You Know, An Interesting Tumblr Transformation That's Happened Gradually, And Which I've Seen No One

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

wait isnt gender over today

Just going home...

Of The Sword is a daily sword-based, micro-fiction anthology podcast running in September 2023.

ok thats enough sun now. turn that temperature down brother

Swordtember is a podcast this year*

It's called Of The Sword. There'll be an episode every day in September – each one is a short story with a unique sword through its heart. It's produced by Tal Minear (of Someone Dies In This Elevator) and Ezra J. Wayne. And I wrote one of the stories, Driving The Point Home; it'll be the episode released on 19 September!

If you can't wait til then, you can get all Of The Sword episodes early and ad-free by donating to Tal's Ko-fi. All cash raised goes to The National Center for Transgender Equality:

Ko-fi

Of The Sword Full Season - Tal Minear's Ko-fi Shop

20 episodes from Of The Sword, debuting September 2023. Get these episodes early and ad-free! Plus, all proceeds are donated to The National

Of the Sword isn't popping up in searches in all the podcast apps just yet (too fresh!), but you should still be able to subscribe by copying and pasting the feed address into the search bar: https://feeds.megaphone.fm/ofthesword

For the full episode list and transcripts, head to the Of The Sword website:

Of The Sword

Of The Sword

A daily sword-based, micro-fiction anthology that will run in September 2023

*As well as the usual art-prompt Swordtember, not instead of!