lemon drops and white lies

Multishipper. Genfic fan. Also Laeveteinn on AO3. Against JKR.

[hungwy]

there are so many bots following me

[c-130jsuperhercules]

[zhellers]

the old path

print

[quiddie]

Absolutely breathtaking! 😭💖

[engineering]

Tumblr Hack Day, March 2026 Edition

Once again, it was Hack Day at Tumblr, our favorite excuse to pause the roadmap for a moment and build something weird, useful, or ideally both. Here is a sneak peek of what the team built.

Unified Inbox

@ex, @kostastsi4 and @alexjf worked on making Asks and Submissions easier to find in the apps, moving your Inbox (currently buried in blog settings) to a tab in the Activity screen, where all your other incoming communication lives.

Gifs in replies

In @elt’s opinion, replies could use some spicing up. So he spent Hack Day adding GIF support to replies. Neat! 

Fun fact: reply threads themselves actually started as a Hack Day project over two years ago. The circle of hack life continues. 

Scaling the Reblog Graph Explorer

@blowery improved the implementation of reblog graph to handle massive viral posts gracefully. Instead of struggling with very large reblog chains, this hack rethinks how the graph is laid out so it can handle posts with massive numbers of reblogs more smoothly, making it easier to explore how posts spread across Tumblr.

In-Blog Search Filters

Web had the most complete set of in-blog search filters. Android and iOS? Not so much. @lesianlen worked on bringing parity across all three platforms: Android got Top/Recent sorting, an original posts filter, and Ask and Chat post type filters. iOS went from zero filters to a brand-new bottom sheet with the full filter set. Now everyone gets to search their blog properly, regardless of platform. 

Separating in-blog search from "Exclude from Tumblr Search and Recommendations"

Did you know that selecting the “Exclude from Tumblr search and recommendations” setting would also disable your in-blog search? Well, thanks to @lesianlen, now it doesn’t. This one’s already live.

Communities: Granular Moderator Permissions and Promotion Flow 

Promoting a member to admin in a Community is a big deal (and currently irreversible). 

@straku ironed out the promotion flow, adding a simple step to alert, confirm, and prevent promotions that could be to moderation.

Another request is having more control over what moderators can do. A way to give moderators more power, without them overtaking the community admin.

@jubs built a permissions system that lets admins choose what their moderators can do, without compromising their own ownership. In addition to existing moderator permissions, such as removing posts, and comments, you'd be able to allow mods to edit the community appearance (title, description, etc), the community settings (auto-moderation, tags, etc), and even manage other moderators.

Memories in Profile Page & Archive Page

Inspired by Google Photos’ “Memories” feature, Sowmia proposed building a “Memories” experience for the blog to surface nostalgic posts from its history.

The idea was to create a dedicated Memories feature and link it to archive pages, enabling users to rediscover past content in a more engaging way. As part of the hackday, she implemented the archive page portion of this idea, laying the foundation for integrating the full Memories experience in the future.

Post launcher with shortcuts to Drafts and Queue

@ex tried a new version of the post launcher at the top of the dashboard on web: switch blogs before opening the editor, or jump straight to your Drafts or Queue (takes 3-4 clicks to get there now). The buttons also show how many posts you have in your Drafts and Queue.

Reblogs with Videos

After all, why not? Why shouldn’t we have videos in reblogs? @andriibuilds dared to ask. And build it.

Like Sorting

People with thousands of Tumblr likes have been asking for the ability to sort and organize them for years. To start, @andriibuilds prototyped sorting options for the Likes page.

RemindMe

Inspired by Reddit's RemindMe bot, @data-science-from-the-trenches built a native reminder system: reply to any post or thread with "RemindMe! 2 days" and you'll get an activity notification linking back to it when that time has passed.

The Mysterious Cat Asks

As a preparation for April Fools, @jubs introduced asks sent by the Mysterious Cat, when you eat an "ask" food in the Snek game. Each question was represented by an item, with its own rarity.

And that’s a wrap on Tumblr Hack Day, March 2026 Edition. Huge shout-out to everyone who spent this time building cool things, sharing demos, and reminding us how much fun it is to make Tumblr weirder, better, and more delightful. 

Keep an eye on @changes to see if any of these hacks make it out to you.

Which hack project are you most excited about?

Unified inbox

GIFs in replies

Reblog explorer

In-blog search filters

Separating in-blog search from "Exclude from Tumblr Search and Recommendations"

Communities: Granular Moderator Permissions and Promotion Flow

Memories in Profile Page & Archive Page

Post launcher with shortcuts to Drafts and Queue

Reblogs with Videos

Like Sorting

RemindMe

The Mysterious Cat Asks

Voting ended onApr 16

[laeveteinn]

I like or love all of these! They feel genuinely fun and relevant to users. It would be great to see more changes like this.

[helimir]

someone in the sundered houses better be theorizing that wick and occtis eloped together or something

[ariadne-mouse]

Two houses, both alike in villainy, In fair Dol-Makjar, where we lay our scene, From ancient power break to new des'pration, Where noble blood makes noble hands unclean. Against the dark designs of these twin threats A pair of star-cross'd scions flee their roles; Whose multitud'nous faces and dang'rous bets Do with their escape upset their parents' goals. The harried progress of their strife-mark'd flight, And the continuance of their parents' rage, Which, but their children's capture, nought could satisfy, Is now the four hours' traffic of our stage; The which, if you with patient ears attend, What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

(this started as committing to the bit from my tags on this funny post but ended up playing pretty well as a sincere reflection of their respective narratives lol.)

[twilightofthesandwiches]

Alright, you know what? You’ve just been Isekai’d into the 5E D&D world! Spin this Wheel to find out your Class and, to make it more interesting, your Subclass!

How are you feeling?

HELL YEAH THIS IS THE BEST THING THAT EVER HAPPENED TO ME

This class is perfect for me! (complimentary)

This is pretty cool!

Not bad but… could better

Some parts of this are GREAT and some are TERRIBLE and it kinda evens out

I mean, I’m pretty sure I’m gonna die but at least I’ll be cool as hell

Well, I’m gonna hate being this Class but at least I’m gonna survive

I feel utterly indifferent about my Class

This class is perfect for me… (derogatory)

This isn’t good for me, but… could be worse

Yeah, this sucks

OH MY GOD THIS IS HORRIBLE I AM GONNA BE MISERABLE AND THAN I’LL DIE

Voting ended onApr 3

[feldfrog]

If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'

[parkchanwoohoo]

[featherquillpen]

Predatory syncretism: the cold open of C4E11

The Seekers cold open tonight absolutely rocked my world, and what really spoke to me was the way Brennan showed how the Shapers used syncretism to suppress and appropriate the Old Path.

It's a classic move for religions to build holy sites on top of holy sites of other religions. This isn't always a colonial or appropriative move (some spots are just cool or beautiful and you want your temple there), but sometimes it is (the Crusaders did this with Jewish holy sites, and there are many other examples the world over.) It is an act of violence, as Bolaire says later in the episode about the Cormorays' desire to cover up the historical truths conveyed by the Archanade. This is what Thaisha saw when she looked at the smashed statues of Trozhna in the Dvalmar Pass: a holy site of her religion appropriated and defaced to serve the Shapers instead.

The other part of the picture is syncretism. Syncretism is when pantheons incorporate gods from many different cultures. Again, this is not always an appropriative or destructive process, but sometimes it is. This is famously how Catholicism subsumed and incorporated indigenous and African spirituality into itself, by adding in orishas and such as saints that serve their God. By incorporating the Primordial Tehana as the wife of the forge goddess Trozhna, the Shapers appropriated the Old Path to serve their own narrative. There's no way that Thaisha thinks of Tehana as Trozhna's wife... but that's how Julien thinks of her. That's probably how most people think of her.

Also, to be a big lesbian for a second, I'm obsessed with how Trozhna of the Forge, Shaper of the Dwarves, is an evil culturally appropriating lesbian, and I'm also obsessed with how Vaelus absolutely and completely missed out on the experience Thaisha just had, an experience that might challenge her own perspective on Sylandri. I'm pretty much dying for Thaisha and Vaelus to talk about Sylandri, and the ways that she may have done violence to the truths of the Old Path the same way that Trozhna did.

[featherquillpen]

New evidence on this post incoming from Episode 14.

Brennan mentioned after Occtis's successful history check with Hannen that Sylandri was married to the King of Faerie. We know that the fae existed before the Shapers arrived.

I think that all of the Shapers either forcibly married or put out the story that they were married to one of the great powers that existed before the Shapers came along. They all claimed legitimacy and a right to power based on these "marriages" to the great powers and figures of older faiths and practices. Mark my words, we will learn that one of the other Shapers was supposedly married to a giant or something.

[featherquillpen]

A detail from episode 19 confirms this theory pretty much entirely. When Bolaire enters the Selodyne Wing, Brennan says that there are legends of the four Shapers married to Primordials ritually destroying them in various ways, including Trozhna weaving her "wife" Tehana into gold and jewels until there's nothing left of her. Now that's a powerful metaphor for marriages between colonizer and colonized as a tool of domination.

[laeveteinn]

dear mrs. halovar, you are forbidden from turning azune nayar into a statue. the council deems it an unnecessary expenditure as he is already a work of art

[laeveteinn]

have some thoughts on azune's sorcerer subclass options, from both mechanical and thematic viewpoints. luis carazo mentioned that azune doesn't follow all the beats of traditional sorcerers and paladins, but i will assume for now that azune's sorcerous magic does come from an innate bloodline/power source, rather than something totally different (e.g. wizard-style learned magic or a warlock pact).

these are roughly in order from my least to most favorite options.

shadow

at odds with azune's everything. would require a massive twist, e.g. he's a secret tachonis.

no subclass:

fine mechanically, but i don't see the narrative reason for dipping sorc yet never manifesting the powers of a specific bloodline. after all, teor's weaving a lovely story of innate family magic using just paladin levels.

homebrew

house royce seems to have custom bloodline abilities, and einfasen might too, seeing how there's no official giant-themed sorcerer subclass. maybe azune is connected to one of those families, or to a different sorcerous bloodline. house obridai's been suggested!

clockwork

the list offers some staple support spells that dovetail gorgeously with paladin, plus classic abjuration spells like "alarm." lots of fun for an orderly, self-sacrificing, hypervigilant guy! however the overlap with wick makes this narratively tricky. maybe azune's a halovar, or the descendant of a different build-a-celestial? or maybe runoff filament is radiating the waters of araman ...

draconic

i've seen speculation that azune's a long-lost cormoray instead. i'd like to also point out that draconic sorcery leans hard on elemental magic, which could easily be reflavored as primordial sorcery. perhaps azune's channeling the power of the titans- a sky titan? complement to the earth titan tehana- for a modern age. given the electricity wreathing his fist(s?) in the character portrait, lightning seems like a decent bet as an elemental affinity.

lunar

hm. as far as i know, this is distinct from any of the the sundered house styles of sorcery, which i like. this subclass is mechanically neat, the general radiance pairs well with paladin, and the shifting phases could fit a character who's constantly reshaping himself for different roles (a la thaisha+land druid?). however i don't really see this fitting into azune's aesthetic unless the three moon phases are rethemed as three sun phases. one for each color in his eyes, perhaps.

aberrant

hmmm. it seems to me that azune feels anomalous, frequently out of place- a metaphorical aberration, if you will. he's flirted with telepathy via the message spell, spells like calm emotions and detect thoughts fit beautifully with his schemer skill set, and psionic sorcery could be a powerful way to represent a character who's deeply, naturally magical, in ways that nearly rival the heads of the sundered houses. that said, azune doesn't seem literally aberrant. do aberrations even exist in araman? the tentacles might need to be aggressively reflavored as lightning. luckily there's precedent for that.

storm

the iconic smacks-you-with-lightning subclass, plus it gives primordial as a language! this subclass also incentivizes characters to dance around the frontlines of a battle- a great fit for a paladin who wants to take all the hits.

divine soul (eta or spellfire)

look. it would be so beautiful if this no-name guy gets to be a divine soul sorc while the halovars are stuck at clockwork soul. the narrative implications would be fascinating if azune's descended from the shapers, and more so if he's tapping into something deeper and older. luis carazo also said that he conceptualized azune's sorcadin mix as a singular "hybrid" class rather than a combination of two disjointed classes, and imo divine soul is a particularly seamless thematic addition to paladin.

the objective undisputed best of all subclasses

from a high-level narrative standpoint, azune seems like quite the oddity- a sorcerer with no connection whatsoever to a great house. as i've suggested above, his magic may be remembering something fundamental in araman's cosmos. something old, from when araman was "unshaped," untamed. wild, even. from a character standpoint, wild magic would be such a delightful twist on and challenge for a character who's holding on so hard to composure, who's repressed and orderly and buttoned up until he isn't. azune's soul already resonates somewhat with the probabilities of the universe (the lucky feat!). out-of-game, a wild magic sorcerer might be refreshing for the experienced players at this table; 5e wild magic was often relegated to joke characters who'd be okay killing their own party, but 5.5e has made the subclass much more viable for serious tactical games. plus it's a great choice for a multiclass, since just 3 levels can utterly redefine your character's mechanical and thematic identity. do i think it's likely? no. but please. pretty please.

[laeveteinn]

a lucky human, an (eloquence?) bard with the musician feat, and a diviner houseruled for post-roll portents. like the rest of dol-makjar, the dice will do exactly as the schemers say.

[laeveteinn]

thinking about that student with the translucent eye condition, where you can see through his irises to his background. i wonder if azune’s similar, and his irises provide a literal window to his soul?

[laeveteinn]

*politely breaks down your door* take a free ticket for azune/hal, now launching!

[ozbian]

... I'm wondering if giving Julien that rock was Thaisha basically tagging him with a breakaway collar and an air-tag

like hey, you spitting feral cat of a man, i saw you keep that flower from my little cousin, here's a bit of stone i literally picked off the ground (it's got a little bit of ore in it I can use to hunt you down, don't worry about it.)

if you care enough to keep it, i care enough to find you

[mauknink]

Schemers

Seekers

[tumblr]

Reblogs in a chain now get their own notes

The reblog chain is one of the things that makes Tumblr unlike anywhere else. All the notes on reblogs are attributed to the original post, no matter which branch people actually liked or reblogged. We want to keep encouraging conversations, and give contributors the recognition they deserve. 

Soon, you'll be able to like, reblog, or reply to any part of a reblog chain, and that note will go to that reblog's author. Each reblog will have its own counts, instead of one aggregated number from every version of the post. And yes, you’ll be able to like multiple posts in one chain.

If a reblog doesn't add anything, the love flows up to the last person in the chain who did. Your post doesn't lose notes just because people spread it quietly.

Past notes will stay on the original post — we're only changing what happens from here on out. Retroactively re-attributing all of them would be... a lot.

This is just the beginning. More changes are coming as we keep building this out – stay tuned!

[laeveteinn]

[Please copy or paraphrase this freely when contacting @staff)

Right now, if there's a controversial post, it takes one click to see everything Tumblr users have said about it. Yes, that includes the bizarre misinterpretations, but also the thoughtful rebuttals, the clarifying questions, the moving personal anecdotes, the receipts and bibliographies, and- dare I say it- a rare glimpse of nuance.

This update destroys that functionality. Users will see a single reblog chain, their own personal slice of the conversation curated by their own echoey corner of Tumblr. They'll need to click over and over, potentially at random, to break out of their own chamber and find all those alternate points of view.

Severe weather alert: the poor will be pissed on indefinitely.