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softquietsteadylove · 1 year

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First of all: I'm so in love with your fics i would die for them. So I'd like to ask you to write something where some of The Fighters get hurt in the battle, but not as much as Thena. ( Because i love to see Thena hurt and sweet Gil taking care of her x3 )

But Ajak is gone for a few days, so the rest of the Eternals try to take care of our stubborn Thena and of course, she refuses with the famous "I'm fine." So, Makkari is zooming off to find Ajak and Gil tries to take care of Thena alone. Fluff and hurt and comfort and AHHHHHHH I just love your work so much omg

"I'm fine."

"I said, I'm fine!"

That was all it had been since the fight: trying and failing to get the Warrior Eternal to accept even a fluid ounce of help and getting shot down. None of the Fighters were exactly in great shape by the end of the last fight, but Thena was by far the worst off.

So bad that Makkari had zoomed off to try and convince Ajak to end her diplomatic trip early. But Ajak claimed that if none of the injuries were serious, then she was sure they could manage fine on their own with a little rest and some regular old human remedies.

What they were really all banking on was - actually a who - Gilgamesh.

The rest of the Eternals had chosen to make themselves scarce, figuring that if anyone could stand a chance of soothing the beast, it was the Strongest Eternal. Thena was like an injured animal, right now--lashing out and more dangerous than normal.

But maybe the gentle giant could do something about that.

"Thena?" Gil called out, actively looking for the Goddess of War among the winding halls of Babylon palace. "Thena, you here?"

A spear plowing straight through the wall answered his question. He jogged lightly to the doorway, leaning against it at the sight of a very agitated, very riled up Warrior Eternal. "You okay?"

"Fine."

But Gilgamesh was not the other Eternals. He walked in, laying the gentlest of hands on her shoulder. Her breathing slowed and she allowed him to soothe her temper. "What do you need?"

"There's," she huffed, obviously frustrated at the mere thought of it.

Gil tilted his head, finding the problem for himself easily enough. The answer was a knot in her hair caused by Deviant remains. She had obviously been trying to claw it out herself, but it was at just the right angle that he could see why even she was finding it difficult with just one hand. He lifted her hair up, working out the knot delicately.

Thena stewed in her anger, letting it seep out of her slowly. She leaned against shelf installed in all of their rooms within the temple. Her grey robes swayed around her ankles. "Thank you."

Gil combed his fingers through her hair, finally rid of the evidence of their fight. He was careful, dreading so much as a hitch in her breath. "You could have asked me."

Thena closed her free hand into a fist. The other lay tucked against her ribs, tied in a sling that she had only allowed so Sersi would get that grief stricken look off her face. "I am unable to brush my own hair, now?"

"You're not unable to do anything," Gil corrected her in a whisper, fanning out the locks of blonde and everything. He stood back, letting her turn to him. "But I don't care if you're unable or not. I want to help."

She took him in, with his honesty that she commonly told him was both his greatest weakness and strength. Although she was mistaken about that. He did think it was his greatest strength.

She was his greatest weakness.

"Thank you," she whispered, touching the side of her hand to the side of his. He turned his palm over, asking her to bridge the gap. She was slow and tentative about it, as she was about most things. But with the slightest sign from her, he happily slid their fingers together completely.

Gil tilted his head at her. "How 'bout a bath? Might relax you?"

"You're offering?" she smiled, and he blushed. She knew he would when she asked it, too. She thought it was fun to fluster him.

But he stepped closer, letting his breath hit the soft curls by her cheeks, "yeah, I am."

Thena let him lead her by the hand, following him to the bath halls. "Are you joining me?"

"I don't think you'll do it if I don't," he chuckled, stepping right into the water, letting his own grey robes become sodden. "C'mere."

And Thena did. She stepped into the bath with him, sighing as the hot water washed over her cuts and scrapes and tired bones. She sank into him, his arms winding around her. Her back settled against his chest, her hair floating around them in the water. "This is nice."

"I thought it would be," he smiled, gathering her hair and washing out the blood that had knotted it before. It faded into the water easily, leaving only her usual sunshine colour behind.

"Did the others send you to deal with me?"

"Excuse me," he chuckled, even giving her side a playful little pinch beneath the water. She laughed, the sound floating up to the high ceilings and dancing around in his brain. "No one sent me anywhere. I'll have you know there's nowhere I'd rather be."

Thena sighed as some of the tension did leave her shoulder. "Nowhere else?"

"Nowhere," he promised, letting his chin rest on her shoulder with the water lapping around them. He wrapped his arms around her completely, settling them around her lithe waist and under her folded arm. She let him tangle their fingers together again.

"Nowhere I'd rather be," she repeated, as if turning the words over in her head. He could hear that she was smiling, and she settled against him comfortably, in a way no one else would ever experience when it came to her.

He stretched his legs out in the water, dragging her to stretch out too, resting on his. She was so much stronger than him in so many ways, but so much smaller than him when he looked at them like this. He could feel her wilting more, growing softer. He let the back of her head press against his cheek. "You should sleep."

"Hm," she purred, still smiling, from the sounds of it. "First luring me into the bath with you, now telling me to sleep with you?"

Gil let his chest bounce with a silent laugh, although she pressed closer to stay connected with him. He pressed a kiss to the ridge of her ear. "Well, will you?"

"Maybe," she sighed, half asleep in his arms already.

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staff · 10 months

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Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience.

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content.

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Retain and grow our creator base.

Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Improve the platform’s performance, stability, and quality.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Principle 1: Expand the ways new users can discover and sign up for Tumblr.

Tumblr has a “top of the funnel” issue in converting non-users into engaged logged-in users. We also have not invested in industry standard SEO practices to ensure a robust top of the funnel. The referral traffic that we do get from external sources is dispersed across different pages with inconsistent user experiences, which results in a missed opportunity to convert these users into regular Tumblr users. For example, users from search engines often land on pages within the blog network and blog view—where there isn’t much of a reason to sign up.

We need to experiment with logged-out tumblr.com to ensure we are capturing the highest potential conversion rate for visitors into sign-ups and log-ins. We might want to explore showing the potential future user the full breadth of content that Tumblr has to offer on our logged-out pages. We want people to be able to easily understand the potential behind Tumblr without having to navigate multiple tabs and pages to figure it out. Our current logged-out explore page does very little to help users understand “what is Tumblr.” which is a missed opportunity to get people excited about joining the site.

Actions & Next Steps

Improving Tumblr’s search engine optimization (SEO) practices to be in line with industry standards.

Experiment with logged out tumblr.com to achieve the highest conversion rate for sign-ups and log-ins, explore ways for visitors to “get” Tumblr and entice them to sign up.

Principle 2: Provide high-quality content with every app launch.

We need to ensure the highest quality user experience by presenting fresh and relevant content tailored to the user’s diverse interests during each session. If the user has a bad content experience, the fault lies with the product.

The default position should always be that the user does not know how to navigate the application. Additionally, we need to ensure that when people search for content related to their interests, it is easily accessible without any confusing limitations or unexpected roadblocks in their journey.

Being a 15-year-old brand is tough because the brand carries the baggage of a person’s preconceived impressions of Tumblr. On average, a user only sees 25 posts per session, so the first 25 posts have to convey the value of Tumblr: it is a vibrant community with lots of untapped potential. We never want to leave the user believing that Tumblr is a place that is stale and not relevant.

Actions & Next Steps

Deliver great content each time the app is opened.

Make it easier for users to understand where the vibrant communities on Tumblr are.

Improve our algorithmic ranking capabilities across all feeds.

Principle 3: Facilitate easier user participation in conversations.

Part of Tumblr’s charm lies in its capacity to showcase the evolution of conversations and the clever remarks found within reblog chains and replies. Engaging in these discussions should be enjoyable and effortless.

Unfortunately, the current way that conversations work on Tumblr across replies and reblogs is confusing for new users. The limitations around engaging with individual reblogs, replies only applying to the original post, and the inability to easily follow threaded conversations make it difficult for users to join the conversation.

Actions & Next Steps

Address the confusion within replies and reblogs.

Improve the conversational posting features around replies and reblogs.

Allow engagements on individual replies and reblogs.

Make it easier for users to follow the various conversation paths within a reblog thread.

Remove clutter in the conversation by collapsing reblog threads.

Explore the feasibility of removing duplicate reblogs within a user’s Following feed.

Principle 4: Retain and grow our creator base.

Creators are essential to the Tumblr community. However, we haven’t always had a consistent and coordinated effort around retaining, nurturing, and growing our creator base.

Being a new creator on Tumblr can be intimidating, with a high likelihood of leaving or disappointment upon sharing creations without receiving engagement or feedback. We need to ensure that we have the expected creator tools and foster the rewarding feedback loops that keep creators around and enable them to thrive.

The lack of feedback stems from the outdated decision to only show content from followed blogs on the main dashboard feed (“Following”), perpetuating a cycle where popular blogs continue to gain more visibility at the expense of helping new creators. To address this, we need to prioritize supporting and nurturing the growth of new creators on the platform.

It is also imperative that creators, like everyone on Tumblr, feel safe and in control of their experience. Whether it be an ask from the community or engagement on a post, being successful on Tumblr should never feel like a punishing experience.

Actions & Next Steps

Get creators’ new content in front of people who are interested in it.

Improve the feedback loop for creators, incentivizing them to continue posting.

Build mechanisms to protect creators from being spammed by notifications when they go viral.

Expand ways to co-create content, such as by adding the capability to embed Tumblr links in posts.

Principle 5: Create patterns that encourage users to keep returning to Tumblr.

Push notifications and emails are essential tools to increase user engagement, improve user retention, and facilitate content discovery. Our strategy of reaching out to you, the user, should be well-coordinated across product, commercial, and marketing teams.

Our messaging strategy needs to be personalized and adapt to a user’s shifting interests. Our messages should keep users in the know on the latest activity in their community, as well as keeping Tumblr top of mind as the place to go for witty takes and remixes of the latest shows and real-life events.

Most importantly, our messages should be thoughtful and should never come across as spammy.

Actions & Next Steps

Conduct an audit of our messaging strategy.

Address the issue of notifications getting too noisy; throttle, collapse or mute notifications where necessary.

Identify opportunities for personalization within our email messages.

Test what the right daily push notification limit is.

Send emails when a user has push notifications switched off.

Principle 6: Performance, stability and quality.

The stability and performance of our mobile apps have declined. There is a large backlog of production issues, with more bugs created than resolved over the last 300 days. If this continues, roughly one new unresolved production issue will be created every two days. Apps and backend systems that work well and don't crash are the foundation of a great Tumblr experience. Improving performance, stability, and quality will help us achieve sustainable operations for Tumblr.

Improve performance and stability: deliver crash-free, responsive, and fast-loading apps on Android, iOS, and web.

Improve quality: deliver the highest quality Tumblr experience to our users.

Move faster: provide APIs and services to unblock core product initiatives and launch new features coming out of Labs.

Conclusion

Our mission has always been to empower the world’s creators. We are wholly committed to ensuring Tumblr evolves in a way that supports our current users while improving areas that attract new creators, artists, and users. You deserve a digital home that works for you. You deserve the best tools and features to connect with your communities on a platform that prioritizes the easy discoverability of high-quality content. This is an invigorating time for Tumblr, and we couldn’t be more excited about our current strategy.

#tumblr #engineering #core product strategy

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