Hey y’all I have an announcement! My web app that I’ve been working on, Afro Index, is now live! It’s a visual reference library of Black hairstyles, for artist, animators, writers, and anyone who wants to learn more about them!
Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨
It’s the final day of ships week and we’re celebrating the top 20 ships on Tumblr with some homegrown fanart. Please enjoy these artful depictions of the art of shipping!
@leon-donovan:
Thanks for joining us for Ships Week! If you don't want it to be over yet, come hang out and chat about yr faves on the tag: #ships week 2026 <3
It’s day 4 of ships week and we’re celebrating spots #21 – #40 with some homegrown fanart. Please enjoy these artful depictions of the art of shipping!
@cloudi-ii:
Join in with #ships week 2026 & follow along on @tumblr for more shipping content and list drops throughout the week!
It’s day 3 of ships week and we’re celebrating spots #41 – #60 with some homegrown fanart. Please enjoy these artful depictions of the art of shipping!
Join in with #ships week 2026 & follow along on @tumblr for more shipping content and list drops throughout the week!
It’s day 2 of ships week and we’re celebrating spots #81 – #100 with some homegrown fanart. Please enjoy these artful depictions of the art of shipping!
@clavateur:
Join in with #ships week 2026 & follow along on @tumblr for more shipping content and list drops throughout the week!
It’s day 1 of ships week and we’re celebrating spots #81 – #100 with some homegrown fanart. Please enjoy these artful depictions of the art of shipping!
Join in with #ships week 2026 & follow along on @tumblr for more shipping content and list drops throughout the week!
No fandom would be complete without its fanfic. We can’t not mention it—not least because of the sheer volume of it on Tumblr: You created over 1 million posts tagged #fanfic, which garnered over 40 million notes.
So, here’s to the fic writers who sustain us all through the lulls between seasons and in the aftermath of the big movie moments. And a special shout-out to those fic writers so committed, that they’re writing their OTP or rarepair long—sometimes for decades—after their show has been canceled.
We…won’t be sharing any of that here, but we see you, and your vast numbers certainly became incredibly apparent when we got engaged to Ao3. We love your commitment to your craft <3
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ALTHow was your 2025 on Tumblr? What were your fandom highlights? Add your voice to Year in Review by using #tumblr 2025.
ALTDescribe your work in your own words—what is Nyan Cat?
Nyan Cat is a little cat with a pastry body and rainbow trail that's been flying across the internet since 2011. It began as a fun little pixel animation I made back in 2011 of my Russian Blue cat, Marty. I drew it on a 70x70 canvas using Macromedia Fireworks, an old program I've been using since 2001. I've always been fascinated by classic video games from the OG Nintendo era, and a lot of my ideas come from trying to recreate that feeling.
How did Nyan Cat come about, for those who don’t know? Give us your origin story!
I created Nyan Cat (and its best pal, Fiesta Dog, who is a corgi with a taco body and blue gradient trails that complement Nyan Cat's rainbow trail) during a donation event to help with disaster relief after Japan's Tohoku earthquake. Once posted online, someone paired Nyan Cat with Daniwell's "Nyanyanyanyanyanyanya!" song, and it instantly took off. Nyan Cat was always meant to be lighthearted and fun, and it's grown into something much bigger than I'd ever imagined. Since 2011, it's circled the globe billions of times and has spawned countless remixes in different styles and flavors.
What’s one Tumblr-specific fan interaction, reblog, or moment that surprised you or made you feel seen as a creator?
Tumblr has always been one of the genuine spaces for Nyan Cat, and it's actually where it all first took off. The original was posted on my blog late at night on April 2nd, and that's where it first blasted off online. I've seen so many creative renditions and uses for Nyan Cat in different styles, it's still amazing to see it pop up in new ways. My favorite Tumblr thing right now has been when it's used on those Blingee/GeoCities style navbar buttons. I think it captures that early internet charm perfectly and reminds me why I fell in love with internet art culture in the first place.
What project or direction are you excited about next?
Right now, I'm happy watching Nyan Cat live a life of its own—it's the internet that's keeping the legend alive and I'm always grateful to see all the ways people use it. I am still drawing different Nyan Cat characters in the original format and style, and plan to continue making fun art as it inspires me. It's been a lot of fun keeping that energy going and watching how art and memes keep evolving together as the internet grows.
Thanks @/prguitarman! Here are some new creations, a timelapse, and an image of Marty who was the original inspiration for Nyan Cat—exclusively for you, Tumblr <3
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ALTQ: What is Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl?
Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want to Be a Magical Girl is a project that I started in August of 2024. Luckily the title kinda explains the premise! It’s a story that follows 15 year old Aika, a magical girl, who doesn’t want to be a magical girl. It started off as a one-off drawing of Aika but, over the course of 6 months, evolved into an 11 minute pilot animatic that was posted to YouTube.
Q: You’ve built a distinct creative world with IDWTBAMG from scratch on Tumblr. What made Tumblr the right place to develop that?
It was a great place to post and cultivate an audience for a specific thing (AKA a fandom). It made it really easy for me to archive and tag my work relating to the project, made it easy for other users to follow, and from there, it just kinda grew legs and ran away from me. I also really love the ask feature! It’s pretty unique to Tumblr and it’s a fun way to engage with my followers and for them to engage with me. It’s nice that I’m able to answer a question for everyone to see versus replying to a comment that would otherwise get buried.
Q: How has Tumblr’s creator community at-large supported or influenced your work over the years leading up to this current project?
It’s definitely helped shape how I share my work and shown me how important it is to have an artist community. There’s a really fun aspect of collaboration that comes from posting on a site like this. Prior to this, I was doing Pokémon comics on my sideblog (@yamujiburo) about Jessie and Ash’s mom dating. It started off as just a silly ship that I and a few other people thought was cute, but after I started doing the comics, it REALLY spread and it was so surreal to see people get on board. It’s lovely seeing people come together and share their ideas. I’ve so rarely had artist block since I really started posting on Tumblr. There’s endless inspiration and this feeling of creating something with a community.
Q: Is there a specific moment or fan interaction that made you realize your work had really resonated?
It’s hard to pinpoint an exact moment but generally getting asks or seeing tags from other queer, Black women saying how much Aika and Zira mean to them, means a lot to me! There’s so many fun anime tropes out there that Black characters (especially Black girls) seemingly don’t get to be. Although we are capable of relating to characters that don’t look like us, it’s nice to have the option! And on a sillier note, the first comic I made had Aika talking about wanting to do normal things, like trying every cheese. It was a throwaway line intended to just fill out the list but my followers took that and ran. And now it’s a canon character quirk that Aika’s obsessed with cheese haha. It’s fun to see the characters develop in real-time through community!
Q: How do you see your creative work evolving in the next year?
Through this project, I’ve been thrown into a sort of showrunner role. While it’s something I was really scared to take on, I’ve learned SO much by having to dip into different parts of animation production that I haven’t had experience in prior. I’ve professionally worked as a storyboard artist, character designer and episodic director, so a lot of my experience is mostly in writing and preproduction. This past year, I’ve had to learn more about production, voice directing, color design, layout, animation, music, sound designing, etc. So, this coming year, I hope to continue this trend and become a better leader and more well-rounded artist.
Thanks Kiana! Here’s an exclusive look behind the scenes of Pretty Pretty Please I Don’t Want To Be A Magical Girl!
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ALTHELLO TUMBLR.
Wow, we made it. 2025. One of the years of all time.
And, speaking of time, it's that time of year again when we reflect on the Times™ we've had: Welcome to Year in Review.
This year, we’re doing something new: Instead of the usual fandom data list drop, we took a closer look at the culture bubbling up through tag data and across your dashboards in 2025—the communities, aesthetics, and micro-moments that shaped the year.
We’ve broken it down into five chapters, each one illustrated by the posts that best capture the moment, because Tumblr is you, and the posts you make along the way.
You can jump into any chapter using the links below, or head here for the full experience.
Like the look? You can grab the theme for your blog here.
Alright. Let’s get into it:
This Isn’t Nostalgia, It’s Tumblr
Dive into popular nostalgia tags and the conversations around them that have become part of our today on Tumblr in 2025. Call it nostalgia if you want. We’ll call it Tumblr in 2025.
Your Life as a Moodboard
Jump into moodboard aesthetics and the astronomic rise of girlblogging in this year of our Lana, 2025.
Cozy Dystopia
Re-discover all the elements that, along with r e a l i t y, co-created the cozy dystopia we’ve all been basking in on Tumblr in 2025.
Age of the Creator
Hear from some of our favorite creators on Tumblr and how they’re using their blogs to create exciting projects and build community around their craft.
Fandom: The New Mainstream
A look back at some of the biggest fandoms of 2025 through the lens of fan art, fanfic, and fandom discourse.
We hope you enjoy this little slice of Tumblr in 2025. How was your 2025 on Tumblr? What did you create, join, celebrate, lose your mind over? Add your own Year in Review to the tag by using #tumblr 2025.
Hey Tumblr, Broken Hearts 3 is out now. Here’s a note to the fans from Lonely himself, and a sneak preview to the zine he’s released to accompany the mixtape. Take it away, Lonely:
I’m beyond excited and extremely happy to give my supporters a sonic party, an overall playlist of sounds I think we all can enjoy and love. Something for my truest fans to take into their daily lives and something for newer fans of me to find tasteful and unordinary all at once. A project I feel to be a true reflection of me in this very moment. </3³
The April 2025 GIF Theme is here! You have until the evening of April 30th to submit your ‘Mirror’ themed GIF. Your only limits are Tumblr’s GIF file size limit, and the theme.
Once you’ve made your GIF, post it to your blog and send the link to us via our submission box. We’ll reblog it to keep a collection of all the GIFs that have been made.
Good luck and have fun!
Working on redesigning hinata from naruto part 1.
So for my redesign concept for her, I wanted to give her an ice theme. Cause in my opinion I always loved hinata in an icey blue colour. I'm not really a fan of her in the colour lilac, but that's just my personal preference. This isn't a final design this just my idea. Let know your thoughts on the design.
Music and visual art, they go hand in hand. Or, ear in eye? Whatever. The point is, there are an astounding number of folks on Tumblr making stunning art inspired by their favorite musicians and we want to see your favs.
Reblog or comment and tag the visual artists who are making the incredible art that keeps you hype about the music you love and help others discover some great new artists!
Tag your favorites!
This is some background line art I did for the animated series "Scavengers Reign" directed by Joe Bennett and Charles Heuttner and art directed bby Benjy Brooke.
Autumn Vibe
Or as we Californians call it: fire season
and there is no such thing as winter
"Marty"
2025, watercolor and gouache
Marty is an education bird where I work. Unable to be released right now, Marty is used to go on trips to events to educate folks about wildlife.
more progress on bird toy...!
a couple of days ago I learnt about the existence of printing filaments made with wood fibers so I've become fully brain obsessed with learning how to use them to print wooden toys... they can be sanded, stained and varnished - I just have to get more items and learn how to use them... wooden toy 💭
Preview of Basilisk, my personal favorite of my risograph comics, and the project all my other recent medieval-inspired art descends from.
Styled after medieval illuminated manuscripts and printed using a custom color palette requiring 5 risograph inks (including metallic gold), Basilisk asks the question: what would drive a teenage girl to create a monster?
Physical copies available here. To brag for a moment--this is my masterwork of riso printing and is even more impressive in person.
The places you come together to support each other, laugh, and share.
The number in italics indicates how many spots a community moved up or down from the previous year. Bolded communities weren’t on the list last year.
Feeling inspired? Why not join one of the bustling artist Communities on Tumblr?
Well, well, well, look what we have here. If it isn’t 52 weeks’ worth of data drawn from the exemplary original posts you’ve been producing day in, day out, combined with the likes, reblogs, and search data—all of it weighed, ranked, and presented here for your viewing pleasure. In news that will come as a shock to no one at all, 2024 was the year of Artists on Tumblr. But quite right, too, as just a cursory scroll through the fanart, illustrations, digital pieces, paintings, textiles, and more will attest. It’s a goldmine. But this ain’t just any goldmine, this is your goldmine, and we’ve got abundant gratitude for the wonderful work you’ve shared this last year.
Dungeon Meshi won hearts and minds with its cozy feel, its cookery, its cast of eclectic, likable characters, and a delightfully off-center vibe. Farcille made for the sapphic love story we didn’t know we needed—and the inspiration for endless, exquisite fanart. There was much appreciation for season one, and excitement abounds for season two. But there were endings as well as beginnings, sadly, as the much-loved Jujutsu Kaisen brought six years of sublime storytelling to a close with Chapter 271. Good faced Evil, a nephew faced an uncle, and some really liked it, and others really did not. Discourse ensued, as discourse is wont to do.
Television! And lots of it! 2024 was the year in which animation ruled supreme with an embarrassment of riches to plunder. Gravity Falls and The Book of Bill became your fall fixations and simply refused to stop trending for seemingly an age (a Good Thing). Bill Cipher and Stanford Pines both made the Top 24 in their own right as you shipped them to high hell, with Billford coming top of Ships for 2024. Speaking of Hell, Hazbin Hotel was the new kid on the block. And, after a five-year wait, the new kid charmed—it was filthier, funnier, raunchier, and more heartfelt than you could have hoped for.
When it comes to hope, the times continue to be challenging, and the news can threaten to overwhelm. 2024 was no different. But you all painted the dash every color of the rainbow, stood loud and proud, and supported your ever-growing community online and offline in the struggle for LGBTQIA+ rights. While folks continue to voice their distress and concern for the ongoing crisis in Palestine, they also fight the good fight with activism and fundraising efforts across the dash. These may be dark days, but you all work tirelessly for the greater good as only you know how.
Looking after oneself is vital in these trying times, and you’ve all done just that in your own inimitable fashion. Cats still rule Tumblr as bears still poop in woods, and everyone has taken essential time to peruse the dashboard’s plethora of cat GIFs, cat art, boopin’ cats, cats of yore, and so on. You’re keeping things similarly wholesome with some more Tumblr mainstays: cottagecore, and its sister aesthetic, naturecore, imagine a simpler, greener, and quieter time. A time where the breeze billows softly through the long grass and gently turns the blades of the windmill; a time where we, too, might poop in woods.
The only thing more important than looking after oneself is treating oneself, and what better way to do that than gaming? Baldur’s Gate 3 made a most impressive leap from #21 last year to #7 in 2024, as the need for sexy monsters and beautiful beasties becomes ever more imperative with each passing year. Pokémon may have dropped a little from five to 11, but these games and shows still hold a dear place in your hearts—as demonstrated by your bountiful and beautiful fanart.
Here are the 24 most-mentioned things on Tumblr in 2024.
Feeling inspired? Want to create a dedicated place to discuss the things you love with the other people who love them? Create a Community here on Tumblr to do just that.
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ALTWorking on a potential project. Don’t have the story even started, but these guys stood up and said, “Me! Me!”
The cat foxes are twins and the big guy is their engineer friendo
The girl with the eyes a new friend of the last three. Are they all cats? They might all be cats
Lastly we have a couple of villainous associates, a warlord and his temper tantrum of an underling.
DAMMMBB i found this astarion piece from last year that i could doo 100 million times better if i just had the time i would love to finish / redo it
i too have been working on him for a year, and would be finished by now if only I had time XD
