#tumblr always to browse on desktop

[apolleh]

Meow

Meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow meow

[changes]

Thursday, September 26th, 2024

🌟 New

We’ve launched new search operators that work on all platforms so you can find the exact post you’re looking for.

You can now mute the unread count from a joined community via the meatballs menu at the top-right of the community.

Community admins can now allow moderators to invite new members too. Check out your community’s settings!

The ability to search for communities on web is rolled out to everyone. There’s a new dropdown option on search that lets you browse communities related to your search term on the web (this will be in the apps with the next update), and there’s a new “Related Communities” section in the sidebar on the web.

We’re recommending communities for folks who have already joined communities in more places, including a new carousel in For You.

Backdating posts has always had the potential to act in unexpected ways, so we’ve added new warnings about this.

🛠 Fixed

Ads in the iOS app no longer interrupt your background audio. Please update to version 36.4 for the fix.

When leaving a longer reply on desktop web in certain cases or mobile web on Android devices, the cursor will no longer jump up unexpectedly in the text area.

Custom domain verification emails were briefly not being sent September 18th. This was fixed and all pending verification emails were re-sent.

🚧 Ongoing

No ongoing incidents to speak of right now.

🌱 Upcoming

No upcoming launches to announce today.

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[historical-fashion-polls]

Hello!

Thank you for running this blog, and showing us gorgeous historical outfits! I have a question for you and the followers about the October polls.

If you don't mind me saying, the outfit images seem very small compared to the bracket letter (the center, black image). Perhaps it's because I'm browsing through the app, and not the desktop version. Do the images seem much smaller than before to anyone else? Is it due to the format, because you have to merge several images?

I hope this ask doesn't come off as too entitled. In any case, I still enjoy these polls, and can always zoom in on images if I want to see the details. Thank you again for sharing your love of fashion.

hi dear anon! 💕

thanks for reaching out with this question, and I'm glad you're enjoying the blog! ☺️☺️

the reason the images are formatted differently for the tournament is because of the way that tumblr "adjusts" images that are placed next to each other. normally, for the most part, I'm just posting a single plate or image that has multiple illustrations on it, so I don't need to worry about adjusting things 💖💖

however, for the tournament I'm taking "cuttings," so to speak, of different plates, which means I have images that end up being very different sizes. on tumblr, if you try to post a tall and thin image next to one that is more square, tumblr's formatting defers to the one that is shorter and wider, and cuts off the top and bottom of the taller image (I've discovered this through trial and error lmao 😅😅). because of that, if you're planning to post two images next to each other, you need to make sure they're roughly the same proportions so that one of them doesn't get cut off

I really went back and forth for a long time on how to format the images for the tournament. because of the huge range of sizes and shapes of "cuttings" that I had, I would need to make adjustments to pretty much every pair of images to bring them to similar proportions. unfortunately, that was time I just didn't have, so I opted to format them in powerpoint and lay them out as part of one single image that I could post without needing to make adjustments 💕💕

whew! 😅😅 that was a really long explanation, but I hope that makes sense! I was hoping folks would be able to zoom in if they wanted to see individual images better, and when we return to normal posting, the images will also return to normal! ☺️☺️ the formatting here is just a result of the weirdness of these types of comparisons in particular

thank you so much again for reaching out, and I hope my long ramblings answered your question! ☺️💕 I hope you continue to enjoy the tournament! 🥰🎃

[dqmeron]

some quick info: ↳ this is specifically for the screencapping method. i use mplayer osx extended to get my caps, but there are a few other programs you can use as well. i’ll specifically be going over mplayer here. ↳ i’m using ps 24.4.1 on a 2020 m1 macbook air

[tysm to @kyubinz for looking this over and adding some things ily]

☆ feel free to send me an ask/message with any questions you have! ☆

「 setup 」

1. finding videos

one big thing to remember is that the overall file size of your video will impact the quality of your gif. the larger, the better. i almost never use anything below 1080p, and try to use 2160p whenever i can. 4k video downloader is the program i use for downloading videos from youtube, it’s free to install and works great! because of how large some files can be, i always store any media on my hard drive. i highly recommend using one if you plan to keep lots of files on hand. 

.mkv files are best, but .mp4 works fine as well (.mkv files are usually bigger aka better quality).

2. getting your screencaps

after downloading mplayer, go to the top bar and click file > open. open the video you’ll be screencapping. 

you can either drag the little time indicator or using the arrow keys on your keyboard to move to the spot you want to capture. the > key can also be used to move forward frame by frame. to start capping, pause the video and press shift + cmnd (ctrl if you’re on windows) + s to take a screencap. i usually just hold it down until i’ve gotten all the screencaps i need. 

by default, screencaps go right to desktop. you can set up a folder for them to go to automatically by going to settings > general and then selecting a spot in the menu under “interface”, but i just let them go to desktop and then sort them into individual folders so they’re easier for me to find while i’m giffing. in general, i try to stay under 80 frames so my gifs fit into tumblr’s 10mb image size limit. 

3. importing screencaps into photoshop

to import your caps into ps, go to file > scripts > load files into stack. this window should open:

click browse, and navigate to the folder with your caps in it. select all of the caps you want to import, and then click open.

click ok to create a file with your caps, and then wait until it’s finished loading your caps into the layers tab. once they’re loaded in, this is what your screen should look like:

(if you aren’t seeing the timeline at the bottom of your screen, go up to the top bar and go to window > timeline)

click create frame animation, then go to the hamburger menu at the top right of the timeline and select make frames from layers. once your frames have loaded in, select the same menu again and click reverse frames. play through your gif to make sure everything looks good. 

if you were to save your gif at the speed it’s set at now, it would be way too fast. to fix this, you have to set the frame delay. do this by selecting all your frames in the timeline using shift click, and then clicking (on any frame) where it says “0 sec”. select other from the menu that comes up, and you should get this popup:

the general rule of thumb for gif frame delay is 0.05 seconds. there are some cases — certain animated movies or video games, for example — where other delays are best, but for the most part, 0.05 is what you want to use (0.05 can slightly slow gifs, and sometimes using 0.04 better matches the clip's original timing. this is really a "train your eyes" thing, and picking the best delay gets easier as you gif for longer). you can set this by typing the number into the text box and then hitting the ok button or enter on your keyboard. 

at this point, i’d go ahead and save your file. you can go to file > save in the top bar, or just hit cmd/ctrl + s on your keyboard.

「 making your gif 」

1. sizing

after your frames are ready, the next thing is to size your gif. to crop your gif, press c on your keyboard to open the cropping tool. white borders will show up around your gif.

before doing anything, i would suggest making sure “delete cropped pixels” is unchecked. this will allow you to drag your gif around later if you want to reposition. you can find this option at the top of your screen. drag the borders on either side until you have the area you want selected. mine looks like this:

once you’re happy with your selection, hit enter on your keyboard to finalize it. 

the tumblr image guidelines require gifs to be 540px across (here’s a post detailing this). to change your gif’s image size, go to image > image size in the top bar. you’ll get this popup:

instead of setting the width right to 540, i’ll be setting it to 544, and then trimming down the edges using canvas size. this makes the quality just a little better, and also prevents any weird borders being made around your gif on the off chance photoshop decides to add them. this isn’t necessary at all, you can absolutely size right to 540, but i just like doing this. if you choose to do this, open canvas size right after you set image size (image > canvas size in the top bar), and trim your width down to 540 and your height down a few pixels as well. 

2. sharpening & other filters

sharpening is essential for good-quality gifs. the first step to this is converting our timeline from frame animation to a video timeline. select this little icon in the bottom left of your screen:

this is what your timeline will look like now:

you can use the little slider with mountains on either side to change the width of your frames in the timeline for easier access when editing. now that we’ve got all this set up, we can sharpen! i use this action pack to sharpen my gifs in addition to a few of my own settings (here is a video on how to install actions into photoshop). go to window > action in the top bar if you aren’t seeing the action tab. 

i’ll be using the sharper action from the pack. to use an action, select it from the list and press the little play button at the bottom of the panel to apply it.

in addition to this, i usually also add unsharp mask at 50% amount with a 0.5px radius:

there are a few other filters than can be helpful when giffing:

a. add/reduce noise noise (aka grain) can be added with “add noise”. go to filter > noise > add noise.

these are the settings i usually use, but the amount depends on the gif (i don't ever go over 3.5 for the most part):

(if you want a grain effect but moving noise doesn't work for the gif, you can also add a grain overlay and then mess with blending mode and layer opacity until it looks how you want)

reduce noise can be used to remove some of the pre-existing grain on a clip. go to filter > noise > reduce noise. here are my settings:

leaving reduce noise on its own at 100% is a bit too much, so double click this icon and change the opacity (i usually do around 45):

b. gaussian blur if your clip is a bit pixelated, gaussian blur can help with smoothing it out a bit. go to filter > blur > gaussian blur. my settings are 1 pixel radius w ~20% opacity (this changes based on the gif).

3. coloring

time to color! i want you to keep in mind during this section that everyone likes different colorings, and this is just my process! please don’t feel pressured to follow exactly what i’m doing, the best way to find what you like is to just mess around and experiment!

i like to start off with lighting adjustments: brightness/contrast, levels, exposure, and curves. 

a. brightness/contrast i usually start out with this first, just because brightening the gif right away helps me start thinking about how i want to color! here are my settings:

b. levels/curves levels and curves can either be used interchangeably or together. i usually use levels to adjust lighting and curves to adjust color values, but i’ll go over using both for lighting as well as using curves for adjusting color values. 

for both of these adjustments, i use the eyedropper tools to pick out white and black points. for levels, the top eyedropper tool to the left of the graph is used to pick out a black point. i do this first. use the tool to pick a spot on your gif that you want to be the base for black values. for me, that’s the shadow inside rey’s hood. the bottom eyedropper tool picks white point. use the tool to pick a spot on your gif that you want to be the base for white values. i chose the outside of rey’s hood. make sure you’re doing this on a new levels adjustment layer.

now, on to curves. you can either use the same eyedropper method or manipulate the graph directly. using the eyedropper is the same as levels, so i’ll just go over graph manipulation. 

shade lightens as you move to the right along the x-axis of the graph — black is the far left, white is the far right, middle is the midtones. generally, i don’t work with midtones.

i’m going to use levels for this gif’s lighting, and curves to adjust color values. here’s how to do that:

curves can be used to adjust the amount of a certain color in different lighting areas of a gif. for example, i can specifically decrease the amount of green in the gif’s whites. to edit these values, select the rgb drop-down menu and adjust them one at a time. here are my final graphs:

c. exposure this one’s pretty straightforward. the exposure slider adjust general exposure. the offset slider adjusts how dark your dark points are, and gamma correction can be used to lighten/darken scenes as a whole. here’s my settings:

d. color balance color balance is used to adjust overall tint of a clip. this is in general pretty simple, but i do want to point out that using the shadow and highlights tabs in addition to just the midtones can really help. here’s my settings:

e. channel mixer channel mixer is one of my favorite tools in ps, especially for coloring scenes that are a pain in the ass without it. to avoid taking up too much space, here’s a great tutorial covering channel mixer. here’s my settings:

[at this point, i’m noticing my gif is still a bit darker than i’d like it, so i’m adding just a bit of brightness/contrast to fix it. there’s also a patch of blue over one of rey’s eyes, so i’ve used a hue/saturation layer to get rid of that bit and masked it to her eye. i’m not going to go over masking here, but there are lots of great tutorials out there!]

f. selective color selective color can be used to adjust the amount of specific colors within a color. for example, if i were to go into the red tab and take out cyans, the reds would become more red. if i were to add yellows, the reds would become more orange, etc etc. this can be especially good for color manipulation. for this gif, i’d like to make the background more blue, so i’m going to use selective color to do this. here’s my settings:

g. color lookup color lookup uses 3dlut files to remap gif colors (it’s a preset — think instagram filter or something similar). i don’t always use these, but when i do, i almost never leave them at 100% opacity. color lookup is great for giving gifs a film-type look if you want to do that, it’s got loads of different options. here’s my settings (adjustment layer is set to 20% opacity):

atp i’m pretty much done with coloring! i usually end up doing a few extra little lighting adjustments at the end. for this gif, i added some brightness/contrast at +8. i’ve also noticed that my gif’s looking a bit grainy, so i’ve added some noise to lean into it. this is usually the way i fix it, but you can definitely do reduce noise/gaussian blur as well if you don’t want a grainy look. 

here’s my fully colored gif + a process gif (fast images warning):

「 saving gifs 」

1. frame rate

one thing you may have noticed is that my gif is looking a bit choppy. photoshop has a tendency to mess with frame delay after gifs are converted to video timeline. here’s how to fix that.

select all of your layers and convert them to a smart object (right click > convert to smart object). next, click on the hamburger menu in the top right of the timeline and go to convert frames > flatten frames into clips. now we need to change the timeline from video timeline to frame animation. click the little 3 boxes symbol in the bottom left corner of the timeline:

go to the hamburger menu again and select make frames (this is the same one you used earlier), then go through your frames and delete any duplicates. the first frame usually needs to be deleted specifically. once you’ve done that, set the frame delay back to 0.05 the way you did earlier. 

2. exporting

once you’re happy with how your gif looks, go to file > export > save for web (legacy). 

these are my export settings, but feel free to experiment with the menus where i have selective and diffusion selected, different settings work best for each gif. in general, most gifmakers only use selective/adaptive and diffusion/pattern because they generally work the best for tumblr. before saving, make sure your looping option is set to forever:

gif size for tumblr has a 10mb limit. my gif is under this, so i don’t need to make any changes, but if yours is over, you can either delete some frames from the beginning/end of your gif and/or adjust the height of the gif (width needs to stay 540px so your gif doesn’t get stretched/compressed on tumblr, but height is fair game). 

here's my final gif!

happy giffing, and please don’t hesitate to send me any questions you have! ♡

[ofmdee]

(google doc here)

hiya all, i thought it was finally time to make an Official collab post on tumblr, lol, i have one floating around somewhere but it's not very detailed, so! lets create something together?

fic examples 💕

Must be 18+!!!!

Must be okay with me sharing the finished gifs/stills on twitter/tumblr at some point (with a link to your fic, of course)

You can either: tell me what you’d be interested in writing and I will do my best to create gifs/stills to match that, or, if you don’t have any specific ideas, I will make some random gifs and send them your way, to see if you vibe with them

If you do have specifics, lmk!  I will try to accommodate as best I can.  Examples include: position/act, who tops/bottoms, clothes (or lack thereof), facial hair/accessories etc

This is mostly for smutty oneshot type things, anything too plotty gets too complicated

I reserve the right to not do stuff that I simply don’t vibe with, lol, or stuff that just isn’t easily accomplished/is outside my skill level

In general, will not do: Ed and Stede with anyone but each other, animations for fics that are already written (because I do not make the animations myself, and I only can use what is available for download, so I don’t like having to find something super specific unless I’m working on my own longfic), and like, anything that squicks me out or makes me uncomfortable

Can do other pairings, but my other character sims are way less detailed than Ed n Stede

Can do lesbian Ed n Stede 

My sims are cis, but that can also be changed with a few clicks if you’d like!

I’ll send you an album of all the gifs I make, and you are free to use as few/many as you like, in whatever order you like.  Whatever inspires you!!!

You’re obv free to post your finished work on ao3 or whatever site you want, just pls link back to my twitter or tumblr in some way.  (Or add me as co creator, but that is totally optional!)

(If you need help posting gifs to ao3, click the google doc link at the top of this post!!!)

I’d prefer if gifs weren’t uploaded to any twitter/tumblr but my own, with the exception of a title gif that I will send you, so you can make your own tweet/post, if you’d like! and ofc go nuts on ao3!

(To censor a gif on twitter, you have to be on desktop and click add description, and the flag option will be in there. post spicy stuff on tumblr at ur own risk 😂)

Finished fics are all compiled on @m3rmaided, feel free to browse them ;)

Any questions, hmu!

Seriously, though, feel free to DM me at any time if you’re interested in creating something together, I am pretty much always open to it.  And it is NOT just a mutuals only deal!!!

Will update this post periodically if I think of anything else!

so, yeah!!! u can DM me or reply here and i'll get in contact w/ you, whatever you prefer! 💕 this is meant to be fun and stress free, so no time restraints or anything like that, just! creativity!!! yeah 💕

[delta-orionis]

i'm on pc for a change and i just looked at your askblog AND OMG THAT IS SO PRETTY?????

it looks so good and the little interactive details? so cool so cool i don't know how hard it was to make it look like this but it definately paid off

pc users are eating so much better than mobile

I'm glad you like it!! It was a lot of fun to put together. I know most people use tumblr on mobile these days and won't ever get to see desktop themes, but I've always really liked custom tumblr themes and I try to use them on all of my blogs.

This theme was pretty easy to set up, I used the theme "Glitch" by glenthemes. They have a ton of other pretty themes in their portfolio as well.

(Full disclosure, I was inspired to use this theme after I saw it used on the blog ask-jewels-against-the-sea, I thought their setup was really pretty. Hopefully they don't think I'm copying them, I just thought their theme was very nice.)

Also, it's worth mentioning for people who are newer to tumblr/only ever use it on mobile, but setting up custom desktop themes is extremely easy. While on desktop, go to your blog's settings page, scroll down to "Custom Theme", toggle the "Enable Custom Theme" button ON, and then click "Edit theme".

It will open your blog's theme customization page, which looks like this:

Settings are on the left, and a live preview of your theme is on the right. (Any changes you make to your theme aren't reflected on your actual blog until you hit the blue "Save" button.)

Tumblr has a few first-party themes in the "Browse themes" tab you can use, but most of them are pretty limited, and a bunch cost real money (ew). There are literally HUNDREDS of custom themes that people have made that are completely FREE. They're not that hard to find if you know where to look; you can literally just type "Custom Tumblr Theme" into the Tumblr search bar or Google. A lot of people have portfolios with live previews of all of the themes they've created, with links to the HTML code. Also if there's a specific theme from someone's blog that you want to use, almost all themes have a "Theme" button you can click that leads to the artist's portfolio:

Installing the theme is literally as easy as copying and pasting. Portfolios and live theme previews usually have a "code" button you can click that will take you to the raw HTML of the theme.

Select the entire code by hitting CTRL+A, and copy it.

Then go back to your theme customization page and click on the grey "Edit HTML" button under "Custom Theme".

It will open up the HTML editor tab, which looks like this.

All you need to do is hit CTRL+A again to select the code that's currently there, delete it, and paste the code from your clipboard into the editor. Then hit the green "Update Preview" button to update the live theme preview on the right so you can see how it looks.

Most themes require zero knowledge of HTML to use. If you click on the back arrow, it will take you out of the HTML editor, and back to the theme customization tab. Scroll down to the "Theme Options" header.

Here you can change the colors, fonts, toggle settings on and off, upload background or sidebar images, etc etc. The settings of some themes allow you to get very granular with the customization, with custom fonts/image sizes/colors for different elements of the theme, so you can make your theme unique.

Once you're satisfied, hit the blue "Save" button and the theme will be reflected on your blog.

I highly recommend looking around for a custom theme you like and adding it to your blog, it's a lot of fun!!! I've been on tumblr for over a decade and custom themes used to be completely ubiquitous; everyone wanted to have a unique theme that reflected their personality and interests. Themes are a very fun form of self-expression. Even if most people these days won't see your desktop theme, it's a nice little treat for yourself when browsing your own blog, so make it something that you enjoy.

[dandelyle]

How to Install The Dashboard Unfucker

From this.....

To this!

First, you should be using Firefox as the extension was developed for Firefox (and because Firefox is the best browser uwu). You'll need to download Tampermonkey extension for Firefox, the Dashboard Unfucker userscript from github, and then install the script using the extension.

Instructions and screenshots for clarity below the cut:

Get Tampermonkey for Firefox

2. Go to github.com/enchanted-sword/dashboard-unfucker

3. Click the green button that says Code

4. Click Download Zip

5. Extract the zip to folder

6. Open Tampermonkey and click Create New Script

7. Go to the utilities tab on the top right, click Import from File > Browse, select the unfucker.user.js file in the folder you unzipped earlier

8. Click the button. Mine says "Reinstall" because I did it already, but yours will say "Install" if you haven't added the file before

That should be it! If you want to verify that it's installed, refresh the page and go to the Installed Userscripts tab.

There's a settings menu on the tumblr dash for the script so you can tweak it to your preference. It doesn't always remember your tweaks, so you may have to refresh the page a few times, but it's way way better than it was in my opinion.

Go forth and enjoy the dash once more tumblrinas!

P.S. it works with xKit Rewritten which I feel is also necessary for a pleasant desktop experience

[puckpocketed]

hi!! I was wondering where or how you do you research for players and teams, and just hockey in general? do you have any favorite blogs or other resources? thank you~

okay picking thru web rot for the sharks primer has prepared me for this one lmao here's the quick answer because i really need to eat some pie and go to bed. Hockey is my all-consuming interest at the moment and I haven't watched actual television or films; or read anything non-academic that isn't about hockey in.... 9 months? If it seems like I am taking in a LOT of information in a short amount of time it's because I am. I listen to hockey things at 2-5x speed depending on if its a video on youtube (locked to 2x), a podcast (3.5x is my ideal speed), or my screenreader (5x) and often take notes, save articles as pdfs to go back to, and transcribe things for fun (only recently am putting my transcriptions as addendums to gifs... very rewarding <3). When not studying for my actual degree, I am reading about hockey or listening to something hockey related or watching hockey or writing about hockey or learning how to play hockey. i am so serious. please don't assume that this is normal, optimal, or even something I would wish upon other people. I am in Love with her in thee most wretched and irrevocable way. She's my hobby in the sense that shes my sun and im building my wax wings and looking directly at her light and thanking her for blinding me. amen.

more seriously, if I'm going down a player rabbit hole I will try many of these things - though not necessarily all of them, and not in this order (and i'm sure i've forgotten one or two things I usually try... lordy):

I go to spotify/apple podcasts and throw in player names just to see what comes up and listen to basically everything.

if they are on an NHL team, there are likely MULTIPLE podcasts dedicated to that team. trawl through their podcast archives, especially post-game podcasts where discussion is happening about their performance. sometimes there are even interviews <3

i do the same with youtube if I can...!

throw their name into reddit, tumblr, twitter and scroll. endlessly. just trawl through everything that I can possibly get my hands on. The more obscure the player the easier this is, because there really aren't that many things to find out about them and not many people are talking about them at all. <- this is how I make contact with people who are the only person that knows about this one (1) guy and then we hold fins forever. <3

find out who the teams beat reporters are. if youre looking into prospects, even juniors teams have people covering them. the writing might not be the highest quality but you WILL eventually find fun details if you go digging.

check: elite prospects articles, the hockey writers articles, find out the player's home town and see if their local paper has anything on them (basically, check any and all databases that use a tagging system or have a functional search engine)

helpful things to tack onto the end of google/youtube/database searches: "media availability" "post-game" "interview" "feature" "profile" "scouting report" "draft" "debut" "review" "highlight" "tournament"

if they're a player from a non-english speaking country it's worth throwing their non-romanized name into google to see what you can get. google translate the website // chatgpt translation are two options - not ideal and not to be trusted 100% over actual translation done by a fluent human speaker.

Instagram stories are the bane of my existence because they're so ephemeral

tiktok is a parallel universe to me. I do not have the app. any browsing I do on it is solely via googling "[team name] tiktok official" and clicking around on my desktop PC. I've only ever done this for M.Chrona's gf (who is much more famous than him) but if you're really doing down the rabbit hole of player research, some of their WAGs will post about them. <- as always, be respectful/not weird.

facebook for older stuff... genuinely makes my skin crawl so I avoid it and its a last resort LMAO but yeah teams used to post on facebook and everything!!! <- again. dont be weird and stalk peoples families or friends asjklakjl

"[player/team name] gettyimages [day/month/year]" <- substitute getty images for: flickr, hockeyshots, dreamstime, alamy

Substack is good for general hockey stuff if you can stomach the dreaded idea of subscribing via email or getting the app <3 I like: Jack Han (hockey tactics newsletter), Sean Shapiro (shap shots), Adam Gretz (adam's sports stuff), Thibaud Chatel <- for the analytics nerds, Alex MacLean <- his Scouting The Scouts series is what got me into substack in the first place, Greg Revak (hockey IQ newsletter) <- this is the one that's got me on development stuff atm SUPER rec because there's gifs and charts and many many hyperlinks included for citations <3

i should do a book rec at some point but uhhhh its getting late and im hungry <3 thank you for asking + reading if you got this far, I hope it was a helpful peek into my process?

[iraprince]

Heyo! Any advice on struggling to get your art seen in the world? I feel like no matter how much I post, or what I post, people never see it or seem to like it. I love art and am pursuing it as a career (hence why Im getting a degree in it currently lmao) but its kind of disheartening to work really hard on something, post it, and no one sees it.

oh, man. i'm afraid for this one i don't feel like i have a lot of solid advice. having a large-ish following online feels like something that kind of just, like, Happened to me, mostly on accident/in ways outside of my control, and even if i had some ideas on how to potentially replicate those gains i don't think they'd work consistently. (also, a lot of my large jumps in follower count came from mental health related work going viral bc it's #relatable; this is something i have complicated feelings about and it's absolutely not a viable, like, "strategy" or something that i would recommend, in the way that ppl can say like, "fanart gets attention!" or stuff like that.)

so, i don't have advice for how to actually GET those eyes on your art; i can maybe help with making ppl more likely to STAY once they do find you, and how to build a following that will actually help you maintain a living from your work -- bc i have TONS of peers w a following a fraction of the size of mine who get more jobs than me, are doing cooler/more "professional" stuff than me, etc! (heads up that most of my experience is on twitter; i know less than nothing about places like instagram + tiktok, and while tumblr functions very differently from twitter i feel like i handle things mostly the same here, aside from doing less personal posting/being less talkative and not 'networking' or following many people).

SCROLLING BACK UP TO ADD A SPOILER ALERT: AS ALWAYS I HAVE SAID "HAHA IDK I DON'T REALLY HAVE ANY ADVICE" AND THEN PROCEEDED TO TYPE A FULL ESSAY. IF YOU ARE ON DESKTOP YOU CAN HIT THE 'J' KEY TO SKIP THIS POST. IF YOU'RE ON MOBILE, I'M SORRY

a very important thing, especially professionally: it HAS to be easy to see what you do. (this is easier here on tumblr, where u can have a designated art tag etc, than on twitter, which is an awful website that sucks. <- guy who makes all his money on twitter) this means, like -- if i see something from you and get curious and click your profile, it should only take one more click to quickly see at least SOME of your art. on a professional account, it's probably best for your icon to be your own work, something snappy and memorable and eye-catching that reads well at a small size; people shouldn't have to dig for 20 minutes before they can start browsing your art. on twitter, this means TRY not to gunk up your media tab with a ton of reaction images/screencaps of your gacha pulls/etc; on here, it means make your art tag easy to find; on any website, a portfolio link, prominently displayed, is the best bet. (i am still working on that one myself lmao and i've been working professionally full time for a few years now so like, there are outliers and wiggle room on all of this).

next! it's great when your audience finds you, but you have to find them, too. find artists who do similar stuff to you and get into their stuff -- sincerely, not just as "networking." (like only do this with ppl whose stuff you actually think is cool, not just trying to get in mutuals with everyone you see in hopes of a bump, obviously.) get interested in other indie artists, find the people who are working/publishing in the spaces that are exciting and aspirational for you, and support them! i don't want it to sound cynical when i say there's a kind of give-and-take built into this; the point is not "well, if i reblog/retweet a bunch of YOUR stuff, maybe you'll feel obligated to boost mine in return," but that when you find other artists/creatives who are on the same wavelength as you, you will naturally stumble into pools of people who want to support art like yours, and you and your newfound peers will help each other when you hype each other's stuff up and direct followers to each other! (again re: things going differently on dif websites: this is twitter-specific for me, bc i use my tumblr as a gallery/portfolio. that doesn't mean it doesn't happen here tho! it can and does happen everywhere!)

it is really not a competition. i know that SOMETIMES it is in like, a really nitty-gritty numbers sense; people only have so much money to spare, they will make choices about whose patreon they can afford/what comic to buy/etc, that's true. but to me that's not competition. people who are sincerely into your stuff will hang on until they can afford it; maybe that means someone follows you for two whole years before the planets align and they have the budget/opportunity to commission you. by hanging out in similar circles you are not taking potential business or opportunities away from anyone else, nor are you risking leading your own audience to Someone They'll Like Better; you're just offering more options, and the internet is VAST and endless, and EVENTUALLY people will show up who are into YOUR STUFF, SPECIFICALLY. helping each other is never going to stifle or delay that!!

and my final chunk of advice is the one i give constantly that everyone is probably super sick of hearing but i just seriously seriously believe in it, even tho i know it's slow to pay off and hard to follow: keep doing exactly what you want to. keep doing it!!! you have to!!! yes, i mean the stuff that's getting like, 2 likes and 0 reblogs! the stuff that 'nobody likes!'

earlier i mentioned i have gotten big follower bumps from like adhd comics and stuff like that going viral. the thing is that, from a professional standpoint: my follower count has like, more than quintupled from where it was at a few years ago; my patreon income has absolutely NOT quintupled lmfao. it has less than doubled, over that same period of like... i wanna say over 4 years. that's still good, i'm grateful for it, and i owe a lot of it to the sheer numbers game (the more ppl see ur work, the more likely it is you'll reach someone who decides to support you), but there is absolutely not an actual direct correlation between numbers and career success/stability.

where there IS a direct correlation is between "people who give a shit about the art i really truly love making" and "people who like my art enough to support me professionally." HUGE chunks of the followers i get any time something goes viral slough off over time; there's nothing wrong with that, they just follow me bc something was funny/interesting and end up realizing my work's not actually their thing. but the ppl who follow me bc they're into all the stuff i post most consistently, the stuff i care about and am passionate about, stick around. and i would not have found them if i wasn't posting the shit i care about!

out there there are people who will be 100% crazy about the stuff that is 100% what you want to make. it's like actually statistically impossible for there not to be. the more niche your thing is, the longer it will take to find them, but they absolutely exist. but if you give up before you find them -- if you start saying, "well, i'll put in 50% of this idea that i love, but the other 50% is too weird and nobody's gonna like it and it'll flop" -- well, in that case, you can only ever find the ppl who are 50% into what you do. don't fuck yourself like that!! you cannot deny yourself the possibility (the INEVITABILITY!!! IMO!!!!!) of finding the people who will 100% get what you're doing.

so: on a pragmatic level, i'm sure there will be ppl who disagree with me on this, and who think it's absolutely mandatory to do fanart as a crowd draw or learn about algorithms and posting times and get on tiktok and do the visibility grind and everything and that it's stupid and irresponsible to tell people not to. i'm sure it's also easy to point out that i'm speaking from a place where i now have more eyes on my stuff than i know what to fucking do with so maybe i'm just totally out of touch and being naive or something. but for me the most important part of doing art now, ESPECIALLY as a career, is to keep loving it and to believe in what i'm doing and to build an audience that cares about the same things i do. and i think it is really really vital to make that your top priority. bc if you don't, then even if you DO crack the code to suddenly getting tons of notes on everything etc -- will you even keep wanting to do it?

this job is hard. it's lonely, in my experience; i spend so much time sitting in front of my computer alone. it's unstable, which is stressful and can be frightening. it's emotionally taxing, for me, because art is so important to me that it's hard to set boundaries and separate my identity from it and actually treat it like a job. it has taken me a long time to find success doing this; maybe i could have gotten there faster if i had tried to find ways to draw an audience specifically, but i think if i had somehow managed to get a big patreon following/tons of commissioners/etc by doing something formulaic or doing stuff that specifically gets tons of attention, but isn't what's natural for me -- i don't think i would have lasted very long that way. this is already hard and complicated enough; i don't think it's sustainable to give up any unnecessary ground on doing exactly what you're passionate about, bc at least in my case, that's mandatory for this even being a livable career for me. i would burn out and decide to do something else very quickly if the only way to succeed was to chase numbers/engagement.

doing it this way is very slow. if i hadn't been able to lean on family/my wife while starting up, i would have had to have a day job for much longer (like, years, probably) while saving up and preparing to go full time; for as long as you struggle to get traction, it may mean going full time has to be on the backburner. but the thing is that there's nothing wrong with that, it's the reality for the vast majority of us (from what i've seen) -- and you'll eventually build a career that can last way longer, i think.

okay oh my god i'm done. sorry about that. like i said this job is pretty lonely and i sit here all day and think about this stuff and then generally do not talk about it with anyone until somebody asks me about it and then i repeat myself at length again. like i did here. anyway have a good night sincerely and i hope some part of this was helpful!!!

[markantonys]

Do yall still see spoiler jokes in the tags if the person tags it book spoilers?

that's a great question, and the answer is YES. disclaimer that i'm a tumblr elder who still uses the tumblr savior chrome extension rather than tumblr's built-in tag filtering system (i was so used to only having filtering options on desktop and not mobile for so many years that i've just trained myself to only ever browse on desktop and to use mobile solely for checking my notifications lmao), so i'm not 100% sure everything i'm about to say applies to the built-in system, but after reading through the info page on the built-in system i think it works in about the same way.

in total, there are 4 places where tags can be seen:

the original post on your dashboard/on OP's blog/in the relevant tags you're searching or browsing. OP's post tags are visible here.

a reblog of an original post on your dashboard/on the reblogger's blog. the specific reblogger's tags are visible here.

in the notes of your own or someone else's post, when you see a post and click to show all notes. all rebloggers' tags & comments are visible here (provided that you haven't blocked or been blocked by any of them)

in your notifications, when you get a notification that somebody reblogged your post and here are all the tags they put on it. all rebloggers' tags & comments are visible here.

of these 4 places, blacklisting a tag ONLY safeguards against the first two. if i have the book spoiler tag blacklisted, that will prevent me from seeing an original post or a reblogged post that contains that tag.

it WILL NOT prevent me from seeing a post that does not contain that tag, opening it up, and reading all the notes on the post. reblog tags that contain the blacklisted tag will still be visible to me if i'm accessing them via opening up the notes on a post. however, this would be something i'm doing deliberately and so it's only me who's accountable for any spoilers i might see, not the people putting spoilers in their reblog tags. (and as some of you can attest, 85% of the WOT spoilers i encountered were ones i deliberately sought out and then got mad about seeing djkfgj i only have myself to blame for those scenarios!)

so the key issue is category #4. if i make a post, i will get notifications for EVERY SINGLE REBLOG TAG, COMMENT, AND REPLY that is EVER made on that post. likewise, if i've reblogged a post that someone else made, both i and the OP will get notifications for every single reblog tag, comment, and reply that is made to my reblogged version of the post. nothing is filtered out. if i make a post saying "i'm a show-only and i don't know what's to come in the series" and you reblog it going "#oh they're gonna die when [massive spoiler] happens #wot book spoilers" i will see 100% of those words in my notifications, even though you've added the book spoiler tag and i have that blacklisted. tag blacklisting does not work for notifications.

this is why i always say, if you do not know for a fact that the OP of a wot-related post AND the person you're reblogging it from BOTH have full book spoiler knowledge, then do not put any book spoilers in your tags (even vague ones) when you're reblogging their post because they WILL see it, no matter how good a blacklisting system they have.

and it's especially egregious with gifsets! if somebody's made a text post then oftentimes it can be fairly clear from what they're saying if they're a show-only or a reader and so most rebloggers will consciously go "oh, seems like this person doesn't know X yet, i'll keep quiet". but for gifsets of the show, people will just reblog them putting full-on late series book spoilers in the tags with no thought for whether the gifmaker OP might be a show-only, because they're too excited thinking about how this scene in s2 will relate to something in book 12 to spare a thought for wondering if the real human person who created the gifset will be okay with seeing them discussing all those spoilers in the tags. i was spoiled that the man rand fought at the eye was not the dark one within 1 hour of watching 1x08 because everybody was reblogging my gifset and talking about ishamael & the forsaken in the tags lmao and there were definitely some other examples from my show-only-s1-giffing days too.

thus, When In Doubt, Be Silent! or make a separate post saying "guys i just saw this other post [link/screenshot making sure to include op's name for credit] and here are my book spoilery thoughts on it". but, of course, if you are confident in going "hey i recognize this blog and i know they've read the books" then no harm in letting spoilers fly in reblogging the original post!

[armoricaroyalty]

what's up

I live.

My theme is currently extremely broken, which means a lot of my posts are going to look pretty terrible on a desktop/laptop. I'd advise browsing my blog on mobile for now.

I've always formatted my <<next and previous>> links with arrows, but some kind of change in tumblr's code has caused those arrows to be read as fragments of code, which broke some posts. I am planning to go through chronologically and update all of my story posts to get rid of the arrows and fix my posts, but this is a big undertaking and I'm not sure when I'll finish. It seems like posts on mobile are still working, though, so there's another reason to read on mobile right now!

Chapter 4 is in progress! I'm working slowly, but making good progress. I have NO idea when story posting will resume, but rest assured, things are happening behind the scenes.

I'm feeling better than I have been, but unfortunately I'm still not capable of more than the bare-minimum of effort. Apologies to everyone who's sent me an ask or a discord message lately, I promise I'll get to it when I can :sob:

[drgrlfriend]

Everyone else on Tumblr desktop:

Me, browsing on 150% zoom like always:

Seriously, folks, it's so restful, check it out:

[dj-of-the-coven]

yo dunno if you've been asked this question before or not (sorry if you have) but where'd you get your tumblr theme? and are the colors customizable or at least have theme variants (like royale or maybe royale noir, but i honestly have never been able to find anything for the latter)??

Hey, I'm always open for questions like that! So, when you say theme, there are a couple different possibilities you might be referring to: either the colors of a basic tumblr blog (the small popup window you see via Tumblr directly) or the desktop site you receive automatically upon acquiring a URL. You should get everything you need for the in-site customization when you first make a tumblr blog--and I'm most familiar with this on desktop, so forgive me for not providing details on mobile--but anyway, it would be discoverable through your blog editor in the same place you go to edit your description, title, pfp, etc. As for my desktop blog, this was made using customizable HTML (hypertext markup language), or a basic programming language for websites used in tandem with CSS (cascading style sheets). There is also a section of JavaScript on my blog which is for the sparkles that follow the cursor on my page. All three of these languages can be used to make your blog virtually whatever you want, but considering the question, I'll operate on the basis that you don't know how to code. How can you get a customizable theme?

Follow these simple directions:

go to settings

select your blog on the right sidebar (should look like this but with your blogs instead of mine)

scroll until you see this setting

if not enabled, enable custom theme

click edit theme

At this point, you should see an editor much like this, but with your desktop site, which is likely going to be a generic model.

I will be proceeding in this guide assuming that you don't know HTML. To get a custom theme, select the icon on the left sidebar that says browse themes.

You will then see the sidebar change to feature Tumblr's generic theme and probably one or two paid ones. Look to the bottom of the sidebar to find this fun lil guy:

Then do me a favor and select it.

On the new page that pops up, you should be able to find hundreds and hundreds of themes made both by professionals and amateur programmers, some of them with price tags, but plenty of others totally free! To install a theme onto your blog, first find one that fits your tastes about right. Don't fret too much about colors and images, because the vast majority of themes will allow you to customize that--you just need the computer to know where to put things. Let's take a look at some of the featured selections here.

Let's say you want to try the first theme! Select it so this window pops up on your computer.

Preview and install do exactly what it says on the tin. For now, let's scroll down a little bit to check this theme's stats...

Take a look at all of this stuff to make sure that it does what you like, and make sure that you understand what you're signing up for. It's totally reversible in the sense that you can install the generic theme again at any time, but remember that whatever theme you already have WILL change when you install this. Always check for accessibility features as well! Depending on your needs, you might need to know if the programmer whose code you're borrowing has put any flashing lights or gifs in the layout before you download. Better safe than sorry.

Once you've decided on a theme, go ahead and click install.

It shouldn't take long afterwards for your blog to finish rearranging itself. Once it's finished, mosey over to your desktop site to check out how it's changed!

Most themes that you can download will include their own customization options that you can find using the same method we used earlier to open up this part of the blog editor:

Just use the left sidebar to make any changes you might want to make to your theme in there. The theme description should've listed everything you can customize before downloading, and it'll all be right there in that menu! Most themes will let you change the color, images, backgrounds, links, music, or any other custom features to your heart's content through those controls. And if you're still unsatisfied, you can open up your blog's HTML file by clicking the edit HTML tab at the top of the left sidebar. Make sure you read some basic guides on code insertion if you do, though. It can be a little tricky to reverse garbage code if you put it in the wrong place.

Let me know if I can do anything else, anon! Good luck and happy customizing!

[maxxmutt]

Uhg tumblr is broken again

I had a tag I would go into every day on tumblr to brows, and a few weeks ago it just stopped working. As always i clicked on latest posts, and after 5 posts it would just end like I'd reached the last of the tag content. All the stuff I'd seen the day before just 'gone'. So I switched to a different version of that tag, it worked, and I browsed it daily on the latest posts. And now today it's cutting off after 5 posts and acting like "there's nothing more here haha :)". Both were main tags for a well known show, which have plenty of posts that I KNOW ARE THERE tumblr just started pretending that they aren't out of nowhere. My app is fully updated, so maybe its just a mobile bug cause I haven't checked desktop to see if it does the same thing. Would love for the tags to work properly... anyone else have this issue???

[hotfuss]

hello!! I have a few questions if that’s okay..? first question, do you know anything about the K thingy? the one they have on set! I’m planning to make my own (a much shorter version!) so do you know anything about it, the side detailing etc etc. also, in the Miss Atomic Bomb music video, do you have a screenshot of the scene where Izabella is dancing? it’s quite a specific scene and I’m not sure how to describe it, sorry!

first of all it's always ok to send me asks... this made me so happy, like we were back when there was a still thriving fandom on tumblr! 😭 second of all that seems quite a nice project i hope it turns out fine!!

now to answer your questions: the k debuted as a keyboard stand decoration for the day & age tour and after that has been consistently used for any off tour performance (2016 to any 2017 show before the official start of the ww tour, 2019 shows etc). for photo references the best is to just browse my the k stand at https://hotfuss.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/the%20k or https://hotfuss.tumblr.com/tagged/the%20k if you are on desktop/browser or just type #the k on the search bar of my blog if you are on mobile!

additionally sunsets and neonlights used to make nice hd edits of pics and mostly close ups, so it's worth browsing their d&a tag too if needed. i'm the only freak with an overly detailed tagging system so that's a more general era tag tho. but you can check it at https://sunsets-and-neonlights.tumblr.com/archive/tagged/day%20%26%20age and https://sunsets-and-neonlights.tumblr.com/tagged/day%20%26%20age!

for the mab video i took some screenshots and i'm posting them under the read more, hopefully there's the one you are looking for!

[septembersghost]

Speaking of tags, I've always wondered, do you type up all your cute quote tags on every post or do you have a very elaborate quick tags system set up in xkit? (Iirc you mentioned using Tumblr on an ereader not desktop though so i wasn't sure xkit even works for you?)

i type them up, xkit only has one set of quick tags saved and they are for (you'll be shocked) dean, and even then i don't always use them because i vary which tags he gets at times! xkit does not work on my kindle, which is what i'm often using when i'm browsing on here (and i answer messages on it a lot too, even though typing them on a keyboard is easier), but i set up my queue on my laptop because i cannot sort through things on there at length (also the tumblr app no longer works on it, so to open any mobile tumblr links that don't go to the browser, i have to switch devices or they won't open lmao). it hasn't been too bad because tumblr saves tags, so i'd type in the first words and they'd pop up, but it decided to FORGET EVERYTHING this week, which means i've been doing it from memory again. i just consider it my very minimal mental exercises 😂🥴