@theartofmadeline
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
★
almost home
Doug Jones
sheepfilms
Noah Kahan
Kiana Khansmith
Fai_Ryy
Product Placement
untitled
d e v o n
The Bowery Presents
taylor price
Andulka
Not today Justin
Misplaced Lens Cap
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
PR's Tumblrdome
NASA
seen from South Africa
seen from Mexico
seen from Austria
seen from United States
seen from Vietnam
seen from Iraq
seen from United States
seen from Indonesia
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Poland
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United Kingdom
seen from Bangladesh
seen from Indonesia
seen from Israel
seen from Bangladesh
@adhd-inkubus
Hey there! Did you know that That 70's Show came out over 25 years ago! (Premier date August 23, 1998) What? Oh, don't mind that feeling - that's normal at your age. Bonus fact - when that 70s show came out, some executives at the network worried that people wouldn't care about it enough to make it successful because 'the 70s were too long ago for modern audiences to relate to.' At the time, it had only been 19 years since the 70's. Go take your Metamucil and Centrum Silver.
Am I a gamer? Or are video games just the safe way I dissociated as a child, and I can't let go of that because that coping strategy was there for me more than my family?
Am I a gamer? Or were video games the one thing that kept me quiet and still - and thus safe from abuse - as a child and now that false sense of safety is the strongest one I feel in a society that wants the people I love most either dead or bred?
I've got 600 games in my library for a reason, and I don't remember anything about most of them.
Why “Go Nuts, Show Nuts” Doesn’t Work in 2022
For those who don’t know or remember, Tumblr used to have a policy around porn that was literally “Go nuts, show nuts. Whatever.” That was memorable and hilarious, and for many people, Tumblr both hosted and helped with the discovery of a unique type of adult content.
In 2018, when Tumblr was owned by Verizon, they swung in the other direction and instituted an adult content ban that took out not only porn but also a ton of art and artists – including a ban on what must have been fun for a lawyer to write, female presenting nipples. This policy is currently still in place, though the Tumblr and Automattic teams are working to make it more open and common-sense, and the community labels launch is a first step toward that.
That said, no modern internet service in 2022 can have the rules that Tumblr did in 2007. I am personally extremely libertarian in terms of what consenting adults should be able to share, and I agree with “go nuts, show nuts” in principle, but the casually porn-friendly era of the early internet is currently impossible. Here’s why:
Credit card companies are anti-porn. You’ve probably heard how Pornhub can’t accept credit cards anymore. Or seen the new rules from Mastercard. Whatever crypto-utopia might come in the coming decades, today if you are blocked from banks, credit card processing, and financial services, you’re blocked from the modern economy. The vast majority of Automattic’s revenue comes from people buying our services and auto-renewing on credit cards, including the ads-free browsing upgrade that Tumblr recently launched. If we lost the ability to process credit cards, it wouldn’t just threaten Tumblr, but also the 2,000+ people in 97 countries that work at Automattic across all our products.
App stores, particularly Apple’s, are anti-porn. Tumblr started in 2007, the same year the iPhone was released. Originally, the iPhone didn’t have an App Store, and the speed of connectivity and quality of the screen meant that people didn’t use their smartphone very much and mostly interacted with Tumblr on the web, using desktop and laptop computers (really). Today 40% of our signups and 85% of our page views come from people on mobile apps, not on the web. Apple has its own rules for what’s allowed in their App Store, and the interpretation of those rules can vary depending on who is reviewing your app on any given day. Previous decisions on what’s allowed can be reversed any time you submit an app update, which we do several times a month. If Apple permanently banned Tumblr from the App Store, we’d probably have to shut the service down. If you want apps to allow more adult content, please lobby Apple. No one in the App Store has any effective power, even multi-hundred-billion companies like Facebook/Meta can be devastated when Apple changes its policies. Aside: Why do Twitter and Reddit get away with tons of super hardcore content? Ask Apple, because I don’t know. My guess is that Twitter and Reddit are too big for Apple to block so they decided to make an example out of Tumblr, which has “only” 102 million monthly visitors. Maybe Twitter gets blocked by Apple sometimes too but can’t talk about it because they’re a public company and it would scare investors.
There are lots of new rules around verifying consent and age in adult content. The rise of smartphones also means that everyone has a camera that can capture pictures and video at any time. Non-consensual sharing has grown exponentially and has been a huge problem on dedicated porn sites like Pornhub – and governments have rightly been expanding laws and regulations to make sure everyone being shown in online adult content is of legal age and has consented to the material being shared. Tumblr has no way to go back and identify the featured persons or the legality of every piece of adult content that was shared on the platform and taken down in 2018, nor does it have the resources or expertise to do that for new uploads.
Porn requires different service providers up and down the stack. In addition to a company primarily serving adult content not having access to normal financial services and being blocked by app stores, they also need specialized service providers – for example, for their bandwidth and network connections. Most traditional investors won’t fund primarily adult businesses, and may not even be allowed to by their LP agreements. (When Starbucks started selling alcohol at select stores, some investors were forced to sell their stock.)
If you wanted to start an adult social network in 2022, you’d need to be web-only on iOS and side load on Android, take payment in crypto, have a way to convert crypto to fiat for business operations without being blocked, do a ton of work in age and identity verification and compliance so you don’t go to jail, protect all of that identity information so you don’t dox your users, and make a ton of money. I estimate you’d need at least $7 million a year for every 1 million daily active users to support server storage and bandwidth (the GIFs and videos shared on Tumblr use a ton of both) in addition to hosting, moderation, compliance, and developer costs.
I do hope that a dedicated service or company is started that will replace what people used to get from porn on Tumblr. It may already exist and I don’t know about it. They’ll have an uphill battle under current regimes, and if you think that’s a bad thing please try to change the regimes. Don’t attack companies following legal and business realities as they exist.
having small boobs is ok
small boobs are not ugly
small boobs do not make you ugly
small boobs are not abnormal
breast size does not determine your attractiveness, worth, or femininity (or masculinity as the case may vary)
My poor kitten is having one of those rough periods where it builds and builds and builds before finally actually showing up meaner than ever. Every muscle hurts and she's so tired, so I've spent a lot of time the last few days rubbing her down, especially her tummy and lower back. I'm laying here now just keeping her back warm so her ovaries don't try to explode while she's sleeping. Just feeding warm massages into her back dimples and rubbing her hips. Poor baby... PCOS is a motherfucker. Periods suck too.
Meanwhile my other partner is -while also having her lady days- cycling covid through her six person house and really going through it at the same time. She lost a family member to a house fire just last night. I wish I could be there for her physically to moosh her and make her feel safe and loved; take care of her and make dinner for the house while everyone is dying, but we're trying not to spread it any further. No contact until at least the 23rd, which is heartbreaking. I really worry about her sanity stuck in quarantine with 4 sick kids and her sick mom.
I love my girls. I wish I could shelter them from some of this garbage.
Her, face buried in the pillow, butt in the air, desperately clawing the sheets...
Me, turning her inside out, realizing that she's doing her 'this is incredible' body language, but stopped making 'this is incredible' noises about forty seconds back... "Good girls remember to breathe."
Her, *guttural moaning and unintelligible speech*
Me, "There we go."
I will take you - by the hand, the throat, or both - and make you my goddess, but you'll earn that title for me over and over again.
My kitten (S) and I have been child free for something like 30 hours. 16 months after my son moved in with us, he goes on his first night away. My girlfriend (T) has neurodivergent shitlings of her own, and she understands how rough it can be to wrestle that 24 / 7. After having him overnight, before bringing him home, T VOLUNTEERED a second night. S and I could have cried. I'm personally thrilled that my girls care about look out for each other; especially after my most recent experience with metas.
S and I spent tonight eating pizza and drinking, playing video games together in our underwear, showing each other silly memes, and giggling at bad puns, violating each other consensually, content that an 11 year old will not suddenly and loudly explode onto the scene. Or comment on a private conversation from the next room. Or hear THINGS through the walls. It's nice that my kitten can bounce around without a shirt on, too. It feels amazing.
My girls are wonderful. I'm glad that T is comfortable offering this kind of support, and accepting of the kind of support that S and I offer her.
One Down, One up
Two weeks ago one of my girls dropped me. She was so deep in her BPD and Depression and always either unwilling or unable to do the work she needed to do. It got to her, she retreated into herself, and basically ignored me for three months before breaking up with me during a drunken BPD split while she was off her meds. She said 'We need to take a break.' then followed it up with 'I still love you and want to be with you but I can't.' then wouldn't identify new boundaries.
Deep down I knew it was coming so it didn't hit me nearly as hard as it hit her. I'd been on standby for her, doing what I could to reinforce self-care habits and healthy ways of thinking, doing what I could to reinforce the idea that she is strong and beautiful, and that those things were true outisde of our relationship, but it was always met with self-loathing and hostility. Sometimes she got angry when I told her good things about herself. She stayed jealous and refused to communicate problems until they'd reached critical mass, always citing trauma as the reason for not evolving.
I understand her paradigm and headspace. However, we all have trauma. Using it as a tool to better understand ourselves, venting about it, working through it - all these are noble. However, when she spoke to her trauma, it was exclusively as a wall; an excuse; a defense mechanism. These things in exclusivity are unhealthy for her and for those around her. After six months of being the emotional support animal she kept in a closet for self-esteem boosts whenever a Bumble boy would ghost her, I realized that I couldn't keep putting everything in and getting nothing out. I broke it to her that this was not a break - it is permanent. She did not like that.
I disconnected from her for a week to get my head straight. We had a lot to talk about, but I didn't want my wounds and anger to lead the way. I tried to have a discussion with her about how I felt and all the things we needed to work on if we were going to be able to be friends. Her response was to DARVO me, turning herself into the full-scale victim without any blame, and attacked me. She even tried to tell me I cheated on her by developing feelings for a friend and telling her about it immediately, before anything happened and before I had told said friend.
'You said you weren't looking for another partner. You said you were looking for friends and friends with benefits!' she said. It's true - just like the other thing I told her; that I'm demi and tend to only date people I've been friends with for a bit because I have a hard time jumping dick-first into randoms. Not to mention that the friend-to-lover route is how I picked her up, too.
I feel like I've gotten off track. I'm angry with her. I'm hurt by her. I've made peace with it though, and while it doesn't justify anything, I understand her processes and where she is. More than anything, what I feel is concern for her well-being. It's so important that we ALL do the work, folks. Don't nest in your trauma. Acknowledge it. Analyze it. Adapt to it. Understand that you aren't responsible for it existing, and that the effects it has on you are normal. Otherwise you’ll just burn yourself to the ground, and no matter how much you hurt, other people can only hold onto something that’s on fire for so long before they have to let go. If you’re going to be fire, you need to be water as well.
Then change things.
On a tangentially related note... I picked up a new girl as the old one was leaving. This was coincidental. She's made pretty much exclusively out of green flags, and she lives nearby instead of being a long-distance relationship. She's got four kids and the whole house is neurodiverse and big on working on their problems. Instead of being jealous of my other partner, she instead takes joy in seeing me treat her with affection and adoration. They both do. I'm definitely keeping this one. I don't have words to express how freeing and wonderful it felt to be able to interact freely and openly with both of them at once as they talked about things they had in common.
Sometimes @windspirit-wild needs fixing. Sometimes she needs breaking. Sometimes these are one in the same. A day of play yesterday; a day of rest today. My kitten - my goddess - thoroughly focused, felt and fucked; her body is my temple and I am nothing if not devout. Yesterday made her body sore and saw her sleep for about 14 hours today, so we had a little aftercare; some deep tissue massaging of the hips, lower back, thighs and butt before sending her to bed needy, wanting, and full of ben wa balls, with instructions to rest. She's followed instructions like the good girl she is and will be rewarded soon.
There is nothing I enjoy more than making my girl happy.
Back Again and Again.
It’s been over a year since I last talked to my wife. More than two since we parted ways. I never said goodbye - I didn’t think I’d ever have to, but then the escalation happened so suddenly... I had to make a snap decision in the moment to protect myself as well as her. We were grinding against each other setting fires left and right. I had to force disconnect. I told her not to talk to me anymore unless it was about our son. She hasn’t spoken to me since. She hasn’t really spoken to our son, either. It’s starting to have a very negative effect on how he feels about himself, as well as how he feels about my girlfriend, who he’s come to see as a mother over the past year and a half. He’s become upset that he views my partner as kind of a mom and had a meltdown the other day because ‘she’s gonna leave, that’s what mothers do!’ I started a letter to her today - just a draft to figure out exactly what I wanted to say to her and how. I was furious with how she’s treated my son and how he’s dealing with it. I wanted to rip into her but as soon as I started writing, things shifted. There’s so much I’ve been dying to say to her, everything just fell out of me. I have to push through it all to either remove her completely or get her in gear to actually be some kind of presence in our son’s life. But it’s hard. Two years later and I still can’t think of her as anything but my wife, and someone I want to spend my life with. I still smile when I think about her most of the time. I have this deep pit inside of me where her laughter used to live. There were so many failings in the end but the front half was amazing before we all got eaten by our respective mental illnesses. She used to be so scared that I’d replace her... but I’ve got two other partners now, both of them just wonderful and so supportive, and I wish the love I have for them could replace the ache of still loving her. It’s been long enough that the pain and shame of the things she did and said have burned away. I can understand her trauma and the thought processes she took for most things. I can step back and not take it personally, understanding that I was a large part of the problem as well, and we had put each other in a situation where neither of us could thrive. Having been removed from that long enough to begin healing, all I can see right now is all the ways I could fix her - fix us even, even if that’s realistically impossible - and ride the wave of resurfacing concerns about her well being while simultaneously trying to swallow them and put what’s important in front of me instead. I want her to be happy. I want her to get better. I want her to thrive. I worry about her every day - I spent the better part of a decade telling her that she meant everything to me because I love who she is at her core; underneath the rot and grime the world’s shoveled onto her. She has such a beautiful spirit. I wish I didn’t have to steel myself against the things I feel for her. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. But it’s not about us anymore. It’s about my son. It doesn’t matter how much I love her and desperately wish that I could have kept her. It doesn’t matter that I want to save her, hold her, rock her back and forth on my lap like I used to and whisper in her ear that I’m here, and everything will be okay. The only thing that matters is my son’s well-being. I’m sorry, Pretty Kitty. I love you.
I need to invest in an emotional support slut.
SOMEONE will advocate for you
Tonight, one of my girls told me she'd reactivated her Bumble account after a long break, and matched with someone, and that they have plans to get coffee this weekend. She almost seemed to expect me to be hurt or angry.
Words can't express how happy this makes me. We live thousands of miles apart, and I'm her only partner. It breaks my heart every night to know that her bed is cold while mine is not, and that she's so starved for the comfort and security I desperately wish I could give her.
My baby has many needs, and it makes my heart swell to see her stepping through the body issues that have kept her from dating in order to address those needs. I hope she finds someone local that's so good for her that she forgets I'm not around.
The most important thing to me in my relationships is that my partners be happy and fulfilled.
She deserves so much happiness.
Echoes Fading
There’s this strange, looming sense of mortality that comes with a neurodivergent brain. I remember details that others don’t. My recall works differently from most folks, and - largely against my will - it remembers so much more than it should. At the same time, I can’t help but notice how much most other people don’t remember. I’m only 36 and most of my memories are mine alone, now. At first, it was mostly media. Television shows, commercials, radio jingles, webpage designs... as time goes on less and less people know what I’m talking about when I reference things that stick out from my childhood. Now it’s become increasingly common that I discuss an event with someone and they just don’t remember it the way I do, or at all.
12 years ago, I went through a bad breakup. My first night sleeping alone in a year, I was losing my mind. I was drinking, trying to wrestle with all the demons in my head and contemplating suicide in anticipation of the return of my PTSD nightmares. I texted a good friend and asked her if she’d come over and just sleep next to me. She showed up 20 minutes later, and we spent the night getting drunk on cheap wine and hiding from our own personal hells in each other. I remember I had some horrible yellow-label wine bottle with a silhouette of a rubber duck on it that I’d gotten from Wal Mart for less than five dollars. I didn’t have a wine opener, so we used a hammer and a butter-knife to chisel the cork into pieces, which fell into the bottle, the taste of which was then absorbed by the wine. We drank it anyway and laughed about how horrible it was for years after. And after we drank and laughed and cried just a little, we went to bed and she went above and beyond what I asked for. It was an important night for me. It marked a turning point. More importantly, it’s a memory of a time a good friend did a wonderful thing for me and I bonded with another person. But she doesn’t remember, anymore. She was in a physically abusive relationship for a long time, and sustained ‘too many blows to the head’. and it’s affected her memory significantly. I’m the only person that remembers something special and it breaks my heart. It doesn’t bother me that one day I’ll be forgotten and everything I’ve accomplished will be wiped away. It bothers me that one day no one will know how wonderful the people I love are. No one will know those magic moments that shaped and defined me, leading me toward salvation or damnation. When I die, all of the beautiful, magical, powerful experiences and connections I’ve made in this world die with me.
Every now and then, I’m proud of myself for how far I’ve come - especially on things I don’t talk to anyone about. I think ‘Look at that, maybe I CAN do this. I’m alright after all!’ But that’s usually about the time that I remember that most people don’t impulsively watch the walls out of the corner of their eye when walking in a hallway, scanning for a shadow to alert them to someone’s presence behind, or constantly, actively listen for changes in the air pressure of the room so someone can’t surprise them. Most people’s instinctual reaction to kindness or even neutrality isn’t paranoid suspicion and reflexive shielding. Most people don’t have to bury a flinch reflex every time someone nearby raises their arms above waist level. Most folks don’t wake up 20 times a night, charged with adrenaline because they’ve been conditioned to react to every noise as a potential threat yet own two cats despite this fact. But I’m getting better about taking things personally, so I guess I’ve got that going for me.
There’s not much I love more than watching my kitten bounce happily around the kitchen, dancing to her ear-buds, with that skirt pouring off her hips and her chest dancing just as much as she is. I’ve been watching her and smiling like an idiot for at least 45 minutes.
