Chapter Text
The day Jack discovered Tumblr didn't start as anything special. Honestly, he didn't see what the big deal was, at first. He was fairly internet-savvy already, being the only one of the Guardians to actually keep up with everything the kids did simply because he enjoyed it. It was also a surprisingly good source of information - though, he learned it was best not to trust everything he read without checking for other sources.
And, of course, people didn't have to see him to talk to him. Not online. Plus, it was a good way to get his name out there - a little rumor here, a little underhanded advertising there... he was a little guilty about that, but oh well, it worked.
So, he eventually cracked, and joined the tumblr craze. He browsed around and followed some blogs, reblogging things he found interesting. Computers actually fared better in the cold than in warmth, so for a few hours, it worked rather well.
Then the keys started freezing, and the mouse broke, and after a while he was short a computer and rather sad for the loss. Technology was a new source of fun, and a lot of what he found was really funny once the inside jokes started making sense. 'Memes' were ...different, and tumblr was like a whole other planet, just waiting to be explored.
So, he went to North. That was when it really started.
He got his frost-resistant computer, but he sort of introduced North to tumblr, and in a few days the man had at least ten blogs. Jack followed them all, and his dash was flooded with all sorts of things - North's food blog, North's toy blog, North's year-round-Christmas-spirit blog, North's pretty ice and snow pictures blog (Jack reblogged every single post from that one). North had a lot of blogs, and Jack had no idea how he kept up with them all while still maintaining his Guardian duties.
When he asked about it, North only seemed surprised that Jack wasn't able to do the same. Jack wisely let it go.
Sandy was the next to fall victim. Like Jack, he had some problems with certain technology - he couldn't control every speck of sand, after all, and some just sort of ...slipped between the cracks. But, North came to the rescue once more, and at Jack's recommendation, tumblr was his first stop.
He didn't take to the post-spam of Jack and North, fortunately; rather, all he ever seemed to post were stunning photographs of aerial scenery or closeups of interesting textures. Cloud shots, panoramic views, reblogs of microscopic photos, and the occasional reblog of articles on dream theory. That, and, he favored some of the desserts on North's food blog, and would reblog pictures of red velvet cakes or whipped cream atop a banana split, from time to time.
Some people called it pretentious, and he didn't get a lot of popularity for it, but really, he just wanted to share the beauty of the world. Sandy wanted everyone to experience the amazing things he saw.
Tooth and Bunny were roped in, as well, confused and alarmed by the oft-frightening crowds of the internet. After all, adults were on the internet as well, and they hadn't talked to one of those in a long, long time.
Tooth didn't understand why nobody reblogged her pictures of teeth. The pristine whiteness was only just barely better than the bits of blood and gums still attached. She still had yet to get over that ... slight issue, with realizing that other people weren't as obsessed with teeth. Baby steps. She was starting to realize blood and gums were usually seen as disturbing.
("Not okay?"
"A little on the not okay side, yeah.")
When she started unconsciously humming Chip Skylark's, "My Shiny Teeth And Me," Jack gently patted her shoulder in understanding. She was one of them, now, and it was only a matter of time before she discovered Benedict Cumberbatch.
Bunny, on the other hand, got thousands of notes on pictures of flowers or painted eggs, and his gardening tips made the rounds repeatedly. Even Jack couldn't mess it up if Bunny was giving directions; he had a whole series of posts for plants that handled the frost best, and how to take care of them, step-by-step and day by day. Honestly, he was quite helpful, and something of a nutrition nut as well. He didn't trust the site at first, mostly because Jack had told him about it, but he grew fond of teaching others his ways.
It spread like a plague, really; The Tumblr Infection. They should have seen it coming.
Jack followed over two hundred blogs, and was away from the computer for what could be weeks at a time; when he came back, though, he checked them all. Every single page of updates, he would read.
And he reblogged a third of what he saw.
Bunny unfollowed him the first time he saw he'd gained a thousand notifications in twelve hours. Tooth tried, and kept him on her list of followed blogs, but even she didn't really want to scroll through all of that. North somehow kept up with it, and Sandy didn't follow anyone in the first place.
It was a nightmare. It was a disease. They should have stopped a long time ago, but all of them had grown attached.
And, speaking of Nightmares, Jack realized he hadn't seen a single one of the horses in days...
Investigation was necessary.
...after he got through all of his updates.