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riallasheng · 7 months ago

Note

Hello!!! Thank you for answering my ask about the boys' achievements, it's so cool to see how much info about them!! It's amazing! And I'd love love love to know about TinTin, Brains, and the rest too if you dont mind ^⁠_⁠^

Hello again my lovely returning anon! ^^

I'm quite glad to have answered your question, and I'm so happy that you enjoyed my answer! ^^

I'll answer these as best I'm able, although in warning there simply is not as much information on these characters as there is on the Tracy brothers, and it tends to be a bit more contradictory (esp with Brains. Oh my heavens Brains' stuff tends to be ALL OVER the place)

Despite there not being as much, it is still several people, so readmore deployed yet again!!

I also added in Grant Tracy (Grandma Tracy's husband) and Valentina Tracy (my name for Jeff's wife... I know Fleetway and now TaG have adopted the fanon name of Lucille for her, but I don't use it for my TOS fanworks)

Going from oldest to youngest again, which - given I'm a fan of the 'Brains is only Alan's age' - means Brains is last. Brains has like... four... official / canon age brackets. He bounces between 'roughly Jeff's age', to 'roughly Scott's age', to 'roughly the age of the 'middle' sibling (John or Virgil as ye please), to 'roughly Alan's age'. To me, his puppet LOOKS young, as does most of his art in the multiple canon comics, and he is referred to as a 'young man' and Scott thinks of him as 'the younger man' a few times in the novels and comics (plus Scott overall treats him like he is both younger than Scott himself AND much as he does his brothers - and his brothers treat Brains as if he were their age / one of the brothers in the novels and Brains treats THEM as if they're off the same age with Scott as the 'older sibling' in the novels too. Seriously there is SO MUCH SIBLING-LIKE BANTER AND TEASING it's wonderful XD ) So if nothing else in the NOVELS and pretty much all the comics I'd say Brains must be either in the 'middle sibling' or 'Alan' age bracket. (In a few comic stories, but most notably Atlantic Tunnel, Alan treats Brains as if THEY are roughly the same age, which is why I default to Brains being about Alan's age for my fanworks. Most official bios put Brains at ~25 though and thus 'middle sibling' age)

A quick note unrelated to this but in relation your other ask that is just a 'I forgot to add this': Gordon apparently does not have his astronaut wings, and seemingly doesn't have a astropilot license, not even a provisional / limited one. We actually only ever see him in space / on TB3 a very small handful of times and most of them are in Fleetway or Countdown.

Grant Tracy:

We somehow know both even less and even more about Grant than we do about Grandma Tracy. XD

We actually know his canon given name, and we know his profession (farmer) where we don't know what Grandma's profession was, and we know he was killed in the same avalanche that Jeff's wife was killed in

We know basically NOTHING ELSE about the man XD

I made him 3-4 years older than Grandma Tracy, and being VERY similar to Gordon in personality, to give someone for Gordon to have been really close to when the poor lad didn't quite fit in with the rest of the family. (which funnily enough gives him my baby brother's birth year)

I also had it where Grant graduated high school, but did not go for college as he wouldn't need it for his career (plus there honestly is nothing wrong with NOT going to college). I could absolutely see him going for a Trade school though

Given he seemingly was driving the car that he and the Tracys' mom was in when it was hit by the avalanche (Fleetway puts it as the house was hit so there's that too), he obviously would have had a Class-D (standard driver's) license. We know there was a lot of heavy farming equipment on the farm as Virgil's bios state he loved tinkering on and working with it, so he absolutely would have had a Class-B (farming vehicle) license. Outside of that, we don't really know what he might have had license wise

Grandma Tracy:

Not a part of her canon education or accomplishments, but my name for her in my fanworks is: Ruth Rosemary Joan Tracy (with a maiden name of Hughes). While the name of Ruth was popularized in the TOS fandom by the amazing Boomercat, I actually had come up with the name separately, naming her in honor of a VERY dear friend and 'great aunt' of mine who was VERY similar to Grandma Tracy in personality -especially the calm, down to earth, grounding and driving force that she is in the novels - and cooking skills (and in size. oh my lord my great aunt Ruth wasn't even 5 feet tall, which was always a bit amusing when she and I got to talk in person -she lived in Cairo, Egypt and I am American - as I'm 6 foot even) Her middle name of Rosemary actually was originally Eowyn, but I changed it in 2017 as my way of tributing Boomercat (Rosemary "Rosie" Alcott) when she passed away Her confirmation name (as I have her as Catholic, again in honor of the real-life Ruth for whom I named her) is Joan in tribute to Joan Hughes - an amazing woman in her own right who was actually the pilot of the real-life Tigermoth in Thunderbird 6!! Her maiden name of Hughes is a double duty tribute: both to Joan Hughes and to Howard Hughes!

There really is not much known about Grandma in canon. We aren't certain of her education. In the 2060s timeline, she would have been born in the late 80s (1987) and thus would be a millennial. Some of her bios imply that she would have been born in western Colorado (as that is where the Tracys were when the tragic avalanche happens and she and her husband Grant had moved to Aspen, Colorado after giving the TRACY family farm to Jeff and his new wife). So her education would be that of an early millennial / late gen Xer.

We don't know if she had any college education in canon. As I decided to make use of her apparently highly skilled cooking, I had her go to trade school / vocational school as cooking / baking is considered a trade

She refers to her cooking (and her cooking is referred TO) as famous, so I like to give her the accomplishment of running a bakery that won her awards and was well known but it isn't a canon accomplishment

Similarly, while it IS canon that Grandma traveled the world and is very worldly / knowledgeable about many places... we don't know anything more than that. I went with giving her Joan Hughes general backstory: A stunt pilot since the age of 15, one of the first people accepted into the newly formed World Air Force in the 2010s (one of the first women accepted into the britsh air force for Joan Hughes), served as a ferry pilot and ferried / flew aircraft all over the world - fighter craft, scout craft, bombers, you name it., then went on to be a stunt pilot after the war for a while. This means that in my fanworks, the Tiger Moth is RUTH's and used to be her stunt plane and she gave it to Jeff, and then Alan when she got too old to safely fly it. As a further result of this, Ruth was given the World Government equivalents of Joan's awards / medals in my ficverse (That would be the MBE and Pike Trophy- the pike being for outstanding contribution to civil flying instruction)

Grandma is strongly implied to have been a pretty good marksman in her past, so I gave her that skillset as well in my fanworks. Granted a LOT of farmers / people in rural areas in the US tend to be decent marksman as it's actually a fairly required / necessary skill set, esp on farms.

We never see Grandma driving in canon, BUT as someone with many kith and kin in rural areas in the USA... let's just say she would ***100%*** have a Class-D (standard driver's) license. Like seriously, public transportation is NOT an option outside of urban / suburban areas. I'd assume she also would have a Class-B (farmer's) license. My version of the character has a pilot's license as I used Joan Hughes' backstory to explain Grandma Tracys' 'world travelling' and 'exciting' past. She might have a helicopter license, though I strongly doubt she'd have a helijet license. She might have a CBL (or class A, B, and C commerical vehicles) license if we go with her having a Bakery that was big enough and /or to transport planes around via transport trucks. She seemingly has a commercial boating license, and the show kinda implies that she knows HOW to scuba, so we'll assume she has a diving license. Grandma is old enough (78 in 2065) that she likely has not renewed some - if not all - of these licenses. It depends on her health and opinions and needs

Parker:

Yes, yes, I know that in canon Parker is ~5 years Jeff's junior, but gosh darn it that always felt WRONG to me, Parker consistently looks and ACTS older than Jeff so I decided to age him up so that he was 5 or so years Jeff's SENIOR (Basically, it's the same age gap we see in the 04 film. Bill Paxton was born in 1955, Ron Cook was born in 1948)

I pull MUCH more heavily off the novels and comics for Parker and Penny than I do the TV series (esp the Lady Penelope novels) as Parker is MUCH less of a comedic and bumbling figure there, portrayed as far more competent and capable, and there is legit respect and friendship (if not a family-like bond) between Parker and Penelope in the novels and comics. Oddly enough, the 04 film really captured novel/comics Parker in a way the TV show never really did for me.

Parker hails from a long line of retainers for the English aristocracy 'for centuries', going back to at least the time of Queen Victoria and most likely longer than that. Parker was actually born into a decently well to do family, as his father was head butler, and his mother head housekeeper to an Earl.

Parker went to school and excelled at thermo-technical dynamics and engineering - at 13 years of age he converted an ex-army hovercraft into an all-terrian car/library for the Earl (from what I can figure, he basically gutted the hovercraft and installed shelving and a desk in the now empty interior, removed the partition wall between the cabin and main body of the hovercraft, and likely added a ramp of some kind to the rear for access. The hovercraft seems to have been about the size of a short-bus from context clues. So impressive, but not impossible for a 13 year old.

It's heavily implied that Parker continued to go to school and into higher education, still with a focus on thermo-technical dynamics and engineering, and continued to excel at it

The Earl died with Parker was 20. The Earl's family cut off Parker's allowance, his parents paychecks, kicked the Parker family out of the house / off the grounds, gave them no recommendations and from the sounds of it 'took back' a LOT of the money they'd been saving / left the family basically penniless.

The Parkers moved to London. It's HEAVILY implied that his parents died very shortly after this, and Parker fell in with bad company, quickly using his education to become the finest / best safe-cracker in the world, and an equally skilled cat-burglar. No violent crime at all, in fact it seems the only violence he has was self defense or while resisting arrest / escaping custody, and even that seems limited to 'only what is needed to get away and won't do any lasting harm'. At the very least, Parker seems to have no counts of murder, manslaughter, battery, or assault. He indeed was only at Parkwood due to his reputation for being to escape 'any nick'

He was eventually caught and ended up in Parkwood Scrubs Prison and spent some time there, where he shared a cell with light-fingered Fred and the two became great friends.

Parker was released from Prison and given passing refences to his having served in 'the war' I tend to think that he might have had something similar to his Real-Life INSPIRATION occur: Johnny Ramensky was a career burglar and safe-cracker. During WWII he was released after agreeing to enlist in the military and put his skills to 'good use'. Parker having this past explains why he was released after only one to three years, the mentions of him having served / having military contacts and friends, and is a nice tie-in to his primary inspiration! There's at least one mention in the comics and I thiiiiiink one of the bios that he has a decorated service record.

Parker, like Jeff, is old enough that he likely was involved in SEVERAL of the 'world conflicts' that happen in TOS comic and show canon -The Global Conflict of the 2010s: In canon Parker wouldn't have been born yet, and in my aged up fanon he, like Jeff, would have only been a preteen. So not involved. -The Global Atomic War of the 2030s: Parker would have been in his early 30s for this, too young for what we see in the 'time in Parkwood' flashback, and likely joined this war of his own free will and likely is when he was a 'radio-man' and could even be where he got a lot of his driving training / skills as the way it is described in the novels is VERY 'military' in style. (Jeff was in this war too btw, as a pilot although it is heavily implied he was flying medical aid and not a combat pilot). Great Britian, Russia, Turkey, and I think Brazil become Military Dictatorships during this war and remain so until the 2040s. -In the 2040s, the World Goverment uses the Universal Secret Service (basically WIN from Joe 90, but the Agent 21 stories predate Joe 90 and the 'name' WIN by over 5ish years) to kill the Dictators in command of the various dictatorships, toppling said goverments and bringing them into the world goverment. These events were referred to as Civil Wars . We see Agent 21 being sent to the British Dictatorship to do this / take part in the British Civil War in his comic strips, set in 2046. Parker likely would have been living in England, likely even in London, during this time frame as he mentions he's only ever lived in England. Parker could have been a Loyalist, part of the rebellion, or even just 'I don't care', we really have no way of knowing. All factors considered, I lean towards Parker simply didn't care all that much and was still engaging in burglary and the like during this time frame. He would have been in his mid 40s. -Some time in the 2050s (I lean towards late 2050s given the ages of various characters involved) there SEEMS to have been another War. This is the one that Scott, Gordon, Troy, Phones, Scarlet, and many others MUST have been involved in. Parker would have been in his early 50s and THAT matches up with the age we see in the Parkwood flashbacks. Thus Parker likely was captured and held at Parkwood sometime in the late 2040s to early 2050s, and when the War started, was offered freedom in exchange for his skills.

After the war, Parker's bio says that he tried to go straight and narrow, taking odd jobs, but nothing worked out and by the time late 2063 / earl 2064 rolled around, he was back to burglary and safe-cracking... which is when / how Lady Penelope ended up meeting and hiring him. It's a FUN story, btw, and the first comic of Lady Penelope's comic strip stories. Parker goes to break into the safe of an American Oil Tycoon... only to find Lady Penelope already in the room, chilling. She basically half forces / half tricks Parker into agreeing to work for her.

Parker is an AMAZING driver, an excellent mechanic, and there's ONE comic (in Fleetway, which came out in the 90s) where we see him flying a plane so he at some point got his pilots license, but that MIGHT actually be a trainers / limited pilots license. Penny does canonically have a pilots license and thus so long as she is in the craft, Parker could fly with a limited license, and that might be only for jet craft, not propeller craft - ABSOLUTELY not for bi-planes XD. He absolutely does not have a helicopter or helijet license. He seems to have a civilian AND Commerical boating license, and might have a civilian submarine craft license. We see him diving, so he has a diving license. The man suffers from vertigo and shows no control over his parachute(s) when he uses them, so he doesn't have a skydiving or paragliding license. He might have a CBL (Class A, B, and C commerical vehicle) license, in fact I'd lean heavily towards it.

Jeff's Wife / Tracy Brothers' Mom:

She might be British? I think one of the bios says something along those lines, but all other canon material implies she was, like Jeff, American so it's sort of a *shrug emoji*. I like the idea of her being British myself, but it's a VERY grey area so choose as ye please

Yes, I made Jeff's wife older than him (only a year or so though XD ) I actually did it so that Alan and TinTin mirror the relationship, as Alan actually mirrors Jeff in a LOT of ways

I also go with a non-canon name. Valentina Lucille Tracey (maiden name Baumgartner) In my defense, Lucille was just a very popular fanon name starting in the mid 80s and then in the 90s, Fleetway comics made it canon, THAT happened only because the creative team at Fleetway mistakenly thought Lucille WAS canon / were persuaded to use it because of how popular it was. Both Gerry and Sylvia said they 'never would have named' the character Lucille so by the time Fleetway made it canon in the 90s, and then when TaG made it canon in the Teens... I already had a name for the character. I used the name of the first female Astronaught for her given name, and I gave her the surname of the first female test pilot. Then as a tip of the hat to fanon (and now canon) her middle name is Lucille.

Rather like Grant, we really don't know much about this woman, we don't even TECHNICALLY know her canon name in TOS, as Fleetway didn't come out till the 90s... although it is considered 'part', or at least one of, the canon continuities that make up TOS

We do know from bios that Virgil is the one that took the most after her - in appearance, in personality, and in his artistic and musical talents. Virgil's bio also flat-out states that she was musically focused, rather than Virgil's heavier art focus. She had a promising career as a concert pianist. She either retired from it to be a full time mom or 'retired' when she passed away. That means that the White Baby Grand is almost certainly HER piano.

Small fun fact, the 'died giving birth to Alan' might actually be ascended-fanon as well. Gerry and Sylvia never said or implied it themselves, and the sources that use it generally didn't get the info from them. officially, she died in a tragic accident when Alan was 'quite young' and Alan was then raised by his father and eldest brother and was as a result 'rather spoilt'. The avalanche I think first shows up in Fleetway, but I'm not sure.

Jeff Tracy

Canonically one of the first men on the moon... which... really, REALLY, REALLY doesn't work. Even with the 2020s timeline, Jeff was born in the 1970s which is AFTER the Space Race, and even Fleetway has it where there is the beginnings of a Lunar Colony in 2000 / 2001 when Jeff goes to the Moon. That's likely why so many fans make it where Jeff was the first man on MARS. Even with the 2060s timeline, that would have taken place in the 2020s to 2030s and thus predates pretty much any instance of humans on Mars... eeeeexcept in TV21 - which had Mars colonized sometime in that 2010s time frame. =_= ...honestly, there's a reason in my fanworks I moved the Martian Capital City of Kahra from Mars and the Martian Colony to Venus / have it where Agent 21 operates from / was born on Venus and Mars is NOT yet colonized but instead Venus was XD

We know he graduated High School in the top of his class (don't know if he skipped grades) and had a higher education at an Ivy League school... likely Yale or Harvard, BUT if he went to school at Oxford, that could be how he met his wife, as she apparently was British!! He easily could have had something similar to Scott where he got his Masters at Yale, then 'finished' his schooling at Oxford to get a PhD or a second Masters.

He served in the Air Force (World or US) and served 'in a war' which almost certainly would have been the Global Atomic Conflict of the 2030s when he was in his mid to late 20s. He met and befriended Casey at this time. Both he and Casey achieved the rank of Colonel during their time in the war. There's a refence in the comics (and I think bios) that Jeff was the youngest colonel on record 'until Scott claimed that record' which is likely where the reference to Scott being a Colonel comes from.

Jeff was a pilot, but it seems like he avoided direct combat / was not a FIGHTER pilot and certainly there are no mentions of him being an Ace. He might have been flying aid missions and the like. There's a passing mention of his being involved in a mutiny, but it's in the sense that HE wasn't part of the mutiny OR the target of it, but more he had the bad luck of being on a ship when the mutiny occurred.

In what would have to be before the War (so in the 2020s) Jeff received training to become an Astronaut. He also seemingly started founding his company around this time / in his early 20s. (Seriously, that company has SO MANY DIFFERNT NAMES IN CANON.) By his mid-20s Jeff's company had gotten started and was already bringing in millions, and Jeff was running it alongside his astronaut / pilot duties and seemingly was managing to keep it going (likely by hiring skilled CEOs) even during the was in the 2030s. The company is BIG. Big enough that funding IR can be hidden in the shuffle big. That means forget millionaire. possibly forget billionaire. Jeff might be a trillionaire. and he is 100% a self-made man, as both of his parents (and their parents and going back generations) were middle-class - at best - generational farmers.

oh also, in TV21, at some point in the 2030s, there was a rebellion at the Jupiter Colony and the leader of said rebellion went to Earth to try and claim control of the moon / lunar colony. He is stopped and captured by Jeff and the jovian invasion force surrenders and returns to Jupiter. the leader, Kranol will be held in a high security prison until sometime in the late 2060s.

Has a Class-D (standard driver's) license. ABSOLUTELY has a pilot's and astropilot's license / has his astronaut wings. Pretty much certainly has a Class-B (farmer's) license. Likely has a CBL (Commercial Class A, B, and C) license. Has a civilian boating license and likely has a commercial boating license. I can't think of any time we see him diving, so might not have that.

Kyrano

There isn't really much known about Kyrano's education. He must have HAD it, because he is listed as working at both Kew and Kennedy Space Center as... well, quite a few things. one mention is that he was a professional cook, but ALL other mentions put him as a botanist. Either Expert Botanist in general and was in charge of many plants and layouts and landscaping... or plants to recycle air for space travel/stations... etc. Botany is the career things keep returning to, so that like is what he majored in and to get a job at the places he did, he must have a degree and most likely a Masters or the equivalent there of.

The Hood is his younger half-brother and somehow stole Kyrano's inheritance from him, leaving Kyrano penniless. Kyrano's family owned a massive jungle 'estates' with a variety of things reported and having rubber plantations and mines of some kind.

Kyrano and TinTin and how they met Jeff / came to live with the Tracys is... really a hodge podge, although the only MAJOR outlier is Fleetway. All the other canon continuities have it where Jeff and Kyrano have been friends for YEARS, meeting before his wife died. TinTin to all appearances came to live with the Tracys while she was fairly young AND seemingly before her father came to live with the Tracys (possibly Kyrano trying to get TinTin away from the Hood and the danger he presented?) as TinTin seemingly finished up her High School in America and ABSOLUTELY was living with the Tracys for her entire higher education period, as Jeff paid for it. Kyrano has been living with the Tracys and acting as the housekeeper / butler for a few years to several years by the time of the pilot. Fleetway has it where Jeff doesn't meet Kyrano and TinTin until two or three years prior to the pilot episode which... doesn't fit with anything we see / are told in teh show, novels, or any other comics.

He has a Class-D (standard driver's) license. Has a pilot's license. Seems to have a helijet but not a helicopter license. Doesn't seem to have any other licenses that we're aware of

Lady Penelope

Penny started her schooling at Hightower School, starting when she was 11 and graduating somewhere around 12-13 years of age. She was top of her class, Head Girl, and top athlete. (so it'd be Lower School, if I recall correctly, and seemingly skipped a grade or two)

After Hightower, she went to Rowden Boarding School - a highly exclusive and well respected school. We don't know what she majored in, only that she was again top of her class, Head Girl, and top athlete and graduated at 14-15. (Upper School if I, again, am recalling correctly. She seemingly doesn't skip grades here, but she is a year or two younger than everyone else due to graduating early from Hightower)

In quick explanation we find out in the 'Penny as a Young Girl / Penny as a Teen' comics that Penny's father is actually a retired spy, and Penny decides right around as she is set to graduate from Rowden that she wants to be a spy as well. UNFORTUNATLY the comics don't follow up on this. Instead the 'Penelope as a Young Woman' comics are set in the mid 1960s instead of 2045 -2050s, Penny wasn't going to school but instead going to live in the city, there was no indication she was rich, they never went into her spy career... she just... suddenly was a middle class girl trying to get by in the big city. Which probably wouldn't have bugged me if it hadn't been PENELOPE right when she was supposed to be starting her spy training!! To make it even worse, Penny's bios and bits and bobs we get from her comics, novels, etc all tell us that she DIDN'T have these adventures, but instead went to a Swiss 'Finishing School' that was actually a cover for a SPY SCHOOL and became an independent Secret Agent by 19 years of age!! (It actually matches up almost perfectly with what we see in Class 6 Sternoff', a subline comic in the Lady Penelope Comic Magazine, and one of the leads is VERY similar to Penny in personality... which makes me think that Class 6 was originally the 'Penny as a Young Adult' and the stories set in the 1960s were supposed to be the subline with an original character.) As a result of all this, I freely admit that I generally ignore the 'Young Adult' comics and treat Class 6 as the 'official' Young Adult Penelope comics.

Upon graduating, Penny became an independent spy / free agent. She has been indicated to have worked for the USS (Universal Secret Service - the TV21 equivalent of WIN), to have worked for WIN (World Intelligence Network, introduced in Joe 90), to have either worked FOR or FOUNDED or became the leader of FAB (Federal Agents Bureau)... the problem with all of those is that the TV show, comics and novels all make it VERY clear that Penny doesn't work for anyone. She's an independent agent that a few other spies / higher ups in agencies know (and many of them have no idea who she REALLY is, only knowing her as Agent L). Rhapsody's bio claims that Lady Penelope was the founder and leader of FAB and that Penelope trained Rhapsody... but the thing is EVERYTHING but Fleetway's Complete TB Story puts Lady Penelope very VERY solidly in the 2060s - like flat out stated multiple times solidly... and that means Penny and Rhapsody are the same age, only a year or two of difference.

There is a VERY weird refence that Jeff met Penny / she was an old friend from his 'Agency Days' and that becasue of the 'delicate nature of some of his missions, he met Lady Penelope' which... this is literally the only time it's implied that Jeff was a secret Agent (something DIRECTLY contradicted by everything else we know of his history) and it also directly contradicts every other instance we have of how the two met... which is always something along the lines of 'close to the time IR gets started, Jeff is informed by SOMEONE of Penny's status as a super spy, meets and usually tests her in some way, and then has her become the first IR agent / head of the IR agents.

Penny is involved in a lot of charities, and has a cover of a 'aspiring journalist' that she maintains to explain her travels and questioning of people in her line of work when 'I am rich and was bored' will not work. She is famously as generous as she is polite.

Lady Penelope has gotten up to QUITE a few adventures as a spy, many of which have had World Politics level impact (the woman has dealt with Generals, Heads of Secret Police, ARMYS, and more)

She speaks several languages with native level fluency; known examples include Italian, French, German, Spanish and Berezniki

There is a passing reference that Scott and Penny met 'while in school / met a few years ago' that is just... what. WHEN. But not in the 'this directly contradicts EVERYTHING we're told way' that the 'during Jeff's Agency days' bit does Of all the characters they are the ones MOST LIKELY to have met prior to the mid 2060s, since the rest of the Tracys (including Jeff) basically stayed in America (and/or outer space) with Jeff's time outside of America mostly being in the 2030s... which would have been before Penny was born in late december 2039. Scott was in England for Oxford in ~2055 which would be around the time Penny was in Rowden Boarding School. He also was in / around Europe during 'the War' when Penny would have been finishing up her Spy Schooling / just starting her spy career. TinTin went to school (multiple) SOMEWHERE(s) in Europe as she finished up her education, but those are canonically all engineering and technical universities and I don't think the timelines match up as well. Brains MIGHT have gone to school in Paris, but so far as we know Penny did not spend much time in Paris and wouldn't have been going to an engineering school there... also Brain's time in Paris is VERY QUESTIONABLE as far as canon goes If the two did meet - esp during the time that Penny was preparing to be a spy (last year of Rowden), training to be a spy (the swiss school) or starting her spy career (late 2050s-early 2060s), that actually does answer the old fandom question of "who told Jeff about Penny and how she was a spy when even the commanders of MI5, WIN, the USS and every other spy organization (except FAB, which Jeff wouldn't have a connection to) doesn't know?" Scott, possibly.

one point of note here... Penny likely doesn't have many (if any) of these licenses as 'Lady Penelope', but instead has gotten the training and has fake licenses / licenses under false IDs Lady Penelope has a Class-D (standard driver's) license... yes, really. There is only one instance where Penny apparently 'doesn't know how to drive' and it's when she's playing the 'socialite' AND trying to delay returning to London. There's another episode where we see Penny driving in the show and she has NO issue with it. She has multiple instances of driving herself around in the comics and novels. She is the only character stated FLAT OUT to be able to drive a motorcycle (and a rocket motorcycle at that!), so she absolutely has a motorcyle license. While it's said (I think in the show? but it's absolutely said in TB6) that Penny doesn't have a pilot's license, she is actually seen / mentioned flying a plane in the comics and novels, so I'm going to go with 'Penny not having a pilot license is a lie', most likely said because Penny felt someone she didn't want to know the truth was in ear shot / she was worried there might be a recording device nearby. She has flown a helijet and a helicopter, so likely has a license for both. She seems to have a civilian submarine craft license. She has both a civilian and commercial boating license (although she goes through the Seabird Yachts like CRAZY. Seriously she starts her comics with Seabird I and was on Seabird VI by the time her comics ended). She has a diving license. She has a paragliding and skydiving license. She doesn't have a astopilot license or astronaut wings and canonically she doesn't know how to drive commercial vehicles or construction vehicles.

TinTin

What's in a name? ...a lot of confusion apparently XD Multiple canon sources say that TinTin's name means 'sweet', but there is no Malaysian word that is similar to TinTin that means such... buuuuuuut there is a MANDARIN word that means Sweet Tián If you go with a non-canon surname (Tin - catonese spelling of the mandarin surname Tian - meaning field) you end up with the name Tián Tin which to many people would sound like 'Tin Tin' ...the fact that this is the name of one my RL friends is just coincidence and maybe kinda sorta inspiration for this XD the fact that said friend is a HUGE Adventures of Tin-Tin fan and gleefully claimed 'Tin-Tin' as a nickname that she STILL uses to this day... well... XD As for why she uses 'Kyrano' as a surname once or twice in the show... it could just be an false surname for security purposes, or even just a mix-up in paperwork (I did get called 'Ms J Leonard' at a job once, as a mix-up had them thinking my dad's given name was my surname somehow, so it CAN be a thing that happens)

TinTin apparently comes to America to live with the Tracys while fairly young (and before her father does) as she at minimum finishes her high school (equivalent) education in America before moving onto a higher education. She also apparently skips grades as she SEEMS to graduate at ~16.

She goes to college in America for a period of time, and then goes to Europe to finish her higher education. What these schools are is unknown / never said unfortunately. A bunch of countries are mentioned / considered canon by the fandom, but nothing is said or even really hinted at in canon. I honestly have her following in Scott's 'footsteps', going first to Yale for ~2 years (in 2060 & 2061) and getting a Masters in Electrical/Mechanical Engineering and possibly Higher Mathematics. I have her take a 2 year gap to get job experience - working at Tracy Industries, also in part because this falls during the apparent 'War' that happened. After the war, TinTin went to Oxford for ~2 years (in 2063 & 2064) and gets a Masters in Advanced Technical Theory and if she didn't get the Higher Mathematics before, she got it here. She graduates in June of 2064.

She is canonically an electronics expert, a mathematical mind, and engineer. (Fun fact, she is the only character we see doing maintenance in the TV show when she's shown doing maintenance on TB1 in Martian Invasion.) She is also said to be an engineer / head engineer in the Lady Penelope audio adventure 'Introducing Thunderbirds' which for some reason was cut from the Anniversary Episode

She acts as Jeff's secretary as a 'cover', but seemingly actually HAS had secretary training and sometimes does secretary / dictation work to help Jeff out when not helping Brains in the Lab / doing engineering work

TinTin has a Class-D (standard driver's) license, and might have a motorcycle license. She's apparently an expert level diver, almost as good - if not as good - as Gordon is and thus would have a divers license. She has a civilian boating license and apparently is very skilled. She has a civilian submarine craft license. She has a pilots license for both jet and propeller craft and apparently can pilot a biplane and stunt plane. She has her astronaut wings and an astropilot license (although it MIGHT be a provisional / limited license as we never see her pilot solo). Likely has a paraglider and sky diving license. Has a CBL (Commercial Class A, B, and C) license.

Brains

hooo boy here we go

What's in a name? Well to start, it IS NOT Hiram K Hackenbacker. Even if you totally ignore the fact that the episode where the name is introduced flat out states it's an alias that Brains fails to react to... there are other instances where it's stated to be an alias in the audio for this ep. It also isn't Horatio Hackenbacker, despite what the 1966 Spring Extra says ^^;; Whatever his name is, it's not this ^^

Born in Michigan (some things say 'Chicago, Michigan' which... well Chicago is NEAR Michigan, but the Windy City is actually in Illinois) and while preteen his parents were killed when a.... hurricane... struck... their... Michigan home I i literally do not have enough words to explain why that is impossible in this... maybe in a separate post like the 'Y'all don't get America dudes' one or something

After the death of his parents, Brains was adopted by a retired Camridge professor who had been a friend of his parents. Said adoptive father apparently passes away before Brains is a mid-teen / early teen btw. Poor kid.

Brains skips LOTS OF GRADES. I personally headcanon that he was homeschooled by his adoptive father as Brains likely would have been bored by normal schools and likely heavily bullied. He starts college as a young teen, and must have been taking tests (like CLEP or DANTES) to get as many classes out of the way as possible while he was 'still in high school' since he's got his first Doctorate as a mid teen.

What school(s) he went to is uncertain. There's a single reference to him going to university in Paris, where he gave a lecture that Jeff heard and made Jeff realize the young man was the perfect person to make IR a reality... the issue with that is that Jeff unlikely would have been in Paris sitting in on a random lecture. All other schools Brains could have gone to were in America, so I tend to assume that Brains had an American education. He's had MIT, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, University of Chicago, Caltech and... Fleetway puts him at Tracy University - which while it was a space focused school, it was also one of the best tech universities in the world. As a result, I tend to have it where Brains went to Tracy U. That means he would have ABSOLUTELY run into at least one of the Tracy brothers, who then could have easily brought Brains to Jeff's attention.

While still a teenager (probably in 2061 or 2062), Jeff listened to a lecture Brains gave at his college, approached Brains and Brains was soon part of IR.

Brains has SEVERAL Doctorates by the time of the pilot episode. I remember at least one refence to him having ~12, and I know he's got at least 5 mentioned a few times

Brains was involved in the designing of all the Thunderbirds and pod vehicles. Jeff, Scott, John, Virgil, and Gordon seemingly were also involved to various degrees in the craft (Alan seemingly was not, and TinTin is debatable - though she WAS involved in the construction)

What his many doctorates are in, we do not know, though we can assume it's various tech, math, engineering and so on

His 'hobbies' include trigonometry, thermodynamics, and advanced robotics / programming, and seemingly is trying to create an AI / android as shown in Braman.

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whump-it-like-its-hot · 1 year ago

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So, lets do this once more and properly.

Hey there! Nice to see you have found your way to my funky little blog here. As mentioned in the header, this is a Whump blog where I'll also ocassionally post some other unrelated stuff, but the main focus will remain on Whump and similar themes.

About me? I'm Pyro, a young adult and my pronouns are He/They. I'm autistic and I have memory issues, so if I don't respond to a tag/ask/dm, or act in a way that's otherwise odd, I can assure you it's not maliciously intended.

Info about what I'll post here, as well as some other important stuff is under the cut!

Mini disclaimer: When I talk about Loki in my tags, I’m talking about my OC Loki, not MCU Loki, just to clear up confusion :)

First off, a couple of ground rules if you want to interact with my blog!

Leave your discourse at the door. This is a hard rule. I'm not apolitical, however I will not take any sides on any conflict on this blog. This applies to fandom stuff, as well as real life happenings and actual politics. There's places to get into that, and this blog is not one of them.

Be civil. I take the freedom to block whoever I need to curate my experience, and that means if you're an ass on mine or someone else's blog, you're getting the boot. I will not explain my reasoning for blocking someone.

On the same note, you're also free to block me for whatever reason. Don't vibe with my posts? Can't stand my blog colors? Don't like me for any other reason? That's cool, lets block and move on.

You're welcome to use my prompts and the tags I leave on other people's post for your own stories, that's why I post them here. Though I'd love if you tagged me in the finished piece, so I can see what you made of the idea!

Please feel free to tag me in tag games and under your stories if you want to! Even if I might not get back to it right away (or even forget it completely), I still appreciate it very much!

If you want something removed from my blog, that's no problem. Just throw me an ask or something and I'll oblige, no questions asked.

This list may be edited at any point in time. I'll note this at the top of the post though.

A couple of my favorite tropes, from the top of my head and in no particular order:

- Concussion/Head injury - A good old fashioned Beatdown - Broken bones - Magic Whump - Major character death - Whumpee dying in Caretakers arms especially - Phobias - Falling (Down the stairs, off a cliff, you name it) - Fainting/Passing out - Hidden injuries along with Injury/Scar reveals - Blood from the mouth/Coughing up blood - Drowning/Falling through Ice - Pinned down by rubble - Whumpee getting impaled on/by something - Hypothermia - Carrying - Gore - Medical stuff - Historical/Fantasy Whump

And here's some tropes you probably won't see here!

- Pet Whump - The BBU - NSFWhump - Lab stuff - Long term captivity - Conditioning/Dehumanization - Paternal Whump (Either as Caretaker or Whumper) - Mouth stuff - Nunhuman Characters (To an extent. Farthest I'll go will be immortality and perhaps a vampire here and there)

I‘ve ditched my tagging system since it was stressing me out, so most reblogs are untagged or only have commentary added to them. I tag common triggers such as vents and mental health stuff, and if you need anything tagged in particular, feel free to tell me! I’ll usually be happy to help out.

I'll also make some introductions for my OCs at this point soon, so stay tuned for that :)

Now, I think that is all for now. My asks and submissions are open, and I usually don't bite, so feel free to hit me up about anything!

Pyro~

#not whump #important

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vivaciouscynner · 2 years ago

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Welcome to tumblr

Introductions: You'll notice very quickly that tumblr has a very different vibe than most social media sites. One of the biggest differences is that no one here is really aiming to be popular or have a ton of followers.

This isn't to say you won't be super popular. That can still happen. But, unlike other sites, there's no algorithm to fight here. And honestly, there's a lot more respect at tumblr than anywhere else.

{Can't believe I said that, but when other sites dig themselves into an abyss... well, you get the idea}

Rules: Honestly, there's not really any other than:

if you intend to be garbage, do it lovingly.

If you intend to be loving, don't miss.

If you want to be fun, go loud.

if you want to be a mess, love yourself first

Do know that if you attempt useless discourse for the purpose of just causing a fight, you'll likely see this quickly fail. Tumblr is a lot LESS reactionary. And because of this, you'll be promptly ignored and freely blocked.

But also, rest assured, people generally have higher critical thinking skills here. You will not have to wrap a statement with an overwhelming, over-explained, disclosure that you didn't mean something else (especially unrelated). Example:

I like pancakes Oh, so you hate waffles?

You don't, generally, have to worry about that too much here. And if you spot it, just block it 👍

About: Do whatever you want that makes you happy. The only real way to get any form of engagement is through the tagging system. Also note, that it's a form of communication. See tagging section below.

Tumblr has a lot of benefits, one being, you are not shown any posts unless you want to see them. There's no forced "for-you" page, there IS a "for you" page, but it's not forced, and honestly, it's actually kind of good.

IF YOU'RE NEW: It's really important that, BEFORE you follow anyone, you must have AT LEAST, BARE MINIMUM, somewhere on your blog, something that says, "bear with me, I'm new, I'm not a bot, I'll have posts and reblogs soon".

::Context:: Tumblr users have recently been getting a lot of bot follows. And they're pretty easy to pick out. So easy, that if you even somewhat look like one, you'll be blocked and reported immediately. So here's what NOT to look like:

The blog is EMPTY - no posts or reblogs

The title is "Untitled"

The user avatar is the DEFAULT avatar OR a random woman (please just choose some cartoon character or something)

The Likes and Follows page are inaccessible (this is generally fine but if you hit the other bullet points, then this immediately tells us you're a bot. Seriously, if I see default icon or human face/body follow me, there's a 99% chance they're a bot.)

So please, to avoid getting blocked by possibly your favorite artists/writers/interests/whathaveyou, please do the opposite of the bulleted list there.

Basics: ::Tagging:: Unlike other sites, we don't dump the tags in the body of the post. Instead, at the very bottom - the footer, basically - there is a spot to add tags. Tags are converted to tumblr quick-links that navigate to similar posts with the same tag. As mentioned before, the tags are also used as a form of communication, usually after-thoughts or punchlines to a joke. They are also a good way to let the person you reblogged a post from know your thoughts without adding to the thread of posts.

::Likes:: "Likes" work a little differently than most sites. This acts as a bookmark, basically. It's also what tumblr uses to curate the "For You" page should you choose to use it. It does absolutely NOTHING to spread information other than you told the poster that you, indeed, liked their post - which is good!

::Reblogs:: It's pretty straight forward and acts like you think it would. It's essentially a retweet (if coming from twitter) or a retoot (if from Mastodon). Reblogs help spread the blog post. The post will show up on your follower's dash (the main timeline, if you will) as well as on your blog site (your yourusername.tumblr.com or tumblr.com/yourusername) Reblogs and tagging, help "spread the word" and allows more viewers to see the post.

::Chat/Replies:: In a blog post you can leave a comment and each one can be replied to. These replies are actually a lot LESS intrusive than twitter. They're also a lot less noticeable. Usually only the original poster will "notice" them unless you @ someone's handle (or click the triple dot and reply to the user which adds the @ automatically)

The separate, standalone chat function that tumblr has is like a private direct message. You can even start group chats like you would is most places.

::Asks:: You can set your blog to accept Anonymous or Non-Anonymous asks where they can simply shoot you a question or comment in your inbox. Do what you're comfortable with, but you'll more likely to get asks if you allow anonymity.

Final Thoughts: You really can't "screw up" here because this IS the place to screw up. This site is like that meme where it's, 🎶 "Thanks for checking in, I'm still a piece of garbage" 🎶

I think the biggest issue people have when coming here from another platform (namely bird app) is that there's a mission or competition to survive. And, that's just not what it's like here.

Take your shoes off, sit on the couch, relax.

#tumblr #new to tumblr #what to do #basics #there's not much to figure out #we're all just hanging out #you can be the “no one knows I'm standing here”#or the person engaging in soemthing

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sleepyspoonie · 2 years ago

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I posted 1,161 times in 2022

17 posts created (1%)

1,144 posts reblogged (99%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@zenosanalytic

@renthony

@saltedswan

@queerpyracy

@curiouscarnifex

I tagged 699 of my posts in 2022

Only 40% of my posts had no tags

#the locked tomb - 136 posts

#ntn spoilers - 63 posts

#mauveen tag - 59 posts

#revka tag - 35 posts

#ollivander tag - 34 posts

#homestuck - 33 posts

#lysette tag - 26 posts

#animals - 20 posts

#pride tag - 17 posts

#poetry - 16 posts

Longest Tag: 138 characters

#and also taped up a conversion chart in the closet next to our dresser that does celsius to fahrenheit so they can actually understand the

My Top Posts in 2022:

was DISTRAUGHT because the quilt my mom made when she was a teenager seemingly got lost in the move to our new house, and we couldn't find it anywhere in any of the boxes or in our old apartment

i cried the whole way home and my wife made it their mission in life to find this thing, bc it's one of my most cherished irreplaceable possessions, and naturally my wife Does Not Want Me To Be Sad. promises to open every box, go through the car, root through the roomie's stuff, the works

they were horrified to find out they were the criminal the whole time, when they found it in a suitcase they had stuffed under the bed without ever checking to see what was inside of it 😳

19 notes - Posted June 21, 2022

me: our anniversary is coming up soon my wife: yeah :3 me: we've been married almost three years my wife: yeah :3 me: and you only just realized today that i have heterochromia my wife: SHUT UP!!! ):

25 notes - Posted August 29, 2022

my wife has lost their voice and whenever I don't do what they want they just aggressively wave this post in my face

25 notes - Posted December 3, 2022

Help, a young dragon decided my root cellar is her new lair, what do I do? (URGENT)

107 notes - Posted September 7, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

i don't know who needs to hear this, but you can refuse to be weighed at the doctor's office. they don't need it to evaluate anything about you unless you're getting anesthetized or something, so if having your weight taken at the doctor's office stresses you out, consider asking to opt out of the process to save yourself the anxiety or triggering experience.

your weight is actually only documented for insurance purposes because insurance companies require doctors to gather a certain number of biometrics to get reimbursed for your appointment. you can just refuse to be weighed and they'll just take another metric instead.

this is especially valuable for fat people and people with or recovering from eating disorders, but it can also be beneficial for anyone who simply doesn't want to be subjected to scrutiny about their weight when trying to get treatment for an unrelated issue. If the doctor really needs your weight for a specific treatment, they'll let you know.

here are a few ways you can tell your doctor's team that you don't want to be weighed:

"i'd like to decline to be weighed."

"could you please add a note to my file that I'd like to decline being weighed for all future appointments?"

"i'm in recovery for an eating disorder, and I need a note added to my file that i shouldn't be weighed when i come to your office. could you help me get that added?"

"i should have a note in my file stating that I don't want to be weighed." (if you're being asked after you've already told them to note it for you)

please feel free to spread the word around! fatphobes dni.

#cw weight discussion | #cw weight bias | #cw doctors | #cw medical | #cw medical fatphobia

216 notes - Posted July 19, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

#tumblr2022 #year in review #my 2022 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #I really went all in on the locked tomb this year lmao

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elipseon · 1 year ago

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@staff

I usually stay fairly quiet because things are otherwise working the way I expect and like them to. However this myriad of idiocy of changes is certainly showing you're not paying any attention to the actual majority of your userbase. I already see you turned off replies on this post, and people are either reblogging with commentary like this or flaming you in the tags for the trouble.

So I pray you actually have a brain cell or two to read those tags and reblogs of actual feedback that are quickly proving your users actual opinions on this. I also hope you're not assuming all those little hearts on this post are for the original, as many are for reblogs like this tearing into the absolute travesty you're trying to commit.

Like many other artists I've noticed in the tags I'll give some feedback to this dumpster fire you're trying to light.

Tumblr's literal top marketed differences from other social media are boiled down to the LACK of forced algorithm, the reverse-chronological dashboard, and being able to CURATE your feed to what you specifically want to see.

The happy bonuses are being able to PREVENT excessive email notifications, see people you follow reblog the same post with different tags while enjoying the humour, and overall customize your experience.

You're going to hurt small creators and niche ones with an algorithm, completely piss off the massive Roleplay community of writers by messing with their dashboard in any way, and generally just make many users leave the site.

And if they don't then the add-ons you allow and maybe even don't allow for your site will get functions added onto them to fix your "improvements".

Like many others, I'm going to emphasize the fact that you really need to instead be fixing:

The Search Function to improve blogs discoverability

The Tag Function to prevent the bots from spamming unrelated tags to their posts

Improving your Anti-Bot set up to stop all the damn Porn Bots

Those three things are what you should really be focusing on first before you get it in your heads that the minority of your userbase wants Tumblr to be like every other social media. People come here to personally curate what they see on their dash for their own experiences, and because they like that tumblr is not like every other social media.

If you can't see that @staff, then there really is a bigger problem here with you. The ones asking for tumblr to change are a vocal minority, who I swear are losing the ability to have critical thinking on their own, and you really shouldn't be listening to them.

And while I understand that you need to make revenue on this site to keep it running, pissing off the actual majority of your users in one massive planned update like this will only put you in the same position as Twitter is. If not to the destination faster. It's a literal contest of how stupid you want to be fucking with what has been your literal brand difference for your side for over a DECADE.

I am praying that your team is actually reading the real feedback here and not disregarding it.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed.

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.

Test what the right daily push notification limit is.

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

#Holy Fuck Staff Stop being STUPID #I won't ramble in the tags on this because I got a lot to say on it #but I am with everyone else on this post that these are not “improvements” that anyone actually wants on this site #You need to get your heads out of your asses staff #and see what your users are actually saying they want #Let alone paying attention to not removing what made your brand unique for a little more than a DECADE

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mayfriend-archive · 3 years ago

Note

Totally understand if you're not up for it and fully recognize the ronald mcdonald dom/sub anon vibes which is an AMAZING post btw but like...now i'm curious, what the hell did Lord of the Flies anon DO that got him blocked for the discourse? like...i just can't wrap my head around high school lit being...uh...that inflammatory i guess?

Okay so, I'll start by saying I've had a new anon from apparently the same anon saying they are NOT the person I blocked, just a rando making the same points, but I'll answer your question anyway just to set out why this person in particular got blocked, out of the several thousand who reblogged/commented on that very successful addition to the LoTF post I made.

First off, I added the 'real life Lord of the Flies' story because I thought it was a good story. I had read about it only a couple days beforehand in Humankind and, after reading out the entire chapter to my parents who weren't very interested, I was excited that there was not only a post where it would be relevant to post, but that I wouldn't be hijacking it, as it was already rejecting the widespread interpretation taught in many schools, that humanity is inherently savage.

When making the addition, I a) did not think it would get more than a couple reblogs, because the post was already at 50k notes and I figured anyone that might be interested would already have seen it, and b) I did not know the very specific context that prompted William Golding to write the book; all I knew was that he had been a teacher at a public school (basically, the poshest schools in the country - think Eton, Harrow, very 'old money' places that pump out Conservative politicians by the bucket-load 🤢) who hated his job and the boys he taught (which, valid), and new information I'd been given in Humankind - that Golding had said to his wife one day, "Wouldn't it be a good idea to write a story about some boys on an island, showing how they would really behave?" - which had no mention of The Coral Island by R. M. Ballantyne, which I have since learned was the text that Golding loathed enough to write an entire novel in refutation of - and included what I considered a very telling letter from Golding to his publisher, in which Golding wrote of his belief that 'even if we start with a clean slate, our nature compels us to make a muck of it.' Another Golding quote that I believe portrays his belief in humanity's 'innate savagery' is that "man produces evil as a bee produces honey."

Obviously, the author of a book putting forward the case for humanity's inherent goodness was going to oppose Golding's hypothesis; Bregman not only noted Golding's literary accomplishments and beliefs, but his personal life.

When I began delving into the author's life, I learned what an unhappy individual he'd been. An alcoholic. Prone to depression. A man who, as a teacher, once divided his pupils into gangs and encouraged them to attack each other. "I have always understood the Nazis," Golding confessed, "because I am of that sort by nature." (Humankind by Rutger Bregman, p. 24-25)

I have bolded the part about him as a teacher, because it is incredibly relevant to the original post that I commented on, which begins with a comic of a teacher locking her class in to see them 'recreate' Lord of the Flies, something which the follow up comments before mine staunchly reject as both misunderstanding the point of the book, and the fact that it took the kids in Lord of the Flies a significant amount of time without adult supervision to go 'savage'. This misreading of the text is widespread enough that when Golding won the Nobel Prize for Lord of the Flies, the Swedish Nobel committee wrote that his book 'illuminate[s] the human condition in the world of today'. Whether or not they misread it is beyond my expertise - they do at least mention the factors of the outside world neglected by many when analysing the book, but still seem to believe it says something about human nature as a whole rather than just, to quote thedarkbutbeige 'British kids being rat bastards' - but Golding quite happily took his Nobel prize on this basis. Which, in fairness, I would too. It's a fucking Nobel prize.

It was with this knowledge, and this knowledge alone, that I stated in my now very, very widely read comment that Golding 'wrote the book to be a dick', in response to the tags of the person I reblogged from. As I said, I now know that Golding did not write the book (solely) because he hated the kids he taught, but as a response to The Coral Island and the general idea that clearly the British were inherently civilsed, whilst the people they colonised and enslaved were inherently savage. So. That's the background.

The anon - or rather, the person I thought was anon - was the sole exception out of dozens of replies, who instead of telling me about The Coral Island politely decided it was time to go ALL CAPS and regurgitate points already made by thespaceshipoftheseus, and implied that the only reason that the real life Tongan castaways didn't go all Lord of the Flies was because they weren't British. Not because they weren't surrounded by violence like the boys in Lord of the Flies, or there wasn't a World War ongoing, or that they weren't the upper, upper, upper crust of a class-obsessed society like Britain - but because they weren't British. A complete inversion of the concept that Golding was trying to get across - now, instead of all of humanity being equally prone to savagery in the right conditions, it was solely nationality that determined it. As in, the British were inherently savage, but nobody else was.

I, trying for humour, made the terrible mistake of replying to them.

I won't lie, I was absolutely blown away that this was real life. What I think they were trying to do was be that Cool Tumblr Person who, after somebody's been shitty on a post, goes to their blog and sees something Damning in their about/description. In an ideal world, I imagine I'd have gone nuts or done something Unforgiveable. In what I can only call the rant that followed, they stated several times that I needed to go back to high school to get some 'proper literary analysis' skills and that the story of the Tongan castaways was completely unrelated to the point at hand which. I mean, I disagree, considering that I made the addition, but I couldn't get my head around how commenting on a post that was already rejecting the thesis that the 'point' of Lord of the Flies was that humanity was inherently savage and was, in fact, about how kids - British or otherwise - learn how to function from the adults around them, and that traumatised, terrified children aren't going to create a mini-Utopia, and put forward a real life example of how without the key additions of an ongoing world war, a colonial Empire and the subsequent mindset of thinking you are 'inherently civilised' and therefore can't do anything wrong, actually, people just want to take care of each other.

A friend has since asked me why I even have 'england' in my description. To be honest, it's a timezone thing - I talk to a lot of people online who don't share my timezone, and it generally makes me feel like if I don't reply immediately because it's 3am, they have the tools to see that I'm not in their timezone and not just ignoring them. I did consider changing it to 'british' or 'uk' after it was... 'used against me', I guess, simply because I didn't want to deal with it, but you know what. No. Not gonna do that. I am from England, and I have never hid that fact. I have a tag called 'uk politics', during Eurovision I refer to the UK's act as 'us' (even if I really, really don't want to. Because James Newman slaughtered that song and it was downright embarrassing), I regularly post stuff in my personal tag about where I live (and mostly complain about this piece of shit government). If people really think my nationality makes every point I make null and void, then they don't have to follow me or interact with my posts; tumblr is big, and I am one medium-small blog very easily passed over.

I did reply to them, trying to explain the above, but their next response really just doubled down. Because I used the word British instead of English - foolishly because the posts above mine focused on Britishness, and also because although Golding was English and taught English kids, the pro-Imperialism author of The Coral Island, R. M. Bannatyne was actually Scottish so, ding ding ding, falls into the 'British' category - they then decided that I was somehow trying to pretend I wasn't English and made all the same points, before ending with this doozy:

At this point, I knew there was nothing to be gained from replying, because if we're whipping out conditions like they're pokemon cards then there's no actual conversation anymore, and I'm not going to start mudslinging like an identity politician. They made up their mind, and I figured there could be no harm in letting them think that they 'won' by blocking them instead of replying.

Until the ask. INNATE ENGLISH SAVAGERY did, I'll admit, make me think it was them, back again. I even thought up a really good response approximately 12 hours after I replied, I was that sure. Until the second message came in, and said they were just someone who came from the post and made the same point by chance. So the saga draws to a close... for now.

It may have been them, it may not have been - the anon feature makes it impossible to be sure, but as the second message I got said, we're in a heatwave. It's too hot to argue. And I've just written a goddamn essay about a book I dislike anyway.

My pasty English ass is going to go melt. If there's Disk Horse, do not tell me. I am Done™

#emily speaks #asks #anon #lord of the flies #this is long. this is so long. why is this so long #i literally got out humankind so i could quote directly. how is this my life

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huntypastellance · 6 years ago

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I'm sorry I'm trying to figure out what the frick "Shaladins" are? I tried scrolling through the tag and I'm still really confused and you are one fo the main people I see posting in the tag? Can you please explain to me what exactly is going down rn and what exactly a Shaladin is?

I gotta set up a glossary page for the vld fandom too at this point. Half my inbox is literally “what does X mean?”.

Too many terms being slung around……

Anyway:

Shaladin: any shipper who ships Shiro with one of the other paladins* (Keith, Lance, Hunk or Pidge).

*Allura’s in a weird grey area because she was considered to be Space Mom & an adult up until her VA confirmed that she was a teenager. The Shiro/Allura shippers are heavily split between Shallurantis (antis who make excuses to ship it despite Allura being an “underaged teenager”), Shitllurans (a subset of shallurantis who are the worst of the worst & turned on any shaladins who tried to help them after Allura’s “age reveal” happened & Shallura became a “problematic ship”) & the actual Shallura shippers.

Anti: self-proclaimed name for fans who use social justice terms & a facade of fighting against online abuse/predators all so their favorite ship can win a ship war. Often harasses the staff of the canon or encourages harassment of the staff. Never calls out the abusive maniacs in their own community even if they commit actual crimes. Favors an overly fluffy sparkly pastel aesthetic for their blogs, trashy memes & sucking up to minor celebrities completely unrelated to the canon’s production in order to boost their own ship. Basically a fujoshi stereotype who accuses other shippers of being fujoshi stereotypes & refuses to acknowledge that they themselves are fujoshi stereotypes. Accuses other people of sexualizing minors while they themselves consume/create porn of their own ship (even if the characters are minors).

Klantis: antis who specifically ship Keith/Lance, aka Klance. They manage to keep their ship at its #1 spot on Fandometrics by spamming Klance & crosstagging it everywhere. Every time a rival ship creeps up the rankings, they double down on the spam & start a new wave of anti-ship harassment to discourage those shippers.

Leakira: AU made by klantis after s7 dropped & they realized that Klance would not be canon. It’s a “re-write” of Voltron where the supporters for Leakira actually believe that they can buy all the rights to Voltron in just 10 years. There is no plot or story, just an “lgbtq+ poc” version of the Voltron characters where they are “extra” POC & have “extra” POC names (Leandro for Lance & Akira for Keith). Broganes & Shiro/Adam are also things that feature in this AU & Pidge is “re-imagined” to be Jewish so she’s “more ethnic”, despite the fans accusing her Jewish voice actress to be a “white d*ke”. Shiro is re-named to be Hachiko & is now Keith/Akira’s adopted father & the only “straight” characters are the villains & the parents (because this is literally a strawman caricature of how life works). Akira & Leandro have nothing in common with Keith & Lance other than color themes & similar jokes. Their polar opposite personalities & relationship to their canon counterparts is another sign that klantis never truly cared about the characters or Voltron’s story in the first place.

Broganes: An AU where Shiro is Keith’s adoptive brother/father/uncle despite them having 2 entirely different families in canon. Named because of early fanon where Keith is Japanese & has the surname “Kogane” like in previous iterations of Voltron. Often buys into racist stereotypes regarding Asians & generic sitcom tropes regarding sibling relationships. Most often used to get Shiro away from Keith as a romantic interest so Keith can be shipped with Lance. Allura was paired with Shiro as “space mom”, but was later replaced with Adam. Keith is often characterized as a whiny emo younger brother who is bratty towards exasperated big brother Shiro & they pull pranks on each other (usually taken from lame Vines). They are also shown to be relatively uncaring of each other & distant, so that Lance can easily worm his way into Keith’s life as a boyfriend. AU first created by a 14 year old girl who’s obsessed with her sister, based the AU off of her idealized romanticized relationship with her sister & used to draw fanart for a R-18 Nitro+Chiral BL game (a company famous for games with gore, rape, bestialiaity, mechaphilia & general mindfuckery).

Dirty Laundry: the most popular & overrated Klance fic on ao3, often lauded to be the peak of Klance fics by klance shippers. Its popularity stemmed from popular klantis boosting it on their blogs only to shred it apart when DL’s Lance’s autistic brother appeared in it. The klantis ripped it apart for being racist, ableist, sexist, etc. & the author orphaned the fic after completing it due to the harassment she was getting from both sides (as shippers hated it too because of how hard the klance shippers were pushing it). Most infamous for a scene at the end where Keith & Lance danced to the song Gasolina, literally the least romantic song you could ever dance to. Popularized many of the tropes commonly seen in Klance fics. Was written before Lance was revealed to be Cuban, so DL has Mexican Lance instead.

There are more terms to be added, but I’ll make a proper page for it & add them later.

#vld discourse #voltron discourse #pro-shaladin #vld s7 spoilers #vld spoilers #tribute #Anonymous #le@kira

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stellardeer · 1 month ago

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Actually, I had this in the tags at first, but in the spirit of this post, I'm adding it in the main text for better formatting and visibility.

Adding commentary to reblogs used to be a cornerstone of posting here, and it was weird to watch it become much the opposite.

People didn't used to react to reblogs of their posts as if the person was coming into their blog to make commentary, it was understood that if you reblog a post then that is essentially your post now - you are showcasing it on your blog and adding commentary relevant to you/your blog, not necessarily responding to OP or expecting them to see your commentary.

But then at some point i started seeing people react to reblogs as if they were the same as like.. a comments section under and instagram post or something. Like yeah, sure, on a site like Instagram it is kinda weird if someone comments something unrelated under your post where only you and your followers will see it. But that's not what a reblog is, reblogging something is taking someone's else's content and showing it to your own followers, and sometimes you might want to add something to describe to your followers how it is relevant to you. It's more like a quote retweet I guess, I'm not a twitter person, I know those have a culture of being used to mock the OP and "ratio" them or whatever, reblogs are not that harsh but the concept is similar, you are sharing the post with your followers and adding your own opinion/story/reaction whatever for your followers to see, not necessarily for OP to see, even though they can see that obviously.

I feel like it really started around when they added reblog previews to notifications so people could more directly see what is being said on their posts, and people who stay checking their notifs for whatever reason felt like every comment was directed at them. Not sure if they were new users who didn't understand the culture or just got tired of it because it became more visible, who knows. But this attitude became widespread and the culture shifted to okay now we will just use the tags of the post for our unnecessary commentary. But then tumblr added a way to view tags on reblogs and people started getting mad about seeing that, too! I started seeing so many posts where people were calling out commentators in the tags like "you know I can see this, right?" Dude, it is not FOR YOU. Like if you don't want people sharing your posts use a different platform! Like at some point yall gotta understand that this is the taking and sharing website and that's what people do here.

Key point here, too, is "harmless" commentary, like obviously if someone is directly insulting OP or misrepresenting their words or trying to be funny but in a too-familiar way, that's worth calling out. But if I see someone reblog something and then add like "oh man this sounds like my ex haha fuck you Sheila!" and then OP goes out of their way to reblog their commentary and be like "why did you add this to my post" like no offense but I think OP is the one that looks rude in this scenario. Obviously that was not directed at you or intended for you, a reblog is not the same a comment or a direct message - it is possible to just ignore it and/or turn off notifications. That's the argument i always see, too "ummm its in my notifs" like okay?? and?? turn them off or accept that tumblr is not twitter or facebook or ig or whatever.

i think tumblr is too harsh on "unfunny reblogs" and that people should feel more willing and be more free to add harmless commentary to their reblogs. it's good for the posting ecosystem, and sometimes they will be winners. simultaneously, i do remove unfunny reblog additions from posts when reblogging them, yes. these can coexist. i simply ignore things online that i don't like

#also you can pry tag commentary from my cold dead hands #i accepted that adding comments on reblogs is no longer widely acceptable but you cannot shut me up unfortunately #others have pointed out that its annoying when people tag their friends in posts and i do kinda agree with that one #like we have dms now and a share button that sends it directly to someone we dont have to do that anymore lol

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fuckedupriot · 7 years ago

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I'm procrastinating

I was tagged by @stitchesespobeansturntan hello!!! nicknames? beep beep gender? i? don't know my pal star sign? cancer height? like 5'3 or 5'4 please send help or a stool for me to stand on time? 2:14 pm (edit bc as I post this it's 3:11 this took me nearly an hour rip at least I admit I was procrastinating with this) birthday? june 24 favourite bands? hippo campus, remo drive, public, bad suns, coin, walk the moon, foster the people, pinegrove, monday night, american authors, cruisr, the wrecks, weathers, saint motel, secret weapons, urban cone, x ambassadors, young the giant (OK I can literally go on forever and these are mostly in no particular order beyond hc & remo being my top faves rn) favourite solo artists? bleachers (jack antonoff), Andy grammer, oh god this is making me realize I don't listen to much solo stuff lmao OH I forgot to put focus ring (erik paulson) so adding that too also nathan stocker (hippo campus, but if ur reading this post you Knew That already) song stuck in my head? ok see this is hard to answer when I'm actively listening to music bc then that song is the only thing on my mind but I guess "don't know for sure" and "old ways" (both are by Monday Night) get stuck in my head a lot last movie you watched? see if I knew I'd be asked this I would have made sure it wasn't frickin zootopia but here we go it was fcuckign zootopia I s2g,, it's on Netflix oh my god I watched it bc of the meme and my dad ended up watching it with me for like over half of it??????? he was on his way to bed but just sat down and watched it last show you watched? I don't know?? I don't really specifically sit and watch stuff that often but I probably fell asleep with George Lopez on or somethin bc I always sleep with nickelodeon/nick@nite on,, when did you create your blog? probably in january this year but I started using it in february literally the day I saw them lol what do i post? hippo campus and random totally unrelated text posts last thing i googled? "focus ring bandcamp" (focus ring is erik from remo drive's solo stuff) do you have any other blogs? (like 100+ sideblogs mostly with hippo campus urls feel free to ask me for one or thirty lmao I was gonna maybe change this url or my main but I love both too much but here's the ones I sorta use) @oldrecordplayer (main) @remowalk (remo drive) also a twenty one pilots blog that barely gets updated and a blog that I thought id maybe use for public (the band!!) but nobody posts about them so it sits unused!!! @dottribe also ?? I've got a room design ideas blog with an iCarly url for some frickin reason?? @afanofhammers uh there's also my blog I used to use when I played runescape BUT I'm not even gonna talk about that anymore ashdkglh do you get asks? sometimes, mostly just random questions abt the boys!! why did you choose your url? lyrics to Violet!!! following? uhhhh around 2k bUT JUST TO BE CLEAR I've uh had this blog for years and I made the Mistake of following Everyone who interacted with my only post that had over like 200 notes lmao (it ended up getting like 3k I think rip) bUT that's how I met at least one friend on here so. worth it? followers? around 715 I think?? hello pals favourite colors? black, red, grey, white, gosh I'm boring but my room is all those colors so I'll list those lmao but I do love every color especially in rainbows (ahajskfl I'm Not straight pals) average hours of sleep? 3 or 13 I know that's not the true average mathematically speaking but if I were to do that I'd look like a normal person who sleeps a normal amount each night so I list both numbers so it shows how Truly a Mess I am lucky number? hmm never thought about it but? maybe 21 lol instruments? I tried to learn guitar but rip (literally oh no) to that idea and I bought a uke to try to learn to play that but i never did but it's cute it's rainbow!!! (of course it is though lmao) what am i wearing? dark blue jeans with holes in the knees and my work shirt that has a rainbow cat and a cucumber on the back it's not as cool as it sounds and next month I'm gonna put all of my hoards of shirts from the last like 2 years in a pile and burn them because I'm losing my job so I won't need them and then I can wear clothes I actually like to work ideally if I even have a job whoop$ (ok that $ was a frickin typo but. whoop$. OK that one was intentional) how many blankets do i sleep with? like 5 dream job? Having one after next month!!! lmao help me pals dream vacation? mpls to see a hippo campus home town show,, so close yet so far legit someone pick me up,, it's only like 600 miles out of ur way if ur from mpls pleas e (abt 300 each way) also uh I know I should say some kinda destination out of my Actual state I live in but I literally? don't have any place in mind I just love concerts favourite food? you can't go wrong with like pizza or sandwiches that covers a lot also pasta ?? nationality? I'm like. 90% Norwegian lmao ig my town claims to be the most Norwegian town in the USA or something ridiculous like that lmao idk I heard that somewhere but idk if it's confirmed tho? favourite song right now? buttercup by hippo campus!!! I just rewatched the video of the (I believe) first ever live recording of it from my first hc show back in feb and I just love that song so much and that video reminds me every dang time!!! I'm not gonna specifically tag anyone but if you'd like to do this go ahead!!

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hunkkeiths-blog · 7 years ago

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So I just scrolled 20000 years back on your blog like the creep I am and I saw you mention schizophrenic Keith headcanons but never actually saw schizo Keith headcanons and I'm 👀👀👀

once again thank you so much for sending this! i really really love this au but i never talk about it bc i feel like no one cares and this makes me sooo happy!

also sorry again for answering late i just wanted to be able to type everything relatively quickly and use a readmore

(i added links that lead to wiki pages to explain what certain stuff is, you don’t need to click them or anything)

ok so here goes

[Food mentions and slight emeto for this part]

Keith has a lot of trouble with food, both bc of sensory issues and paranoia

when its sensory, its mostly if the texture is too different to whats hes used to, or if theres too much taste and theres anything else (a sound, some lights flashing, whatever) hell get overwhelmed really easily. so he tries to stick to relatively tasteless stuff

Keith also gets a lot of persecutory delusions and some of the most recurring ones is that his food has been poisoned, having relatively tasteless food helps with not being as convinced of that

On good days (well as good a day as you can have when you think your food has been poisoned anyway), he can sort of just power through it and eat enough to not be starving.

On bad days, he either doesn’t eat at all, or if he only realises it after having eaten he becomes sick/makes himself sick.

Back on Earth, especially during his year alone, he had 3-4 “trusted foods/brands” and he almost exclusively only ate those

Once on the ship, things get very complicated, because from the start, he doesn’t trust the altean food goo (he still doesn’t if he’s entirely honest, but they’ve all been eating it and none of them are dead yet so if it is poisoned its slow acting enough) so he mostly only eats when hes absolutely starving for the first month or so before he slowly starts to eat more of the altean meals

He does however trust what Hunk cooks partly because he trusts Hunk, partly because Hunk eats it too, and (taste+texture of the food goo aside) hes always more comfortable when Hunk cooks.

[Warning ended]

While developing and after when he had it (which was 2 or 3 years before he entered the Garrison), Keith ended up almost entirely isolated from people, in part because he would willingly withdraw from others, in part because the people who took care of him after his father left/died (foster families i guess? i dont really know how the system works and i cant imagine how much worse it must be for a schizophrenic kid so) didn’t really know what to do with him because he had really bad emotional blunting

Because he was mostly left alone, he started focusing alot on the delusions he had at the time, the main one of which was that he just wasnt human (which yes turned out to be somewhat true, but it’s still a delusion). that led him to thinking of going to space because of a feeling that something would happen there. which led him to the garrison which is how he ended up there.

At the Garrison, he was amazing at flying and mediocre at best in all his other classes.

This is partly because outside of doing stuff that could actually directly get him to space, he wasnt able to get any motivation to do anything else. (even if he gets kicked out, he can just steal a rocket or something right?)

he also didnt really have any friends because he didnt approach anyone and more or less actively avoided anyone trying to get close to him.

the way he just was; never showing any emotion, barely speaking, the weird things he sometimes did, etc; sort of drove ppl away on its own

(this is also sort of the reason he didnt remember him and lances “rivalry” in s1ep1. he never actually noticed lance thought of him as a rival, he just thought lance was sort of loud)

Shiro ended up like being a mentor or something to Keith, and Keith wasnt able to really avoid him

They start off sort of rocky, because Keith hates interacting with other people, due to paranoid thoughts (”he can read my mind”, “he wants to hurt me”, and so on) that, while they werent nearly as bad as off meds, were still present even with medication.

Slowly though, Keith warms up to Shiro and starts trusting him (though shiro is never really sure because Keith doesnt show it at all)

Keith starts doing better in all his classes, because he’s interpreted that shiro will be extremely disappointed in him if he ends up getting kicked out because of poor grades, and hes terrified of disappointing literally the only person in the world he trusts

It also leads to Keith putting a minimum of effort into becoming at least somewhat expressive

When the kerberos mission fails, keith is destroyed. all his grades almost instantly drop and he barely shows up to class because losing the only person he trusts essentially makes him totally apathetic, and go back to having alot of paranoid thoughts/delusions (mostly surrounding the garrison staging the entire thing, sort of fake moon landing style but with actual murder to make people back off on exploring space because of Something), and feeling like he’s being stalked by people (not entirely untrue tbh), and deal with anhedonia. and thats how he gets kicked out/how he drops out

Living entirely alone (as in without any supervision) was hell for Keith.

Moving to the shack after dropping out messed with his entire routine, and without a relatively strict routine, he ends up forgetting his meds

Off medication, he had really really really horrible episodes that almost always ended with him getting hurt in some way

Off-meds, he starts his garrison/shiro conspiracy wall

He also found the blue lions cave during an episode

After a while (keith never tries to find out how much time he spent without his meds because he forgot about them), he ends up taking his antipsychotics again, and almost destroys the wall, except theres a feeling he still has that he rememebers he had during an episode.

He ends up going to the cave again, and “Holy shit that was real??” so he restarts his wall while being a bit more down to Earth.

The day shiro crashes on earth is one of the best days of his life bc, well, shiro, but also because he was actually right for once.

Overall, Keith’s pretty good at organising his thoughts and not speaking incoherently, but if hes at all stressed, hell go through a lot of thought blocking

It’s really annoying because Keith hates not being understood and not finishing his points, but often, even if the person hes talking to reminds him what he was talking about, he cant remember what he was going to say after

He also used to think that the thought blocking was aliens and/or the government stealing away all his thoughts to study humans (or, before the garrison: not entirely human entities)

His thoughts are alot more disorganised than his speech shows (under normal circumstances, there are occasions where he does get mostly incoherent). He’s learned to think of what hes going to say step by step before saying it

What he says often still comes off as not entirely thought out, rude, etc because thinking about what order words are going to come out of his mouth doesnt fix not understanding how to interact with others

And here’s a bunch of stuff i couldn’t really make long enough to warrant a separate section:

Keith stims mostly when hes nervous or bored, and he stims by scratching his nails against things, because he likes the sounds it makes.

[self harm (sort of)] at some point, the team notices that when theres nothing for him to scratch (like a wall or something), hell scratch at his own skin, because scratching fabric feels/sounds horrible, often until he scratches part of it off. so they make him these little squares of material to scratch at

Keith does a lot of magical thinking (i cant find an easy link for this but in this case its like seeing signs in things that are seemingly unrelated if that makes sense) where he’ll see a ‘sign’ and feel like he has to do something (what something is varies from something very specific to just “something”)

since he obviously cant always do what hes supposed to do after seeing the signs, hes started writing down everything so he can do it later (lance’s idea). it helps a lot.

Keith hates places with background noises that arent constant (like they stop and start, stop and start), even if they arent particularly loud, because he loses his entire train of thought whenever it stops or starts

Ok! that’s all I can think of right now, I hope this answered what you were looking for!

I lost my entire train of thought at least 5 times while typing this so I’ll probably add more things in my tag later on when I think of them again!

I’m also writing an actual story with this, it should come out around the end of June if you’re interested!

#schizo keith #i did not reread this im sorry if parts are incoherent #keith #voltron #vld #Anonymous

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