#not really but is the tag i've used for this kind of post for years dslkfj

[radish-club]

So now that I have finished, I am going to break down my prior knowledge point by point and see where I was right or wrong about my prior knowledge of Worm because being thorough is fun.

Side note: you may be thinking since I've been tagging my liveread posts as "wren wreads worm" that my name is Wren. Nope. I just liked the triple W plus the misspelling. Wren is the name of the robot girl in my profile pic. It was also the pseudonym I used back when I was active(ish) on the Parahumans discord (for the Pact and Pale chats).

Wren Wreads Worm: Where I Was Wright and Wrong about Worm

Big picture: there's alien entities called incubators shards who implant themselves in people and give them powers.

So so the alien entities aren't called Shards like I thought, they are called Entities and the Shards are just their fragments.

I was under the impression that there was, like, a bunch of these aliens that were doing their experiments on earth and each one was implanting themselves into humans. But nope, only really 3 of them important to this story, only 2 came to earth, and only 1 survived initial contact with the planet.

I am not sure how accurate the comparison to the Incubators from PMMM ended up being, but similar enough I guess.

Powers are triggered by traumatic events and are usually themed to said events. There is also an organization called Cauldron who tries to give powers in a controlled manner. Powered beings are called parahumans.

All correct here.

The main character is Taylor. She has the power to control bugs. She was triggered by being bullied in high school. She was shoved into a locker full of used tampons and left there. I don't recall if that was the specific trigger event or just one instance of bullying.

It was the specific trigger.

She wants to be a hero and thinks of herself as a good, well intentioned person but is so so stupid. She goes out to fight crime, and meets up with teenage villains (called the Undersiders??). Against advice of established hero(es) she goes "undercover" with teen villains. In doing so she gets deeper and deeper in. Does like bank robberies or some shit that go badly. People die. And so on.

All true. Though I didn't realize eventually she just fully embraces the villain thing and get outed as "Undercover" during the course of that. I figured kept up her plan to rat them out up until she defected and then started snitching.

At some point she officially joins heroes and there is a time skip but I don't know if these two things happen together.

Kind of?? Not really but close enough. The time skip wasn't all in one piece like I thought either. Just a few months at a time per chapter until it gets the last year, year and a half out the way in one go.

Halfwayish through the book there is a big fight with a creature called Leviathan in which several characters dies (and apparently the author rolled dice to see who would die, so it was possible even Taylor could have died in that fight).

So in my head, the Leviathan fight played a similar roll as what the Behemoth fight ends up playing. A big transitional fight between Taylor as Skitter and Taylor as Weaver.

The way I was figuring it, I think, was that all the Skitter crime boss stuff happened and gradually escalated in an intact Brockton Bay, but then the Leviathan wrecks shit and the experience lead Taylor to defected or something, I am not sure.

But no, it was towards the beginning, if anything. It is the arc that is the transition from Act 1 to Act 2 if you were to break Worm into 3 acts.

At some point in the story Taylor kills several people. These include an established hero (Alexandria?) by suffocating her with bugs and also a baby but for the baby she uses a gun.

All true. I was not aware of her first proper kill in Coil, I'll note.

It was Alexandria that she kills which, as I guess, was a big important event that happened that gets referenced throughout the rest of the book.

The baby killing, however, was NOT as big of a deal as I thought it was going to be. By a good margin too. Like I was imagining there was going to be this build-up over the course of several Arcs about some baby who was going to set off a chain reaction or be dangerous in itself in an immediate sense.

There was going to be debates amongst characters about what do do about it until Taylor finally gets impatient, tracks down said baby, and assassinates it. And then it would be this big awful thing she had done that would be held against her and make her reviled by many.

But no. There is build up in the sense that it is implied that the baby, Aster, COULD be dangerous. And it is implied that she might end up in one of Gray Boy's time wells.

But the actually shooting just kind of happens, with implied motivations, as opposed to explicit ones. And the chapters that follow are for Golem, Aster's brother, who is broken up about it at first. But after that, I am not sure if she is ever mentioned again.

I guess because goes straight into the Jack fight and then Scion attacking immediately after. And not that many people saw it happen. And Taylor is at the point where she is kind of past feeling emotion about such things.

But going on memes and jokes about Taylor's baby killing, I just thought it was going to be a much bigger deal than it was.

There is a parahuman with gold skin who was one of the OG parahumans back in the 80s.

I was both right and wrong here. DWMP is named Scion and he was a cape from the 80s, but he was not a parahuman.

I discussed this in another post, so I won't go as in depth here. Briefly back when I didn't realize there was just one single entity (for all intense and purposes) and shards of said entity but I thought the entities and shards were one in the same and were many in number, I thought Scion was just a regular human who got an Important Shard and also most of his memories wiped.

I don't remember his name but I do remember he is very Dead Wife Man Pain, so let's call him DWMP.

The DWMP aspects came from half remember stories about Worm my wife told me. She used that expression to describe Scion and I got memories jumbled and thought there was some car wreck backstory or something.

DWMP has a fateful conversation with a villain named Jack Slash. Slash convinces him to destroy the world. Maybe also other realities too??

He does have that conversation with Jack Slash and he does begin destroying the world because of it. I didn't know the Jack Slash connection would be broadcasted within the story itself, long before via Dinah's precognition. I thought that was neat and felt special and in on the secret (this is why I don't mind spoilers for stuff).

And yeah, he does attempt to destroy multiple earths in multiple realities, but that isn't really part of the conversation.

(or maybe the same conversation is happening on multiple realities with multiple Slashes and DWMPs??)

The same conversation wasn't happening in multiple realities. And there is only 1 Scion for all the different realities. So no idea where that part came from.

There's apocalyptic event and Taylor gets someone (Amy/Panacea, I think) to enhance/alter her power so she can jump between realities. She then begins to gather parahumans from differently realities into a team to come together and take out DWMP with the power of teamwork and a giant laser.

Correct about apocalypse and that it was Amy.

But see, I thought the power enhancement was the reality hoping itself. I didn't realize that she got the power to literally control people.

So here I was thinking the climax was going to be her jumping through realities talking to and convincing alternate earth capes to join her cause and then they were all gonna rally together and fight Scion.

What ACTUALLY happened was so so so much better. She becomes a monster and begins controlling people, namely other parahumans. She controls a portal making parahuman to help extend her range and forcible recruit literally 1000s of people to fight and die against Scion.

This represents culmination of her continually increasing unethical actions for the "great good" and the final betrayal of her previously held morals.

Basically the "power of friendship" is funny in retrospect since I meant it somewhat sincerely.

Spot on about the giant laser. There was a giant laser. It is was killed Scion in the end.

They are not able to save the world they are currently on but a portion of Earth's population are evacuated from their current reality to an Earth with no humans where Ward takes place. One of these two earths is called Earth Bet.

Earth Bet is the main earth for our purposes. It wasn't as thoroughly destroyed as I assumed. Like folks are still rebuilding and live there. I am not sure how much of the population is spread amongst the various worlds.

From what I understand the afformentioned humanless world (Gimel) is where Ward takes place mostly or completely but I can only imagine there is some crossing over.

No idea what happens in-between. If folks continue to live on Bet, and so on.

Taylor's fate is left ambiguous. She maybe dies, she maybe fucks off to another reality. Maybe she become meguca idk.

And this part annoys me. It's is not ambiguous in the way I thought.

Like at first its pretty unambiguous. Contessa shoots and kills Taylor, ending her narration. It's great, I like that.

But then you have that epilogue about her fucking off to the other reality. It's somewhat implied to be fake given Tattletale's dialogue and the fact that her (presumably) dead dad is there. But the phrase "Gold Morning" is used. And the whole thing doesn't feel "dreamlike."

I get that the author SAYS it's supposed to be just a dream that happens while she's dying (I think that's true, correct me if I am wrong). And while I like to think that is the case myself, what he wrote isn't very good at getting that across.

And it's not even that good of a chapter (Tattletale parts are fine) to justify it being there, even as a dream. I feel if the last we see of Taylor is her getting shot, that would have been great. The final epilogue stuff felt forced and I didn't like it.

Other Notes:

-Taylor goes by 3 names: Skitter, Weaver, and Khepri

Partially true. She briefly goes by the temporary name of Bug prior to Gallant naming her Skitter after the bank robbery. Also I did not realize how little the Khepri name gets used in book.

-There a suite of powers called the Alexandrian Package bc they are the ones the parahuman Alexandria has. I think they are flight, semi-invulnerability, and strength (or maybe one of those is energy blasts)

True but this term only gets mentioned once maybe twice in the Worm. Maybe it comes up more in Ward or Weaverdice or something.

-there is a character named Bitch whose power is turning dogs into monster dogs. Media calls her Hellhound to be less controversial and she hates that

True

-There are sisters named Victoria (Glory Girl) and Amy (Panacea) the former of who is the protagonist of Ward. Amy turns Victoria into a Cronenberg at some point. Their relationship and respective characterizations across both books is a point of great controversy among fans. To put it lightly.

True. Though I did think Victoria would be put back together again within the text of Worm.

There was a scene and her being presented to Amy (I am guessing) to be fixed while Taylor is being lead through her banishment portal, which was kind of out of place to be honest. Like, I know Taylor saw Cronenberg Victoria via the clairvoyant when searching for heroes but did she collect her? If so, why? And if not did someone choose that moment, immediately after the fighting finished to take care of this. It was an awkward moment.

-There is a character named Lab Rat who died(?) but he, in the form of one of his clones, comes back in Ward as a guy named Chris.

As far as Worm goes, the part about Lab Rat dying is true. And if I remember correctly, the thing he threw over the side of the oil rig was his clone. And I haven't read Ward but I am pretty sure said clone became the character Chris.

-Browbeat's fate was ambiguous, so him secretly being this or that character in Ward became a meme. Because the author hates fun memes, he went back and changed Worm so BB unambiguously died.

Not much more to say here. The death was changed to be unambiguous.

Numbers Man is hung

Described as wearing just a shirt and glasses. Surely, what the author meant was that he was wearing no pants because of his monster dong.

I know Brian and Alec die but not exactly how or when.

Both true, though the story really take it's time before confirming Brian's death. Not a criticism, just wasn't expected.

I think Danny dies too but I'm not sure.

It's never confirmed but heavily implied.

I'm pretty sure Lisa and Rachel make it to Ward but I'm not sure about Aisha. I don't think she dies though.

They all make it.

I know there is going to be a jailbreak at the Birdcage at some point but I don't know the particulars.

Kind of true?? But not in the way I thought. I thought the inmates mount a jailbreak and that is how Marquis, Lung, Amy, etc get out. But no, pretty much all the named inmates are let out to help fight Scion. Taylor breaks the remaining inmates out during her run as Khepri, if you want to call that a jailbreak.

Taylor loses an arm at some point

Twice actually. Once at the oil rig (along with her lower half) but gets it regrown. Then again when it is crushed by Sveta and then removed by Lung (at her request). That gets healed over but never replaced.

It may be a few weeks before I start, but I'm probably gonna finally read Worm here soon. May even do a liveread if I feel like it.

I already know several of the major plot points BUT I I'm probably wrong in many places (as I was with Pact).

So before I start, I wanted to write a synopsis of what I think I know about Worm. This way I can refer back to this post and see how much I got wrong, what major things I was missing, etc.

What Worm is About (by someone who hasn't read Worm)

Big picture: there's alien entities called incubators shards who implant themselves in people and give them powers. Powers are triggered by traumatic events and are usually themed to said events. There is also an organization called Cauldron who tries to give powers in a controlled manner. Powered beings are called parahumans.

The main character is Taylor. She has the power to control bugs. She was triggerd by being bullied in high school. She was shoved into a locker full of used tampons and left there. I don't recall if that was the specific trigger event or just one instance of bullying.

She wants to be a hero and thinks of herself as a good, well intentioned person but is so so stupid. She goes out to fight crime, and meets up with teenage villains (called the Undersiders??). Against advice of established hero(es) she goes "undercover" with teen villains.

In doing so she gets deeper and deeper in. Does like bank robberies or some shit that go badly. People die. And so on.

At some point she officially joins heroes and there is a time skip but I don't know if these two things happen together.

Halfwayish through the book there is a big fight with a creature called Levithan in which several characters dies (and apparently the author rolled dice to see who would die, so it was possible even Taylor could have died in that fight).

At some point in the story Taylor kills several people. These include an established hero (Alexandria?) by suffocating her with bugs and also a baby but for the baby she uses a gun.

There is a parahuman with gold skin who was one of the OG parahumans back in the 80s. I don't remember his name but I do remember he is very Dead Wife Man Pain, so let's call him DWMP. DWMP has a fateful conversation with a villain named Jack Slash. Slash convinces him to destroy the world. Maybe alos other realities too?? (or maybe the same conversation is happening on multiple realities with multiple Slashes and DWMPs??)

There's apocalyptic event and Taylor gets someone (Amy/Panacea, I think) to enhance/alter her power so she can jump between realities. She then begins to gather parahumans from differently realities into a team to come together and take out DWMP with the power of teamwork and a giant laser.

They are not able to save the world they are currently on but a portion of Earth's population are evacuated from their current reality to an Earth with no humans where Ward takes place. One of these two earths is called Earth Bet.

Taylor's fate is left ambiguous. She maybe dies, she maybe fucks off to another reality. Maybe she become meguca idk.

Other Notes:

Taylor goes by 3 names: Skitter, Weaver, and Khepri

There a suite of powers called the Alexandrian Package bc they are the ones the parahuman Alexandria has. I think they are flight, semi-invulnerability, and strength (or maybe one of those is energy blasts)

there is a character named Bitch whose power is turning dogs into monster dogs. Media calls her Hellhound to be less controversial and she hates that.

There are sisters named Victoria (Glory Girl) and Amy (Panacea) the former of who is the protagonist of Ward. Amy turns Victoria into a Cronenberg at some point. Their relationship and respective characterizations across both books is a point of great controversy among fans. To put it lightly.

There is a character named Lab Rat who died(?) but he, in the form of one of his clones, comes back in Ward as a guy named Chris.

Browbeat's fate was ambiguous, so him secretly being this or that character in Ward became a meme. Because the author hates fun memes, he went back and changed Worm so BB unambiguously died.

Numbers Man is hung

[last-sprout]

Last Sprout Dev Diary - Nov 22, 2024

Hello sprout folks! I'm Valerie, or @oneominousvalbatross, and I've been working on Last Sprout since July, and I'm wildly excited to share some of the things I've been working on with y'all.

Ignore that Twiggs' hat falls off that's natural.

I'm aiming for a Dev Diary once a week on Fridays, and I'm just gonna be giving a brief look into making a game! I'm learning how to do a lot of this stuff live, so I'm sure there'll be a ton of massive rewrites and changes. I have probably a dozen huge systems that are already built that I'm not going to be getting into in this post, since I'm already half a year or so into development, but I'm sure I will find space to include them later!

XP

I spent most of my time figuring out exactly how we wanted to represent XP in the world. We were pretty certain that we wanted XP to exist physically as a substance you picked up, so I started with a system from a previous build.

In that version, we just created a bunch of XP objects and scattered them into the world, then had some code that scooted them around. Of course, that means that we're tracking an individual unity GameObject for every single instance of a point of XP which is, uh, slow.

This is what we call 'suboptimal.'

So obviously we needed to not instantiate an entire transform every time we needed to spawn XP. Even if we re-used objects that would just be prohibitively expensive for an object that really just needs a position.

I'm not going to go over each step in the process, but after experimenting with GPU instancing to just draw a bunch of XP objects at once, eventually I landed on extending Unity's particle system, since it has a lot of the settings I wanted access to.

To make the XP move how I wanted, I wrote a pretty simple process that iterates through all the little blobs and checks how close they are to a designated collector, then uses an exponential decay function (with thanks to Freya Holmér) to make them move towards Twiggs.

I think every game should have an action that can be best summarized by making the noise 'SHWOOOOOP.'

Parrying

Parrying was a good deal simpler, but it still has its issues. Essentially, all a parry needs to be is a hitbox and an animation, with some callbacks to enemies to let them react to the parry. Whenever an attack hitbox intersects with either a Parrybox or a Hurtbox, it checks its tags to see if it's interacting with the appropriate entities, to makes sure enemies aren't hitting or parrying each other constantly. If it passes the test, it calls GetParried() on the intersecting object.

GetParried(), idiot.

For the basic behavior, parrying just interrupts the attack in progress and knocks the enemy back by a set amount, but there's room in the system to add all sorts of neat effects, which I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of in the future. It's been a challenge to juggle the various kinds of hitboxes, but it'll definitely be worth it going forward!

Of course, between all these bits there were a ton of bugfixes and little experiments, but that's a topic for a later dev diary!

[skepticalarrie]

hey! i've always believed in early Larry but recently have fallen down a rabbit hole about babygate and am convinced. i'm just stuck on a few points and was wondering if there are any theories.

1) what happened on the day of the 'birth'? if he is brett's child born from surrogacy, how did they get briana's name on the birth certificate and either get the baby into the hospital without alerting staff there that briana was not pregnant OR have had a non-pregnant briana stay in hospital for days. what are the theories on how they orchestrated the hospital stay logistically? surely it would've been easier to claim she wanted a home birth. also not sure if they rented a room in the hospital and just kind of camped out there?

2) is there any evidence of Louis being a present father to Freddie? the main reason i started to question the media narrative was that it seems like Louis rarely sees him and in AOTV it almost seemed awkward, like the child didn't really know him. adjacent to that, is there any evidence that Eleanor, who was supposedly with him for FIVE years post-babygate, ever met his son? after all the fuss about danielle vs briana and danielle mentioning her by name in interviews, not even a fluff article about step mum life and loving him? it seems like they forgot to account for parts of the narrative - on the surface, it seems fine but it falls apart on inspection.

thanks from a reborn larry :)

Aww, a reborn Larrie, how cute! Hahah welcome back!

1- I have two tags you might want to check out to see if they answer your questions: BIRTH CERTIFICATE and SURROGATE. But to sum it up, I don’t think it's as complicated as it seems. We don’t actually know what’s on the official birth certificate, no one does. What we saw was a copy of it, and it had a lot of inconsistencies. Personally, my guess is that the birth certificate was never even filed at the state level, and the names of the legal parents (Brett and Tammi) are likely on it. If Louis and Briana’s names are there officially, it would follow the typical process for surrogacy pregnancies, and I fully believe Freddie is unrelated to the surrogate. So the intended parents would be listed on the birth certificate regardless, so there were no special logistics involved at the hospital or anything like that.

2- Louis’ involvement in Freddie’s life started around 2021, and that's undeniable, even if you believe he's Freddie’s biological father. It’s interesting how some people claim we can’t know whether Louis was present for Freddie or how often they saw each other, but then they use it as proof when they are together later on. There’s definitely been a noticeable shift in Louis’ behaviour... he completely ignored Freddie’s existence for years. He never spoke about him. And then, all of a sudden, they're all over the place together, and Louis can't stop mentioning him. So, there’s at least something odd about it. As for Eleanor, the only time we saw them in the same place was at Louis’ LA show, which was being recorded for AOV. They were kind of in the same booth but on different sides, so there was some overlap, but that’s the closest interaction we’ve seen. Babygate became more consistent after Louis and Eleanor broke up and before they got back together in 2017. During all their time together, there was no babygate, basically!

[puckpocketed]

hello i was tagged by @18minutemajor for WIP Wednesday. it is not Wednesday but i am also not a cop so . here we gooo!!!!!!! tagging my esteemed colleagues (very politely and with no pressure!!!):

@neonfretra @oensible @sorrellegiance @moregraceful @stereax

@wheelsnipecelebrini

@korshrimpski (EDIT: it won’t?? let me tag you. unless these are on separate lines <3)

what's in-progress in your life <3 writing? art? recipe? skill acquisition?

if any crafty people see this - if ANYONE sees this - and would like to join in, feel free and consider yourself tagged <3 (and tag me back so i can see your stuff!!!) link to 18minutemajor's post if yall curious :3 my VERY long wip dump + ramblings under the cut!

its christmas soon and i like to paint gifts for my friends + and i'm finally revisiting my anime/lineart/inking era (here you are K!! my lineart past, present, and future!! <3) so here are some things i've been working on/coming back to/MAY NEVER FINISH: hockey related:

this is juraj slafkovsky and his dinky little middle part which he can absolutely learn to style into something a little less dinky but never does. i am so charmed by him. i imagine he just rocks it because his pretty privilege supersedes dinky middle parts . LMAO!!

here is Sasuke from my Naruto Hockey AU. I am a little stuck on jersey mockups lol. here he is. our haunted little 1OA who is absolutely normal and regular about his captain (LOUD incorrect buzzer):

personal oc art

wanna know some puckpocketed deep lore? i've never been one to make OCs. i was just not a very creative kid tbh. spent all my time drawing sailor moon instead. i still go back to her sometimes because she is one of my favourite shapes in the WORLD!!

in my 20s i took up playing d&d because of the. uh. plague. <3 and got pretty close to having OCs!! those count right? anyway. here is my tavern-wench-turned-wizard!!! i think i painted this 2 years ago? <- put dates on your works guys it saves lives. her name is Mel (short for Melins (pronounced like melons. on account of her knockers. can you tell i never grew out of my 12 yr old booby/cock joke era?) i revisited Mel recently and have started painting her in earnest again!! :3

I briefly dated someone who was very into streetwear and fashion, and I fell down a techwear/gorpcore/cyberpunk rabbit hole for a couple days out of curiosity. i remember literally zero salient info on any of it except the broad strokes of silhouetting and Vibes. what i emerged with, however, was a ?? sorta OC?? im not sure what to call them. they dont rly have a name or gender. I did this little sheet ages ago + the aborted attempt at a portrait later:

Here are my most recent explorations (i have been doing SOOOO much art. <3) which include:

unfinished character sheet + chibi art. I played with their jacket (much more structured/square/tailored thing) and added a lotta random buckles and belts. i took textiles class years ago and have a little experience in garment construction. and i know for a fact this thing does not make any sense. it hurts me to look at a little bit LMAO so i've paused it while i go draft patterns (badly. i was never good at drafting. i think i may have to break out my scrap fabric stash and hand sew a real life mock-up. HELP!)

here is me having fun with them and imagining them as some kind of cyber-fisherman. the best part of every game is the fishing mini-game to me. i love fishing mini-games so much. I made their hair really big because i wanted them to have big unwieldy hair and the vibes told me i should add more movement to the piece aside from the fishing line. I messed with their jacket AGAIN because i can't stop thinking about what kinda jacket they'd wear. gorp-core ? idk. it sure is something!

gifts for my friends :3

back in my weeb era for real YAYYYY!!! up til now i'd been making hockey art using a zero pressure sensitivity pen brush because i simply did NOT want to deal with that. it is and has always been a barrier to me making art that uses line art. <3 easing my way back into it though!

I used to paint gifts for my friends and then get them printed into lil posters and mount them on nice backing :3 i am now ready and back to painting.

Here is my girlbestie's OC. just a rough pose sketch. i think im pretty unsatisfied with the gesture of the head/hand. i wanted to include her gun in some way. i fear i may have to rework the pose entirely <3

For the genshin girlies.. here are some of my friends fave characters.

Yelan - this one i started many holidays ago and put on the backburner because the colouring was wigging me out. you can see where i started rendering stuff + got sidetracked and started on something else (the crystal choker IM LAUGHING @ past me...)

Ayaka - I reaaally like what i did here with the perspective + foreshortening. I don't know if the pose or expression is in-character or not, but i had fun :3 got stunlocked looking at references of genshin weapons so this is where i left off:

if you made it all the way down here hi... <3 ice hockey really cracked the ketchup bottle open for me when it comes to making art again. i love the communities i've found, and i'm inspired by every artist on here every day. thanks for being so cool + have a great day :)

[maddiem4]

Well, I wanna be working on a novel right now, but apparently it's time to make a certain kind of post again, as is periodically necessary, because young queer folk keep trying to reinvent the Hayes Code for a variety of misguided reasons. So you know what? Let me lead with the TLDR, and then give my reasoning. If you DNI stuff like incest, I am not just going to unfollow you, I am going to block you.

Now, if you're the type to make assumptions, you might be surprised to hear that I'm not into incest. Sorry to disappoint. Well, unless you count selfcest, but people don't usually lump those together except by technicality. But incest is really not my thing.

That said, I have mutuals who are into it, and harmless about it. Whether it's fictional, RP, or consensual, it's not my business and it hurts nobody. Get used to those words, they're gonna be a mantra here. Further, I've seen how Hayes Queers (hey, I needed a term for them) talk about harmless members of their own community who give them The Ick. The post I'm writing here is a direct reaction to seeing a Hayes Queer post from someone I followed! Reading that, and the comments on it. And lemme tell you: y'all are very quick to throw your peers under the bus with the exact same logic (respectability politics, personal disgust, "making a bad name for us as a larger group", lurking threat to our moral purity) that the conservatives are using to argue for the mass extermination of queer folk. You are bringing pitchforks and tiki torches to the party. So no, I am not going to give you access to my vulnerable mutuals. That's the heart of it. You are a danger to your community, and I'm going to limit the scope of harm you can do. The broader queer/kink communities have worked hard to define harm more carefully than "well I just personally think it's gross." Scat and piss are gross to me, but my mutuals who are into those things do still deserve love and safety, not to be sacrificed on an altar of conservative family values for imaginary "one of the good ones" points. I have a responsibility to look out for my people. So do you, FYI.

So here's the recipe for living online with people whose kinks aren't your business and hurt nobody: learn to scroll past those posts or block those tags, or even block that person. Be an adult. The world does not exist to be personally palatable to you. You are not being harmed, you're being inconvenienced. If you can't handle that, you're the one bringing real-world (rather than imagined) danger to your community. Fuck's sake.

This also finally convinced me to look up what "proshipper" means after seeing it in discourse for years, these dreaded dangerous devils who apparently must be purged from the internet, and... holy fuck, how is this contentious? It literally just means you can disagree about fandom pairings without harassing people? That's just mature behavior in a shared space. That's what the argument is about? Oh my god. If you're arguing about this in 2024, your Aunt Maddie is fully ashamed of you for real.

The dumbest part is that people get doxxed for saying the stuff I'm saying, and maybe it'll happen to me. Guess I'll roll the dice. Which comes full circle: if you're looking at this post and trying to decide how to punish me for it IRL, you are literally being the danger. Stop and think for 30 milliseconds. Maybe I have a point that you are a bigger threat than two trans girls who like to pretend to be sisters for sex reasons. And I don't wanna hear no trauma excuses from any of you little monkeys, fetishes come from trauma a decent percentage of the time, so a lot of the people you're persecuting are victims of the same kind of assault as you.

This is more words than I ever should have to write about a self-evident topic. I know if you're young enough and still figuring out a lot of life stuff from scratch, it may not be self-evident to you. But hopefully it is now before you fucking hurt somebody. Thanks.

[passthroughtime]

sorry @kamuro-junrenka i just giggled from the realisation

then his next words

are SO hypocritical it's unreal

sorry i just love the idea of yagami trying to talk sense to kuwana when it is KUWANA who sees things more clearly. (no kuwana apologism here, he was stupid with revenge killing and he knows that this is who he had to become though he doesn't like it. but HOW and WHO are you teaching this lesson to if your victims just disappear without any reason/explanation/message to the world... lmao.) gonna munch on this thought a little more, i think that is a good point of view and i can elaborate a little later (i have one post that i've been cooking in march, but at that time i decided to finish the game first and write it... and after finishing LJ i've been grieving my loss of judgment... haha see what i did there.)

actually the boat scene is insane in the way that we see live how yagami's convictions tear at the seams, and i WILL be insane about it, yet again, later. ok, whatever, not the point though right now. for me, LJ is about telling yagami (and, consequently, us) that good/bad is not the only possible options and they are even not mutually exclusive.

yagami needed that lesson (hehe) after JE because that was as clear cut case as it might've been. there were bad people and there were good, he's mistaken okubo putting him under the "bad" category but he did nothing wrong and is good in the end, but there is nothing deeper than that. (and that is why i believe that LJ is more thematically rich... while not being that much of a murder mystery that is JE. i love them both for what they have and what they lack though, it's interesting to compare them with each other.)

tbh i think that yagami's past and upbringing is a little downplayed, meaning the only thing that is questionable is the mention that yagami does help the matsugane family with uhhh the crime chores let's say (i don't remember if as a lawyer or as a detective, but i do remember that this was the case). but it mentioned only in passing, and helping to defend hamura in court is not that big of a deal if we see that yagami isn't happy with the outcome though the ruling was justified, yeah?

and though his ties to yakuza are left rather unexplored (considering half of his friends are criminals of some kind LMAO yeah sugiura this includes you too) and doubtly this will be the theme that will ever be brought up again, it is important to remember that yagami as a person is a product of two different worlds. the "bad" and the "good".

the beef i have with the "good yagami" take is not whether he is a good person, but more like, with the notion of him not seeing the nuances of the situation like ever? which makes him so good and right about everything, that he does everything according to law and etc... while i picture him as "let's do it baby i know the law" kind of person.

there IS a moment where he's a little bit stubborn about his convictions, but that's because *gestures* kuwana (AND I WILL WRITE ABOUT IT MORE... SOMEDAY... SURELY...), but not to the extent some people believe him to be (i remember a meme where "kuwana explains his pov (an explanation so long it's unreadable)" vs "yagami explains his pov (which only says "murder bad"). yeah it pissed me off pretty bad.)

so... yeah. i firmly believe that LJ is not about a good/bad dichotomy, though this type of story is expected with the starting factors we get. in the end, even the protagonist left kind of saddled with unnecessary feelings troubled about his convictions that in theory are simple, yet in practice contradict each other.

[tanicus-caesareth]

guarana drama, damage control

[girlwarlock]

i wish there was some kind of @ mutuals thing to tag all my mutuals at once. would have been a cool thing to see on the social blogging website. ah, well, missed opportunities.

anyway, with the whole "we're basically giving up on this website and gutting the moderation/support team" thingy going around i'm going to be pursuing a dual strategy of "drive it until the wheels fall off" and "start looking for a new car in the meantime" and in that vein I sent a handful of mutuals a post about a potential alternative before i realized that i'm not sure that alternative is currently accepting new users. hmm.

anyway, i'm gonna mention most if not all my mutuals here on a reblog and if we're mutuals and you'd like to prepare for tunglr going down (eventually, someday, in an indeterminate but visible future), send me a message or an off-anon ask or whatever and I'll give you my discord handle and maybe if you're interested also some information about an alternative that i know you can join right now, although the join rate is throttled so it wouldn't be everyone all at once

yeah post now

[eclarinet]

same soup... different day

[brilliantfantasticgeronimo]

the star beast reactions:

the end of time part 2: “the story never ends” switches to “ the story hasnt ended yet” this show is driving me to cookoo land

taxi logo! Very 2005.

“That says grand mistress!” “oh, catch up” [….sentient physic paper headcanon? Maybe everything the doctor carries is secretly sentient sdlkfj rip all those sonics that fell in battle]

NERYS HAD AN ACCIDENT. KARMIC JUSTICE.

"me putting up with that" ksksksks "what do I care? I’ve got the true greatest girls in the world" just u wait for what’s coming shaun. Hope u always secretly wanted an autistic queerplatonic husband.

"and I shoukd know, I invented them!" bully!donna headcanon comfirmed (?) to go with already-canon teenage!wreck donna.

"oh, yes definetly" sylvia "queer-coded mom "mother of a queer " subtext finally becomes text as "grandmother of a queer"!!!!

"you had a bit of a breakdown… and then you got better" sksksks every “the doctor is a hallucination” dark!fic ever/ alternatively: amy coded

"I should be really happy"'... but sometimes I lie in bed thiking, what have I lost?" THIRTEEN CODED THIRTEEN CODED OH GOD THE REGRETS OVER DROPPING THE FOBWATCH….

“Fuge” is iconic

THE MUSIC IS DOING A THING!!!

14 is definetly someone who lived 11/12/13's lives lol my girl is so tired

"I’ve read the files" when UNIT personel says this the translation is: I’ve watched all of three’s era.

"I dont know who I am anymore" understatement of the billenia!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "she's happy! Is she?” I mean tbf, is anyone ever? in this economy? Lol

"I don’t believe in destiny but-" (yeah you do?)

"You know my rules, no secrets in this house" I wonder if Donna didn’t get at least a little bit mad after this that everyone lied to her for 15 years dlskjf

NERYS. VIPER IN THE NEST

the bit with wilf’s accomodation was a good subtle commentary about accesibility again…

ok…. But the definite article bit was excellent??? sdlkfj i swear fandom is so recalcitrant sometimes

"two hearts! so do I!" [rtd: in case u didn’t notice, this is what we call A Foil]

"that’s not concrete ', it’s mortar" "thank you, bob the builder"

the doc in the wig…………………… valeyard coded

There will be no violence... UNTIL he deems it fit and proper! and that’s GROWTH(tm)

solar psychodelia my beloved eu band

"it just felt like the sort of thing he woukd do" t.t

"who cares about me?" "i do" T.T!!!!!

(sdklfj tho ngl it feels like it escaletes to this emotional level wayyyy too quickly)

clifftops.... grief... fingerprint… THE SMELL OF DUST AFTER RAIN……..

I mean he did very much kill donna (again?) ddklSjs THIS IS A VERY SIGNIFICANT THING THAT JUST HAPPENED???

“She chose her own name…” trans doctor fodder?

"male and femape and neither and more" tbh this works rlly well on the metaphysical level I was talking about (note to self: elaborate on that in another post), do have to agree it sounds a bit iffy on the gender politics front...

"cryptic, I hate that" liar, you’re all about that

tbh "shame you are not a woman anymore" feels riiiiiight in line with "you two are just time lords, you dumbos!" sdkfj donna has to be a lil’ bioessentialist about meta cris-es every time doesn’t she.

"and we choose to let it go" / [the one adventure I could never have] / [terf island will eventually let go of transphobia] / [“how to let go of depression”: the scifi/adventure series]

"why does it have to be one last trip?" good question!!! yaz would like to know as well!!!

CONCLUSIONS!

Fun as hell! But i did feel a tinge disappointed that rose and the nobles aren’t that developed (and Shirley as well).

I think The Point and The Message is a bit clumsily delivered, but overall the writers’ hearts are in the right place and it does work philosophically for where (I think?) the series is going next. As a ~Trial Of A TimeLord Enjoyer~ the bit where 14 puts on a wig made me go feral.

The meep is well realized but tbh I don’t think the OG story is that strong? And I think my Hot Take is….. I think that a straight-forward story wasn’t super compatible with all the mechanics and logistics and exposition that this “fix fic-ing the doctordonna” story necessitates. So the whole thing feels kinda bogged down by having to be a recap.

Finally… I think the resolution feels a bit too... mechanical? because Rose is not developed / put as the POV at the start, it’s not enough of an emotional thrill to see her saving the day (other than like, idk, if I interpret Rose Noble triumphing being a metaphor for Donna’s life being complete when she has her own life but also the doctor back again (?)).

[servuscallidus]

I know beating yourself up is pointless but when you make a decision even though you know exactly what the consequences are going to be, because it's habit at this point, then not beating yourself up is really hard cause the circumstances themselves are beating you up

[neverendingford]

.

[daincrediblegg]

no you know what I'm going to scream about the stuff I talked about in the tags of this post publicly

I'm tired of the well-meaning "don't feel bad if your work only gets 20 notes your genius is what counts and do it for you!" bullshit. I've had a good handful of friends who have straight up DEACTIVATED in recent months because their work was not getting reblogged AT ALL. No, it wasn't from lack of not being well-liked, no it wasn't from lack of trying to make sure it was getting out there to the people they knew would engage with it. It was because no matter how much they were praised privately for their work, when push came to shove, absolutely NOBODY reblogged it and gave it the audience that it was due, and I'm tired of people shoving the "unsung genius" narrative as an excuse for it. Nothing excuses that. And the boop event really proved that.

because I know given the opportunity, indiscriminately pressing a button (sometimes 10 thousand times, as I did) is not beyond this website's capability. y'all loved doing that. and look at what it wrought. nothing but love and affection and happiness. just from a couple of quick clicks of a little paw button. sure. nobody knew who you booped but the other person (which is how likes used to work on this website, btw). there was an element of anonymity to it. but that is kind of the core of this website that no other social media platform still has: the ability to be anonymous. and hyper-curating a blog on here like you might on twitter or instagram to project an image is simply not viable. and hey. you wanna know a secret: literally nobody cares what you post or whether it goes with the "theme" of your blog or not. yeah. I know. CRAZY concept in this day and age. but literally. I myself have reblogged things that have had nothing to do with whatever I am currently fixated by and you know what happened to my follower count? not a damn thing. in fact, I actively try to reblog things specifically BECAUSE it's my friends who made them (even though I'm not always good at KEEPING UP WITH HOW MUCH THEY POST @prismatica-the-strange will NEVER GO UNRECOGNIZED by me).

And you know what fucking sucks? I have to deal with this too. surprise right? you ever wonder why I reblog fics or art I post like 20 times the day that I post them? do you ever wonder why I ask about tag lists and beg for asks all the time? IT'S BECAUSE EVEN I GET LIKE. 5 LIKES ON THE THINGS I POST. AND THE REST OF THE REBLOGS ARE MINE SO I CAN MAKE SURE THAT PEOPLE WHO WANT TO SEE WHAT I MAKE GET TO SEE IT. and I say that knowing that I'm certainly not an unpopular blog, or an unpopular writer. I know that people love the stories that I create. Hell, half of the people that I've talked to about lady terror have told me that they consider her to be canon (AND EVEN SOME!! THOUGHT SHE WAS!!! WITHOUT EVEN HAVING WATCHED THE SHOW! WHICH IS STILL SO SO WILD TO ME!!!) But especially in the last 4 years (which really dates this phenomenon), my posts, no matter how well received they've been amongst people I've talked to about them directly, I still go into the notes and at least half (often more than half) are MY reblogs to make sure people saw what I posted. and it happens every single time, and I can't tell you how much it crushes me considering that it used to be that I would be able to post it only once, and people would reblog it sometimes even HUNDREDS of times.

It's not about popularity. it never has been. it's not about anxiety. or shifting website cultures. even if you lurk, the simple fact is, that if you want people to keep making what you love. you have to reblog. your theme won't suffer because you reblogged a fanfiction that you really admire. your posting won't be ruined because you reblogged some fanart from someone in a different fandom. really. I promise. and if people do unfollow you for that? who needs em. followers come and go but you should NEVER have to cater to them. on this website it has ALWAYS been the other way around. lean into it. make it yours. put stuff you ACTUALLY WANT to be seen and that you love and appreciate on your blog. no matter how old it is, how new it is, no matter how niche or off-theme it is.

so please. if you really want to show your appreciation for someone's work? you reblog. it's really as easy as that. check the tags. add some when you reblog if you like. but please for the love of god reblog. it's as easy as booping and even more rewarding for the people who you reblog from. if you want to let someone know that their work is genius and appreciate it? show it. reblog. then DM them if you're too nervous to say what you want to say but not in a public forum. but for christ's sake. REBLOG.

[hermitadaymay]

WELCOME TO HERMIT-A-DAY MAY 2024!

I'm thrilled to bring this challenge to you all for the second year in a row! Hermit-a-Day May is a challenge inspired by Hermitober, but with a twist: instead of theme prompts, we focus on a specific Hermit every day!

THE RULES: 1. Any type of fanwork is welcome so long as it features, or is otherwise inspired by, the Hermit of the day. 2. Tag #hermitaday to have your fanwork reblogged, or submit it directly to the blog (Please note that while I recognize the value of fanworks involving more mature themes, and they can certainly count toward challenge completion if you're keeping track for yourself, content on this blog will be kept "PG-13" so that all may enjoy.). 3. Fanworks for one Hermit posted after the day rolls over to another Hermit's day (per the US Central time zone) will be reblogged in a big queue in June. 4. I am not interested in seeing captions or tags in which you disparage your art/skills. We're all improving all the time. Be kind to yourselves.

WHY SHOULD I PARTICIPATE? To show love to every Hermit, from the most to least subscribed, from those who have been on the server from day one to those who only joined this season! And because challenges are fun! And because, this year, there's an extra dimension to the event: a fundraiser for Gamers Outreach, featuring art incentives by @rendiggitydog and @belmarzi.

GRAND TOTAL INCENTIVE: For every $150 we raise for Gamers Outreach, belmarzi will make 10 seconds' worth of animatic, featuring as many Hermits as she can fit into the time frame.

INDIVIDUAL DONATION INCENTIVE: For every $50 (formerly $65 - changed 5/3) you personally donate to the fundraiser during the month of May, Rae rendiggitydog will draw you a shaded flats commission of a Hermit of your choice.

WHO’S RUNNING THIS? Hi! My name is Luna! You can use she/her, he/him, ze/hir, or ro/ros/roseself pronouns for me. My main blog is @as-if-unreal. Yep, before you ask, it really is just me, but to be fair I've had a lot of help.

BONUS SUNDAY PROMPTS EXPLAINED UNDER THE CUT

TFC - May 5th While he may no longer be with us physically, TFC left behind him a legacy of quiet care and good humor, and Hermitcraft would not have been the same without him.

FRIENDS OF HERMITCRAFT - May 12th There are plenty of shows, podcasts, competitions, other servers, and more woven into the internet ecosystem around Hermitcraft, and plenty more people involved in them: just as a small number of examples, Season 9's Rift opened up to a whole server of Emperor friends, and there are always allies to be made in MCC and enemies to be made in the Life Series. Today is for celebrating all of those who, while they may not be Hermits themselves, exist and entertain in proximity to them.

FAVORITE "ALT" HERMIT - May 19th HoTGuY and Poultry-Man. Helsknight and Evil Xisuma. Renbob and - look, you get the idea. This server is full of theater kids ready to toss on an alternate skin and play into a brand new character at the drop of a hat. Who's your favorite?

GROUPS AND COLLABS - May 26th This month is all about one Hermit a day... but what we really love is when they interact with each other. What does your favorite duo or group of Hermits get up to together?

[ms-demeanor]

I've been following what's been going on with Belphie the kitten and his person, Greer Stothers, has just mentioned pet insurance in a tag on a post and I wanted to give an example from my life backing up why pet insurance can be a good idea and why I think it is worthwhile.

Two years ago my sister's dog had bloat while she was on vacation. The kennel he was staying at recognized symptoms and called my sister to clear them to take him to the emergency vet. My sister is very financially secure and this dog is an enormous part of her life, so she said yes with barely a moment of hesitation. That ended up being about twelve thousand dollars of emergency surgery.

Large Bastard and I got pet insurance for Tiny Bastard the same week because we realized that if someone had presented that option to us, we would have had no choice but to have Tiny Bastard put down, and we didn't want to be put in that position.

I did a lot of research about different kinds of pet insurance and different levels of coverage and annual maximums and deductibles and so on and so forth. Tiny Bastard is a senior dog, so this was going to be expensive no matter what options we went with, so I chose a moderately priced plan with a $500 annual deductible, unlimited annual coverage, that pays 80% of the bills incurred annually below the maximum. What that means is that we pay the first $500 of care totally out of pocket, after which point we are reimbursed 80% of any vet bills for care covered by the plan.

The first year we had this plan I was kind of iffy about it. It's a noticeable monthly expense and we didn't even spend the deductible in vet bills the first year. Except that a month before the policy was set to renew, Tiny Bastard got diagnosed with diabetes. We now have monthly insulin costs and syringe costs; there are tests she has to have regularly to monitor her overall condition and we need to do more frequent vet visits to track symptoms.

Suddenly the insulin alone means that the insurance is break-even within six months and the additional visits and tests are something we can afford instead of something we'd have to put on credit.

Our plan (through ManyPets) covers medication, surgery, diagnostics, medical equipment, and euthanasia and cremation. It doesn't cover pre-existing conditions, joint conditions for dogs who were signed up over a certain age, dental care, spay/neuter, vaccinations, or prescription food but honestly all of that makes me just kind of wish we'd signed her up earlier - her knee problems *would* be covered if we'd had her signed up as a puppy, and the monthly cost would have been lower if we'd signed her up then. And there are at least a few emergency vet bills that I wouldn't still be paying off on my credit card. Hell, I've probably paid more in interest on some bruising she got in a fight three years ago than I have for this policy as a whole.

I am glad that Greer is able to take care of Belphie. I am glad that my sister was able to take care of her dog. But I'm also really, really glad that for a relatively low cost, I would be able to take care of Tiny Bastard if she were catastrophically injured, or if she needed emergency surgery. I'm glad that I'm able to take care of her now with her medications and her additional vet visits.

There are a lot of people who say that pet insurance isn't worth it, especially not for young animals. But if your young animal gets very sick, or gets badly injured, or eats a hairband and needs an emergency endoscopy, then it will probably be VERY worth it. It's a risk/reward question. You feel like you're wasting money if you're paying for a policy that you never use, but honestly that just means you're lucky to have a healthy pet.

I'm lucky that Tiny Bastard was relatively healthy before I got the insurance; I'm also lucky that she was insured when she was diagnosed with a chronic illness that will need lifelong care. This enables me to provide care for her that would otherwise be financially unmanageable, and that makes the insurance *extremely worth it* from my perspective.

And Belphie is a good example of why it's a good idea to get coverage even for very young pets. Greer is recommending it because this kitten has required a tremendous amount of care during a period in his life when it's generally taken for granted that a cat will be healthy. (And Greer is not stupid for forgoing pet insurance - pet insurance is still a relatively new concept and there are lots of people who are leery of it for a number of good reasons)

So I'd say that if you've got a pet or are getting a pet it is very worthwhile to find a pet insurance plan that fits in your budget. There are a variety of plans out there and some are very inexpensive. Check coverage levels (you can even get some with wellness plans that include dental care and vaccinations) and see if there's something that works for you.

I personally don't think I'm ever going to own another pet without having pet insurance. It's ridiculous how much easier it is for me to say yes to diagnostic tests or different treatments than it was before because I know I'm going to be able to fit Tiny Bastard's care into our budget.

[timeflow]

good evening reddit users, welcome to the website. not seen one of these that tells you how to make this website bearable so here goes

starting off with dashboard settings you want to turn off endless scrolling (it slows down the website after a while of scrolling), turn off shorten long posts because one of the main things about this website is the total lack of a character limit (as an alternative to this setting, you can press j to skip to the next post on the dashboard if the current one is kind of long). turning on timestamps is convenient because it allows you to check when a post was made (don't get me wrong: this website absolutely LOVES reblogging old posts, but there are times when it's worth checking if a post has very old news in it)

turn off best stuff first right away. one of the main reasons cited for joining tumblr is because "there is no algorithm". this is not entirely true, we have one but we routinely turn off anything algorithmic that staff adds. turning off best stuff first means your dashboard will be reverse chronological no matter what, and turning off based on your likes and stuff in your orbit will get rid of the rest of the algorithmically-recommended content that appears on your dashboard

following tags is nice because you will occasionally see posts with tags you follow sprinkled into your dashboard. this is considered good because it's almost always recent, I personally recommend turning on include followed tag posts and just following a bunch of random tags that you think could be interesting (characters, media, topics, whatever)

this one's a more personal thing but I would absolutely turn off any community labels because tumblr staff has recently been just putting a bunch of random posts under this despite being entirely sfw. if you ACTUALLY want to filter content, then go to filtered tags:

unlike the community labels which are put arbitrarily by staff, tags are put on by the actual users and so you can MUCH more reliably filter out content you don't want to see by putting filtered tags. this also works for any kind of content unlike the community labels, meaning you can just filter out stuff that you don't want to see (a particular character, a particular piece of media, a certain topic, anything you want really)

turn on custom theme immediately. the standard view of tumblr.com/url will give people who are not logged in a forced login wall, meanwhile url.tumblr.com will not. by doing this you also get access to your post archive at url.tumblr.com/archive, which lets you look through your posts more easily (the search function is awful). the main benefit of this, however, is that you get to have a custom look to your blog: going to edit theme brings up a menu that allows you to customize your css, add pages to your tumblr blog, etc. all very useful stuff

it's also worth taking the time to consider whether or not you leave your liked posts and list of blogs you follow public (most people have likes turned off, following is also commonly turned off but I personally don't care about others seeing who I follow)

turn off the let people blaze your posts. blaze basically allows you to pay money to show a post to a random group of people by paying money, suffices to say that allowing others to blaze your posts without your consent will inevitably lead to one of your personal posts getting blazed by some prick and now hundreds of people have seen it

asks are one of the main ways of interacting with blogs so absolutely turn them on. whether you allow anons is your choice, anonymity allows people to say nice things without feeling embarrassed about how everyone knows who said that, but it also allows people to send hateful stuff with no consequence.

submissions are like whatever. I personally leave them on but in my 5 years of having this blog I've been submitted to twice.

to close off this post I'll leave my personal thoughts on reblog etiquette:

reblogging is great. reblog the fuck out of anything. does the post amuse you slightly? reblog it. go wild

that being said please don't put anything in your reblogs unless it's like a really important comment. your comment will be immortalized forever if someone reblogs the post from you and on popular posts I have to constantly go back a couple years to get rid of an annoying comment like "LOL THIS IS SO FUNNY" because that person didn't realize that their addition was wholly unnecessary

if you DO want to add something to say your thoughts on the post in a quiet voice that doesn't get permanently added onto the original, consider talking in the tags of your reblog. this is considered nicer since when the post is reblogged from you your tags are not going to stick around. there is also this process known as "peer review" in which if your tags are sufficiently funny one of your followers (or sometimes a random person browsing the notes of the post) will screenshot/copy and paste your tags into a reblog, which is a much more natural way of having your comment added into the post

tags are also nice to use or organizational purposes. clicking on a post with a certain tag on your blog will show you every post with that tag on your blog allowing you to find posts later, alternatively you can go to url.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/[insert tag here] to a similar effect.

that's all I have to say on this subject. have fun on our glorious website

edit: oh yeah also unfollow staff. it will make you look normal 👍