….well, she’s got the spirit!

last but not least, our resident lesbians‼️

and with that the challenge is complete yayyyy that took me longer than i thought it would

<<pt 3.

sonic art dump and animations as usual + some mob psycho because i couldnt stop myself

Now loading… in pink!💖

april fool

gay fish

PE4R1 day 🦑👑

It is my personal opinion that the relationship between vector and espio is not father and son nor is it older brother and younger brother but a secret third thing

His boss

Tax write-off

Diversity Hire (Geek)

guys..... I'm re-entering my klance era...... and I redrew this old comic to start us off <3

more thoughts under the cut ⬇️

This was a great read with insightful points, thank you OP!

I hope you don't mind me adding some (slightly tangential) thoughts.

About reinforcing a tired stereotype

To quote my own post from a little while ago, being extreme sauna lovers is indeed a stereotype, but it isn't one that Finns at large find offensive. Even those who don't actually enjoy the sauna acknowledge it as a pillar of Finnish culture and tradition. It's where babies used to be born and bodies washed for burial, where ailments were healed and the toils of the week washed away. "The best remedy for the body and soul" as it says in the song.

There was indeed a bit of concern in the air early on, as in the HBL opinion peace linked by OP. In a more recent article in the same paper, the head of Finlandsinstitutet i Stockholm took a more positive view on the impact on both both finlandssvenskar in Finland and sverigefinnar in Sweden. She said that by embracing the national stereotype on the big stage, KAJ were basically showing that the Swedish-speaking minority who are often stereotyped as snobby elites in Finland are not that different from the Finnish-speaking majority and uplifting them. Meanwhile, many people living in Sweden who have Finnish ancestry find the piece nostalgic and relatable.

I'm sure both can be true at the same time, as it's very personal how the stereotyping affects each individual person! But like OP, I too have seen positive comments far outweigh the negative ones.

The truly negative stereotype of Finns in Sweden would indeed involve heavy drinking and violence, for the reasons commendably laid out in OP's previous post. I would also argue that Bara bada bastu might feel at least a tad bit offensive if it was made and performed by an entirely Swedish group with no ties to Finland. That's the thing about stereotypes in general. The people they concern can lean into them, but people from the outside should be very careful. See for example the interval act put on by the Swedish organisation last year, combining the sauna with Moomins and fake national dresses (featuring tacky Finnish flags in sequins).

If you want to read more, there was a non-KAJ thread a while back where some Finns discussed these types of tensions in our relationship to Sweden. My own reblog focused on the stereotype of finlandssvenskar in Finland and our national bitterness, but there was also a reblog chain about the condescension from Swedes towards Finnish culture (with last year's ESC as an illuminating example).

About how the current state of the world factors in

I don't really want to get too deep into politics here, but I feel like everything that's happened since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has also sparked some changes in Finns' attitudes towards Sweden.

In a survey conducted in 2023, 69% of respondents said their view of Sweden was positive or very positive and 25% said it was neutral (so only 6% were negative). As many as 74% believed Finland and Sweden had become closer since Russia invaded Ukraine; only 10% didn't think so while the rest weren't sure.

In the current state of the world, it feels important to know who your friends are. Sweden may be our rival in sports and music, but in the real world, they are our friend (which they proved in WWII by sending the most aid out of any country and taking in 72,000 of our 80,000 'war children'). Now, they are also our military ally since both our governments decided to abandon neutrality and join NATO together. Regardless of how you feel about NATO or certain countries in it (and believe me, I feel conflicted), that decision did establish a concrete alliance between us and our other Nordic and Baltic neighbours. This is not without its symbolic significance.

Anyway, that's already a big sidebar, but I really appreciate that we are having these kinds of broader discussions! Especially as KAJ themselves have said that they feel like they are representing the brotherhood between Finland and Sweden in Europe.

There is also another aspect that people outside of Finland may not be as aware of: the concept of Sauna diplomacy. It used to be common for our presidents, governments and other representatives to take their foreign counterparts or even parties in a serious conflict into the sauna and try to bond, pitch policy, or mediate there. (E.g. Nobel peace prize winner and former president Martti Ahtisaari is said to have successfully used this approach in both Africa and Asia.)

Is it silly to draw a line from actual diplomatic efforts to a comedy group performing a catchy sauna song with a fun choreography in a song contest? Yes, absolutely! But the sauna diplomacy is also part of the Finnish national narrative, and you wouldn't believe how many comments I saw after Melodifestivalen, saying KAJ were bringing it back. Of course those weren't completely serious, but many people do seem to think that now is the right time to bara bada bastu with Sweden and the rest of Europe.

okay it’s come to my attention that absolutely NONE OF YOU know ANYTHING about how cutie marks work. let me say this simply. a cutie mark isn’t a job being assigned, it’s a special TALENT OR SKILL that the pony enjoys. Most of the time it has a directly transferable job for that skill, like if you enjoy baking and are super good at it WOW! baker. If you are really good at writing and telling stories, author. However, there are some cutie marks that could go multiple ways.

twilight sparkle has exceptional magic ability, so she became a scholar, but she could really do anything that required a good magic skill. same with rainbow dash, her weather controlling job isn’t directly linked to her cutie mark, but it does fit the bill for the job.

i was posed the question of what would a murderer pony’s cutie mark be and wouldn’t everyone know. NO. if somehow murder were to be a special skill, the cutie mark might be something like a knife or a shovel. other ponies might just assume you’re good a cooking or gardening. now with cutie marks like apple jacks, their family has a ‘green thumb’ kind of deal so obviously the cutie mark would be hereditary.

so, the reason i made this post. walter white pony’s cutie mark would NOT be blue crystals. it would be a CHEMISTRY FLASK.

i feel like nobody has NOTPs anymore. like if you hate a ship now it has to be for some deep moral reason and you have to justify it to everyone what happened to just not liking stuff that isnt inherently bad but just because you personally think it sucks

highly recommend keeping a small portrait of a historical figure who met a grisly end on your work desk. for perspective.

me: oh thomas cromwell, we're really in it now. every day i get emails.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: i was on committees with the duke of norfolk. and they beheaded me.

me: yep. good point.

me: cromwell. cromwell this post has got too big and famous and people are starting to misunderstand me on it.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: oh no! you achieved too much fame and status? and now people are misrepresenting you? should we strip your lands and title? have you been beheaded?

me: YES ALRIGHT FINE

okay ❤️ yay ❤️

UM GUYS. I JUST NOTICED A CRAZY ISSUE W THE TUMBLR UPDATE.

YOU CAN SEE THE ICONS OF ANONS SOMETIMES.

The way I was able to recognize several anons in one of my inboxes bc of this error. Oh my god. Guys. This isn’t supposed to happen.

Weighing in to say:

YES, I SEE THIS ON MOBILE. HOWEVER I DO **NOT** THINK IT'S SHOWING THE ANON'S REAL IDENTITY.

The profile pictures I see next to anon asks are profile pictures that belong to other, non-anon asks in my ask box also. Some info

I think the bug is the inbox INCORRECTLY attributing anons to neighboring, logged-in asks.

Which is still a bad bug! Considering it makes it look like a long-time follower of mine sent me a spam ask.

And is worse if, say, one of these was anon hate.

But it's NOT the anon's real identity. It's a neighboring ask asker's identity

So if you have anon hate in your inbox that looks like it's attributed to your dear friend, who sends you lovely asks all the time, it was Not them.

CONFIRMED THE BUG IS INCORRECT ATTRIBUTION.

Thanks @thepatchycat for being a test subject. As you can see the icon being attributed to this ask is NOT the patchy cat

The pictured icon belongs to @watchingforcomets who sent me a nice ask about nail polish yesterday which I have not yet answered!

in loving memory of tumblr's april fools' pranks 💐 2014 - 2024

icymi, tumblr used to do an elaborate april fool's prank every year, but this year they suddenly stopped. here's a somewhat detailed recap of everything they did over the decade:

2013 - mishapocalypse (honourable mention): tumblr staff didn’t start doing april fools until 2014, but the mishapocalypse happened on tumblr in 2013 and i feel like this list would be incomplete without it

2014 - tumblrpro: upon opening your dash you were greeted by an “inspirational” video, that ended with the option to get “tumblrpro (for free)”. all it did was put a top hat on your icon.

2015 - tumblr executivesuite/coppy: a copying machine appeared in the corner of your dash. it would offer tips on how to use tumblr, like clippy the paperclip used to do in microsoft word. as the day went on, it slowly broke down and died right in front of your eyes. many people hated him (but not me). you could also make a (small) spreadsheet. @executivesuite2016 is the official blog.

2016 - this is decision/lizard election/tumblrdecides: a parody of the 2016 US elections. there were 4 lizards (well, one of them turned out to be a salamander in a scandal) to vote for. the dash looked different and there was a live news report with election updates, as well as an election blog for each lizard. they all had their own slogans and you would get an "i voted" button after you voted that would get slapped next to your icon. there were built-in functions to make an election poster for your favourite lizard and to create a text post that supported your lizard of choice that autogenerated a statement for all your followers to read. imo tumblr’s april fools peak. @thisisdecision2016-blog is the official blog, @mop-2016-blog @wretchedtooth @timefordeborah-blog were candidates. rick also had a blog (rick-official) but that now seems to have vanished because he ended up dropping out of the election. mop won, if you're curious. by far the most elaborate prank tumblr ever did.

2017 - horse friend: a tamagotchi-inspired game where you had to take care of a little horse in the corner of your screen. it came with a randomly generated name, and you had to feed and clean up after it. if you didnt take good care of it, it died. you could then hatch (yes, hatch) a new one. there was also an option to look at the names of all your dead horses. this is now available to buy in the tumblr shop. @horse-friends is the official blog.

2018 - tumblcoin: a parody of cryptocurrency (this was the year bitcoin took off). you could ‘invest’ in tumblcoin, with which you could in turn buy things with to spice up your dash, including last year’s horse friend, coppy from 2015, and a frame for around your icon. you could share the amount of tumblcoin you owned in an automatically generated gif post which would be tagged #tbc2018 and #tumblcoin. @tumblcoin is the official blog.

2019 - @memories: this blog still functions the way it did on april fools itself! it's like mad libs, where it takes post templates and then adds in tags you use a lot and users you frequently interact with on your main blog. like a personalized shitpost bot.

2020 - group chat prank/@storybot: it was so hard to find info on this because it was contained entirely in the now-defunct group chat function, which no one used. i had to go through the notes of this post for information because no one cared enough to actually write anything explaining it. turns out, you could write a story with your mutuals by adding storybot to your group chat. it also kept working after april fools (well, up until the group chats were deleted) just like memories. many people missed out on it entirely because they did not use the group chat function.

2021 - tumblcryptids: tumblr allowed you to adopt “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. clicking a button that said "Summon thy Tumblrcryptid" would spawn an image of a little blob-shaped creature with a short description, which would always read "Hi! My name is [randomly generated name]. I love [thing most people like]. I hate [thing most people dislike]. Like my parent, I can't get enough of #[tag from your main blog]." you could share them in a post, which would automatically add the tag #NFTumblcryptids to your post. and yes, people on the piss on the poor website freaked out about it because they thought they were real NFTs harming the environment. @tumblcryptidadoptioncenter is the official blog.

2022 - click-a-thon: when you clicked a light switch on your dashboard, a bunch of colourful things showed up, like a sponge you could move around, an "engagament meter", clickable buttons, and a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when you clicked it. you could. the crabs, like horse friend, are still available in the tumblr store as of 2025. here's some screenshots. there were various ways to share your crab activities, which would all get tagged #april fools 2022. the prank was presented as a marketing technique created by Brick Whartley, a fictional businessman character created by tumblr, who (afaik) originated in a post on the official blog of the 2018 april fools prank, albeit originally in a different role. around this time he also started functioning as the mascot for tumblr's shop ( @emporium )

2023 - abstract reactions (emoji reacts): buttons were added to every post that allowed you to add emoji reactions, many of them based on tumblr inside jokes (horse as a reference to horse plinko/horse friend, vanilla for the vanilla extract meme, pikaman, bug for bug race, and brick whartley, who wasn't a meme but staff really wanted him to be). if one specific emoji was used a certain amount of times it would add an effect to the post, eg many cheese emoji reacts would cover the post in cheese. this was also attributed to Brick Whartley ("his" blog @brickwhartley also documented the day)

2024 - boop-o-meter: allowed you to “boop” other users who had opted in to the booping, like facebook’s poke feature back in the day. depending on how long you held the button, you would either boop, super boop, or evil boop. on the dashboard there was a counter for both how many times you had booped others and how many times others had booped you, as well as how many boops were given side-wide. when booping someone, an image of a cat paw appeared. you would get badges (which can still be used) for booping 1, 100 and 1000 times. if you got more than 999 boops, the counter would simply say “WOW”. this was brought back for halloween 2024 (as BOOp-o-meter. get it), with a ghost, skeleton and mummy paw. no official blog, but here's an official recap for april first from staff. i believe this was the only april fools prank that was mobile user friendly.

2025 - @fandom is running some polls, i guess

GIRL, GIVE THEM THEIR TIME HAHAHAH