#if any of the people who i follow now stop using tumblr for whatever reason

[spaciebabie]

Do you also ever get sad that some of the people you follow haven't updated in a while and like send in a random ask just to make sure they're alive like I think this is called Common courtesy or just something I do but also I'm whining at some people's door like pookie come back :((

all the time brotha.....all the time......

theres people i follow still who havent updated in years and i miss them. one of my oldest mutuals stopped posting many years ago and i just hope they're doing well. i remember u and miss u buddy!!!!

[unforth]

Alright not to like liveblog my breakdown on main but yesterday was a really bad day after a really bad, like, 4 months, and I've hit a bit of a breaking point and one of the only things in my life that can give is running @mdzsartreblogs , @tgcfartreblogs , @svsssartreblogs , @erhaartreblogs , @tykartreblogs , and @cnovelartreblogs , so that is what has to give. It's been a 99-out-of-100 days thankless job. A small number of people do say thank you and yall I appreciate you so much (HUGE shout-out to the artist I met at Flamecon who gifted me a zine when I said I ran these blogs, @bonesblubs you rock) but I have never done an act of fandom labor simultaneously this labor intensive yet this invisible before and, uh. It sucks. I spend an hour or more a day on this every day, if it's under 2k hours since I started the first of these in September 2020 I'd be shocked. And I do it because I love it but doing it means I don't have time or energy to do other things I love. And I really don't want to just quit, but I can't keep this up.

In a last-ditch effort to try not to just give up, I'm making the following changes:

1. Only watching one tag per fandom for the MXTX fandoms. I am going to check *only* #tgcf, #svsss, and #mdzs. Artwork posted to any other tag, I will not see unless a mutual reblogs it.

2. Reduced tagging (even more). I'm only going to tag characters and maybe overarching au type (eg, "modern au," "fantasy au"). I'll no longer tag creatures. I will continue to tag the same common trigger warnings I already tag.

3. If a work's appearance doesn't make it obvious what it is AND the tags aren't clear, I'm not going to reblog. I can't keep spending 5 minutes or more trying to figure out what I'm even looking at, scared that if I guess wrong the artist will get mad at me for mistagging their work. If I do reblog, I'll tag only the artist name and/or whatever else I can identify for sure.

4. I am no longer going to follow #link click. The fandom is just too big. I've started dreading checking it. If I was more into it and less busy I would make another spin off just for it but neither of those is true. (The art is so good, I hate to do this, but. If you love link click, highly recommend the main tag, lots of great stuff there.)

5. I will no longer tag any non-cnovel content in the art/post. Like, if someone draws, idek, Xie Lian and Marinette from Ladybug, I'm not gonna put any tags for Marinette, just for Xie Lian.

6. Basically if I run into something hard to tag or confusing or unclear, my new policy is I'm not gonna fricken bother.

I think those are everything but idefk, I cried for 3 hours last night and got 4 hours of sleep so I'm mostly fueled by exhaustion and desperation right now and my memory is even more fried than usual.

How artists can help. This is obviously all optional. You do you. But since some people might want to know what would make my life easier, I'm sharing. I'm not claiming I feel entitled to dictate how people fandom or anything like that.

1. Put the tags for the character(s) and ship(s) early in the tag list.

2. If you make art for a fandom that isn't one of the big ones (right now the only big danmei fandoms on tumblr as far as I can tell are the MXTX fandoms and maybe 2ha) I am begging you to use my tracked tag #cnovelartreblogs

3. Do mdzs art? Tag #mdzs. Do tgcf art? Tag #tgcf. Do svsss art? Tag #svsss.

4. Not only artists, but everyone, *please* stop tagging fandoms not discussed and/or depicted in your post. It's gotten to be stupid common for people to blanket the danmei fandom tags with posts only about one fandon (like, svsss-only works also being tagged mdzs and tgcf and 2ha for some damn reason). This isn't about just my sideblogs tbh this is just fandom etiquette that seems to have been forgotten or never learned by many. Tagging unrelated fandoms isn't "reach," it's annoying. People go into the #mdzs tag to see mdzs, not whatever not-mdzs stuff people have decided to tag for ~reach~, and seeing the same post in 8 tags, none of which it's related to, is so damn irritating, and makes scrolling the tags looking for content that IS relevant take that much longer. Knock it off.

Okay. I think that's as much as I'm prepared to meltdown where everyone can see. Thanks in advance everyone for your understanding, and apologies to everyone about to see this 8 times as I reblog it to each sideblog.

At least I'm not tagging it to everywhere. 🤣🤣🤣

[celerydays]

Hi! I have been following you for some time and I notice you draw more and more Sebastian and Ominis doing stuff that makes me... uncomfortable.....

Sebastian and Ominis are best friends, why people are obsessed with drawing them into weird gay stuff? Seriously.... Why can't be friends.... without all Sebinis... Just stop it...

Normally I would delete messages or simply ignore the things that make me feel uncomfortable–

But, you're on anon and this is my ask inbox, so I can only assume you want an actual, public response. So alright. Fine.

Like I said: normally I would just remove odd, uncomfortable, or even outright rude messages without making a whole thing of it. I curate my own online experience and I try my best to live by that rule.

However, I've now gotten multiple unsolicited DMs over the course of a couple of months expressing the exact same sentiment (and nearly word-for-word as this ask, so I highly suspect I already know who you are). I have duly ignored or glossed over them hoping that the person/people would take the hint to simply stop engaging with the same message over and over again. But an anon ask is my last straw, I guess.

So if you are the same person as in my DMs, I'm finally giving you a response (and if you're not the same person – which I highly doubt – then I'm speaking to both of you).

Firstly, I want to say that I am sorry that your worldview is so limited that this is your stance and feelings on gay/queer ship content for Sebastian and Ominis.

Next, I ask that you please:

Don't make your homophobia anyone else's issue but your own. Don't come into DMs/ask inboxes/comments to make your discomfort with the content I create my problem. I don't know what you hoped to accomplish by sending this message but it's unlikely that you'll find the same feelings or sympathy from the person who is actively creating queer/sebinis content.

Curate your own online experience. Once again, do not make your content consumption anyone else's problem but your own. The "unfollow" button is there. Tumblr has a tag filtering system and I try to tag my art and content as accurately as possible. If you do not like something/it makes you uncomfortable, then do not continue to consume it. And if you still decide to stick around for whatever reason, then please keep your thoughts/opinions on this matter to yourself because I can promise that I don't actually care why you would continue to be here and looking at my art if it makes you unhappy.

Widen your worldview and try to reframe your perspective. Consider that Sebastian x Ominis is just as canon as Sebastian x f!MC or Ominis x f!MC. As much as we like to ship our various MCs with the canon characters, MC never actually amounts to canonically being confirmed as anything but being just friends with everyone. Using the "they are just best friends" / "why can't they just be portrayed only as friends" could literally be applied to just about any other non-canon/non-confirmed ship between friends regardless of gender. If even one of them, Ominis or Sebastian, was portrayed as cis female in canon, I would suspect that you would better "understand" why a ship between these two "friends" may exist. Then also consider a cis male MC; it's possible you may suddenly reframe all the interactions between Ominis x m!MC or Sebastian x m!MC in your head to be "totally platonic/friendly". Your issue is certainly not with their canon relationship vs. fandom portrayal (but I think we both know that).

Educate yourself. Go outside and meet and talk to people, I dunno. It is 2024 my dude. I don't even know how you're on Tumblr – the most queer-friendly social media site – with those kind of narrowed views and stigma.

I would like to finish by saying: I don't wish you the best. What I do wish is for you to learn, grow, and be better than this.

And also please stop sending me messages of this nature, because the next ask or DM I get like this, we're moving on to blocking at this point. And if your purpose was to get me to stop, I can tell you that these messages have only fueled the explicit sebinis smut maker in me. 😤

[atticsandwich]

SPOILERS FOR THE NEWER LESSONS IN NIGHTBRINGER - careful fellow followers of this blog <3

i love the current lessons so much actually because there is honestly so much underlying angst / potential for it! i doubt the devs will go that deeply into that direction and i don’t think it would translate well within the game anyway but just imagine mc getting more and more concerned about their own powers that also shape their relationship with everyone else… sure everyone loves mc but dia/barb and solomon have entire realms to protect and therefore wish to have mc on their side if push comes to shove (which has been a recurring topic in nb)… mc getting increasingly insecure / afraid that they’ll be seen as a tool / weapon first instead of a friend… i mean especially after being used as bait??? solomon showing his shady side again??? AAAH!!! THINK OF ALL THE POSSIBILITIES!!!

Yes yes YESSSS

also i love that we're given the option to be mad that the people mc loves are being used as "bait" to draw out their power. obey me has been very passive about how mc responds to situations sometimes that them being mad is a great thing!!

re: angst, yeah, i get you, they haven't really hit the mark on really leaning into angst yet, and although i doubt they'll hit this one, i still have high hopes about how it's going to conclude or how they'll handle the situation (the fact that they got teleported to babel + michael's texts to simeon makes me think raphael is FINALLY going to burst and let out all the emotions he's been bottling for literal millenia)

SPEAKING OF RAPHAEL. again, i love that tlhe's the side character focus on a season with the underlying fact of simeon's transformation to a demon - his reactions and avoidance of the situation, even though he's already made aware of it by michael, coupled with the fact that he still has hidden guilt over what happened during the celestial war....... MANNNNN IM SOO EXCITED FOR RAPHAEL DEVELOPMENT AND EXPOSITION..... hopefully this means mephisto and thirteen will also have their own time in the spotlight soon regarding glimpses of their backstories and developing realtionship with the cast (and mc in particular)

ON A SIDE NOTE. anyone else catch how barb reacts after solomon and mc chooses to keep the reason for mc's growing power a secret??? yeahhhhh he defo knows. dude raised solomon and is the demon of time, of course he'd know. knowing him, he probably just wants to see how it plays out, considering he's powerful enough to mitigate any real catastrophe from actually happening (hellooo he was literally contingency plan number 1 from the sf final) love the thought of him just going. heh. this'll be fun to watch :>

ANYWAYSSSSSS im gonna stop yapping now thank u for asking anon and for anyone reading my thoughts. granted i know a lot of these are very tip of the iceberg but i would rather not do a full dissertation on tumblr. knock knock tumblr staff can u add voice notes. no relation to me wanting to yap whatsoever................) (<- says the guy who made and posted an essay about celestial realm parallels to irl catholicism and power structure. WHATEVER!!!!!)

[sephirthoughts]

so we need to talk about this...thing

not caelus, i mean this…whatever this thing is.

apparently it's associated with the trailblazer's new ability. whatever it is, it's godawful, and i am very unhappy to see it in star rail. it looks like it was made by an AI specifically to be the most lazy, cloying, repulsive, corpo-cutesy object in existence. it's assembly line design trash and worse, it seems to be the irrelevance bell tolling for star rail. it happened a lot faster than it did for genshin, too.

this sucks especially bad considering all the really GOOD character designs and interesting story stuff and environments we've seen that will be coming with the amphoreus update. but it looks like if we want to enjoy any of that, we're going to be stuck with this obnoxious sentient carbuncle stuck to us.

i was SO RELIEVED to be rid of paimon and this is how you do me hoyoverse? also who is the target audience here? do you seriously think all your players are six-year-old girls?

what it looks like to me is the first warning signs that star rail is following genshin down the garbage chute into incomprehensible design trash. don't believe me? this is the kind of garbage genshin has been subjecting players to for the past 18 months.

most people are probably not bothered by this stuff and will just tolerate or ignore it, which is fine. i am simply venting some frustration i have and have heard often from other players. if you actually like this kind of rancid aesthetic, there is no help for you, comrade, and i am not talking to you in this post (also what are you doing on tumblr you have to be at least 13 to have an account).

but for myself and most other players i know, the downhill slide into this cloying, overwrought, over-designed garbage is literally the reason most of us stopped playing genshin and moved to star rail. that and a lot of fontaine was intensely boring, and natlan is a complete top-to-bottom shitpile.

this is coming from a place of caring deeply for genshin and being burned pretty badly, and starting to see the same thing happen to star rail. it's just...extremely disappointing. especially when there was SO MUCH i loved about both games, and SO MUCH that was good and truly fun and wonderful to experience.

i know it's too late to turn the design ship back since this is the way it's headed now, and no amount of bitching by the players who care will help, so i'll just say i will always appreciate and miss the sense of wonder and joy these games brought me, for the time that they did.

also seriously screw you hoyoverse THIS IS WHY WE CAN'T HAVE NICE THINGS

[stormblessed95]

Hi Storm,

You were the first account I followed here and I’ve been through almost every post relating to member dynamics on your masterlist.

I’m finding this very hard to articulate but you’ve always said if you receive asks that are respectful you will indulge. I am making a lot of effort in trying to phrase my sentences in such a way that they do not offend and would like to apologise in advance if they do. It is not my intention.

Some time ago, there was discourse on your page where you said jikookers have bullied you and did not support you when you were being bullied. I am not sure when that was. I’m sorry you went through that. You put in a lot of effort to write the member dynamics posts and it’s quite shocking that people don’t respect it, value your effort and then bully you.

During that discussion you said something along the lines of jikookers becoming like taekookers as they allow the abuse of Taehyung. You said the fandom back in the day allowed Taekookers to fester because they didn’t take a harsher stand against what they were doing. I am paraphrasing or maybe I didn’t get the gist of it.

I don’t think jikookers or any other sub set of this fandom is anywhere near Taekookers. The reason is that most ot7 are Taekookers. When the fandom allowed hate against jimin, it gave rise to the most vile fandom and it is the largest part of army’s even today Jimin and his family get bullied and called all names and it’s is allowed because no one can shoot 90% of the fandom down and all those who allowed it are responsible for that shit show.

So then why are people and yes, most are Jikook stans, why are they called out if they so much as criticise Taehyung for some of the things he does? Did he have to join a Jikook show? No, did he have to post those pictures during muse? No. Did he have to name call Jungkook every single live? No. Does he visit fandom spaces? Yes. He sees the shit that goes on in there. Yes. He has sued people because he supposedly wants to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves but is ok when his fans call his fellow member a slut? Can you all not be objective enough to criticise him for this behaviour? Not everyone will like everyone you like, but you are an ot7 army so you should be objective enough to accept criticism too. But instead you shut everyone down? That’s a bit harsh don’t you think?

I say all of the following with respect, I promise. My intention is not for this to read as harsh or rude in any capacity. I'm making this disclaimer now because I know sometimes, it's hard to get tone in text. I'm being straightforward and serious with you. And my tone is meant to be one of kindness, softness and respect while being serious and rather blunt about it.

Anyone who tells me that they didn't see the hate campaign that reigned against me last year is either lying, or brand new to Jikook Tumblr. Or you took a 2 month long break and only came back after I was on hiatus, which then, if you checked my account at all, you still would've seen it. I guess the last option was that you just never checked my page until I came back. I'd much rather if anyone would bring it up, just be honest. Yeah, I saw that, I was silent, my bad, it was a mistake. Or it wasn't a mistake, I agreed with your haters and I'm still just here because I want your content. Whatever it is, I would much rather the honesty. Idk which of these categories you fall into, if any, but why bring it up just to try and discredit my feelings about jikookers and toxic behaviors being allowed to fester? I stand by what I said. You don't have to agree with me. That's your prerogative. I have never tried to tell people how to feel, I've only ever said that I will curate my space and use my block button freely to stop from seeing opinions I have no desire to see.

True OT7s are not taekookers, follow better people. Idk what else to tell y'all about that. When I say toxic behaviors being allowed to fester, I mean that taekookers way back when weren't nearly so bad as they are now. It used to be the same petty bullshit that so many shippers are now pulling. Except it never got checked, so it grew and festered and boiled until it's now as bad as it is with taekookers. If you don't stop the same petty revenge toxicity in Jikookers now, the same thing will end up occuring. And I don't want to see anyone complain to me in a few years about it, because all I'll be able to say is I told you so.

The last part of your message dear, just reads as essentially asking permission to be hateful towards Tae. Idk if that was your intention, but it's how it comes across to me at least. It's not criticism. There is stuff we can be critical about towards our idols, BTS included. Nothing you listed is worth criticism and is just things his antis use to bring hate against him. It's the same thing that tkkrs do. Nitpick stupid stuff to give themselves a reason to hate on Jimin. It's not worth it. And you will be a happier person in long run if you stop trying to hate Tae and just hate the antis that are the ones responsible for their own behaviors.

I'm not shutting anyone down (this is also the phrase that makes me question if you truly "don't know anything about me being bullied") I am saying I won't tolerate any kind of hate speech on MY blog about any of the 7 members. (even if you don't think it's hateful, on my blog, I have the right to decide what is and isn't discussed. Other blogs will draw different lines in the sand, and you can find GCs, or Start your own blog where you can say whatever you want. That's the beauty of the Internet.) You can do whatever you want in your own spaces. I personally, want nothing to do with it. I have bigger fish to worry about it. I'm here for BTS, all 7 of them. And I'm more concerned about k-media and the harassment our boys suffer from them and antis of all kind. Way more than I could ever pretend to be concerned about Tae talking about one of his best friends.

And again, I sign off with this whole thing respectfully, and with the hope that you also, take no offense to the way I phrased anything. Even if you disagree.

~ Storm 💜

[olderthannetfic]

I'm a known writer for my fandom. It's a very small fandom, so it doesn't really mean anything, but I got there early and built a nice little following.

I don't know what happened in the past few weeks, but I suddenly started getting a bunch of anon asks in my inbox demanding I express myself on the "issue" that is the current Palestinian situation. I've been ignoring them, blocking the anons, but they just kept fucking coming.

Under my last fic, I got a couple of guest comments accusing me of being antisemitic and a couple of guest comments accusing me of being an islamophobic colonizer. Under the same story!! How???

I had to disallow guest comments and anons, so now I keep receiving insults and demands that I express my opinion through sock puppet accounts. I don't know how many fucking times I've been so far labelled as a Zionist and an antisemite, and the last asks I've received got really over the top and violent, claiming that I'm the reason why Palestinian children are dying and I'm a privileged white woman (I'm not white and emigrated from a third world country, but ok) and I'm contributing to genocide.

And I'm so fucking tired of this internet activism! So, so fucking tired!

Because the reason why I engage with fandom is to take a step away from reality. I watch the fucking news, I spend my due time informing myself about global issues on the internet, I do discuss this shit with my IRL friends and colleagues and family members, I go to protests, and during the BLM protests I was out there helping with water and first aid.

But fandom is fucking me time. It's the time of my day when I unplug my brain and write whatever the fuck I want, reblog gif sets on Tumblr, and watch thirst traps on TikTok. I don't log into Tumblr, the site that cunts use to spread misinformation and fake Go Fund Me's and people who pretend to have written My Immortal to promote their shitty memoir, to receive or do any kind of information.

Stop looking for influencers and random people on the internet to explain to you global issues! Why the fuck are you people so into your own asses that you can't fucking understand the reason why some kid who got famous for dancing while wearing cat ears doesn't want to talk about their opinion about far more serious matters?

Everything has a place and a time, and some people realize that their audience goes to them to detach from reality, rather than being reminded of it.

"Oh, but if you don't talk about it, it means you're supporting the bad guys!" Sure! Because the fucking apartheid is build specifically on me not wanting to use my fandom blog to post pictures of dead children and raped women! Too bad that Nelson Mandela became an activist before the internet, uh? He could've solved a bunch of issues by posting a couple of Insta stories!

"Oh, you don't realize how privileged you are to be able to ignore the issue!" I'm not fucking ignoring it, I'm ignoring it in places where my opinion matters less than zero! And yes, I'm fully aware that I'm privileged to be able to ignore it, but you're disgusting because you're using it as a way to build a following on a blogging platform. Hope that posting pictures of slaughtered human bodies was really worth the 50 followers it got you, Allison!

I don't know if this makes sense. Whatever. I'm fucking pissed.

--

Sounds like a bunch of clowns in a discord somewhere decided to target you or something.

[dbnightingale24]

Bad Habits

A Thomas Shelby Love Story

~~

Part 1

~~

Alright, before everyone starts yelling at me, I promise that the final part to my Ransom story is almost done. It's slightly longer than this one, and I'm being extremely picky about it cause I wasn't necessarily happy with the last one I posted. That being said, my husband and I binged all six seasons of 'Peaky Blinders' in five days, so now we have this. I'm also posting this one first because I used a different approach on this story and it's giving me extreme anxiety lol. I tried to capture the accents and the essence of the show, so I really hope you all like it! Anyway, here goes! Thank you, as always, to @fuckingbye for the amazing moodboard, I love you and will build a monument to your greatness.

Word Count: 24,549 (to those of you who are new: I'm sorry. To those who aren't: this is me being on my best behavior and you know it.)

Warnings: SMUT (MINORS DNI) , Swearing, Drinking, Drug Use, Depression, Religion, Fluff, Anxiety attacks, Cheating, Abusive Relationship, Angst (c'mon now, it's me), Family Drama, Child Trauma (if you squint)...I think that's it. It dives deeper into a lot of things in part 2.

Song(s) That Inspired This Chapter: I Only Know How To Go Too Far

I do not give consent/permission for my works/stories to be posted elsewhere. I do not condone this type of behavior, this is for entertainment purposes only.

~~

His eyes meet yours from across the room and you know you’re fucked. You should’ve stayed away. Yes, it’s your sister’s engagement party, but you knew he’d be here. The way your family loves the Shelby family...you knew. You knew he’d show up and would be looking for you. Still, you came and you know it’s because you miss him. God, you miss him like crazy.

Thomas fucking Shelby.

“Oi! Come over here, love!” Arthur calls, drunken smile on his face as he makes eye contact with you from across the hall.

“You stay away!” you laugh as he makes his way to you.

“Lets have a dance, eh?” he suggests as he finally reaches you.

“You, Arthur Shelby, shall not lay a finger on me tonight, or any other night,” you smirk, grabbing your glass and taking a swig from it.

“And why is that?”

“Tommy ‘ll kill ya,” you giggle, nodding across the room to where he’s sitting with his wife, Grace. 

“He has no say in it now, does he? He’s married.”

“As if that ever stops the Shelby men,” you tease and he flips you off.

“One dance.”

“Not tonight, Arthur. Besides, a man of your status seen with a woman like me? What will the people think?”

“Who cares? I know how I’ll feel,” he smirks and you burst out laughing.

You really have missed the Shelby men.

“What’s so funny, eh?” Thomas asks, causing you to jump cause you didn’t even notice that he had made his way over.

“Nothin’,” you giggle, feeling the burn of Grace’s glare on you, “what ya doin’ over here without your lady, Thomas?”

“Just wanted to see what ’m missin’ out on.”

“I think I’ve found someone more agreeable to my needs,” Arthur smiles as he makes eyes with a woman across the room, “if you’ll excuse me,” he nods as you start laughing again while he walks off.

“So, you’re fucking Arthur now?”

“Watch it, Thomas,” you warn, cutting your eyes at him before taking another sip of your drink.

“You used to call me Tomcat.”

“What do you want?”

“Come with me.”

“And if I don’t feel like it?”

“Come with me,” he demands in a harsher tone and contradictory smile, before starting to walk out.

You roll your eyes as you grab your glass and bottle before following him out. 

You’ve known for a while that it angers him that you don’t fear him in the slightest. You also know that it irritates him that there’s no reason for you to be scared of him; you two have been through so much and have known each other for so long...

~~

The rest is on AO3. For whatever reason, Tumblr won't let me post the whole thing on here -_-

Here's the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49359964

~~

taglist: @emerald-evans, @autumnrose40

[twstedpometea]

Addressing the "No Harassment" rule people are still breaking.

Hello everyone it's been about 5 months since I last posted anything Ugigiugi-related. However, I was recently messaged over something I still have to address because some of yall ain't listening to what many of us have been saying since this Ugigiugi drama began. This will be a long post.

There has always been a rule of "No harassing" people about the Ugigiugi situation.

This rule has always extended to people who do not want to see/hear the drama in the Twst fandom but also to people who used to/currently follow Ugigiugi. Anyone who's followed my blog knows I've already had to talk about harassment/spamming before but it seems no matter what people keep breaking this rule.

I was recently messaged that one (former) follower of Ugigiugi was being harassed. This same person who messaged me is someone who has helped save/sent us some of Ugi's now hidden art and given us some art sources since the drama unfolded. They have already explained to me that they only follow Ugigiugi on DA now for the sake of keeping an eye on her activity and nothing else.

Now I'm aware there are several reasons people still follow Ugigiugi on DA. I know some people follow her by watching her profile. Others use tabs/HTML links to said profile and so on. Whatever reason doesn't matter people follow people for different reasons. That being said once again I am still seeing this type of harassment going on and it needs to be addressed. I was sent these screenshots and have permission to post these by the person being harassed.

So first off. This is STILL harassment. I'll keep saying it till the cows come home. Harassment of any type is against what a lot of us here have been saying to not do. Secondly, Let me correct people here on something. A watch doesn't equal a "boost" or supporting number on a profile. DeviantArt doesn't work the same way Tumblr or Twitter works when it comes to boosting a profile to the "popular" side of a Social media page. Engagement/activity/views on art pieces are what boost the algorithm. (More so you have to be breaking BIG NUMBERS to get your profile on the front page) That being said? Ugigiugi's numbers have dropped since she was exposed. She used to be pretty close to 600 watchers. She's now down to 315. So if anything she's lost half of her numbers, and with her no longer posting on DA she's lost traction as of this time. Thirdly, it's juvenile to be going after Ugigiugi's "watchers". At that point, you're just looking to start a witch hunt for people. Ironically, you're also going after the people who have been helping me and others since the drama unfolded. I need people here to stop going after people like this. You shouldn't be harassing anyone. It doesn't even matter if they're a watcher/or a fan of Ugigiugi or someone who might be helping keep an eye on her. We've stated time and time again, to not be harassing anyone. PERIOD! I'm going to go ahead and say this if anyone is getting harassed about the Ugigiugi stuff please just go ahead and block or report them. I'm getting very tired of having to repeat the rules because people are looking to use their "ugi hate" on someone. As for whoever this Cerulea--blue person? I don't know if they are a user here or if their under a different name on Tumblr but if you see this post? Kindly, stop. If you have so much energy to be doing something then go source Ugigiugi's traced art (there are still plenty of unsourced pieces) or something more productive than harassing people. You are literally not helping no one at all and you are just breaking the rules and boundaries a lot of people have been set about this drama. -TwstedPomeTea

[pink-pumpkin-princess-bitch]

DNI lists are stupid and dangerous

Ok now I have your attention and your pitchforks pointed at me, let's clear the following:

I'm not an expert in internet history or internet theory, although I do have an extended diploma in Creative Media, which lends itself to audience theory and thus fandom theory, which helps base some of my thoughts here.

I have no issues with people who use DNI lists for whatever reasons they have. My issue is more with the culture surounding it and the reasons these practices exist.

This is a rambling vent on my general complex feelings regarding the topic. This is (at least currently) unresearched.

So, why do I think they're stupid and dangerous?

Well, I'm not quite old enough to remember this, but there was a time when if you where on the internet, you hid your information. You guarded it. Because the internet was dangerous. People online are, for the most part, strangers. People used to, and still do, keep their information close to their chest.

So my main concern is, of course, that safty that many people have tossed to the wind. DNIs don't inherently force people to give out this information, but it does create a culture and expectation to give out this information or be pushed away by the people requesting this information.

Age might be the most obvious piece of information to come to mind, and it is the most common. "Minors DNI" is everywhere on +18 blogs. And that's absolutly fine at first glance. Someone showing mature content may not want kids around their content. But this is the internet, and this is where I think it's stupid as well as dangerous.

Kids lie. Lots of people lie, not just kids. And there's only 2 routes to go regarding this. Either you trust everyone is the age they say they are, effectively invalidating the point of the DNI in the first place, or you confirm it somehow. Well, every way they could confirm it is, from what I'm aware, legally dubious at best and legally illegal at worst. I might be wrong here tho. I'm not in law. But even if it's not illegal, requesting proof of age is extremely bad for multiple reason I think are pretty obvious.

But more and more, kids aren't lying. Instead they're out here putting down how young they are and blowing the whistle for any predator to come walking in and give them reasons to have DNI lists. And that's the exact opposite of what DNI lists seem to want to achive.

Specifically with "Minors DNI", it also perpetuates this culture of having to curate our own audience, be aware ourselves of who is interacting with us, and make sure the children don't hear things they shouldn't. To be blunt, I hate this. I hate this in the same way I hate Unalive and PDF file and Seggs. I'm not on Tiktok. I'm not on Kidsbop. I'm not advertiser friendly. Remember how they added strict laws on how kids are to be advertised to? Yeah me neither.

Expanding now to all DNI lists, and various other limits and boundaries, when did Tumblr stop being the place you Curated your own experience? Yes, I fully understand tag blocking works very little at times and is a chore if it's a genuine major trigger for you. But I'd argue it's even less effective to hold a big sign saying exactly what you don't want to see and crossing your fingers people will be nice enough to read it and listen.

Overall they're simply ineffective and encorage the sharing of details many other people may not want to share. We're all strangers on the internet. We don't need to know eachother's takes on x y or z. If it becomes relevant it will, and if not, who are we to demand that of eachother.

This is why I say I have no issue with people who use them. It's when my place in those boxes then falls into scrutiny just for passing by your blog does it becomes an issue. If I see your DNI, and I still interact with you, it's safe to assume I do not fall into that DNI. If you are still paranoid about this, you genuinely may need help working through whatever may be going on in your life to make the place someone falls into that box for you so important. This is not to say it isn't important, but it is to say paranoia is not the default you should act on. If it's truly that important and you must act on it, block the person rather than interogate them.

Now, as a closing word, I do have to mention I am in a position of privlage from my own standpoints on this. I was, to an extreme fault, very open about myself online growing up. Not only that, but with my father (may he choke on his spit) made me a Facebook account at around 12. So, for the past decade, possibly even longer, all the information someone could want about me has been out on the internet. This lead to obvious things. I've been groomed. I've been in some truly horrible circles. And I've had a very odd perspective on things growing up. For me, this information cannot be put back. Pandora's box has already been opened for me. So regrettably, I'm still fairly open about myself. Not nearly as much as I used to be, but it means I personally don't have issues providing the information requested of DNIs.

The only reason I haven't provided my age on this blog until now has been because I don't want to give the wrong impression. I don't want to encorage people the same way I feel DNI lists do to share information. At the bottom of it all, I don't want people to grow up without the safty and security of private information like I did.

For now, that's most of my thoughts. If you want to senselessly argue about the right to DNI lists existing, please don't bother. I don't care. I'm already fine with that and it just tells me you didn't read this. If you wanna correct me on certain bits, I'd love to know, long as you have some sources or something to help. As I said, this is currently unresearched. I'm sure there's some older internet historians and anthropologists out there who know far more than me. For now, that's it. Thanks for reading this longwinded vent.

[spaciebabie]

"but spacie, i have no followers why should i reblog things" let me answer this question using myself, a person who has been using tumblr for almost a decade now, as an example. pre 2022 the most followers i ever had was like 125. most of them were dead blogs. killed in the porn ban or just people who had left for whatever reason. out of the people left who were still active, i had like 3 people at the most interact with my blog on a monthly basis. for years b4 this, i had ZERO FOLLOWERS but upon making my blog i saw all the other ppl who had been using this website longer than me talking abt how important it was ta reblog shit, and throughout all these years on tumblr, even when i had no followers i reblogged things. b/c i understood that it was integral ta the way this site functions.

now mind you, just b/c i had no followers didn't mean ppl wouldn't stop by and reblog things from my blog. every couple months id have a new person find me and reblog something. maybe they'd reblog a lot of stuff! the point is that id go months without any interaction at times and i STILL reblogged things because i knew people could find me and see something they liked on here. eventually people who frequently checked my blog ta see what i would reblog followed me!! im sure there’s ppl who dont follow me that ta this day who still reblog the stuff on here!! the point is that it genuinely doesnt matter how many followers you have. sure, it certainly helps, but ppl can still find and interact with the things on your blog without you having thousands or even hundreds of followers. so PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE reblog things.

[pardonmydelays]

There hasn't been much news about him [LMM] lately for a while now until this month, so it's understandable to lose interest (I guess is the right term) in him and his projects. Warriors is definitely a huge step back for him! If he really is collaborating with Taylor Swift on this like we all began to speculate in April, then I would have rather it been some extended version of her song from TTPD featuring him. He is extremely capable of writing songs and creating characters for original musicals (even if they are based on a film or novel), and it just disappoints me that he went this route instead of spend his time and energy on a new original musical. Give me a reason to go to New York! I'm still going to to try and go next year anyway because there's a musical I really want to see (and because I am in dire need of going back), but I'm trying to get into musicals more and Lin just kinda ✨ threw away his shot ✨ with this one. As for Disney, yeah, I'm not entirely excited about that too, especially seeing that he probably chose Mufasa: The Lion King over Moana 2. I love "We Know the Way" and "An Innocent Warrior" the most! And "You're Welcome" and "How Far I'll Go". Bro really could've given us more songs like those in Moana 2... I'm sure the music will be good regardless, but it just lowkey sucks that he didn't write any of them.

I hope he has more, EXCITING projects coming up that he's been keeping a secret...

literally all of this - i agree with every single one of your words and i'm glad someone who's also a fan of his work has pretty much the same opinion about all of this (the warriors, collab with taylor, moana 2). there's really nothing more to say about this. we just have to wait and see what happens.

i don't think losing interest would be the right term in my case tho... it's actually more than that and i don't even know if i want to talk about it, but maybe i should. this fandom fucking destroyed my mental health to the point i don't want to be a member of this community anymore. i'm still a fan. i still follow him and i still love his work. i'm trying to keep up with all the updates. i know everyone here probably thinks i just found myself a new obsession and this is the reason i don't talk about lin anymore. trust me, i listened to in the heights the other day and i started sobbing like a goddamn clown. i still love him and i always will. i think it all went down when i created my musical theatre instagram account and started being more active in the fandom... the energy there is slightly different than here. people are actually fighting for his attention. his birthday was like a fucking shit show of who would do more just to be noticed by him. i kinda started feeling like maybe i am worth nothing because i've never met him, never been to new york (simply because i cannot afford it at the moment) or never been noticed, or maybe i haven't been here long enough, well, i also don't have a motherfucking role in this fandom - i'm not a writer, i don't make art, no talents at all, i'm just here to admire and enjoy his work. it all went too far and i was even too fucking tired to keep answering all the asks i was getting about him (and there was a lot of them at some point, probably because i was the most active member of this community on tumblr and someone who was always defending him and people started treating me like a person who knows fucking everything about him and that's just not true). i enjoyed it for a while. then i stopped. who the fuck even am i to be treated like a goddamn leader of the fandom or whatever the case was. i don't know. all i know is that it was just too much. i appreciate the fact that i was getting so many nice messages from all those people but ugh... i was once asked about discord server for his fans and i decided to create one with a huge help of my mutuals. then i fucking left. my own discord server. i don't even think anyone noticed. lmao. nobody actually asked me why, so that's what i assume. i was exhausted and drained. i just think people are taking all of it too seriously??? it was actually my mistake that i ever let myself think i was worth less than others because of all those stupid things. anyway. i don't want any of this. i hope no one in this fandom even remembers me now, maybe except those people i still talk to. the rest is history.

you may think i am making the same mistake now, but no. it's different. i am just here to have a good time, reblog silly pictures with my silly little tags and maybe make some of my mutuals laugh. i also want the new members of the fandom to feel loved and safe and to know that they are all equally important, doesn't matter if they were here years ago or joined last week. it's all just so fucking stupid. i don't have a role and i don't want one. i'm just here to enjoy it, it's way more fun this way - tumblr is actually great for me again.

i have no idea why i decided to use your ask as an opportunity to tell all of this. i don't know. i'm sorry. it just had to be said i fear.

one last thing, if you really want to get into musicals more, i can recommend you some of my favourites. i have a good taste actually!

[donnerpartyofone]

I'm on your Tumblr because we used to be mutuals, but I'm more of a lurker these days and I've remade several times under different handles and understand exasperation/hesitation at refollowing. I'm sincerely not trying to bait anything here, it's just that I've been depressed for the majority of 2024, and I think a really bad habit I've fallen into is not expressing gratitude to those who have a genuine impact on me. I'm sorry if this is uncanny and too parasocial. I have always admired how incredibly self-possessed and well-spoken/read/watched/cultured you are. I get an older sibling vibe from you that I never had growing up. You are one of the smarter people in the room for me. Sorry I'm sending this on anon, you don't have to publish it, in fact I hope you don't! I think you're one of the best blogs on this site and many things you have posted/blogged about have caused me to dig deeper within myself. In recent times, I appreciate that you force a situationally depressed individual (me) to challenge themselves for the better, if that makes sense. I'm sorry if this is disturbing!

[posted with permission] Man I have not been able to wake up all day for some reason and I owe some writing tomorrow, so this is actually a really helpful warmup exercise to try to get myself moving/thinking. I really appreciate this. I think your idea about expressing gratitude is really important and it's something I've been trying to do also, though maybe in a broader sense, like if I see a really inspiring movie (or whatever) I try to follow the impulse to write to the filmmaker and tell them. In my mind there's this invisible wall between creators and "fans" and that's usually fake; it's very likely that the people who made some of your favorite media are not rich, their futures are not secure, and they don't even necessarily know how their work has affected people. Worst case scenario they don't write you back, but only a snob would be actually bothered, and sometimes you even make a friend. I think the same principle can be applied to, you know, bloggers or whoever. Certainly I run this blog for myself first and foremost and I don't think I would or could stop even if absolutely no one was paying attention--it's a real compulsion and I think it's reasonably healthy to find ways to be in conversation with yourself--but it's valuable to know when you've been understood by anyone at all.

Not to make it weird but in Hebrews I think there's that verse, "If today you hear the voice of God, harden not your heart." That's really powerful outside the bounds of religion. To me it means, when you get that shred of energy or inspiration that says "I could do the dishes right now," do them immediately before you can talk yourself out of it! When you get that little spark that is so easily snuffed out by overthinking and taking that dangerous minute to round up excuses, that spark that you might be able to do the laundry, send the letter, watch the tough movie you're "never in the mood" for, pick up the book instead of watching TV, take a fucking walk, whatever it is: if you practice surrendering to these impulses immediately, almost without deciding, your life can really start to expand. Actually I believe it literally keeps your brain alive, to keep making it process new information, even if it seems trivial or you don't fully feel like it. But anyway a lot of us don't follow the impulse to say to someone "Hey, I think you're doing a good job" because it's so easy to imagine lots of different reasons they won't like it. But honestly that's unlikely (as long as you're not demanding something in return), and if someone responds poorly to that then chances are they're kind of an asshole.

(I mean sometimes I fail to respond to a message or an obvious social cue but it's usually because I just get overwhelmed by other parts of life and/or I'm not extremely skilled in forming and maintaining connections in any normal way. But it's rare that somebody has tried to reach out to me and I was like secretly hating them for it.)

Depression is really hard to talk about--I mean it's easy to VENT about, but it can be hard to converse about. There's that (American?) thing where you feel like no one should say anything that isn't *CEO voice* solution-oriented, and that's when people either avoid the topic entirely or react with all kinds of unwelcome and/or irrational advice. I have the illusion of being all full of wisdom on this because I've been severely depressed since I was really little and obviously there's something wrong with my whole operating system, but one of my best friends--who is not naturally depressive--is in such a bad way and it's not her fault and possibly there is no way out for real, and of course I have the urge to pump her up and keep her afloat, but if I'm too positive it will be totally dishonest. I have to split the difference between cheering her up and like, not lying to her. I'd be a total hypocrite if I denied her the understanding and acknowledgement of darkness that I myself always want and rarely get. It's hard, but on the individual basis it's useful to try to map the nature of your own depression and notice how it operates; just observe and take notes even if you can't see a way to control it right now. It sounds like you're doing some of that, there is a lot of dignity in that activity.

These are my thoughts off the cuff, with any luck they provoke something useful. Now I feel like I'm finally ready to shower and have ill-advised beverages and do my stupid homework assignment. Thank you for your thoughts, and the helpful prompt, and I hope you have a good day and/or night, for real.

[quailfence]

Copy-pasting this post by @/somnolent-scout @yaytheprofessor and @landscaping-your-mind because OP has turned reblogs off

somnolment-scout

What's happening to AO3 right now?

As you may have noticed already, Archive of Our Own is currently down. This is temporary, but unfortunately.. we now know that this is much deeper than we thought.

AO3 is currently the victim of a DDOS attack orchestrated by "Anonymous Sudan"

[Image description: two images.

First image is a post from Anonymous Sudan, translated to read:

❗️The reason of our attack is simple: It's part of our campaign targeting companies registered in the United States. The operators of this site is "Organization for Transformative Works (OTW)" who are registered in the United States. In addition to that, we are against all forms of degeneracy and the site is full of disgusting smuts and other LGBTQ+ and NSFW things. We bring you the good news that we will continue attacking for hours on end.

The second image are two Whatsapp messages in the group Anonymous Sudan. The UI is in the cryllic alphabet. The first message is the same as the first image. The new message reads:

The attack will continue for another 5 - 24 hours. End description.]

Why? Because AO3 is home to thousands of LGBTQIA+ content and lots of NSFW content. They're doing this as an Anti-LGBTQ+ attack. If they're doing this for or from America specifically, we're not sure. But this is what AO3 is facing at this time.

What can we do?

Spread the word. Spread the fucking word. I'll be providing updates to my Tumblr page directly from the r/AO3 subreddit. I know that not everyone here is comfortable using Reddit, so I'm taking the blow for you. I cannot access Twitter though.

And please, whatever you do...

Stop using the Archive of Our Own website at this time.

The moderators, showrunners, and service providers all need to repair the damage done by this group. The amount of data flooding in from people trying to log in will cause more problems. Keep yourselves off of the website.

YayTheProfessor

[Image description: a Twitter thread from AO3 Status (@/AO3_Status). It reads:

The Archive is experiencing some issues (as many of you have noticed). We’re looking into it, please stand by!

We apologize for any distress caused, and we’ll do our best to be back soon! As we’re running on volunteer power, we can’t always act on server hiccups as quickly as we’d like. Thank you for your patience! 🫶

Very sorry we can’t give you your fanwork fix right now, or a time estimate for when AO3 will be back. Welcome to all our new followers, and sorry we had to meet like this. 😬 Please stick around for the happier updates! 🌸

It looks like the Archive is under a DDoS attack causing the servers to fall over. Our volunteer sysadmins are working on countermeasures. Please be patient with us, we’ll be back!

A DDOS attack is when an attacker attempts to knock a site offline by overwhelming it with requests: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denial-of-service_attack. Data is not compromised in a DDOS attack, so there is no need to change your password at this time.

A group presenting themselves as a collective of religiously and politically motivated hackers has claimed responsibility for the attack. Experts do not believe they are honest about their motivation, so we urge caution in believing any reasoning they provide for targeting A03.

landscaping-your-mind

Essentially:

The AO3 is a victim of a DDoS attack by a group called Anonymous Sudan, reportedly for hosting LGBT and NSFW content, however this is not confirmed and their reasoning is doubted.

A DDoS attack attempts to overload a system with a lot of requests, stopping actual requests from getting through.

This does not compromise any data, so changing passwords is not advised/necessary.

It is unknown when the AO3 will come back online.

Do not attempt to access the AO3 at this time.

@a-captions-blog

[pizzatrocious]

So! With the end of this wonderful little event, I do have a bit of a bittersweet announcement.

I'll still be around here and there on a low-effort multimuse I plan to make a while from now... but, save for any light activity you'll still see from me, I plan on retiring from writing.

I'm not retiring for any bad reasons, quite the opposite! But as someone that's been writing on Tumblr for roughly... 14 years? I think I've done most of what I've wanted to do. Every kind of thread you can imagine, every type of character, and every type of genre. For the past few years I've jumped blogs A LOT, but really only because I loved chasing whatever next big thing felt fun to write.

I was here when ask blogs were the standard instead of RP blogs, regardless of whether or not the mun could draw. I remember my first ever Bowser RP blog, iconless and full of crack on a classic Redux theme. I unfortunately remember the Homestuck and Danganronpa craze, and an era where icons were a semi-new novelty that only the 'fancy' blogs used. I remember back when a majority of the Pokemon RPC was a fairly popular crack group that, at its peak, had 300~ active blogs all at once.

I remember the Splatoon Marie roleplayer that chased after me, even when I'd socially isolate myself during the darkest spots of my life, and the Rosalina blog she made later down the line. You might know her now as my wife, Rosie. Funny to think, our more popular duo wound up being Peach and Bowser.

I remember all the different iterations of the Smash RPCs, and all the people that rocked the community with every post. Then there was the Sonic RPC, a place that was almost torn apart by an awful person's hold on the community, only to rise from the ashes! That RPC's pretty quiet nowadays, but those guys may as well be sleeper agents for Sonic content.

Then there's the people I affectionately call 'The Elder Gods'. The ones that, despite being here over a DECADE, they still dedicate themselves to the same characters they always have. They're usually the ones with the ancient-looking blogs that go largely under-the-radar nowadays, but they're the foundation that built these writing communities. You guys mostly just keep to yourselves nowadays, but I see you.

And of course, my good ol' kindred spirits, the people that roleplay the most obscure, hyper-specific characters. Those one-off indie games, obscure shows, characters stuck to a spinoff title or are just dubiously canon, or characters with basically no canon that they've made into their own!

Of course, that's not to forget the people that take the big popular characters, and absolutely ROCK them in a way that makes the character all their own. Gotta toot my own horn, considering one of my old Bowser blogs had a couple thousand followers.

I could go on, and on, and on... but long story short, I've had a great time here.

Part of me never wants to stop, to be honest. But in all this time, I've become a different person. My hobbies have changed, my interests have changed, I'm a completely different person now! But I've also always been a stubborn creature of habit, never wanting to give anything up.

As a result of being anchored to my old habits so long, I'm left a little at a loss for what I want in life. More and more I've felt like a caged animal, just circling around my little enclosure and doing the same things over and over for enrichment. Add to that the usual struggles of adult life being rough and expensive, and you can imagine wanting to spend more of my time on survival is a factor too.

Nobody's gonna know what I really want now, except for me. I need to get out there and do some soul-searching. Find new hobbies, make new friends, experience new things... who knows what I'll be doing a year from now!

That said, I give my genuine, most heartfelt thank you to everyone I've ever crossed paths with in throughout all of the Tumblr RPCs I've been in. Honestly, the only reason I don't list off names is purely because I want to make sure nobody gets left out of my little expression of gratitude. You all know who you are, anyway.

I wish I could've known some of you a little better... but that's just life, isn't it? Sometimes the most impactful people in your lives are the ones you never get to really know. I'm sure I've gotten to be that person for my own fair share of people, with how reclusive I tend to be.

Again, this isn't goodbye. I mean, I'd be a little embarrassed if people thought I was gone forever, only for me to pop up a week or two later. This is a hobby I've always loved, I'll always find my way back to it. I'll always be lurking about, sometimes posting during funny shenanigans. Like I said at the start of this post, I plan on making a private, low-effort multimuse! Mostly I'll just use it to keep tabs on my friends and the writers I really enjoy seeing, but I still have a small list of characters I'd like to play around with a little.

Otherwise though, it's time to leave the nest and try other things.

Thank you again. This is Vincent, signing off.

[landinrris]

i have a question to cleanse your mind from that young royals hot mess on twitter. do you think norrix may in fact be real and if it is when do you think it became real? and if not do you think it might ever become real? my own view is they've not acted on anything right now and would say they're only very good friends if asked and are most likely even still hooking up with women but there are feelings much stronger than normal friends bc well it's crystal clear that it's not a normal friendship but a fair chunk deeper than that like a soul connection or something as an anon said the other day. but i don't know if they'll ever get up the courage to act on it. my projection clearly as we'll never really know how they feel if they don't act on it and go public but they come across like of two of my friends who so clearly care for each other in a non-platonic way and are joined at the hip every opportunity and are physically affectionate with one another but never did anything about it so far at least from what we all know anyway and only one has recently come out as not straight. though i guess even having that deep love even if it remains platonic is a special thing regardless. was wondering what your take on it is if you don't mind being public about that.

Okay, so here's the thing. I'm very hesitant to speculate in an open space about someone's sexuality where anyone can see it. (Sometimes I really wish Tumblr's search function didn't catch literally everything, but whatever). I don't know, I have really complicated feelings on the matter in general because I recognize things from my own life, but nothing is universal etc etc. And maybe I blur the lines on my blog a bit, but at the end of the day, the plausible deniability side, and the side that doesn't really know any of the people I post about, will lean towards these relationships not being real in the romantic sense.

That being said, I will gladly address this question from a more "fictionalized" viewpoint using things that have actually happened. It might be counter-intuitive to write like that, but it hasn't stopped me yet because I am not them, so it's default fiction.

In one of the things I'm writing that utilizes real-world timelines, I have them kind of getting together following the Spa 2023 gig when Lando goes back to Amsterdam and posts the photo to his Insta Story from Martin's balcony. All the feelings from the past year build up until they can't hold them back anymore.

The reason I think Spa (besides the fact that the aforementioned picture kills me), is that following it, and even the event itself really, Lando largely stops posting their meetups on his social media. Someone else brought to my attention that after New York and Canada, McLaren also largely stopped posting content of the two of them. As compared to Miami where there was plenty of content of Martin hanging around Lando's driver's room.

So New York/Canada happens with "Real Love." Then Spa happens with Lando and Max flying into the show and Lando going back to Amsterdam. Lando specifically realizes then that if he wants to avoid scrutiny and rumors and gossip as much as possible, he has to let the psycho girl rumors go wild while he flies under the radar with privacy and avoids advertising who he's with. Hence, a tangible lack of material from both him and McLaren for the rest of the season when Martin is present.

The ski trip is the exception because I think the ski trip is special. Especially because Martin was nowhere near France prior to it. Lando says, fuck it, for a brief moment and posts the photos he wants to post.

But then we have winter break and go back to both of them being very quiet when they're together. Martin gets to post the proof that they've been together while Lando keeps his profile meticulously bare of anyone but himself. The fact that Martin was back in Amsterdam for ~8 hours and posted 3-4 things says a lot. But he's quiet again, now that he's somewhere snowy while Lando's plans of Finland seemingly grow nearer.

They're not sure if they'll ever broadcast anything, but maybe they'll work back up to posting like they used to pre-New York where they were much more likely to show up on one of their Stories at the least.

So, in my world, yes it's happened, and this is why I think so.

In the real, tangible world, who knows. Whatever their relationship is clearly means a great deal to them both. If it's purely platonic, if there's a legitimate romantic element, or if they just sit there and pine for the next few years, I hope they're happy and content they have one another. Finding people you click with that quickly and genuinely is a special thing.