I haven’t been here long. What irritating changes have been made?
Credit where it's due, some changes have been good, like polls and stuff! But the big recent changes thus far that I would classify as irritating are:
- The UI change. This one may be less irritating for newcomers because it's basically the same layout as twitter and instagram, but for a lot of folks who've been here a long time, it feels cramped and like a loss of identity for the site. For many, the appeal of tumblr is that it ISN'T an algorithm hell like twitter or insta. Also, there's the annoyance of having to relearn where everything is, because it all got moved around.
- The users being lab rats for various tests the devs wanna pull out of nowhere without consenting to beta testing new site features- like the one that took away user icons on the dash for like half the site. They finally put them back after getting enough feedback that said NO, but users were so used to their feedback being disregarded that they were half expecting the change to be pushed through anyway.
- The Netflix tie-in advertising being pushed even to people who had PAID tumblr for a no-ads experience. Complete with them somehow thinking it would be a good idea to put an unescapable-by-scrolling spooky clown on peoples' dashboards that u had to use ublock to get rid of. While I'm not scared of clowns and often find them quite charming, it sucks that staff didn't take coulrophobia being a common fear into account.
- A wave of fully sfw trans posts being wrongfully marked Mature and staff doing little to nothing about it. Not sure if this is still ongoing, but it destroyed a lot of trust and good will. (LGBT+ users have been having to fight a constant war against censorship ever since the adult content ban on tumblr, so yeah... Nevar 4get the list of banned search words that would bring back no results, like 'girl')
- The site gradually moving away from customization. Tumblr is a BLOGGING site. But it seems to have lost sight of that fact, because most new users don't even know you can fully customize your blogs with css and stuff (an option that is now off by default for new accounts!), because of the in-dash viewer giving you only how blogs look on mobile, which is a lot more uniform. There, it's more like every other site- you get a banner and icon. Oh, but you can change colors and fonts from a drop-down list too, that's cool I guess. Though they recently took away custom color schemes on Message windows, just another little bit of personalization taken away.
- TUMBLR. LIVE. Basically tumblr teamed up with a skeevy dating app partner to allow for livestreams- but not the cool kinda livestreams like on twitch where you can draw or play games, no- to a site full of people who value anonymity, they decided to push phone cam only livestreams. Not only that but by agreeing to the terms, you're giving out tons of personal data including your location to said skeevy dating app partner and all of THEIR third-party ad partners. Needless to say, most people didn't wanna use it, so instead of users it's flooded by p*rn bots (which is ANOTHER issue we've been dealing with for a long time and have been getting an even bigger influx of FROM tumblr live) and scammers. And thus, since tumblr likes to put a carousel of current streams on people's dashes, you often get softcore p*rn thumbnails from the bot streams with no way to avoid it except for toggling off tumblr live entirely.
- Oh wait. That's right. You CAN'T toggle it off. Because you can only snooze it for a while until BAM, you're jumpscared by a carousel of ladies licking your screen again! But hey, at least they made the snooze 30 days instead of the 7 it used to be, right? Yeah, except for the fact that you can't get rid of the tumblr live button itself on the app anymore, and now it's front and center with a NEW notification tag on it, overlapping your dash and cramming useful stuff like the search button out of the way.
NOW- A lot of this stuff CAN be at least mostly fixed on desktop by installing ublock and xkit and tampermonkey + dashboard unfucker... But that's a lot of stuff just to make the site usable, you know?
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what if you were Ajax's sweet childhood friend, gentle and a bit frail.
you and him being best friends ever since you were kids- he'd often visit you, no matter the time, and ask you to come out and play. of course you'd always say yes and let him hold your hand and run around in the snow- you were never as fast as him, and always had to wear heavy layers of clothes to regulate your body temperature since you couldn't do it naturally.
it worried Ajax tremendously, especially whenever you trip and fall, but you always reassured him that you were fine with that sweet smile of yours.
years passed, and Ajax joined the Fatui. you remember when he went missing, the worry cold like ice and the subsequent warm relief when he was found. others said he came back different, violent and bloodthirsty, but to you he only became more worried, asking multiple times if you were feeling alright whenever you spent time together. and you always said yes, because as long as he was okay so were you, his hands wrapped around your perpetually-chilled ones.
there was one time you fell sick, during a bitingly cold winter, yet during the entire ordeal you still smiled, even apologizing for how he had to take care of you. Ajax had simply wrapped you in a hug and warmed you to your bones, more comforting than any blanket. as he rubbed your back, he had looked at you and realized- he wanted to protect you.
once, when he became a Harbinger, you called him Tartaglia to respect his new title. but he had paled and grabbed your shoulders, asking, almost pleading for you to call him Ajax. so to you and his family, the ones he often talked about protecting, he was Ajax.
he often wrote to you while away, asking how your studies were going, as it was your dream to go to Sumeru and learn about everything, and whenever Ajax returned he would apologize for being away for so long. you'd simply laugh kindly and traced over the scars dotting his palms.
"It's alright, I know you'll always come back, Ajax."
your complete trust in him made his heart melt, silently swearing that Ajax, not Tartaglia, would always come back to you.
and so when the Abyss overtakes his body, digging its claws in and refusing to let go, Ajax sobs. it hurts. it hurts so bad, but the guilt filling his chest hurts more, the guilt that he won't be able to return home to you, that he's broken his promise you didn't know he made. you'll wait for his return with that soft expression of yours, and he'll never arrive, never be able to sweep you off your feet and give you the wonderful, quiet life he'd envisioned.
he never even got to say "I love you", and Foul Legacy clutches his horned head and shrieks in grief.
hehe part one
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I kinda maybe put a lot of my OC plot tag lines on a Wheel and gave it a spin so outta 79 options, it landed on "Cellphone Justice" which is... these two.
Matthew "Skittles" Mouse and Daisy Eddington
Partners in justice (of sorts). They're basically vigilantes and their orders are simply text messages. They don't really know who their bosses are but they do as they are told.
Skittles is a very mediocre guy. Doesn't stand out. The most color he has in his wardrobe is blue jeans. He's amazingly asexual and has zero interest in romance regardless of intimacy and yet he gets partnered with Daisy. The gayest lady he has ever met. Great start. She enjoys calling him fun little nicknames but seeing as they're monitored closely (via cell phones/technology) she is scolded and told to pick a single one. So she does. She dubs him Skittles. The candy as gay as her.
The one thing they have in common is their number one weakness: cute girls.
Daisy turns into a stuttering MESS of a human being. A disaster. At the mere sight of a cute girl. Skittles on the other hand is TERRIFIED of them. When asked, he simply blames his life growing up. Daisy doesn't really push the matter just thinks it's a little weird to be scared of every single cute girl (no offense to the not being afraid of her taken).
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I should be writting my thesis, but I am once again plagued with Dragon Age brainrot.
VARRIC/HAWKE OH MY GOD. The sheer potential for angst, the longing the pining and the ever present question of Bianca. Blue Hawke would be a mess. He would totally stay in the fade - he already lost his family, Carver's doing good with Wardens, his friends have their own life, and Varric? Varric's fine. He always is. He always has Bianca after all.
And Varric's complicated and repressed feelings would just hit him straight in the gut the moment the first shock would fade. He's in love with Hawke, has been for so long.
And now Hawke is dead. And now there is nothing to be done about this stupid stupid feeling he cradled so close to his chest he didn't even realise it was there. Varric would not be doing fine. Oh he would repress everything again and try to be his old self, but he'd rather avoid Cole, thank you very much.
And without Hawke there would be no-one to call him out on his bullshit. Not that they were ever any good about talking about feelings.
But Varric would stay up in his room, staring at the wall, haunted by the memories of Hawke's smiling face, of all the late evening where they would stay up, snuggled close somewhere in Hanged Man, drunk and too tired to move, laughing at some stupid hardly funny jokes. He would realise with a stark clarity that there was nothing of Hawke in his possesion but those sweet, painful memories. There was no memento, no trinket, nothing. You bet he would find his pack (if he left anything in Skyhold or in the camp) and pull out some tattered red shirt and hold on to that for the rest of his life.
welp, now i'm gonna cry.
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