#tumblr I dont think your hashtag system works

[flight-freedom]

[avocadoraisin]

Whats the appeal of blue sky. I’ve never heard of it before. Is the community better or is about privacy or what?

its more for people looking for a replacement for twitter, since now that place is overrun with AI and bots and trolls and right wingers and misery and now they changed how the block feature worked, and EVERYONE hated that

if you ask me, i dont really understand why people dont just come back to tumblr. it has everything art communities keep asking for: the ability to edit posts, highly craftable blogs and posts for presentation purposes, a huge character limit, a robust tagging system that you can use for either sorting your own work on your blog or to get more eyes on it in tags, or to better hide things you dont like. its great.

but idk. the porn rules still really turn a lot of people off, even though naughty work is allowed here again so long as its cropped or censored or what have you.

so, Tumblr, I think, is still the best place to be if tumblr is what you want.

Bluesky is the current best "twitter killer" if you're specifically looking to fill that hole. Ive been on it for about a year or so because the furry community claimed it first, but every time Musk does something fucking moronic, more people go "hey wait, this place IS pretty neat" and join the party.

i dont fully agree with how blocking works there either, but so far I havent had a problem... (you can find out who is blocking you, which makes me uneasy. I like to have a little privacy, not everything I do online needs to be on display on my profiles. I personally dont even like when my 'likes' are public, another win for tumblr. but you cant win them all. unless you're on tumblr and dont mind not posting porn, then tumblr has it all. but I DIGRESS......)

but on Bluesky, you can: use tags in a similar way as you do on tumblr, to organize your own work or use it for discoverability. you can have slightly more control over the interactivity of your post (same as here, where you can limit comments. You can disable quote posting, but you cant stop people from "retweeting" though, which is a shame. I enjoy being able to nuke the ability to reblog my more intimately personal posts on tumblr, but its something.)

And, kind of like custom tags, you can create custom "feeds." You can use these feeds to discover other people's work out there, or you can use them for people to sort through your stuff too. I have one for only my art and Werepire AU so far. like this:

And in general, the community SO FAR seems dedicated to keeping the space more positive, since rage bait and contrarianism and infighting runs rampant on twitter. theres a little bit more typing room for nuanced thoughts on bluesky, people are more willing to have mature discussions, at least from what I can tell in the circles im in. you're less at risk for aggressive randos to show up in your space because its not algorithm based, its based solely on who you follow (yayyyy!!) or the feeds you subscribe to.

Also just the fact that most people on the platform right now are just excited they can share art and say things without 200 bots swarming to their posts, or the twitter algorithm stomping their work into the dirt because they posted a link, had too long of a caption, had too many hashtags, too LITTLE hashtags, said unknown tweet-suppressing words, or it was in a thread, or NOT in a thread, etc etc etc etc etc

and theres porn. of course.

[in-tua-deep]

tua s1 rewatch with my roommate

episode one (I forgot for the first episode oops):

I have been treated to pictures of a lovely cosplay of Klaus who won a cosplay contest my roommate was in !!

Klaus putting his arm in front of Five during the funeral fight is good shit

“I have heard like nothing about Vanya” “yeah that’s pretty much how she’s treated in show as well”

“I can see why he’s the fandom favorite” - about Klaus

“Istanbul is in the firST EPISODE?”

I forGOT about the “rapists can climb” line when he breaks into Vanya’s apartment omg but also like,, his dumb arm wound

Episode two:

HERR CARLSON

Aww baby fives first time travel his little smile. Baby. Baby boy. And the dawning horror in the apocalypse baby nO

Five: you got anything stronger

Also five: takes one sip and then fills up more, takes another sip, and then immediately puts it down ?????

The motel dude for hazel and cha cha just looks at them like “yeah these are serial killers” and just rolls with it

Also actually why tf doesn’t the commission spring for better stuff?? Why would they cut costs?? They time travel? They could game the stock market so hard ?????? Give the assassins their own rooms omg

Also why didn’t five like. Crush his tracker. Why did he just leave it whole and intact outside of the Griddys.

Forgot how much I love Agnes

(Oh man it is storming bad here it just BOOMED)

Also idk if Diego actually deserved that taser hmmmmm but also like,, communication lads five was literally right there killing people and Diego is like “hmm something is up here” like. Yeah Diego ur big brother “I can get my sibling in trouble for something” senses are tingling

Wow I really did repress all these Allison and Luther scenes huh. Also it’s still super cute that Allison read Claire moon books

Allison: dads heart gave out, which wasn’t how I was expecting to find out dad had a heart but it tracks

“SHUT YOUR PIEHOLE BEN... said with love 😘”

Did five actually sleep at Vanyas?? The sofa looks undisturbed but he had to wait for work hours to interrogate the meritech people,, five,, please sleep. The whole “IF YOU CALL ME YOUNG MAN ONE MORE TIME” interaction makes more sense with five on. Zero sleep.

I didn’t remember that Patch straight up knows about the umbrella academy oops. Like she clocks Diego as overcompensating for his childhood. Queen

Is that an umbrella adademy Diego cross stitch on Diego’s wall?? Did he buy that? Make it?? Did grace make it?

Vanya, walking into the academy: five??? five? pspspspspsps

Also like. Who was Vanyas therapist??? Clearly they did not help her

Aww the tow truck driver :(

I know the show wants me to dislike Patrick I KNOW,, and I think her fathers funeral is extenuating circumstance?? But still Patrick is valid for not giving an inch regarding his ex who mind controlled his child. Vanya didn’t really deserve Allison snapping at her but like. She had some good points. Allison arguably would have had to deal with vanyas book more than anyone else

Five smiling proudly at Klaus’s drama at meritech bless but also KLAUS DONT BREAK GLASS ON YOURSELF

Me, spotting Leonard: BASTARD

Love how everyone greets Diego in the gym and don’t question all his knives or anything like “yeah that’s Diego he lives here and loves knives :)”

Why could Leonard have not been like. A normal ass guy. Vanya needs friends who sympathize with her holy shit get this person some socialization

Pogo really did have to lead these kids by hand to the recording rooms because literally no one was super invested in reginalds ~murder mystery~

ahafahJAGSJWGAI MY ROOMMATE JUST SAID POGO IS THE BEST CHARACTER SO FAR,,,, I will probably never include pogo in my fics because I do Not Care About Him lmaoooo

Aww five does to see Dolores and being like “it’s been a rough couple of days :(“,,,,, baby,,,, but also tag yourself I’m hazel going “elastic wrist splint yesssssss”

Five I am begging you PLEASE get some sleep

OH FIVE SHAKING DIEGO IN THE APOCALYPSE TO TRY AND WAKE HIM UP OHHHHH OH :(

Episode 3:

my roommate is super faceblind which is an issue bc she identifies people mainly by hairstyle so seeing the s2 stuff on tumblr is tripping her over bc she keeps seeing diego and going ??? who is that again? bc she’s seen his longer hair

okay there is no way that the eggs that grace put in that pan are the ones that ended up on the smiley face breakfast plate,,, but also grace that whole scene was a mood honestly i would be like “okay maybe mom killed dad BUT he deserved it sooooo”

“what the FUCK” - my roommate about cha-cha’s shitty wound care where she holds a curling iron against her arm

i didn’t remember that five got shOT AT THE DEPARTMENT STORE did i just erase that from my memory?? i mean yeah it’s a graze but he stitches it up and then slaps a bandaid on it so he has a wound that needed stitches on his shoulder for the entire show ??????? is he okay???? that would make moving your arm,,, painful,,,,,

a bandaid just slapped over it i’m actively yelling

“Sometimes when I see a million gifs of a show before I watch I get really surprised when they talk but he is exactly what I expected” - my roommate, about five

“I noticed they’ve only really showed diego in really badly lit scenes so far” - my roommate defending her lack of ability to recognize diego

i’m still laughing about pogo literally having to point out the murder tapes and now allison and luther are investigating and just. allison is lowkey defending grace and i’m laughing

“why is he saying woodwork is embarrassing that’s like one of the most middle of the wood hobbies to have. you’re respectable to grandpas who used to carve wooden ducks AND twenty-year-olds who can’t make anything to save their lives” - my roommate on leonard peabody

“i think he’s already crossing some lines he’s met this lady ONCE” - roommate on leonard/vanya

five having flashbacks in the car :(

did allison and luther draw straws for who went to fetch which sibling?? allison was like “dibs on vanya” and luther was just like “aww :(”

five luther and klaus in the van - BOYS NIGHT BOYS NIGHT let’s go pick up diego

“the coat he’s wearing does have a nice swish to it” - roommate about klaus’s coat

luther being like “you’re just as messed up as the rest of us and we’re all you have” like luther,,, baby,,,,, you literally ARE all he has,,,,,, his family is the only thing he’s really cared about since he was thirteen and maybe before then :(

“I can’t tell if those are supposed to be cake or yeast donuts... i think extruded donuts are cake donuts but she said she lets them rise so maybe they’re yeast?” - my roommate focusing on all the things that i do not

sometimes i forget that hazel and cha-cha pretended to be private detectives trying to find a lost child in a potentially dangerous situation,,, five would be disgusted

“she shouldn’t get a vote” “i was gonna say i agree with you” “she should get a vote!!” this is peak sibling energy honestly i think i’ve had that exact interaction with my siblings voting for a movie or something

“hashtag android rights” 

“I want to be the tailor who gets a call one day that says ‘i want you to make clothes for a chimpanzee”

is it telling that only luther in the flashback didn’t really talk to grace at all,, i mean five didn’t either but i think he was gone by that point in the flashback ???? 

wait diego tells grace that she worked for him for thirty years,,, the kids are 29 and later it’s implied she was built bc vanya kept killing nannies when they were like four but maybe s2 clarifies that some more?? or diego just is rounding up

“that’s an interesting fabric to her skirt” - my roommate about grace’s outfit

forgot that hazel and cha cha broke the door to the manor busting in,, do they ever fix that?? we’re only at episode three do they spend the rest of the season with their door open to anyone on the streets

okay that bathtub is WAY too small to allow for klaus to be moving his elbows about like that underwater smh

“how is HE useful on mission??” my roommate about klaus

where is the SECURITY SYSTEM??? luther LITERALLY said that reggie was more paranoid and yet some assassin can just bust down the door and have unrestricted access????? he built a whole ROBOT but no security system????????

“maybe it was like,, practice for the kids? someone breaks in and they take care of it? wait no that doesn’t explain the thirteen years they’ve been gone?”

“why WAS he on the moon?” - about luther

“I want to see what she’s embroidering!!” about grace during the gunfight in the living room she’s absolutely ignoring diego getting shot at

what is a rope-a-dope,,,, diego yells “EVER HEARD OF A ROPE-A-DOPE???” at luther but like. no i haven’t. what does that MEAN diego

aww i forgot they played sinnerman, love that song

“what are you doing dude, rumor has it you’re not shooting at me that’s all you need to do” i mean. the roommate is not wrong. allison could just end the fight with a yell. i understand she’s pissed off and has rumor trauma but like cha cha is actively trying to murder them

how is luther not winning he literally has super strength. does hazel have super strength? just punch the man and knock him out jesus y’all suck at this smh

why is there such intense music we all been knew about luther’s strength - oH HIS BODY

forgot about that

is it allison’s fault that klaus got kidnapped because she didn’t literally just rumor them to give up?? like she literally has that power. she could have been like “i heard a rumor you left and forgot about us” it didn’t even need to be violent?? i understand she has rumor trauma but this i feel is allowable circumstances

diego showing his worry about vanya by getting angry which honestly i think all the siblings do that rip none of these idiots have even heard of healthy communication in their LIVES

you know,, i don’t think vanya can drive. she takes the bus. she took a taxi to leonard’s house. we see her walking a lot. does she know how to drive?? i imagine that the umbrella academy were taught bc of mission related stuff but,,, vanya wasn’t?? that’s just depressing tbh

[i-dont-even-like-elves]

I created a twitter account for i-dont-even-like-elves recently and while I still intend to use it, I’ve gotten pretty fed up with twitter of late (like a lot of people) and have migrated some activity over to mastodon (separate from my personal and dragon age fan accounts, I coordinate organizing/activist work on twitter; this tumblr account is purely for relaxation and de-stressing)

Mastodon feels a bit like “the other, smaller internet”; a smaller userbase and the ability to pick an instance that explicitly disallows, for example, hate speech means that it’s also a lot calmer than twitter, at least for now. Instances are a little odd at first, but you only have to register for one--the instance you’re on doesn’t determine who you can follow. And your timeline will reflect that. It really reminds me of a grown-up version of some of the chatrooms from way back, or IRC/MU*s (the non-sexist, non-shitty ones). Plus, you get 500 characters as opposed to 140, you can set privacy levels for individual toots, and you can more-inside your toots or use this feature to cover spoilers/nsfw content. Hashtags are used for search. (More about mastodon) The basic restrictions on the instance I use, mastodon.social, are

The following types of content will be removed from the public timeline, and may result in account suspension and revocation of access to the service:

Racism or advocation of racism Sexism or advocation of sexism Discrimination against gender and sexual minorities, or advocation thereof Xenophobic and/or violent nationalism 

The following types of content are explicitly disallowed and will result in revocation of access to the service:

Sexual depictions of children Content illegal in Germany and/or France, such as holocaust denial or Nazi symbolism

Works for me. So I also created https://mastodon.social/@idontevenlikeelves and will see how that goes. It’s awfully quiet for Dragon Age stuff there, but for many reasons, I think it would be a fantastic platform to use in conjunction with tumblr. Especially for discussions, which I don’t think tumblr’s reply/reblog system handles all that well. I’m not sure I’m equipped to run my own instance, but it’s possible to basically create your own by limiting your content to your own followers. Anyway, wanted to share in case some of you had been considering trying it out.

[sanchoyo]

EXACTY!!! EXACTLY

I think the problem is how the websites are set up!!! old deviantart and old websites in general (like, forums) were awesome bc the small communities and actually FEEDBACK was encouraged!!! Websites don't really do that anymore idk how to describe it...and there's no real good websites for art sharing like that!

I mean.

instagram is mobile only, which tends to kill quality, doesn't let you have long descriptions, or put links in them!!! It's the most popular way rn for artists to get a following, and the hashtag system is good! But it doesn't really allow for a community to exist; it just wasn't made for art, it was made for photo and video sharing. Also again: MOBILE ONLY??

Twitter...is twitter... the hashtag system isn't great and it's just. kinda toxic. I only log in there to post art then dip. The only way to get a following is to jump aggressively on every art trend that lasts a week and HOPE a post blows up. and people are doing NFT shit and tend to self-promote on popular posts and. Ugh

tumblrs tagging system doesnt work half the time bc of a lot of rules they dont TELL YOU, and SO many people left after the nsfw ban (which DIDNT WORK I STILL HAVE PORNBOTS FOLLOWING ME!! WEEKLY!!!! SCREAM) and tbh that was a DUMB choice on their part. sex workers used this app and it was relatively safe for stuff like that and since we're talking abt art-platforms, nsfw artists did too!! I'm ace and rly dont even look at that stuff but I understand the importance of having a space for it. (and a lot of them were super good at tagging it, so u could just blacklist stuff anyway) now the issue is that ppl on here dont wanna rb so its harder for art to reach people!!! esp if youre just starting out and don't have a following. A lot of ppl dont check in the tags for art for fandoms! (or the tumblr tags just straight up dont SHOW the post in the tags...again. poor tagging system)

I KNOOOW people think of dA as a place where it was like. full of weird kink art. (I am NOT arguing abt that. it 100% was/is lol) but tbh thats ...p much everywhere on the internet... if you'd even mention a fandom/chara in the description, it'd show up in the search!! The search feature was great! The old way of sorting galleries use to be great bc if you were looking for certain stories or ocs from a person, you could easily find it! collabing/art trading with people felt so much more casual, and it had a forum feel where you could send comments back and forth.. where if ppl were fans of a thing, you'd see their comments with yours and be able to reply like 'YES OMG I LOVE THIS PERSONS ART/OCS TOO!! AAA' like. specifically thinking of Miss Chelsi-Apple-Leafs comic!!! God it was fun when she'd release stuff and a ton of tmm fans would speculate and gush in her comments lol. And adopts!! how fun were adopts!! and decking out your page with stamps/making them for ur friends to let them know you're their fan...

frankly just no other website compares imo when it comes to art sharing and no other website feels like it's really MADE for that in the way dA was. it USED to be so good before they dug their own graves with poor design and lack of navigation/organization. (Poor Website Design. When its an ART SITE?? HIRE BETTER DESIGNERS MY GOD. YOU HAVE SO MANY OF THEM ON YOUR WEBSITE-- people screaming they hate the new design and they didnt listen At All!! it was a move I hope cost them a lot of money >:( ) and now the site is practically dead. THEY USED TO HAVE CATAGORIES!! like you could search by art type: photography, brushes (for specific programs, too!!) traditional vs digital, fanart, sculptures, animations... etc!! and they got rid of that, making the search/filter system SUCK SO MUCH ASS. (they replaced it with something called topics. it doesn't have nearly as much categories, is not as easy to navigate, and is a lot harder to find stuff on...thanks DA...)

there's more, and i'm sure someone's done a more in depth post or even video on it but...god if you weren't there back then to compare, you'd have no idea how much it went downhill!! and there's no REALLY good alternatives rn :(

I miss tmm gang 😔 it really is harder to make friends on every other website im on!! the website I get the most feedback on my stuff now is actually ao3, but that's for my writing, not my actual art... ao3 needs to do a sister site for art ashshdf

the other day when I was devart to find old art, I was surprised to see I had 288 watchers on there! I assumed it was more because like, before I quit the website I had a good bit of interaction!! A lot of feedback, favorites, questions and fun convos!! It felt like a cozy lil community...

Whereas my art blog here has more followers than that and still a LOT less interaction. The rb to likes ratio is always so. So many more likes. And the fanart of course always gets more attention than oc stuff, which like on DA ppl asked after them and drew fanart and aaa... it was so sweet...

So like. Shoutout to ppl that rb my art. It means a lot and ilu!! (+100 love if u leave nice tags. +1000 if u do it for my oc posts)