#i had to rewrite this whole post because Tumblr crashed the first time around

[potato-sauce]

Sometimes I wonder if the people at Hasbro/the people who sit down to make the official transformers stuff are aware of the affect it has on the community

Like do they do something in a show and sigh to themselves like "sigh, the ship wars are NOT going to survive this"

On the contrary do they make it more zesty on purpose? Idw mtmte absolutely had to, i refuse to believe it was accidental

Like that one panel where Ultra Magnus and Megatron are like an inch away from eachother, YOU KNOW WHAT IM TALKING ABOUT

THIS GAY ASS SHIT??

YOU DONT DO THAT ON ACCIDENT, YOU DONT JUST DRAW THAT WITHOUT THE SLIGHTEST "These guys should kiss" IN THE BACK OF YOUR HEAD

Do you think James Roberts was like rubbing his hands together like, "muhahaha yes, by the power invested in me, the god of this world, I MAKE YOU GAY" and hits them with the gay beam???????

Not complaining I love it but I would love to know what the creators think about the sheer ammount of transformers porn that they were ultimately the cause of

[flower-boi16]

https://www.tumblr.com/flower-boi16/774678304341016576/i-thought-you-already-learnt-in-literacy-class

yeah, the issue isn't wanting the show to have a moral spelled out at the end or even that stol1tz is problematic.

the issue is that the show outright romanticizes its problematic ship - it isn't trying to be some character study of two messed up people without wanting the audience to come to any conclusions. It's blatantly obvious that the show is designed to make the audience think two things:

one: Stolas is only a tiny bit not really flawed and is basically the innocent wronged party in the relationship breakdown and 99% of the problems were caused by Blitzo and his insecurities and selfishness

and two: they actually want us to root for Stol1tz to work out.

and anyone who points out that they have no chemistry or that how Stolas started and continued the whole affair is textbook sexual extortion (something which the show has completely swept under the rug and refused to address) somehow gets accused of being a puritan or having low media literacy? even though critics are ones actually paying attention to the details that suggest stol1tz is a car crash waiting to happen and Stolas has been nothing but babied through the entirety of s2?? make it make sense

absolutely nothing about their duet in mastermind reads ironic, it's all terribly trite and sincere in expecting the audience to think their romance is tragic and moving. there's no reason to think the show is all that interested in exploring the dynamics of a messy relationship because the show outright refuses to meaningfully discuss the worst and messiest part of it except in passing i.e. the transactional deal. ffs, they spent all of apology tour calling Blitzo and Stolas "exes" when they never even dated. the show is outright rewriting its own history solely to avoid talking about the messy stuff because it would make Stolas look bad

also it's incredibly rich that people keep pulling out the "you just want a morality tale where you're told what to think, and that's bad writing!" card when this is literally what apology tour was. the show was outright screaming at the viewer to think that Stolas is the victim, that Blitzo is way worse than s1 had built him up to be and that Blitzo needed to apologize. the whole thing is structured around the moral of Blitzo needing to apologize and Verosika outright saying the point of the episode: "if you wanna change, say good for him (when he runs off to make out with someone else first chance he gets after claiming he loved you)"

I mean Blitzo basically says to the camera "the only reason I rejected Stolas was because the class difference made me insecure and I push away everyone who could care about me". it's incredibly blunt, garbage obvious storytelling

the writing isn't subtle at any other time (cough cough, Stella, cough) but suddenly when it comes fans asking why the writers aren't calling Stolas out for basically any of his shit suddenly the show is treated like some nuanced high art character drama where no one is allowed to openly discuss the sexual extortion shaped elephant in the room.

and it's blatantly not that. the closest helluva ever got to well done storytelling was in s1 and Viv flushed all that down the toilet the minute s2e1 happened

I still find it amazing how my post critisizing the fandom for not knowing what the actual critiques of the show are still holds up today. These are the kinds of fans that pretend that the highest amount of hard-hitting critique for Helluva and Hazbin comes from randos on tumblr when the critisicm these shows get extends far more than just tumblr. If anything, tumblr is less than a FRACTION of the people voicing their issues with the show.

And, if you actually payed attention to discourse surrounding the series on other platforms, mainly youtube....you would find people have far more nuanced critiques than "PROBLAMATIC = BAD!!!".

HELL, Sarcastic Chorus, one of the most popular Youtuers discussing the series, initially liked Stolitz BECAUSE of the problamatic elements, but he stopped carring for it because the show WASN'T ACTUALLY ADDRESSING THEM!!!!

But these fans focus more on trying to strawman critics rather than actually trying to meaningfully engauge with disscussion on the issues with the shows.

Because they can't handle people critisizing their favourite demon show.

[creatively-cosmic]

Hi Starry, I’m back! :D

I’m glad you like the questions and that they aren’t annoying, because every bit of lore I read is like a taking a shot of dopamine lmao. And that picture of Fire getting a hug 🥹 brightened up my whole day. Trust me when I say that you guys reposting pictures and adding content to older ones isn’t obnoxious in the slightest. The art (at least for me) makes it easier to digest and form connections about the story in my head, plus y’alls art is great—who wouldn’t want to look at it? The lore/art in the last one was particularly interesting. (Like, young Red looks like such an polite, upstanding citizen and then you scroll down two pages and now it’s like “Tf you lookin crazy for”? Was that an implication that Steven had something to do with Red going missing/becoming Glitchy? And Leaf is funking DEAD?-)

Anyways, you know what that means! Question time: Leaf Edition!

The First (and most obvious) question: What happened to Leaf? Why is the homegirl dead? (Why was Leaf being dead, out of all the things I’ve seen so far, the one thing I wasn’t expecting?)

Second: What’s the relationship between Leaf, Fire and Blue? You said that Blue and Fire’s murder-suicide loop was spurred on by her death, so were they friends before she died? Did they see it?

And two smaller questions: How tall are the main four (Red, Blue, Fire, Leaf)? And do they have Pokémon Teams? If so, what are their teams looking like?

That’s all till next time! Have a good day/afternoon/night wherever you are!

TUMBLR FUCKING CRASHED HALFWAY THROUGH ANSWERING THIS ASK IM SO MAD FUCK. FUCKKK

We honestly can't thank you enough for all your questions, compliments, and just overall being a huge sweetheart. We're really happy you've been enjoying these, and whatever dopamine you get from seeing these, we probably get like. TENFOLD, just for seeing someone so interested, and giving us a chance to talk about this wild ride of a story. So really- thank you. This has been a delight!

This one is gonna be REALLY long (I have to rewrite fucking HALF OF IT now DAMMIT), as we want to talk on the stuff you crossed out, too.

(I'll put their heights and teams in a follow-up post btw, so watch for that.)

1. Red.

Young Red is an interesting point in time. See, he and Blue had a LOT in common- a lot more than you might think. Of course, Red was a good kid, genuinely- always so caring for his Pokemon, kind and passionate about them. He was polite to the people around him, and always soft spoken, when or if he spoke at all. The adults around Kanto and his hometown always adored him for how well mannered he seemed- a real role model, and stand up child. Just a bit shy.

In all truth though, Red moreso had a very strong mask. One that he only dropped, allowing himself to relax and act like himself around one person: his best friend, Blue.

Both of those boys were a lot more immature and competitive with each other- the main difference being Blue didn't hide it like Red did. They LOVED competing, always trying to one up each other in everything they did. When they were together, Red wasn't afraid to speak his mind, signing or whispering to his friend with a smug grin on his face. Around his friend, Red could really be himself, and they both loved it. Having so much fun, roughhousing and taking jabs and just being children around each other. A lot of people, when seeing this, would assume Blue- who was always rude and a bit more standoffish- was a bad influence, but really, the two couldn't be happier than they were with each other.

... When you spend God knows how long, trapped in a dimension with no human life, desperate and angry with unholy forces eating away at your mind, will, and sanity. Let's just say masking doesn't end up staying a necessary skill. A good portion of why Red being Like That now is honestly? Just because he just gave up on trying to make himself presentable.

He has bigger problems now than worrying about how people see him, anyways.

2. Steven.

I'll try to keep this short, as the Strangled Red elements of this story could warrant it's own post entirely.

To put it simply: Steven is, in part, directly responsible for Red's fate.

It wasn't HIS decision, mind you. He barely even thinks for himself anymore. But there were things that wanted Red, and Steven is very suggestible when it takes the right approach. So it lays itself out so simply.

Red trusted Steven, after all. Idolized him. Missed him. Would follow him anywhere. What better possible option could there be?

Of course Steven is the one to drown that boy on the coast of Cinnabar.

3. Leaf. (cw for animal death.)

Finally, the star of the show for this ask (as if this isn't long enough already). I can see why the information for her is more supriding as we haven't posted as much for her, which. We do feel bad about- our ability and motivation to make art for her was severely hindered by our struggle (I'm talking MONTHS) to make a design for her that we were happy with. Her story is WELL figured out, though, so we're glos we get to discuss! And now that her design is actually finalized, there should be more visual stuff for her coming.

So what happened?

Well! As is the entire premise of Missing Numbers, each major individual is based off of various Pokepastas. The easiest way to answer that is one of two of Leaf's sources:

Abandoned Loneliness.

But first, we have to go further back.

Fire was not the only Vessel made by the Almighty.

... He was the first, and the favorite. But he wasn't the only one. Leaf was the other.

Once Fire had come to Palette town, the next Game was set to begin any time now. But as the Almighty looked down on the world, He looked back at the others that had been built, and realized that the new Kanto was missing something. An alternative option. Though He was reluctant to change the structure of the world, it was, by all means, an improvement, and something the Players would expect after the past Generations.

She was less meticulously made than her brother. She kept her Heart and Mind about her, as there wasn't time, nor was it safe, to rid her of them like Fire. She would serve well enough as a Vessel regardless- and she did, as when the Game began, Leaf was chosen as the player's Avatar. (Not quite what the Almighty had expected, but the choice had been given for a reason, so it would be foolish to change anything now...)

Blissfully unaware of the nature of her existence, Leaf proceeded to go on a triumphant adventure through Kanto.

This is a good time, before we get back to the tragedy, to answer your second question!

Leaf, Blue, and Fire's dynamic changed throughout their journey through Kanto. At the beginning, let's just say things were... Tense.

Fire acted hollow, in the beginning, as he was meant to. Genuinely, it was fully expected that he'd be chosen as the players Avatar. So without it, he was left... Quiet and cold. It seemed he didn't care for anyone- not Blue, nor his sister.

Blue, meanwhile, was NOT in a good headspace. But at this point, after about two years passed since Red's dissapearance, he'd learned to hide those feelings. The people of Palette town, including his Rivals, knew him as this bitter, irritable person, resentful towards the world for incomprehensible reasons.

Leaf was the only "normal" one, basically. A cheerful, excited girl, whose heart bled for everyone she cared about and always tried to stand for the right thing. She didn't know where she came from... She had no memories of her life before "Red" and Hazel (Fire's mother) Yuuji found her, seemingly abandoned in the tall grass just outside of Palette Town, under the falling autumn leaves. Taken in as a part of their family, she grew attracted quickly, her loyalty and love and impulsive need to protect coming to be what she was known for.

With all this given, when the journey started. Leaf HATED Blue- he seemed to despise and bully her brother more than anyone. Blue didn't like Leaf much either, but wasn't as harsh towards her as he was Fire. Fire was as... Neutral as ever. But he silently followed the two once they went out, almost as if he wanted to watch over them. Ensure their safety.

As the journey continued, over time, away from the stuffiness of their hometown, the three started to grow closer. Maybe the fresh air was doing Blue good. Maybe Leaf was learning more about the world. Maybe Fire's deep brown eyes were growing warmer.

Somehow, a death was the tipping point for all of them to finally become friends. It's absurd, how grief was the thing driving them apart, but ultimately went to bring them together.

When Blue's Raticate died, he quickly fell back to his lowest point. Angry and hateful and heartbroken, lashing out, and ultimately running away. ... But it put everything in perspective. Through all her guilt (it was in a fight against her, after all, that the Raticate had been so severely injured), Leaf suddenly understood why Blue had been so horrible before: he was mourning. And he needed someone. It didn't make her forgive him, but it made her extend a hand.

And for once, knelt over the grave of a lost Pokemon, Blue accepted it. From that act of kindness, Blue genuinely began to get along with the others, and slowly, the trio came to be friends- all the way up to and after the Championship, where despite losing again, Blue felt closer to the others than ever.

... It seems in this world, good things don't last.

The events of Abandoned Loneliness happened several months after Leaf became champion. When revisiting Raticate's grave with Blue, Leaf came across a peculiar Pokemon- a horribly sickly little Eevee, too weak to even cry. Leaf had never been the kind to leave a Pokemon in need to fend for itself- kindly, she took the little stray into her care, determined to nurse it back to health.

The properties of Glitched or Corrupted Pokemon aren't something I need to dive into right now this is already ungodly long. What's important is that the Eevee was not a natural Pokemon. It should've been dead.

It always starts with a Pokemon that should've been dead.

Let's just say... Everything unraveled from there. Fully explaining what the events of Abandoned Loneliness translates to in Missing Numbers isn't something I have the energy to write at the moment (this is so long and I've been putting off finishing it cause I'm still mad all my initial writing got deleted >_<).

The important part comes down to Leaf's demise at the hands of this "curse." Bonded to that sickly little Eevee, when the world pushed her to put it out of its misery- voices of the damned screaming, unbearable, suffocating, demanding she DO IT DO IT DO IT, you can't bear to watch it suffer anymore, after all... The destiny bond it held her in dragged her down with it.

Nobody witnessed her death. She was alone and isolated at the foot of a mountain. She thought she could solve everything herself. Thought she could handle it all.

Her body was only found days later, curled up on the ground, rotting blood seeping from her eyes, with the body of the poor little Eevee in her arms. Trapped and suffocated by the hands that killed it. It was far too late. To maje it worse, her friends were the first to know of her death.

Fire was the one who found her body, after all.

Leaf's demise was a SEVERE breaking point, and unlike Fire, she didn't get a chance to be revived by God. Her modern presence in the world was not... Authorized, let's just say. Leaf had to claw and fight to keep hold of herself and climb back to existence in ways unprecedented, and believed to be impossible. But despite being a corrupted entity, her body was stable. And so, rather than Smite her as he would other Glitches, the Almighty decided to make good of an unintended situation: He could make use of her. A man on the inside is a powerful tool, after all.

So long as He kept her anger for her fate targeted towards the "true" threats.

I could keep going but I've babbled on way too much already for this post lol. I'm so sorry about the delay on this one- life REALLY got in the way. And Tumblr's buggy ass mobile app 💀

hopefully i can elaborate more without any crashing in the next round if there is one ashfshf

[tharros-auris-black-asimi]

B: Any of your stories inspired by personal experience? K: What’s the angstiest idea you’ve ever come up with? L: How many times do you usually revise your fic/chapter before posting? M: Got any premises on the back burner that you’d care to share?

Ohmygosh! Thank you for the asks!

B- Indeed one is! My Mob!Lance, chapter three where Lance and his wife go to her grandfather's Hmong funeral, yeah, that chaos was based on personal experience. I don't have Purple, which is the title of the fic on Tumblr, but I have it on my AO3. And if you'd like, but ya don't have to, you can read it here! My dad's side during the funeral was chaotic asf. The only changes are that I'm not married to Mob!Lance, nor am I preggo with his child.... lol.

K- I think the angstiest thing that I've come up with is the Stucky/Reader Mob fic I'm currently rewriting. It'll be a 2.0. But the premise of the plot is basically, the three of them used to be a throuple in high school until Steve and Bucky's parents died in a car crash. Around the same time, the Reader's mom went missing and she turned up dead. So her dad, (who's Alexander Pierce in this AU), basically told Stucky to back off from his daughter. So like... I guess you could say they were manipulated into breaking up with her. Anyhow, the Reader ended up pregnant with their baby and now, eleven years later, Stucky are big scary mob bosses and the Reader's her dad's hitwoman. The three of them end up colliding again because of a mob wedding, and shit hit the fan basically. It gets worse before it gets better.

L- I usually look it over twice. I use Grammarly to catch any spelling errors, but usually when I reread, I usually find at least one or two. I'm not the best at editing, lol.

M- Ooooh, do I!

The first idea that I was thinking of was a CEO!Loki. I'm a sucker for TaserTricks, and honestly, I curse the MCU every day for not giving us /one/ Darcy and Loki interaction. It's set in a modern AU and Loki's Darcy's sugar daddy. I've also never written for Loki before... so if the idea gets up and running, I'll decide if I wanna post it to Tumblr too. AO3 is a no brainer. I probably should transfer more stuff from AO3, but honestly, I have too many insecurities to transfer the things I've written for Lance Tucker over here. The man's a whole warning. I've taken that man and made him a feminist and a simp for his Wifey.

And speaking of Lance Tucker, I had another idea in mind for him too! I've been experimenting in the monsterfucking area recently, and a Minotaur!Lance is something I've been thinking about! Maybe a Christmas Special? I've got a vague plot for that, but honestly, I dunno if it'll have an actual plot. But, I'm still at the drawing board for that story.

[butshewantstofight]

I was creeping and I saw you said you had a theory on why Harries are acting the way they are rn.... and id like to hear it lol 👀

I don’t know if it’s so much of a “theory” as much as watching a long...excruciatingly slow...car crash happen. lol  So, get comfy. I’m going in...

If we’re all gonna be 100% real there’s been a little pocket of toxic Harries since XFactor and they have never liked Niall. It started with posting all over social media that he was ugly...and moved right onto “he doesn’t belong in 1D” They drug him for looking 12 and having crooked teeth and his bleached hair...being scrawny. They hadn’t even gotten off the show yet. 

Moving on...1D went away to record and during that time Niall got braces and Directioners REALLY became a thing. Harries went a bit quiet. Because if they got salty...they had 4/5 of the fandom on their ass. Now they started low key dragging Niall (and Louis)....but sprinkled with some “haha” so they could say it was a joke. 

Moving on again.....something shifted around mid to late 2013. Everyone was shipping and now a big chunk of these Harries became....Zarries. They only had to post about Harry and Zayn. If they didn’t post about the other three no one noticed. They continued to be shady always framing it as “jokes” BUT now accounts started showing up on twitter and Facebook. I remember one in particular on Facebook. I think it was called “Niall doesn’t belong in 1D” Run by a Harrie. Charming. 

Moving on again to 2014...Harries have a weird relationship with Zayn. They not only think that he’s the only one in Harry’s league...they also think of him as competition. When Zayn starts flaking on promo they are a little giddy...and a little brave. They’re the ones speculating the most and when Zayn leaves in Feb 2015 they are fully empowered.

This is when they REALLY start doing the thing. Harry’s now the “star” of 1D. He’s “carrying” 1D. They start making “jokes” about Harry and the Pips...Harry and “the backup singers”...haha. Harry and Niall’s friendship becomes a real solid thing during OTRA tour...right up till the last performance at XFactor. 

Then we have New Years, Kendall, the boat and loads of rumors of Harry signing a recording contract...on the boat. Now Harries are empowered and we see the first REAL shade accounts and troll Harries. They are FULLY expecting Harry to be the Justin Timberlake and they are giddy.....right up until Niall drops This Town and then they drop ALL pretenses. They FULLY go after Niall. When SOTT and Self Titled drops we also see an influx of new solo Harries join the mix. 

Now. These new Harries don’t like that Harry is associated with One Direction. It’s not cool and they are embarrassed by it. They immediately start disassociating Harry from them. The only problem is Larries and Narrys. Larries they dismiss pretty easily. They call them crazies and drag them. Narry’s aren’t so easy. Most don’t ACTUALLY ship them. It’s more of a bromance thing and there is the fact that Harry was the closest with Niall especially at the end. They went golfing. They hung out outside of the band. They flew together. They rode together. The whole of 2015 was just them being really close friends....and then there was the fact that Niall was the only one Harry publicly congratulated and said that he liked their music. Niall reciprocated. Niall had to go. 

Now we have former 1D Harries and new solo Harries aligned. NOW’S when you start to see the rewriting of history. Niall was “so mean” to Harry. Niall was always “hanging” on Harry. Niall was leaching off of Harry. Niall was a “pest” and never let Harry breathe. Niall was trying to be Harry. Niall was using Harry.  Then they started to believe their own shit and any new Harries were told all the history rewrites and that’s what they believe so now they hate him too. 

And now we’re caught up to pretty much present times. Still trying to disassociate Harry from 1D and it’s members. Still believing their made up version of history. Still trying to drag the other members down to fulfill that Justin Timberlake fantasy. Only now they’ve moved onto stans too. They stalk, troll and harass groups of stans. On twitter. On tumblr. On Instagram. Where Zayn and his stans were once a part of their “in” crowd...now they have decided they’re better than that too apparently. So, now he’s currently being fazed out among the majority of Harries. 

They were sort of kept in check during 1D because they would get called out and told that “we support all our boys” yada yada. The One Direction mantra. But now there’s no one to call them out. Not even the Harries that don’t like their behavior. They just turn a blind eye to it and the toxic Harries now can say “I’m not a Directioner. I don’t care” and that’s exactly what they do. 

Thus concludes “The History of Toxic Harries” lol It’s long winded and I expect that I will have an epic fuckton of them descending on my blog to tell me off and let me know how full of shit I am. I also expect that I’m not going to care and that the “block” option in my settings will be used generously and often for the remainder of the night. 

~ The End

[corpus-chorus]

A dev’s insight to tumblr’s updates

Alright guys. I’m sorry to make this long-ass discourse post when I’d really much rather just be doing my art reblogs and basking in my warm community, but I feel this needs to happen, because a lot of you may not be aware of what goes into updates like this.

To be clear - I’m not making any comment about the color change itself. It doesn’t actually bother me, seems kind of silly to flip a lid about when there’s plenty of extensions to fix it if you don’t like it, but I get the annoyance of having something familiar change into something that makes you uncomfortable, especially with no warning.

But then I started to see a bunch of rants on how shitty this update is when there were so many bugs that needed to be fixed instead, and I just need to take a moment to address app development in general, because y’all seem fairly misinformed about the whole thing.

So let’s get one thing straight - bug fixing is not easy.

Yeah, that sounds like a copout, doesn’t it?

But let’s talk about how bug fixing works, alright? Because there’s a couple of things we gotta look at when considering changes like this.

How much code is needed to fix the bug? Yeah, this one’s pretty straight forward, right? How many lines of code do the devs have to write to fix whatever’s broken? Except you’re forgetting the time it takes to find the bug in the first place. And this isn’t about popping into one file and looking through the lines until you see what’s broken. Bugs aren’t just typos. Bugs are NOT easy to find. Generally, if I’m working on a bug, and it takes me 4 days to fix, 3 of those days were probably spent just defining exactly where the bug came from and the places it exists. And that’s with me being super familiar with the codebase. If I didn’t already know that the core value displayed on the groupings page was coming from the hciReplacements inspector (out of 30-some inspectors), which is pulling data from the hagi, which is pulling and calculating data from the clip model, of which I know the exact layout, it probably would have taken me double or triple that time. And now, on top of that, what if the bug is an extreme edge case no one thought about when they built the core code? I might have to rewrite the entire functionality of the thing that pulls all that data, and holy hot hell is that gonna take some time.

How much QA effort is required? Contrary to popular belief, no, developers don’t just make bug fixes and immediately push them out to the app. It’s gotta be tested, usually by some sort of QA/QC team. And, fun fact, QA can take longer than the development did. Because the QA team is looking for EVERY POSSIBLE USE CASE of the exact thing you’re working on. Every single possible way a user might interact with that. That takes a skilled worker to think of all of those possible use cases (and spoiler alert, they’re human, so they still fuck up sometimes), and it takes them time to find them all.

But ON TOP of that, you also have a LOT of unexpected consequences to code changes. Maybe you just needed to update to cores count so that it’s the total cores on a node instead of total cores per processor, but you didn’t realize that another part of the code was assuming that value was cores per processor, and congrats, you’ve screwed the values all through the rest of the app.

And that’s just a data example. You can make critical errors if, say, you rename a value, and miss one of the places that value’s used, so now that value doesn’t exist in that specific scenario, and congratulations, you’ve actually caused your app to crash if the user follows a specific series of actions, and oops, looks like that set of actions wasn’t one QA thought of, so now users get to find it instead. You were just trying to fix a little data bug, and you’ve now broken the entire app. Good job.

How old is the codebase? Why is this important, you ask? Well, if you’re not in the industry, you may have never been introduced to the idea of “legacy code”. Legacy code is, to over-simplify, old code. It’s code that’s been around for a while. It’s code that dozens of people have had their hands in and is therefor a bit of a mess, no matter how hard you try to keep it clean, or how well organized your team is. Because maybe Eric built that one file really well to start with, and Suzy made some great additions to it, and Tom just made a few bug fixes, but he names variables a little differently, so Jason didn’t realize that the function he needed already existed when he went to build it a few months down the line, so now there’s two versions of the same thing, one used in one place, one used in another, and when Meredith goes to fix a bug related to it, she doesn’t realize she has to fix it both places, and wow, that is a bit of a mess, isn’t it?

The codebase I’m working in currently is about a year and a half old now, maybe a little more. When our first version was released, our codebase was 51,714 lines of code long. As of today, it is 357,932 lines long. With new features on the horizon, it will continue to grow, and the web of dependencies tangled through the codebase will get bigger and more complex. This is just a fact.

So keep in mind that that’s an app that’s about 1.5 years old. Tumblr was launched in, what, 2007 or something? That’s 11 years. 11 fucking years of coding, of dozens, if not hundreds, of people contributing to the codebase, in their own coding style, with their own knowledge levels. This is like if a team of 100 writers was working on a fic series for 11 years, and they didn’t all get to work together, and not everyone took notes. You’re gonna have plot holes. You’re gonna have inconsistencies. Shit’s gonna be messy.

And then there’s the pinnacle question. 

How much do the devs care? How much you wanna bet a lot of the devs on this site started out with a genuine passion for it? How many do you think worked long past the hours they were getting paid for just to make sure they were making something they could be proud of? How excited do you think it used to make them to release new features, and get to see it make people’s lives better?

When you care about a project, you think beyond the exact task you were given. You think about the impact every line of code you write is going to have. on the users. Because you want the users to enjoy the app. You want them to be happy with it. You want all the work you put into it to mean something.

When you care, you make less bugs. When you care, you don’t get lazy and just make temporary fixes. When you care, you put your heart and soul into your work.

How much heart and soul do you think the Tumblr devs want to put into this site at this point? When every single update, every single effort they put in, is met with criticism and hatred? When they’re told that nothing they do is ever good enough? How much do you think the devs care about getting everything perfect and on time and working themselves to tears on this site when they know damn well that the second they release an update, it’s going to be met with nothing but hatred and ignorant people treating them as if their hundred of hours of effort were stupid?

If I was a dev for this site, I’d hate my fucking job.

So let’s review. When you ask for bug fixes, I promise, there is someone on that team very concerned about addressing that bug fix. When you complain that tags are borked, or searching is shit, or whatever you get frustrated with that day, I promise, some dev is already working their tits off trying to find exactly what it’s going to take to fix that for you.

But understand that, that ask? That ask that might seem super simple and straight-forward to you from your comfortable couch? But it might take a team of devs working ungodly hours for months to be able to do. It might carry risks as high as accidentally deleting posts or banning blogs or breaking the entire bloody site. So they wanna spend some time and get that shit right so that you’re not stuck with something even worse than the bug they were fixing.

The people working on these bug fixes are human beings. We seem to remember that about everyone else in the goddamn world, but not the people who work tirelessly to give us the very site that we’re having these conversations on right now.

This update? Yeah, it might seem trivial to you. It might seem like they’re “wasting their time” with “stupid bullshit” when they could be fixing bugs.

But let me make it very clear. They’re trying to fix the bugs. They’re trying to stop the porn bots (and oh, fucking boy, I could make an entire post just about how insanely difficult that is, because some of you people seem to think the devs are fucking GODS or something). And maybe this update is stupid to you, but I can tell you right now, having this update right here is not the reason these things are not going to be fixed tomorrow. This is the frontend team making an aesthetic change - I promise it didn’t stop the backend team from their tireless work to fix the tags.

so tl;dr Fixing Tumblr’s bugs is not some simple, do-it-in-a-month, just-get-more-devs fix. And tearing into this release is doing nothing but reminding the probably very tired dev team that their work means absolutely dick to a large portion of ungrateful fucks on this site.

Complain about bugs. Tell Tumblr about their bugs. Make sure they know. And then sit the fuck down and wait - they’re fucking trying.

[idolisme]

I wrote a thing for Thor: Ragnarok and have no patience to make it into a Proper Thing, so instead of posting it in its inchoate form to the more respectable fanfic sites I am, for the first time, putting fic on tumblr.  And it’s Christmas fic, no less.  have I truly fallen so far???????

anyway.

AU where just after the midcredits scene of Ragnarok, Loki explains to Thor who they’re dealing with and why, and Thor has the brilliant idea that he might be able to defeat Thanos with his lightning and the Tesseract and the element of surprise, so he convinces Loki to switch their appearances, to fool Thanos long enough for Thor-as-Loki to get close, then blast him with Space-Stone-infused lightning.

It goes as well as can be expected.

And after…

They fight the whole battle against Thanos without Thor, because Thor has been killed - everyone believes it, because Heimdall witnessed him disappearing into a hole in space when he was so damaged there is no way he could have survived the void and its maelstroms and monsters.  He makes his report to Val and Loki while Loki is still pretending to be Thor, and the battle is soon so the truth has to come out anyway, so Loki just goes to the Avengers as himself to tell them what has become of his brother.  He swears on Thor’s sacrifice that he will fight to protect Midgard and Asgard, and that’s enough for Steve, which means it’s enough for the rest of them.  Bruce is, to Loki’s surprise, a comforting presence at his side — he had come to care for Thor, and as a healer, feels his best way to work through his own grief is to help Loki through his.  (Loki feels like this should piss him off, that he should find this insulting… he is actually grieving too much to care.)

So they fight, and they win, and Loki becomes an Avenger though he is also still King of Asgard.  Val and Heimdall also fight, and both survive.  Midgard and Asgard are well defended, and things go rather quiet on the Avenging front for a while.

And then….. it’s Christmas.  Loki, having finished building a school in Asgard (to keep their history alive — and corrected, after Odin’s rewrites), has gotten bored of kingship but is unwilling to stray far from Midgard, so he finds himself frequently in Avengers Tower, watching Bruce and Tony play with Midgardian tech, occasionally giving them fresh ideas — some of which, yes, are intentionally bad.  It makes him grin to see them get knocked off their feet.  His good ideas and advice, though, are well worth the danger to the science bros, and maybe Bruce has talked to Tony about the stages of grief and how Loki is doing remarkably well for someone who has lost the only people they cared about, not long after losing their entire planet, and having to be the guide and role model for the rest of his people as they process their own grief… and Tony really doesn’t mind the occasional explosion in his lab anyway.  (There’s probably at least one instance where an idea Tony and Bruce have backfires badly enough that they could die, but since Loki is there half-attentively observing, he uses his magic to get them out of the room because he notices the problem before they do, and then they’re super grateful.  Thereafter they’re pals, as much as anyone can be pals with Loki.)

So, Loki hangs around Avengers Tower to avoid people and to play pranks on his new friends.  Heimdall rules Asgard in his stead, as Regent, and its people are cool with it.  But then it’s Christmas, and all the Avengers are going to get together in the Tower for a few days before the holiday.  Tony, as the party planner, carefully doesn’t tell Loki this is happening because he kinda wants him to be there at least for a little while, to give the others the opportunity to tell him that they want good things to happen to him in the new year, and to give him a gift, if they feel so inclined.  Well, he and Bruce have felt so inclined, and they want everyone to see that the crazy alien who took a bite out of New York some years back is actually a cool guy now that he isn’t under the influence of an evil monster.

And then Heimdall, eyes sparkling, pulls Tony and the other Avengers — not Loki — aside, and tells them the news.  Thor is alive.

He has just come out of a portal from the void, somewhere far away, and is rapidly making his way to Midgard.  He and Heimdall have spoken, and Thor is a little weird and he’s missing a hand as well as his eye, but he’s pretty much himself, and he is delighting himself with the idea that he might surprise Loki with his alive state.  And he wants to do it in person.  So please don’t tell Loki, okay?

So Thor gets to Midgard and he comes to the Tower, and he knocks on the door, and Tony says, super casually, “Hey Lokester, d’you mind getting that?”

Loki, uncomfortable in a red reindeer knit sweater but drinking some Midgardian wine and chatting amiably enough with Clint’s wife ((((Laura???)))) about Asgardian bread, rolls his eyes, throws off the reindeer antlers that keep reappearing on his head (put there by the children?? Tony?? there have been many guilty parties.  He’s pretty sure Strange is in on it too, which is why he never catches the culprit), and goes to the door.

He’s a little bemused to notice that all the sound has gone out of the room behind him as he opens the door.

“Loki,” Thor says, smiling.  It sounds like he has a cold.

Loki can’t really move at all.  His ribs feel like stone — cold, shatter-prone.  His scar hurts.

They continue to stare at each other, and Thor’s smile fades.  “Do… Do you not recognize me?”

“Oi, let him in, idiot-king,” Val says, knocking Loki’s shoulder on her way past him to thump Thor’s arm with her fist and then crash into his chest with a hug.

Loki watches them without seeing anything, frozen in a tilt from how he’d caught himself from falling after her shove.

Thor’s eyes only briefly leave his to glance down at Val as she draws away from him.  “He’s done superbly in your absence,” she informs him in a stage whisper.

“Is he all right?” Thor replies in kind, his brow furrowed.  His eyes suddenly grow wide, and he holds out his hands placatingly.  “Brother, if I have angered you—”

“Shut up, you piece of filth,” Loki says, striding over to him and tugging Val behind him.  His seidr wraps around them both and forms a barrier in the doorway.  The sweater is gone, replaced by his armor.  “Who the Hel do you think you are?” he says, grasping the impostor’s collar and pulling him forward to sneer in his face.  “Do you have any idea what sort of people you’re trying to fool?”  He laughs mockingly.

“I’m not—”

“That is actually your brother, Your Majesty,” Val says from behind him with a note of warning in her voice.  “Calm down.”

He looks at her over his shoulder at her.  “My brother,” he says, his voice rough only in patches, as he strives to maintain his vitriol, “is dead.”  His gaze on her softens, however, and he follows with, “I swear to you, I will figure out how this magic works, and break the spell upon you.”

Val looks at Thor and rolls her eyes.

“Brother, I don’t want to hurt you,” Thor says desperately.  “But let me go, and I will explain all.”

In the next instant, Loki yelps as his seidr barrier in the doorway is broken from within by a long sword.

“Your Majesty!” Heimdall calls to him, and he cranes his neck to look at him, his hands still on the impostor’s shirt collar.  Odd that no danger proximity alarms have gone off in the Tower, and that he cannot sense any deceptive magic in or on the being before him.  Save for the faint smell of ozone, and of leather, and of something else that was how Thor had always—

Heimdall says, “Let him go, Loki.  He is your brother.  I saw him leave the void yesterday, and make his way here.  He asked me not to tell you, as a… joke.”  The disapproval in Heimdall’s voice could not be mistaken.

“Which was stupid of me, I see now,” says the impostor, and Loki whips his head back to see that stupid, familiar grin.  “I am truly sorry.”

Loki stares.  “How are you tricking him,” he mumbles to himself.  “Tricking Heimdall to see someone who isn’t there is impossible.  Or very nearly.”

“Consider that I am tricking no one, dear brother, and it should make sense.”  He places his hands over Loki’s at his collar and slowly pries them off.

Loki’s seidr trickles away as his shock increases, and his armor abandons him — he is left again with the too-large, reindeer-themed sweater.  He glances over his shoulder once more to meet Heimdall’s eyes, which are clear.  There are still no alarms or signs of foul play.  Tony and Bruce are smirking into their beer.  Steve and Sam smile openly, and turn away to go back into the Tower, to — what, give him some privacy to greet his brother?  His brother.  Thor is alive, Thor has come home…

He grits his teeth and says, “I loathe you,” to Thor before taking a single long step forward and hugging the life out of him.  He wraps his arms over Thor’s so he can’t lift them and locks his hands together against Thor’s back, then squeezes.  Thor coughs.

“Norns, let me g- huhhh, let me go!” Thor says, twisting.  “Let me hug you properly, Your Majesty,” he teases.

Loki releases him and wipes furiously at his tears.  “I don’t want any of your stupid h—”

Thor crushes him to him, hands on his back, and presses their cheeks together.  It’s mortifying, but it also feels really good.  Like every earnest hug he’d ever received from Thor or Frigga, wrapped up in one.  He can’t stop crying.  He desperately hopes everyone else has taken Steve’s lead as usual, and gone back inside.

“I’m sorry.  I’m so, so, so very sorry.  I’m here.  I’m home now.”

The antlers have made their way back onto Loki’s head (Strange must be involved somehow), and he petulantly tears them off and jams them onto Thor’s.

“Merry fucking Christmas,” he tells him, and at Thor’s bewildered look he begins to laugh.