recently my tumblr account got banned, after >10 years of being on that site. i don't know why. I followed guidelines and haven't even pissed anyone off recently. (i'm a little concerned it was because my username had 'trans' in it. but that's a very bold thing to assume with no proof).
i am upset at the loss of a 9yo blog with years and years of tags, but it is what it is. the site was rapidly falling apart anyways.
in the short term i want to be on no social media at all (except sheezy). i haven't not had a tumblr dash to check in the mornings since i was 14. it will be good for me to be completely offline for several months. i'm starting grad school soon and it will be nice to focus on it for a while. i may decide i never want social media again, but i do really like fandom and i think it's a positive part of my life. i like talking to people about sci-fi and art. the prospect of never having access to that again is very sad!!
my main requirements for social media (and why sheezy doesn't count) are 1) ability to read/write very long posts and 2) a curation mechanic. in my opinion reblogging/retweeting/etc are mandatory to form an environment where it's easy to find new artists and have your stuff be found. i used tumblr tags- but i also followed a lot of people who i trusted to put interesting art on my dash all the time! i don't like tag trawling and i like the cooperative atmosphere it fosters. tumblr has been having issues with this culture dying anyways, but the only alternative sites i know of are twitter/bluesky, which don't have long posts.
i don't know. i used tumblr for so long despite it being a really horrendously managed website because there is no other social media that has both of those requirements. and i tried to use twitter in its heyday and i never could get into it. it doesn't seem worth the effort for me. also the tagging system sucks balls.
despite it all i may remake in a few months. might as well ride that sinking ship to the true end. but i don't know if i can do it if i don't get my blog back. my baby that has been with me since middle school.
i'm still waiting to hear from support. it is what it is.
If you didn't know, pinterest has an collaging app called Shuffles. It seems relatively new (launched in 2022). I thought I'd check it out, since the cross compatibility with your pinterest intrigued me.
It's a simple editing app, as all mobile editors are. It has flip functions, text, automatic bubble borders if you want them, and some transparency functions. Here's some stuff I made while messing around with it:
I dislike the watermark extremely! The app also has some serious limitations if you wanted it to be your primary editor. A big selling point of the app is that they do have a basic auto-select function for shapes, sort of similar to the ios native photos app. However, it's very fiddly, and there's no magic wand option to clear out a specific color. You can make the 'highlights' or 'shadows' transparent, which is how I'm getting partial transparency for some of these, but you can't adjust the color level that the app chooses to be a highlight/shadow, which is mildly infuriating.
^Example of the auto-cut function, feat. my cat.
Another very interesting function is the ability to animate pieces, which means you can have moving collages. I got extremely excited at the possibility of gif support in a mobile app editor of all things, which would tie me to this app forever. Unfortunately you can't import your own gifs, so you're restricted to the movement options the app gives you. This isn't a bad selection by any means, but anything is limited if you can't bring in elements from other places. I'm still really hoping this makes its way into a future update.
There is also no export as gif function, which is insane. Why not!!!
I probably will continue to use shuffles- I find editing/collaging extremely meditative and the ability to edit on my phone is great for that. I do think the app culture definitely leans towards much more complicated collages then I've been doing so far, so I want to try more then that... I'll make little pinboards of blorbos. It's better in that regard then sheezy's native collager (collager? collage editor? scrapbooker?).
As a send off here's some of my favorite shuffles I've seen:
source source source
i have years of coding experience and am extremely good at what i do for work, but that coding has almost no crossover with html coding. i still feel like i'm fumbling around slowly for literally everything i do in html but it's not bad. it kind of feels like coding in high school... i missed it!
i got let off work after like 2 hours today, so i made a new header. i'm in the process of making a source map for it. it's very repetitive simple coding, which i do love. i feel like it's the editing of code, if that makes sense; i can zone out or listen to books while i do it. i'm around 10% through the first The Expanse book..... i cannot get invested in the cop stuff -_- but i like the other bits.
after i finish the source map i need to finish proofreading my paper before trivia night.... and i want to draw, at some point. editing is fun but it's not the same!
well i have kicked around the site a bit more, including making my profile slightly more my usual vibe. and edited my icon to work as an icon (more contrast) and not just the first drawing that would work that i already had saved as a png. yay for the small things.
site culture findings: everyone has been very nice so far:)!! i do find that i want to put /gen tone indicators on literally everything i say. i never don't say what i mean. i wish i could get a nametag that says 'AUTISM HONEST. TAKE AT FACE VALUE' and i like that the built in tone indicators do that for me.
i like that i can use html! don't like that the 'preview' button doesn't really work and i have to save to page to check edits. -_- also is it possible to edit the whole page with html... that would be fun. i do think this can maybe be done w themes? i haven't looked into that yet
WHY IS THE PIN BOARD SO ANNOYING TO USE. i loveeeee the concept of a built in simple editing system on a website like this. i would switch to it as my main collage editing software overnight. but the scaling being in the middle and the centered expansion when you drag the bottom down... it makes sizing things so annoying and impossible. or is this the way other people prefer to edit and it's just me that's wrong
why does every single link open in a new tab... i'll admit i usually don't mind having a lot of tabs open but like inside the notification menu?? why. also the site keeps loading into light mode and then switching to dark mode so it keeps flashing at me:/
anyways in general of course several of these are probably just the natural result of being a very small site! and all of them could be adapted to. i do like the site a lot so far, i've caught on to it much faster then other sites i've tried!
still, i would like it more if the editor was slightly better. i could spend hours in that thing if the scaling was a little different.
does sheezy not natively support alt text, or am I missing something?
i don't know if people actually use these as diary entries. i still need to stalk until i understand the culture on the site. and find more people to follow.
site culture is like 90% what makes or breaks a site for me, but i'm very interested in a site catered towards artists. even if i don't post my art that often. maybe i will have more time after i move....
i don't love that the tagging system doesn't allow spaces, but i understand why. the tags i've seen have all been rather small... i wonder how many people are on the site in total. maybe it's just less biased towards fanart here then tumblr... i also don't love that you can't post photosets, only one image at a time. there's some art i would have to really restructure to put here. maybe i will, idk.
anyways, i want to digitalize and finalize some ref sheets for ttrpg characters. this can't happen until i finish proofreading my paper, but hopefully i'll be done soon. i'm still debating how much backlogged art to post.
i'm excited to figure out the gritty stuff of how the site works! and design a proper site page!:)