#like tumblr needs it's notifs to function

[fyrewalks]

ready to snooze and a little stressed out by the dash melting down over a glitch i'm not sure actually exists so i'll be around tomorrow!

[benetnvsch]

I love it when im looking at my own post on my own Tumblr and it shows me the 'more like this' collection of posts and it shows posts from blogs I've blocked like?? Yes girl that’s exactly what I wonna see :D man this site is insufferable lol

[xcziel]

i am SO IRRITATED with @support @staff right now

like this detaching a post from its link to each individual reblog in a chain is a NIGHTMARE

-> new hyperfixation, and i'm trying to backread some of the associated blogs that have been around a while, yeah?

and i'm on mobile, which is relevant because hey fuck app users is i guess the motto?

so used to, if you wanted to read a few months/years back on a blog you could: find a tag of theirs, click on a post that was around the time you were interested in, be ported to the blog's dash AS OF THAT TIME IN THE PAST, and just scroll along

but now, because tumblr, for whatever moronic reason, has isolated posts so that

clicking takes you to an individual pane for *only* that post, not where it is on the blog timeline

AND NOW you CANNOT reach a previous reblog from clicking on the username in the reblog (only the og post)

the ONLY way to get back to older posts is to SCROLL MANUALLY FOR LITERAL HOURS

if i want to see posts from 2017, finding an old post and clicking on it does NOTHING to help me - it has been snipped out of its native environment and shown to me, but the other posts available as links at the bottom pane are just whatever tumblr algorithm thinks are 'relevant', not access to the rest of the blog timeline

this is true EVEN ON MY OWN BLOG and

I HATE IT

either make the Archive function work on mobile or GIVE BACK THE FUNCTIONALITY THAT WE HAVE ALWAYS HAD

[roddymusprime]

feeling insane i have 100+ pages of rodimus stuff reblogged on my main blog just by searching up his name alone (god knows theres definitely more) i've been insane about this bitch since age 13/14

tempted to reblog them all but i'd be blowing my own notifs up

[actual-changeling]

A small 'this is how you use tumblr' for the people that haven't been here very long. These are in no particular order, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask them!

Since I probably did not mention a lot of things, you are welcome to add to this post with your own advice.

a) Reblog posts. if you like it, reblog it. even if you have zero followers and ESPECIALLY if it's art or writing of any kind. We will see the reblog in our notifications and that alone brings joy. One reblog can start a chain and push the post onto many people's dashes.

b) Tumblr is not a very functional website, if you want to survive without losing your mind, there are two things you need: xkit rewritten and dashboard unfucker. Play around with the settings until it is to your liking. Additionally, change to firefox if you haven't already and install ublock origin to get rid of ads, tracking etc.

c) If you go to your settings (account! not blog) you can find this under dashboard at the bottom. Turn off at the very least 'best stuff first' since that will fuck up your dash and not give you posts in chronological order.

The rest are a perfonal preference but it will keep your dash tidy and easy to control if you turn them off, too.

d) Apropos settings—get a profile picture, a header, write something human in your bio, anything. Otherwise people will assume you are a bot and block you on sight.

e) Blocking! Do it generously and whenever you want, this is how you keep whatever remains of your sanity. It's not a lethal offense, it is (usually) not even seen as rude or anything along those lines. You block people and they block you and everyone is happy.

f) Under account settings you will find this:

Just like with blocking, use both options to your heart's content.

g) Tumblr is not like other social media platforms, spam liking & reblogging and going three years deep into someone's account is NORMAL and encouraged. You can search a blog by post type, tags, or even go to the archive and scroll through the posts there.

h) Lastly—interaction. We already went over reblogging (I mean it, REBLOG), but there are also replies and asks. If you add something to someone else's post please behave like a kind human being and don't be an asshole; based on my experience, that's easier said than done. On top of that, the tags are ALSO used for communication, go unhinged, ramble, leave your thoughts, or simply use them for organisational purposes. Everyone loves a good insane tag wall.

An open inbox (either anonymously or with your blog attached) is to be used! Please send people asks if they have them active, use it like DMs or a comment section, use it to recommend something, ask questions, participate in an ask or prompt game—we love asks here.

(We do not like harassment in our inboxes, same rules as above.)

[tenpintsof-sundrop]

Did you know that you can reblog fics with tags in order to bookmark them?

Okay the replies on this post are kind of sending me to space, so I figured I needed to make a new post.

I know a lot of people are new to tumblr and might not know how to use tumblr properly, and it does just make me go ??? whenever I look on someone's account and they have 0 reblogs and just have a giant wall of fanfiction in their likes. Because I cannot imagine scrolling through endless fanfiction posts in my likes looking for one fic when organizing things with tags is so much better.

First of all, for new people - reposting and reblogging are two very different things. If a writer has "do not repost" as a disclaimer, they are not talking about reblogging.

Reposting is when you copy and paste someone's entire work, make a brand new post, and then post their work under the implication that it is your own.

Reblogging is a function that is built into the website (and app) that comes up in a creator's notifications, showing that you appreciate their work because you interacted with it. Reblogs always have links back to the original poster so people can find them and follow them.

So - when you hit the reblog button (the one next to the like button that is shaped like a recycling symbol) - you are giving the author credit and encouraging them.

Also, you can use tags on your reblog to organize fanfiction for your own use later!

You can tag by genre -> #smut #angst #hurt and comfort

You can tag by a character's name -> #Spencer Reid #Emily Prentiss #Jennifer Jareau

You can tag by a pairing -> #Spencer Reid x Reader #Emily Prentiss x Reader

If you read fanfic from a lot of different fandoms, you can even structure your tags to include multiple elements -> #Spencer Reid x Reader Smut

A lot of people even reblog fanfics and tag them as #TBR or #to be read - in order to bookmark a fic that they are interested in and want to come back to later.

And you can edit the tags on posts you have reblogged at any time, so if you want to edit something that you have already read and update the tags, you can do that.

I think it's a shame that people aren't taking advantage of this websites very useful features (while supporting fanfic writers at the same time). You don't need to keep links to Tumblr fanfiction somewhere else in order to organize them - if you use Tumblr right, you can keep everything organized within Tumblr and it works perfectly.

[jojo-oliver]

How to tumblr for artists… my own version

A collection of things that have been working for me, but may not work for everyone

~~~ your posts ~~~

!!!reblog your own stuff!!! you need to reblog your own stuff, there is nothing morally wrong with reblogging your own stuff regularly. in fact, it is morally right to allow the chance for more people to see your artwork.

~~~ queue it!! ~~~ my queue is 500 posts strong. maybe don't try to make your queue hundreds of posts strong in the same day omg but like… once every month or two i'll go through my whole blog and just scroll and "add to drafts" to every one of my own posts i have. then i'll use the "mass post editor" to add content warning tags. and add to queue, and shuffle. and then I write down what the date was for when I last added my posts to be reblogged on queue. this is helped by turning on timestamps for posts in tumblr "dashboard preferences" settings.

queueing is necessary and life saving for me. It takes out so much work with decision fatigue and the anxiety around posting. It also guarantees that even if I suddenly need time off or away from my phone, I don't just disappear and lose all traction. It also breaks the instant-gratification cycle that you expect when you finish an artwork. It's hard to keep creating when you post something and, when you're expecting to get that gratification, you get none... If you queue your new artwork to come out at a later time, you've separated that expectation - with time. It hurts less and contributes to a more consistent gratification thing instead of peaks and troughs.

~~~ tag ya stuff ~~~ when you're making a new post, the first 20 tags are what gets put into the searchable tags. do not feel shame for using lots of tags. shame is the mind-killer. tags are hard. hard to know what to tag a post with. hard to remember the tags. so I found some ways to help myself. maybe they'll help you too. dedicate some time towards just figuring out what tags you want to use. i have a list in my phone notes that i add tags to and reference whenever i'm making a new post. i have the phone right beside the laptop while i'm tagging so that i can just look at it and scroll. tags are the only way for people to find your artwork, other than people manually coming to your blog because they saw you somewhere. there is no algorithm. posting without tags, until you have an established fanbase, is throwing something into the void.

When I'm doing tag research, I look at what people seem to use - when you put something in the search bar, tumblr recommends you some that have a higher following, typically. Looks like this on desktop:

if you like one tag, look at what other people who use that tag also tag their posts with. Observe and learn how this tag is used. search through a bunch of them and write them down.

here's what i got in my notes, for the specific kind of art I post and look for:

these tags are sort of specific to me and the kind of art I make. You'll want to research your own tags, but this is an example of how I keep them organized to make posting more effective. I generally only write down a tag when it's got more than 2k followers. You might be tempted to use the tags with millions of followers, but I've actually found those a lot less functional for small artists. If your stuff doesn't immediately get a bunch of notifications, you're drowned out and pushed to the bottom much faster. But the bigger tags are better than no tags, so I keep them if I can't think of anything else to tag something with.

~~~ post at the right times….? ~~~

fridays and saturdays is when I post fresh new things... usually. every website has it's own peak hours, and you can find those hours in many different online articles that try to sell you social media growth services. tumblr is unique in having later hours.

here's some random graph from google images:

please don't over think this. please don't let this consume the idea of when to post, preventing you from posting at all. it doesn't mean too much - if you post during very active hours, maybe your art would just be pushed down the feed faster. if you post at the end of hours, maybe everyone's going to sleep… if you post at inactive hours, maybe there's less 'competition'… if you post at the beginning of active hours, maybe that's just more time for your post to circulate for the day, if you have enough people reblogging it once it drops....

this also is in EST. So fuck the other time zones, I guess. I'm over here in europe knowing that the "best" time to post would be like 2-3am or something. It's like this for most english-speaking majority sites - higher traffic in north american time zones.

it's also worth mentioning that this is scattered as heck, compared to other social media sites. and it's not like, the activity times of your followers. it's not the best time to post for your niche. this is just tumblr, broadly. all of tumblr.

~~~ Plan ahead for annual dates ~~~

Your artwork will get more circulation if it's posted on a celebratory day. You could just put them on your calendar and if you're wondering what to make, look on the calendar for what's coming soon. For example, asexual awareness day, trans day of visibility, location-specific holidays, etc. Here's my phone notes thing with my own recorded annuals:

I got these dates from googling and reading different articles, but I find that I still miss dates, and then I add them for next year. If you know of some I missed, tell me and I'll add them please <3

~~~ reblog other people's stuff ~~~

tumblr is sorta about ecosystems. things get passed around within groups of people that are all following eachother. to enter this ecosystem, you must engage and reblog other people's stuff too.

if you reblog other artists' stuff, sometimes they'll come over and reblog your stuff too. sometimes they'll follow you back. this is called becoming a mutual. I'll search specific tags for the kinds of people I want to follow and the kind of art I like - those are listed in the screenshot of my tag note under "Tags for finding new people".

I see a lot of blogs out there that are very clean, posts are tagless, and are only for the artists' content. like scrolling through a portfolio. I imagine this is good for people who are migrating to tumblr but already have their own established fanbase from elsewhere.

you don't need to do reblog other people's stuff on your art blog, you can do this on a separate blog. but if the two don't look very closely correlated, it's hard to tell who you are when you're interacting. and hard to make sure people know that you are the same person as your art blog. and you gotta remember to promote yourself on your personal blog.

~~~ have an art tag ~~~

make your blog easy to search!

if i go to your blog, and you've written 'artist' or 'sometimes art' in your bio, i wanna see it… it make me so sad when i don't get to see it. i want to reblog it. please let me reblog it :(

to make a tag on your own blog searchable, you don't need to repost it to add a tag. you don't even need to reblog it. you can actually just go back to the original post and edit it to add your tag. I've seen post people just have their art tag be something like #(blogname)art . you can see my own in my tags image above. if it's very unique, then it'll work tumblr-wide. I think that's good, since the tumblr search function is really weird. Otherwise it should still work if it's not entirely unique, people just have to make sure they're searching specifically your blog to see only your stuff.

I like to have a link in my pinned post where people can click to have immediately searched for my art tag. Convenience is king. Keep in mind that most people are on mobile, and if something isn't immediately clickable, they often won't find it.

~~~ be consistent and be patient ~~~

!!!this time will pass anyway!!! how many notes you have is not correlated with how good you are as an artist. wanting to earn something from your art means you essentially have two jobs. two potentially full time jobs. this shit's difficult. most of the job is promoting yourself. don't undersell how hard it is to do… don't feel bad for not immediately succeeding. I would write about how hard it's been to promote myself, but it would just be long and sad I think.

This isn't a full guide, please feel free to add more!!

I'm sure in another year I'll disagree with a lot of this, it will become irrelevant with time, and I'll have a lot of different opinions. Chip in and share what you've been doing? Teach me? This is very overwhelming. Don't do it all at once, just like, try one thing at a time, and see how it works for you. Your niche might be different. One size does not fit all. If you're confused about some of the things I talk about in here, you might be on mobile. I do most of my queueing and posting from the desktop browser version.

I will update this with more as things change, but I think you'll have to click through to see the updated post

[sarasa-cat]

The best tumblr feature most people do not know about: BLOG SUBSCRIPTIONS

This is a tumblr labs feature that I have used for years and it makes tumblr So Much More Useful because:

0. It creates an additional dash for me that has my tumblr besties and a handful of blogs I want to regularly see.

1. It allows me to easily filter out things I don’t want to see during daily “quick chill-out” sessions on tumblr.

2. It allows me to temporarily remove a blog from my subscriptions without unfollowing the blog. This is great for managing spoilers and discourse.

What does it require?

If you are setting this up via your phone, you need to go into your phone’s setting for notifications and turn on notifications for tumblr. This is required for tumblr’s blog subs feature.

Now, if you are like me, you don’t want tumblr making your phone beep at you and give you endless alerts. You can turn those things off in your phone’s general settings while still making this work.

SET UP INSTRUCTIONS BEHIND THE READ MORE

Here it is on my iPhone. Android will be similar:

A. Open settings and search for notifications:

B. Scroll all the way down until you find tumblr.

C. Tap on it and turn on notifications otherwise you cannot set up this tumblr feature on your phone!

(This feature will still function on your phone if you set it up via a browser on your computer/laptop, but you won’t be able to add more blogs to your notifications via your phone)

Setting it up in tumblr :

You first need to turn on tumblr labs and then you need to turn on the blog subscriptions feature.

Click on the gear icon on your blog if on your phone. If on a laptop/computer, just navigate to general settings.

Next, Navigate into general settings:

Scroll down to tumblr labs:

If you don’t have labs turned on, turn it on!!! Lots of good stuff in there!

Turn on the BLOG SUBSCRIPTIONS TAB option.

Now you are set up!

Time to add blogs to that tab by subscribing to them in addition to following them.

How to subscribe to a blog :

Here is a blog I already follow and I want to add this blog to my subscriptions.

Look for this person icon in the upper corner:

Tap on it and you will see this if you are already following the blog:

This isn’t entirely intuitive but GET NOTIFICATIONS will put that blog on your BLOG SUBS tab.

Notice how i now see a lightning icon next to the little person icon. That means I am subscribed for notifications.

And now, when I go to my blog subs tab I will see this blog.

Obviously I can also unsubscribe if I want to by tapping on that person icon and then unsubscribing from notifications without UNFOLLOWING.

———

How is this useful?

When I trust certain blogs (often various mutuals) to not post spoilers and I just want to see them on my dash, rather than unfollow lots of blogs, I just add these trusted blogs to my subscriptions and only use the Blog Subs tab as my dash.

Same for avoiding discourse.

It is also good for making sure I don’t miss posts from selected blogs because my main dash is too busy.

It is also good for curating a very specific aesthetic or vibe on my blog subs tab without needing multiple tumblr accounts.

[pedrostories]

Dear Fanfic Lovers,

We're fully aware that tumblr's searching system is far from ideal, even though we try our best to create an extensive fanfiction library for you where you can always find anything you fancy, however niche it may be, but we're continuously looking for ways to make your experience as smooth as possible. 🖤

Here are a few tricks to help you navigate through the blog (you can also find this in our Navigation post, under 𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗡𝗢𝗨𝗦) and a few miscellaneous tips for writers as well.

If you have any needs these functions don't offer a solution to, or you know another useful hack that could enhance the experience on this blog, let us know!

FOR WRITERS

✦ some tricks and tips on how to reach your audience

If you feel like you can't quite reach readers with your story, please don't blame yourself! Tumblr is sometimes the creators' enemy, you just need to know a few things you can use to your advantage! Apart from the tips there's also a heartfelt message from the lovely @undercoverpena as well! 🖤 Pedrostories is here for you!

✦ how to add a gif to your work crediting the gifmaker

If you're a fanfic writer and you would like to insert a gif in your work while properly crediting the gifmaker, here's an easy to follow guide to use tumblr's image insert feature. Important: If you reupload a gif, even though you credit them in your post, someone else might find that gif later, using the image insert feature and it might credit you as the gifmaker instead of the original creator.

This is how it looks like in the notifications when someone uses a gif you uploaded:

And this is how it gives credit to the person who uploaded the gif:

FOR READERS

And now here are a few tips about how to find any work that caters to your needs on our blog:

✦ tags: here you can find our most used tags based on the length, rating, main characters of the stories, and some other important tags, like tropes as well

✦ writers' masterlist: here you can find all the writers in the pedro fandom. The list is continuously updated, please let us know if someone is missing!

✦ blacklisting tags: curate your own experience! We tag every story based on the author's notes and warnings, and if we have the capacity to read the piece, with our own tags. If there’s a character/trope/dynamic/etc. you would like to avoid, you can easily blacklist tags on tumblr.

✦ tag finder: this is the best way to search tumblr’s tag system - it actually accurately looks through the tags without omitting results. (source)

✦ blog searching tricks and tips: if you’re on desktop/browser and you're looking for an exact word, here are some easy ways to find the post you're looking for!

✦ all the tags we've ever used: This is a super simple and incredibly useful script by Benjamin Horn which you can use to find Every. Single. Tag. we've ever used on the blog, and if you click on the results it will take you back to the blog, listing all the posts with that tag! Here's how to use it:

Open the link (duh), type in the blog's name on the top left corner, and click on Load tags.

2. It might take a few minutes for the results to load, so be patient 🧘‍♀️

3. Voilá! You can click on any of the tags and it will take you back to the blog, listing all the posts with that tag!

That's it for now! Again, if you have any needs these functions don't offer a solution to, or you know another useful hack that could enhance the experience on this blog, let us know!

Happy reading! 🖤

[nearsbday]

NEAR'S WISHLIST GENERAL INFORMATION PARTY RULES HOW TO PARTICIPATE

once the day of the party arrives and you have your gift, there are a few different ways to make your submission to the event. options 1 and 2 are the standard ways for partygoers to share their gifts; option 3 details how an attendee can share their gift anonymously, if they so wish! all attendees who plan to post their gifts on AO3 are encouraged to put their gift in the Near's Birthday Gifts collection on AO3 in addition to submitting via one of the methods below.

OPTION 1: ship your gift to near

share your gift on your own blog and mention @nearsbday in the post, or tag it #nearsbday, and we will reblog it!

OPTION 2: bring your gift to the party

submit your gift directly to the @nearsbday blog using the submission page!

OPTION 3: bring your gift to the party (in disguise)

for partygoers who would prefer to remain anonymous, there are a few options available! 3A: create a sideblog to share your gift, then proceed with OPTION 1 by mentioning @nearsbday in your post or tagging it with #nearsbday for us to reblog! if your gift hasn't been shared in 24 hours, please submit an anonymous ask with the username of your sideblog so we can find your post -- sometimes tumblr causes problems with notifications from brand-new blogs because of their anti-spam measures. 3B: submit your gift through the “anonymous” function in our inbox. this option is quite a bit trickier, because tumblr does not allow the sharing of links in anonymous asks. even if you edit your URL to remove the https:// portion and put spaces between all the .’s and /’s in the URL, we still may not receive it. while putting this guide together, we tested what was necessary to get an ask with a link to go through, and though tumblr showed the ask as having been sent when we changed the URL to look like the image below, the ask in question never arrived in our inbox.

if you do not want to create a sideblog to submit your gift and want to send it to our inbox, we ask that you host your submission on AO3 and share your work with us in the following format:

AO3 can be used to host your gift even if it isn’t a fanfiction, and it’s simple to make a work anonymous, so if you have an account, you don’t need to create a throwaway just to post for the event. you can find a guide on how to imbed images on AO3 here if you’d like to post a piece of fanart, an edit, or a cosplay photo anonymously. after we’ve received your anonymous submission and have made sure that it complies with the rules, we’ll make a post on the nearsbday blog for your gift. in order to make sure your gift gets shared in a timely manner, make sure to “gift wrap” appropriately (i.e. let us know if it contains graphic violence or explicit content). if you haven’t seen your gift shared within 24 hours of sending it, feel free to send a follow-up ask to ensure nothing went wrong in the process of submission.

[fedoraspooky]

In light of tumblr shooting itself in the foot, I've been thinking about what I should do with my art from now on. Obviously, deleting my old posts off here isn't gonna do shit, it's essentially locking my door after my house got emptied out by burglars. Especially with my old rp account I no longer can log into, they're just gonna steal and sell my old art that I posted there and I can't even flip a questionably-affective toggle about it.

Thing is, I dunno how many people are gonna actually leave. I'm not even sure I will, since I have a lot of friends here... And after so many shitty updates a lot of people are just hanging on out of spite at this point.

That said, I'm considering that for art posts and stuff, maybe I'll post them elsewhere and just link to them here so they're not on tumblr's servers? Idk... Tumblr tends to kill the visibility of links but I'm not really sure what else I can do.

Also, there's the question of where to actually post new stuff. Bluesky seems the most active but I dont know if old posts cut off after a certain amount of posts like twitter does, in which case that would not be a good archive in the long run. xnx

Cohost is functionally pretty close to tumblr, but ngl it seems super isolated on there bc of its commitment to not showing any likes on your posts. I get that its to combat the social media numbers game, but the downside is that it looks like nobody's even seen your work. If people like something of yours there's no way outside of notifs to see it, so scrolling down on your page and seeing only zeros after zeros of comments on stuff (comments are the only visible number), it's easy to feel like you're just posting into a void.

Pillowfort is pretty good, and they just added tag blocking and the ability to queue/schedule posts. Still kinda quiet and invite only, but if you sign up for the invite queue you can get one pretty fast. Also i probaby have a ton of invites sitting around if anyone wants one. I wish it had an app, but mobile web version works well enough I guess, and I'm already used to doing that with sheezy and newgrounds, so I just have those open in mobile tabs together.

Speaking of, Newgrounds has been pretty good, but due to the nature of the portal system and stuff you're more encouraged to post only your better-looking stuff there. You CAN post doodles if you want, but only outside of the portal, which limits their visibility. Kinda like dA's scraps system I guess.

Sheezy looks super promising customization-wise so I'm thinking of posting there more when it opens up to more peeps.

Toyhouse also looks really good for OC and story things too, and also has a good degree of customization.

There's probs options I haven't even thought about, but its good to know there ARE options. I may post in several of those places for now and see how it goes. Test the waters a bit.

If you're thinking of moving your art elsewhere lemme know where, I'm curious to see where people are going :o

Especially you moots, i need to refind my pals in these other places!

[redactedshapes]

Personal Art Blog + Sharing Policy

I've updated my self-hosted blog with all of my art (there're very few missing posts that I will be uploading in the coming months)

Since it's a static site, I've yet to look into implementing a search function that will not be mercilessly spammed by bots.

In the meantime, I'm using a Tag system. You can find them all here:

https://www.valentinapaz.com/blog/tags/

I've made some specific tags for certain niche categories, for example:

The system is not as robust as Tumblr's archive.

But it is a central, personal archive that I have zero intention on deleting, changing urls or placing behind a login wall.

Therefore, no link rot and no account needed to access it. Just, a bit clunkier to browse. AND! NO NOISE! NO NOTIFICATION, NO STATISTICS, NO ENGAGEMENT TRAPS FUCK THAT NOISE.

And most importantly:

From now on, please feel free to share my artwork to Discord or with your friend, just remember to include a link to my website.

Yes, that goes for Remedy's official servers.

(I'm in the main server myself but I have very little energy to post or interact there >_>;)

Either link the blog post with the specific art or share the art file as long as my watermarked url is visible + a link to my homepage (www.valentinapaz.com)

Please DO NOT REUPLOAD my art files to social media, like twitter, reddit, instagram, pinterest, etc. For public or social media sites, I'll be grateful if you just share a link instead.

If you're going to link to my art elsewhere, please make sure it's my website and not one of my social media profiles. We have all seen the volatility of these sites these last few years, and how fucked we are regarding discoverability.

There's very little a regular person in the internet can do help artists when social media sites fuck up, but contributing to my site's SEO and discoverability by pointing to it instead of to a myriad of profiles, is a small gesture but a super helpful gesture in the long run. My commission info is always one click away, and boy does that business takes a hit with each migration. I don't like to advertise often, so this a less annoying way to have that info easily accessible.

Thank you ❤️

[copperbadge]

Have we found a tumblr replacement yet? Apparently the latest “live” shenanigans were the thing that it took to break me. I’m not trying to stir shit, I’m just mostly here for you and a couple other blogs, so I’m going wherever you go.

I wish, but unfortunately not so far. I mean, I've talked a little about how I'd like to find one but there aren't really any viable ones right now, and there may not be a fandom mass-migration for years still. I'm more likely to follow the crowd than blaze a trail in this case, so it may be some time. For now my only real tactic is to simply not engage with staff or support at Tumblr in any way, and accept the changes as gradual steps towards the site's demise with as much serenity as I can muster.

I've already accidentally opened Tumblr Live twice while trying to navigate the app, which I'm sure is intentional, given I've now suddenly opened Tumblr Live twice since its inception instead of Zero. Relatedly, I would love to see them redirect that passion into making the "Mute Notifications" button actually work, but mine is not to reason why.

Anyway. There are options available, like obviously there are other social media platforms, but none have quite the combination of "easy to use" and "has a lot of people on it" and "Offers the same functionality" (photo and video hosting, an app, etc) even with an "ease of use" and "functionality" that are as crap as Tumblr's.

For example, Dreamwidth is great, but it's a Livejournal code fork so it's a very different format from Tumblr, more labor-intensive to make and share posts (no reblog function, image embedding can get a bit complicated, etc). CoHost is new and very promising but a bit of a ghost town right now -- I'm there and I've had a bunch of people find me there but still exponentially less than are on Tumblr. Pillowfort I still need to re-investigate; I'm there as well but it's been a while since I looked in, and I was struggling with the functionality previously. I had a look at Mastodon, but as positive as decentralized servers could be for the future of social media, I actively dislike the idea, and it also seems difficult to set up and complex to maintain. Discord is....there, and a lot of fandom stuff has shifted there, but its structure is very different and it's also decentralized, and also I hate it passionately and refuse to use it, so that's a no-go for me, though I suspect it's where fandom might end up.

If you're struggling with accessing tumblr directly, you might consider feeding the blogs you follow to an RSS reader -- I know people who do that and find it pretty functional, because then if they want to comment they can just pop open the specific post and deal with it directly. I don't know how much you know about RSS and I don't have the energy to fully explain it right now, but NetVibes is a pretty decent free RSS reader and it's what I use for certain blogs outside of Tumblr.

In any case, if I do find a place, or if I see the migration beginning, I'll sound the alarm :) In the meantime I'm still reading through my tumblr, stashing away posts to save off when I leave, even if that'll be a while.

[getvalentined]

A friendly reminder to everyone that if you want to participate in a fandom event on tumblr, you need to make sure that you don't have the event's head organizer blocked, even if only for the duration of the event. The nature of tumblr's block function means that users you block are literally incapable of interacting with your work in any capacity—they can only see it if someone who doesn't have them blocked reblogs it, and they can't like, reblog, comment, see notifications from you on a side account, or even see your interactions on other users' posts.

You can usually find organizer(s) mentioned and linked in an event's guidelines or FAQ, which you should be looking over anyway before you choose to participate, so be sure to check!

Fandom is as fandom does, so we're not all going to get along, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with blocking someone with whom you simply Do Not Vibe. Just please make sure that you have an avenue open through which you can be properly showcased by the event blog.

[nekole-doodles]

I COMPLETELY FORGOT TO POST THE THING I WAS WORKING ON FOR NOVEMBER 16TH!!! I was doing homework until 2am :') Speaking of which, this oneshot is only like- halfway done because I've been bombarded with stuff I need to do for school and I haven't had time to work on it, so sorry about that TvT Here's some context for the AU(this is my first time posting on Tumblr using my computer so sorry if formatting is weird): This takes place in my We'll Meet Again AU where C! Tommy was cursed with immortality by Dream XD and was forced to watch as everyone around him either died or left. By the way, the events of DSMP were set in the late 1700s and the oneshot takes place in the 2020s. In this AU, the Dream SMP took place on a cluster of islands created by XD so that he could have some entertainment and created Dream to basically do the manual work of running the "game," like inviting and interacting with the members. XD hid the islands by surrounding them with a thick fog and altered the currents to push away from the islands to avoid any accidental drifters. To keep people out, they put a large border, similar to Miecraft's world border around the DSMP. The islands within the border functioned differently from the rest of the world. The members were given communicators which work as the chat function and inform people whenever there has been a death. When someone enters the borders of the island or is revived, the message "[Player] joined the game" and only registered "players" can enter the border. There are some other things, but those aren't important for the events of the oneshot. Anyway, after everyone in the DSMP died or left, Tommy decided to venture outside of the borders, so he wouldn't be living in lonely ruins. Cut to more than two decades later, and Tommy is now living on his own in an apartment in the city in the modern day, making the trip back to the Dream SMP every year on November 16th. This is the year before Tommy meets the reincarnations of the DSMP members, for those who, by some slim chance, have read what I have written for the actual multichapter story. And finally, here's what I had so far for the oneshot(I'll probably finish this later at some point for you guys because I haven't even gotten to the important bits yet) This has not been edited so it's basically a word vomit I did in my free time at school and I wasn't able to do much research so sorry for any inaccuracies in lore or names:

Tommy woke up with a feeling of wrongness in the air. A kind of feeling that gets you twitching and fidgeting anxiously, waiting for something. Even though you didn't know what you were waiting for or when it would happen, you just knew something was about to happen.

It was strange because he hasn't had a feeling like this in a while. The last time he did was-… 

Wait.

Tommy practically ripped the sheets off of himself, sat up so fast that he was left disoriented for a moment, and frantically searched for his phone on his crowded bedside table, shoving random trinkets off of its surface carelessly until he finally found his phone buried under the mess. He brought it up and clicked it on, the sudden brightness coming from the screen blinding him for a brief moment. After his eyes adjusted, he looked down at the lock screen and his eyes caught onto the date displayed.

There, glaring up at him as if in a taunt, read “November 16”. Just as his registered the date, a notification popped up, an event reminder:

“November 16th Anniversary: Visit the ruins”

Tommy's gut dropped. It was that time of the year again. 

He turned off his phone once more and let it drop onto the bed. He flopped back down into the mattress with his hands covering his eyes, heels of his palms digging into the socket. Suddenly, he let out a loud groan.

He hated this day, hated how it still gave him this sinking feeling of dread and misery. The actual event was more than two and a half decades ago, he should be long over this by now! He dragged his hands down his face and glared at the blank white ceiling as if it had personally wronged him.

He couldn't believe he forgot about the 16th, just what had he even been doing?! He let out a harsh exhale, got up, and grabbed his phone from where he unceremoniously dropped onto the bed.

He called his boss at the cafe to let her know he had a personal emergency he had to attend to and they thankfully understood before getting dressed for the day.

Hopefully, he still has extra supplies for the boat ride back to the Dream SMP islands. Did he even remember where he kept the boat he bought nearly a decade ago for this specific occasion?

After he got dressed, he began flitting around the house, opening cupboards and grabbing supplies before hastily stuffing them into a duffel bag, not caring about the organization. He grabbed a colorful assortment of flowers from a vase sitting in the living room and wrapped the flowers in paper with care. 

By the time he was all packed, he thankfully remembered where he left his boat, and he began making his way there.

He arrived at a strip of the coast that was surrounded by a thick forest, so people rarely traversed the area. Luckily, his hiding place for the boat had worked as it was still in the same place as where he left it last year, bobbing peacefully in the shallow water and untouched for a whole 365 days.

He cleared off some of the overgrowth on the vehicle and did some basic maintenance, ensuring the boat was still functional enough to carry him all the way to the SMP islands. After everything was in order, he got ready to depart from the shore.

The trip on the sea was a few hours and he knew he was getting close when a thick fog began to surround the boat and the currents were coercing the boat into a different direction. 

When DreamXD created the islands the Dream SMP took place on, they wanted to keep it hidden to those who weren't members, so they surrounded it with fog and made the currents push ships away from the cluster of islands to avoid any accidental drifters. Soon, the blue translucent border of the islands was within sight, stretching up into the clouds as far as the eye could see.

The border felt impending and Tommy's anxiety spiked a bit at the sight of it. He had made this trip many, many times as he'd made a point to visit every year after the first time he was able to stomach visiting the ruins of his once-home in memory of all that he lost.

However, no matter how many times he came back to this place, he couldn't help feeling nervous. He didn't know why he was nervous, there was nothing to be nervous about necessarily, as there was no real danger on the islands anymore.

It was simply a visit to honor his deceased friends and family. Maybe it was just instinct at this point due to the years of living in this place constantly on edge, just waiting for when someone would attempt to kill him.

As the boat washed up on the shore, Tommy got off the boat and retrieved the flowers wrapped in paper. He took a moment to prepare himself for the memories and nostalgia that would likely resurface after all this time away.

He wasn’t ready to revisit the ruins of his life, he thinks he never will be, but Tommy had to keep moving or else he will forever be stuck to this one spot on the shore. 

He took one hesitant step towards the border, then a another to cross it. A familiar box appeared above Tommy’s head as he entered, saying, “TommyInnit joined the game.” At the sight of it, he grimanced, being bitterly reminded of the fact that all of the traumatic events that happened in the Dream SMP were merely part of a game for DreamXD, a source of entertainment, like their suffering was simply an amusing show where their literal lives weren’t at stake.

He ignored the text and continued to step forward, shaky at first, before he gained a steady momentum to keep going and going, letting his instincts carry him to his destination.

It didn’t take long for the Prime Path to come into view, and once he followed that, he was led straight to what was left on his old home, L’manberg. Though- it’s more like L’manhole now.

Tommy just stood at the edge of the crater that L’manberg now was, a great and bright nation reduced to a dent in the earth’s surface. It was a sad sight, as it always will be, but still, to Tommy, it was beautiful. Maybe it was the way nature has begun to reclaim it, maybe it was how the sunlight hit the site just right, the crumbling skygrid allowing most of the light in but its shadows caused inconsistencies in the light, creating sunbeams; scattered spotlights. Maybe it was just Tommy being sentimental. Maybe it was all three.

Tommy found peace in the fact that the L’manberg ruins looked so peaceful despite being blown to smithereens. That the nation was allowed to properly rest, much like the souls of all of the citizens who were once a part of it who literally shed their blood, sweat, and tears to build the nation and fight to protect it.

All souls except one. Tommy. The last remaining soldier.

He wonders if the spirits of his deceased friends found their way back to the country and decided to stick around, feeling the same tie he had that pulled him back to the nation. Or maybe they found another place in the afterlife or out there in the wide world. Though, Tommy was always more connected to the country than the others, as everyone seemed to move on with their lives while Tommy was stuck in the past, so they probably moved on and found another resting place.

Tommy wonders where he’d be if he was dead like the others. Would he come back to what was left of L’manberg, a ghost in the ghost of a nation? Or would he go somewhere else, wander around a forest, surrounded by nature, and make friends with the local critters if they had the ability to see his spirit? That sounded nice. 

However, realistically, he knew he’d probably be back in Limbo, in that desolate void, since he was never that lucky.

Wherever they may be right now, Tommy just hoped they had found their peace, like how L’manhole found its peace, with nature embracing it. He hoped they hadn’t been subjected to an eternity in Limbo.

He wished he could meet with them again in the afterlife, but Tommy knew that was impossible now. He wasn’t even sure that even if he could die, he would be able to reunite with them again, given his personal Limbo and all. 

Before, dying was such a constant threat, especially in the Dream SMP, always looming over him, threatening to take him. But now that he can never die, he didn’t feel that constant threat.

He just felt grief. Grief for those who died much too soon, sooner than they ever should have. He felt grief for even those who turned against him and tried to kill him. He felt grief for the family who left him, not for the first time.

He grieved all of the pieces and memories of his old life that were only held by the ruins and by Tommy. The burden of all these memories of the people he once loved- no, still loves- was a great burden but a welcome one. He will willingly carry the memory of those who had died and all that was lost because it was the least he could do.

Finally, he spurred back into movement, walking to the blue and gold memorial of sorts that was built in the ruins of the original button room. A torn and scuffed L’manberg flag hung from the middle and Tommy had the sudden thought that maybe he should have brought one of the flags he made to replace it… A thought for next time. 

He walked up to the memorial, stopping right before the lapis laid in the ground. When he first started revisiting this place, he sort of treated this as the official grave or memorial of L’manberg.

He noticed the very faint remnants of withered flowers around the memorial from the previous years when Tommy came here. He also saw the items he brought here since they lasted much longer than the flowers. Most of them were his own recreations of symbolic items from L’manberg as he’s made many of those over the years.

This place was also sort of the grave for Wilbur too. Well- one of them since Tommy made a few for him in his first years of visiting the island on November 16th. They all honored the deaths of certain parts of Wilbur, not just the death of his physical body. This one honored the physical death of Wilbur, when his 3rd life was taken.

[hoeelliexx]

So I just got a notification that my old tumblr blog turned 10 today. I want to take this time to get serious about something, that some people may need to hear.

It took a lot for me to get this out so idc about any snarky comments or anything belittling this. Fuck you. Get out. No-one needs your opinion.

Triggering Content for Depression, SH and more.

10 years. To clarify I made that blog when I was 14 and wishing I was dead. It is full of self harm romanticization, suicidal ideation and all around depression. I was 14 wishing I was 6 feet under because I didn’t think my parents would care; because I was getting bullied; because I thought I wasn’t good enough.

Some might say that I was… am being dramatic but I am not. It may seem like nothing to you (“people have bigger problems get it together”) but it was everything to me. Please stop telling people they are being dramatic or seeking attention when they come to you with their problems. What seems small to you could be someone whole world.

10 years ago I was smiling at my parents, laughing with my friends writing my own suicide note in my head, on my phone, in my notebooks, with no-one the wiser. My mum told me about her co-worker with their self harm scars, thanking god that we don’t have anyone with those problems in our family. I was sitting in front of her nodding along while clutching my hands into my sweater, hiding my own. You don’t notice how far someone has fallen until it’s too late. Check in with your friends and family. Don’t belittle their pain. Be there.

8 years ago I sat crying in my bathroom staring at my own blood not understanding what the fuck was going on with me and why I was still struggling even though everything was perfect. I was in therapy at that point; I had changed schools at that point; I had made friends, real friends at that point. I was doing good. But I still wanted to die. (I still do some days.)

But I didn’t wanna be that way. I don’t wanna be that way. I don’t know what changed that year but it’s been around 7 years since my last cut.

It’s not easy and some days the only thing that I can think about is hurting myself, so much so that I don’t trust myself to even keep eyebrow razors in my room. But it’s been 7 years.

Life didn’t get magically become sunshine and rainbows, I still have depression and anxiety that makes me unable to move, eat, shower, function. But it gets better.

6 years ago I turned 18. I was so sure that I would be dead before I reached that point, that I had no hopes or dreams. I didn’t know what to do with my life or where to go. But I was 18. I survived. And that feeling, while stressful and exhausting and anxiety inducing, was amazing.

Today I’m 24. I have a job, I’m about to graduate from university, I have friends. Some parts still suck, depression is a bitch, uni is stressful and my friends are scattered around the world, but I have a dream now, I have hoped for the future. And that is enough for me to keep going.

Trust the people around you to help you. Ask for help. And most importantly, keep going. Just one more day, one more week, one more month, one more year, just one more.