the horrors persist but so do I

brenn | 22 | he/they | jumping from a brainworm to another

[sandstworm]

avery in the pool

[sandstworm]

Averys ft. Louise (PC)

[sandstworm]

these two again

[sandstworm]

AveryPC but redesigned (kinda)

[the-irreverend]

And stay safe everyone!

[sandstworm]

A little something from 2023 that I never shared! I'm hoping to draw their new designs someday soon 💚

[fluff-pillow]

DELTARUNE TOMORROW

DELTARUNE TOMORROW DELTARUNE TOMORROW DELTARUNE TOMORROW DELTARUNE TOMORROW

[3hkowalski]

Black hat in 2027?!

I'm so ready…!!

+ my favourite crazy girls :3

[sandstworm]

Interview with the Saviour Happy Pride Month!! Sorry for the lack of activity lately, my mental health had a decline from April to May, but I'm doing a bit better now! Hopefully I can make a couple doodles to celebrate this month, but I can't promise anything just yet. I do have an animatic in the works right now, though! But I'll make it into a side project so that I can still focus on making regular arts in-between :] More updates about it will be on my Ko-fi soon!

[sandstworm]

Wynn x MC for my soul

[sandstworm]

Little doodle I had made in the name of Fool's day

[sandstworm]

i watched TADC episode 8 and now i'm just.

[sandstworm]

aimed at silly drawing and hit the full render button again Happy (very early) birthday to Myra 💗

[bardic-tales]

The Death of the Digital Ecosystem: Why Decoupling Notes Destroys Tumblr

@staff (Edit: I already sent this to Tumblr Support under the feedback option. I encourage everyone to send feedback on how bad this feature actually is).

For years, the total note count on a post served as a universal metric of a piece of content's impact. Whether a user liked the original post or a reblog fifteen branches deep, that engagement flowed back to the source. This ensured that the original artist, writer, or editor received the full credit for the viral success of their work.

Under this new system, engagement is trapped within the specific reblog a user happens to see on their dashboard. If a massive, high-traffic blog reblogs a piece of art from a small creator, every like and reblog that occurs through that larger account stays with them. The original creator is left with a stagnant note count on their own dashboard while their work generates thousands of interactions for someone else.

Erasure of Creator Visibility

Instead of seeing one post with 10,000 notes, a creator may now have to hunt through dozens of different reblog chains to find where the conversation is actually happening.

If the notes no longer flow back to the original post, the creator loses the ability to see who is enjoying their work, what the tags say, and how the community is responding.

On a platform where engagement often dictates visibility, splitting that engagement into tiny, unlinked fractions makes it significantly harder for original works to gain momentum compared to the high-reach blogs that reblog them.

Incentivizing the "Big Blog" Monopoly

This system rewards accounts that have already established a large following at the direct expense of the smaller accounts that actually produce the content. It transforms reblogging from a method of sharing into a method of acquisition.

When a reblog functions as its own independent post with its own note count, the incentive to click through to the original source disappears. The platform is transitioning from a collaborative ecosystem into a standard social media feed where the person who posts the content last—not the person who made it—reaps the rewards.

Impact on Collaborative Conversations

Tumblr’s unique culture is built on the reblog chain: a chronological, evolving conversation. By allowing users to like or reblog "any part" of the chain as an independent entity, the platform is breaking the narrative thread.

If engagement is siloed into specific branches, the incentive to add to a conversation is replaced by an incentive to simply own a piece of the engagement. This change doesn't encourage conversation. It encourages the commodification of individual posts within a chain, making it harder for the original voice to ever be heard over the noise of the rebloggers.

The Disincentive to Create

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this update is the psychological toll on the creative community. When the platform actively diverts credit and engagement away from the source, it destroys the motivation to share original work at all.

For many, the reward for posting is seeing how far their work travels. If that travel is now invisible or attributed to others, the labor of creating becomes thankless.

This system makes creators want to share nothing. If the platform is built to harvest a creator's effort for the benefit of curator blogs, the logical response is to stop providing the raw material. I am one leaning into this category. Without us creators, the curator blogs have nothing to curate.

By making it harder to protect and track one's own work, the platform is effectively telling creators that their presence is secondary to the conversations happening around their work: conversations they may no longer even be able to find.

[sandstworm]

it's been so long

[sandstworm]

posting this one second clip here to see if anyone can guess what the full animatic will be about

[sandstworm]

General updates + Ko-fi

Hello all! It's been a while since the last update, so I thought now was a good time to do another! 1. First off, I've started college this year! Sadly, that means the post frequency will slow down every now and then, but I promise I won't vanish out of a sudden like I did in the past (unless, of course, my health decides to strike me down... again). Also, feel free to send asks! I won't be able to answer them right away but I will get to them eventually. 2. Second, I'm hoping to better organise my posts/tags here on tumblr, especially the older ones. This will take a while to update, but once it's all set I'll see if I can make a "masterpost" of sorts for all of my arts prior to 2025 (but also for the newer ones, if I'm able to). (I would also love customising my blog and making it look nicer but I just. Can't wrap my head around the whole html stuff. Sorry to disappoint 😔) 3. And last, but not least, I've finally made a Carrd and started a Ko-fi! I'm still studying the possibility of doing commissions in the future (if not soon), but in case you simply wish to support me for my work instead, now you can! There's nothing new in there yet, but as I start working on new stuff I'll be posting some WIPs and such. 🙏 As always, the donation is completely optional! Any kind of support is well appreciated, be it through donation or not. 💚