Had a dream this morning that Archive of our Own had a Random button which would simply take you to a random fanfic, like Wikipedia has. (AO3 does not appear to really have this, I checked and couldnât find one, but I kinda wish they did.) Someone had started a game where whatever fic you got, that was your new fandom, which is very fun! I would love this meme in real life.
The problem came in where so many people used the button that it broke and just started sending everyone to Stealing Harry, and likeâŚI have fond memories of Stealing Harry but itâs not my best work and nobody should be assigned to be a Harry Potter fan in this day and age.
So I decide to go off and find Astolat and demand she fix this but when I finally did (there was a whole quest) she turned to me like the baddie in a horror flick and said, âBut thatâs the most random story there isâ in a dark voice and I was terrified and woke up.
In the cold light of day I know there are more random stories by me on the archive, let alone by others, but Iâm not going to try to get back there to argue my case. Pretty sure whatever I spoke to was actually the demon specifically assigned to plague fandom and not Astolat at all.
Iâd say âget thee behind me, demonâ but I know just how many porny fics on AO3 begin with that premise. (Iâve written some.) Begone foul spirit, and take your Satanic Panic with you!
This made me laugh so hard - of all the things a sleeping mind can offer up as entertainment, poor Copperbadge was visited by a demonic Astolat impersonator.
I wanted that Ao3 random button though.
SO I MADE ONE
Itâs a generator that produces a link to a random work page on AO3, using a number generator in the link.
Fair warning, it turns up 404 errors pretty often, because many works have been deleted. Keep clicking, youâll get something eventually.
Also, this is literally any work on AO3, so remember the back button and browse responsibly.
An Honest Guide to Tumblr for Twitter Refugees (Part 1)
I know there are already tons of guides out there, but my WiFi was down the whole day and I got nothing else to do. Spent the entire morning making gifs, but still no WiFi, and Iâm like, fck this letâs make a Tumblr guide.
Now, assuming youâve already signed up and was able to snatch a fancy url*, hereâs what you should do next: Log into Tumblr on desktop. You probably made your account through the app, and thatâs cool and all, but for this guide, Iâll be showing some features that are currently only available on desktop Tumblr, so go ahead and get your laptop or PC out. Following this guide will also be easier on desktop.
*url = basically your username/handle on this site. We call them urlâs because it what makes your domain name on your blog. More on this later.
Covered in Part 1:
Configuring your Tumblr Settings (filters, community labels, algorithms, etc.)
Customizing your Tumblr (enabling your Tumblr website, finding a Tumblr theme)
Configuring your Tumblr Settings
Filters and Community Labels
Go to tumblr.com/settings/account. Here, youâll find one of Tumblrâs most important features: filters and community labels. Filters are similar to Twitterâs âmute wordsâ feature, and they come in two types: Tag and Content filters
Unlike Twitter, where tags are part of the post itself, Tumblr has a dedicated section at the bottom of the post to add tags.
Tag filters block out posts that are specifically tagged with #tag, while Content filters block posts containing a certain word within the body of the post itself. Once you have these set, you will never see such posts when using the search feature on Tumblr. It will still show up on your dashboard though, but it will look this and comes with the option to view the post for whenever youâre curious:
As for Community Labels, this should be self-explanatory. Mature content is now allowed on Tumblr, but if you donât want to see such content, you can always opt-out.
Go wild in using these two features. Tumblr is the only major social media left that still allows you to liberally curate your feed. The peeps here on Tumblr mainly still abide by the âdonât like, donât interactâ rule from the old days. Calling out or cancelling a user for what theyâre posting will get you nowhere. Thatâs just not how it works here. If you donât like something, just block it.
Turning Off Algorithms
Contrary to popular narrative, Tumblr actually has algorithms. But unlike social media sites, they are contained in a tab of its own (i.e. the âFor Youâ tab in Dashboard) and can be even turned off from showing up from within the feed you manually curated (the âFollowingâ tab under Dashboard).
To turn off the algorithms, go to tumblr.com/settings/dashboard and scroll down to the Preferences section. And if youâre a privacy stickler like me, you can go further by going to tumblr.com/settings/privacy to turn off Improved Search.
Tumblr Labs
Tumblr Labs are experimental features. Theyâre not required, but if you want to make the most out of Tumblr, you might want to turn on some of them. I like to turn on the different Dashboard tabs so I can keep up with whatâs going on in Tumblr.
Customizing your Tumblr
Now here comes the fun stuff and what really sets Tumblr apart from all other major social media sites: Personalization. In Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc, all user pages look the same. But in Tumblr, you can customize it as much as you want.
Before I start though, Iâd like to throw in some stuff that you have to understand first:
Tumblrâs Two âProfile Pagesâ
Each Tumblr user technically has two âprofile pages.â The first one is found at tumblr.com/username, and is basically not that much different from the profile pages of Twitter/Instagram/Facebook. You can customize its colors, icon, and header, but thatâs pretty much it. The second one is where the magic happens, and its found at username.tumblr.com. However, itâs not turned on by default.
Remember what I said earlier about Tumblr usernames being generally called as urlâs? Thatâs because of our âsecond profile pageâ here (I hate calling it second though because itâs what came first, but since itâs not a default option now, âsecondâ it is). Tumblr is a blogging platform. Like WordPress and Blogger, but a fun version of it. Your username.tumblr.com page is basically your own custom website.
Enabling your Tumblr Website
From hereon, Iâm gonna refer to the âsecond profile pageâ as just site because, well, thatâs what it really is.
To enable your custom site, go to tumblr.com/settings/blog/<username>. Toggle on the custom theme option. [If youâre a professional, you can even use a custom domain if you want your site url to look like your-site.com instead of your-site.tumblr.com.]
In the past, the step above wouldâve been enough to enable your site, but since Tumblr started implementing changes that sites using the default theme would just redirect to the first profile page (tumblr.com/username), we now have to do some extra steps to make sure that folks visiting at your-site.tumblr.com will really see your website instead of Tumblrâs default profile.
For that, we need to edit our siteâs theme.
What are Tumblr themes?
It's basically the design and layout of your site. It can be as crazy or as professional as you want. Here's Taylor Swift's Midnights theme, for example.
Where to Find a Tumblr Theme
Tumblrâs Official Theme Garden (free and paid)
Tumblrâs Official Theme Garden, but filtered to show only the free themes
@theme-hunter
@codingcabin
Itâs so hard to filter for the right theme in the Theme Garden though, so I suggest looking for themes in theme-hunter instead.
Tip in Choosing a Theme: Find one that supports NPF (Neue Post Format). Although Tumblr is still advocating its different posts types (text, image, audio, video, etc.), theyâve actually been rolling out changes to their editor where only a single post type is used (text) and you just add media to it. This is what NPF is about. On desktop, you can turn off the beta editor and thereby turn off NPF. However, on mobile web and on the app, posts can only be made in NPF. So if you intend to post on mobile, you have to find a theme that supports it. Otherwise, your content may look weird on your site.
I absolutely recommend themes by @seyche and @fukuo. The one Iâm currently using on my site is the Lilac theme by Seyche.
For a more comprehensive guide on customizing your Tumblr, check out Tumblrâs official guide for it.
And that ends part 1 of this Tumblr guide⌠Though I called this part 1, I actually donât know if thereâll be a part 2 lol. Iâm lazy, and writing this took some time. If my wifi continues to be down though and I still have some data left, I might just write a part 2, covering posting and tumblr culture.
An Honest Guide to Tumblr for Twitter Refugees (Part 1)
I know there are already tons of guides out there, but my WiFi was down the whole day and I got nothing else to do. Spent the entire morning making gifs, but still no WiFi, and Iâm like, fck this letâs make a Tumblr guide.
Now, assuming youâve already signed up and was able to snatch a fancy url*, hereâs what you should do next: Log into Tumblr on desktop. You probably made your account through the app, and thatâs cool and all, but for this guide, Iâll be showing some features that are currently only available on desktop Tumblr, so go ahead and get your laptop or PC out. Following this guide will also be easier on desktop.
*url = basically your username/handle on this site. We call them urlâs because it what makes your domain name on your blog. More on this later.
Covered in Part 1:
Configuring your Tumblr Settings (filters, community labels, algorithms, etc.)
Customizing your Tumblr (enabling your Tumblr website, finding a Tumblr theme)
Configuring your Tumblr Settings
Filters and Community Labels
Go to tumblr.com/settings/account. Here, youâll find one of Tumblrâs most important features: filters and community labels. Filters are similar to Twitterâs âmute wordsâ feature, and they come in two types: Tag and Content filters
Unlike Twitter, where tags are part of the post itself, Tumblr has a dedicated section at the bottom of the post to add tags.
Tag filters block out posts that are specifically tagged with #tag, while Content filters block posts containing a certain word within the body of the post itself. Once you have these set, you will never see such posts when using the search feature on Tumblr. It will still show up on your dashboard though, but it will look this and comes with the option to view the post for whenever youâre curious:
As for Community Labels, this should be self-explanatory. Mature content is now allowed on Tumblr, but if you donât want to see such content, you can always opt-out.
Go wild in using these two features. Tumblr is the only major social media left that still allows you to liberally curate your feed. The peeps here on Tumblr mainly still abide by the âdonât like, donât interactâ rule from the old days. Calling out or cancelling a user for what theyâre posting will get you nowhere. Thatâs just not how it works here. If you donât like something, just block it.
Turning Off Algorithms
Contrary to popular narrative, Tumblr actually has algorithms. But unlike social media sites, they are contained in a tab of its own (i.e. the âFor Youâ tab in Dashboard) and can be even turned off from showing up from within the feed you manually curated (the âFollowingâ tab under Dashboard).
To turn off the algorithms, go to tumblr.com/settings/dashboard and scroll down to the Preferences section. And if youâre a privacy stickler like me, you can go further by going to tumblr.com/settings/privacy to turn off Improved Search.
Tumblr Labs
Tumblr Labs are experimental features. Theyâre not required, but if you want to make the most out of Tumblr, you might want to turn on some of them. I like to turn on the different Dashboard tabs so I can keep up with whatâs going on in Tumblr.
Customizing your Tumblr
Now here comes the fun stuff and what really sets Tumblr apart from all other major social media sites: Personalization. In Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc, all user pages look the same. But in Tumblr, you can customize it as much as you want.
Before I start though, Iâd like to throw in some stuff that you have to understand first:
Tumblrâs Two âProfile Pagesâ
Each Tumblr user technically has two âprofile pages.â The first one is found at tumblr.com/username, and is basically not that much different from the profile pages of Twitter/Instagram/Facebook. You can customize its colors, icon, and header, but thatâs pretty much it. The second one is where the magic happens, and its found at username.tumblr.com. However, itâs not turned on by default.
Remember what I said earlier about Tumblr usernames being generally called as urlâs? Thatâs because of our âsecond profile pageâ here (I hate calling it second though because itâs what came first, but since itâs not a default option now, âsecondâ it is). Tumblr is a blogging platform. Like WordPress and Blogger, but a fun version of it. Your username.tumblr.com page is basically your own custom website.
Enabling your Tumblr Website
From hereon, Iâm gonna refer to the âsecond profile pageâ as just site because, well, thatâs what it really is.
To enable your custom site, go to tumblr.com/settings/blog/<username>. Toggle on the custom theme option. [If youâre a professional, you can even use a custom domain if you want your site url to look like your-site.com instead of your-site.tumblr.com.]
In the past, the step above wouldâve been enough to enable your site, but since Tumblr started implementing changes that sites using the default theme would just redirect to the first profile page (tumblr.com/username), we now have to do some extra steps to make sure that folks visiting at your-site.tumblr.com will really see your website instead of Tumblrâs default profile.
For that, we need to edit our siteâs theme.
What are Tumblr themes?
It's basically the design and layout of your site. It can be as crazy or as professional as you want. Here's Taylor Swift's Midnights theme, for example.
Where to Find a Tumblr Theme
Tumblrâs Official Theme Garden (free and paid)
Tumblrâs Official Theme Garden, but filtered to show only the free themes
@theme-hunter
@codingcabin
Itâs so hard to filter for the right theme in the Theme Garden though, so I suggest looking for themes in theme-hunter instead.
Tip in Choosing a Theme: Find one that supports NPF (Neue Post Format). Although Tumblr is still advocating its different posts types (text, image, audio, video, etc.), theyâve actually been rolling out changes to their editor where only a single post type is used (text) and you just add media to it. This is what NPF is about. On desktop, you can turn off the beta editor and thereby turn off NPF. However, on mobile web and on the app, posts can only be made in NPF. So if you intend to post on mobile, you have to find a theme that supports it. Otherwise, your content may look weird on your site.
I absolutely recommend themes by @seyche and @fukuo. The one Iâm currently using on my site is the Lilac theme by Seyche.
For a more comprehensive guide on customizing your Tumblr, check out Tumblrâs official guide for it.
And that ends part 1 of this Tumblr guide⌠Though I called this part 1, I actually donât know if thereâll be a part 2 lol. Iâm lazy, and writing this took some time. If my wifi continues to be down though and I still have some data left, I might just write a part 2, covering posting and tumblr culture.
I just find it so weird that the SK8 fandom is OBSESSED with angst and yetâŚ
they completely ignore the depressed, quiet (gay?) kid who's mourning the loss of his father and got ditched by his best friend (crush?) without a real explanation why
in favor of the happy-go-lucky golden retriever boy who's biggest issue is a feeling of inadequacy that he ends up getting over.
There is a sequel to #PicOfTheDay somewhere else??
Hey! Thanks for your interest, the plan is editing the existing chapters when I have got the time but unfortunately for the moment there won't be a sequel. If you're interested I might update Per Aspera ad Astra somewhere in the next five years lol
izzy806
gummygunk
jbbartram-illu
snowghoul
