#about tumblr

[myothertardisisonthemun]

Tumblr keeps working on features that no one's gonna use.

What I would rather have

Clicking on names takes you to that exact reblog again

When you click a tag while on someone's blog, it takes you to their posts taged that, not just any post

A return to a better layout, not the same generic Twitter ish one that's popping up on all social media

[writing-is-a-martial-art]

For new users:

You are in the Ball Pit. You always begin in the Ball Pit. Everything has begun in the Ball Pit, and some say that is where everything shall end. The Ball Pit is not bottomless, although it has no end - the Ball Pit simply is. Everywhere. Always. 

You try to find your way out of the ball pit - you swim, but the slippery plastic spheres do not let you make much progress. You try to walk, but the hard surface of the balls bruises your arms, hands, face. In the end, you waddle on all fours, gripping to the bottom of the pit with each step. You feel silly, at first, but the thought quickly leaves you. You are as happy as a child, a small creature making its way through the underbrush. You do not carry the burden of pride. 

You wander until you hear  rustling. You stop and listen and look, and a person passes by you, dressed in a large hoodie, their hair dyed blue. They're going on all fours, like you, but, unlike you, they seem confident in their movements. Another person is moving in their direction - you can see their silhouette through gaps between the balls and the light that passes through the plastic. The two stop, look at each other. 

"I like your shoelaces," says the one you cannot see.

"Thanks, I stole them from the president," answers the blue-haired one. 

The two giggle, stand up and hug, and you want to warn them about the bruises, but they seem not to notice. 

They walk away, their steps light, hands wrapped around each other's shoulders. Their conversation gets muffled in the Pit. 

'I wish I could do that', you think, and then you think: 'I'm glad they're having a fun time'. Something unfurls in your chest. The balls around you do not feel as heavy on your back. You continue on your way. 

Smoke passes through the Pit, a sweet smell of something that isn't a fire or cigarettes. You hear laughter and bits of a conversation. You follow the sound and the smoke and soon you see three women are talking and laughing and passing around a joint. The smoke is so dense it pushes away the balls, creating a sphere of open space around them. 

"Hello!," you say, "I'm terribly sorry, but do you know how to leave the Pit?" 

They all look at you. They look at each other. They laugh. 

"There is no leaving the Pit, silly," says the one to the left. 

"You take the Pit with you wherever you go," adds the one on the right. 

"So make yourself at home, honey." smiles the one in the middle. 

You nod and stutter and shuffle away. 'What strange women,' you think, the idea of this being home so foreign it couldn't possibly settle. 

You walk and walk and walk some more, until you stumble upon - and almost trip over - a creature.  With its small, roundish shape you almost mistook it for a ball. 

"Have the best day, stranger!" it looks up at you with kind eyes, "may all your days be the best."

"Thank you, uhh… " 

"Snom!"

"Snom. Do you know how to get out of the Ball Pit?"

The creature makes a confused sound - a terribly cute one, you must admit. "What is a 'Ball Pit'?"

"Where we are now. This place-" you try to make a sweeping gesture, but find it difficult because of all the balls. 

"Are there other places besides this one?" the creature turns its head to the side, questioning. 

"Yes, of course! There's cities, and countries all full of people."

"And where are they?"

"Where?... On planet Earth, I guess."

"And this planet, is it a ball?"

"I- well, sort of, I guess so?"

"Then it must be somewhere in the Ball Pit!" a happy Snom jumps up and down, "follow me, I'll help you find it!"

You follow the creature, unsure of how a planet could fit somewhere in here, but still grateful for the help. 

Before you can take more than a few steps, an old, rickety bus zooms out of the depths of the pit and screeches to a stop right in front of you. There's something written on the side of it, but before you can read anything after 'DOWN WITH' the doors slam open, and a group of people with matching shirts jump out, look you up and down, make a few 'humph' sounds and drag you inside. One of them smiles at Snom, who waves their tiny paw at you in a goodbye. The bus doors shut. 

"Please!" you say, "I- I haven't done anything, and nobody would pay much for me, please, just-"

"I can see you haven't done anything," says the person nearest to you. Your eyes adjust to the dim lighting, and you are almost sure they have the same blue hair and large black hoodie as the one who said they stole shoelaces. "Have you tried any pronouns? Dyed your hair a fun color? Tried wearing a suit and make-up together? Come on, live a little!"

"I… " you stop, because you haven't dyed your hair, and you haven't tried any names or pronouns aside from which you were given, and now that they mention it, it might not be so bad, at least to get these people to leave you alone.

"Come on, dear," says a person in a rainbow-colored wizard robe, and you realize that the black mass crawling near them is hundreds of rats, "let me do your make-up."

You decide not to argue with a gang that has a rat-summoning wizard in it if they seem to just want to mess with you a little, and so you sit at the offered spot and let them do their thing. 

While they choose their tools and pick colors palettes (they tried asking for your opinion on them but you kept saying 'yes' to everything so now they're just doing their thing), you look around the bus. The light is colored and muted by the plastic balls and then made even more sparse by passing through the bus windows, but you notice a normal-looking person clinging to the arm of a giant wolf-like man-beast. 

You wave at them. The person grins. The wolf? man? creature??? growls. 

"Are you… okay?" you lean forward and whisper to the person. 

"Oh absolutely," they answer instantly, " This is my werewolf boyfriend!! He *** and ****** in my ****** until I ******* and then it ****** all over the place! I love him so much."

"Wow. Good for you," you say and lean back, trying to banish the mental image. This must not be healthy, right? I mean, that's practically a beast. And that whole….interaction…. sounds pretty painful. But the way the enamored person looks up at their partner doesn't make it seem wrong. Some new warmth settles in your chest. 

"There ya go, dude!" the wizard shows you the result of their work in a reflective orb they fetch out of their sleeve. Your jawline looks sharper, your lips colored dark purple. 

You don't look like you always do, but you do look like yourself. A strange feeling, on par with the strange place. You can't say you hate it. 

"Thanks, uh, dude," you say, and carefully, all so carefully, not to anger the rat wizard or the lycanthrope fellow, stand up. Nobody's holding you back or trying to stop you. 

"How're you feeling?" The blue-haired person asks. 

"Alright… good, I think. "

"Great! " they clap and usher you to the door, "now you better leave, we still need to get our favorite wizard to the skeleton war. Have a good one!"

With that, they practically shove you out of the bus and back into the multi-colored mess of the Ball Pit. You watch as the bus powers its way away. You didn't ask them about the exit.

You walk, the balls bouncing out of your way - this used to be harder, hadn't it? The orbs feel kind of  like you would imagine the inside of a fizzy drink to feel if it was dry. 

Out of nowhere, a red dodgeball hits you on the head. You hold it and stare at it, scratching the forming bruise. "What in god's name?... " you mutter. 

"You should say something interesting now," says a leisurely, melodic voice. You look around and spot a radiant young man in a tunic leaning against some of the balls. You were not aware one could do that. 

"Uhm… I? I think it might rain on Thursday?" you figured out it's best not to argue with people here. 

The man sighs. "Prophecy wasted," he mutters and turns to leave. 

"Wait! Do you know how to leave the Ball Pit?" you shout before he disappears. 

"Why would you do something so useless, waster of gifts?" he shrugs without turning back. The dodgeball is still in your hands. 

You walk some more. Your feet are getting sore and you're just this side of exhausted, so when you see a small stone shrine you sit down, leaning against its warm wall. You nap, and, once you feel your fatigue lift, leave your dodgeball at the shrine's base as a small offering. 

"Apollo's gift? That's a new one." you hear a voice in your head. "I'm afraid I cannot offer you anything-"

"There you go again, old fellow," another voice cuts the first one off, " we both know you can offer plenty."

"Not as much as you."

"Oh, much more than me. But we must be scaring the young'un. Hello, little one! I'm Arepo, the god of everlasting friendship, and this is the god of Every Humble Beauty in the World."

"You, introducing me all fancy and leaving scraps of your own title... At least know, little one, I am also the god of Arepo."

You nod, not entirely sure why one god would be the god of another, or why the gods of everlasting friendship and humble beauty would share a temple, but your rest was sweet, and the two sound kindly.

"Do you know if there is any end to the Ball Pit?" you ask the two. 

"I do not think so,," says the God of Every Humble Beauty and Arepo, "but I'm not sure there should be."

You nod and thank them, and continue on your journey. After what feels like a few hours or perhaps a few years, you see something ahead. Blue, light pink, bright pink. The evening sky. 

You stop and stare. The sunset is beautiful. The sunset must mean an exit. The end to the Ball Pit. The end of your journey. It wasn't all that bad here, was it? 

You take a step forward. Another. One more. You squint, and laugh, and sigh, and run your fingers along the mural. 

From the lightest periwinkle to burning red to the almost-black of deep in the night to light blue again. Where the mural ends, instead of an artist's signature, the friendly lettering asks you 'Do you like the color of the sky?'.

You do. You do like the color of the sky. 

Light passes through the balls, and you wonder how they ever felt restricting, floating around you like colorful fireflies. You can see for miles ahead, a space filled with bizarre people doing even more bizarre things. 

You take a deep breath. Step forward.

You are no longer trapped in the Ball Pit. 

[herzloch]

please share this if you have the same feeling or made an experience like that yourself

let's unite and raise awareness! put some pressure on Tumblr!

[suspiciousspidey]

How to Block/Filter Out Certain Tags

Hello, some people are being silly geese and sending hate to people posting fanfic content that they don't want to see.

Keep in mind, your media consumption is your responsibility.

But I understand everyone has triggers, icks, and things they don't want to see or read. So...

Here is a step by step guide to block posts with certain tags on Tumblr mobile app.

1. Go to your account, and tap on the little gear in the top right corner.

2. After tapping on the gear, you will find yourself at the account settings page with everything about your account and it's settings. Tap on the first option, account settings.

3. Once in account settings, you'll want to go down and tap on "Content You See", which is where you can have more control over the content that is viewable to you on Tumblr.

4. YAY! We are now where you can edit what is visible to you on Tumblr. You can simply filter out certain tags, or you can also filter out specific content and content types as well. Go wild! Customize your viewing experience if you wish.

And you're done!

1. For You: this is curated content tumblr thinks you will like. It's algorithm based.

Another thing to keep in mind: dashboards! If you don't filter out tags, you may see things on your dash you don't wish to. There are three different dashs on Tumblr.

2. Following: this is posts and reblogs from people you follow!

3. Your tags: exactly how it sounds, these are posts with tags you follow.

Hope these tips and information will help you enjoy and know a bit more about Tumblr. Instead of sending hate to creators, maybe try these steps first.

[fraddit]

Okay, tumblr just prompted me to look at some new settings they've just added on desktop, and I'm glad I clicked the "fine show me" option, because all of these are set to hide as the default. So, yeah, be aware of that, I guess...

[cutebendy]

Yaaay!!!!!!

[wanderingaldecaldo]

Really @staff @staffs-secret-blog? You're recommending me spam p*rn in a tag I follow? When people I know try to use the mature feature that YOU ADDED and their posts get bonked?

Do something about this spam bot problem, and stop bonking people for using tags properly.

[novasintheroom]

Out of genuine curiosity...

[akindplace]

Sometimes I look at some mutuals on my dash rebloging wholesome things and I am like "yes! They're here! They're okay, they are trying and I am glad to see them, yes share that positivity" and other times you might be posting stuff about struggling and feeling like you're losing it and I am here holding out hope you get better and cheering for you even though I live thousands of miles away. I hope you know that. I am working on being less awkward and anxious about talking to people, so I hope one day I can reach out more often to people here without feeling like I am annoying them. I am cheering for you. I enjoy seeing you here. I am glad you are trying. Even though we've never met in person, it makes me happy to know that people out there are trying. It gives me hope.

[amazingdrk]

[sincericida]

What the hell is going on with Tumblr? Within 12 hours, I blocked and reported 47 spam bots. 47 fucking spam bots! Where is the Tumblr staff to take action on this instead of blocking our posts where an butt appears?

[tinekrik]

my first attempt at giomis and it goes wrong so i ended up drawing diego, reason¿ I don't know, I love Diego

I would appreciate it if you share my drawings

[tuliharja]

Ugh. I really, really dislike what Tumblr has done to the desktop version of the website. (I feel like they've gotten rid of the desktop version of Tumblr because the interface these days looks and feels very mobile-like.) Not everybody uses their phone to view Tumblr and its content. (Where I can turn off this mobile-like interface on my desktop or is it even possible anymore?)

[iii-days-grace]

oh i HATE this new thing where clicking the prev URL doesn't take you to the prev reblog

'more intuitive for new users' my ass. give us a permalink or something or perish

[eggfruit]

why in tumblr mobile I can't click notification to see the reply? it just takes me to the replier's blog..

Because... Tumblr is... a little odd. But! There are many posts on this website than can teach you how to pilot your account! I hope this isn't too late and that you found your way! Hope your holiday(s) were special if you had any this month! :D

[luckykittens198]

The thing about tumblr is that sometimes you just scrolled down everything and saw someone you followed got a new hyperfixation.

When this happens often enough, you got interested to see what that hyperfixation about and check the original works.

Then, that became your new hyperfixation.

Rinse and repeat