pinkaxolotl85 - Tumblr blog

pinkaxolotl85 · 7 months

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Hey! I've been following your AO3 skin for a while now, and I was curious if you had any updates on your progress? It's so pretty, I'm so excited qwqqq

Thank you sm for following it, and thank you everyone else reading this for following it! I still see a lot of activity around this skin in my notes, and truly touches me. (And there's another really nice anon message in my inbox I want to answer soon bc it truly boosts my mood so much every time I see it, if that's also yours I'm sorry for leaving you on read 😭)

Basically the gist is despite pacing myself to avoid burnout, I got burnt out. Unrelated, my mental health took a nose dive, education intensity picked up, and more recently a family member got into a critical accident. I've been juggling a lot for a very long time and it sorta all fell down one after another.

Another reason is it's,, man it's so hard to pick up, the css is so hefty and with three parts it's a complex ol' beast, and on top of that each edit needed double checks to make sure it wouldn't break something elsewhere (which it often would!) and then being faced with multiple bugs/issues that I still have yet to sort,, wow that's a lot to mentally go up against.

But it's still here tho and alive!!

It's actually still my main driver when I use Ao3 and has held up with Ao3's changes very robustly these past months, which gives me a lot of hope to its longevity outside me. My life's been a bit on the up and up. And I have been thinking about it a lot in the recent month and have started to softly fiddle with it again.

This isn't a promise I'm getting back into it with the intensity I had before, right now, but It's still very much a project I consider active, on the mind, and want to get back to as soon as I have the mental strength.

I hope that's an adequate update to where I am on everything for everyone 🥰

E: My goal is basically to get it to a fully functional smoothed out state as soon as possible (right now I consider it fully functional but rough with a lot of issues most would not find tolerable), fix as many bugs as I can, but I'm not going to be a perfectionist. I hope that once I release it other people can join on smoothing out any issues it has, since I've kept everything painstakingly notated so other people can pick it up. Ao3 is a community project and I want Hesperus to ideally be the same 💕

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pinkaxolotl85 · 8 months

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This is a newer, updated Hawks skeleton. I've taken the final leap and decided to just get rid of a few fingers and toes, lol.

Would anyone be interested in more Hawks anatomy sheets?

The art in the old one is a few years dated now, and there are things I've tweaked as I've given it more thought. Nothing major, but I would love to get back into it if people want to see it.

#rebloggy #thinkin about this again #want so badly to get back to drawing avian anatomy #in the meantime i've also been thinking a lot about a more harpy-based concept for avians

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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'Oh, Niki Lauda? He's just some little Austrian fellow with a creepy-crawly insect dæmon. If you've ever seen the man, I think you'd agree it's quite the fitting form.'

Niki could say a lot in response to that quote now fed back to him; that James' own dæmon is some puffed up, squawking lorikeet whose colours are clearly compensatory. 'Centipedes are myriapods,' is what he instead responds with, 'which are not considered part of the insect class.'

It's true; they're not. Nevertheless, it seems to win him no favours.

Finally, the vintage Niki Lauda and James Hunt F1 dæmon au, which is certainly not niche at all. I don’t know how to tag this post, but I do know RatHunt is the best ship name ever created.

#f1 #formula 1 #f1 rpf #f1 fic #launt #rathunt #niki lauda #james hunt #classic f1 #classic formula 1 #to people following me for my art I'm sorry about showing you f1 fic for men from the 70s #but it's a taste of what's to come

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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After long last, I can share my art for the @mischievousscampzine!

Just in time for Pride Month! Thank you for having me! 💚

🐍 some more details below 🐍

The golden timeline threads are directly inspired by presentations of particles colliding with one another inside particle accelerators. They're a striking and beautiful image.

#rebloggy #it's my reblog #i get to do it at 3am if i want

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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Audrey Richards has now resigned from the OTW

But only after arguing with members that her public political views and actions being distributed was some sort of misinformation campaign. If you want to watch a burning trash fire of a meltdown, her Twitter is the place to be right now.

To quote Republican Politician Audrey Richard's Twitter:

"I have no qualms about losing; I’ve done a lot of it. I know how to take an L[.]"

What a fascinating story arc. I don't know if she is still on the OTW ballot, but either way, proceed to continue not voting for her, if that is how you wish to vote.

This will hopefully be the last thing I say on it. Now check out my cool art or somthn, idk.

The Sequel to Tiffany G that we never wanted:

Audrey Richards from the OTW Elections

Is a Republican.

Ran in the 2022 Republican primary, so not only a Republican but one dedicated to the party.

Her political candidate information lists her religion and Christianity and notes her connection to the Organization for Transformative Works and Children and Screens: Institute of Digital Media and Child Development.

Her archived twitter account when she ran in the Republican Primary reads, "We need to show that young women not only have a place in the Republican Party, but that we can be leaders in it."

Her Q&A for the election includes her being unable to understand, therefore answer, multiple questions that other candidates found simple.

The responses she gives to what she can answer are not inspiring.

Audrey Richards is the Head of Policy for Children and Screens.

An archived tweet from Children and Screens reads, "[T]he prevalence of media with romanticized abuse and sexual content lacking partner communication may be impacting teens' attitudes and behaviors in offline relationships."

Do you believe that compromise is necessary or desirable for policymaking? Audrey Richards: "Standing up to say, "I need this, and I am willing to budge a little over here to get it," that's how you build a coalition. That is how you become a respected Representative."

Sources will be in a reblog.

#end of a saga #axo natter #details under cut but like not many #only the amusing things

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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Sources under the read more. Some of these are archived versions, despite their sites still being currently accessible.

OTW Q&A's

An archive to her Ballotpedia page

An archive to her campaign website

An archive to her Twitter (Tweets are her views exclusively, per her bio)

The Children and Screens Tweet Quote

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The Twitter thread by Taenith_Rain that originally brought a lot of these to light, and as such should be credited.

The Sequel to Tiffany G that we never wanted:

Audrey Richards from the OTW Elections

Is a Republican.

Ran in the 2022 Republican primary, so not only a Republican but one dedicated to the party.

Her archived twitter account when she ran in the Republican Primary reads, "We need to show that young women not only have a place in the Republican Party, but that we can be leaders in it."

Her Q&A for the election includes her being unable to understand, therefore answer, multiple questions that other candidates found simple.

The responses she gives to what she can answer are not inspiring.

Audrey Richards is the Head of Policy for Children and Screens.

Sources will be in a reblog.

#keeping things under the read more bc I am an art and writing blog #I don't want to really get into debates or clutter my account

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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The Sequel to Tiffany G that we never wanted:

Audrey Richards from the OTW Elections

Is a Republican.

Ran in the 2022 Republican primary, so not only a Republican but one dedicated to the party.

Her archived twitter account when she ran in the Republican Primary reads, "We need to show that young women not only have a place in the Republican Party, but that we can be leaders in it."

Her Q&A for the election includes her being unable to understand, therefore answer, multiple questions that other candidates found simple.

The responses she gives to what she can answer are not inspiring.

Audrey Richards is the Head of Policy for Children and Screens.

Sources will be in a reblog.

#ao3 #archive of our own #Audrey R #Audrey Richards #otw elections #otw #good to know ao3 still does not vet these people #axo natter

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pinkaxolotl85 · 9 months

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I love how Tumblr saw each and every site around them getting fucking destroyed and—after realising the ONLY thing they needed to do was win this social media site migration was to do NOTHING—decide, yet again, to destroy the site.

Multiple things here would be catastrophic to how tumblr functions a site. I don't want algorithms, I don't want 'for me's', I don't want MORE barriers between users and my art, I don't want you deleting duplicates from my page, it goes on and on.

I don't know how you could possibly fuck up the strongest position you've EVER been in as a site but this post proves you are still very capable because you clearly have no idea why the others seem to be falling apart around you and feel you must try replicating them.

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed.

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.

Test what the right daily push notification limit is.

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

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