFs relate primarily to the sciences.

Zotero – A free and easy to use program to collect, organize, cite and share research.

Car Complaints – Buying a used car? Check out what other owners of the same model have to say about it first.

CamelCamelCamel – Check the historical prices of items on Amazon and set alerts for when prices drop.

Have I Been Pawned – Still the king when it comes to checking if your online accounts have been released in a data breach. Also able to sign up for email alerts if you’ve ever a victim of a breach.

I Have No TV - A collection of documentaries for you to while away the time. Completely free.

Radio Garden – Think Google Earth but wherever you zoom, you get the radio station of that place.

Just The Recipe – Paste in the url and get just the recipe as a result. No life story or adverts.

Tineye – An Amazing reverse image search tool.

My 90s TV – Simulates 90’s TV using YouTube videos. Also has My80sTV, My70sTV, My60sTV and for the younger ones out there, My00sTV. Lose yourself in nostalgia.

Foto Forensics – Free image analysis tools.

Old Games Download – A repository of games from the 90’s and early 2000’s. Get your fix of nostalgia here.

Online OCR – Convert pictures of text into actual text and output it in the format you need.

Remove Background – An amazingly quick and accurate way to remove backgrounds from your pictures.

Twoseven – Allows you to sync videos from providers such as Netflix, Youtube, Disney+ etc and watch them with your friends. Ad free and also has the ability to do real time video and text chat.

Terms of Service, Didn’t Read – Get a quick summary of Terms of service plus a privacy rating.

Coolors – Struggling to get a good combination of colors? This site will generate color palettes for you.

This To That – Need to glue two things together? This’ll help.

Photopea – A free online alternative to Adobe Photoshop. Does everything in your browser.

BitWarden – Free open source password manager.

Just Beam It - Peer to peer file transfer. Drop the file in on one end, click create link and send to whoever. Leave your pc on that page while they download. Because of how it works there are no file limits. It's genuinely amazing. Best file transfer system I have ever used.

Atlas Obscura – Travelling to a new place? Find out the hidden treasures you should go to with Atlas Obscura.

ID Ransomware – Ever get ransomware on your computer? Use this to see if the virus infecting your pc has been cracked yet or not. Potentially saving you money. You can also sign up for email notifications if your particular problem hasn’t been cracked yet.

Way Back Machine – The Internet Archive is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites and loads more.

Rome2Rio – Directions from anywhere to anywhere by bus, train, plane, car and ferry.

Splitter – Seperate different audio tracks audio. Allowing you to split out music from the words for example.

myNoise – Gives you beautiful noises to match your mood. Increase your productivity, calm down and need help sleeping? All here for you.

DeepL – Best language translation tool on the web.

Forvo – Alternatively, if you need to hear a local speaking a word, this is the site for you.

For even more useful sites, there is an expanded list that can be found here.

[fumiliar]

the epitome of a gentleman. as you stared at the blonde man in front of you, carrying someone's grandma's groceries. you were in awe.

"you've got a good man woman," the grandma who was holding onto your hand smiled. "reminds me of my own, he's at home right now."

"oh, is he sick?" you asked, as the grandma laughed.

"no, we're very healthy! it's just i wanted to do something special for him, i mean, after 50 years of marriage, he's done so much for me," she reminisced her younger days.

"actually, your husband looks like the younger version of mine, you too, i used to look like you! before the age manifested on my face," the grandma started searching inside her purse, finally pulling out a photo of young her. "see."

as you stared at the photo, it was her and her husband holding hands, she was beaming with a smile, while her husband's lips only showed a slight curve. and she was right. from the hairstyle, to the eyes, to the lips, almost everything was identical. "ken, you've got to see this!"

"why love?" he stopped in his tracks, turning around to head back to you. "what's got you both smiling?" he peaks over, seeing the photo you were holding in your hands. "i don't remember taking a photo like that."

"it's not us silly. it's her and her husband!" you lightly hit as his chest, as you and the grandma both burst into laughter.

"scary," kento's mouth forming a slight 'o' as he stared at the picture.

"anyways, my house is right up ahead, i don't want to take up more of your time!" the grandma tried taking the grocery bags from kento, earning a stern no.

"no, we're happy to help you out. we'll bring it to your house."

as you finally reached the grandma's house, she took the grocery bags inside, shouting a 'thank you' and a 'wait a moment'. she came out with a batch of freshly baked cookies, her husband slowly following her.

"take some! my treat for all the help," she nudged the pan closer, you took one cookie as your husband took another. you looked at each other, telepathically counting before you both took a bite at the same time. it was the best cookie you've ever tasted, it was like home.

"this is so good!" you stared at the grandma with heart eyes, as you could see a slight shade of red slowly creeping up to her cheeks.

"she's the best baker ever," you heard a low voice, coming from her husband. he walked over to put a hand over her shoulder, "please come over for dinner sometime, as a way of thanks for helping my dear wife."

you immediately nodded, as you exchanged numbers and goodbyes. kento's arm slowly snaked around your shoulder as you walked away from the house. he pushed your body closer to him, making sure you were touching each other.

"they remind me of us ken," you muttered.

"yea...they do. i guess in every lifetime, i'd always choose you."

[coldflasher]

thinking about how im literally on like. the 8th draft of my novel, but i've still never actually come up with a full, beginning-to-end readable draft without bits missing or repeated scenes or entire chapters in the wrong order

lol

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)