Ask This Random Alicorn

Just trying to survive I genuinely hate asking for help, and I know we're all suffering so much right now, things are so tough for everyone. But with the job market being so horrible, and bills piling up, I'm forced to reach out and ask for help. 🙏🙏❤️

ko-fi.com/askbananpieeee

paypal.me/Bananpieee

Thank you for taking the time to read :)

I am sorry for doing this

of you I haven't been happy for a long time

I haven't had the best start to the year

I lost my job I loved here in February

this month I got a letter from the tax authority that I owe them

9.000 USD i have 12 months to pay It OFF

I do not sleep well at night and I am I am sorry

I'm trying everything to find a new job but I'm having no luck

I am afraid of losing my home

I am really sorry that I have to ask for help but I have no other choice

Please. Any amount will do. Please help me.

So, Rushiiru is one of the characters on this blog.

She could use a revamp, so I messed around with her design a bit

(This was done on a base I made—she’ll still have feathers (probably) and two tails, I just didn’t feel like adding them lol)

Version 1: Closest to her original design, less contrast gives a more coherent/collected color palette sorta

Version 2: More accurate to silver fox markings (which I believe I based her markings off of), dark markings pretty

Version 3: Compromise of darker colors AND lighter markings

Now.

So, Rushiiru is one of the characters on this blog.

She could use a revamp, so I messed around with her design a bit

(This was done on a base I made—she’ll still have feathers (probably) and two tails, I just didn’t feel like adding them lol)

Version 1: Closest to her original design, less contrast gives a more coherent/collected color palette sorta

Version 2: More accurate to silver fox markings (which I believe I based her markings off of), dark markings pretty

Version 3: Compromise of darker colors AND lighter markings

Now.

hello! I work in tech and here are some important things to know about "tumblr is going into maintenance mode." please note I do not work at tumblr, I've just worked at tumblr-adjacent sort of companies for my entire adult life and i've gone through this before.

what does maintenance mode mean?

literally what it sounds like -- Automattic is not going to be hiring new staff, investing in new product features, or doing anything new on tumblr. the staff that remains working on tumblr will be maintaining the status quo. most of the staff will be allocated elsewhere (or possibly laid off, though it looks like from that memo that's not what they're planning to do). it does not mean tumblr is shutting down. you should still buy premium, get merch, etc, because this is definitely step one of the shutdown process, but a maintenance mode designation is basically to see if tumblr will generate a revenue without putting more money into it than strictly necessary.

why did this happen?

obviously I do not know directly. from my observation, it's in part because Yahoo had absolutely no idea what to do with this platform, and then when Automattic bought it they also... struggled... but it is also in part because the user base has been so viciously anti-monetization that most attempts were killed outright.

yes, the user base is part of the problem. the absolute feral anti-premium, anti-ads, anti-tipping, anti-everything tumblr tried to do to make money is part of the problem. it's not the only part of the problem by a long shot, but I would be remiss not to mention it.

what do I do now?

use the platform. just like, keep using tumblr. do not abandon ship. buy premium, get yourself some badges, get yourself some merch, but use the platform. ad revenue is based on impressions and clicks. if a ton of the user base gives up, that revenue disappears.

--

tumblr is extremely special. I've never seen anything like it in my 20-odd years of being Very Online, and I was a minor BNF in WolfStar during LiveJournal days. I don't know that it can be recreated elsewhere. I don't know where fandom will go. I know that something else will exist after tumblr and that nothing gold can stay, but i don't think the specific kind of joy found here can be recreated. i say this not to be a downer, but to be realistic. I guess I should find a Bluesky invite.

The wording states that the majority of the 139 staff in Bumblr will be moved to other projects. That means at max 69 people will stay while at least 70 will leave the project. That's at bare minimum cutting the team in half. Have no idea if Happiness and T&S are also tumblr-centered crews, so them not being affected could be a blessing or at worst have no affect on the matter.

Google really doesn't offer any good indication whether Bumblr is a goofy name for tumblr or an actual team that manages something specific to the website. Any tumblr staff member is welcome to clarify any of that if they want to, and can (nondisclosure agreements are a thing).

If Bumblr is a specific subset of the staff then they might be in charge of content updates, like check marks, events, things like that. In which case the usability and moderation will likely see little to no changes. Which is good! Trust us; you'd rather want a functional website with no new content than a non-functional one desperate to pump out updates.

Does it suck people are technically being fired from such a great (fingers crossed it's great at least) job? Oh definitely, but this isn't THE end of tumblr.

There will be change and we may not like it.

You should definitely save anything important just incase; less people means sometimes accidents will happen more frequently. Share your contact info with anyone you want to keep in contact with.

Happiness -> Support

T&S -> Trust & Safety

Bumblr -> Product development, editorial, marketing etc.

The "reduction" don't affect Happiness or T&S because they weren't "Tumblr" to begin with, they are a different divisions within automattic that are cross-product (cover all the products from the company). So if automattic has (I have no idea of the real numbers numbers) 100 people working on T&S, maybe half of those were working on tumblr until now. But if tomorrow they decide to left only 10 of them working of tumblr, they don't need to move the other 40 anywhere: they are still in the same team, just looking at a different JIRA board every morning. Same with Hapiness. So the fact that there are no changes in those divisions doesn't have to mean there won't be less people on them working on tumblr.

Technically, people are not being fired over this (though some of them had been, today), they will just be moved to other projects (WordPress, WooCom, Day One, etc).

if you've never paid attention to one of my posts, start now.

or you can look at the reblog before from @dualumina

i work in technology, specifically surrounding supporting enterprise software.

this is bad.

this is death knell bad.

this is "end of life" for a product bad.

tumblr has basically said: this website is not a revenue vehicle, and thus, it may perish naturally. we won't pull support from it. we won't force people to move off of projects surrounding it. but we will do the bare minimum moving forward to maintain it's existence and one day, when no one else wants to take responsibility for the decaying infrastructure and literally endless backlog of defects and code rewrites, the website will sunset.

you should start building a different online community today if you want one. there are options. or, hell, if you're savvy enough, you could start your own and open source it.

So, Rushiiru is one of the characters on this blog.

She could use a revamp, so I messed around with her design a bit

(This was done on a base I made—she’ll still have feathers (probably) and two tails, I just didn’t feel like adding them lol)

Version 1: Closest to her original design, less contrast gives a more coherent/collected color palette sorta

Version 2: More accurate to silver fox markings (which I believe I based her markings off of), dark markings pretty

Version 3: Compromise of darker colors AND lighter markings

Now.

So, Rushiiru is one of the characters on this blog.

She could use a revamp, so I messed around with her design a bit

(This was done on a base I made—she’ll still have feathers (probably) and two tails, I just didn’t feel like adding them lol)

Version 1: Closest to her original design, less contrast gives a more coherent/collected color palette sorta

Version 2: More accurate to silver fox markings (which I believe I based her markings off of), dark markings pretty

Version 3: Compromise of darker colors AND lighter markings

Now.