2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
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Cosmic Funnies
Today's Document
wallacepolsom
Product Placement
izzy's playlists!
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Xuebing Du
Mike Driver
hello vonnie
Origami Around
祝日 / Permanent Vacation
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
NASA
roma★
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@carmarthenfan
I don't know what it says about my subconscious right now that in the 3 hours of sleep I got last night I dreamed Mari Lwyd showed up ready to party.
(how does a horse skull drink beer? Idk, but 10/10 folkloric figure, I would 100% buy her a beer, bet she has some wild stories)
Mannnnn, I miss the days when we didn't think ultra-restrictive infinite copyright and France's "it's illegal to photograph the Eiffel Tower at night" thing is Good, Actually.
And also, I think if you don't want the owners of the physical art you gave away posting photos of their collection on Instagram or whatever without your express written permission, maybe mail art is not for you (especially if you're the kind of artist who signs with a pseudonym and no contact information).
Legally, is it technically copyright infringement? Possibly, depending on where they live and how the art is photographed.
Morally? It in NO WAY infringes upon the artist's financial interests, which is what copyright law is SUPPOSED to protect, it doesn't falsely claim authorship, and it's just not remotely the same as scanning the art and slapping it on products to sell.
I just don't think we should be talking about it morally like it's the same thing as reproducing unlicensed art for profit and I think it's kind of weird to try to control how people display art you've given or sold them in an era of globally distributed hobby communities where "display" (which IS legally protected for physical display everywhere, as far as I can tell) is online because it's 2026, not 1926. Why is this even a thing people are worried about?
Anyway, I'm going to start putting a CC license on my ATCs and APCs going forward.
Star Wars actor AU part 3. A little more all over the place in the timeline than the other 2.
After 7 seasons, their tactic for jedi catching their lightsaber with the force is still for someone off-camera to throw it at them.
After take 13 Ahsoka just decides to join the dark side.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Look it’s me
The Mando movie was...fine. Full of plot holes, creature design seriously lacking, but we got to find out what happened to Titta and see Nal Hutta and I am an easily pleased fangirl when my very niche interests are fulfilled.
That said, there was one major Hutt-related oversight...
Also bless Mando, I love him, but he is the most irresponsible dad. I get that for audience reasons the precocious toddler has to be involved, but instead of finding clever plot ways to bring him on assassination missions and whatnot, Mando just........brings him along and has him helping with things that would not be at all cute if we were watching a human child do them. He knows people now! Trustworthy, heavily armed people! Who could babysit! Yeah, it tracks with his cult upbringing that we're still treating like a cool character detail and not fucked up at all, but this time around it was really...a lot. Grogu should be melting down from PTSD on the reg, I can't imagine Luke taught him to perfectly compartmentalize in the short training period.
TBH, I think the problem there is that Grogu isn't really a character who has actual PTSD from the horrific trauma he's been through and all the violence he's experienced and witnessed even AFTER acquiring a dad, who has to figure out how to deal with it as he grows up. He's a cute product who sells merch, so even though Ahsoka tells us he's traumatized, he has to be a cute baby who is never sad or scared for more than a few minutes, who still doesn't talk even though he is capable of doing a lot of things that IMO would put his current cognitive age well past toddler, who makes and carries out fairly complex plans but then regresses to naughty baby whenever it will be cute or funny.
Grogu was never my favorite part of the show, but in the first two seasons, his relationship with Mando grew and changed and it was emotionally meaningful for what it showed about Mando. I think the decision to cop out of having Grogu stay with Luke, to essentially rewind except now Grogu has more Force skills so he can help Mando in ways that are wildly inappropriate for a child, kind of killed the core emotional arc of the show, about Mando learning to be a dad and then learning to let go when that's what his kid needs. Now it's all emotionally static.
I did enjoy the movie well enough, and I am probably a pretty good target audience - I really wanted to know how Rotta turned out, and "extended series episode" was what I wanted. But it didn't involve me emotionally because we'd done all this before.
Honestly, I think they should have ended after season 2. Season 3 had all kinds of interesting things in it but made no coherent story overall, like they couldn't decide what they wanted to actually do with it - the Project Paperclip in Space that went nowhere, Bo-Katan's thing, undoing Grogu being with Luke. The takeover of BOBF as Mando 2.5 was bullshit, but I feel like BOBF was tragically wasted potential overall because they either didn't care about the story they were telling or didn't think it was marketable enough without Grogu.
I guess having a cute merchandising powerhouse is in some ways at odds with telling a meaningful story where emotional beats and hard-earned character developments are allowed to stick instead of being immediately rolled back.
It's sort of similar to hanging a TV show on unresolved romantic tension and then either losing audience because they get bored it's never resolved or losing audience because it is, and then it's obvious the writers have no idea what to do without the unresolved romantic tension.
The Mando movie was...fine. Full of plot holes, creature design seriously lacking, but we got to find out what happened to Titta and see Nal Hutta and I am an easily pleased fangirl when my very niche interests are fulfilled.
That said, there was one major Hutt-related oversight...
undiagnosed autistic people will be like "I don't get upset when my routine changes though!!" and it's because they've built a set of if-then loops in their head to pick from one of 6 different strict routines and they do get incredibly upset when they're unable to keep to any of the 6 scripts. I'm john normal
This is called a fault tree. You will always know how to act if your fault tree captures all possible scenarios. In NASA Mission Control during mission critical events like landings there are huge binders with fault tree protocols, kind of like choose your own adventure books except you’re not the one making the choices, the universe is making them for you and you’re just trying to keep up.
The engineers who develop fault trees, I am told, often imagine new ways for their precious spacecraft to die (new branches on the fault trees) either while in the shower or lying awake at 3am, because human
Was just thinking about this the other day. Yeah I have a favorite seat on the bus (middle of the bus, near the back doors, slightly elevated, facing forward), but I don’t get upset if someone is already sitting there, I just pick one of my other favorite spots. Then I realized that most people probably don’t have a favorite bus seat, let alone a series of backup favorites.
Nothing like a popular recommended Reddit post and the shitshow in the comments to remind you that your disability is a disability if it negatively affects you, but the moment it even slightly inconveniences someone else it becomes a malicious character flaw and you need to "take responsibility" and "try harder" or you're a bad person.
Like, I'm not saying you have to put up with treatment you don't like, or that it's okay to treat people badly because you're autistic.
But I wish I could get it through people's fucking thick skulls that you can't willpower and effort away the symptoms of neurodevelopmental conditions that annoy other people any more than someone with Type I diabetes can willpower their body into producing insulin or someone with any other physical disability can just work really really hard so they never need any help or accommodation and never inconvenience anyone. Disabilities are fucking inconvenient even under ideal circumstances and with all the effort possible! That's what makes them disabling! If they never inconvenienced other people, we'd probably get told they aren't ~ bad enough ~ to be real disabilities!
If your partner, due to a symptom of their disability, cannot do a thing you require in a relationship, that means you're not compatible and need to separate. It does not mean your spouse is lazy, manipulative, and would just try harder if they really loved you.
I just wish society would fucking recognize that the brain is part of the body and just because a disability or health issue involves the brain does not mean it's always curable with enough effort, so anyone who isn't ~cured~ must not be trying hard enough.
Anyway, l'm so glad the only expectations I have to meet are my cat's, and while I only have a passing grade as a butler due to my poor psychic abilities and refusal to let him chew on my laptop cable, he does not give two shits whether I act neurotypical. It's just so damn exhausting to keep up my not terribly convincing Eccentric Neurotypical act (which will never be good enough because the only thing good enough is actually *being* neurotypical and anything else is "too calculated and robotic" 🙃) just so I can stay employed and not die.
Maybe I should stitch THE BRAIN IS PART OF THE BODY on a rage sampler to displace my current off the charts immigration and long-term employment/survival anxiety.
🎤 News from Sámi Grand Prix as submissions have opened for the 2026 edition of the contest, which will be held on 28th March.
It's not camp, but if you're looking for a song contest that has nothing to do with Israel and you've always liked the more distinctively ethnic Eurovision entries best, I'm really enjoying the 2025 Sámi Grand Prix.
One of the neat things about it is how personal most of the songs are - they clearly aren't written by professional committee like most Eurovision entries. Like one guy's entry is about a trip to Mongolia he took (I really like that one, can definitely hear the Mongolian influence in it), people sing about their partners or the feeling of doing traditional crafts, things like that.
It's a totally different kind of contest with a different vibe, but a lot of lovely music in a variety of styles.
instant loss 2koma
The really funny part is that many modern sources that want to gas up Sparta will bring up this specific anecdote, but stop at the "if" and just not mention what happened immediately afterwards.
similarly, "μολὼν λαβέ" (come and take them) is a really cool thing to say, made significantly less cool by having them taken
Spartan propaganda usually only works if you stop right before the end of the story tbh
Cf. also the Wikipedia entry for Laconophilia. This particular line of wishful-thinking/cherry-picking BS has been going on for a long time. 😏
Obligatory This. Isn't. Sparta. addition.
You've heard about Mini mum, Mini scule, and Mini ature… but have you heard about Zig zag‽
[Miralles et al. 2026 CC BY-NC 4.0]
A few weeks ago, friends and colleagues of mine (I was not involved) published this incredible new species of legless skink that makes distinctive zig-zag markings in the sand as it 'swims' through it.
[Miralles et al. 2026 CC BY-NC 4.0]
So they called it Zig zag.
ZIG ZAG, CORAL!
Gosh I love this new era of whimsy-driven taxonomy.
I've been congested basically 100% of the time for I don't know how many years, like can't lie on my side for more than a few minutes without stuffing up. I finally asked the doctor about it and now I have a vile prescription nasal spray safe for long-term use and HOLY SHIT within 3 days I can breathe easily through my nose? Not only that, but I think I'm sleeping better and I actually feel more energetic (!!!!). I thought I'd been sleeping decently despite the congestion, but apparently I wasn't.
Genuinely stunned at the massive improvement over just OTC allergy meds, and the doctor said it could take a few months to really get the chronic inflammation down. I do wish it wasn't a nasal spray because so gross, but it looks like for long-term management, nasal sprays are safer than systemic meds.
Yeah. So if you too are stuffy all the time and live in a place with dust and/or pollen, apparently it's worth mentioning to a doctor
One of the best and most helpful things anyone ever said to me was: Don’t advertise your mistakes.
You will often notice when you’ve made an error, or when there’s something you could have done better, or etc, and sometimes other people will notice too. But often, they won’t. So don’t point it out.
It’s really a sign of a lack of self confidence – you think that if you point out the error first, it will save someone else from having to point it out for you. That by being self-depreciating, no one else will feel obliged to point out your flaws.
But here’s the thing. People don’t notice jack shit, most of the time. Sure, yeah, sometimes you’ll fuck up and people will notice and mention it, and thats fine, but 95% of your errors will go unnoticed. Unless you choose to point them out, in which case, you ensure that 100% of your errors get noticed.
The above sentence was said to me during a dance rehearsal. I’m not a pro dancer by any stretch of the imagination – this was a fun little between-friends dance that we were going to perform at a medium sized function full of people we knew. Half the people in the group did have dance experience, which made me - a non-dancer - feel self concious. So every time I messed up the steps, I would laugh at myself or made an “agh” sound or be verbally frustrated with myself that I was struggling to get that move, or whatever. Which drew peoples attention to the fact that I’d made an error.
There were like 10 of us doing this dance; me missing one step went largely unnoticed in the scheme of things, because with ten of us, anyone watching the dance had so much to look at that the likelihood of them seeing me misstep was extremely low. Unless I made a big deal about it, which would draw their attention to me, and ensure that they were made aware.
I used to point out my mistakes all the time. Not just with the dance, but across the board in general life, too. “Agh, whoops,” or handing over a completed project like “I know I could have done [thing] better, but hopefully the rest is ok,” or whatever. People were often frustrated with me, and I feel, in hindsight, that they were frustrated with me because in their eyes, with me constantly highlighting my own errors, they knew I could do better but instead here I was, giving them a shoddy, half-assed, error-filled effort. By me pointing out my every mistake, they were aware of how many I was making, and they were frustrated by my seemingly endless errors.
Then I got told to “stop advertising your mistakes,” and it was a bit of a revelation moment for me. I made a concious effort that day to minimise my reaction to my own mistakes – for the rest of the rehearsal and into the final performance – and you know what happened??
After the performance, countless people said some iteration of the phrase, “I didn’t know you could dance!!”
They thought I was a dancer. That I’d been dancing for years. They hadn’t noticed any of my missteps.
I messed up multiple times during the final performance. If I watch the recording and focus on me, I can see my missed steps, the time I span clockwise on the spot instead of anticlockwise, the time I was slightly out of alignment with the other dancers, etc. But if I watch the dance as a whole, watching all 10 dancers instead of just me….. I dont notice the mistakes I made. They blend in. Theres too much other stuff going on for anyone to notice the one dancer who spun on the spot in the opposite direction to everyone else.
And everyone thought i was brilliant. All I noticed, while dancing, were my mistakes, but no one else saw them, and everyone who saw the dance was super impressed with it and with me. That would not have been the case had I reacted to every one of my errors as I’d made them.
So I took that concept and applied it to the rest of my life. And you know what???? People were less frustrated with me. Because they weren’t noticing my minor errors, and I wasn’t pointing them out any more, so from their perspective, it looked like my output had improved. It looked like I was making “less errors.” I wasn’t, its just that before, I was pointing every one of them out, and now, I was letting people notice them on their own. And they didnt notice them.
You are always going to be hyperaware of yourself and your own mistakes, but other people are way too distracted by their own crap and have too much other stuff drawing their attention to notice your every misstep. So stop pointing your mistakes out. Stop being your own worst critic. Everyone fucks up now and then, its fine. You fix the error if you can, and you move on. You dont have to pre-empt someone else pointing out your mistakes, because its extremely likely that they wont notice your errors. Unless you point them out.
So stop advertising your mistakes, people.
@amy-oswin-lovegood @zuko-just-wants-his-honor good additions!!
My good buddy told me once he made dinner for the family and even though everyone liked it, he apologized for messing up by forgetting an ingredient. His grandmother replied “Shut your mouth and never butter yourself” meaning don’t tell people you forgot the butter
Whenever I hear people advertise their mistakes I always interrupt with “don’t butter yourself”
Definitely all of this but also especially in the workplace, I make an effort to replace sorry statements with thank you statements. For example:
Sorry statements: “Apologies for the late reply, I–”
Thank you statements: “Thanks for your patience, I–”
Again, it takes the attention off your mistake, butters them up with a compliment, and keeps the tone positive
Bridgerton season 4: mixed feelings, but overall probably my favorite
THINGS I LIKED:
Sophie (and especially her friendships with the other servants)
Benedict is definitely still bi
Cressida Cowper came out ok and has read Mary Wollstonecraft! She has the aggressively pink drawing room of her dreams! Eloise forgives her and they're kind of friends again!
Eloise and Hyacinth finding a way to a stronger sisterly relationship!
Basically everything with John, Francesca, and Michaela was great. I really cared about them this season despite knowing tragedy was inevitable, and I found Francesca's reaction to grief...horribly relatable. Francesca being autistic-coded was really, really obvious to me this season, and some of the things (like her stress at having her routines suddenly disrupted), ha, well, my routines aren't as scheduled but...yeah. Michaela, on the other hand, is ADHD-coded, so I guess that's gonna be their Dynamic next season.
Penelope was gorgeous. Forever baffled by that reviewer who was all "this is unrealistic, she's not hot". Like, one, most people fall in love based largely on personality, and "hot"/"not hot" marriages happen all the time? But also, Colin Bridgerton is fine but I'm not sure I could pick him out of a lineup of dark-haired youngish men. I'm more into butch women in general but goddamn, I would swipe right so hard on Penelope. She's just...wow.
Overall I feel like this season was a bit less focused on the main couple and had more going on with other characters, and I can see why people didn't like that so much from a genre romance perspective, but I enjoyed it a lot more from a TV perspective. One of the things I've always found meh about genre romance series is that 90% of the focus is the main couple, with cameos of couples from previous series popping up to be blandly maritally happy plus some seeds for the couple in the next book. It feels sort of claustrophobic and shallow to me - I want to see the couple in the context of their community and other relationships, living full lives that aren't just about their romantic relationship. The TV show does a pretty good job of it (although established couples still tend to be blandly maritally blissful).
It's true that season 4 has a LOT of side character subplots - Lady Danbury trying to get the queen's leave to visit her home country, Alice Mondrich navigating the court, Penelope quitting Lady Whistledown, Eloise trying to dodge marriage and navigating her relationship with Hyacinth, who can't wait to jump into the marriage mart, probably some others that I'm forgetting, and most importantly, setting up Francesca, John, and Michaela for season 5. But I still felt we got plenty of Sophie and Benedict, and in season 4 of a TV show that is as much as an ensemble show as a couple-focused romance, we have to expect a lot of plot threads being picked up or tied off.
That said...
THINGS I DIDN'T LIKE/THAT WORRY ME ABOUT SEASON 5:
I really don't like the implication with Violet and Benedict both that when you fall in love with the right person, you naturally become sedate and conventional. Yes, at the end it's indicated that Violet wants to reconnect with the part of her that was a wild girl (although not, I suspect, the way Benedict was wild, because sexist double standards), and yes, Benedict does tell Sophie he's bi and she's ok with that. And yes, it's not really healthy to live the bohemian party lifestyle forever (and the dark side of that which he encounters when he saves Sophie from assault may have soured him a bit). But...it's just a little too close to the idea that bisexuality is just youthful experimentation that becomes unimportant when you meet the right opposite-sex partner.
Like, I don't have a problem with Benedict ending up with a woman! It's just the framing of "right partner" = "become a good conforming member of society" that I'm ehhhhh about. I hope that at least in future seasons we'll see Benedict pursuing art or music more seriously, and maintaining connections with the good parts of his bohemian life, the people he says he cares about, introducing Sophie to them. They both love art, after all! I just don't want that entire phase of his life to be put away as a "childish things". And I don't think Sophie would, either!
Which brings me to my big concern about season 5. I really liked Francesca and John's autistic4autistic-coded romance, and they really made me care about John even knowing he was doomed. One of the tropes I dislike most in genre romance is the one where neither of the main couple can ever have known "true" passionate love before. The show seems to have softened that up - Francesca and John are both very awkward about sex and don't have the instant magical chemistry the main couples do, but they clearly love each other deeply and are figuring out the sexual aspect. It seems like if they had more time, they would get there with the physical aspect. So while I presume Francesca and Michaela will have intense easy chemistry because they're a main couple, it's at least not going to be a case of "I loved my dead spouse but I realize now it was platonic and I never enjoyed sex," or at least I hope it won't be. Francesca having a queer awakening with her dead husband's cousin brings enough novel intensity and angst, I feel!
But here's the thing: I don't believe the show will treat a f/f main couple with the same focus they have for the f/m couples. They know their audience, and their audience is mostly straight women. It's very clear in how they film the sex scenes (which is fine! We need more female-gaze sex scenes in media, and there are a lot more straight women!).
I also fear they will not allow two Bridgerton women to have f/f romances, again, because they want to keep their viewers and a lot of the viewers are presumably not attracted to women.
So I will be very surprised if season 5 doesn't also include a major heterosexual couple (besides Violet and Lord Anderson), and I'm worried it will have to be Eloise. I really, really don't want Eloise to be straight or end up with a man, even if they massively rewrite her love interest from the book.
So...I guess we'll see.
But worries aside, I think this was my favorite season.
i wish you could tell cats your food is poison. he seems to think the issue is i've forgotten that he is my kind and loving friend. the issue is Hospital
This might be an odd question, but what's your opinion on changing the verbiage in museums of 'artist unknown' to 'artist once known?' I want to the MFA in Boston a few weeks ago, and I noticed the change from the last time I visited. You've always stricken me as someone with a finer bead on these things, so I wonder if you have any thoughts.
I've also seen that, also in the MFA! I understand the logic behind it, but I... think it's a bit cheesy honestly.
I appreciate the goal. A lot of works by unknown artists are either very old, or made by people from communities who were not given the same kind of institutional respect that European artists get, or both. "Artist unknown" too easily fades into the background, makes it feel like the piece just materialized in place; "artist once known" is an attempt to remind people that just like Van Gogh painted those paintings in the Impressionist wing, somebody - some artist - made this pot, or textile, or furniture, too. And just because we don't know doesn't make them nebulously unknown. Someone once knew who they were and that they made this artwork.
I think that's beautiful and a good impulse. I feel bad for thinking it sounds kinda dumb. But every time I see it, it feels like... when someone's trying too hard to be poetic and ends up saying something meaningless. Like no kidding the artist was once known, but we don't know who it was, which is the relevant information we're trying to convey here.
My instinct is always for verbose clarification so if it were up to me I'd have it say something like "Artist: a Puebloan potter, likely a woman, who lived Chaco Canyon, New Mexico, in the 11th century, who probably lived in one of the outlying settlements around Pueblo Bonito" or "Artist: a woman textile artist, likely a mother or aunt, who lived in a small village in Shangdong, China" or something that emphasizes 1) anything we do know about the person who made it 2) that they were an artist and an individual with a whole life. But that's wordy and changes for every piece and not conducive to the way museum plaques are done. Another equally wordy option I also kind of prefer would be "The name of the (Puebloan/Chinese/Egyptian/Nigerian/Colonial era apprentice/Enslaved African/Beninese/Inca/Maya/etc.) artist who created this piece is not known to the MFA." Still, I will always prefer specificity, and I think giving a few details we can extrapolate about the artist is preferable to the vague obviousness of "artist once known." But also I don't resent it, because I do see what it's trying to do, and what aspect of "artist unknown" it's trying to get people to think about.
