#proper data

[raddest-laddest]

scug cat bug cat quirrel cat doodles

[potatoattorney]

important data

[sillylotrpolls]

About Reblog Graphs

Have you ever clicked on the "reblog graph" button of a post? I think they're one of the... well, maybe not greatest features on tumblr ever (polls are probably better), but they're still pretty darn neat.

I want to show some cool patterns I noticed on some recent posts of mine, but first I'll explain how reblog graphs work so you can more easily follow along.

This is pretty long with a bunch of pictures, so click the cut to read more.

How reblog graphs work

If you've never done so before, I invite you to click the notes button on this or any other post and then the icon with four circles. You will then see a bunch of dots connected by lines.

For example, if you click the graph for the "blorbo in Elvish" post, you get something like this:

Now, let's zoom in a bit. You can do this by using the mouse wheel and clicking and dragging around the graph until it's showing what you want. (I don't know how it works on mobile, but presumably it's similar to using Google maps?)

This next screenshot is the bit in the lower right of the graph shown above. However, the graph may not always display in the same way because reblog graphs are re-generated each time you click the "reblog graph" button.

Here you can see that I'm viewing the root post, which is the original post made by me. It's indicated by a circle with a dot inside. You can also see that six people reblogged that post. Each reblog shows as a dot with a line connecting it to the post it was reblogged from.

Now here's a cool thing about reblog graphs: they're interactive! You can click on any dot and see the post it represents and the reblog chain that led to it.

For example, clicking this dot that has several lines emanating out from it shows that it is "2 reblogs deep" and was posted by @cycas.

Got it? Close enough? Cool, now let me show you some neat things I noticed. :D

The Swedish Chef poll and very popular bloggers

My polls tend to average between 500 and 2000 votes, depending on subject matter. The Swedish Chef poll, however, took off and eventually garnered over 22,000 votes. How did that happen? A very popular blog reblogged it about five days in.

Initially, the graph looked like this. (This is the first 200 reblogs.) There's nothing unusual here. You can see that the root post had several reblogs, and that there's another cluster developing around a post by @zagreus. There are also several reblog chains where just one person reblogs someone else's reblog. Some of these chains peter out, while others find their way onto the dash of more popular bloggers, creating clusters.

A quick note about "popularity"

Yes, yes, it's all about "popular." However, it's not just about having a bunch of followers. What's more important is that the "popular" person reblogging your post has followers who are specifically interested in your post.

For instance, if I, @sillylotrpolls, make a poll about LazyTown, it's probably not going to get very many reblogs because my followers aren't here for that. However, if @silly-lazytown-polls reblogs the poll, that reblog might then get quite a lot of reblogs itself. It's not that silly-lazytown-polls has more followers than sillylotrpolls, it's that it has more followers specifically interested in LazyTown content. Make sense?

Back to the Swedish Chef poll

The poll eventually got over 5,000 reblogs. Since you can only add 200 reblogs to the graph at a time, you can roughly see how a post spread over time.

With 600 reblogs loaded, a new cluster bursts onto the scene. This is @bunjywunjy, who reblogged the post from @beecreeper who reblogged it from @soggypotatoes who reblogged the original.

Bunjywunjy didn't add any tags or comments, so I didn't even notice at first because it didn't show in my activity feed. However, I did notice a sudden uptick in notes on the post, which caused me to investigate. It had been five days since I posted the poll, and usually polls that are going to take off do so sooner than that.

By continuing to click the "load more reblogs" button I can see how the post further spread, especially from bunjywunjy's post.

When the post reached @beggars-opera (whose icon I am somewhat proud to announce I identified on sight), they added a screenshot of @stylishanachronism 's tags which said:

# all of these are incorrect it's the 'meat's back on the menu boys!' scene

This would become the dominant version of the post as it further spread. Interestingly, this was the only reblog of stylishanachronism's reblog. Literally thousands of people loved their tags and agreed with them, but they quite plausibly never saw it unless they specifically went looking.

By 3,200 reblogs, you can see even bigger clusters developing. @thebibliosphere shows up 10 reblogs deep, and leads to yet another cluster via @teaboot (12 reblogs deep).

Eventually, with all 5,371 reblogs loaded, the reblog graph looks like this:

Like I said: neat. :D

Cool, but if you've seen one, you've seen them all - right?

So what prompted this (extremely long) post was actually the reblog graph for my poll on inspirational LotR quotes.

Here's the reblog graph with 200 reblogs loaded:

And here's the graph with all 1,890 reblogs loaded:

It's just one big cluster around the root post. I've never seen that before!! Almost everyone reblogging this post saw it either because they follow this blog, saw it in the #lotr tags, or because their non-influencer friend reblogged it. (Or maybe it was in some kind of algorithm/the explore feed, but I have nearly zero experience with those.)

And this wasn't just a small post. This poll got over 15,000 votes and more than 4,000 notes. That puts it in the top 10 polls for this blog.

What does it mean? I have no idea. I would really like to know! But really, I got nothing. If you have a theory for why this particular poll should result in a reblog graph like this, I would very much like to hear it.

Orphan clusters

To round things off, I'd like to show another interesting facet of reblog graphs: orphan clusters.

This blog's current undisputed poll champion is the fmk wheel poll. That's not really a surprise, as it combined sex with a fun game where you just had to tell everyone what you got, which meant either a reply or a reblog. So it spread pretty far.

However, if you look at the graph, there's something odd going on.

This is with just 200 reblogs loaded:

Notice how some of the dots don't connect to the root post? That's because somewhere along the chain, a reblog was deleted.

This cluster in the bottom left got pretty big! This screenshot is at 800 reblogs loaded. The missing link is from a blog called @gendertaliban that doesn't exist anymore, as near as I can tell. That makes it impossible to trace the full path of any of these reblogs.

In conclusion

This concludes today's deep dive into a tumblr feature you probably never paid any attention to. Admittedly, there's not a huge use for it outside of determining which of your mutuals is an "influencer," and they get quite difficult to navigate after loading about 1000 reblogs, but I hope you enjoyed staring at dots and lines with me. :)

[thesunsethour]

House MD and the use of the word ‘miserable’ (S2)

[S1 stats here]

‘Miserable’ total mentions: 28

‘Miserable’ mentions by House: 9

‘Miserable’ mentions by Wilson: 8

‘Miserable’ mentions by Foreman: 4

‘Miserable’ mentions by patients/families: 3

‘Miserable’ mentions by Cuddy: 2

‘Miserable’ mentions by Chase: 1

‘Miserable’ mentions by Cameron: 1

Times someone accuses House of being miserable: 13 - (6 from Wilson / 3 from patients / 2 from House’s subconscious / 1 from Cuddy / 1 from Foreman)

Full quotes:

2.01

Chase to House: “I assume you have a reason beyond wanting to make me completely miserable?”

2.05

Wilson to Cuddy about House's father : “You know what I figure is worse than watching your son become crippled? Watching him be miserable.”

2.06

House to Wilson about Stacy: “She’s miserable with Mark because he’s not me. So, she’s gotta make me not me, so she makes my professional life miserable…”

2.07

House to Stacy: “Sorry you were miserable.”

Cameron to patient: “This is about your lonely, miserable life.”

Patient to Cameron: “I’m not miserable. And as long as there’s a gay bar around, I’m never lonely.”

2.09

Foreman to Cuddy: “You chose me to make House miserable, didn’t you?”

Cuddy to Foreman: “Apparently, he’s making you miserable. That’s impressive.”

Foreman to Cuddy: “I only did that stuff to prove that he couldn’t make me miserable.”

2.11

Foreman to House: “Cuddy just put me here to make you miserable. Another two days, you can go back to making yourself miserable.”

Wilson to House about Stacy: “This was no great sacrifice! You sent her away because you’ve got to be miserable.”

Wilson to House: “Being miserable doesn’t make you better than anyone else, House. It just makes you miserable.”

2.12

Cuddy to House: “To annoy me, or maybe because you’re miserable, or because you want to self-destruct. Pick one.”

2.13

Wilson to House: “It’s not cancer. You seem to be back to your old, miserable self.”

2.15

House to ducklings: “A hundred bucks says they’re as miserable as the next couple.”

2.16

Wilson to House: “Yeah, that’s why you’re making me miserable.”

Wilson to House: “You’re miserable, and you’re lonely, and you’re going to trap me here to keep me every bit as miserable and lonely too.”

House to Wilson: “I did not make you miserable.”

Patient’s father to House: “You sick, miserable –”

2.22

House to Foreman: “I need you kicking ass here to be all that lets you rise above being miserable.”

2.23

House’s old friend to House: “If you’re right, I’ll be miserable, and if I’m right, I’ll hate myself because I didn’t trust her!”

House to ducklings: “Here’s how to become a great artist. First, get miserable.”

2.24

House's hallucination to House: “And even if I’m wrong, you’re still miserable.”

House's hallucination to House: “You’re miserable for nothing. I don’t know why you’d want to live.”

[roastedcha]

i miss them

[servuscallidus]

I never liked Melanie as a person but was very intrigued by her as a character, since she's as deep and well written as any other on the show, (until fandom made me hate her). I'd forgotten though that the dislike was immediate + from her first appearance we get to know one of her most fundamental (and insufferable) traits, that is that she does exactly what Jon does, worse-ish* even, but she thinks she's better than him because, well, because it's her and she just is. Which will come back full force later on to such wonderful effects

[katzenklavierr]

"Adding a 'see results/click button' option for a poll with a targeted demographic ruins the sampling" I agree but also if the button is not there people will click on one of the other options regardless of how well it applies simply bc they want to participate. People will also lie on them for fun or to intentionally skew certain options. You should not be relying on Tumblr polls for anything but satisfying casual curiosities and you should take their results with a heaping spoonful of salt.

[supercantaloupe]

ive never gone to see an opera live in europe let alone one outside of a major theater that regularly records and broadcasts their productions so grain of salt etc but i think there's some kind of distinct cultural difference between how european companies do "reimagined" productions of operas vs how american companies do it

[recusant-s-sigil]

(image descriptions: a watercolor bookmark featuring Data-Sora and Data-Riku rimmed in red light. One photo has Data-Sora on the bottom while the other has Data-Riku. The background is styled after Bug Blox. End description.)

This month’s bookmark is for re:coded, so here’s the data boys! I had a lot of fun with figuring out the background.

[umbracirrus]

Y'all want a shitty wip for this wednesday? Because I'm gonna post a shitty wip this wednesday. It's a very hasty 2/3 minute doodle that I'm wanting to develop into an actual drawing... It may or may not be my idiots Elyse and Balgruuf, a desk, and not using the desk as intended... Or are they??? Make out sessions are definitely what desks were made for, right?

Maybe a sequel to the forehead kiss drawing I did of them???

[ent-is-indecisive]

procrastination going strong. thinking about continuing my crossposting of old stuff on ao3.

[not-spiders]

please read the text at the bottom of the post before voting if you need clarification!!!

*real name means whatever it means to you. eg. one person might consider their legal name to be their real name, another might consider their ubiquitous nickname to be their real name, yet another might consider a name they use only with their close friends to be their real name, etc. there are as many definitions of real name as there are people with names, answer based on what feels right to you.

if you use multiple names irl or online, choose the option that your real name falls into, for example: you go by both Claire and Nancy irl and Bubbles online but you consider Nancy to be your real name, choose option one (1), "The name i use irl is my real name, i use an alias/aliases online".

[dreamrcven]

sb: you need therapy masuyo: ermmm my humanity stat says otherwise-

[dkettchen]

Now this may not seem like a massive change in format, but boy howdy do I feel proud of myself for writing the functions to automate this ehehehehehe (unfortunately for me ao3 ship stat op used a different formatting for the pre-2020 tables, so I'll have to write another function to sort those ones out too ToT)

[frerrari]

rip to lando and his mid weekend and his lukewarm attempts to start something with max, but carlos simply cannot catch a SINGLE break. my poor buddy. osc of course having the season of his life so far

ik this ask is about miami but the fact that it could easily be about every single GP since melbourne, that it will likely be true for imola & possibly monaco too............ speaks volumes. idk what the volumes are saying, exactly, but they are there. they’re spoken

oscar’s season is insane, actually. 4 wins out of 6 gps?? it’s surprising even to the likes of villeneuve who had him in their sights since the start of the year like... its all just mental. ive said it before but this glowup makes way more sense in the slipstream cinematic universe bc at least in SCU we have (a) oscar winning on pure spite, diana spencer revenge dress (b) emotional infidelity in the workplace will grant you superpowers (c) chapell roan “my kink is karma” on blast (d) carlos sainz magic dick (makes you aerodynamic)

meanwhile trying to figure out this split in real life? strategists are baffled. we knew the MCL39 upgrades will impact lando more but we said impact not FULL FRONT IRREPARABLE DAMAGE so likeee?

and carlos will have a bad weekend every time oscar has a great one i fear........ it’s fate trying to force the hurt/comfort...... i’ve yet to see the both of them happy, quali worked for us in imola so let me not jinx it but i just KNOW some shakespearean shit coming our way

[juney-blues]

if i hear another person talk about a retro game, system, or computer having a specific "soundfont" i think i'm gonna lose all will to live and spontaneously drop dead in front of them