#its just the tumblr now to me has better way to curate my dash

[srslybusiness]

Ok I think here's the thing about why in my experience Tumblr is easier to curate than Twitter: it's the tags.

I have been on both side for pretty much the same amount of time with Tumblr being slightly longer. People I follow here always tags, at the very least when it came to fandom. Which makes it easier for me to blacklist if needed without having to unfollow the person. (I love you all but sometimes I'm not into what you're into that's all. That's way I try my best to tag as well so people can blacklist them)

On Twitter on the other hand, what is there are "muted words" and "muted accounts". But the thing is not everyone uses the same words let alone tags! I had to put at the very least 5 variations of a ship to avoid seeing it. I have nothing against people who ship it but I just don't want to see. Like, at some point I'm tired of putting so many words and mute so many accounts that I just leave it be but then I'd get annoyed when I see it and it's just endless cycle.

Don't get me wrong, it's great place for communicating, I enjoyed my time there when I was using it 24/7. It's just I wish there's more effective way to curate my experience without having to unfollow people bc it's usually just a thing or two that I don't want to see and not that I don't like the person I'm following.

Tumblr tags aren't perfect. All you need to check is by using the search system. But at least my experience with blacklisting tag has been good and working nicely. Or I can use XKit to help make it better.

Edit: you know what, I AM also guilty for not tagging/using keywords on Twitter so people can simply muted the words. But again, I think that's just the nature of the website and that's what I find lacking now.

[gatheredfates]

Hello everyone! 🐋 It's Friday here, just before the Live Letter, so I thought I'd whip out a small Compendium update before it gets crazy!

There's not that much this week but, with Dawntrail, so close, I'm not worried — I'm sure I'll be swamped with people coming back very soon. With that in mind, however, as of today (06/14), the following resources have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives.

MISC

Pride Backlighting Tutorial — Do you want to see your characters awash in the colours of Pride? Maybe you just want some cool backlighting behind them? @whitherwanderer has put together a guide for you!

SEAFLOOR

We're a Tumblr Community now! For people unfamiliar with the concept of Communities, I encourage you to check out the tumblr post by staff made about them here. However, copy/pasting what I have written in the Compendium, the Community functions as so:

SEAFLOOR (A FFXIV Community) is a Tumblr community whose duel-purpose focuses on my projects — the Compendium, question drives and screenshot events — whilst also reblogging member created works, resources (including events, commissions and looking for content/roleplay/free company posts), affirmations and other xiv-related content. If you are interested in supporting my projects without the social aspect of a Discord, I highly encourage you to join the Community. Everything hosted on the Discord will be cross-posted there; you will not miss out on anything. As Communities are still in beta, members need to be manually invited. If you would like to join, please like the tumblr post here. Once Communities are out of beta, I will remove this section to better reflect its true public status.

I'm hoping the Community will function as a member-curated dash, resource hub and visual diary for my projects and member created works. There are no hard feelings if you want to leave the Discord and only join the Community. Please do what makes you comfortable!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all the below information is accessible on the document! 🦈

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include in-character tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[cecils-dragons]

So you prolly don't remember this bc it was back in 2019 but you liked a post by xxdemonic-heartxx with this content:

"An opinion

I get body positivity. But if you weigh close to 350-400lbs from fatty tissue you should get some help. Human bodies cant function as well as they should with that type of stress on the skeleton and joints and its gonna compromise your organs. Body positivity is okay but fat acceptance isnt. I’m not fatphobic. I’m concerned for the longevity you’re losing and the health conditions you’re pulling in. And the dangerous mindset that humans should be and can be fat. Yeah. Some fat is okay. But if you body fat percentage is 32% for women and 26% for men (or higher). Thats obese and very crippling to your health. Take care of yourself. It isnt a crime."

That plus the fact you never drew fat ppl (not like just little pudgy but actually fat) got me to the conclusion you must be fatphobic, so I have had you blocked but you still crossroads my dash sometimes bc tumblr is functional website. So after all these years is once again saw you on my dash so I thought I'd send an ask, it's been years and I was wondering maybe you have changed and you don't hold these views any more.

I know I am a spiteful bitch for remembering this. The op has deleted their blog and all I have is a screenshot I thought just sharing the post content would work since I am not here to make a callout post or want ppl to harass you I just want to make you think about your past and maybe present biases.

Thanks for more information on the ask as it was a bit scary to see after being woken up in the middle of the night by my dog barking.

Okay, you may be getting me mixed up with someone else because I don't follow xxdemonic-heartxx, I recognize them in our community but I don't follow many people because I like a curated dashboard and like even less stuff, so even if I liked it back then, first, I was 19, and second, likely a misclick because I don't like to interact with stuff like that for the sake of my own mental health as I deal with body dysmorphic disorder. I of course can't 100% say what I was thinking or clicking on around that time as I was 19(now 24) and due to trauma I don't really remember much around that time.

For the second part yeah, I was 19 and still getting use to drawing bodyily diverse people and when learning to draw you get taught to draw slim people as a default. I'm getting much better at it now but it was never because of prejudges, just ignorance and staying in my comfort zone. I don't really mind or care being blocked because of that because it's your opinion about me and I can't control that.

At the base, I would not be considering myself to have ever been fatphobic and I am sorry if it has come across that way as it's of course never my intention to make any group of people uncomfortable. I'm of course open to talking more about this if I am missing anything.

[nettlewildfairy]

Tumblr made that big long post and a lot of people are angry reacting to some like surprisingly reasonable suggestions that solve widespread long time  complaints

i dont know how they plan to solve everything just yet but as someone who knows some things about the industry and jargon here are my 2 cents

Here is a link to the referenced post

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

in an age where most social media sites are making it aesoteric and difficult to share posts offsite /app tumblr is considering making it easier to do

yall do you know how hard it is to link a long tumblr post with like a comic or funny string of replies to share with my friends who arent on tumblr? i have to take like 15 screenshots every time. IF staff is priorizing making it easier to share posts that would be so much better oh my god 2 High quality content on launch.  the pessamistic assumption is that this could mean a mandatory algorithm but if you read carefully you’ll notice they never fully say thats even remotely what they are going to do. This seems to be a suggestion that the default new user experience will change. 

If you like me made an account 10 years ago this looks like it won’t affect your experience whatsoever. 

but like trying to sort through tags to find blogs and curate my own feed actively took like over a year to get to a place where i’m happy when i did it in 2011/2012

if feeds and tags Worked that would be good. the for you page and exploration features on tumblr do, admittedly suck right now. there SHould be easier ways to find and search for stuff on tumblr. if their search worked better and finding stuff you wanted to see was easier that Would improve the experience for most people on this site.  3. facilitate easier user participation in conversations folks if replys could be threaded in some way it would be 1000 times easeir to have convos with them. like i do not get what people are upset about here. like a person shouldn’t have to reblog their own post 15 times in a row to reply to different people about the same thing. they could make this so much better.  4. Retain and grow our creator base

 it IS hard for art to see and get seen. if i had a nickle for every time i saw a post begging people to reblog art i’d have like so many nickles.  I would like to see more art. and ttrpg creators. there’s like stuff i have to go to twitter for and its small time ttrpg, art, writing, and literary magazines because even when those folks are on tumblr its extraordinarily difficult to find them with the systems currently in place.

 like i don’t know that tumblr has a good plan to make this kind of thing easier but if they did figure it out it would rule. and its good to know that this is a priority for the company 5.  Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr

throttling notifications rules. i have commented on tumblr staff posts dozens of times for like 5+ years asking for this, thank GOD. if you reblog a lot of posts you get a lot of notes even if you have like 15 people regularly interacting with your stuff on 100 posts a day thats like 1500 notifications. it collapses some by post or interaction type but that is NOT enough and the notification bar always says 99+ unless i checked it less than a minute ago, im dying please make notifications meaningful and not overwhelming. 

6: Performance, stability and quality

this is generic and means very little obviously anyone making an app wants it to crash less often.  bonus: ive seen people get upset at the implication that they are instituting a mandatory algorithm but the site has had an option algorithm for like ages, it doesn't imply its mandatory anywhere or that they're taking away our option to turn it off. there are already artist showcase things on the dash on the regular, if you have adblock on you can’t see some of those, but they've had them for fully years. 

its highly unlikely that they would get rid of one of the main selling points of tumblr.com they’re like a real company thats done bare minimum market research, like folks no one other than musk would do something that boneheaded

[code-of-creation]

I know my opinion on change is often overblown due to my autism and not liking change. I have been on tumblr since 2012.

The main reasons I like and prefer tumblr is:

1. My dashboard is strongly curated from my choice of creators/posters

2. My dashboard is in chronological order, so I can scroll through a structured list of every post I missed while sleeping/doing stuff

3. Not having an algorithm forcibly pushed on me. I still dislike suggested posts and featured posts showing up, but I tolerate it because I know the app is for more people than just me

4. I can look up and connect to different blogs related to my interests when I am in the good mood to explore. I use search tags to look up an interest, filter it by photos and chronological posting, and follow what I like. I branch beyond my interests through the content shared by the blogs I enjoy following

5. Tumblr has a unique culture and mostly straightforward interface that I have grown so accustomed to that leaving doesnt feel like an option. There's nothing to replace tumblr, there's nothing like it.

Removing features that I like, such as my own curated dashboard, chronological order, and the celebration of not being aggressively used for ads and algorithms, will change how I interact with tumblr.

I can't say I'd leave tumblr, because what else do I have? But I would enjoy tumblr far less if it were to mimic other websites. Having my dashboard bloated with stuff I'm not interested in, and forcing content on me will only make me less inclined to use tumblr. I am easily frustrated by these things. I don't like being treated as a target to market to. It's like that drawing where the person refuses to buy the annoying brand due to its annoying pervasive jingle ruining their music experience.

I don't know if most people feel the way I do, I'd like to thing so, but again I'm autistic and know I can be greatly wrong about these things.

When you implement great changes, can you please include the option to keep things relatively similr to how they are now, please? I understand you can't cater to only a minority, but can you please cater to both sides?

I know tumblr owes me nothing, I use their site and rarely put money into it. If anything I owe tumblr for providing me with a service I enjoy so much. But please, do this for me? Let me choose what I want on my dash, how I communicate with others, the space I create for myself to enjoy.

If need be, you can run a wikipedia style fund raiser and I will give you my canadian $5

As I mature and sin better income, I am willing to invest small sums of money into tumblr more frequently. But please treat me as a human enjoying what's been made, instead of a customer base.

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.

[ivi-prism]

So you have crawled to the hellsite and are planning to resist the tribulations and stay

Welcome. There is a saying that the devil knows best because he is old, not because he is the devil.

I am that devil here and I've been here for 7 years now. Have some tips.

If no algorithm then how content?

Content gets to you via the people you follow. Everything you see in your dash will be things the people you follow posted or reblogged.

And thus the first thing you should do is start following people whose content you wish to see in your dash. And how do you find those people?

You go to Tumblr's search function, type the name of the fandom or character you want to see content off, and then you'll find a ton of content organized by popularity. Give a click to the posts you like and look around a bit at that person's blog see if you'd like to see them more often. Repeat this as many times as you'd like.

If you'd like to follow smaller blogs, you can set it so the results prioritize recent posts, and thus you'll find newer posts that you can click on and take a look at the blog see if it's to your liking.

There is no easier way than that. Sorry. But the good news is the more you do this, the more posts you'll see on your dash, and the more blogs you will be introduced to like this.

Hey I do not like the person/post that has landed in front of my eyeballs

Good news you are in possession of a very powerful tool called. The block button.

If you see something you despise and that it somehow missed the filtering and blacklist (we will get to that don't worry) you can block the person that posted such heinous things one quick tap/click on their profile pic and you'll be on their blog from where you can push the three dots (in pc)/ little icon person (in mobile) to block that user.

Peoples use the block button very generously, and you should to! Didn't like someone's take? Block. Annoying? Block. The theme of their blog is too saturated so it hurts your eyes? Block.

Block. Block. Block.

Curate your online experience since afterall is yours and also no one will know better than yourselves how you'd like it to look.

And also because inciting drama raises the chances you get blocked, kung pow penised or just obliterated

Any filters? I definitely want things to just never get near me

As obtuse as Tumblr tagging and search system can be, the blocking and filtering feature can do its job arguably well. If you want something banished to the shadow realm you can filter it (so it never even appears on your timeline and searches) or you can block it (so the post will appear in front of you but with the content obscured so you can choose if you have the mental spoons to deal with that today)

To block and/or filter open your blog's settings -> general settings -> visible content

And there will be the option to add tags you wish to filter and/or block.

How interact with posts? (BY REBBLOGING)

Okay reblogging is just one option you have commenting, liking, and reblogging. Let's go one by one

Commenting: by pressing the dialogue bubble icon on the lower right corner of a post it will open the "notes" of the post where you can leave a comment. If you do only op will see a notification, but anyone that opens the notes section can see your comment and @ you to reply

Liking: by pressing the heart icon in the lower right corner of a post, the post will be liked and stored in your personal liked posts (that list can be made private in the settings and I encourage you to do it). That's it. The number of total notes may go up but it serves more as a bookmark than anything else, it won't boost posts. So if you want to boost a post you should Reblog.

Reblogging: before we go in how to reblog is important to stablish a difference.

Rebbloging =/= reposting

Rebbloging means taking a post you see and using Tumblr's function of reblogging it so a copy of it will be in your blog, where the original poster and contributors are still visible and the notes your reblog garners will still go to them, meaning you have helped op further their reach. This is not stealing.

Reposting means taking a photo of a post, or the images on it, downloading it to your phone/pc, and then making your own post with those images and claiming the content is yours so you get all the notes and reach. That is stealing

With that clarified, this refers to the former. To reblogging.

Now. Here is how you reblog.

By pressing the icon of the two arrows pointing at each other you can reblog a post. This means the post you reblogged will appear on your blog and will be visible to the people that follow you. This is how posts get around Tumblr, by being reblogged so they reach more people that will eventually reblog them. Don't worry about the theme or consistency or aesthetics of your blog, you can reblog pretty much whatever (you can even reblog something multiple times but that might be annoying) and it'll be fine.

By reblogging some options open for you.

If you are interested in just spreading the post around, doing a quick reblog (hold reblog icon and drag to the pfp of the blog you wish the post to appear on) is the easiest solution.

A regular reblog opens you to add something to the post, that addition then counts as a post for you, and will get notifications if reblogged.

If you feel you just want to comment or your addition wouldn't fit in a post but still want to add it, the tags are your friends. They are there in theory to help you label things for easier searching, but Tumblr's search function is kinda broken, so they end up being used to comment. Want to show extra love to the op, or yell at them or just add to the chaos you are seeing? put in the tags. All the key smashes, all the I HATE YOU/POS all the blorbos of your shows go there

[nachoscheesy]

Tumblr Revival

Tl;dr

Tumblr has a large interconnected community of artists and content creators, and should focus on its strengths and what it does right. Instead of trying to compete for space against Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. Tumblr should focus on empowering its community and giving that community the tools to develop the site's unparalleled uniqueness.

Tumblr is the crossroads of the internet, with a monthly user traffic of 300 million it is the perfect space for artists, content creators, and small businesses to grow their following without having to fight for a seat at the table against companies with huge budgets.

Hi, I go by Nacho here on tumblr, and I'm sure as many of us on tumblr have noticed, the (hell)site is kinda going downhill. Tumblr was bought by Automattic in fall of 2019, and I am sure they have the best intentions to help tumblr stay afloat. However, I think it's time the community took a more deliberate approach to how tumblr is handled, and hopefully Automattic and @staff will hear us out. I think I have a solid solution to tumblrs money issues, that will help both the site and empower its online communities.

First and foremost, I am not involved with Tumblr or Automattic. I am just a simple blog trying to help out a place that I've been on since 2010, and I would hate to see it die here around 2023.

So, let's get to the root of the problem on tumblr right now. That being money, tumblr is currently costing more money that it produces, as we've seen with its 97% drop in value from 1.1 billion dollar sale to being sold at around 3 million dollars.

So the first thing that must be improved before anything else can be improved on tumblr is how much money they're bringing in a month. I don't think folks on tumblr hate monetization as much as we all collectively say we do, I think the issue is that most advertisers are completely disconnected from the groups they are trying to advertise to on here. Tumblr comprises roughly 65% millennials and 30% gen-z, the two generations that advertisers seem to have the hardest time advertising to for a myriad of reasons. The main one being that they don't fully understand what we want, and sometimes just don't listen to what we are saying.

Lets look at how tumblr makes its money, Tumblr has four main revenue sources,

Ads by sponsored posts

Display ads through video posts

Sponsored Day ads or banner ads

“Premium Themes”

I'll go into depth on all of these and how tumblr could make potential changes to improve their revenue anywhere from three to six months after it implements some or ideally all of these changes.

First tumblr ads and sponsored posts, these changes are going to be contingent on tumblr allowing its users to share, like, and comment on ads much like all other media sites currently allow. Or at least giving advertisers the ability to turn that on or off as a function.

The average tumblr post gets reblogged 14 times, that number increases significantly if the ad is engaging and actually caters to the communities wants and needs. My reasoning for giving users the ability to reblog ads is to increase user engagement while maintaining their current ad vetting process and all of the nonsensical ads that are run on tumblr 90% of the time.

The other reason for allowing tumblr users to share and comment on ads, or have it be an option for advertisers to turn on or off as they'd like, is that the appeal of tumblr is the ability to propagate and obsess over the most niche things (i.e OSHA.)

All the while allowing content that gets shared all over the internet bubble up to the top through the collective hand of the tumblr community. Along with this tumblr has no way for small users to share their own products or services, every single major site has a way for users to advertise their pages or products through the site.

Tumblr is a content machine that creates imagery and memes that get shared all the time across the internet, so the ability to share and curate its own ads is paramount to improving advertising and user engagement on tumblr.

My proposal here is for tumblr to expand its advertising capabilities to all users, while charging a flat rate fee to advertise on tumblr, with additional charges for popular tags or trending tags. Tumblr currently has no self service advertising system much like Facebook does for example. Where facebook charges a daily rate on cost-per-click(CPC) or cost-per-thousand(CPM)

Charging a flat rate fee at a rate of a day, week, month, or quarterly basis with variances in prices based on the lease term and what the advertisers would want to have their ads show up on certain tags. This would open up the doors for small businesses that don't want to advertise on places like facebook, twitter, or google with their complicated CPM and CPC models. Also bringing in more small locally owned businesses with the added value of less competition for ad space on tumblr.

This would also take some of the weight from tumblrs own advertising staff from having to explain a convoluted system to potential advertisers. Creating a simplified model with the the advent of tumblrs own infrastructure able to get a single post to a large variety of users. Where the current ad model uses a “shotgun” method to hit as many people as possible, the tumblr model could encourage advertisers to curate a more personalized and intimate experience that tumblr users would love.

Why not just advertise elsewhere? Tumblr still in fact gets over 300 million views a month as of June 2021 (Statosta), and the added benefit for users to be able to like, share, and interact with ads would allow ads that the community enjoys to be talked about more. Giving advertisers more honest feedback about their ads while increasing their SEO’s.

Also small businesses that can't compete with the vetting processes that are used on other sites, would have a better chance of developing their business and increasing their clientele on tumblr whose core demographics are approximately 60% millennial and 35% gen-z. This core demographic does in fact care about being able to shop at local stores, or even a store across the US that is trying to drum up its own online sales.

These ads could be placed inline on the tumblr dash while moving other sponsored ads to the right of the site on desktop, but making them alternate on mobile between user ads and sponsored ads.

Second, the display ads should be changed to allow tumblr users to share and further interact with ads to generate more user engagement, incentivizing more businesses and companies to build their brand status on tumblr. Tumblr has a good model for creating short diaries or daily vlogs for companies that wish to show off their products on social media. This includes smaller businesses and vlogers that want to post videos or tutorials of themselves on their blog.

Tumblr is a good site for user engagement with a pool of creative potential for anyone wanting to gauge the desire for a particular subject or piece of media, maybe even an upcoming show. Having the ability to share and comment on sponsored ads would also help advertisers by allowing them to get more bang for their buck with a considerable uptick on how users engage with that content.

Third, tumblrs sponsor day ads and banner ads are inexpensive and should be highlighted as a selling point over their competitors. Tumblr 24-hour banner ads are considerably more affordable for businesses when compared to places like twitter with their 200k price point. For the same amount of money on tumblr a business could have their company at the top of the dashboard or app for 8 whole days. Much longer and much better than the competition.

Keeping this price fixed, with a change in the price CPC is still a much more lucrative and attractive selling point than any of the competition on the internet today. I know this might not be exactly what tumblr wants to hear when it is hemorrhaging money right now, but let's look at the cost for these 24 hour daily ads and banner ads. If tumblr hypes up the price point on these ads they could see a significant rise in advertisers considering the lack of competition on tumblr and past success stories of companies who did advertise on tumblr.

At the same time larger advertisers should be encouraged to make engaging ads and blogs on tumblr that will make people want to actually go to their blogs, that then link to an external site or page. Not ads that instantly try to force you to go to some other site, by rewarding or offering special discounts for people who find a special code or something off of the actual blog. Or even for giving the same code to everyone who reblogs a certain post made by the advertiser.

Seems too good to be true? Look at “Asos” back in 2015 when they held a shirt design competition on their tumblr blog. Where they had 900 submissions, four of which were picked, and were sold out of the user generated shirts in 10 hours.

This is not the only case however, but FX ran their own campaign for the show “Man Seeking Woman” where they saw a 2.8% increase in user engagement, 86% increase in their tumblr followers, and they actually saved money through advertising on tumblr.

All this leads me to believe that tumblr actually was and continues to be the best place for brands, small businesses, and artists to develop themselves through genuine user engagement.

Finally, the “premium themes” that are available on tumblr that allow for unparalleled customizations that you hardly find elsewhere on the internet anymore. Tumblrs ability to take a variety of media sources, as well as having an unparalleled level of customization, user interconnectivity, and a vibrant artistic scene shows that it is ripe with potential.

Tumblr could still use its post+ feature, but in the same way that Discord uses its subscription service. For cosmetic changes that can be added modularly to the site or individual blogs for an additional monthly fee. In conjunction with partnering with community artists to bring small cosmetic additions to individual blogs, while paying the content creator and tumblr taking a small portion of the profits over a certain amount.

To be completely honest this is probably the hardest portion of this entire pitch to make changes to in a shorter period of time, considering all the testing and “under the hood” changes that must be made. However, I think that implementing this as well as the other changes I have proposed will bring back more foot traffic to tumblr as well as increase its revenue and profitability.

In closing, I am simply working with whatever information I was able to find online and a good amount of time invested on my part to do this. I think tumblr has a ton of potential still to return as a force for good for the communities that exist and want a change from what the internet has become. Time and time again when any company or public entity dies it was because it did not change and refused to adapt and innovate, oftentimes not at the hands of the people working everyday to keep the site running. Instead at the hands of people who dont see the value in what has fallen in their laps.

If you agree and think this is something that can be done, please reblog this post and follow me for more updates. If I don't hear back or this does not gain any traction by the end of the year, then tumblr can go to its inevitable end. I will be here sinking with the ship.

@support @engineering @music @wip @changes @photomatt

[starkeristheendgame]

First off, I'm going on anon for this cause idk if this is going to receive backlash or not. This doesn't mean 'don't tell me that I am wrong' or some bs like that so feel free to do that.

Second off, every single one of you is amazing and more accepting than most fandoms I have been in and I love that about you people. All of your works are awesome.

But here's the catch. I wake up and open this app and my dash is filled with mostly nff-related posts from this fandom be it fics or personal posts. Now if I didn't want to read something like that so early in the day I used to ignore it. When that didn't help, I used the blocking tag system. But this is Tumblr we are talking about, still these posts kept showing up.

This made me really uncomfortable. Now I can't help but think I have to stop following a lot of people to avoid this. And it makes me feel bad. I am going to ignore people because what? They were doing what they liked to do? Maybe I am not a big fan of their daily activities but this feels like I am judging them and just doesn't feel right.

I'm sorry for spamming your ask box. This has been on my mind for too long and I genuinely don't know what to do about this.

Hiiii,

It's absolutely not a bad thing to be uncomfortable with or disinterested in something someone is posting. I feel the same way sometimes; it can be a little frustrating if people aren't correctly tagging things or if they're posting a lot of stuff I'm not interested in or comfy with.

You can always politely ask them to consider using tags or to make a single tag for NSFW or non-starker posts so it's easier for you to block content you don't want to see, or you can use Tumblr's new blocking feature, which let's you filter out posts that contain specific words even if they're not tagged. You can find it on the same Filtering page, at the bottom on both dashboard and mobile.

For example you can filter out naughty words like 'cock,' which is a very common word in smut works, and it will hide any post containing that word. (If you're specifically looking to block NSFW content I highly recommend blocking as many words as you can.)

I most commonly use not starker and sie talks to tag anything not related specifically to starker or fandom content respectively. I also tag any adult content with both NSFW and NFF.

If a blog won't add tags and posts a lot of stuff you don't want to see, as mean as it might sound its definitely best to just unfollow them and try to find a new blog that's better suited to your interests. There are lots of blogs in the Starker fandom who are SFW only, and if you're unsure you can always ask a blog.

Curating your own space and experience is a big part of existing on a platform like Tumblr, and it's not at all mean or judgemental to make sure you're providing yourself with a happy, enjoyable space and experience. As long as you're not actively being mean or rude to people, you're doing okay!

I hope this helps you some, Anon, and I hope you're able to make your time on Tumblr a little more enjoyable! If you'd like finding SFW blogs, don't hesitate to make a post or come back and I'll do my best to wrangle some for you ❤

[mariaiscrafting]

My opinion on general fandom opinion is so limited just because I have curated my experience so well. Mcyttwt is a hellhole but there are nice people there who brings up interesting points. And that's just me judging from seeing what shit is going down and half of stan twt doing the most stupid thing and the other half calling them out. It's like. We have become very comfortable with tumblr that I get the gut feeling that some bad stuff will go down here bc we are not better, never will be. It's just the way the platform is built that allow us to in general have a more pleasant experience.

Then there are obviously different degrees of hell. The purity culture stuff that seems so deeply rooted in stan culture worries me. And I have been a part of fandoms there you couldn't go on the maintag without being disgusted by the fandom. I might just be paranoid but just because you dont see it doesnt mean its not there ya know?

Anyway hope you have a good day!

lotta things to unpack here.

first, my fandom opinion is likely v curated as well. i think i got a good, general perspective on mcyttwt and mcytblr at first, when i first joined, but first when i unfollowed lots of fetishizers on mcyttwt when i still had that account, and ever since i unfollowed lots of dream stan blogs/blogs that defended dream's reddit thing on here, it's probably become much more biased and tailored to my own perspective. thus why they call social media sites the perfect places to create your own echochamber.

second, yeah, of course there are still people on mcyttwt who are like sane and intelligent. it's just very hard to grasp that intelligence in the mess of idiot stans, and also hard for people to convey any kinda nuanced or good point w such a character limit/w how twitter search functionality works.

third, i also agree that we're not better. we are different, simply by nature of this site attracting different people from twitter and because of structural differences in how the sites function, but better? no. depending on the user you ask, some might say that this side of the fandom has already proven its scuminess. i'd say it has since the reddit thing. some would say ever since dream smp stans started invading the site, some would say once dream cheated and people flooded their dashes w rabid stan behavior in his defense, some would say once sbi/techno/tommy were canceled/semi-canceled. some might still say that mcytblr is the best side of the fandom, at least compared to reddit, tik tok, or twitter. those people might also say that there will never come a time when mcytblr implodes in a similar way that mcyttwt has been as of late (by as of late... i more mean since may lmao). but :shrugs:

fourth, that's an interest point, about going through fandoms' tags. i remember that, when i'd go through the tag of a new fandom i was interested in or that some of my followers/moots were posting a lot about, just out of curiosity, only to get jumpscared by whatever freaky shit people were posting on the main tag. i feel a bit the same when i go through some dream smp tags now. dream smp is fine. so are the tags for happy duo, wilbur soot, & anyone in badlands/eggpire. but sometimes i go through sbiblr, beeblr/booblr/enthusiastblr, dtblr tags and... just... for every 5 posts there'll be 1 guy who's just so fucking weird, posting some twitter-level take or freaky thing, and just... i can see the decline of the fandom, is all. i think it's inevitable, and i kinda don't wanna be around for when it reaches its lowest.

hope you come back to my inbox sometime, anon. maybe when this fandom has crashed and burned, once tumblr's moved on from the ashes of the dream smp. until then ✌️

[acrobaticcatfeline]

Logan and His Little Bumble Bee (Single Dads AU) Chapter 4!!!

Word Count: 3643

TW: swearing, deceit, vague mentions of vague trauma, arguments, crying, unconscious projecting, one quick mention of homophobia, roman is a big nervous a lot lmk if I missed anything!!!

Notes: This was out way sooner than I expected. So I made this one revolving around Roman and Dmitri for once, because we don’t get that much and now he has thoughts and things to say!!! Anyways it starts a bit angsty but its really soft and fluffy and I love my baby gays. It’s dialogue heavy this time around, it’s almost as if my writing changes subconsciously depending on which character I am writing. Huh. I hope you enjoy it, I worked my butt off for it. Previous chapter here, first chapter here!

Summary: “you are 15 years old! Absolutely not!!!” Logan is having trouble letting Roman be himself, projecting his own bad experiences on him without realizing it. Roman and Dmitri kiss a lot because they’re really soft and really gay.

“you are 15 years old! Absolutely not!!!”

“dad people in my grade have been dating since they were 10 come on!”

“and they're irresponsible and don’t know better! Roman it is not a good idea-”

“Logan dear be rational; kids are supposed to-”

“NO!”

Everyone paused as Logan screamed. Roman had flinched and Logan winced knowing he caused it, but he couldn’t just stop at this point.

“Roman, dating this young is a bad idea, take it from me. I mean that was when I got together with mercy-”

“you can’t say that like it’s the biggest mistake you’ve made dad!!! Because… because if it was then I would have-I know it ended badly with you and her, but you were still happy at the time! You can’t just keep me from experiencing things because you're scared dad. I'm not you. I-I need to live my own life eventually, and if I don’t know how to then what am I gonna do when I'm an adult?”

“you don’t- Roman that isn't necessary to be happy, I mean look at me and Patton-”

“well maybe I don’t want to pine for someone for 9 years!!! Maybe, maybe I want to live my life now, instead of waiting in fear!!! Maybe I want my happily ever after before I settle down, maybe, for once, I want to live my life without worrying that I'm a disappointment to my parents!!! I know you don’t mean to but you just, you make everything so hard! You-you have so much, so much hope. That I'm going to be this perfect kid and I'm gonna grow up to be amazing, and its exhausting! I want to make a decision without worrying that I'm going to do wrong by you! And then mercy… mercy never saw me for me, and I always had to be perfect for her and she's gone now but I'm just so tired dad! I'm tired of trying to fit inside this perfect box that I think you have for me, I want to be a teenager, I want to date, I want to go to parties, I want to make mistakes and not cry myself to sleep thinking I've made you hate me. It’s so hard to try to make you happy all the time. I want to have a chance to just make me happy.”

Logan stared at Roman. He had been trying so hard to protect him and take care of him, and all he had been doing was overwhelming him. He had never meant to do any of it, Roman was right, but he went back through his brain and it hurt to see that he had unconsciously pushed his son onto a pedestal that was impossible to escape from. He was never disappointed in him, whether he did good or bad or made mistakes, he had always tried to show that he was proud no matter what. He felt tears welling in his eyes and saw Roman twist uncomfortably. He felt Patton's arm wrap around his shoulders, but he couldn’t stay there, his mind was racing too fast. He was catastrophizing he knew, but he couldn’t so easily stop himself. His head was knocked out of the process when Roman ran into his arms, wrapping him in a hug. He let his arms fold around his sons waist, letting a few tears fall.

“I'm sorry, I'm so sorry dad I just- I needed to tell you and I was going to tell you in a nicer way, a better planned way but then this happened and it all came out I'm sorry dad I didn’t mean to make you cry”

“it’s- its fine Ro. I needed to hear that from you. I'm. I'm sorry Ro I didn’t mean it. I try so hard to show that I'm always proud of you, god you have helped me so much and I've never realized that I was making you feel so pressured I'm sorry bee, I’ll try harder, I didn’t know-”

Logan’s head was buried in Roman’s chest, it was the benefit of his son growing taller than him, he could hide his tear stained face out of sight. He sniffed a bit, rubbing his eyes before letting go of him. He smiled widely at Roman.

“I was wrong to have set such impossible standards. It was wrong of me to treat you like I had a second chance at my childhood. I really, just want the best for you but-”

He took a sharp inhale and looked him in the eyes.

“but its your life. And-and if you want, if you want to date. Then, I-I support you completely. Because, because I love you Roman. So so much.”

His eyes teared up again, and he let out a choked laugh while rubbing his eyes clear. Roman smiled at him and hugged him again, thanking him profusely. At that point Virgil walked back inside. He looked at the scene, sending a questioning glance at Patton over the other two. Patton let out a small smile and shook his head, to which Virgil shrugged and went upstairs without a further thought.

 “so, he was fine with it?”

“I mean he wasn’t, but I explained a few things and he's fine with it now. It took a little bit of the harsher truths to be spilled for him to understand my point, and a few tears, but yeah.”

“wow. I haven’t seen… either of you cry in my entire time knowing you.”

“yeah it doesn’t happen often. I think the last time I saw my dad cry was when he told me that mercy wasn’t coming back.”

“geez that’s a long time. And its always baffled me that I've never seen you cry; I've known you since you were 2.”

“yeah, I'm a uh, private crier. I don’t think I've cried in front of people really since I could talk.”

“fuck man how the hell did you manage that?”

“… I mean I don’t remember it, but I think it was a leftover from when I still lived with mercy.”

“what.”

“eh, it doesn’t matter.”

“no wait what? What did she do to you?”

“pfft, I just told you Vee, I don’t remember. I get vague fuzzy feelings that are sorta like if memories were feelings, but otherwise I have no idea.”

“that’s fucked up man”

“meh. Anyways back to the original topic, soooo can I get Dmitri's number?”

“oh my god.”

“oh, and you're at 75 cents.”

“shit.”

“a dollar!”

 Virgil had handed over his number easily, smirking as Roman gave him a hug before dashing into his own room. Roman had immediately sent Dmitri a text, ‘hey, its Roman! Dads way more chill now so I stole your number from Virgil’ and he had responded almost immediately.

‘neat so are we gonna talk about what that was?’

‘I mean, I thought it was p straight forward, but I mean if you think we should?’

‘I mean yeah but’

Radio silence for a minute

‘but like, idk if you want this to be serious or smth like, casual. I mean I don’t care either way’

‘oh! Well something serious sounds nice!’

‘thank god I was not prepared for something casual regardless of what I said’

‘pfft, its fine tough guy’

‘if that nickname sticks you gotta use it around rem, it'll make him bug out’

‘alrighty! Tough guy~’

‘ouch yo chill it with that I'm in public’

‘pfft ur a dork Dee!’

‘I am absolutely not a whale’s penis and I'm offended you would even imply it’

‘oh my god I'm gonna break up with you’

‘nooooo don’t do that I'm too dark and mysterious to be broken up with for that’

‘dark and mysterious my butt! The only dark thing about you is your humor and the only mysterious things about you are your eyes!’

‘babe I have a reputation to keep up!’

‘guess your rep will just have to fit me in there somewhere then!’

‘god you are adorable, I gtg before you somehow make me start uwuing at my family’

‘uwu bye bye mistew dmitwi!!!’

‘god its disgusting kill it with fire’

‘love you too Dee! <3<3<3’

‘<3’

Roman set down his phone afterwards, feeling the butterflies attacking his insides like rabid animals. He changed the tab over to his YouTube and put on his headphones, listening to his curated BTS playlist, starting off with answer: love myself, bopping along and humming. He switched the tab and scrolled through Tumblr smiling at the posts about his favorite superheroes.

 The next week was absolutely blissful for Roman, he alternated between sitting at his table with a few of his acquaintances who he would chat with about his hyperfixations, and with Dmitri and his friends. Virgil had a different lunch hour luckily, otherwise he would have been slightly embarrassed. But hilariously the first day he sat with Dee, his friends were caught off guard as a boy in soft pastels and stonewashed jeans sat beside Dmitri and was immediately nestled underneath his arm. There were words signed across the table and Dee would chuckle and respond which sent their eyes flying to Roman in his seat as he ate his sandwich oblivious to the reason he was being stared at, just sending kind smiles back at them.

When lunch had ended, he had stood on his toes and kissed Dee’s cheek and his friends all had the shocked looks on their faces again. He ran off to class and had forgotten about the whole interaction afterwards. He was only reminded after school through a text from Dee.

‘sorry about my friends at lunch, they're judgmental shits. I told them off but knowing them they might continue to be asshats anyways’

‘huh. Didn’t even notice. I really need to get around to fully learning sign, I have the smallest feeling that if I'm hanging out with you more it might possibly be useful.’

‘meh, if I really need you to know something and I can’t talk I’ll just text you.’

‘mmm but I still want to learn! Anyways what were they saying’

‘oh they were being dicks about your clothes and then they were being shits about me dating you, they're assholes, I only hang out with them cuz coach had everyone learn sign for me and they're the only people I can talk to during the school day’

‘oh, that’s rude! Do you want me to stop hanging out with you at lunch?’

‘no not at all, I just want you to know what you're getting into’

‘mhm!’

The next time Roman sat with them, he had sent about 8 insults to the people around the table while Dee wasn’t looking, essentially ‘fuck off you judgmental homophobic dicks’ and after that the group shut their traps about him and Dee.

 The week after, Dmitri was busy almost always. There was a big game this weekend and he Remy and Virgil were always either practicing, doing schoolwork, or sleeping for the most part. He would send good morning and good night texts but that was mostly it and Roman felt dumb for missing him so much. Virgil invited him to practice after seeing him sitting around staring at his phone like a kicked dog.

He had sat on the bleachers, watching the coach drill them and them playing near their best. They had taken a rest and Dmitri had made his way up to him, a giant bottle of water in hand. He smiled and let out a croaked hello.

“oh, Dmitri when was the last time you spoke?”

He had coughed and held up a 6 on his fingers. Roman pouted and placed a kiss on his chapped lips. Dmitri waved his hand to say it isn't a problem with a smile on his face and it made Roman pout more and kiss him again, wrapping his arms around himself after. Dee ruffled his hair and went to say something when the whistle blew calling them back. He sighed and stood up, signing ‘I love you’ before rushing back to the field. Roman sat in silence, watching them play once again.

 Roman was beaming. The game was today and that meant he would get Dmitri back afterwards along with Remy and Virgil. He was filled with jitters; he knows the team had been working tirelessly for the whole week and he was excited to see his friends kick the rival schools butt! He was rushing Patton out the door again, just like he was a few weeks before but for a separate reason this time.

He wasn’t expecting the time at the game to fly as quick as it did, but here he was. It was nearing the end and they weren’t very far ahead, and the worry was clear on the teams faces. And then Dmitri had the ball! The crowd roared in surprise and excitement as he weaved around the opposition. He got caught near the goal and Roman was on the edge of his seat as Dmitri kicked the ball straight into the goal. The cheers were immediate, the buzzer signaling the end of the game followed a few seconds later. Roman was up and standing at the edge of the guardrail of the bleachers jumping up and down and screaming. He raced down and met Dmitri at the entrance of the showers, looking around before tugging him off towards the underside of the bleachers. He spoke in barely restrained squeals.

“Dee I'm so proud of you!!! Oh, my goodness you did so well!!! I can’t even-”

Dmitri cut him off with a kiss, one that Roman reciprocated immediately, wrapping his arms around his neck and tilting his head as well as he could with the height difference they had when suddenly he wasn’t standing on his own feet but being held in the air from his waist. He broke the kiss with a squeak, placing his hands-on Dmitri's shoulders as he was hoisted in the air by a happy Dee. He squeaked again as he was spun around before being set on the ground. When he was steady again, he looked up at Dmitri with an amused but confused face.

“we did it”

“you did! Had you not processed that yet?”

“not really no.”

“oh, my goodness you are a dork.”

“listen if you had scored the last goal you would be a little stunned too”

“valid however-”

“oh, just shut up and kiss me again you prep”

“gladly”

“ey before you two start making out you might want to go talk to the team? They're sort of wanting to congratulate you, but you disappeared.”

Roman froze in embarrassment at his brother catching them. Dmitri just smirked and turned to face him.

“listen if any of them could get a significant other they would understand. But considering that even you haven’t gotten the nerve to ask out Remy yet, I guess they wouldn’t so I guess I should grace them with my presence, huh babe?”

“hey, fuck off my little brother didn’t need to know I like your brother!”

“oops!”

Roman giggled a bit at the blush that spread across Virgil's face. He nudged Dmitri.

“be nice honeybee. And he's right, I stole you from your festivities! We should head back over; we can be cute later”

“nonsense, that implies that you can stop being cute”

“bluhhhh that’s my brotherrrrr come on you two, be gross later”

 “DMITRI THAT WAS LEGENDARY!!!”

Dee had a cocky look on his face as his teammates congratulated him, Remy running up and tackling in a hug at first sight. He chuckled wordlessly at his brother who was screaming praise at him and then dragging him into the showers. The team followed them in all continuing to shout praise and Roman contemplated following as well. He eventually just went in after about 10 minutes, finding Dmitri surrounded by his team and. He blanched and turned around a corner, hiding his face in his hands. On the other side, Dmitri sat with blue jeans and no shirt, still dripping water from his hair. He took a few big breaths before wandering back over, not trying to push past anyone and just standing where he knew Dmitri could see him. He flushed when Dmitri smiled and winked at him over the heads of his teammates, curling up in his arms and covering his face again. He whispered to himself in his hands

“gosh I'm really gay and he's unfairly pretty”

It wasn’t much longer before the group had filed out, done with the celebration, Virgil given him a nudge as he left. He walked in, seeing Dmitri finally pulling out his shirt, and Roman couldn’t help but turn away with a bit of shyness hitting him again.

“what's up Roman? You good babe?”

“mhm! You just um,”

His mouth felt dry as salt and he was wondering when that happened.

“you look nice…”

“pfft you're a nerd.”

Roman’s mind came up with several scenarios for what could happen as he stood up to kiss him. Of course, all that happened was hands around his waist as Dee leant down to give him an easier time. He still felt fuzzy but ignored it as Dmitri pulled away to put his shirt on, quickly pulling on his leather jacket on afterwards before placing a kiss on Roman’s temple and grabbing his hand.

“come on, I'm stealing you, my folks are treating the team to ice cream and pizza and they’ve been wanting to meet you.”

“wh-what? Wait you talk about me with your parents?”

“Remy sold me out day one, but yeah, they seem genuinely interested in meeting you, so I mean why not?”

“oh. Ok then. I should probably tell my dads first, but I’ll be back!”

He ran up to Logan, wrapping him in a hug before explaining everything to him and Patton. Logan looked unsure but Patton backed him up.

“Lolo, Virgil's going to be there too, and it’s not like he's going to be stranded! Plus, there's a new diner that opened a bit ago that I've been wanting to take you to!”

“…ok. You have your keys and your wallet and your phone, right?”

“yes dad!”

“…ok then. Go have fun. Let me or pat know when you are coming home.”

“ok! See you guys tonight! Love you!!!”

 The party was far more calm than Roman had expected, most of the team dipping early on leaving just him and Virgil as guests. Neither could complain, they had free access to an abundance of pizza and ice cream, and they could spend uninterrupted time with the objects of their affections. Virgil and Remy had absconded upstairs playing games or something while Roman was sitting next to Dmitri and his parents.

“how long have you been dating now?”

“um, 2 weeks!”

“wow! And you two are already attached by the hip huh?”

Roman nodded as his cheeks burned. He felt his boyfriends arm snake around his waist, pulling him closer.

“oh, you two are adorable! We’ll leave you be, don’t have too much fun with him kiddo!”

Roman visibly relaxed as they left, leaning against his boyfriend and letting out a sigh. Dmitri moved his arm up, running his fingers through his hair, grinning at the purr like noise Roman made in response.

“you should stay the night”

“my dad wouldn’t let me do that unless-”

Virgil stormed down the stairs with a lovesick expression.

“Roman we’re staying the night!”

“oh! Does dad-”

“yeah don’t worry its fine they're chill!”

“what happened?”

“I-”

“BOY YOU BETTER GET BACK UP HERE AND KISS ME I'M HAVING KISS WITHDRAWL”

“let’s say me and Remy are a thing now? Gotta go!”

“…about what I was saying…”

“isn't that the best timing huh?”

“oh hush!”

“wanna head to bed? It is pretty late.”

“um, sure. But I wanted to cuddle some more…”

“who said I was gonna stop cuddling you nerd?”

“I? um uh”

“you can share a bed without it being sexual I hope you know.”

“oh! Oh yeah I totally, yeah duh, of course”

“come on babe”

Roman frowned at him rolling his eyes but followed him upstairs. He had walked into his room and grabbed some clothing before filing into the bathroom. When he came back, Roman had to confronts his gay again, as he was shirtless once again and he was talking to him and he's got to focus dammit!

“-so that’s why, also I have various pajamas in there, and I also have shirts that are probably way to big for you in there as well, take your pick.”

“oh um, I was just gonna sleep in this!”

“…yeah no. those jeans are way too form fitting to get away with sleeping in, and your shirt does not look nearly comfortable enough.”

“o-okay then I guess…”

He grabbed a pair of sleep shorts and one of his shirts and headed into the bathroom. When he came back, he immediately launched himself into his boyfriends’ arms. Dmitri giggled seeing the shirt choice, placing a quick kiss on his nose.

“nah you're a sarcastic butterfly”

“shhhhh I'm a sarcastic mothhhh”

“keep tellin yourself that precious”

Roman sputters a bit before giving up and hiding his face in Dee’s chest. Dmitri goes back to playing with Roman’s hair, and Roman leans into the touch. After a bit of time passes, he stops, and nudges Roman fully into bed.

“why’d you stop?”

“because that’s not a comfortable sleep position. Lay down prep, sleep is important.”

“but I don’t want to sleep, I want kisses”

Dmitri rolls his eyes and kisses Roman. By the time he pulls away, Roman has passed out. He laughs quietly and wraps his arms around the smaller boy, letting himself drift off as well.

Taglist: @fivebyfive-finebyfive @tacohippy56900 @analogical-mess @crookedlyoptimisticdestiny @angels-and-dreams @fandomloverangel @asleepybisexual @starbucks-remy @idioticsky @ijustreallylovesanderssides @superwholocked-for-life @band-be-boss-blog @llamaly @logicality-trash @fiive-second-cookies @whats-going-on-kiddos @snowshoe-main-blog @007ardra @internetwhy @musikasworld @Sammy-is-obsessed

Let me know if you want to be tagged in my writing!!!

Thank you for reading I will see you later ladies lords and nonbinary royalty!!!

[gatheredfates]

What's this? Two updates in a weekend? Yes, and I regret nothing. I'm going to try and do bigger updates where I can, but I also don't like waiting to promote resources where I feel like they can be useful and utilised. Because of that, here is update round two. 🍹

I forgot to mention this last post, but I'm trying to get a headcount going with Dawntrail's release! I probably did it a bit too early, to be fair, but I'm insane like that. If you're looking for people to follow, I highly recommend replying to that thread because I'll reblog any that come my way.

With that said, however, as of today (07/07), the following resources have been added to Sea's Community Compendium for XIV Creatives.

FREE COMPANY / COMMUNITY FOCUSED / EVENT SPACES

Final Fantasy XIV Roleplay (Tumblr Community) — A Tumblr community focusing on XIV roleplay! Share your LFRP posts, partake in the polls, prompts and whatever else FFXIV-Related RP stuff you can think of.

LORE

Dawntrail Pronunciation Guide — Ignorance begets strife, understanding begets fellowship. A guide on how to pronounce the various locals, concepts, societies and other content in Tural. Will contain spoilers for the expansion. Created by @pimpylala on Twitter. Constantly being updated as they play through the expansion.

SEAFLOOR

We're a Tumblr Community now! For people unfamiliar with the concept of Communities, I encourage you to check out the tumblr post by staff made about them here. However, copy/pasting what I have written in the Compendium, the Community functions as so:

SEAFLOOR (A FFXIV Community) is a Tumblr community whose duel-purpose focuses on my projects — the Compendium, question drives and screenshot events — whilst also reblogging member created works, resources (including events, commissions and looking for content/roleplay/free company posts), affirmations and other xiv-related content. If you are interested in supporting my projects without the social aspect of a Discord, I highly encourage you to join the Community. Everything hosted on the Discord will be cross-posted there; you will not miss out on anything. As Communities are still in beta, members need to be manually invited. If you would like to join, please like the tumblr post here. Once Communities are out of beta, I will remove this section to better reflect its true public status.

I'm hoping the Community will function as a member-curated dash, resource hub and visual diary for my projects and member created works. There are no hard feelings if you want to leave the Discord and only join the Community. Please do what makes you comfortable!

Want to submit? You can either fill out the google form here or send me an ask with the relevant information!

Is my space suitable for the Compendium? Most of the time, yes! Below the read more is some more information/stipulations. Again, all the below information is accessible on the document! 🦈

Below are the following things I do not accept on the Compendium:

Personal/Single-Character LFC ads.

Content intended for or can be used for bullying, harassment and OOC gossip. E.g. ‘Secrets’ blogs, receipts, callout posts, etc. This does not include in-character tabloid blogs used to generate RP.

Communities that do not have an RP/writing element (large-scale exempt).

Anything I find personally distasteful or goes against the spirit of this project.

Common-sense rule applies.

FAQ.

I want to put my community on the compendium but we have an application process. Is this okay?

Yes! Just note somewhere in your application that's a requirement. The only thing that is mandatory for the Compendium is that you must be open to new members or have a public-facing/accessible facet. There's no point advertising a community if no one can join it in some way!

I want to put my community on the compendium but I only have x number of members —

Also totally okay! People don't start with large communities. Activity is a must but, whether your server has two or two thousand members, if you're looking for new people to join, I'd love to help you find people.

I want to put my community on the compendium but I worry its too niche?

Okay, and? If your Eorzean Fishing Alliance has four members but you roleplay every second weekend, I still want to know about it.

What resources/communities can I add if I'm not the owner of them?

Mutual consent is extremely important to me, so anything that isn't a large-scale community OR a publicly accessible resource must be endorsed by the owner/admin/moderators in order to be added to the compendium. I operate under the assumption that a resource posted to a public space (tumblr, googledocs, youtube, etc) is open to all. A large-scale community is one with a significant member count or openly advertises itself as being accessible to everyone for whatever purpose it serves. If in doubt, please get in touch with me. I'm happy to contact your community owners for you!

How active does a community need to be?

If you find a community has not been active in about two/three months, send me a message and I'll take a look at it. Communities have ebbs and flows, especially event spaces that may take hiatuses depending on member interest/life events. I'm not strict in my implementation provided a space isn't dead. If a link or anything is broken, absolutely contact me about that.

I have [insert a question not stated here]?

No drama! Send me an ask or use the #Compendium channel in my Discord!

[otp-armada]

A Time Capsule

I’ve been lurking across several fandoms spanning a decade now, since my days of reading “Bones” fanfics on fanfiction.net. Before any inkling of Ao3’s existence. Maybe longer, my memory is murky at times.

I’ve never made a splash in any fandom, so to speak. I’ve always been content to stand shrouded in anonymity, residing on the edges of fandom, never an active participant. Perfectly at peace to never have a voice. Never brave enough to want to be heard. It has only been in the last few years that I discovered Tumblr and felt comfortable enough in taking advantage of its anon feature to interact mostly with The 100/Bellarke crowd, “conversing” with one user in particular. In the instances I chose to speak, there was safety in knowing my words never had an identity attached. A safety that lent itself to sending anon asks a fairly common activity until I wrote one recently sharing a remnant of my “The 100” viewing experience. The warm response from the users who read it left me smiling for the rest of the day. Their reply took a direction I didn’t expect. They encouraged me to take credit for my words under my username, which of course, I didn’t have, not being a Tumblr user.

I was flattered by the response, bolstering me to continue the line of conversation with another ask and was met with reiterated sentiments.

In the wise words of one of those awesome people,

“I was the ultimate lurker for a long, long time. I had a Tumblr account for four years before I ever made a single post, and even then I had to be talked into it. And you know what? When I finally starting “talking,” it was so freeing! Even if no one else was listening, even if I was speaking into the void, I was no longer dependent on anyone else to share my thoughts and opinions. I could do that myself.”

I took the compliment but waived the advice. Tumblr is made of communities built upon sharing and I have always been unto myself an island. It goes against my shy, introverted nature to take part in a community. I have no business pretending I have a place there. None at all.

And yet, despite my misgivings, the idea wouldn’t leave me as I believed it would. I started to genuinely ponder the merits of creating a blog.

There are strong reasons to support the affirmative.

First, the utilitarian benefits. In the absence of a blog, I turned to alternative methods of archiving appealing posts. If by some miracle, the item count of my browser reading list hasn’t yet ascended to the thousands mark, it most assuredly rests in the hundreds. My camera roll queue has indubitably reached the thousands count, currently sitting pretty at 3,300. I shudder to think of the sheer number of my bookmarks. One hundred and eighty notes on my phone. The final frontier has been broken, at last, habitually inundating my laptop with screenshots. Long has it been overdue to clean house.

Second, I find writing to be a herculean undertaking I enjoy in the moments it doesn’t drive me to the brink. A slow-going process, but when I’m able to appreciate the fruits of my labor, marvel at the polished product, I often feel quite proud. Writing is a skill I’ve lost touch with over years of disuse but found incrementally returning while expressing my opinions via Tumblr asks. Like any skill, it can be honed with time and practice. Transferring my streams of consciousness onto written medium challenges me to think critically, ask myself if my POV genuinely holds true or falls apart, requiring further reflection. If nothing else, it’s a good way to process thoughts and emotions. I find it easier than and therefore preferable to oral communication. I am a perpetual editor, always amending my statements which can’t really be done as effectively in speech.

Third, if there was ever a time to join the Tumblr fandom I’ve found a home in for the last three years, why not in time for the show’s last ride? The night I signed up for Tumblr coincided the first day of “The 100” cast and crew filming their 100th and poetically final episode. Around the same space of time, we got a release date and the nostalgic goodbyes of a few cast members rolled in. I know when Bellarke crosses the last threshold, I’d want it plastered all over my dash and I’d be able to make it happen.

But where there are pros, the cons inevitably follow.

Do I really need a further distraction from my responsibilities, spending additional hours and expending more energy I should not spare online? The too easy potential for more hours behind a screen when prone to headaches and horrid habits of not regulating my eating and sleeping schedules? The answer is a clear and resounding “No.” Would maintaining a blog be harmful to my mental and emotional health? Remaining anonymous has historically done a fine job of insulating me from general rebuke, which has mitigated the risk of reproach at least. No corner of the internet can be designated as a safe space. I knew I would in all likelihood have to work diligently to curate and be responsible for my experience, leading me to doubt how the effort could possibly be worth it. How could it be worth feeling exposed, self-conscious? Constantly second-guessing myself, debating whether or not my thoughts are best kept within the privacy of my mind to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes? Combating the periodic skepticism that my thoughts possess value worth writing?

There was always the lingering possibility I was overthinking the decision to my detriment, as is my norm. After all, it seemed silly and dramatic to regard one obscure little blog in a sea of hundreds of millions of social media users as momentous. But I know myself better than that. It is a really fucking big deal for me.

I vacillated between both sides of the argument for days before deciding not to follow through with the venture.

And then one night, a single stray observation ran through my mind. One observation became another, became another and before I knew it, I had formed the grounds for an entire meta post. It didn’t end there. More ideas filtered through. I expanded on those ideas. More traction gained. Another meta formed. More jumping off previous points. Before long, I had mentally written the foundations for four metas. And I was so excited and proud of forming these connections to this puzzle without even trying that I wanted to share it. I sat down to write them in my trusty Notes, outlining, trying to jot the main points down before they fizzled away from memory. I saw how long-winded these spiels had gotten sans the full writeup, subsequently rationalizing…well, not blowing up someone’s inbox is just good manners, isn’t it? And terribly inefficient to boot. More to the point, it seemed a disservice to myself to censor my rumination to fit the small confines of a Tumblr ask box.

The part of me that wanted to push forward envisioned what the future of my blogging efforts may look like. That part knows that this blog is for me and only me. What makes me laugh, what makes me cry. Smile. Rage. Flail. Think. Whatever the hell I want. I get to say what I want, however, I want. It’s incredibly nerve-wracking. It’s also exciting, thrilling, and yes, freeing. The notion of carving out a tiny space for me to fill to the endless brim with whatever brings me joy makes me…really damn happy. It’s not an easy feat to accept and harder to retain. I should be ok, so long as I never forget that I get to be in control of what happens here. It’s within my right to block anyone I don’t want to engage or associate with. It’s my full right to not care what anyone else has to say if I don’t want to. Block out anything negative I don’t want to endure with only a few clicks. If I decide I want to walk away, permanently or otherwise, for any reason, it’s within my right to do that too. It’s comforting.

There was a time when I “knew” I would never sign up for an Ao3 account until one of my favorite authors withdrew the majority of her stories from public consumption. I “knew” I was never going to post commentary until I did. I “knew” my username would never be seen by anyone aside from me, never to be affiliated with my commentary until it was.

I did. Each and every time I thought I would never, I did. I broke my own barriers with patience and some courage. Maybe the most intimidating aspect of something new is simply the beginning. I said earlier that I’ve been an island for nearly as long as I can remember. It’s still true, I don’t expect overnight results. It’s probably going to be true for a long time. Perhaps forever. But maybe it’s all the more reason why I should take this step toward peeking out of my self-imposed shell. Do what scares you, or whatever it is they say.

I wish I could say it was enough to reverse my earlier verdict.

Nope, I had to agonize some more.

What can I say? Fear is a damn powerful inhibitor.

Lo and behold, as if the universe took pity on me, I got the chance to communicate directly with the same awesome lady whom I quoted above and she kindly offered some more merciful wisdom to a truly maddeningly indecisive individual:

“When you create a blog, you are STILL anonymous. You have a username, yes, but it doesn’t lead back to you unless you want it to. You still have your personal privacy. Tumblr isn’t Facebook. If you want to disclose personal information, you can, but you certainly don’t have to.

And second, your blog is for you, not for anyone else. It’s for you to express your own opinions. Or create gifs or other visuals. Or just repost what other people create. You can be on every day, or just once a week. It’s also a great way to save stuff you might want to look at again. And then… and then… when brilliance suddenly hits you, you have somewhere to let it hang out! 😁”

It was much I had already considered, but it helped immeasurably to have my reasoning reaffirmed from an external source I respect. I logged into Tumblr for the first time the very same night.

After much deliberation, an uncharacteristic burst of bravery and a grueling four hours I owe to technological ineptitude, I have, tentatively and cautiously, opted to give this Tumblr thing a go.

With luck, a day will never arrive when I dust this preamble off for a much-needed pep talk. Instead, it is my hope that one day, this memo-to-me will stand as proof that I don’t always need to be afraid of the unknown. Not all endeavors have to be as frightening as they may appear. And if I can apply this attitude to all else suppressing my personal growth, I might just be peachy someday.

Bearing this in mind…

…here we go.

[annakie]

Continued Notes on a Blog Cleanup

I started doing this a couple of weeks ago, I’m still doing it even though I’ve now passed the place I was trying to get to to find a thing awhile ago.  

But now I’m in March of 2013, closing in on two years of blog cleaned up.

I’m on page 1811 of 2968 (working backwards) with 15 posts per page.  My guesstimates are that since I started posting the blog cleanup I’ve generated about 100 posts, that’s probably a little on the low side, but it’s a workable number.  When I started I had 3021 pages of blog, so adding in about 7 more pages worth of blogs since then, that means I’ve deleted about 60 pages worth of my bog, or somewhere around 900 posts.

Sounds about right.

Anyway, here’s a bunch more thoughts on tumblr in general, this blog cleanup, and a Doctor Who Nostalgia Rewatch.

What’s crazy is that about 1/3rd of my entire blog was done in the first 18 months of its creation.  It’s now over 8 years old, but I hit the 2000th page back around November 2012, when the blog was made in May, 2011.  

I’m just now getting to the point in the blog where I kept a pretty full and steady queue in the first few months of 2013, so things move faster now instead of like 100 posts per day untagged like the early days.  And I didn’t post at all for most of the last couple of months of 2017 and early 2018 so, there’s a few-months gap there, eventually. But I figure... why stop the nostalgia tour now.  Mostly because I’m finding things I want to organize better.  I’m also finding a lot of  edits or personal posts I made and didn’t tag properly in the time period I’m covering right now. 

When all this is done, I’ll probably do a mass blog export again, now that I’m happier with the contents.  Tumblr ain’t gonna be around forever, y’all.

Still, deleting a lot of stuff.  Posts are being deleted for

Being out of date, like “Hey this game is on sale, go buy it!” or “SIGN THIS PETITION AGAINST CISPA!” or “The new season of Parks and Rec starts September 23rd" (of 2013 or whatever).  

Sometimes for being a reblog of a thing that I only marginally ever cared about and no longer do at all.  

Things that have now been proven false, or false alarms, or things we no longer have to worry about for whatever reason.  

“Hoooo boy it’s 2019 and now THAT sure turned out to be a bad take!” (”Guys, this new show called House of Cards is on!  It stars the AMAZING KEVIN SPACEY, I LOVE HIM!”  OK that wasn’t verbatim but close, and Yikes.)

Still, the cringiest of the cringe.  But there’s a lot less of that now, which is nice.  I at some point over the beginning of 2013 started doing a lot more tagging of my own posts so the tags are a much nicer place to look than some of the terrible other-people’s tags.  Although I’m still only tagging at like 60 - 70% of the time.

Observations:

What takes the longest is adding tags to posts.  So for the most part tags are only getting added to things I made.  About 45% of which are personal posts, and about 45% of which are mass effect creations posts, so far.  About 10% are things I think I may want to find again someday, though a lot of those things are being put in the “reblogging really old stuff” queue.

The blog is like, 30% Doctor Who, 40% Mass Effect and 30% Psych/Elementary/Leverage/Misc now.  It’s better.

I JUST started getting really to the part where I contributed a little more to the ME/DW fandoms besides yelling at hate-taggers.  Still.  Mid-2013 me is still doing that on occasion.  Although now it’s sometimes about Kaidan Alenko instead of just Martha Jones.  I’m still kind of torn about how I feel about all that now.  I’d say that it’s funny how there doesn’t seem to be a lot of it on tumblr these days.  Now it feels like we all have more important things to fight about.  Also, tumblr is, you know, on life support.

It feels like my blog liked and watched Supernatural longer than I did in reality?  It felt like a short flirtation to me, there continues to be supernatural content on my blog for over a year now.  Pretty sure I stopped watching mid-season 9 so maybe that’ll stop soon.  Still, way less than the general population of tumblr it felt like at the time.

People with names like 221BTardisImpala really were the worst about tagging their hate and other stupid stuff.

I’d somehow forgotten about that terrible, gross post twisting Kaidan into an “abuser” for stupid stuff like “He brought a bottle of alcohol (you know, the one Shepard bought him?) to Shepard’s quarters!” and “He did a bad thing at 17!” (and clearly the person we are at 17 is the same person he was at 34.) and and just the most asinine reasoning applied, and tagged.   The whole “I gotta tear down characters other people like to make my fave the REAL WINNER” is just... ugh.  I got back to that post and honestly, am still thinking I should have deleted the whole thing.

I’ve picked another few tags on controversial characters that I love like Jacob Taylor and scrolled through, and like I posted earlier about Martha Jones, hate tagging in general seems to just... not happen that much anymore, even after scrolling back a year or two in those tags.  That makes tumblr a nicer place to be. I know we still see the occasional like, shitty shakarian shipper in the Kaidan Alenko tag (and again, that is a very small % of overall shakarian shippers) but it’s nothing like what it used to be.

It won’t be long until the WTNV explosion happens on tumblr, or maybe it had already started at this point.  It took me a few months to catch on.  And then I’m gonna listen to it and love it, and ask for rec’s for more podcasts, then I’m gonna get into Thrilling Adventure Hour and the blog is gonna become a much more positive place.  Looking forward to getting to all that.

Does anyone know if there’s a theme or script that lets you add tags from your dash or main blog page without editing a post?  I’d go back and do this again to tag some more good reblogged posts, I think.  I’d probably have also deleted more stuff if I could have done it from my blog without going into editing. :p

Seriously though, tumblr feels like such a different place now.  It’s... quieter.  It feels almost like empty nest syndrome around here.  Or maybe I’m just curating my own experience so much better.  But again, when I do go look at other people’s blogs from posts I’ve reblogged, like almost none of them are still active.  Although it’s also surprising the number that died just like, in the last year.

Another interesting thing has been... watching the rise and fall of a personal friendship through the first few years of the blog.  Back then there were a few people who I was really close to, mostly online.  I can feel the main friendship I had with that person slipping away as their life changed significantly starting the previous few months from where I am in that blog.  And honestly, I did my own part of leaving them behind when I gained a whole new group of close friends from TAH.  We’re still like, facebook friends, but it’s a reminder of how fluid online friendships can be.  

Doctor Who Rewatch Thoughts:

I am going to catch up on my blog before I run out of Doctor Who to watch, I think.  Considering things are starting to take a lot less “grooming” now on the cleanup.

I’m now about to embark on Silence in the Library.  Am I ready to see River Song die again?  No.  I am not.  This will be the first time I watch these episodes in years, probably since Matt Smith was around?  Definitely since The Husbands of River Song.  This... will be difficult.

Hoo boy Voyage of the Damned was bad, I’d forgotten how bad.  Not Fear Her bad but, pretty bad. Though I was amused that there was a character named Foon.  For some reason that word had always triggered something in my mind when they called the world that on Hello From the Magic Tavern and now I know why.

Martha Jones, still awesome in Season 4.  Donna Noble shines brightly.  Although I’d forgotten how much weaker the first half of her season is than the very good second half.

That was the first time I’d watched The Fires of Pompeii since Capaldi took over.  Funnily, I felt like his character got more Twelve-Like as the episode went on somehow.  The long scene between just Ten and Capladi’s character was neat to watch in retrospective.

[sylvermyth]

I’ve been tagged!  :O

Rules are to answer all the questions and tag 20 blogs you’d like to get to know better!

Tagged by: @saiyuri-dahlia (sorry it took me so long to get around to doing this, I lost the notification!!)

Gender: Female

Zodiac: Dragon/Taurus

Height: 5′ 7”

Time: 11:06 (EST)

Birthday: April 22

(the rest under a cut to save your dash)

Favorite Bands: Malice Mizer, Schwarz Stein, Buck-Tick, Dir en grey, tool, Florence + The Machine, the Killers....it really depends on my mood, I guess?  But those are probably the ones I’ve either listened to the most or that have stuck with me through the years.

Last movie I saw: BLACK PANTHER!

Last show I saw: Voltron Legendary Defender, S5!

When did I create my blog: Uh. 2012.  Six years on this blue hellsite....

What do I post:  Tons of sheith reblogs, recently, and other Shiro or Keith related things.  Science shit.  Funny shit.  Political shit.  Movies/shows I like.  Figure skating.  Fanfic (REBLOG A FIC TO SAVE A LIFE)--my own and also reblogs.

Last thing I googled: thesaurus MO (thesaurus is one of my most-used tools in writing, not because I want to use complicated words, but because a lot of times I’m searching for a word that has the right nuance/connotation...or I just forgot the word I’m thinking of)

Any other blogs: Yep!  @myth-onwriting @kh-worldsconnected (ended), @kh-figureskatinghell (hiatus), and a NSFW reblog blog.

Do you get asks?: Sometimes!  I do ask memes and sometimes I get bites, and sometimes not.  And prompts...I think I have prompts listed as open right now but I haven’t gotten any since that AkuRoku mpreg one (yikes) and tbh I don’t really have time to be taking them right now, as I have plenty of WIPs on the rails atm, and I’m pretty tied up with school otherwise.

Why did you choose your URL:  I have been some variation of “myth” since....maybe 2001 or 2002?  And I also adopted “silvermyth” and its variation “sylvermyth” around then...I think when I picked my email, silvermyth wasn’t available, so I went with sylvermyth, which...I’ve in general found more aesthetically pleasing, for the spelling, and I’m pretty ride-or-die with my pseudo.  I think that’s kind of a more old school thing?  From back in the days where it wasn’t so easy to just change your username on social media sites (forums, LJ, etc), but also BRAND RECOGNITION.  It’s become part of my identity.  :D

Types of Blogs you follow: friends, fandom/ship blogs, artists, writers...in general I try to avoid following blogs that are filled with drama/salt/hate, and try to stick with ones that are positive.  It’s really important to me to curate my dash, because I want to come on tumblr to have fun and chill, not get dragged down by politics and drama.

Favorite colors: jewel tones, reds, blues, purples, greens

Avg hours of sleep: Lately it’s been closer to 4-5 hours, but usually around 7ish.

Lucky Number: 22

Dream trip: Honestly there’s not any one trip in particular I’d like to take?  I enjoy traveling in general, either alone to just explore and be in my own head (although that can get a little empty/lonely), or with friends that I can drink (not required tho) and have fun with.  I’d love to go back to France, or visit other places in Europe, and I also have a lot of friends I want to visit scattered around--some that I’ve already met, and some that I haven’t, but I want to travel to visit them.

What are you wearing?: It’s spring break yo, I’m in sweats and a comfy t-shirt.  I’ll have to change to leggings and put on a bra when I go skating later tonight, but until then I AM SLUBBIN IT.

How many blankets do you sleep with?: It hasn’t been too cold recently so it’s been anywhere from one to three, but when it gets really cold, I have six that I have a particular way of arranging to obtain maximum warmth.  But even in the summer I usually prefer to sleep with one or two blankets, because I like the weight...so I maybe put the AC up a little higher than necessary....  XD;;

Dream job: This one’s a little hard because it’s more like, what’s my dream lifestyle?  Because IDEALLY I’ve always wanted to work in like...either a library or own a used/rare book shop, with enough downtime or quiet to be able to also write and do crafts/art, and enough money to be able to travel a couple times a year, and it would be nice to also be making money off of my writing.  That is my dream--I love being surrounded by books, because it just feels so comforting, and I love the smell of old books when you walk into a library or a used book store, but I also like being able to go out and have an adventure and see what the world has to offer.  Of course, I have a cynical streak a mile wide, and I also really like engaging my mind to challenge myself, so I’m studying engineering so I can actually pay off my tuition and hopefully have a pretty comfortable life where I might be able to travel more frequently.  Maybe when I retire I’ll follow my dreams and do the book shop thing, or go work in a library (I know being a Librarian require’s a Master’s, because I was considering it for a while, but that’s...hardly a problem, I love learning)

Favorite foods: Food.  I just...really like eating, and trying new things.  I’ll try anything once, and there’s not a ton of foods I don’t like, let alone hate.  Like, things I will avoid:  blueberries, coconut, grapes, shiitake mushrooms.  Other than that?  I’m all about the food.

Nationality: American

Uhh...20 people is quite a lot of people to tag, lmao.  But sure, how about @caseyvalhalla @apiegohome @princess-wasabi @tootsonnewts @ryuko-hime @eternal-harvest @alone-in-my-little-infinity @cyberphuck @safeautistickeith @galapae @cocythe @verging-on-the-void @zenellyraen @deadfreckledboys @junecsea @galacticpanther @kenzichi @the-smallest-kurapika @purpleinuyashagirl @laffinchik  Don’t feel obligated to do this, only do it if you want to!  <3 <3

[emptymanuscript]

It’s not you, It’s me *snerk* But seriously:

The time has come to start thinking about things. Things I am unhappy considering. But that’s a reason to think about them in and of themselves. I go in for an assessment to return to the hospital tomorrow. If last time is anything to go on, I’ll go back in on Friday. Last time proved a considerable boost to my mental health but not a long standing improvement. So it is time to consider how I can get both that boost again and make it last longer this time around.

An issue that has now come up already is my use of social media. The Wonder Hutch has proposed that I am using Tumblr as an addictive and dysfunctional coping mechanism. I’m not sure that she is entirely wrong. Tumblr is of some definite benefit to me and because of my “job” I’m really not allowed to not be present. But there is a difference between effective and addictive use. The problem is finding the line. Discussing it with my therapist, we’re all kind of on the same page as that it is something to consider stepping back from some.

What would that entail? I’m not sure. Partially though that unsurety is a defense mechanism. I don’t particularly want to think about what it would entail. It certainly means being on less. It means consciously being absent. I have to choose times that I will be on and times that I will be off rather than have it be randomly at my desires. I suspect that it means is a massive curtailment of my dash. My instinct to deal with the problem is to unfollow 90%+ of the people I currently read. While that makes me feel very guilty, I think I also have to be aware that this is a mental health action. This is a bitter medicine and until I get better I really just may not have a choice. Especially since I feel that not adding, “If I ever get better,” is dishonest.

My instinct is that I need to be able to read my dash in twenty minutes and that twenty minutes needs to be curated for my safety and the safety of others. I have been taking dangerous actions that are not ok. And part of that is my reaction to thought processes that occur while going through my dash. I think I have to accept that my lack of mental health means that I have to hold myself to a different standard than I want to. I have stated before that the indignation of others is not worth my health. I think that goes the other way. My indignation is not worth the health of others. If I am seriously enough worried that I may physically harm others that I am seeking to return to the hospital and am a little more fearful that they might say no than anything else, then I should not be allowed free reign, even in private. Even here. That means I have to curate for safety.  I am deeply against the “child-proofing” of the world. But the trade off for that belief, that it is not your responsibility to keep me safe, is that it then becomes the individual responsibility, my responsibility, to curate the exposure to the world. If I can’t safely handle what I’m exposed to, then it is my responsibility to make sure I’m not exposed to it until I am capable of handling it appropriately.

I really wish that Tumblr had a method for not treating all your follows equally. The one thing I really miss about LiveJournal was that I could classify people into groups and only look at a particular group as its own feed. Then I’d just make a stark feed for myself and not worry about it all. But that’s not the way social media really works anymore. So…

I feel like I have two options. Download Tumblr Savior or Xkit or whatever it is now and simply block almost everybody. Or just unfollow almost everybody. I don’t like either option. The blacklist option seems like a slippery slope to me. A way to isolate myself more and more and end up using real safety concerns as an excuse to create a false sense of security. The unfollow option means I lose everything I’ve built up and I’m going to have to start from scratch when/if I return to a more operational level of mental health.

The other issue, of course, is other people. I know there are a lot of people who are legitimately sensitive about this sort of thing. There is a feeling of abandonment that can accompany a mutual deciding that they need to curate you out of their life. This is my, it isn’t you, it’s me, speech: it isn’t you, it’s that I need to take care of myself and I’m in the mental space right now that I can’t take care of myself and other people as well. How I feel about that isn’t terribly relevant given that things are getting really quite bad. I have been pondering going back to the hospital idly ever since I got out. I’m going back now because I’m frightened. My feelings really probably aren’t worth anyone’s safety and that’s the real issue. Something, probably a lot of somethings, has to give. To some degree I feel that argues for the unfollow actually, because then at least you know where you stand instead of there just being a vague threat that I may be ignoring you and you just don’t know. Unfollow feels more honest. And I know 90%+ of the people I unfollow seriously wouldn’t care 2 cents. It’s that tiny little minority of people that I feel like I may need to unfollow and who will care that I worry about. And I don’t know what to do about that other than share my thoughts.

I’d also say, that if you do care… you should probably let me know and maybe we can work something out. Maybe there is a hybrid solution. Maybe one I’ve never even considered. So… yeah, shyness won’t help you, and honestly, I’m not going to tear your head off. Social connectivity is one of the few things that I think Tumblr is good for.

It’s also not lost on me that a lot of my activities reflect trends I see in people in the lead up to leaving Tumblr. Perhaps more people will care about that, perhaps not. I did set up my online presence with Tumblr as my front end of my online workflow. Effort beyond what I am currently capable of would be required to change that workflow. So, I currently don’t feel like I have either the intention or capability of leaving. And I don’t know where I would go if I did leave. So that’s off the table for the foreseeable future.

The final decision is now or later. Do I do this today? Tomorrow? Friday? Over the weekend? Plusses and minuses all around. But I suspect that my very extreme reluctance means that at least starting now is probably better. That this is malfunctioning fairly seriously. So, to it, I guess. And if you notice me unfollowing you, this is why, if you care about it, yeah, feel free to say something. We’ll work it out. If you don’t care, cool. No worries. It’s been fun following you.

[changterhune]

Time to Cut And Run

I think I’m done with social media. 

Okay, not all of it. But most of it.

“Why?” is what you’re asking. “You’re so active on it! Look at you with all the Facebooking, the Twittering, the Instagramming, the Tumbling and such!”

You’re right. And it’s slowly killing me. No joke.

WHEN YOU’RE THE PROBLEM YOU GOT A BIG PROBLEM

When my first reaction to dropping all social media was fear and concern that I couldn’t do it then I should’ve known I had a problem. As I’ve had more and more time to hear their experience and how they felt after cutting this particular cord I knew it was something I had to do.

Of course in grand Terhune style, I made a big frigging pronouncement that on August 1st, 2019 I would be deactivating or mothballing my Facebook and Twitter accounts for one month. I said I’d keep my Instagram and Tumblr active, though I might’ve ditched Tumblr, too, at the end of the month.

But it didn’t work out quite like that.

“Why?” you may ask? (As if anyone’s still reading).

Well, I’ll tell you.

PEER PRESSURE

Two friends of mine cut the cords from social media this summer.

They immediately reported feeling great but not after some initial shock and withdrawal (which apparently was significant). My aforementioned terrified reaction to this turned into admiration then concern and jealousy. They could easily disengage, it seemed, while I found the idea as frightening as severing a limb.

When I began to envy those who can seemingly manage if not thrive from their social media presence is when I realized I was really in it deep.

A HISTORY LESSON Fourteen years ago our family moved to Maine, uprooting from an established network of friends and family. My wife and I threw ourselves into a new business (a yoga studio) and our daughter was in school. We developed friendships and built a loving, vibrant community around our yoga studio. Our sense of professionalism meant maintaining boundaries though we maintained some social contact in meatspace (what the rest of the world calls in real life or IRL in technospeak). It was enough and made up for what we lost when we moved to a new state.

During this time, from 2005 to 2014, social media grew from a few blogs and LiveJournal into Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and others. Many of my social media accounts were created in 2008 after I attended the Viable Paradise workshop. There I connected with fellow writers and future friends from all over the world.

In the beginning, these platforms allowed me to keep in touch while friending new people and reconnecting with friends from my hometown, college and other areas of my life. It was fun to grow my friends lists in all those apps. There I got to know the new friends and reconnect with the old ones. At one time I could even distinguish between someone I knew from real life, the internet, high school, my yoga life, my music life and my writing life.

Then as they often do, things got… weird.

Actually I became severely depressed and then I got weird.

Okay, fine. I got weird-er. Ya happy now?

“MY COMPLICATIONS HAD COMPLICATIONS.”

2013-2014 is when social media became problematic for me. Though in some ways it was a lifeline, where I kept in touch with people when I felt isolated. But more often I grew to feel as if I wasn’t validated unless I posted something on social media. 

Or I wondered if I was valued or even alive if I posted something and got a “like.”

It became the place where I lived the most and this wasn’t good for me.

In that time social media grew into something like the facehugger from the movie “Alien.” If you don’t know what that is (what the hell is wrong with you?!) then here’s a litte background for you:

The facehugger is a parasitoid; its only purpose being to make contact with the host's mouth for the implantation process. The Facehugger secures its eight finger-like appendages tightly around the head of its victim and wraps its tail tightly around the host's neck, eliciting a gasping response and allowing the insertion of an ovipositor into the host's esophagus. An embryonic form of the Xenomorph is then implanted directly into the stomach of the host. During the implantation process the host is fed a constant supply of oxygen via two lung like organs. 

Here’s a fun video (WARNING IT CONTAINS SCARY SHIT):

Get the picture?

Social media - mostly Facebook and Twitter to be honest - became a thing attached to me, breathing for me while implanting something foreign into me. But instead of originating as something invasive I basically invited it in, made it some tea, shaved while it drank the tea then allowed it to hop on my face and ride me like a fucking tired, old pony at the carnival.

OUTRAGE FATIGUE

 As my friend good friend and bold German brother Marko Kloos wrote, it’s all too easy to open up one of these sites and get enthralled in the rage of the day. I don’t know who manages their social media engagement and doesn’t feel this or how they do it. But I realized that I was experiencing something dubbed extreme outrage fatigue. And it made the depths of my depression in the last five years considerably worse than it had to be. Because it’s one thing to be engaged and aware of what’s going on and yet another thing entirely to go from zero to furious in a second. 

I had enough stress and cortisol cocktails back when we owned our business. Real life then dealt me an even greater dollop of it in the last five. I’m better now with the help of therapy, medication, and a new CPAP machine. And as I get better, I realized giving my body a heaping dose of cortisol every time I open Facebook and see something that jolts my nerves and off I go into a tailspin.

And I’m so, so very done feeling this way. I’m fairly sure it’s killing me slowly.

DER PLAN? DIRT PLANT!

Unlike the facehugger from Alien, pulling the plug on social media hasn’t strangled me or causes acidic blood to scar me or eat a hole in three or four decks of a spaceship.

But the withdrawal was a little intense that first day. I’m not gonna lie. 

Because I’m a little addicted to social media.

Which, if you’re unfamiliar with recovery schpiel, means I’m very addicted.

Social media - with its likes, hearts, emojis, RT’s and everything else - is perfect for our little lizard brains. They only want to feel fed, fucked, free and fat - which really means feeling loved, wanted and secure. When we get a little like or emoji on a post it releases endorphins into our brains and we crave more. So much so that I often wish I’d never gotten involved with it and kept my daughter off social media for as long as possible.

It’s not social media’s fault per se, it’s just that I am wired in such a way that it makes addicts of us (my wife can take it or leave it which is both annoying and enviable). 

Now don’t get me wrong: there’s a ton of things I love about social media. I love that it’s connected me with people all over the world, made new friends and reconnected me to old ones. I love that it’s truly helped people in various causes across the globe from the Arab Spring uprising, the RESIST marches in the US and the Hong Kong protests. It can be a tool for positive change in the world but it’s not being used as such because those who run Facebook and Twitter see more profit in running it another way.

Don’t believe me? Then go to Netflix and watch The Big Hack documentary. Then tell me how you don’t care about what Facebook does with your information. Because I guaranteed they know how you think and decide about your purchases and beliefs almost as well as or better than you.

SOCIETY’S A DRAG SO WHY NOT JUST DROP OUT?

“Well, why are you staying on Instagram and Tumblr?” you may ask. “They’re just as bad!”

Okay. I’ll tell you why. It’s simple.

Because they bring me joy.

My Tumblr dash is mostly science fiction themed posts and a few political ones. I go there for concept art, the work of favorite artists, funny gifs and even music (I certainly don’t go there for adult content since they killed that community off the day before my 50th birthday. Great gift, jackasses!). It’s a nice place to unwind as I usually check it out at the end of the day before I go to bed.

My Instagram feed is full of pictures and videos of synthesizers, cute animals, cartoons, comics, fail videos, concept art and almost no politics. I feel better when I go on it, especially when I see pictures of dogs and cats. And Sparky has a pretty dedicated following which I must curate for his majesty. 

Now if I’m being honest with myself I’m still checking the likes for video clips I post of my songs or artwork. That little approval drug, that little pip of endorphins is something I have to deal with. 

And if I’m being even more honest with myself I can safely say social media has done very little to help me sell my books, music or comics. Most of that I’ve done by hand through word of mouth.

DELETE AND REPEAT UNTIL YOU FEEL THE BEAT

 “Okay, so big deal,” you say. “You’re not dropping out but you’re cutting back. What’s it gonna look like from here on out?” you may ask (as if anyone is still reading this).

For starters my online presence has shrunk noticeably. Initially I planned to deactivate my Facebook account early in August and do the same with Twitter. I started this by deleting the apps from my phone on a Monday.

Then something extraordinary happened.

First the anxiety whacked me over the back of the head and took me for a ride in the back of a smelly old beater. Like for most of the day I was grabbing my phone, going to the apps and experiencing a jolt at not seeing them there. It was like I kept reaching for a door that had been there or a window only to find it replaced with a giant brick wall or gaping empty space. This went along for a good 5-6 hours.

Then the anxiety went away.

The next day was infinitely easier. Without reaching for my phone the way Charles Bukowski reached for a cigarette or glass of whisky first thing in the morning, my day started off much more relaxed. Combined with the benefits of sleeping with a CPAP machine and POW! I was up earlier and easier in the morning as I went off to walk the dog then head into work. In the weeks since I curtailed my social media usage I feel so much better. More relaxed, less anxious and not nearly as out of touch as I thought I might. I check the news feed for a few minutes and listen to the radio but that’s it. Not nearly as much outrage first thing in the morning.

Despite not deleting my Facebook or Twitter accounts completely I haven’t felt much temptation to reinstall them. In fact most days, instead of checking in on both at least a dozen times an hour, I usually check in on Facebook at work late in the morning then once at night at home in my office. 

It shocks me how, after so little time away from it there’s so little there that I wonder how it became such a huge part of my life. The annoyance hits me like a day old haddock in the face the moment I open Facebook and after seeing if I need to reply to anything immediately I just close it and move on.

I have not, obviously, deactivated or deleted either of the monsters for a couple reasons. It’s nice to check in on people individually because the feed is bullshit due to algorithms that show you want Facebook or Twitter wants you to see (I’ve largely abandoned my artist pages because the effort involved in getting them to produce any results is herculean and yields nothing). My Instagram posts to Facebook and other social media so I didn’t need to check it as often. In fact I can’t usually stay on it for more than 5 minutes before getting bored.

YOU NEED US. DON’T YOU? PRETTY PLEASE? “So how are we going to stay in touch?” you may ask. “What about the people who need to get in touch with you?” (as if anyone is still reading this in the present day).

Honestly? If you want me you know where to find me. If you have my digits then call or text a brother. You can always email me, too.

I use Facebook Messenger regularly, despite knowing every word and image I put there is used to sell beer and cheap shit. My intention is to focus more on my personal site and blog at www.charlesrterhune.com and www.changterhune.com. There I’ll be posting regularly in an effort to hone and maintain my internet presence as much as I can (for we are all still at the mercy of the behemoth that is Google). It’s also a case of having the time to post as I’m working on several project at a time. My website will post to social media as long as those sites are active.

Honestly, if I feel this good weeks after cutting the cord I’m sure it will feel a-frigging-mazing in a couple months or even a year’s time!

So I’ll see you around these parts I hope.

Or maybe even IRL here in meatspace!

- CHARLIE/CHANG/CHIZZLE/CRT