The Hero of Three Faces

EDIT In any case the Three Faces link post with the preview panel with the triangle casual nudity was still pinned when I got the blog back, so your hypothesis is as good as any. Well, it leaves open the question of why my first replacement blog also got zapped but the second one hasn’t.

Alexandre Dumas (1802-1870) is best known for his adventure novels such as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte-Cristo. It's hard to overstate the cultural significance of his works, they influence the culture to this day and are well known around the entire world.

His father was Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, a French general who was born to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. Notably, he chose to be known as Dumas, not taking his father's name de la Pailleterie. Dumas is said to mean "of the farm", referring to the fact that his mother was a slave.

Alexandre was only four years old when his father died of stomach cancer. Thomas-Alexandre retired from the army after spending two years in captivity as a war prisoner. His family was forced to live in poverty as they didn't get a pension upon his death.

I'd like to include this striking snippet from Wikipedia, to add to the portrait of the general.

Alexander Dumas was one of the most productive writers of all time, he was also known to have numerous coauthors, most of whom weren't credited. His writing is, nevertheless, very easy to recognise, it's always sharp and witty.

His novels based on historic events are full of numerous distinct and complex characters, all with clear motivations and paths in their stories. I'd really recommend checking out his novels, they cover the history of France, giving vivid images of old rulers and their courts. They aren't always 100% historically accurate, but it can be excused, as they still do transport the reader both in time and space.

As an established writer, Dumas travelled a lot, he even was forced to flee France for a few years due to political reasons. He wrote about his travels and was able to enjoy the fruits of his work.

At one point, he built himself Castle Monte-Cristo, a dream home that was lavish and extravagant. However, he had to sell the mansion after a while, being unable to keep up with the spendings.

He enjoyed life to the fullest, known to have multiple mistresses and being interested in all sort of things, including such obvious things as history, along with the less obvious cooking that he wrote a book on later in his life.

His son, Alexandre Dumas, son, was also an acclaimed writer. In 2002, Alexandre Dumas's remains were placed in the Pantheon, the resting place of France's greats.

A true celebrity of his time, he's still as relevant as ever. His books take us on fascinating journeys and allow us to dream.

The Count of Monte-Cristo was one of the most significant books written in the 19th century, it's present in most lists of the most important fictional books. It was also a very personal book for its author. It reflected his own pain and projected his hope for a just world.

Monte-Cristo Daily starts today, February, 24!

So by now most of you have probably heard that my account was suddenly terminated (aka banned) on Saturday afternoon. I’m back now, and since I had to do some digging into this on my own, I figured I’d make a post for others to reference. 

How to tell if you’ve been wrongfully terminated

You will find yourself suddenly locked out of your account. For me, I had just made a post when I got kicked to the login screen. My password wouldn’t work, so I tried to reset it, at which point I got this screen:

Now, if Tumblr legitimately terminated your account - meaning, you broke a rule and they banned you for it - they should send you an email telling you why. So, immediately check your email. If you don’t get anything, it was probably a glitch. These happen shockingly often, so there’s a whole process to it. 

How to get your account back

First, submit a support ticket. Tumblr’s support email does NOT work, you MUST go through their site. Select ‘Terminated account’. Write a POLITE message explaining the situation. Describe what you were doing when you suddenly got kicked off, and state that to the best of your knowledge, you haven’t broken any rules, or that if you did, you would be willing to delete the offending posts. Include your url and email.

Check your email. You should immediately get an automatic message saying they’re looking into the problem. If you don’t that means that Tumblr marked your email as spam (because they banned you). If you need to, resend the ticket using a different email address at the bottom. Explain that your account email doesn’t seem to be going through and that’s why you’re using a different one. 

Wait. Tumblr Support’s hours of operation are 9-5 EST, Monday through Friday. If, like me, you submitted your ticket on a weekend, you may be in for a wait. If you don’t get a response within 24 hours, DO NOT SEND ANOTHER TICKET, but instead reply to the email they sent you. I’ve seen it advised that you should send another ticket only if the problem isn’t fixed within the week. 

Check you url often. Tumblr will likely never respond to your email letting you know what happened or that you’ve been reinstated. Check your url every so often, and if it finally loads as your blog (instead of the ‘There’s nothing here’ screen) you are free to log back in. 

Okay, so, in the years since writing this guide, I’ve both seen some discussion as well as made my own observations that lead me to believe this is not just a glitch with Tumblr’s code.

More likely, if you’re reading this because you got termed, your blog was caught up in a bot dragnet.

Tumblr, like all social media, has bots. And Tumblr also does regular bot purges. It’s strikingly clear to me when these purges happen, because this post will gain a ton of notes in the span of a day. Occasionally, but not always, this will happen shortly after I notice an influx of bot followers.

That means that, for most people experiencing this problem, you are doing something that triggers Tumblr’s automated bot removal process. I cannot say what it is. Social media tends to keep their bot removal criteria vague, so that people scripting bots can’t evade capture.

Which sucks for the innocent human bloggers caught up in the purges, but it also means that if you can get someone to double check your blog, you should be reinstated pretty swiftly.

EDIT In any case the Three Faces link post with the preview panel with the triangle casual nudity was still pinned when I got the blog back, so your hypothesis is as good as any. Well, it leaves open the question of why my first replacement blog also got zapped but the second one hasn’t.

On the other hand, the master is a bad guy. I don't necessarily mind a bad guy doing it. The master isn't known for their regard for consent. And it would have been Wildly Hilarious.

the most viewed image in the world is ‘bliss’ by Charles o’rear (1941). It was featured as a default windows xp background.

“Bliss” was taken in January 1996 while driving through California’s napa and sonoma counties.