#xkit probably has a setting to fix this

[viridianstarlight]

Hey tumblr, I’m scrolling through my feed and you keep putting me back up the top. Please don’t do that. If I want to go back up the top, I will refresh the page.

[all-the-fish]

Oh, you know, just the usual internet browsing experience in the year of 2024

Some links and explanations since I figured it might be useful to some people, and writing down stuff is nice.

First of all, get Firefox. Yes, it has apps for Android/iOS too. It allows more extensions and customization (except the iOS version), it tracks less, the company has a less shitty attitude about things. Currently all the other alternatives are variations of Chromium, which means no matter how degoogled they supposedly are, Google has almost a monopoly on web browsing and that's not great. Basically they can introduce extremely user unfriendly updates and there's nothing forcing them to not do it, and nowhere for people to escape to. Current examples of their suggested updates are disabling/severly limiting adblocks in June 2024, and this great suggestion to force sites to verify "web environment integrity" ("oh you don't run a version of chromium we approve, such as the one that runs working adblocks? no web for you.").

uBlockOrigin - barely needs any explanation but yes, it works. You can whitelist whatever you want to support through displaying ads. You can also easily "adblock" site elements that annoy you. "Please log in" notice that won't go away? Important news tm sidebar that gives you sensory overload? Bye.

Dark Reader - a site you use has no dark mode? Now it has. Fairly customizable, also has some basic options for visually impaired people.

SponsorBlock for YouTube - highlights/skips (you choose) sponsored bits in the videos based on user submissions, and a few other things people often skip ("pls like and subscribe!"). A bit more controversial than normal adblock since the creators get some decent money from this, but also a lot of the big sponsors are kinda scummy and offer inferior product for superior price (or try to sell you a star jpg land ownership in Scotland to become a lord), so hearing an ad for that for the 20th time is kinda annoying. But also some creators make their sponsored segments hilarious.

Privacy Badger (and Ghostery I suppose) - I'm not actually sure how needed these are with uBlock and Firefox set to block any tracking it can, but that's basically what it does. Find someone more educated on this topic than me for more info.

Https Everywhere - I... can't actually find the extension anymore, also Firefox has this as an option in its settings now, so this is probably obsolete, whoops.

Facebook Container - also comes with Firefox by default I think. Keeps FB from snooping around outside of FB. It does that a lot, even if you don't have an account.

WebP / Avif image converter - have you ever saved an image and then discovered you can't view it, because it's WebP/Avif? You can now save it as a jpg.

YouTube Search Fixer - have you noticed that youtube search has been even worse than usual lately, with inserting all those unrelated videos into your search results? This fixes that. Also has an option to force shorts to play in the normal video window.

Consent-O-Matic - automatically rejects cookies/gdpr consent forms. While automated, you might still get a second or two of flashing popups being yeeted.

XKit Rewritten - current most up to date "variation "fork" of XKit I think? Has settings in extension settings instead of an extra tumblr button. As long as you get over the new dash layout current tumblr is kinda fine tbh, so this isn't as important as in the past, but still nice. I mostly use it to hide some visual bloat and mark posts on the dash I've already seen.

YouTube NonStop - do you want to punch youtube every time it pauses a video to check if you're still there? This saves your fists.

uBlacklist - blacklists sites from your search results. Obviously has a lot of different uses, but I use it to hide ai generated stuff from image search results. Here's a site list for that.

Redirect AMP to HTML - redirects links from their amp version to the normal version. Amp link is a version of a site made faster and more accessible for phones by Bing/Google. Good in theory, but lets search engines prefer some pages to others (that don't have an amp version), and afaik takes traffic from the original page too. Here's some more reading about why it's an issue, I don't think I can make a good tl;dr on this.

Also since I used this in the tags, here's some reading about enshittification and why the current mainstream internet/services kinda suck.

[mrslittletall]

I might take a tumblr break until they fix this absolutely atrocious bug that suddenly sets me on my dashboard of February 16th 2022. Why this exact date?! Am I the only one that happens to?! I probably also should finally upgrade to new xkit but I would have to port my blacklist on two devices into the official tumblr blacklist and I was never in the mood... I can't use the endless dashboard because it gets INCREDIBLY laggy after around ten minutes of scrolling and I wait like a minute before I can reblog a post! Seriously, am I the only one who has these problems? If yes, then it has to be an old xkit problem.

[dine-on-nervine]

I really wish all the Xkit extentions still worked.

1. Who was the last person you forgave? How long did it take you to forgive them? I have a hard time answering this one because I don't have a good track record on the concept of forgiveness. I may at times be able to set aside what they've done wrong and try to move forward, but it never completely leaves me... mostly because they then think they have carte blanche to do it again. But for the sake of providing an answer: Suzi. 10%, maybe 25%, definitely not entirely, but I've done a bit of forgiving. Not because I was wrong because I was not, not because she was right because she was ridiculously wrong on several fronts [explanation available privately since you do not know anything whatsoever if you're not a friend], but because there has been a bit of clearer perspective in seeing things in the rearview. I was becoming less happy as time passed because of how she'd changed. What people have said about her has started to sound like things I didn't want to face in the moment. I may have a few stings stinging but I am trying to put the past behind me since the future, already in progress, is different but bright.

2. Is going mushroom hunting in the woods something that would interest you? Probably. So long as I'm not the mushroom being hunted.

3. What is your favorite junk food? How about your favorite health food? I adore Wunderbars and a good spinach salad.

4. Are you listening to anything right now? Do you normally listen to music while you take surveys? Just the tinnitus and my fans.

5. What were you doing the last time you hung out with a friend? We had some places to go, and I talked her into a visit to Value Village because I couldn't get over there before I went to her house. :-D

6. Is there anything about you that might cause others to dislike you? "the more you know..." Which is true of nearly anyone, though I am sure I have my set of objectionable issues.

7. Is there anything you’re really particular or specific about, anything that has to be done a certain way every time? There probably is but I can't think of anything specific right now.

8. Are there any chores you need to get done today? I did my chores yesterday. Except for the putting vitamins in the pillbox, which I should do right now.

9. Where was the last place you went shopping and what did you buy? I've been many places to shop lately, but I haven't bought anything in the last six. Last thing purchased was milk.

10. What was the last big change you made to your physical appearance? I haven't changed my appearance in ages.

11. Are you more likely to shut people out of your life or try to fix things no matter what? Depends upon who and why. I've always sucked at shutting people out but I'm getting better at it; when possible I try to fix things but sometimes that's not worth the cost.

12. Where was the last place you went out to eat? Is going out something you enjoy or would you rather cook at home? I had dinner at Wendy's. Presently I like dining out because I don't use the kitchen at this place. Once I've got one of my own, I'll cook, I swear.

13. If you have any pets, do they seem to notice when you’re sick or sad? Cheddar did for me. Pistachio has with my ex, which is why the cat pretty much hates me now.

15. Is anything you’ve done lately going to matter in a year?  I presume so. Like starting a relationship with Tanya, for instance.

16. What was the subject of your last phone call? In about 30 seconds I will be on the phone with Tanya and the main subject will be what all we did with our day / how work was.

17. Are your hobbies something you’d rather do alone or with others? I'm good either way with Perler beading. I just have more room to work and iron if I'm alone. :-P

18. Is there anything about yourself that you’re trying to improve? Simple answer is Yes. You didn't ask what.

19. What are you doing today? Went to work, got home three hours ago, and pretty much have just watched videos since then.

20. What did you dream about last night? Your mother.

21. When was the last time you visited relatives? Do you see extended family often? My parents was last November, and that's pretty much the only family I visit. I should see my sister sometime but she shys away from making plans so that's not happening I guess. Will try again sometime.

22. What was the last relaxing thing you did? I was hours behind schedule yesterday (Monday) and that was quite peaceful.

23. Will this weekend be better than last weekend? I don't know that there will be any real appeal to this weekend, but next weekend I'm going to Leavenworth (unsure if it's a daytrip or an overnighter as yet) and that will definitely be a welcome distraction.

24. When was the last time you were there for a friend? Last Friday. I couldn't solve the problem because I couldn't replicate the problem, so I am taking it at her word that there was actually a problem that I was being asked to solve.

25. Do you have any jewelry you almost never take off? Nope.

26. What are some of your favorite words? Oaf. Fuck. Legs... and I'd like to spread the word.

27. Do you have any journals from when you were younger? If so, do you ever go back and read them? I do have a couple diaries from junior high or high school, but I didn't really write anything interesting in them. I wrote a lot more in college but I haven't read them in several years... I did look at them once and tried to figure out what I was leaving out since I didn't really give enough context half the time.

28. Are there any holidays you used to celebrate, but no longer do? I don't think so. Other than maybe Shit & Ice Cream Day, but that's coming up in a month if I recall correctly. Both of the people that I would celebrate it with are dead, physically or emotionally.

29. What was the last occasion for which you dressed up? I went to church with my girlfriend -- she doesn't attend it, she was playing in the bell choir -- so dressed up suitably.

30. Is there anything you wish you could say to anyone? I have a ton of things I'd love to say but know better. But I guess the one most recent and on my mind a few times a week is: I don't know what I did to make you ignore me, but I see more benefits than problems with it so I don't really need to know so long as it doesn't become malignant.

[jolikmc-thoughts]

It takes an awful lot of custom ad-block stuff to get Tumblr into a "useable" state for me when I'm on my computer…

This is all stuff I have in my ad-blocker addon for Tumblr. It's a set of "sets" – 19, to be exact – which reduce the clutter and mess on my Tumblr Dashboard, among other places. It's heavily personalized and probably wouldn't fit most people, but I have a lot of things that annoy me about the web-based Dashboard, and unfortunately, Washboard is a tad bit broken in terms of functionality at the mo'. The only thing I can't seem to consistently fix is the "restricted area" nag warning on blog Archive pages when you're not logged in. Any solution I've tried seems to fail.

I also have 18 more filters which are outdated or simply don't do the job, anymore. I think the fact that I have this many filters for one website speaks volumes about the interface, myself. But, that's just my opinion… Sadly, I don't think @staff really cares. Their free website has to make money somehow, so… yeah.

For those who are curious: I am using @april's XKit Rewritten in conjuction with this and whle it does do some of this, it doesn't do it particularly well. As for the rest? A lot of it won't be implemented for either "moral" or technical reasons, or simply can't be implemented for being "outside of the scope" of the extension. Or maybe she won't use my idea because she hates me personally. d;

These are the times we live in, I guess.

[wherefancytakesme]

Fixing the desktop layout in Stylebot under advanced settings:

[theoutcastrogue]

HOW TO TUMBLR

Unlike other social media platforms, on tumblr you can decide what to see and what NOT to see on your dash. You are not bound to an algorithm that makes that decision for you. However, this unique feature is NOT DEFAULT any more, you need to set it up. It’s a bit of a hassle if you’re on an app, but you only have to do it once, and it’s 100% worth it.

[Y’ALL, I NEED YOUR HELP TO MAKE THIS POST MORE USEFUL. I’ve stayed away from apps myself, so I can only give proper instructions for the web. If you’ve seen posts with the same instructions for iOS and Android, or if you can make such a post, and especially if you got screenshots (my goal is to make this as easy as possible for newbies), please send a link my way. Thanks!]

1. Algorithm begone

Tumblr’s “algorithm” isn’t remotely like facebook’s, but it still involves decisions you didn’t make. The option “Best stuff first” was an especially bad move that upset many artists, whose posts suddenly got buried and whose activity plummeted. Here’s how to fix this.

WEB:

click on the little person icon on the top of the screen to your right

go to Settings

go to Dashboard

scroll down to Preferences, and toggle to deselect “Best Stuff First”, “Include stuff in your orbit”, “Include ‘Based on your likes!’”, and “Include followed tag posts” [I suggest to deselect the last one because tumblr chooses which posts from your followed tags to show you, and that’s a decision you didn’t make; you can always look for tags normally]

2. Begone ads and unsolicited recommendations

Install the ad blocker add-on UBlock Origin on your Firefox. If your browser is Chrome, it is STRONGLY suggested you first switch to Firefox, for privacy but also because Chrome is out to get ad blockers, so that won’t work for long.

And/or you can install the XKit Rewritten add-on, which has a number of useful features (Quick Reblog most of all), including “Anti-Capitalism” which hides advertisement containers. This is probably redundant if you have a proper ad blocker, and also slower (X-Kit loads all these elements and then hides them, the ad blocker kills them faster), but I’m not opposed to redundancies when it comes to ads and privacy.

XKit also has a “No Recommended” feature, so you can focus only on what you follow. can You replicate this via UBlock Origin’s Block Element feature, but that’s a bit advanced for the purposes of this guide, so while I do suggest it I won’t elaborate here.

3. Unlock all content

By default, tumblr has to assume (because laws and monopolies etc) that you have the maturity of a small child, and it will therefore hide some content from you without asking you. Here’s how to fix this.

WEB:

go to Settings, as before

scroll down to “Community Labels” and select “Show” for all (current labels are Mature, Drugs and alcohol addiction, Violence, and Sexual themes)

in the same section, toggle to deselect “Hide additional potentially mature content”

ANDROID:

see this post for instructions wrapped in a rant on how needlessly complicated this process is, and see here for tumblr’s Help Center article on Community Labels; on the app it looks like this

Afterword

These were instructions for how to liberate your dashboard from external meddling by letting all content (except ads) through. The cool thing is you can also choose what to NOT let through. In your Settings you can filter tags, and you can filter content. You can choose to blur or hide Community Labels (but keep in mind that’s a brand new feature, and how it goes will depend on how the user base adopts it; it’s safe to say it doesn’t work well yet). More importantly, you can choose who to follow, who not to follow, and who to block altogether.

You can and indeed should curate your dashboard, and decide for yourself what appears there. (With the understanding that no matter what you do or anyone else does, stuff will slip through, and it’s not the end of the world. You have tools to make that happen less and less. That’s feasible. Completely and preemptively isolating yourself from stuff you don’t like is NOT feasible, on any platform. So please manage your expectations.)

[jerryterry]

Dashboard Bookmarker v1.3

Another day, another “Tumblr broke my Dashboard Bookmarker script�� (probably because it was cobbled together from cardboard and glitter-glue) The script has now been updated to 1.3 (Tumblr completely changed its class names, plus slight difference in observer settings). Should now be working as good as before. I’m now hosting the script on Greasy Fork, if you install it directly from here you’ll be able to update it directly through Greasemonkey/Tampermonkey without having to find my inevitable tumblr post about it. Tried on both Chrome (Tampermonkey) and Firefox (Greasemonkey), working on both for me. As always, if you’re better with this stuff than me (which is not hard), feel free to take/modify my script or do your own better version. Hopefully XKit’s Bookmarker extension gets fixed before this gets significantly broken again, but no rush to those lads cos they’re doing their best.

[deepwoundsandfadedscars]

Thanks for the tag @thatsgonnaleaveamark!!

1. why did you choose your url?

I used to lurk in the whump community from my main, essentially just every few months I'd go through some of the big blogs tags and like stuff that I wanted to look up later. One night I wandered onto @whump-my-dear-watson's blog and saw her header pic and went "oooh that's clever, I wonder if anyone has claimed that as a URL yet" and huzzah, no one had yet. And suddenly I had a whump blog.

2. any side-blogs? if you have them, name them and why you have them.

From this blog I just have @myotherwhumpblog from when this blog turned into a TOG blog and I had a ton of "normal" followers and didn't want to weird them out with the whump content

And from my main (not tagging it but willing to share it privately if anyone wants) I have @all4oneone4all, a BBC Musketeers blog. I used to have a lot more, like I used to have a Loki blog like six years ago and deleted it, now I almost wish I still had it

3. how long have you been on tumblr?

Oof, my main was made in like November 2011 I think? This one I made in October 2018 or so

4. do you have a queue tag?

Yeah, it's just 'Queue' lol super original, but xkit is attached to the browser rather than an account, so if I log out of here and go to my main, whatever I set for autofills here, it'll use the same stuff for my main :/

5. why did you start your blog in the first place?

Pretty much cause of what I said in the first question, I was just lurking and it seemed like a great community to join (I was right) and I'd never been a part of a community on Tumblr before really

6. why did you choose your icon/pfp?

*Insert 'I just think he's neat' meme*

7. why did you choose your header?

asdfjkl I had to double check what my header was, but of course it's Poe and BB-8, why not?? *insert 'I just think they're neat' meme*

8. what’s your post with the most notes?

The one about the whump community and their 'fix it' fics lmao (almost 2,800 notes)

9. how many mutuals do you have?

A decent amount?? It's hard to tell cause lots of peoples whump blogs are side blogs, so it's harder to know for sure. But like. I'd say at least 50, probably more

10. how many followers do you have?

477

11. how many people do you follow?

125

12. have you ever made a shitpost?

I don't think so no

13. how often do you use tumblr each day?

Too much lol Usually the first thing I open in the morning and I pop in a lot during the day

14. did you have a fight/argument with another blog once? who won?

Not that I can remember

15. how do you feel about “you need to reblog this” posts?

Guaranteed way to make me not reblog a post. I can 100% agree with a post and then get to a "but you aren't going to reblog this, aren't you" I will swipe so hard up my screen that it disappears into oblivion, I don't appreciate guilt trips and won't subject anyone else to it

16. do you like tag games?

Yes! I love being tagged and I appreciate every single one, even if I forget to fill it out, please know I love and appreciate that you thought of me 💜💜💜

17. do you like ask games? 😊

Yes again! I'm just rubbish at answering them too haha

18. which of your mutuals do you think is tumblr famous?

I don't think any of my moots are 'tumblr famous' in the way I automatically assume when I hear that term, but I definitely have moots that are popular within the whump community itself

19. do you have a crush on a mutual?

Not really in a romantic crush sense, but more of a squish, if people still use that term anyways haha there are many many people I would love to be friends with but I'm very bad at keeping up conversation

20. tags?

mmmmm ok, I apologize if anyone I tag has already been tagged, but it's cause I was thinking of you <3

@simplygrimly @kingreywrites @set-phasers-to-whump @aceofwhump @itsanidiom @even-after-a-millennia @flyingwolf29 @whumperflies @dontyoubleedoutonme

[citrineghost]

A Letter to WordPress

Dear WordPress,

Tumblr has been around for a good while now and many of us have been here since the beginning (or close to it). It’s become something of a comfort and a home base for many. You can understand then why it’s so terrifying and tension-setting when a new owner comes around.

This website has been through a lot of changes, very few of them good in recent years. I want to open up a dialogue from the user base about our feelings and desires surrounding this site, because to so many of us, not only its design and function, but its success and future are a big deal.

Obviously not all of the things I list below will be universal opinions, but I’ll try to outline some of the things I’ve seen the majority of users want. I’ll also throw in some things that are more personal, because I can’t claim to know everything the rest of the users want, but I can tell you where I see obvious problems.

First and foremost, here’s an obvious one. You can’t really go anywhere on Tumblr without knowing: we want the bots and the nazis gone. We need some kind of captcha system for every time someone wants to include a hyperlink in a post or response. Until the staff count gets higher, I would honestly suggest closing down the report system for everything but bots, nazis, and death threats/suicide bait.

Make NSFW content welcome again. Outside of porn bots, the pervasiveness of NSFW content is slim to none. As long as minors and those with ‘NSFW’ blacklisted aren’t seeing the NSFW content, there’s nothing wrong with it being here. A large number of the people posting NSFW content on here are artists who use this content to make a living on commissions. The ban has done nothing but make valuable members of the Tumblr community leave and take their art elsewhere. The focus should be cracking down on anyone who isn’t properly tagging NSFW content with ‘NSFW’. If the focus is put on that, the problem with NSFW content will be null.

Please keep Tumblr unintegrated with other social media. Most users will agree, the anonymity is such a huge part of what draws us to Tumblr. Other people only know what we tell them and it’s very appealing for our real life accounts (e.g. Google, Facebook, etc.) to be completely separate. When users want to share links to other accounts, they can do so easily with links on their blogs.

Replace ads with either, better, more sensible ads or members content. A large part of the ads on Tumblr make absolutely zero sense just by looking at them. Not to mention, they’re all completely unfit for the user base. I’ve seen weight-loss ads (harmful to the many people on the site recovering from eating disorders) and ads for products most people wouldn’t need or want until their forties. Most of the user base is 13-35, if I had to guess. I can tell you right now, you would make more money and the user base would be much happier if ads were removed in favor of members content. Adding a paid membership that allows users to gain access to new features (rather than restricting what’s already here) would be a huge boost in morale and company income. Use that income to improve the site. Don’t get comfortable making more than the bare minimum in profit until the website is functioning reasonably well. Hint: it’s not right now.

Keep the base functions of Tumblr. Don’t try and get radical, hoping big changes will excite the community. They won’t. We’re creatures of habit and we just want memes, fandom, and relatable nonsense. Keep reblogging, replies, customizable blogs, tags, and likes functionally the same.

Be receptive to bug reports and post change logs so that the community knows that they’re being addressed and fixed.

These are the obvious pleas of the community. Please keep in mind that the heart of Tumblr is in its users and if you ostracize us, there will be nothing left. We love this website and we want to see it thrive as much as anyone. We just don’t want to sacrifice the spirit of the community in the process.

Read more under the cut if you want to see some more of my own personal suggestions. I’d love for other users to sound off in the replies with whether they agree with any of the pleas or suggestions and also give their own!

Okay, so, here are some personal opinions that are by no means the voice of the community. I think they’re pretty sensible, but what do I know?

Change back the color. I hate this saturated navy color and I’m pretty sure a lot of others do too. I’m part of the disabled community and I know and have seen people saying that these extremely contrasted colors that were added are making their Tumblr experience worse. It gives people headaches due to light sensitivity and, frankly, it’s ugly. If you’d like to cater to those who are visually impaired/colorblind, that’s fantastic! Do so with an account setting that turns on higher contrast mode or adds patterns to things to make them distinguishable.

Add an option to blog suggestions and posts that have shown up on your dash from followed tags that says “Stop Suggesting This.” I’ve been suggested a number of blogs that I’m not interested in following. I don’t want to block the user, but I do want some different suggestions and for those blogs to stop showing up in suggestions. I’m also tired of seeing the same post twenty times from a tag I follow. There is currently an option that says “This particular posts sucks.” While I think that was a great attempt at catering to the community, I don’t want to use it because my intuition says that there’s a negative connotation. Does me saying the post sucks make it show up less for other people? Does it lose popularity? I can’t tell. The only thing I know is that I don’t want to say that a good post sucks just to make it quit showing up on my dash.

Implement some of the features that XKit uses. I would bet at least a quarter, if not more, of Tumblr users use XKit to make using Tumblr less painful. That shouldn’t be the case. Tumblr should have these functionality options available in dashboard settings.

A very hot take here that many might disagree with: Make notes viewable more like mobile has them. As it is, it’s hard to tell which ones I’ve seen on desktop. It can be tricky on mobile too, honestly, but it’s easier than on desktop. I would also heavily suggest making the unseen notifications darker so that they stand out and making a button to indicate that you’ve seen them.

Keep the dash, messages, notes, and profile as separate processes similar to how mobile has it. The trek all the way down the damn dashboard is a long one. I want to be able to see notes and messages in full size without losing my dash progress. When I switch back I want to be right where I was. I understand if this one isn’t possible or practical. It was just something I like about mobile over desktop but I’m aware that they’re two different beasts with different capabilities.

As far as the aforementioned members features, I do have some ideas, but I can’t guarantee they’re the best the user base has to offer. I’m sure others could think of better. Anyway, some things I’ve thought of are groups/clubs, digital currency, and separate dashboards. So, as it stands, You can have multiple blogs on one account. People can follow them separately. That’s fantastic. What would also be nice though, is being allowed to make separate dashboards. This would probably take up another chunk of server space, so I understand if it isn’t feasible right now, but I would jot it down. The ability to separate shitposts, aesthetic imagery, fandom content, and NSFW would be amazing. If you follow a huge number of blogs, like me, you could even make a friends dash so that you don’t miss your friends’ posts. It would just be a matter of allowing people to add and name their new dashboards. Then, when they go to follow people, it prompts them to choose what dash their content goes to. You could even simplify it by making the follow button default to the main dash, but adding a little dropdown arrow beside it. You could then choose which dash to add them to from a list. Below are some bad paint-drawn concept drawings.

Anyway, I hope this has all been helpful in some way. I’m fairly certain that WordPress will never actually read this, but it was cathartic to write and I hope it will be cathartic for someone else to read.

Sincerely, birb-ghost

[musepirations]

hi sien! i haven't rp'd in a super long time (like maybe 3/4 years), but with this quarantine, i've been kinda wanting to get back into it! i was wondering if you had any tips or guides you could link me to that could help me ease back into it? thank you sm!

❞ HI DARLING !! I haven’t come across any recent guides on how to start roleplaying on Tumblr ( THIS ONE is two years old, though, might still be useful ), however I have made a guide myself about how to start independent/indie roleplaying which you can find HERE and I also found a guide on how to join a group, which you can find HERE. Most roleplayers on Tumblr are either independent or group members, so I think those two should be able to help you on your way already, dear. Especially since you probably still know the basics ?? I will also list a couple useful general tips below the cut, things which you will probably find useful to know. I hope this will help you out, lovely, if you have any particular questions in the future, don’t hesitate to hit me up !! Xoxo

first and foremost, you should probably be made aware of the fact that Tumblr has a tendency to enforce updates on us which make roleplaying harder and harder. luckily, there are ways around it and ways to fix it. an important new development is the forcing of beta dashboards on blogs. this update makes chrome extensions such as xkit and sessionbox unworkeable ( and both of these extensions are very dear to roleplayers, i would definitely recommend installing them -- i will explain what they do and why you might want to install them further down ). luckily, you can still return to the old dashboard. how do you do this ? you go to settings > dashboard > ‘use the old dashboard’ which you should switch on. that’s it ! 

now, allow me to elaborate on xkit and sessionbox + add some other useful extras to the list, which will hopefully help you out:

XKIT : xkit is an extension made for google chrome which is probably the roleplayer’s best friend. without xkit, we would be nowhere thanks to tumblr’s updates. so you will definitely want to install xkit to your google chrome ( just google xkit chrome extention and you will find it immediately ). once xkit is installed, you will see the little xkit icon in the top right corner of your tumblr dashboard, in between the notifs and account icons. when you click it, a pop-up will appear on your screen. now, what does xkit do ? xkit allows to add extension to your tumblr which can reverse some of tumblr’s annoying updates. if you want to roleplay, an extention you might want to get it ‘ editable reblogs ‘. why ? because the time of just reblogging a thread and adding replies on and on so you have to scroll down a lot, is long gone. nowadays, you usually leave two replies in your reblog -- the previous reply of your partner, and your own new reply. without xkit, you are no longer able to edit reblogs, just add your own new text to it -- clearly, this is not what you want as a roleplayer, because you would like to just cut the replies short. this is why you need the ‘ editable reblogs ‘ extension in xkit. how do you get it ? you click the xkit icon, then you go to ‘ get extensions ‘ on the bottom of the pop-up and you look for ‘ editable reblogs ‘. once you’ve found it, you just click install and you are good to go ! i think this is the main feature you will need if you want to roleplay.

SESSIONBOX : sessionbox is another chrome extension which could be nice to have -- it’s not a must like xkit is, but it’s handy. sessionbox allows you to have numerous tumblr sessions active in the same chrome window. in other words, with sessionbox, you can be logged on in a bunch of different tumblr accounts and have them all open in different tabs at the exact same time. this could be useful when you have different roles in a group, but have created a new blog for each of them -- because thanks to sessionbox, you wouldn’t have to log off and on into different accounts all the time. you can just have them open and next to each other. i wouldn’t advice making new blogs for all your roles within one roleplay -- creating sideblogs for additional roles is overall a more useful thing to do, i think. but that’s just my personal opinion !

TAGS : i assume the tag game has a changed a bit since you were roleplaying here last -- so here are some tags which you can look through when searching for a new group, new partners etc...

GROUPS : some popular tags nowadays for tumblr groups are new rp, appless rp, town rp, oc rp, semi-appless rp... it actually depends on what type of roleplay you are looking for. here is a division in genres and types of roleplays:

LOCATION : college rp, high school rp, town rp, city rp, apartment rp, hotel rp, island rp, university rp... are tags that are used quite frequently.

FANDOM : harry potter rp, marauders era rp, disney rp, supernatural rp, twilight rp ( yes, they are being revived ), musicals rp, or just general fandom rp ... are some tags i’ve noticed are around a lot. of course, you can try and look for more specific roleplays -- there is probably a roleplay for almost every fandom.

TYPE : subplot rp, pairs rp, oc ( original character ) rp, bio rp, skeleton rp ... are some common types of roleplays. 

GENRE : appless rp, semi-appless rp ... are probably the most frequently used ones. you can find a bit about the difference in THIS ask.

INDIE: if you want to do independent roleplay, the following tags might be interesting to go through : indie rp, independent rp, 1x1 rp, indie starter, open starter ...

LINKS : make sure to check out the following posts for more general information which might be useful [ x, x, x, x ] and check out my TUMBLR HELP / GUIDE tags for hopefully more useful stuff !

[shinelikethunder]

Fandom Userscript Cookbook: Five Projects to Get Your Feet Wet

Target audience: This post is dedicated, with love, to all novice, aspiring, occasional, or thwarted coders in fandom. If you did a code bootcamp once and don’t know where to start applying your new skillz, this is for you. If you're pretty good with HTML and CSS but the W3Schools Javascript tutorials have you feeling out of your depth, this is for you. If you can do neat things in Python but don’t know a good entry point for web programming, this is for you. Seasoned programmers looking for small, fun, low-investment hobby projects with useful end results are also welcome to raid this post for ideas.

You will need:

The Tampermonkey browser extension to run and edit userscripts

A handful of example userscripts from greasyfork.org. Just pick a few that look nifty and install them. AO3 Savior is a solid starting point for fandom tinkering.

Your browser dev tools. Hit F12 or right click > Inspect Element to find the stuff on the page you want to tweak and experiment with it. Move over to the Console tab once you’ve got code to test out and debug.

Javascript references and tutorials. W3Schools has loads of both. Mozilla’s JS documentation is top-notch, and I often just keep their reference lists of built-in String and Array functions open in tabs as I code. StackOverflow is useful for questions, but don’t assume the code snippets you find there are always reliable or copypastable.

That’s it. No development environment. No installing node.js or Ruby or Java or two different versions of Python. No build tools, no dependency management, no fucking Docker containers. No command line, even. Just a browser extension, the browser’s built-in dev tools, and reference material. Let’s go.

You might also want:

jQuery and its documentation. If you’re wrestling with a mess of generic spans and divs and sparse, unhelpful use of classes, jQuery selectors are your best bet for finding the element you want before you snap and go on a murderous rampage. jQuery also happens to be the most ubiquitous JS library out there, the essential Swiss army knife for working with Javascript’s... quirks, so experience with it is useful. It gets a bad rap because trying to build a whole house with a Swiss army knife is a fool’s errand, but it’s excellent for the stuff we're about to do.

Git or other source control, if you’ve already got it set up. By all means share your work on Github. Greasy Fork can publish a userscript from a Github repo. It can also publish a userscript from an uploaded text file or some code you pasted into the upload form, so don’t stress about it if you’re using a more informal process.

A text editor. Yes, seriously, this is optional. It’s a question of whether you’d rather code everything right there in Tampermonkey’s live editor, or keep a separate copy to paste into Tampermonkey’s live editor for testing. Are you feeling lucky, punk?

Project #1: Hack on an existing userscript

Install some nifty-looking scripts for websites you visit regularly. Use them. Ponder small additions that would make them even niftier. Take a look at their code in the Tampermonkey editor. (Dashboard > click on the script name.) Try to figure out what each bit is doing.

Then change something, hit save, and refresh the page.

Break it. Make it select the wrong element on the page to modify. Make it blow up with a huge pile of console errors. Add a console.log("I’m a teapot"); in the middle of a loop so it prints fifty times. Savor your power to make the background wizardry of the internet do incredibly dumb shit.

Then try a small improvement. It will probably break again. That's why you've got the live editor and the console, baby--poke it, prod it, and make it log everything it's doing until you've made it work.

Suggested bells and whistles to make the already-excellent AO3 Savior script even fancier:

Enable wildcards on a field that currently requires an exact match. Surely there’s at least one song lyric or Richard Siken quote you never want to see in any part of a fic title ever again, right?

Add some text to the placeholder message. Give it a pretty background color. Change the amount of space it takes up on the page.

Blacklist any work with more than 10 fandoms listed. Then add a line to the AO3 Savior Config script to make the number customizable.

Add a global blacklist of terms that will get a work hidden no matter what field they're in.

Add a list of blacklisted tag combinations. Like "I'm okay with some coffee shop AUs, but the ones that are also tagged as fluff don't interest me, please hide them." Or "Character A/Character B is cute but I don't want to read PWP about them."

Anything else you think of!

Project #2: Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Fork (DIY blacklisting)

Looking at existing scripts as a model for the boilerplate you'll need, create a script that runs on a site you use regularly that doesn't already have a blacklisting/filtering feature. If you can't think of one, Dreamwidth comments make a good guinea pig. (There's a blacklist script for them out there, but reinventing wheels for fun is how you learn, right? ...right?) Create a simple blacklisting script of your own for that site.

Start small for the site-specific HTML wrangling. Take an array of blacklisted keywords and log any chunk of post/comment text that contains one of them.

Then try to make the post/comment it belongs to disappear.

Then add a placeholder.

Then get fancy with whitelists and matching metadata like usernames/titles/tags as well.

Crib from existing blacklist scripts like AO3 Savior as shamelessly as you feel the need to. If you publish the resulting userscript for others to install (which you should, if it fills an unmet need!), please comment up any substantial chunks of copypasted or closely-reproduced code with credit/a link to the original. If your script basically is the original with some key changes, like our extra-fancy AO3 Savior above, see if there’s a public Git repo you can fork.

Project #3: Make the dread Tumblr beast do a thing

Create a small script that runs on the Tumblr dashboard. Make it find all the posts on the page and log their IDs. Then log whether they're originals or reblogs. Then add a fancy border to the originals. Then add a different fancy border to your own posts. All of this data should be right there in the post HTML, so no need to derive it by looking for "x reblogged y" or source links or whatever--just make liberal use of Inspect Element and the post's data- attributes.

Extra credit: Explore the wildly variable messes that Tumblr's API spews out, and try to recreate XKit's timestamps feature with jQuery AJAX calls. (Post timestamps are one of the few reliable API data points.) Get a zillion bright ideas about what else you could do with the API data. Go through more actual post data to catalogue all the inconsistencies you’d have to catch. Cry as Tumblr kills the dream you dreamed.

Project #4: Make the dread Tumblr beast FIX a thing

Create a script that runs on individual Tumblr blogs (subdomains of tumblr.com). Browse some blogs with various themes until you've found a post with the upside-down reblog-chain bug and a post with reblogs displaying normally. Note the HTML differences between them. Make the script detect and highlight upside-down stacks of blockquotes. Then see if you can make it extract the blockquotes and reassemble them in the correct order. At this point you may be mobbed by friends and acquaintainces who want a fix for this fucking bug, which you can take as an opportunity to bury any lingering doubts about the usefulness of your scripting adventures.

(Note: Upside-down reblogs are the bug du jour as of September 2019. If you stumble upon this post later, please substitute whatever the latest Tumblr fuckery is that you'd like to fix.)

Project #5: Regular expressions are a hard limit

I mentioned up above that Dreamwidth comments are good guinea pigs for user scripting? You know what that means. Kinkmemes. Anon memes too, but kinkmemes (appropriately enough) offer so many opportunities for coding masochism. So here's a little exercise in sadism on my part, for anyone who wants to have fun (or "fun") with regular expressions:

Write a userscript that highlights all the prompts on any given page of a kinkmeme that have been filled.

Specifically, scan all the comment subject lines on the page for anything that looks like the title of a kinkmeme fill, and if you find one, highlight the prompt at the top of its thread. The nice ones will start with "FILL:" or end with "part 1/?" or "3/3 COMPLETE." The less nice ones will be more like "(former) minifill [37a / 50(?)] still haven't thought of a name for this thing" or "title that's just the subject line of the original prompt, Chapter 3." Your job is to catch as many of the weird ones as you can using regular expressions, while keeping false positives to a minimum.

Test it out on a real live kinkmeme, especially one without strict subject-line-formatting policies. I guarantee you, you will be delighted at some of the arcane shit your script manages to catch. And probably astonished at some of the arcane shit you never thought to look for because who the hell would even format a kinkmeme fill like that? Truly, freeform user input is a wonderful and terrible thing.

If that's not enough masochism for you, you could always try to make the script work on LiveJournal kinkmemes too!

[iatheia]

What does the update look like? Can we really not use xkit? :(

I mean, the update is... to be honest, the main noticeable thing is the font is bigger, and slightly different. There might be a few other things, but I haven't spent long enough exploring it to notice. But, yes, with it, xkit is dead out of the water. The xkit team knows about it, they are working to fix it, but it will probably be a while before a patch is rolled out.

I got enrolled in the beta a while ago, as a "preview" feature that could be turned off. I had it for about 3 months, never switched to it. This morning, without my prompting it got stuck in the "on" setting, so I panicked. Whether the staff has seen my message and decided to spare me (doubtfully, but who knows?), or it was just a temporary glitch, after posting, in a couple of minutes it reverted back to the old interface. For the time being. But it will be coming, sooner or later.

I just can't browse tumblr without xkit enabled, though. Without time stamps, with random blogs I'm not following appearing on the dash, without greying out read posts, tag viewer, et cetera, it is just such a limiting experience. Unfortunately, the beta fixes none of that natively. Even though it really should.

[dine-on-nervine]

I really wish Xkit would fix Editable Reblogs

Have you stayed up past 3 in the morning this week? No, but my thing lately seems to be waking up at 3am. Not getting out of bed unless it's to kill time on the computer, but after an hour of browsing I roll over and usually get some dreamy sleep.

What was on the last sandwich you had? The cuban at Amazon Go. Do highly recommend the sandwich and the store if one of them is near you.

What does the soap you use smell like? Mandarine orange and (very faintly) cedar.

Do you prefer to wrap gifts or use gift bags? I like wrapping gifts but haven't done that much in years.

The last person you spoke to, do you know their eye color? I should by now, since I go to that restaurant every week, but no.

Does anyone you know have their hair bleached? Yeah, a few people.

When you’re on the phone, do you doodle? Nope. My grandmother doodled though.

Is there anyone you know by the name of Frank? A former nephew.

Do you own a trenchcoat? You could say that. It's an Australian duster.

Name the hardiest piece of technology you own? I own many pieces of vintage technology which are more durable than you'd imagine. So for fun, let's say it's a typewriter.

Have you ever written with a pen that had pink ink? Probably.

Do you remember the last thing you took a picture of? A VHS tape at Deseret Industries: training material for Baskin-Robins.

From where you’re sitting, can you turn the lights off? If I leaned hard enough.

When was the last time you accidentally slept in? Twice in the last month or so I had either not set an alarm because I thought I'd be awake well before, or didn't change the PM to AM. In both cases, I was out of bed and out the door in 10 minutes after I realized the time, and made it where I was supposed to be ON time.

The last argument you had, who started it? I don't get into arguments. But I'd say that was a month ago and she both started it and finished it, and now I'm single.

Do you wear a ring on your left hand middle finger? I normally don't wear rings, but the hematite one I picked up in BC goes on my right fourth finger.

Can you remember the title of the song you last sang aloud? "Puppets" by Depeche Mode. The video came up in my Facebook feed from when they did it live on some show in 1981 -- and the sudden realization that you don't watch Fletch play the keyboard.

If a stranger smiles at you, do you smile back? Usually.

Tell me the current time? 6:17PM.

Are you currently listening to music through earphones? Nope.

What color shirt are you wearing? Is it your favorite color? I am naked. Will fix that soon, I need to fuel the car.

Do you own a pair of rubber boots? Not in many years.

Have you ever owned a tire swing? No, my dad would never allow that. I may have at one time had a piece of board with a knotted rope through the middle.

Does anyone you know own a bird that can talk? Nope.

What make-up are you wearing currently, if any? None. Straight male here.

Name one thing you are glad you accomplished today? It will be, in an hour, getting my car fueled. I swung by Costco twice today and it was ridiculous both times.

Name one thing you wished you accomplished today but didn’t? I had no aspirations for the day. I probably should have been scanning photos and I meant to (and still can) text my mother to ask about coming over next month.

Have you ever been afraid to call someone, even if you knew them well? I don't really like calling people unless I'm sleeping with them.

Do you ever not speak to someone because you’re afraid you’ll annoy them? This has happened, because they let me know one way or another that I was annoying them. Unrelated: Then there was the time a friend and I didn't talk for a good period of time because a mutual friend was telling lies to both of us -- she told friend that I wanted to get with her husband (say what?) and told me that friend was too busy to see me when I was in town (when I should have asked directly because I knew the friend had that day off from work).

Is there any drama going on in your circle of friends? I don't have a circle of friends.

Have you ever known a guy who caused a lot of drama? Just one, a former coworker. Happily he's a former coworker and so I don't have to deal with his imaginary trauma anymore. He still comes in every so often and talks to people but I say hi in passing and go away so I don't have to hear about shit no one cares about.

Is there anyone you know who wears their hair in pigtails regularly? Nope.

Personally, do you think you have a nice smile? I think so.

Do you have a nervous twitch? Not that I can think of.

Does the idea of snowpeaked mountains and a large lake sound appealing? I live minutes from these things.

Pick any number that has personal significance to you? No.

Have you ever lost your luggage at an airport? Nope.

Have you ever been on a rollercoaster that actually scared you? Maybe, but I've definitely been on a few that injured me.

Do you know anyone who can fluently speak more than two languages? Likely.

How many windows are open on your computer right now? Just the browser, and only one tab.

Do you have a fairly fast or slow internet connection? It's fast but sometimes takes awhile to actually do anything.

Have you ever gone in a sauna? Yes.

Out of these colors, which appeals most to you: orange, blue, or green? Green.

Have you celebrated your birthday yet this year? Three weeks ago.

Is there anything you’re saving up for? Nothing comes to mind, but I am always saving money for large bills like tire replacements and vacations.

Are you taller than most of your friends? My bestie, yes.

Know anyone with a really annoying laugh? I have a coworker that you can hear coming from the other side of the store. I mean, it's a great laugh but as said, it's obnoxious.

Have you ever punched someone and broke their nose? I don't think I've broken a nose but there was that time I swung and apparently my hand wasn't fisted enough... put a scratch on the guy's face. He learned a Valueable Lesson not to fuck with the wimpy kid.

What is the longest time you have gone without sleep? A couple days.

Have you ever been someplace tropical? Nope.

If given the opportunity, would you act in a commercial? I wouldn’t do any acting. I did used to want to do commercial acting when I was a kid, though. I used to practice and pretend I was making one all the time lol. << I have tape recordings of my fake ads. :)

You see an ant on the ground, do you squish it? Ants are fine. It's other bugs that must go squish.

Have you ever baked a pie? I have!

What is your favorite social networking site? Tumblr.

Who was the last person to call you? Last call no one was there. Previous call was a scammer. Call before that... I forget.

Does anyone in your family tell funny stories? My folks have been better about this. I'm usually the storyteller.

Do you believe in finders keepers in most situations? What was lost, what was found?

Is there a war memorial where you live? A few.

Has anyone in your family fought in any of the wars? Dad was in 'Nam.

Would you make any changes to your current bedroom? I would love to, starting with making it twice the size. But realistically, I have way too much shit in here. The one thing I'd change if I could would be that it never smells like four dogs live downstairs or like I have an open collection of mildewed old magazines.

Has a stray dog ever tried to bite you? Of course.

When riding a bus, do you prefer to sit up front, down back or the middle? Up front, actually.

Have you ever been on a cross-country train ride? Nope.

Are you normally a person to tell people off? Nope. But in my mind I might lash out. :)

Name an object that most would consider odd that’s special to you? The milk carton with Milkwalker on it. Seems I have the only one.

What animal have you always wanted as a pet but couldn’t have? I'd say a cat, since I couldn't have an indoor one when I was a kid and can't have one here due to the four stupid dogs (and the landlady says she's allergic... somehow).

Do you currently have any bugbites? No. Too cold for bugs now.

Is where you live on a boulevard, road, street, or avenue? It’s a cul-de-sac.

Is there currently any caffeine in your system? Of course. But from zero-calorie soda today instead of coffee.

Look around, are things organized? No. I know where things are, but there's no organization.

Know what you’re planning to do after this? I will dress and go fuel the car in 20 minutes.

[codematurgy]

you could definitely say that what follows next is a quarentine diary of sorts, but i’m writing it up here because it relates to theme making in some ways; additionally, i just want to write something positive in the middle of this!

stay safe, of course - if your finantial conditions, likely because of the government of your country and/or your employer being criminals, aren’t good enough for you to stop working, i can’t say i’m exactly praying for you because i don’t have that practice, but i do hope you’ll be fine. this moment shows us how capitalists are willing to treat the working class. mandatory class struggle aside:

for starters shout out to tumblr because i love the new dashboard ok. i’m using the cybernetic palette and i really wish it was available on the app too. of course, my love of it isn’t related to the colors alone - i always thought the dashboard looked a bit messy in structure, so building it again from zero was a fantastic decision. love that i can see the words for image or avatar while the images are loading as well; they really took care of accessibility here, which was already an ongoing process with stuff like page order or focus, etc.

i just wanted to write that shoutout because i’ve seen a lot of people complain about it - mostly because xkit stopped working - while ignoring that the folks at xkit did explain how they’re helping the tumblr developers directly, and in turn their work at rewriting xkit would be even smoother. i don’t think people actually give tumblr developers credit where is due, and i’ve been fascinated with their work ever since i found out about official blogs such as @javascript or @engineering. it also clarified a few problems i’ve had when dealing with the mechanics of reblogs, even if some bits of it still drive me nuts! in a sense, thinking about theme making for tumblr has become more gratifying when you get to understand just what you’re doing. anyway, moving on.

i haven’t really done a lot of “theme making” for the past weeks - i did do a bunch of bug fixes to the npf photosets plugin, but nothing related to designing or creating and so on. it doesn’t mean that creating was completely lost to me, though i did channel it to something entirely different: movie reviews.

yeah. that sounds pretentious, i know.

i’m not a big fan of cash grab movies(read: pretty much most of recent disney work, and anything that feels similarly souless), but i never found the strength to watch the ones that are new and more popular around here; namely, stuff from a24. which is not to say those are bad! i’ve watched my share and they are really good - i’m absolutely enamored with the vvitch, for example. however, i’ve realized that i want to discover new worlds, and not all of them too serious neither constantly bombarding my tumblr dashboard or twitter timeline. people have been doing movies for such a long time and i keep wondering, how many incredible gems i’m missing on solely because i can’t be bothered to look back?

thanks to that, i’m watching movies i never thought i would watch. and more importantly, i’m writing about them - about the things that make them this single, incredible work. much like being in a show’s fandom, i guess, and writing such long metas on it, except i get to write shorter essays because i’m not getting an entire season, ahaha. i had never watched an art film up until now, i think, and although it wasn’t my favorite format from this first experience, it was nice and i’m actually willing to try it again.

one great takeaway from this experience, besides how awesome film-making is, relates to my creations here. a fascinating thing about movies is when their envisioners work to have this coherent, complete piece of work filled with all it needs to be solid, instead of letting these loose threads. this is not in a plot sense strictly, but for so many aspects like choosing to add something to costume, set, or prop design; the choice of a weird but so incredibly telling original score; a photography that goes beyond having a pretty centralized shot and adds weight to every shot... wow, that stuff is unreal, and it is so full of purpose!

this feeling of completeness is one i think i have been working on gradually, but still could do better. i have this terrible process in which i barely have a full sketch for a theme - i just think that i want this one thing and build the whole theme around that detail live on the code instead of actually planning it. i believe that, likely because of this, it feels like my themes are just this tiny design in the middle of a blank website. Chamamento, SETE and Ágora feel like outliers in that sense, even though the process was still chaotic, solely because at one point i actually sat myself down and i said “i want this”.

hopefully, i can take this knowledge with me on the next themes coming around! i don’t know when they will come, but i do have an idea for post styling and another one for a “complete” layout - i’ll try not to merge those in my weird process so it’s not too much information, though. there’s one theme in the works for a while too, which is based on the one i mentioned working on as i first mentioned Temporal, but it’s been reworked into an entirely different beast which i’m quite happy with; mostly because there is no pixel based post size! in fact, i’m considering not having typical post sizes for all next themes, choosing a more typical blog approach. it sounds weird but so far it looks really cool, although probably not as much if you’re doing graphics with set sizes... well, graphic makers were never my demographic to begin with.

and well, on an entirely different note: i keep forgetting that when you have a theme uploaded to tumblr, you can check active installs. actually seeing people using your themes, when before the only way you could see it was by hoping whoever reblogged or liked it had in fact installed it, is so exciting!!! it actually confirms that the people using my themes, or at least using Temporal, are often just your average blogger sharing memes, fanart and talking about the latest podcast - you know the one. it’s a pleasure to be making themes for y’all!

[asgardian--angels]

sorry guys.... i’m not sure what’s going on with my tumblr right now. i find the ‘base’ tumblr webpage extremely infuriating to use and so if i can’t quickly get this back to normal i probably won’t be active very much. i have 60 - yes, SIXTY - Stylish/xkit addons to fix tumblr’s broken dashboard and they’ve just been randomly turned off when on the dashboard (they are active but just, not working? except when on pages like settings and when I go to make an individual post). if anyone else is having a similar issue let me know? i can’t figure out why this has happened.