#happened when the tumblr icon changed

[xxstarl1ghtxx]

WHY IS TUMBLR BLUE

i need my garish pink back tumblr please fix this

[wildwoof]

I only just realized the blog icons are gone from the side of our posts.... wait tumblr why'd you do that???

[pepprs]

god FUCKING DAMN IT i turned off automatic app updates and yet i still awake up and the stupid fucking shop button replaced my blog button. about to throw my phone out the window

[spicyicymeloncat]

Did tumblr murder your icon cause when I look at your blog, you're a little cone thing now

It did but it should be fixed now

[saym0-0]

tumblr vs instagram updates r so silly instagram gets more gentrified every time and tumblr switches rpund the order of a couple buttons just to feel productive

[changes]

A new way to navigate Tumblr

If you use Tumblr on a web browser, you might have noticed us testing a brand new navigation on your dashboard in the last month. Now, after some extensive tweaks, we’ve begun rolling out this new dashboard navigation to everyone using a web browser. Welcome to the new world. It’s very like the old world, just in a different layout.

Why are we doing this? We want it to be as easy as possible for everyone to understand and explore what’s happening on Tumblr—newbies and seasoned travelers alike.

Labels over icons: When adding something new to Tumblr in the past, we’d simply add a new icon to our navigation with little further explanation. Turns out no one likes to press a button when they don’t know what it does. So now, where there’s space, the navigation includes text labels. Since adding these, we’ve noticed more of you venturing to previously unexplored corners of Tumblr. Intrepid!

What’s already been fixed? Thanks to feedback from folks during the testing phase, we’ve been able to make some improvements right out of the gate. Those include returning settings subpages (Account, Dashboard, etc.) to the right of the settings page instead of having them in an expandable item in the navigation on the left; fixing some issues with messaging windows on smaller screens; and streamlining the Account section to make it easier to get to your blogs.

What’s next? We’re looking into making a collapsible version of this navigation and improving the use of screen space for those of you with enormous screens. We’re also working on improving access to your account and sideblogs.

That’s all for now, folks. For questions and suggestions, contact Support using the “Feedback” category. Please select the “Report a bug or crash” category on the support form for technical issues. And keep an eye out for more updates here on @changes.

[sheisraging]

Tutorial: How to Embed Gifs (and get the one you actually want from the set)

There have probably been posts about this before, but since reposting is still a (deeply unfortunate) thing, I figured I'd give this a shot in case it's not a well known trick.

The tumblr Gif tool will allow you to embed gifs directly into your post without saving and re-uploading (reposting) someone else's work.

When you're building your post, just use the yellow GIF icon in the post builder:

You can search here by tag or keyword. If you happen to know one of the tags used on the original post you're looking for, that can narrow things down:

To narrow down to a SPECIFIC post, you can also paste the URL into the search field. This will pull up the very first gif in that set:

If you select that gif, it will pop into your post with a credit and link back to the OP (specifically back to the OPs post with that gif in it):

This is a properly attributed gif embed. The credit on the bottom right points back to the original post:*

Often, the first gif is not actually the one you want to embed, but there is a way to swap the image out for the one you want without losing the source attribution.

*It's helpful to put some reference text near your initial embed so you're able to swap the right image out later on. For this post, I'm going to use that short block right above the embedded gif as a reference.

In another tab/window, go to the OPs post and find the actual gif you want to embed from their set. Right click the image and Copy Image Address:

Once you have the URL copied, go back to your post and scroll to the gear icon at the top:

Open that menu and in the dropdown, where it says Text Editor, swap Rich Text to HTML:

Your post will turn into a bunch of code once you do this. Don't worry, we will change it back.

For this post, I put reference text above that first embedded gif so I could easily find the URLs I need once it becomes HTML. This is super helpful if you're embedding more than one gif. The reference text is highlighted below. This indicated the block that my currently embedded gif lives in:

In order to swap the first gif out for one that's later in the set, you just need to replace the SRC gifv and SRCSET gifv URLs with the image address you copied:

Once you've pasted the image address into these spots, you can go back to the gear icon and switch the Text Editor back to Rich Text:

Your post should return to it's previous, glorious state, but instead of the first gif embedded, you should now see the one you actually want from the set. The credit and source attribution back to the OPs post should remain intact on the bottom right:

This might seem super complicated at first, but it's pretty straightforward once you've tried it, and also a lot less frustrating for gif makers to see this than seeing our stuff just get reposted.

Anyway... If you found the gifs outside of tumblr or you didn't make them yourself, don't save and re-upload (aka. repost) them to tumblr, 'cause someone probably stole them from here to begin with and that's not cool. Search the tags and find the ones you want. Reblog from gif makers. If you want to embed a single gif from a set, try to do it this way, or minimally, credit the person you took it from.

[cyle]

So what is the threshold in declaring whether this experiment is a mistake or not? Do we need to send feedback in daily? Stop using the site altogether? What will actually be counted vs written off as people not liking change?

when we A/B test something, it means that one group of people has the new thing, and one group of people has the old thing. this youtube video is a very quick way of explaining that process, i suggest watching it first here.

in this case, with the new navigation layout, our hypothesis is that the new layout will be more easily understood by more people, meaning we'll see more engagement with the navigation items themselves. like literally, more clicks to the things we now have labels for, when before they were just an icon. and the fact they're in a place that's become more standard across the internet: a left-aligned sidebar.

ideally, that will lead to better retention of new users, and even an "aha" moment for people who have been on tumblr for a long time but never really looked at those different destinations. i've been on tumblr since 2009 and even i've found myself clicking on the inbox and activity more than ever, with the new change.

for us to see the change as a "mistake", we'd need to see statistical evidence to contradict that hypothesis, which we're already tracking automatically for everyone in the test. we'd also need to get an overwhelming amount of feedback to contradict any positive gains we do see. sending in negative feedback daily won't do that.

so if you want the whole thing to go away: we need to see a negative behavior change in potentially millions of peoples' behavior. that has happened before! we've rolled changes back that caused that negative reaction. that's the whole point of these experiments.

and if you want to send us feedback about how the experience is negatively affecting you: please, please do!!! despite the statistical evidence, we want to know if there are accessibility concerns we missed, usability concerns, design considerations, etc etc, because that's why we're running this as an experiment and not just launching it to everyone. that feedback is really important to us, as long as it's constructive.

[jess-total-mess]

I went digging through youtube, old posts, and shitty websites, along with my memories, and here you go! Hopefully these are accurate.

2013 — Unoffical Tumblr event “Mishapocalypse” happened, an online flash mob event wherein which Tumblrinas change their profile pictures to a specific picture of Misha Collins of Supernatural fame.

2014 — Users were given the option to get Tumblr Pro for free, and those who accepted were given top hats on their icons. Prompty after this, @staff announced that “Everyone with a top hat is now marked for account deletion. This is the only way we could destroy this horrible website. Happy April Fools day.”

2015 — The “Executive Suite 2016 Productivity Edition” essentially changed Tumblr into office software, allowing spreadsheets for memes, calculators that gave incorrect answers, and Coppy. Who gave “helpful tips”.

2016 — Tumblr voted to select the “new lizard king”, from Rick, Debrah, Mop and Wretched Tooth. However, more famously, an edited @staff post reads “for april fools we’re deleting this entire site sayonara you weeaboo shits”.

2017 — The Tumblr Horse Game was a feature that, when clicked, took users to a game wherein you had to collect shit from a pixelated horse. If you failed to do so, the horse died.

2018 — The answer to Bitcoin, is Tumblcoin! A parody of crytocurency.

2019 — Tumblr Memories, in which Tumbeasts were set loose. Remember them? The mascot from 2011, for service interruption announcements.

2020 — There was seemingly no prank this year. This was COVID-19.

2021 — Tumblr released “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. There was a supposedly limited amount of them.

2022 — A light switch, when activated, would open up a variety of colourful things on the desktop dashboard, including a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when activated. Other buttons made different sounds.

2023 — A feature similar to the Discord reaction function was temporarily added, using basic emojis.

2024 — Every user was given the option to opt-in to the boop o meter, and could boop, super boop, and evil boop other users who also opted in, earning up to three badges by doing so.

[clockwaysadmin]

The Fic That I'm Not Writing Update Subscription Post

(The title is, obviously, a joke. I am writing this. Just not letting it stress me! It will get a real title when it goes up on Ao3.)

Ship: Dead on Main, Danny Fenton/Jason Todd CW: (updating as the series continues) Canon-Typical Violence, Blood, Minor Injuries

Someone moved into the apartment below Jason's- an apartment that wasn't for rent. Turns out that Danny is is an absolute disaster with the self-preservation skills of a wet paper bag. He's also adorable. Jason takes it on himself to look out for Danny- both as himself and as Red Hood. What Jason could never have expected was for Danny to have plans of his own- plans that involve dating both of Jason's personas. The Goons™️think this is amazing. Good on the Boss and the Boss's boy toy for getting a twink!

All parts are being posted here on Tumblr in their first draft version. This fic is being posted out of order as inspiration strikes. There will be an update given when it goes live on Ao3.

All things related to this fic can be found in the 'the fic that I'm not writing' tag on @clockwayswrites. Major links are below.

Timeline- subject to change and my whims:

I'm (not) writing this hella out of order, as scenes and polls want to be written (the bastards)

Jason discovers Danny

Accidental Sugar Daddying Start

Shopping Montage

Something something something

A fool tries to mug Danny

Self Defense Lessons (Danny realized Jason is Red Hood)

Jason meets feral!Danny

Jason and Danny post RH meeting

The Midterm Zombie

Thirst Trap Lessons

Danny propositions Hood

Jason is Confused™️

Dick meets Danny (snippet)

Goons confront Hood

Hood tells Danny to ask Jason and then panics

Jason says yes

idk some cute relationship shit

Paulina Visits Gotham

Put a Leash on it (it being Danny)

Block Party

Jason whines to Dick

Tim meets Danny

More Bats meet Danny

(will this be the fic I'll finally need to label over T?)

you'll learn more as I don't write

maybe

if I were writing it

Narrator voice: stuff happens

Danny is not a morning person

My writing is better than this list. Of course, I'm clearly not writing this.

How to Subscribe:

Website: click on the ... in the upper right and 'Subscribe to Conversation' App: click on 'notes' in the bottom left then the bell icon in the upper right

(For those very few with ability to comment on this post, DO NOT.)

[vaspider]

Intro Post, updated August 25, 2024

I post all asks as they were submitted. I answer at my whim and not upon demand. I will never honor requests to answer asks privately or anonymously. Anon is never turned on. These are hard self-care boundaries. Please block the tag "harassment tag" if you don't want to see to some of the horrible shit I get sent sometimes.

I will only reblog/repost/boost a given fundraiser once every 7 days. Period. Sending me more asks will not change that. If you only interact with me to ask for signal boosts, I'll just block you with no response. That is the only exception to my "post all asks" policy. I am a person, not a public resource. Don't make me feel used. It's exhausting.

If you like what I do, please consider hiring me, buying something from my company, NerdyKeppie, buying me a coffee, becoming a Patron or tossing some money in my PayPal tip jar. I am a disabled, queer, Jewish, non-binary butch, and those sources plus freelance writing are my entire income.

I will not debate my identity with anyone. I am a transmasculine non-binary butch lesbian, a cripple, a dyke, and lots of other things, too. You don't get a vote in that, and if any of those words are words you object to someone using in reference to himself, block me. I won't censor my identity for your comfort; it took a lot of hard work over decades to become proud of who I am.

ACAB includes gender/sexuality cops. You aren't the mayor of Dyketown, fuck off.

Mom is a job title to me. I'm okay with being called Mama Spider, but no other feminine terms.

No, I am not an anti or an anti-anti. Leave me alone.

No, I won't DM you.

No, I won't answer your question about Israel.

No, I won't talk to you about I/P.

Yes, I've been out for a very long time. No, I'm not interested in being lectured by people half my age over shit that happened when you weren't alive yet.

"Man bad/woman good" is regressive TERF/right-wing shit, it doesn't matter how you dress it up. Knock it off.

Curate your own experiences. If you don't like seeing what I write, then add 'vaspider' to your "filtered content" list and don't bother me about it. Tumblr is a 17+ environment and I am not responsible for you seeing things you don't like. My daughter is an adult. I raised my kid. I'm not raising you or any other kids.

Anyone who tries to turn you on your fellow trans people is a fucking Fed.

My icon has lore, apparently.

I post all asks and anon is never turned on.

[wajjs]

quick guide to tumblr communities

First, FAQ: answering with the state of things as of time of posting (June 6, 2024)

You can't change the banner, description or icon of your community (yet!). If you really must, you can always send a support ticket to staff to get it fixed. The ability to edit things is among the planned future updates to Communities as a whole.

You can't invite sideblogs yet. Invites will only go through to main blogs. You can also invite people by sending them the link to your Community (they are not searchable / free to join -again, yet.)

They're in open beta, so of course bugs will happen. The most common ones seem to be having the log in screen show up when you try to check communities, the notification count not going away unless you close the app, getting 'stuck' on your sideblog and not being able to post from your main. So far the workaround I've found most effective (on the mobile app) is to forcefully shut down the app and then try again. Clearing the cache also helps.

The workaround for getting 'stuck' on your sideblog is posting something to your main blog outside of Communities, and after that going back to your community to post from your main again.

About reblogging to a Community: a quick & easy guide (already shared it in the Community Admin place, but I'm making it rebloggable by posting it here!)

Reblogging to your community, as of right now (June 6), only works using your desktop's browser and/or your phone's browser set to desktop mode. It does not work on the app (yet). It also does not work using the quick reblog option. You have to reblog "the old way", aka opening the post as if you're about to add commentary to it.

There, you have to click the top part where your blog url is, here:

Which in turn should open this drop-down menu:

ALT

Here you just click on the tab that says "Communities", which in turn will take you to all the communities you're part of and will let you choose which one you want to reblog a post to:

ALT

Once that's done, you can add commentary to the post and tags if you want (you don't have to if you don't), and then click on the 'reblog' button.

Now, if you don't have the option to reblog to your community while using your browser, that's a bug and you need to report it.

[electricpurrs]

my life has been greatly improved after i did this and i want to help my fellow mobile warriors, but there are no full clear tutorials on it out there, so im making my own

under the cut there'll be an overly extensive but hopefully helpful tutorial on how to use revanced (of youtube revanced fame) to get a patched version of the tumblr mobile app which can reverse annoying UI changes, get prev tags back, and get rid of tumblr live permanently

first of all, this only works on android. sorry. but that said here we go

firstly go on the play store and turn off Play Protect. you'll generally need to turn off/ignore any safety checks you get, and allow to "download from unverified sources" (dw this process is safe, you can turn these back on after you're done)

uninstall the tumblr app you currently have on your phone (the one from the play store)

download Vanced MicroG and ReVanced Manager. install both. ReVanced Manager will become an app you'll need to use for this

go to this link. generally youre supposed to be careful when downloading apks off the internet, but i can testify the ones from apkmirror are safe

now this is where the magic happens. apkmirror has the apks for ALL versions of the tumblr app, from the most recent one as far back as 2015

this is how you can reverse any changes to the tumblr app you dont like, simply get an apk from before the change was made

the one im currently using is v29.1.1.100

pros of this one:

- the old image viewer (you can click on images to zoom in without the weird transparent background and scrolling taking you to unrelated posts)

- prev tags (aka you can click on a post or a reblog to be taken directly to that version of the post or the reblog instead of just going to the top of op's blog)

- general reversal of recent UI changes, like the DM redesign and the update that made everything smaller and round

having chosen an apk, download it. i heard some people say you should only download and not install it right away, but mine only worked when i had it installed, so it might depend for you

now go to the ReVanced Manager app you downloaded earlier

go to the Patcher tab, and there click on Select and application, there you can select the tumblr apk you just downloaded

there you can see the available patches, simply click on patch and wait until its done

i believe if you did not need to install your apk earlier you can just click "install" and install the patched version right away.

but for me, since i had to install my apk, what i had to do was, once my app was patched, click on the folder icon on the bottom left, save the patched app to my phone files (besides the og one, not replace it), then i went to my file manager, deleted the original apk, THEN installed the revanced version

idk if you'll need to do this but it was a pain for me to figure this out so if it helps someone else 👍

and with that its done! if you manage to install it sucessfully, you can just open the app, log in, and youll see if its working if tumblr live is completely gone and all other changes are applied o7

[maxwapan]

Instead of posting pointless callouts, use your brains.

tldr: some of yall need to learn what a fucking block button is

Genuinely what is so hard about pressing the block button? Like omg I promise no one cares about your fuckass callout posts or rants. Like some of these people are embarrassing as hell. If you get triggered by shit on the internet, it’s YOUR decision on wether or not you want to interact or block and move on with your life. Like brother, i’m not going to throw a fit and freak out over some post that just so happened to contain weird shit on it. You know what I do? I MOVE ON WITH MY LIFE. Because I got better shit to worry about than some random ass fic on tumblr.

You like ddlg? Cool. Doesn’t hurt me or anyone, I don’t care. You like incest? Good for you! You like noncon? Okay! Like do y’all see how easy it is to just smile and nod? Trust, policing what people post and enjoy, is not going to change shit. It’s just annoying as fuck. People pick and choose, because some of the shit you all consume wouldn’t be considered normal either, going by what you all say.

According to all of your logic, blood kinks, knife kinks, gun kinks, piss kinks, and etc. should not be normalized either. Murder shouldn’t be written about, especially gore. Which is fucking moronic, considering how RE is built on violence and gore. Please, learn how to separate fiction from reality.

Many people are fans of iconic slasher films and horror movies. Michael Myers is a rapist and a murderer. But guess what? No one CARES! Because he’s not REAL. I could go on with so much more examples, but you should get the point by now. Hopefully. Dark content is everywhere, why is it now that it’s weird? Makes no fucking sense.

I get that some of you don’t want your precious white boy’s image to be tainted or defamed or whatever, but trust, Leon Kennedy is not reading these fics nor would he care. ‘He’s not a rapist or into incest!’, well he also wouldn’t call you ‘sweetheart’ or whatever cheesy bs fluff fics contain nowadays. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? It’s all OOC. We KNOW he’s not a horrible person or an incredibly affectionate lover, but people write whatever they want. And no one’s going to stop them! Not the posts clogging up the tags or the weird asks.

There’s so much more, but the main arguments that keep being repeated are ‘it’s weird’ and ‘if you write about it, you’re probably going to do it in real life’. That take is so fucking stupid I can’t help but laugh. Same bs as white moms claiming their son is going to shoot some place out just because he plays violent video games. The whole point? SEPARATE FICTION FROM REALITY. And if you don’t like something? IGNORE IT? Why are you willingly engaging like omg are you stupid or dumb.

OH AND. ‘kids could see this!’ When will you all learn that no matter what you do, you cannot control what a person sees or decides to interact with. Especially minors. I’m willing to bet half of a smut writers followers are minors. Guess what? People lie all the time, about their ages and whatever else. It’s the fucking internet, of course they do. It’s not the responsibility of the blog owner to take care of children. The most they could do is plaster a big fat MDNI on their blog, that’s it. It’s the job of the parents to control what their kid watches or consumes, and we can’t exactly help with that. So don’t pretend to gaf about minors like omg.

Anyways. I’m too lazy to continue writing like I just needed to say this because some of you are slow. Me and many others are going to continue to write whatever the fuck we want. In conclusion? Block if you don’t like it LMAO. I don’t care about what some rando has to say on the internet.

[purpurussy]

what is all of this like for post-hiatus phannies?

I've been trying to figure out how to phrase this for a minute. The most obvious comparison would be that it's like starting a TV show 10 seasons in, but that doesn't come remotely close to the amount of required reading necessary to understand even 5% of the references. This has not been a problem for me, as I love nothing more than a good all-consuming hyperfixation rabbit hole, but something I'm realizing is that you really just had to be there to fully Understand.

I got into d&p properly in December of 2023, when gamingmas appealed to my emotionally curious nature and then gave me some kind of irreversible brain damage which I'm still trying to process. Since then I've been consuming their back catalogue as though it's laced with cocaine, and obsessively lurking on phannie tumblr until I finally made this blog a few weeks ago.

-

I actually watched Dan's videos for a little while back in roughly 2013/2014, but something about his content back then just wasn't working for me like it does now (I have such a clear memory of watching Reasons Why Dan’s A Fail and thinking "aw man why does this cute little twink hate himself so much 😔" and then going back to watching Jenna Marbles lmao. Funnily enough it did make me change my negative self-talk a little bit). I was very much a brief casual viewer who went off them pretty much after watching a few videos, and after that I was sort of vaguely aware of them as the cultural icons of the 2010s that they were, but I wasn't keeping up with them at all. 

I don't even remember BIG coming out, which is insane because I've always been extremely chronically online and it definitely broke containment as a cultural moment (although I think I was trying to minimize my social media use at that point in my life, so maybe that's why it went over my head). I feel like I must have heard something about it at the time, though, because I knew they were gay when I started watching them last year. What's really strange is that a lot of this stuff is kinda timeless to me. I don't remember it happening 5, 10 or 15 years ago - I just witnessed it very recently. For a lot of you guys, BIG happened 5 years ago, but I just watched it for the first time a few months ago. At the same time, in my mind they've just always been gay, since I wasn't in the trenches of the unhinged online culture surrounding them in the early/mid 2010s. It's so confusing to balance my weird temporal perception of these events with the impressions that I get from you guys. Oftentimes I have to judge roughly when something would have happened based on their appearances - it's not actually a *memory* for me, like it is for you. I absolutely love the dynamic and branding they have now, and the deep dives into their past are more of a curious exploration of how they got here, rather than actually nostalgic (or, I suppose, mildly traumatic) for me. It’s still very interesting and compelling to me, but because I love the current iteration of Dan and Phil, not because I’m emotionally invested in who they used to be. 

Sometimes I’ll be aware that an event happened, but I won’t realize how monumental it was until I see people talking about it (I hate to say it but I genuinely don't fully understand why the BONCAs thing was so earth-shattering, but like I said, I've always lived in a post-BIG universe, and I think you just had to be there). There are also plenty of references to stuff that's just been lost to time, which I have to piece together with context clues, as well as the more unhinged demonic stuff that I just don't have any interest in exploring whatsoever (I think I might have watched the v-day video if I'd been there when it leaked and I was a stupid teenager, but at this point, I don't even feel any kind of morbid curiosity for it. I just feel really bad for them that it got leaked. Plus, unfortunately, I think I've learned all I need to know about it through internet osmosis here). I feel like a lot of these events have a real emotional meaning for you guys, when to me, they're just interesting/funny/insane anecdotes which give some context to everything. Some of the shit that you guys lived through back then is absolutely wild, and I love and appreciate all of you for meticulously archiving and documenting everything and for being so willing to answer the same questions over and over again! Otherwise I feel like I wouldn't be able to really be part of this community, and posting my silly little memes on this blog is so fucking fun. So thank you all for that.

It seems like this is one of the most ride-or-die fanbases I've ever seen. The fact that they could invent the concept of YouTubers doing world tours, successfully execute that multiple times, branch out into several other ventures, come out as gay not fully knowing how that would affect their careers, disappear for several years and then come back knowing that there would be a solid audience waiting for them even after their virality had died down, drop merch every 3 seconds - I don't know who else can really get away with that, for almost 15 years, in the extremely "live fast die young" culture of internet fame. And I think it's in no small part because you all have chronic "unconditionally supporting dan and phil" disease. (While we’re on the topic, I feel very lucky to have missed the hiatus era. There's kind of a compression in the timeline for me between the gaming channel going dark and Dan starting his WAD tour, where it's like that time just doesn't exist in the Dan and Phil cinematic universe for me. It took me a while to realize how insane it must have been when they came back in full force, I can't even imagine how that must have felt.)

Of course, there's a caveat in that I'm saying this only really knowing about the tip of the demon iceberg. I’m aware of people engaging in behaviours such as doxxing them, outing them and stalking their families, which is horrifying in and of itself, but I don’t know how long it went on for or how many people were involved. I think people are generally pretty well-behaved at this point, and most of the drama seems to be between different schools of thought within the fanbase itself. I assume a big part of the reason for that is people's varying degrees of involvement in (and remaining notion of guilt for) the boundary-crossing behaviour from the old days. Living with the spectre of this insanity is kind of strange - it makes me feel nervous sometimes that I’m gonna accidentally say something that hits a nerve, or cross a line I didn’t know existed, because there’s all this history that I don’t fully understand, beyond just the normal unwritten rules for interacting with fan spaces online. 

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The topic that got me writing this in the first place was the orange heart incident, and everyone’s subsequent meltdown. For me, the excitement in them soft/hard/semi launching is more about me just getting excited about any open, proud expression of queer joy - it heals something inside me every time I hear a man referring to his husband or a woman referring to her wife (excuse the gendered terms, ykwim. gay shit). It's just that sentiment, combined with the fact that I'm parasocially invested in them: I'd love to see that energy from my fave little guys who live inside my computer. I am basically rooting for them to become more comfortable with just talking about gay stuff more openly and candidly, and I guess that would require a bit of a hard launch, although I can understand that they don't want to potentially open the door to excessive questioning regarding their relationship. I feel like it ✨hits different✨ for people who watched them for years before they came out. Like, you guys are rooting for people who you watched in real time struggling with their identities and internalized homophobia for years and years, while to me, they’re just some guys who I’m a fan of. Sometimes I get caught up in the emotional frenzy of their hard-launch breadcrumbs even though I don’t feel quite as insane about it as you guys (I said in some tags a few days ago that it’s like the base instinct to turn around and start running if you see a crowd of people running towards you and screaming in terror, even if you have no idea what’s going on). Anyway, I would love to see them being more gooey with each other, and I am gobbling up the breadcrumbs they're feeding us atm, because I love seeing gay people expressing gay love with no shame 🧡 

I think my perception of them as a couple, or of their sexualities independently, is just kind of an extension of everything Dan said in BIG. I really have no doubt that they're a couple, and I don't feel any kind of weird Catholic guilt in saying that, since I neither witnessed nor participated in the insanity back then. I interpreted (I'm paraphrasing) "obviously we were more than friends, but it was more than just romantic, we're like, actual soulmates" followed by "as for the situation now? we're private people and we'd like to keep that part of our lives private" as him essentially saying that obviously they're a couple, but that their relationship is not part of the Dan And Phil™ Brand. The brand is 2 guys who have great chemistry doing comedy together (5 feet apart even though clearly they are gay and in love). And I think that's a completely healthy decision to make, even irrespective of their history. I think a hard launch would be subtle, and it wouldn’t realistically change the nature of their content that much. 

With that being said, to me, it seems slightly wild for people to adamantly insist they're not a couple, or that it’s “invasive” to assume that they are one (not that that really applies to anyone here, but elsewhere on the internet). If they were a straight man and a straight woman, and there wasn't a huge chunk of people on the internet struggling with this oddly conditioned aversion to seeing them as a couple, then nobody on earth would be insisting that it's weird to assume they're together. Dan confirmed that they became romantically involved around the time they met, and building a forever home with your ex is crazy, that's all there is to it.

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This is kind of a messy stream of thoughts (it ended up sort of becoming 2 essays for the price of 1) and I don't really know where I was going with it. In conclusion I think that day 1 phannies are braver than any US marine and you have all suffered more than Jesus on the cross, and I'm extremely thankful that I get to reap the rewards of your labour now without having lived through the dark ages myself. I also think some of you are holding onto a bit of unnecessary guilt for dumb shit you said on the internet when you were a kid. And Dan and Phil are gay and I love them and I reeeeaaaallllyyy want them to do a podcast so bad because this is all conjecture and I would parasocially love to hear their actual thoughts on it

[halobirthdays]

BY THE RINGS, IT'S HAPPENING AGAIN!!!

THEL 'VADAM'S BIRTHDAY IS ON DECEMBER 10!

In honor of our beloved, best boy's birthday, Halobirthdays is hosting another giveaway!

What does the winner get?

The winner will receive:

One (1) copy of Halo: The Cole Protocol, for a look at Thel before his rise to Supreme Commander.

One (1) copy of Halo: Outcasts, for the Arbiter we know and love (and also the most recent Halo publication).

One (1) color-changing desk light featuring everyone's favorite brothers-in-arms.

One (1) energy sword bookmark (for all the Halo reading you'll be doing).

One (1) Mark of Shame iron-on decal and;

One (1) high-quality print of the absolutely adorable commission by the talented @nagunkgunk.

The cost of shipping will be covered by Halobirthdays.

How do I enter?

I'm doing things a little differently this time.

You must be following Halobirthdays.

One (1) reblog per user will count. Likes do not count. If you would like to reblog to spread the word (which I appreciate) but do not want to enter, please let me know via message or in the tags.

You must have an address within the contiguous United States.

You must be eighteen years or older to enter.

When will a winner be selected?

This will run from the moment of this posting until 12:00AM EST on December 11, 2023. After that, the entries will be tallied and a winner will be randomly selected as soon as possible. Halobirthdays will contact the winner via Tumblr direct message. The winner has 24 hours to come forward and claim the prize. If they do not come forward, a new winner will be randomly selected.

Please make it clear that you are not a bot by tagging the post, and/or adding an icon and banner to your blog. It's not required, but reblogs and from suspected bot or giveaway accounts will be blocked.

Fine print below the cut:

This event is not affiliated with Tumblr.

This event will run until 12:00AM EST on December 11, 2023. One (1) winner will be randomly selected.

By participating, you affirm that you meet and agree to the terms and conditions set forth herein.

If a winner is selected but is found to not meet the eligibility criteria, they forfeit the prize and another winner will be selected.

Any issues regarding shipping once the prize has been mailed shall be settled between the winner and the carrier service. Halobirthdays will make a conscientious effort to ensure that the prize arrives undamaged. However, Halobirthdays shall be held blameless for any lost or stolen prizes, damage, and/or shipping delays during transit.