#tumblr your website only makes me want to delete my account more and more every fucking day

[bloodied-dagger]

my “for you” page is fucked. Completely unusable

[fortunatelyseveredreamland]

What a week…

It’s so weird to be back here. I am sad I deleted my blog so many years ago and forgot what it was even called. I knew I’d come back eventually if something big were to happen. Never thought this exact thing would be the reason.

I was at work on Wednesday when I found out. My hands immediately shook and my heart sank. I couldn’t wait to leave to get home and be able to know more and mourn. As soon as I got in the car, I started crying.

It’d been such a long time since 1D took up this much space in my brain. It feels like a lifetime ago, sitting on tumblr from night to morning. Rewatching the video diaries and music videos millions of times. Making my friends and followers one shots and photoshopped texts. Plastering my entire room with posters from every magazine I could find. But somehow, it also feels like yesterday?

It felt weird to have my mind immediately transport back to being in my room and only caring about the boys. Sleepovers with my bestie revolving around their music.

I don’t think I have ever loved something as much as I love One Direction. The feeling of hanging out with you all and loving the boys so very much. I wish I could feel that way right now without the overwhelming amount of guilt.

I had to come back here with a brand new account and feel this community’s embrace again. The only people that will ever truly understand this feeling. And I’m so glad I did. While everyone is speaking how they feel, they are also sharing old posts, and funny ones. Ones that make all of the good memories come rushing back like a rough river. It’s like I never left. And in some way, I don’t think I ever truly did. I left my heart on this website and in One Direction and now I feel like there is a part of my soul that is never coming back. But maybe in due time, he can live in that void for the rest of time.

I have seen a lot of posts about inner child. But to be honest, I don’t think my inner child is crying. My full adult self is crying. The part of me that would spend all of my life savings on a ticket to an ot5 reunion. The little girl inside of me left long ago, but the adult 27 year old woman who has nothing to look forward to now feels like she’s actively dying inside. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. They were supposed to live until they were 90. It’s just unfair and too soon.

I’d like to say that I hope all of you are doing well. This is the first day since the news that I haven’t been a full puddle of tears, but I also keep waking up and hoping this is a nightmare. I took a shower and blasted take me home. I cried a little bit it was cathartic. It made me feel that all of those memories are worth so much to not only me but to the boys and their families.

I’d like to round this off with my letter to Liam.

Hey Leeyum,

I miss you like crazy already. Which pains me to say because I could’ve been a more active fan for you in the last few years. I knew what had been happening, but always felt like you were going to come out on the other side, stronger. I wish we all could’ve saved you.

Thank you for being you. Thank you for writing songs that helped me through my teenage and early adult years. They still do. Thank you for making us laugh. Thank you for making us proud. I know you wouldn’t want us to wallow in sadness for you. You’d want us to talk about the memories.

The boys love you so much and I hope you knew that. There was no One Direction without you. You were the glue that held it all together. You deserved more public love than you were ever given. I just hope you know how much the 1D family cares and loves you.

I’m so sorry this was the way your story ended. You deserved so much more than life gave you. I will love you until the end of time, sweet boy. <3

I love you all. Please take care of yourselves. I plan on sticking around a while. Hope to see more names that I recognize on my feed.

[sylvyspritii]

Why I'm Leaving Twitter and Joined a Better Website

This is a Tumblr version of the essay i wrote on why i am leaving Twitter, you can read the original version on Google Docs here: https://tinyurl.com/sylvybyemusky That's right, it's over, i've made my decision, you can read (the short version of) my full reasoning right here The original text will start now (keep in mind it won't be formatted correctly because Tumblr handles pasted text strangely):

Tl;dr: I will still keep my existing accounts and i will check my DM’s so that clients can still contact me easily and also to save my @ from being stolen I’m done with Twitter

Refresher: i am a professional freelance video game music composer, hobbyist artist, and hobbyist Vtuber Everyone has a limit to how much they are willing to tolerate before it becomes too much, before it starts breaking our principles Under the leadership of Elon Musk, we have seen Twitter be transformed from a flawed platform of the masses, to something that resembles a circus of incompetence, hatred, and untrustworthiness

I made my first Twitter account back in 2015, back then, it was important for every freelancer to have a Twitter account, because “everyone was there”, and it was an easy way for clients to contact us Eventually, i grew to around 2000 followers, and then i decided to delete my account in around 2020 because i was unhappy with the direction the website was going in I came back, because i noticed that people kept asking me to “come back to Twitter” Already back then, i started to dislike the platform a lot, i have multiple reasons for that

Reasons why i already disliked Twitter before Elon Musk

All your likes are public now, it didn’t used to be that way, so you can say your privacy goodbye, so if you liked some controversial tweets, even before this update went live, everyone can see it now, even if it was 5 years ago, all your like history is saved, nothing is private, and there is no option to make it private

Your following list is public, and this means that everyone can see who you follow, this is also terrible for privacy, and you can be judged depending on who you follow, this is very bad, especially if you have stalkers

Not only are the last 2 points a danger for freedom of speech, but they are also a danger to freedom of assembly, and freedom to learn, because it discourages people to connect with people that are “not acceptable”, this can reinforce prejudices and discourages people from learning about things outside of their comfort zone, in fear of being “found out”, for example, people discovering LGBT+ identities and wanting to follow people to learn more information about it, can now be stalked and discovered by their peers and parents, and even punished for it, but this also counts for politics, art, and many other things

It discourages straying away from “the norm”, because everyone can now judge who you follow, and what you like, so if you are interested in broadening your horizons, you always have to be aware that you can only follow and like “acceptable things”, this is especially bad for business as well, because it makes it so that your work and life balance is more difficult to separate if you accidentally liked some tweets 5 years ago when you were not a professional yet I have heard multiple stories from my friends and fellow freelancers that people have stalked their likes and who they follow, and have used it against them to judge them, this is not the type of behaviour i want a website to encourage, options should be given to users to make them decide for themselves 3. “Recent tweets from x”, a notification in your notification tab that is purely designed to keep you engaged on the platform, it is not a real notification, and you cannot disable it, because it is designed to be annoying, to keep you on the platform for as long as possible, to maximise potential ad revenue

4. The many “unwritten rules” of Twitter, for example, if you post a link or a hashtag in your tweet, then the tweet will get deboosted in the algorithm, this means that, for example, if you put a link to your music, your commission sheet, or your Twitch channel when you’re streaming in a tweet, the tweet will appear less in people’s feeds, even if they follow you (I have heard this often from people that followed me, “i missed your tweet about the stream even though i followed you”, it is very common)

5. Twitter is not a space for reasonable debate, the short tweets lack context, and therefore, are often spread into threads of multiple replies, but only 3 of these replies will appear on people’s feed, this means that a lot of the times, a lot of the context of a longer text is missing, because Twitter hides many of the tweets that are part of the text Not only that, but the fact that every tweet in the thread is separate, means that people can take some tweets out of context and quote retweet it to cherrypick a specific sentence to argue with to make themselves look better, this encourages constant negative engagement focused on “dunking” on people for likes, retweets, and more followers (clout), rather than reasonable debate and discussion This has affected politics as well, and it becomes very obvious to see how this benefits populist parties, who are focused on fearmongering and short, memorable quips, a platform that promotes dark patterns for optimising negative and shocking engagement (for ad revenue of course) benefits them, and does not benefit political arguments that require more nuance, this makes screaming and dunking matches on Twitter a chaotic circus

6. Twitter boosts negativity and shock to optimise engagement for ad revenue, it does so by constantly sharing “recommended tweets” in the timeline for you to engage with, and often, these tweets are negative, an argument, or a controversial opinion, it is often bait, whether the original poster knows it or not, their tweet is boosted in the algorithm in order to increase the amount of engagement it gets, this is to ensure that users stay on the website, or think about the tweet, because negativity often sticks more in people’s mind that positivity, this is a psychological trick to keep users thinking more about Twitter, and thus using Twitter more, and the goal of this strategy is simple; ad revenue, it’s all designed to show metrics to investors and ad companies, to show them how much people use Twitter, so they can justify receiving more and more money by exploiting the misery of others

There are many more reasons. And this is just the beginning, this was all before Elon Musk came to power I do not have faith in Elon Musk

I consider Elon Musk to be an irresponsible businessman, unfit for leadership He is unpredictable, sporadic, pushes his national, moral, and political values in his website, does not respect his employees (he fired 6000 employees, which were kicked off with no warning, leaving them vulnerable without a job), does not respect freedom of speech (it’s just a marketing term for him, he has been banning journalists left and right from the platform for criticising his decisions, and not just journalists, but normal users as well, even criticising Twitter Blue (Twitter’s new subscription service) is not allowed anymore), he is short-sighted, petty, transphobic (he refuses to support his own trans daughter, and even blames “neo-marxists at educational institutions” (a conservative national populist conspiracy) for making her transition), he is manipulative, a conspiracy theorist, NFT supporter, crypto supporter, untrustworthy, and a liar

I could go on, there are many more reasons why Elon Musk has lost my respect

If you’d like to read more about Elon Musk’s mistakes, i recommend reading these articles; https://www.freepress.net/blog/elon-musk-worlds-worst-businessman And this one is especially important for my fellow LGBT+ followers: https://www.them.us/story/elon-musk-pride-month-tweet-likes-anti-trans

I’d like to make it clear that my arguments here are in no way, shape, or form, meant to be political They are criticism of Twitter and Elon Musk, as a platform, and no matter where you belong on the political spectrum, the direction of Twitter has undeniably become more negative for almost everyone Making music is my job, i require clients and reach to do my job properly as a freelancer, and Twitter has become more and more of a platform that discourages that, both for users and businesses Just to make it extra clear just in case: i do not talk about politics or drama, i am merely sharing info

Elon Musk has automatically disabled DM’s for everyone, except if they are Twitter Blue subscribers Twitter Blue is a subscription service that directly supports Elon Musk I consider the people that subscribe to Twitter Blue to be a part of the problem, they willingly support the undeniable negative actions of Elon Musk, and i firmly believe that if you are currently a subscriber to Twitter Blue, you should consider ending your subscription, because Elon Musk does not deserve your money Elon Musk introduced a limit to the amount of tweets you are allowed to see per day, encouraging dark patterns of you coming back every day since that’s when your limit gets reset, this is to keep you addicted Elon Musk has changed the company name to X, resulting in multiple legal disputes, and a lot of confusion Elon Musk has supported racist and LGBT+phobic people and politicians And there is so much more I’m leaving

I am just done I am done tolerating all this madness just for my career I don’t want to be on a website that does not respect me, my mental health, or my career The only reason i am still on Twitter is because it is “required”, because “everyone is there” Twitter is popular, this means that for freelancers like me, it is expected of me to be there, and i cannot deny that a large part of my clients have approached me through my Twitter DM’s, rather than email (potential clients, if you’re reading this, consider emailing me! I check my email every day!)

Twitter has become a hostile and unsustainable environment, both for personal and for business reasons, and i am leaving By “leaving”, i do want to clarify that i will not delete my accounts, i will keep my accounts, but they will not be active anymore, they will serve as a way for clients to contact me through DM’s, but i will not be active anymore on all of my accounts (@sylvysprit @sylvyspritart @sylvyspritii)

Instead, you can find me on Cohost and Tumblr, 2 social media websites that i prefer over Twitter My Cohost can be found at https://cohost.org/sylvysprit My Tumblr can be found at https://www.tumblr.com/sylvysprit (I also have personal accounts there, you can find them pretty easily, but they are not meant for my casual music fans or clients)

I have many reasons why i like Cohost, i’d like to share a short post about why i have decided to subscribe to Cohost Plus, a subscription service to support Cohost’s development financially https://cohost.org/sylvyspritii/post/1763282-yeah-i-did-it

There are many more reasons why i like Cohost Cohost is a website that respects the privacy and mental health of its users, their principles are strong, and their leadership is transparent and easily contactable Twitter’s downfall is inevitable, and it is up to you to decide which platform deserves your attention and/or support, and personally, i do not believe that Threads or Bluesky will be better than Twitter, because they do not fix the inherent issues of Twitter regarding its algorithms, business model, or negativity spiral for engagement, and i do not have much faith in the Fediverse either, because it is too difficult to understand for the average user Tumblr is alright, it’s popular, and has a strong legacy and track-record, it’s still going strong in 2023, but they tend to make too many unexpected and unwanted changes (NOTE EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE TUMBLR VERSION OF THIS POST: I'm talking about the 2018 stuff, if they can get that fixed, Tumblr will be the obvious winner in the War of Twitter Succession) Cohost is the platform i have decided is the most aligned with my desires for what a social media platform should be, so i have decided to support them

You can join Cohost right here: https://cohost.org I recommend reading the manifesto of the Cohost developers as well, so you can understand exactly what i mean when i am talking about the clear principles of Cohost as a platform: https://antisoftware.club/manifesto.html Cohost’s transparency regarding their finances is also something i respect: https://cohost.org/staff/tagged/financials

It’s up to you to decide which website you want to support, i am not forcing you to do anything, but i do hope that i have informed you properly about my decision to leave Twitter, and hopefully, you will consider joining other social media websites as well, it’s good to future-proof, in case things come crashing down

If you have come this far, then i’d like to thank you for taking your time to read this I wish you a very nice day, and the best of luck in your life

[rydrake6]

I'm setting limits for how many youtube videos I watch in a day because I spend a disturbing amount of time watching stuff.

You never really realize how dependant you are on something until you decide to cut back on it. I'm trying to cut back on the time I spend on youtube by limiting the amount of videos I'm allowed to watch in a day, and I'm so freaking bored now that I've exhausted the limit. Like, what else is there to do in the dead of night if not watch video after video? I know it's for the best though. The first limit I set was 64 videos a day. I watched like, up to 57 or so videos. But it really put into perspective just how much time I've been spending every day just watching youtube videos. Like, if I say my average amount of youtube videos I watch in a day is somewhere around 55, then that means that I watch 385 videos per week and 1,650 videos per month on average. Some of the videos are short, sure. But that's a disturbing amount of videos I watch on an estimated average. That is an unsettling amount of time I waste just watching video after video on youtube.

It really puts into perspective just how much youtube controls my life. I'm hoping that by cutting back, maybe the internet won't be such a large portion of my life. I've seen all of this stuff about how the internet used to be vs how it is today. I bet back when the internet was in it's infancy, tech addiction wasn't such a big thing. But then people started specifically engineering things like apps and social media websites specifically to be addictive.

I'm hoping that weening myself off of constant consumption can allow me to have a healthier relationship with using internet and that at some point in my day, I'll be done with it. I don't really have any other social medias that I use outside of youtube and tumblr. I've got discord, but I'm not really active on there. I made a reddit account once, but I never posted on it and if I ever feel like doing so I'm probably gonna delete it. I used to have a twitter, but it fucked up my brain chemistry so badly that I'm still dealing with some of the effects to this day(Side note: Do not make a twitter account under any circumstances. It's not worth it. Especially post Elon Musk buying it). And I don't think I'd ever consider getting a tiktok, instagram, or any other type of social media. So Youtube's really the main, if not the only, source of this.

I'm also hoping that less time spent doom scrolling will help me to work on other stuff I want to/have to work on. I've got game dev goals for this year that I've gotta work on and I want to try my best to get as close to meeting them as I can before the year ends. Also, I haven't really been talking about it too much lately, but I've got a show I'm working on that I think I can actually make. I'm not gonna reveal too much about it though, but I've already composed an opening theme and made a reference sheet for one of the characters. I'm a bit hesitant to announce something like that though because 1, I'm afraid I might lose interest like all the other times I've announced that I'm gonna make a thing, and 2, it's still in the very early stages of development. Somewhere along the line I kind of realized that I need to start small before I go for the big projects.

Anyways though, my point is that less time watching absurd amounts of youtube videos = more time for creativity. If anyone else wants to try this, all you have to do is pick a number that you think is close or somewhat less than the amount of videos you watch. If it feels like it's regular for you, then at the end of the day, reduce the limit. It's also important that you keep count of how many videos you watch and stop watching when you've reached the limit. (I keep count using tally marks on a whiteboard, but you could use anything that works.)

It's normal to feel a bit of discomfort after reaching your limit, your brain is addicted to the endless flow of dopamine and once you stop, it's going to be like "Hey where's my dopamine?" You're probably also gonna feel the urge to watch another video and go past your limit. Try to resist that urge.

After you've reached your daily limit, don't watch any more videos unless you have to watch them to do something. Like for example, tutorials are fine so long as you're going along with them and doing the thing the tutorial is teaching you how to do. If you have to watch a video for school or something, then that's also fine. It's okay to make exceptions that don't count, but make sure that those exceptions are reasonable. I'd recommend that videos that were sent to you by friends or family, tutorials, or music are ones that you don't have to mark down. You can set your own rules, but try not to make it so that you're just watching tutorial after tutorial. Like, if you've reached the daily limit and you're watching a baking tutorial, bake the thing along with it. I've been rambling so I'm just gonna assume that you get the point by now.

I do this with Youtube, but you can probably try it for other social medias as well to break your doom scrolling cycle. Like, limit the number of posts you scroll past on tiktok or twitter or something. Basically just make rules for yourself that restrict your time on the apps. It's not gonna feel good, it'll probably be stressful, but it's worth it.

[sybxritiic]

tumblr support has me tight

tumblr: *doesn't respond to my support ticket for 2 months.*

me: *submits a different ticket for a similar problem on a different account, including specific details and questions.*

tumblr: *responds to the second ticket 3 weeks later* do you still want our help with this ticket? reply yes, or we will close it.

me: yes

tumblr: your theme code on this account was flagged as spam. we restored yoru account. it shouldn't happen again, but if it does then use the tumblr default theme.

me: which part of the code is getting flagged? i want to delete it to ensure that i don't have this problem in the future. i also want to know what to look out for because i've tried like 10+ themes, and it happens every time.

tumblr: send us the email for those accounts so we can check the codes

????????????????

i'm not asking about those codes, i'm asking about this one???????????????

just tell me what part of the code was flagged on so i can remove it and avoid getting my shit deleted again? you literally just told me that part of the code is flagged, so... what part is it? i looked at the code and they restored it without changing anything, so the issue is going to happen again unless i know precisely what line(s) of code are problematic.

and lowkey? the response is just a load of bullshit anyway because i tested it out during the TWO MONTHS where i didn't receive any sort of response and every single custom theme that i tried was deleted without warning. (15+ themes from several different creators).

like, let's be real. it's HIGHLY unlikely that all of those codes contained spam, and more likely than not that the auto-spam detection they are using is just incorrectly flagging things.

why implement an automated feature to delete "spam" accounts based on themes anyway? if someone is creating a spam account, they're more than likely NOT going through the effort to customize a theme.

i'm like 99% sure this is just a way for them to chop away at sideblogs and custom theme use on this website and make it so that we start using tumblr's paid themes. which..... i promise you, i will never pay $49 USD for an ugly ass theme in the tumblr shop. just fix my blog, tell me what part of the code i need to delete, and leave me alone.

mind you, the interaction has taken several days bc they only respond to one message a day and they aren't really addressing everything i am saying. i'm going to continue being polite and all that good stuff, but GOD DAMN. can you just answer my questions directly PLEASE

[eyrieofsynapses]

I'm going to echo everyone in the notes here, though I suspect given the corporate/higher-up-nonsense-sounding tone nobody's going to be listening to us anyway: most of this will destroy Tumblr. No ifs, ands, or buts. It's a certainty. Adding an algorithm and taking away the self-curation removes everything attractive about Tumblr.

I'm gonna be honest: I wonder if the higher-ups have simply gotten tired of running this website and trying to wring money out of it, and decided to kill it intentionally, because this is basically looking at every other FAILING social media service and saying, "Great! What made them fail? Go implement that!" It's like staff saw a bunch of people jumping off a bridge and ran after them to do the same. Seriously. It's baffling.

As everyone else is saying, the ability to self-curate and the privacy of Tumblr is the only reason we're here. I HAVE no other social media (although I'm eyeing Mastodon right now). None. Nothing. Just this, because it's the only place I've found that isn't an endless doomscroll of bullshit or wringing every bit of my personal details out of me to sell to corporates and whoever bids highest.

And by the way? The ability to step away from Tumblr after your supposed 25 posts (which sounds like a statistically bullshitted number tbh, because most people I know go through WAY more--are you looking at only active users, or the entire userbase including dead/infrequent users?) is A GOOD THING. In case you haven't noticed, people are realizing doomscrolling is a problem. They're trying to find sites that AREN'T traps like Twitter. They won't delete their Tumblr account out of desperation to disconnect, because if they can do so naturally already, it isn't an issue! This is an attraction and a way to keep users long-term, not a problem! It is a FEATURE, not a bug, dammit!

And allowing non-users to see blogs is what DRAWS PEOPLE HERE. That is how you get people to see someone and go "ooh, I want to know when they update, I'll make an account." Do you really think people are going to join when they don't know what they're signing up for? Do you really? Because I don't think you do, and if you do, then you know precisely nothing about how people work.

Yes, the search function needs an overhaul. Yes, it needs to be easier to go back through reply threads. Yes, finding ways to connect people to smaller creators might be helpful. Not all of these points are wrong. But the suggested method of improving them is, frankly, the worst way to fix those features short of deleting them entirely.

If you do this? You add the algorithm, you remove the self-curation aspect, you start keeping non-users from viewing posts, you pester me with unwanted notifications and emails (as though my email isn't overflowing with spam to begin with), you try to make it more like every other fucking "popular" (read: will die in the next year or two) social media site? I. Will. Leave. I'll cry while I leave, yeah, but I'll leave. So will the rest of your old userbase.

And it turns out that that userbase is what makes all the good content that draws people here to begin with. They buy your merch and the non-ads, they fund the site, they get people to join, they put out the posts that get thousands of notes, and THEY BOOST YOUNGER BLOGS by reblogging THEIR content. Old users know what it's like to start small, and they promote newbies who deserve it BY REBLOGGING. That is how Tumblr works.

Guess what? The sites that burn brightest die fastest. "Popular" is short for "short-lived," especially now. Ever notice how trends go in and out? Yeah, social media is like that too. Tumblr is small and slower in comparison to everyone else. That's why it has lasted this long, and how it's avoided mass infestations of Nazis and their ilk. If you want it to stick around longer, keep it unique, keep it niche, and keep it out of the hands of the biggest audiences, because they will tear it to shreds.

I have so very little hope you'll listen. Nobody else does anymore, not even those that started small--not Discord, not Reddit, not Instagram, sure as fuck not Twitter. I suppose I'll have to start looking at the meagre alternatives already. Clearly, somebody up the ladder wants this site to die the same slow, horrible death everything else is.

But please. Prove me wrong. Prove me fucking wrong. I want to see it. Do what's actually best for your users, and be better than all those other motherfuckers who have lost sight of everything but dollar signs.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

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

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up. 

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant. 

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are. 

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds. 

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs. 

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread. 

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads. 

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed. 

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.  

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it. 

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.  

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.  

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.  

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages. 

Test what the right daily push notification limit is. 

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users. 

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

[giigil]

how did you start to write? kinda curious to know your trajectory

story time! (really happy you asked, hehe.) note: if anyone's interested in going through my past writings, let me know and i'll probably make a google drive folder lol.

I've been addicted to gaming ever since I was younger and I've always had hyperfixations that would come and go. Middle school was when I realized I had a love for reading books (mainly young adult, romance, fiction + manga) and I used to always spend my time in the school library during my lunch breaks.

2012: I was 13 and almost graduated from middle school. I adored Zelda/Link as a ship so much that I Googled 'Zelda x Link' to look for cute art, only to stumble across a website: Fanfiction.net. Yep. That site.

I read through a couple of stories and found myself hooked. I made an account, and I decided to start writing my own stories.

Super Smash Brothers Brawl had a huge impact on my life and holds a special place in my heart. It was all I'd ever written and thought about when I first started.

( putting a read more to elaborate further on my writing journey. )

Around 2013, though, someone put a wrench on my Fanfiction.net journey by reporting my story -- it wasn't anything horrible, it was just a cringe Truth or Dare fanfiction that someone and their group said was "against" Fanfiction.net rules. That story got deleted, and out of impulse and feeling depressed, I deleted every single fanfiction I'd ever posted on my account.

I deeply regret doing so, because there were so many ideas that I can't look back on because my memory isn't able to recall a whole lot of them.

At least a few weeks after, though, I got onto Tumblr and got into Tumblr roleplaying! Fairy Tail was my next huge fixation and I made a roleplay blog focused on Edo-Cana from the Edolas arc (after I spoke with an Edo-Lucy blog). After I lost my inspiration for Edo-Cana, I moved on to Evergreen, and then Lucy Heartfilia.

I believe I lost interest in roleplaying on Tumblr around 2014.

2014: I was still writing on Fanfiction.net, but as usual, I would delete my fics when they didn't satisfy me. I wrote for a couple of other fandoms ranging from Big Hero Six, Rise of the Guardians/Young Justice, and more. I'd also joined websites like Quotev and Wattpad.

2015: In my junior year of high school, I made a friend who also had an interest in roleplaying. She introduced me to this one roleplaying website which allowed me to continue with writing.

However, as you can probably see, I have the absolutely terrible habit of losing interest in things quickly. I ended up quitting roleplaying due to that.

I also joined Archiveofourown. I don't remember if I'd ever posted anything around the time of joining. This is the one year I don't remember much for.

I also continued to post on Fanfiction.net:

As per usual, it lasted for *almost* a year.

November 10th, 2016 was the last time I ever posted on my Fanfiction.net account.

I had a dry spell when it came to writing for a good year and a half from 2016-2017.

April 21 2017: I played Final Fantasy XV and (it's what I hyperfixated on for a good 2 years). Around April 27-28, I already had a hankering for wanting to write fanfiction for it. I have so many ideas that haven't seen the light of day, and probably never will.

There's so many drafts, mostly unfinished, just sitting in my Google Drive.

August 2018: I posted a Prompto Argentum x Reader fic on archiveofourown, but eventually orphaned it and everything else I had posted.

October 2018: My hyperfixation for Red Dead Redemption 2 started. I thought up of ideas, plotlines, etc.

February 2019: I posted 3 Arthur Morgan x Reader fics. Which, you can probably already guess what the fuck happened to those. *orphaned. woooow.*

March 2019: I swore off writing anything else for my old Fanfiction.net account, and have left all of my fanfiction saved there.

2020-2021: Once more, I stopped writing and focused on trying to get through day by day life considering it was the COVID outbreak and I was only ever working. I never stopped reading fanfiction though. It's what's kept my writing decent -- at least, that's what I feel like. 2020 was when my hyperfixation on Final Fantasy 7/Remake started. I would think up of things.

March 23, 2022: (Not a writing thing, but I like to make note of it.) The start of my hyperfixation on Jujutsu Kaisen and Gojo!

December 2022: I finally posted a fic after so long. Haven't deleted it, and I swear I won't.

January 2023: Wrote my first ever M rated fic for Nero the Sable from Final Fantasy 7 Remake x Reader, and told myself I'd go back to writing. I haven't posted anything else on AO3 since then.

August 11, 2023: I learned of and created an account on character.ai!

September 18, 2023: I started making character.ai bots!

TL;DR:

As you can see, I'm an inconsistent person and have occasional moments of inspiration and eventually get tired of things. There will be times when I need a break from writing, so I apologize if it takes me a bit to get through all of my requests.

[sleidog]

re: last reblog not really true. op said a lot of false things (like blurring/resizing removing glaze) also op is an ai 'artist' so take that information as what you will. nobody has countered it for now. every person whose tweets op has screenshotted is also either an ai enthusiast or invested in ai firms. justine moore for example was invested in civitai which hosted ai generated csam for over a year while her company profited off it and did nothing

glaze/nightshade work in it that they do what the team said they do. their use might be limited to future models, but they still work for now.

On a place like tumblr; its basically pointless to use them

I've gone into this at length that the tumblr ecosystem doesn't benefit from this as a whole

Delete your work; it still exists in reblogs

Reupload your work with preventative measures; the old version is still in reblogs regardless of you removing it, you just make another copy of it

Delete your account; oops your work is now orphaned with a 'deactivated' username, now no one who cares abour your work can find it without jumping through additional hoops, even if you were to edit the old posts before deleteing to include your socials/website, the reblogs wont have those

Listen; i want there to be a genuine and quick solution to all of this, i REALLY hate this is the only thing on my dash and everyone is whipped up in a frenzy/panic

But i've been on the internet now for longer than a lot of people involved in this have been alive and i dont care to make the handful of people who enjoy my stuff jump through even more hoops to find it, nor do i particularly care about adding prevention to my stuff either, i would literally stop drawing before i did that

I barely get time to draw as it is and if half of my process is watermarking the crap out of it and layering it with prevention then i'd rather just not engage at all

Consider; to fight something you need to understand both sides (in terms of technology involved, not understanding why AI bros feel AI art should replace real people, thats a whole different can of worms)

You dont have to agree with me; i understand your stance, but it's simply a step too far for me and my process, i promised myself as soon as art was no longer enjoyable to me i simply would not draw anymore

and i dont want this to be what causes it

[keepthisholykiss]

Okay it's time, here's my gtfo of Tumblr post

Since Tumblr was previously my most active social media website I figure I will make a proper post to pin about my move off-site. By Jan 1 this blog will be deleted entirely. If you want to find me elsewhere now is the time. Here's the list of places to find me and how often I'll be around them!

My new website! - This is hands down the easiest place to find me. I am creating my website from the ground up so it's a mess but in an endearing way. I've even made my first blog post here. This website will essentially function how my Tumblr previously did. I will post blogs about random things, add updates on projects, create and publish free educational resources, and more! I do not have an RSS (yet?) so the easiest way to follow me is via a neocities account.

Cohost - Of the many twitter alts out there I like cohost the best. I have fun with it, I'm slowly finding my feet there, and I think the vibes are generally good. I do not follow nearly enough folks yet so if you follow me here please let's be mutuals there! I plan to use it much like twitter with lots of one-off thoughts. I am only still on twitter to stay up to date with activism stuff so it's really not worth plugging my twitter now.

Instagram - This is one of the only "big" socials I am active on. It's best to follow me here for activism stuff, cooking, and art as those are basically the only things I post there. If you want to follow me on IG please DM me because I am selective with who I trust to follow me there as I post more IRL things there.

...and that's it! Unless another weird niche semi-old-internet vibe type thing comes out I will only be in those three places from now on. I have been a tumblr user with few breaks since 2008 across a variety of accounts and niches. I don't know that I ever thought I would leave tumblr "for good" but it's way past time. My work in activism will continue offline largely or in ways I'm not talking about here.

Since I won't have time or space to post it in the new year (and like only 2 IRLs follow me here) we are relocating to Oregon next year for probably our last major move ever unless we end up needing (and having the means lol) to leave the country. I am also leaving 4-year institution work which is very exciting for me. Our journey in moving, my journey in finding my place in alternative educational lenses, and more will be covered largely on my blog and in other places I'm sure. So if any of that interests you feel free to follow me off this website. I also have heard something about tumblr dying (again) which lol, lmao even. I truly don't care how true or not that is, please know my intention in leaving has nothing to do with that and has everything to do with being a marketable number for them.

In closing, fuck tumblr, fuck staff, fuck specifically the bitch who runs emporium and tricked all these kids into dumping funds into a website that hates them. Fuck zionists, fuck transphobes, fuck racists, fuck neoliberal apologists, and fuck anyone who is trying to shame you into shutting up about the lives of people who deserve to live. Also organize within your communities and find ways to disengage from the economy and create a better future.

My wish is that every oppressed nation of beautiful people will be free now and forever, that land goes back to who it belongs to, and that some day capitalism will not ruin art, community, and love the way it has on this website and across the world.

[lastoneout]

Reddit is not only basically strikebreaking here, they are also making it abundantly clear that they believe they have ownership over everything that their users post and can confiscate it if they think it will make them more money.

I haven't read Reddit's TOS, but I cannot imagine it says they get to keep everything the users post to the website regardless of the user's wishes on the matter, and any other website with user-generated content deciding the users that made said content are not allowed to have a say on if it stays up or not would never stand. Like imagine if a popular YouTuber decided to delete their account for whatever reason and YouTube stepped in and said "no, you make us too much money, we're hijacking your account and keeping your content up weither you like it or not" like that's a ridiculous precedent that would outrage people. Tumblr cannot decide my account makes them too much money so I'm not allowed to delete it, nor can TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Twitch, or any other platform.

The mod teams were given a blank slate and filled it in, the rules and pinned posts and banners were all made by a person and those people should have a say if it stays up or not. Imo, the mod teams have every right to lock, set as private, or simply delete their subreddits entirely. Baring circumstances where a rouge mod is going against the other mods wishes or a hack or something of that nature, Reddit should not be allowed to stop the mod teams from doing what they want with their subreddits.

Like maybe I'm misunderstanding the full situation but as an artist and writer I am a firm believer in a person having ownership over what they create and being able to do what they want with those things, and the idea that Reddit thinks it can just take what it's users have made and keep it up against their wishes so the website keeps making money is sending up some HUGE red flags. At this point I'm considering deleting my account, bcs I do not want anything I've made on a website where the owners have set a standard of taking it and doing what they want with it without my consent, and I honestly think other users should do the same.

TL;DR: This signals to me that Reddit is no longer a safe place to store your original content and it's probably a good idea to cut and run now before it gets worse.

"Today, we received a message from Reddit that our mod team will be replaced if we do not open up the subreddit immediately"

I mean- holy shit? Strikebreaker activity.

This is most certainly not the only subreddit that has gotten this message.

[just-antithings]

I don’t want to start an argument and I’m glad we’re on the same page that this kind of content involving real life minors should not exist, but you can’t just dismiss these concerns with “go make your own site”, if you love AO3 then wouldn’t you want to see it improve? wouldn’t you want to hold the people that not only write it but also allow this kind of stuff because “oh its legal” accountable? You see twitter users and tumblr users complain about bad decisions the websites make all the time, I don’t see how AO3 is exempt from criticism.

Except AO3 is made to be an archive, the whole point is that they don't arbitrarily delete fics like every other hosting site. So honestly go somewhere else or make your own are the only appropriate answers to give. You are asking them to police fics when the whole reason AO3 started was to not do that. So ultimately the reason it's been "free from criticism" is because they do what they say they will, a lot of the tumblr and Twitter criticism is them actively adding features people don't want while ignoring the ones they do. Your complaints are about what they host which they have been clear about from the beginning so what exactly is there to criticize on that front. We authors have been saying this forever but Don't like Don't read. Or make/use a different site.

You can't go to a bar and be mad about alcohol being there.

Honestly I don't care for underage rpf, but I am only in one rpf fandom and all the people are adults so 🤷 it's not really something I think about ever since I can simply ignore it. Also in my view I'm not shipping the real people I am shipping their personas, cause what you see and who they are in their private lives will be different. So I don't see the real problem with it, of course I don't think they shouldn't have an opinion. Rooster teeth thinks its hilarious that people ship them but it did make some uncomfortable, they solved that by making rules (ex. One said he was fine with people acknowledging his kid but said that he didn't want people using her real name it fics.) And honestly I think they made the right choice. People are more likely to listen to rules then bans.

However I can't stand cheating nothing will make me drop a story faster than cheating. Cheating is never right in real life, same as a lot of other issues antis are pressed about in fiction. But cheating is super common in fics, so I simply don't read the.

Honestly and personally, I don't think any minors should be streamers. They put out their faces names and ages everything adults used to warn you about. So over all these kids and teens need to understand that when you decide to put yourself out on the internet is that they need to be prepared for the consequences and dangers. Stop listing your personal info stop trying to turn yourself into a public figure, wait till your an adult to do that kinda thing.

Also removing it from AO3 doesn't solve anything lmao, they will simply post it elsewhere.

TDLR underage rpf has a lot of problems however AO3 isn't one of them.

[cockroachmotherfucker10]

PRIDEFALL UPDATE: real or fake?

What is Pridefall?

Operation Pridefall, also known as Project Pridefall or simply Pridefall, refers to an attack planned by /pol/ (a political discussion board on the anonymous website 4chan) for all of June, AKA Pride month. The original 4chan thread, which has since been deleted, was primarily focused on “redpilling,” i.e. spreading queerphobic propaganda to make people question the LGBTQ+ community. However, now that it has spread outside 4chan, there are threats of harassing, doxxing, and outing queer people (especially minors) on social media, spamming gore and rape videos in private messages and Pride tags, and even kidnapping, assaulting, or killing queer people in real life.

Specific targets include Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and dating apps. The goal is to go after smaller accounts so the queerphobia isn’t lost in the comments.

Is Pridefall real?

Yes and no.

I searched “pridefall” on 4chan last night. Apparently any new threads on it are being deleted, and anytime someone mentions it, everyone calls them slurs and says no one is doing it.

However, Pridefall is gaining some traction on Instagram--I have seen it for myself. I don’t have TikTok or any dating apps, but I’ve heard that some people are spamming homophobia on TikTok. As for Twitter, I only looked briefly, but I saw some Pridefall accounts there, as well as a lot of warnings and blocklists from people who are worried about it.

I’ve also heard that there have been a few Reddit and Discord raids, and that there is an Operation Pridefall Discord server (someone who spied on them says they have been banned on Discord as well as a platform called Riot before, so very few people are left on the Discord server now).

What do you think, Lia?

This is not coming from 4chan. No one on 4chan is interested anymore.

Most likely, people outside of 4chan heard about it and decided to take matters into their own hands.

The original 4chan thread wanted to make Pridefall “normie-palatable” by avoiding Nazi imagery or other overt unpleasantness, but I have seen a LOT of both on Instagram. This reinforces my belief that 4chan isn’t doing this.

A lot of the people behind this are young, or at least unsophisticated. Most of the Pridefall accounts on Instagram engage in very childish trolling, and one of them said they were a minor. Some of the threats I’ve seen are so outlandish that I can only imagine they came from a fairly young person.

My guess? Most of these people are around 13-19.

There are also very few of them and some of them probably have multiple accounts. Anti-Pridefall accounts outnumber them by far.

However, on Instagram I’ve seen Pridefall accounts following each other and commenting on each other’s posts, so there may be a few groups working together.

A lot of this shit is going to get deleted. I know Instagram is working through reports very slowly right now because they have fewer people available due to COVID-19, but most of the worst accounts I saw last night were deleted by this morning. I saw some more accounts deleted today.

Most, if not all, of these Pridefallers are just trying to scare us. Because they’re probably quite young, there’s very few of them, their accounts keep getting deleted, and law enforcement can track online activity, there is no way they have the balls or resources needed to coordinate major attacks.

There is a very, very slight chance this could spill over into real life, but as long as you practice basic online safety, you will be fine.

That being said, if you are threatened or doxxed by a Pridefall account, PLEASE contact the police. Better safe than sorry.

I do think that the threat of being doxxed or outed is more real than the threat of being attacked. I have already seen one Pridefall account who posted a trans boy’s address on Instagram (he is okay, he posted recently) and another who posted someone else’s address.

There is little chance this will last throughout Pride month. Apparently the goal is for Pridefall to worsen until the end of June, but given that this is most likely just some vastly outnumbered teenage trolls who are bored in quarantine, I seriously doubt they’ll be able to stay interested for a whole month.

This might not be as big on Tumblr. Tumblr is a lot more anonymous than, say, Instagram, which will hopefully deter would-be doxxers. It’s also known to be a highly liberal and queer-friendly site, so any Pridefaller with half a brain cell should know that A) their content is sure to be outnumbered and reported (only us Tumblr users know how bad staff is at deleting questionable stuff), and B) anyone with the original goal of “redpilling” is sure to fail here. Plus, I only remember seeing few, if any, mentions of Tumblr on Pridefall planning threads.

Still, expect to see some Pridefall activity here. Unsurprisingly, not all of these Pridefallers have half a brain cell. Some of them will definitely be unable to resist the lure of a community as openly queer as Tumblr, and we’ve all seen or heard about doxxing, harassment, gore, Nazis, and queerphobes on here. Also, 4chan has historically had some beef with Tumblr, so young teenage boys who idolize 4chan may target us for that reason.

How can I stay safe?

If you have any social media accounts where you A) have posted identifying personal information, and B) are openly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community (especially if you’re queer yourself), put them on private for June. Any other accounts are probably fine to stay public.

If you need a private Tumblr, you can make a password-protected secondary account and only share the password with mutuals you trust.

It is probably okay to be openly queer on a private account (e.g. have pronouns/rainbow emojis in your Instagram bio), since a private account is not likely to be doxxed. But if you want to be extra careful, remove queer identifiers from anything that is publicly visible.

Use Pridefall blocklists. They’re all over Instagram and Twitter. I may repost some here.

Report any Pridefall accounts you see. This is VERY important because this is how we can actually get rid of Pridefall content.

DON’T RESPOND TO ANY PRIDEFALLERS WHO PERSONALLY INTERACT WITH YOU. I know it’s tempting to give a snarky reply, but if they message you, comment on your post, etc, just block them. Seriously, don’t feed the trolls. It's exactly what they want.

Make sure your password game is strong. Use a different password for every site (I know, I know, it sucks), and use passwordmeter.com to test their strength. Write them all down on a piece of paper.

Make sure your username game is strong. Don’t use the same username for multiple sites, and avoid putting personal information in your username, such as your name or birthday.

Do NOT open random links!! Pridefallers could message you links that will give you viruses or track your IP address.

Don’t accept DMs or follows from people you don’t know. Pridefall accounts don’t always look like Pridefall accounts. Some of them are undercover.

Use a VPN. This is probably a little overkill unless you’re particularly at risk of being doxxed, but it will hide your IP address.

Be careful who you interact with. A lot of queer people on Instagram are DMing Pridefall accounts or commenting on their posts, but this could make you a target. As helpful as anti-Pridefall accounts are, you might even be targeted for following those.

Be wary of Pride tags. Unfortunately, a lot of Pridefall accounts plan to infiltrate tags commonly used by queer creators during Pride month. Use discretion when looking for queer content.

Be safe IRL. Lock your doors, lock your windows, be aware of your surroundings, don’t walk alone in poorly lit places, know basic self-defense, etc. Again, I absolutely do not think people will be attacked in real life, but you should be doing this shit all the time, not just in June. Thanks to COVID-19, you’re safer inside anyway!!

Make yourself hard to dox. Even though I have a very unusual first name (it's not really Lia), I am extremely hard to find online. I just went into an incognito browser window and searched my first and last name in quotation marks, but I didn’t find myself until page 4 of Google (and that result wasn’t even posted by me). I’m only half as careful as I could be, but here’s some of the things I do:

-I never use a picture of myself as my profile pic, except for Facebook and Instagram, which are both on the highest privacy settings possible.

-If I post identifying information on a public account (my college, my age, etc), I use a pseudonym or my first name only.

-On Instagram, I only use my first name, and I used special characters to type it, so you won’t find me if you search my name.

-On Facebook, I only accept friend requests from people I know. Most, if not all, of my Instagram followers are IRL friends, friends of IRL friends, and trusted Internet friends.

-If I’m really being paranoid, I’ll make a brand-new email account to sign up for a site. That way, my accounts aren’t all linked through one email address.

-Before I post a picture online, I delete the EXIF data with verexif.com, since EXIF data can hold GPS coordinates.

🌈 Stay safe, everyone.

You will not be harmed. You will be okay. Like cockroaches, we are survivors, and we will get through this!! ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜

-Mod Lia

[cjoatprehn]

I agree and relate with mostly of this, with the select few that I may addendum for my particular experiences. I also have a few to add on.

My experience with Social Medias

ArtStation I’ve never had; but I was greatly disappointed by how the No AI protest was handled on their site. Anyone who protested against AI ended up with either their posts deleted or their account shadow banned from what I saw. Someone correct me, if I’m wrong.

Pixiv I’ve peeked in and looked around but my main thing was inaccessibility on mobile. I discontinued use after a few times. Unfortunately I’m not surprised here with AI and NFTs, either.

I’ve never had and never will have Instagram. I’ve been suggested to make an account, and I will always say no. Any site gives me general bad vibes with varying degrees of wariness. Instagram has been the only place where I detected early in my life and just—straight up internally blacklisted. When news comes out about that site, I am not surprised.

I only had Facebook due to someone (I don’t recall who but it wasn’t me from what I remember) making an account for me. I had a general “okay” time when I became a bit more active there. I made friends. Set up a business part of my profile. A few things ruined that. Racism and anti-Blackness, family who know damn well they were horrendous acting like they could interact with me again, and a traumatizing experience with my first ever stalker originating from an Undertale Roleplay (UTRP) discord server pulling all stops to target me, (May drop the story on that another day if requested enough.). The algorithm already shadow banned my art posts, early ever saw more interactions.

Facebook also owns Instagram. The slightest moment I could, I dipped without a trace.

DeviantArt was rather nice while it lasted. It only took straight up cruel folks, irritating gatekeeping fans, and traumatizing experience to make me go inactive. Then Twitter & NFTs came along, and no matter if I had old works and old OCs there that may be my only record of recalling them. Deleted and left.

Discord is complicated. AI & NFTs is just one issue; but I will not delve into those right now. That aside…other than AI & NFTs, I’ve met the greatest of folks and got hit with the most awful pains here. Still do at times. My creative spirit started diminishing when managing posting work in multiple places + NFTs + malicious intent users started appearing in my DMs.

Twitter…*sighs* so much I could say here. Keeping it brief. Twitter is the dumpster fire of dumpster fires. Along with AI and NFTs, ya got Musk owning and running it, piss poor algorithm even before then, and many are favored over the other in the code, and even unethical coding goes into the app (and website, just like mostly every other site) to have you stuck scrolling or on the site, searching fro information and dopamine to the point where EVEN if you want to stop you can’t for long. That’s just a damn few. I only made an about after I joined Tumblr a lil before the exodus of it. Didn’t understand where everyone was going so I naively joined. Now I’m scarred and recovering.

Here’s a few I’ve noticed from the little things I use.

If you’re on iOS you may have heard of Universe: Website Builder already. I made an account and my website there for the ease of accessibility when making your website. It was simplistic and easier that maintaining and working on it was my best experience. But as of this year, they introduced GUS as an AI to build your website for you. And yes you can still do shit on your own, but it’s gotten enough to the point where Universe: Website Builder became Universe: AI Website Builder. I’m infuriated because that’s the only thing of its kind that I know of (since 2017) that enabled me to make and host my website as it is today. They still kinda have GUS as an option for me to enable and I straight up refuse or ignore it. Not getting shit from me.

Addendum to Discord, I remember between 2021-2022 when Bass Rebels created an AI Art Channel; and I voiced my concerns and upset in DMs with the server owner. I muted the channel and turned on hiding muted channels. I have no clue if it was actually addressed or not; and I don’t know if any other alternatives of Bass Rebels, atm.

Then another small D&D Discord server I used to play in a campaign in, someone started posting AI stuff in the art channel. I muted the art channel and hid it as a result. Great folks there, I just…can’t agree with that. Was hesitant to bring it up due to traumatic reasons that didn’t involve them specifically, and a couple non-traumatic experiences with communicating that…did. I am not the most active there, anyways.

Will edit this post with more as I recall of more. But while my creative visual art burnout is not due to NFTs and AI, they sure contributed their fair share to the hopelessness.

My differences

The thing I don’t agree with in OP’s post is “techbro” and “automatically hating.” I’m not discounting OPs experience. I don’t think AI and NFT is all of tech folks. Who knows? Tech folks may learn and create something that’s not like either of these. Believe me, I recognize the pattern though, it’s happened with me. A traumatizing thing happens a couple times then your trust dissipates for the overall experience and entire group surrounding the group and more. Your caution affects your experiences and actions from then on.

I will forever avoid AI and NFTs that aim to replace humanity’s creative outlets in life. I will view Tech folks, as I do everyone, with wariness like a lot of things in life. But I refuse to be so Black and White with life and the folks living life. There’s gray (nuance) in everything.

In short,

It’s fucked up how this is the route that folks making “Creative” AI and NFTs has gone. I hope the route taken ends expeditiously.

AI and NFT are garbage because EVERY big site I was hanging around as an artist would not leave me alone about the garbage

Twitter? You get too popular and some bozo wanted to take your art and make it into a NFT or take your literal likeness and make a copy of you doing things you would never do

Instagram? Type in the wrong hashtag and comment section is hounding me to join some randos NFT scam

deviantart? hey we're going to alert you if someone uses your art in a NFT also we automatically put all you guys art an OUR AI generator. Aren't we thoughtful

artstation? cool if we AI here?

PIXIV? we updated our policy about AI during one of those multiple updates you didn't read awhile ago

Discord? If you didn't make it, you can't guarantee there isn't some AI or NFT bro looking for some material just lurking

it was and still is exhausting

Somedays I don't even know what or where or how I'm going to post online

my creative motive has been damaged for like 2 years now and it's not fun

so ya

AI, NFT all garbage and now I just automatically hate anything a techbro creates

[negans-lucille-tblr]

Important Announcement!

Hey everyone!

As some of you may know if you’re in my discord, I’ve decided to launch my own website for my fanfiction.

This is something I’ve been seriously considering since my account was flagged and Patreon censored some of the content I would usually provide on there.

I wanted to jump before I was pushed, so after a lot of careful deliberation and planning, and after many hours making sure that everything is running smoothly, the website is ready 😍

The official launch date is the 1st September, though if you choose to sign up/move before then, feel free, just know that not every oneshot that is currently ahead on Patreon vs Tumblr is on my website. This only comes into effect from Sept 1st.

Lots more info below the cut...

What does this mean for Patreon?

I won’t be deleting my Patreon. I’ll keep the page open for as long as Patreon will have me, but there will be some changes.

1 - I will be removing all higher tiers from Patreon. These will only be available on my website from Sept. The only remaining available tier on Patreon will be First Base. And I will no longer be accepting annual pledges on Patreon, only my website.

Higher tier members will have first refusal of spaces on their current tier on the new website. (I'll be in touch privately shortly to discuss this with you)

2 - Patreon will still be ahead by 4 weeks and will gain access to any exclusive content that is suitable for Patreon. As has been the case for a little while now, censored content such as wincest and dark fics won’t be posted on Patreon.

3 - Should the vast majority of my patrons move over to my website, I may consider deleting my Patreon page, but I will give advance notice if that is going to happen.

If you have any further questions about the difference between Patreon and my website you can find them here.

So how does my website work?

Well, it works exactly like Patreon for the most part. You can subscribe to your chosen tier and you will get ahead of tumblr by 4 weeks along with access to all the exclusive content only available to my patrons/members. I have moved across 99% of the exclusive content currently available on my Patreon with the exception of MCU content due to Disney cracking down on copyright.

My website is hosted by Wordpress so you can use the Wordpress app to read and navigate my site, along with having the comfort of knowing that the site is established and trustworthy for handling your money.

It is set up more like a “real website” compared to Patreon, and hopefully is easier to navigate for you.

I am currently running an offer, if you sign up before the 1st Oct, you will secure a reduced monthly/annual charge for the entirety of your subscription. More information on prices can be found on my subscription page.

Having said that, there is no pressure or obligation to sign up/move across, I am extremely grateful for any support I get from you guys in any form.

There’s lots more information about my website on the FAQs page here. And if you're a Patron already, I've made a post similar to this on my page.

Any issues or questions I might not have answered, just send me a message!

Lots of love to you all ❤️

xoxoxox

[do-a-reference-properly]

AO3′s users alert! Unauthorised fanworks copying

26/09/2019. Important update on this mess: we found a way to delete fanworks via take down request to the hosting provider. Please check it here https://do-a-reference-properly.tumblr.com/post/187926459079/finally-some-good-news

Dear AO3 users,

We would like to bring your attention to an ugly situation with unauthorized copying of works posted on AO3.

A lot of works from AO3 have been copied to fanfics.me (we’ll call this site FFM for brevity’s sake) and are still being copied right now, either:

— automatically by a code specifically created by FFM’s owner for this purpose, or

— by unaware or unscrupulous FFM’s users via semi-automatic method (by inserting a link to a work from AO3 into a web-worm on FFM).

All works from AO3 — with a few exceptions (I’ll elaborate on this below) — can end up on FFM without authors even noticing. Even fanarts or podfics.

FFM doesn't comply with DMCA which means that such reposts endanger fanworks' creators in case the copyright holder demands to delete the fanwork.

Authors of the copied works do not have any control over them; if the work is edited it won’t be updated on FFM until someone manually updates it.

Additionally FFM’s owner makes money out of reposted free fanworks from numerous Google and Yandex ads on each and every FFM’s page by having people go to this site when searching for fics on Google etc. So we recommend using an Ads Blocker when visiting this site in order to prevent the owner from earning more. Ghostery or Adblock Plus work just fine, but you can use any other Ads Blocker that is convenient to you.

Oftentimes FFM even shows up before the original post with the work on Google search results.

The owner’s e-mail: refery@fanfics.ru.

The owner at AO3.

We are trying to bring AO3’s users attention to this situation and help authors with taking their works down from FFM.

 Briefly about the website and its owner

Let me start from the very beginning as it will bring into the light the nature of FFM and give a good example of its owner characteristic behavior.

At first, some person with nickname Refery created FFM as a web archive where authors — mostly from Harry Potter fandom — could publish their fanworks.

Time passed, the site grew and added some features (blogs, pre-moderation and etc.), and all was good and well up till the moment when Refery decided that it would be a great idea to copy to FFM fanworks published on other Russian fanfiction archives — among them from the biggest and most known site ficbook — without asking authors for permission. Even those works that had “Ask me before posting the story somewhere else” mentioned in its text or summary were copied.

For some time nobody noticed, but when finally and inevitably this came out the authors were outraged. It took a lot of time to finally persuade Refery to at least not to copy fanworks bearing a special tag “Уточнять у автора” (Ask the author first).

But after some time Refery — without giving any notice — violated his own promise and resumed copying to FFM fanworks that had the agreed upon tag. The authors complained again, so very reluctantly and after many painful discussions this feature was reinstalled.

So FFM has been notoriously known, mostly amongst Russian fandom, for claims on re-posting fanworks without the consent of the authors.

We're mentioning this situation just to give you a detailed portrait of a person we are dealing with here.

Not only fanworks are copied to this website, but original works, too. Even those which were already published. There were all 7 of Harry Potter novels (both original text and translation), The Hobbit: There and Back Again (translation) and Vorkosigan Saga (translation) available for everybody to read and download. They were taken down only recently due to the attention this whole situation had drawn, but nothing ever goes away once it’s posted online and you can access the proof via Internet Wayback machine. We know for a fact there are other books on FFM and some actions have been taken in this regard, but still it takes time to find published books on this site.

Recently Refery decided that Russian archives are not enough for him and started copying all fanworks into FFM without any permission from the authors from numerous sites, like AO3, fanfiction.net, fictionpress.com, fanfiktion.de and likely other web-archives.

Moreover, the authors of these works can not delete their works from FFM and/or manage them. The site is in Russian only and, hence, we strongly believe that non-Russian speaking authors even do not know that their works are reposted somewhere else.

As a Russian fan-community, we have tried to stop such activity of FFM many times; however, we have not been successful in achieving our goal completely. Our most recent achievement is that the FFM’s owner implemented the "Don't copy to another site" tag created specifically for AO3 (here is the link to FFM’s owner post on his personal blog regarding this tag. Please use Ads Blocker!). This tag should be added to each work presented on AO3 in case the author does not want their works to be copied to FFM.

We are of the opinion that no work should be taken without permission in the first place, but this tag is all we’ve got.

Please note that it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

How to prevent copying from AO3

If you check AO3 you may notice that "Don't copy to another site" tag has hugely emerged in the recent weeks, but mostly amongst Russian users and there is a good reason for this: the owner of FFM announced this tag only in Russian and only on his private blog, so naturally there is no way for non-Russian speaking AO3 users to know about this — albeit non-satisfactory — solution.

There are no guaranties that the FFM’s owner won’t change the rules again as has already happened numerous times before (few examples we described above) and that works with this tag won’t be reposted in the future, but for now it’s the only quick and working solution besides making your works visible only to registered users, which is not ideal. 

This situation is highly unpleasant, but we ask you not to delete your works from AO3, because if the work is deleted from AO3 it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM: we won't be able to refresh it manually and remove the text.

Please note that adding this tag won’t work for texts that have already been copied. Only users who have accounts at FFM will be able to delete them. Each work needs to be deleted manually.

However, the Russian fandom — except for the owner of FFM — strongly condemns reposts without the consent of the author, so feel free to contact our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing the links to the works stolen from AO3, so we could delete them for you.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to cover all authors and works manually. So, we contacted AO3’ Technical Team with the aim to bring their attention to this situation and inform about it all AO3 users, and hope that AO3 team will find a general solution to resolve this problem, possibly, in collaboration with the AO3 lawyers.

We are trying to warn as many authors as possible and recently started spreading this information via comments on AO3; but considering the number of works copied to FFM informing all authors will take considerable time, and we can easily miss someone, especially since the copying is still in progress and new works from AO3 are appearing on FFM every day.

Please help us spread the word!

 We tried to make a comprehensive FAQ about this. Feel free to ask if anything is unclear!

FAQ

Q: Can I check if my work was copied to FFM?

A: Yes, you can.

FFM makes money on Google and Yandex ads, so we recommend turning on the Ads Blocker of your choice before visiting this site.

Please follow this link, insert the title of your work or your AO3/other web-archive nickname into the field containing the words "insert-title-nickname" and hit "Искать" (Search).

For works rated Mature or Explicit you will be able to see only the caption "Текст произведения доступен только зарегистрированным пользователям старше 18 лет" ("The text of the work is available only to registered users over 18 years old"), but FFM users are able to read and download the story.

Q: My work from AO3 was copied. How can I take it down?

A: First of all add the tag "Don't copy to another site" (without “ “) to the stories you want to be taken down.

Actually we would recommend adding this tag to all the works you don't want to be copied.

Contact one of our volunteers (through DM or Ask on our tumblr page) providing links to your works or send an e-mail with your deletion request directly to the FFM owner at refery@fanfics.ru or at AO3. 

There is a third option: to register on FFM and delete the work yourself by hitting the refresh button, but considering that the site is in Russian we do not think it will be very convenient to those who do not speak Russian language.

Q: I got the message that my work has been deleted. How can I check if it is true?

A: You can go to FFM, search for you work, click on its title and scroll down.

After the summary there is a field that should look like this for those fics that have been deleted.

Basically it says that the author of this particular work has forbidden its copying and that only the information on its title, author’s nickname, rating, pairings, summary and the link to original post on AO3 are available. 

For works that are still available on FFM this field looks like this (if the work is open for non-registered users).

Q: My work copied from AO3 was deleted, but FFM still shows some information on it. Can it be deleted?

A: Even though the text of the fic is not going to be on FFM anymore after it has been deleted, the fic's title, author's name, rating, pairings, summary and link to original post on AO3 will remain there.

The deletion of this leftover information can be done only by the site owner himself.

Some Russian authors tried to make him to delete it, but in most cases the FFM’s owner refused them mentioning that publication of such information is in line with fair use concept and doesn’t violate authors’ rights.

We are yet unsure how to delete this leftover information. In case you need it as well, try contacting the FFM owner at refery@fanfics.ru or at AO3. Maybe e-mails of a large number of authors will work, but unfortunately we can’t guarantee anything. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Q: My work from fanfiction.net/fictionpress.com/fanfiktion.de/other web-archives was copied to FFM. How can I take it down?

A: Unfortunately, there is no possible way for us to delete from FFM the fanworks that are copied from web-archives other then AO3. Only FFM’s owner can delete these works, please try contacting him at refery@fanfics.ru or at AO3. In case you need it, we can provide Russian text for you to send by e-mail (please contact our volunteers through DM or Ask on our tumblr page).

Please do not delete your works from the web-archive it was stolen from, because if the work is deleted it will be nearly impossible to delete it from FFM.

Also it seems that some time ago there was similar case of unauthorized copying with other site. Please check this link, they give useful advice.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep6: Joey Wheeler is on Fire, Yet Again

Came down with a little sickness-not the biggie, just a little sly guy. But I took some meds, I’m a little floaty, I’ve only been listening to baroque music all morning for some reason? And I hate baroque music usually? But I’ll leave it to bro to tell me if this is fluid enough.

Just so you know, these caps were kind of a hot mess for a while and some of them read like that Garfield in of hot eat the food comic until...today. So pls don’t judge me, Judge my damn DMV where no one was following Covid regulations because I’m pretty sure that’s where I got this damn cold.

We start off with Roland getting more attention than he ever has in his entire life. Like honestly, I don’t know what Roland’s job really is...but he’s got a very diverse set of very useless skills. One of which, is knowing how to announce sports games that aren’t really a sport, while those games he’s announcing slowly fall into chaos.

Anyway, Roland’s taking so long cherishing his sweet time before everything goes to hell, that he’s boring Joey, who’s kinda turned into a ball of stress in the waiting room.

A lot of this episode is us watching them watching Joey having a break down moment by moment, TBH.

(read more under the cut)

Yugi telling Joey to study his cards and straight up--what?

Like at this point they know what’s on the cards, right? Like there comes a point where even Yugioh cards have a finite amount of words and I’m just going to assume that like...Joey probably knows them all in his own deck, right?

(bro note: they have no limit on what they will put on a card)

Then again, maybe Yugi doesn’t know what “study” means?

Also, appreciate how some artist crosshatched the hell on Joey’s nose there and I zoomed out and ruined it.

Now for some reason every duelist is hanging out in the duel lodge, including our current arch-villain guy who’s brought a book. I want to know what book this guy even reads so no one could suspect he’s actually a hacker who uses computers. He’s reading romance, right? And I don’t think he’d even be into Twilight, I think he’s straight up into hard core Mom romance like a lame ass Nicholas Sparks over there reading “Dear John” for the millionth time because he is completely un-phased by anything else happening in this room.

Joey, our hero, just out there being an asshole for no reason.

After Tea is pushed into a locker or something screaming about her need for female friends (which she screamed in earshot of Rebecca again, who I figured was on friends terms with her after last episode...but I guess not) Leon hops up to remind us that we should be caring about the fact that his character exists.

And like, I love Leon’s hair color--that’s a good choice, and legit that is the color I tried to dye my hair at the beginning of the epidemic (it didn’t work PS, my hair cannot take dye for the life of it) but also like...he just kinda feels like a weak Rebecca as far as characters go. He’s young, he’s good at cards...I think he goes to a private school? That’s all I can think of about Leon.

He mostly just reminds us that the big prize of this tourney is to duel Yugi, who anyone could have dueled at any point even without the tournament.

On the way out of the...duel room? lounge? Area? Joey decides to like...make peace with Zigfried, and I gotta tell you, I kinda have to side with Zigfried, because Joey spent the last ten minutes being a freak in the dressing room/lounge/bathroom and at one point looked like he was going to hold the entire locker room in a stranglehold.

I would also want some space from Joey Wheeler, is what I’m saying.

After insulting Joey’s style (which honestly, Joey...has a style? He pops his collar, that’s his entire style.) Zigfried assures us that Joey’s gonna lose and like...

...probably, right? Just looking at the plausible direction this season will go.

Anyway, Joey is such a mess (which is the theme of the episode, that Joey needs to learn to chill in order to win at card games) that Rebecca is like “I understand if all of you leave me to go help our poor baby Joey.” And no one felt bad for her.

Mokuba comes over to tell everyone all of the Kaiba family secrets because Mokuba has no filter.

Seto has devoted himself to staring at a computer screen for the rest of this episode. I guess he’ll put their names into Google, realize that social media hasn’t been invented yet, and then just lie his head down on the desk and take a power nap until the tournament is over. Much like I did after taking Dayquil this afternoon.

I like how Seto dressed for success and then locked himself in the server room for most of this arc so far. Maybe he’s just...really tired, I dunno. I don’t really blame the guy, he’s had a hard time.

And then Yugi was like “DAMN IT MOKUBA, JUST ONCE CAN YOU NOT INVITE THE ILLUMINATI???”

And we had a weird scene where Yugi just started talking to the ghost and it was while he was talking to everyone else, and the show didn’t treat it like that’s a weird thing to do...but it was a weird thing to do.

This show does that sometimes, where I guess they imply that Yugi’s Pharaoh conversations are split second conversations but...they’re not, right?

Also this chick ain’t gone yet, and Mokuba is just failing at his entire job for not zeroing in on vibes coming off this chick like stinky cheeseman.

So listen.

Did the Kaibas make like 3 types of Blue Eyes Caboose to one up Noah? Because Noah made one choo choo dragon, and then Mokuba and Seto were like “how dare” and then made sure that everyone ride every single version of the blue eyes caboose just to see how proud of them they were.

How many months of troubleshooting was the train? Like how long in development did Seto and Mokuba spend on these? A lot right? Like most of the time?

I did not check the subs to see if Roland said Jumping or Champion but I like to believe that Roland thought it was a cool new name he gave him.

Then these guys all showed up.

Hey so...can we talk seating arrangements?

Tea decided not to sit next to Yugi after complaining about not spending time with him for like how many episodes? Or was it too awkward to sit on top of what was probably Pharaoh?

Or did Mokuba go like “please, Tea, I cannot sit next to the others because I’m pretty sure one is a mole that is about to go cray” and was Tea like “Good, I need female friends, these ones are driving me crazy!” and then was Mokuba like peering desperately over the edge of his self made dragon train prison realizing he has to listen to Tea complain about boys for the rest of his ride across molten lava?

Headcanons abound about this weird seating arrangement that the animators drew for the reasons they did...but reasons I cannot fully understand. That and the Dayquil is making me overfixate on random stuff.

And also, Tea is kind of the Kaiba’s security’s understudy. Just there to always protect Mokuba with her ass because she’s the strongest woman alive.

PS I missed the tumblr wars because at the time I was trying to like...run a proper business on blogger. When Blogger died and I jumped over here it was like a weird ruin where everyone was like “tumblr is the most toxic place alive” and...I’ve had a really nice time here, actually. Completely missed that civil war period and I have no regrets.

Now I was there for the Petz wars (warz, I guess) where people were very militant about Petz abuse (abuze?) where apparently people were using the spray bottle on their catz too much and people were very, very upset about it to the point that they were like campaigning about it on their angelfire websites with the most bizarre grassroots campaigns that I still recall, to this day because they were like...well they looked like this:

PLAPA. Not only am I 100% positive that only this one guy ever called this movement PLAPA, but I’m 100% positive that not only are Catz not real people, but also this wasn’t actually happening and we never had any proof that it was. Either way, if people knew or suspected that you hadn’t deleted the spray bottle from your game (which at the time I had no idea how to do because I was a wee child) they would basically assume you were on a one way road to being a mass murderer in real life.

In real life we were 7 years old so like...thanks?

But that’s the closest I got to toxicity and at the time I was too young to make an email account and actually converse with these people. I was just there to download their Petz hexes, and I already made a post about how wonderful and incredible Petz Hexing was.

And y’all, I heard, just now after a little deep dive into the Petz Abuse debacle (which yes, is on the wiki), that apparently, like gardening, Petz Hexing came back in a big way during the epidemic--and I have found an active Petz forum in this the year 2021. The only problem is that I no longer remember how to use old timey forums...and I think I’m locked out of seeing most of these threads (and like this forum is so old I think I have to send them a letter in the physical mail to apply). But, I’m pretty sure they’re hosting a picture contest for who’s dogz poses the best. And I’m pretty sure someone created a hexxed Pickle Rick. Or it’s a photoshop that was made to look like a hexxed Pickle Rick.

Dammit why did it have to be Pickle Rick? That’s not worth re-installing Petz and getting it to run on Windows 10...

Guys is this the Dayquil? Is this really happening? I feel like I’m losing my mind for so many reasons...

Anyway, speaking about useless hexing it’s about time that our villain did something that was actually dangerous, so Zigfried decided to install a new virus that does more than turn off the lights. (it still turns off lights)

the Spreadsheet Virus!

Confounded by the spreadsheet software, it...um...it does this:

Straight up how does Excel make a volcano erupt? Is that why I have to pay for Microsoft office now?

All this because Joey made fun of Zigfried’s naturally pink hair? Which is the most normal hair on this series outside of like...Tristan?

Hey guys...Joey’s fine, right? Like how many times has Joey been on fire? And once in an iron cage next to like...a Fire Golem?

Joey’s fine.

MAN I miss Fire Golem. He had a good mug.

And then we just kinda watch chaos go across the park, chaos that includes: Too many ghosts in the haunted mansion (which honestly--you’ll get your money’s worth, sounds great!), the Ferris wheel goes kinda fast and thus might accidentally be fun, the lights turn off at some concert stage that only had 2 people on it (so it might just be motion detector lights and not even a virus), and um...literal fire and magma are going to set Joey Wheeler on fire.

Just...one of these events does not seem like the others. In fact most of these things sound like good improvements to the park and they should just hire Zigfried at this point.

Roland puts down his microphone and jogs across the stage, about a mile through the audience bleachers, and into the staff lounge, to go and bother Seto Kaiba, who is in a room that has a hi-def classical painting copy-pasted on the wall and I can’t look away from it.

I almost did a Google search on this painting but then thought better about it. There’s like...a billion classical paintings that look exactly like this, and they wouldn’t use like a Monet, they would have to do something that’s harder to catch to avoid copyright issues (because yes, even old ass paintings have copyright issues, but no one tell NFT’s which are going to be so freakin screwed and was such a bad idea, that I can’t even start).

Anyway, I have no idea who it is and it is legitimately driving me up a wall, but I’m on too much meds to do the effort of putting it in a reverse google image search.

Plus, a reverse google image search would only pull up Seto Kaiba.

So Kaiba takes us on a little flashback to his weird ass past, a weird ass past that just...doesn’t follow any of the established timelines, but I assume was shortly after adoption but before Seto got into a phase where he wore his school outfit everywhere and tried to shove his MMO off onto his Dad as a business model.

Seto is like 8 for some reason. I don’t know why, they kinda drew him younger this season anyway, like maybe they got a lot of fan mail and realized “Hey I think we made the 16 yo boy too sexy?” And they just toned Seto the hell down. That, and it’s a different animation team, and maybe they looked at Seto’s character design and were like “we don’t get paid enough to draw this well.” So...since Seto actually looks like a teen again, I guess his 12 year old self has to look like he’s in Elementary school.

Also, I only recognized this, because at some point in S3 as I was roasting Noah Kaiba’s weird fashion:

I remember distinctly roasting that little bow tie. I don’t remember when I wrote it, I think there was a version of this outfit that was in color...but I don’t remember where.

Anyway, it’s not the same jacket...but man that’s kind of awkward, ya? Like the maid who dressed Mokuba deffo got fired?

He um.

Turned the lights off a little bit.

Guys this villain is like...

...why does he think lights are scary? Like look at little Seto here. The boy is already bored. Seto duels on the edges of cliffs...he doesn’t care about the freakin dark.

We had a guy who killed everyone on the planet last season, and this season we have a little fashion gremlin standing in the corner and flicking the light switch going  “wooooo you never catch me!” and it’s like...

...I’m starting to think this guy isn’t a witch.

Like we’re at Episode 6, there’s still time for this guy to be a witch...but I really am starting to think this guy is just...straight up not a witch. It’s everything Seto wanted, a rival who isn’t a freakin magic person...and sets Joey only fake on fire instead literally on fire like last time...

and Seto is just completely unhinged by it.

Anyway, I’m off to go drink a bowl of soup and pass out. If you’re new here, this is a link to read these in chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono