Wednesday's child (is full of woe)

Oughts and thoughts of a Finn who likes languages and cats, tries to be creative and sometimes worries too much about things.

[vrabia]

today i learned that the finnish word for ‘hazardous waste’ is ongelmajäte, which can also translate as ‘problematic garbage’ and my roommate and i immediately agreed this is a word that belongs on tumblr.

[callmebliss]

Your fave is ongelmajäte

[you-had-me-at-e-flat-major]

in german it’s Sondermüll which means special trash and that too belongs on tumblr

[pyrebomb]

One man’s ongelmajäte is another man’s sondermüll.

[ufo-offical]

*flies past*

[menord]

Item: An Old Key Rarity: ⏶ Common

What games have opened doors for you in real life?

Feed your dashboard by answering my question, blogger.

While games haven't directly affected my career or such, I can name one game which has opened doors to new hobbies and contacts in my life - namely, World of Warcraft.

I met someone who played WoW, and they encouraged me to do a cosplay - which was a new hobby for me, too, but also made me meet someone who'd become a lifelong friend and introduced me to tabletop roleplaying and the biggest roleplaying convention in my country (which I still have the habit of attending).

Plus I ended up a RP guild in WoW, leading to a hobby that I'm still doing almost two decades later (even if in another MMO nowadays).

Thank you for the ask, mysterious kitty cat! (The snek game made me feel very nostalgic.)

[bardic-tales]

The Death of the Digital Ecosystem: Why Decoupling Notes Destroys Tumblr

@changes (Edit: I already sent this to Tumblr Support under the feedback option. I encourage everyone to send feedback on how bad this feature actually is).

For years, the total note count on a post served as a universal metric of a piece of content's impact. Whether a user liked the original post or a reblog fifteen branches deep, that engagement flowed back to the source. This ensured that the original artist, writer, or editor received the full credit for the viral success of their work.

Under this new system, engagement is trapped within the specific reblog a user happens to see on their dashboard. If a massive, high-traffic blog reblogs a piece of art from a small creator, every like and reblog that occurs through that larger account stays with them. The original creator is left with a stagnant note count on their own dashboard while their work generates thousands of interactions for someone else.

Erasure of Creator Visibility

Instead of seeing one post with 10,000 notes, a creator may now have to hunt through dozens of different reblog chains to find where the conversation is actually happening.

If the notes no longer flow back to the original post, the creator loses the ability to see who is enjoying their work, what the tags say, and how the community is responding.

On a platform where engagement often dictates visibility, splitting that engagement into tiny, unlinked fractions makes it significantly harder for original works to gain momentum compared to the high-reach blogs that reblog them.

Incentivizing the "Big Blog" Monopoly

This system rewards accounts that have already established a large following at the direct expense of the smaller accounts that actually produce the content. It transforms reblogging from a method of sharing into a method of acquisition.

When a reblog functions as its own independent post with its own note count, the incentive to click through to the original source disappears. The platform is transitioning from a collaborative ecosystem into a standard social media feed where the person who posts the content last—not the person who made it—reaps the rewards.

Impact on Collaborative Conversations

Tumblr’s unique culture is built on the reblog chain: a chronological, evolving conversation. By allowing users to like or reblog "any part" of the chain as an independent entity, the platform is breaking the narrative thread.

If engagement is siloed into specific branches, the incentive to add to a conversation is replaced by an incentive to simply own a piece of the engagement. This change doesn't encourage conversation. It encourages the commodification of individual posts within a chain, making it harder for the original voice to ever be heard over the noise of the rebloggers.

The Disincentive to Create

Perhaps the most damaging aspect of this update is the psychological toll on the creative community. When the platform actively diverts credit and engagement away from the source, it destroys the motivation to share original work at all.

For many, the reward for posting is seeing how far their work travels. If that travel is now invisible or attributed to others, the labor of creating becomes thankless.

This system makes creators want to share nothing. If the platform is built to harvest a creator's effort for the benefit of curator blogs, the logical response is to stop providing the raw material. I am one leaning into this category. Without us creators, the curator blogs have nothing to curate.

By making it harder to protect and track one's own work, the platform is effectively telling creators that their presence is secondary to the conversations happening around their work: conversations they may no longer even be able to find.

[vintageeurope]

Helsinki, Finland 1926

[laholatva]

That is actually a color photo. This is just Finland looks in this dreadful transition to/from winter.

[roskarusakko]

I see it’s time to bring back the timeless Finnish classics; ’Kouvola in grayscale photographs‘, and it’s peer, ’Kouvola in full colour’.

[annacaffeina]

I'm stealing this from Twitter

Here's the link

I am a high-definition gateway drug body double!

[homunculus-argument]

Slopestyle metrosexual flesh-eating disease.

[claudiagray]

I am an anti-sexist, self-catering Africanized bee.

[softwaring]

What’s your LEAST favorite month?

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Voting ended onOct 12, 2025

reblog and add why in the tags or comment cause i’m curious

[hollow-keys]

Americans saying this isn't a burger because "a burger is the patty" have got me thinking about what Americans would think of the opposite:

If I put a patty between two normal pieces of bread, not burger buns, is that a burger?

Yes - American

No - American

Yes - Not American

No - Not American

Nuance somehow

Voting ended onFeb 25, 2025

[miggylol]

Surprise! Tumblr just got turned into an epic fantasy RPG, just like [your favorite appropriate media franchise]. And the Tumblr RPG's plot needs to have all of its characters covered, in roles both large and small.

That means that you are assigned to a stereotypical RPG role inside our new fantasy world. Spin this wheel to find out what you are now doing for a living.

How well suited are you for your new role?

Noooooo this doesn't sound fun :(

Not what I would have picked for myself, but... I'll make it work

Eh. Could be better, but could be a lot worse

Okay, I can work with this!

I WAS BORN TO PLAY THIS ROLE

Voting ended onFeb 3, 2025

[pocket-size-cthulhu]

I'm so fascinated by languages with different levels of formality built in because it immediately introduces such complex social dynamics. The social distance between people is palpable when it's built right into the language, in a way it's not really palpable in English.

So for example. I speak Spanish, and i was taught to address everyone formally unless specifically invited otherwise. People explained to me that "usted" was formal, for use with strangers, bosses, and other people you respect or are distant from, while "tú" is used most often between family and good friends.

That's pretty straightforward, but it gets interesting when you see people using "tú" as a form of address for flirting with strangers, or for picking a fight or intimidating someone. In other languages I've sometimes heard people switch to formal address with partners, friends or family to show when they are upset. That's just so interesting! You're indicating social and emotional space and hierarchy just in the words you choose to address the other person as "you"!!

Not to mention the "what form of address should I use for you...?" conversation which, idk how other people feel about it, but to me it always felt awkward as heck, like a DTR but with someone you're only just becoming comfortable with. "You can use tú with me" always felt... Weirdly intimate? Like, i am comfortable around you, i consider you a friend. Like what a vulnerable thing to say to a person. (That's probably also just a function of how i was strictly told to use formal address when i was learning. Maybe others don't feel so weird about it?)

And if you aren't going to have a conversation about it and you're just going to switch, how do you know when? If you switch too soon it might feel overly familiar and pushy but if you don't switch soon enough you might seem cold??? It's so interesting.

Anyway. As an English-speaking American (even if i can speak a bit of Spanish), i feel like i just don't have a sense for social distance and hierarchy, really, simply because there isn't really language for it in my mother tongue. The fact that others can be keenly aware of that all the time just because they have words to describe it blows my mind!

[kurganfilledwithbearbones]

But you do have it! because American English has titles and also hierarchical treatment of last names (if your name is Jeremy Jefferson, there's a huge semantic weight difference between Jerry, Jeremy, Mr. Jeremy, and Mr. Jefferson, for example). English marks hierarchy and familiarity even if it doesn't do it in more grammatical terms. Think of being a kid and your parents yelling your full name across the house when you were in trouble.

I speak Icelandic. Icelandic doesn't have titles or last names or everyday use of a formal plural or any other obvious markers of formality and intimacy. Formality is still marked, just in non-grammatical lexical terms...but because it's not marked in ways I as a L1 English speaker recognize, it's harder for me to reproduce.

The reason you feel like this doesn't exist in English to the point where it exists in Spanish is because it's easier to spot for a L2 learner who has to think about categorizing the new language in a way that makes sense in the L1, and unless you have some more in depth information about language registers and intimacy marking and whatever it's easy to consider this as a novel phenomenon in the L2. But a lot of this semantic stuff is pretty universal, just marked in different ways.

[lunalingua]

THANK YOU. This is a misconception. Speaking from my experience of living in Japan and studying Japanese while being a native speaker of American English:

1. For folks who don't know, Japanese words/grammar change depending on formality, the genders of the speaker and listener, the age of the speaker and listener, etc.

2. But English words/grammar ALSO change depending on the above contexts described. It's just not formalized in grammar books. Consider the differences:

A. "The honor of your presence is requested for dinner this evening."

B. "I would like to invite you to dinner."

C. "Do you want to get dinner together?"

D. "Wanna grab a bite to eat?"

E. "Yo, bro, you want a burger?"

Etc. People will be like "it's wild that Japanese has different words for 'meal' depending on formality!! Gohan? Omeshi? Crazy!!!" But ENGLISH IS THE SAME WAY.

And this actually makes it harder for speakers of languages like Japanese to learn natural English, because they've been taught that there's no difference in tone between telling a waiter "I'd like a coffee" and "I want coffee." Since one of those feels easier to learn, they'll choose the option that makes them sound weirdly dickish to the waitstaff.

In short: English has levels of formality! Conveniently, saying otherwise fits the stereotypes of rigidly hierarchal East Asians, refined and sophisticated Europeans, and lawless/casual Americans and Australians—but us not recognizing these differences makes it harder for ESL speakers to learn real English

[official-linguistics-post]

official linguistics post

[roach-works]

anyone who doesn't think english has a formal register has never called a shitty boss sir just to emphasize that their power over you is both fully understood and deeply resented.

[menord]

I feel like I unlocked my innate trolling powers today when I described the hazelnut filling of Kinder Bueno as 'nut goo' to a bunch of Bueno-loving friends and then offered 'nut sludge' as an alternative term.

[unhonestlymirror]

Guys, check this out

If you want to, write in tags where you're from and what accent you got

BoldVoice Accent Oracle

Let the Oracle figure out your non-native English accent!

[knightofleo]

[facesofevilzine]

I'm so glad I'm not the only one who would love the Creature shop to be involved.

Give me awesome puppets. Give me that fantasy 80s vibe for the Live Action.

[ispyspookymansion]

(poll) do you have student loan debt

yes </3

no, because i got a full ride/full college scholarships/grants/etc

no, because my parents/family/someone i personally know paid for it

no, because college is free where i live

no, because i was able to afford it w/o loans (with scholarships/help counts)

no, because i already paid it off

havent gone to college/university button

Voting ended onJun 18, 2024

only choose the full ride option if it was a Full ride. if it was a partial scholarship and you paid the rest, choose able to afford it. if someone else paid for you, choose parent/family/etc. if you needed a loan for the rest, thats a yes, babey

[valentinedagger]

heavily biased "what fandom was the first fanfic you read for" but for my specific fandom generation instead of people who are currently teenagers

power leveling shonen juggernauts (g1 naruto, bleach, dragon ball, etc)

weeaboo crew (anything that made you more of a weeb than watching dragon ball)

harry potter

superwholock

cult classic live action american tv (buffy, xfiles, star trek, etc)

homestuck

boy band rpf (anything in the span from backstreet boys to one direction)

emo bandom (mcr, fob, p!atd, of course, along with anything else in that realm)

twilight (books or movies)

lord of the rings (books or movies or extended universe)

star wars (books or movies or extended universe)

other (put it in the TAGS i am a fandom HISTORIAN i need to KNOW)

Voting ended onJan 13, 2024

addendums: cult classic tv overlaps with early supernatural seasons somewhat, i am aware, just choose based on the cultural context in which you read your first fic.

for weeaboo crew i was thinking of examples like hetalia, black butler, soul eater, etc--popular anime absolutely included but the distinction is that people who were into dragon ball weren't necessarily going to anime club every week and making deviantart stamps about yaoi, but people into ouran high school host club ABSOLUTELY were.

homestuck is in its own category because homestuck changed fandom forever at a critical time which just happened to be when i was growing up in fandom. harry potter, lotr, star wars, and twilight are in their own categories because they were such multimedia juggernauts they had entire archives dedicated solely and only to their fic that spanned multiple franchise reboots (books -> movies -> extended universes). (i acknowledge star trek technically would fit under this but at the time culturally it had more overlap with other cult classic tv fandoms.)

honorable mentions that didn't make it to the list because i had to pick-and-choose with the 12 answer limit: the final fantasy franchise (axed because i am not familiar enough with the fic scene to know if it was as iconic of a gateway drug as, like, naruto or twilight or star wars fic), a general YA lit category (YA lit outside of twilight only went mainstream slightly after this time period), the MCU (i have a hate boner for the MCU), a broader "american superhero comics" category (this would be valid as an option but i don't have the space)

[chazchaschad]

GUYS THERES THIS WEBSITE CALLED SETTEI DREAMS THAT HAS EVERY CHARACTER REF SHEET AND MODEL FOR A TON OF ANIME CIRCULATE THIS AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE!!

[cerinslair]

d66 Ways to Explain This Player Character’s Brief Absence

Aw beans, one of your players couldn’t show up to tonight’s game. Here’s 36 ways to explain why their character is missing just for this session! Roll a d66 (rolling one d6 for the tens-digit and another d6 for the ones-digit) or choose an option that makes sense for your situation.

For brevity, “PC” will be used in place of the missing player character’s name.

11: PC had previously sworn an oath to a wizard they were indebted to, granting the wizard one-time power and authority to temporarily summon PC to them whenever they require their aid. The wizard is cashing in right now.

12: PC found a cursed scroll which temporarily turns them into an incorporeal spirit, forced to haunt the other player characters undetected until they learn some moral lesson the scroll wants them to learn.

13: A faerie spirit on a quest for revenge mistook PC for someone else and stole them away in the night. They’ll return PC once they realize their mistake.

14: The battle of two quarreling chronomancers blew through your location, and PC fell into a time-rift left in the wake of one of the wizard’s attacks, sending them into the (near) future.

15: Aliens abducted PC but will return them when they prove too difficult to contain/experiment on.

16: PC finds themself trapped in a time-loop, and eventually discovers that they only way to escape is to avoid contact with the other player characters for the duration of the loop.

21: PC overheard something the other player characters said about them out of context and misinterpreted it in a way that greatly upset them. They sneak away to abandon the group when no one is looking but return upon realizing it was all a misunderstanding.

22: PC has an important family (or other personal) matter to attend to that requires their swift response, as it involves legal recourse surrounding the disappearance of someone close to them. They will return once it is settled.

23: A scatter-brained wizard’s apprentice studying teleportation magic accidentally switches places with PC, teleporting them to their mentor’s tower an impossible distance away. The apprentice thinks they can figure out a way to swap back with PC if given some time on their own. They hope PC hides in their study until they do – their master tends to fireball intruders on-sight and ask questions later.

24: PC has been possessed by a ghost, who will return control of their body to them once they complete some task the ghost wasn’t able to finish before they died.

25: PC stepped away to refill their water, and got turned around on their way back. They wandered around lost a while, but will find their way to the other player characters eventually.

26: A faerie spirit decided they fancied PC and whisked them away to the faerie realm in an attempt to seduce them. They’ll return PC once they realize they aren’t their type.

31: An enterprising minor demon wants to strike a bargain with PC and teleports the two of them to the top of a tower in an attempt to show off. However, the demon’s pitch is not going well, especially when it’s revealed they lack the power to get them both back down again without resting a while first.

32: PC is called in for jury duty, and either has to serve their time or go to the local magistrate to appeal for a waiver.

33: PC ran into an old friend and went to catch up with them over some drinks. However, the two of them got held up by some of the friend’s newest adversaries.

34: PC is avoiding the other player characters while they prepare a surprise for one or all of them – a gift, or a party to commemorate a certain event like an anniversary or holiday.

35: PC is troubled by recent events – related to the group’s adventures, or external to them – and wants some time alone to clear their head.

36: PC has been haunted by dreams of a symbol in a dark room. They spot this symbol on a stray cat and can’t help but investigate. It seems to be leading them somewhere, but only if they follow it alone.

41: PC is visited by the restless spirit of a friend long gone. Their ghost wants to tell PC a secret – a secret that they must take to their own grave – and leads them away from the rest of the player characters.

42: PC has been struck by sudden inspiration for a work of art, and they simply must bring it into the world before the inspiration fades.

43: PC received an ominous warning from a fortune teller to stay away from [events of today’s session] and is keeping a safe distance just in case.

44: PC is having a crisis of faith in themselves after recent events and takes off on their own for a while until they reassure themselves of their skill. Training montage optional.

45: PC is sent a threatening message by one of their adversaries telling them that if they don’t leave the group, their allies will be made to suffer for it. They leave, believing it to be some heroic self-sacrifice. They return once they realize they are all stronger together, and only with each other’s help can they defeat the adversary’s threat.

46: PC tried to follow an “astral projecting for dummies” guide as a joke, but ended up separated from their body until they figured out how to stop.

51: PC ran afoul of a witch years ago, who tried to curse PC with eternal sleep. However, the witch got their arcane verb-tenses mixed up. So instead, PC was cursed to sleep through a specific date and time. That date is today.

52: PC is shown something that causes them to doubt if their cause is the right one, and leaves until they can find out the truth. They return when what they were shown is proven to be a fabrication by their adversary to mislead them.

53: PC leaves the group because they feel their contributions aren’t appreciated enough. They return after some self-reflection reveals they weren’t feeling unappreciated, they were feeling jealous.

54: PC is feeling extremely ill today. If your group has access to magical disease relief, specify that such relief will still take time to affect whatever sickness has befallen PC – it will just relieve some of the pain in the meantime. Until then, they require rest.

55: PC must take a day off for an important religious observance of their faith.

56: PC received a message from a character they flirted with in town, inviting PC to come visit them for some fun. They sure are taking their time coming back.

61: A minor celebrity from one of PC’s niche interests is going to be in town sort-of-but-not-really nearby, and PC just can’t miss this opportunity to meet them!

62: PC accidentally stumbled into the secret hidden lair of a C-list villain. It will take them a little bit of time to escape on their own.

63: PC saw a rare, elusive mystical beast, prized by many, such as a unicorn. They chased after this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and will return very disappointed.

64: PC is in a sour mood after accidentally breaking a sentimental keepsake, and just wants to be alone for a while.

65: PC insulted a wizard, who responded by turning PC into a pile of rats. Rats, plural. We’ll have to collect all of them up before they can be changed back.

66: PC is just feeling soooooo eepy. Little nap.

[patrickspens-deactivated2023122]

what was your weird little girl* interest

the titanic

the black plague

ancient greece/rome/egypt

the romanovs

early humans / cave paintings / the ice age

space / space travel

dinosaurs

vikings

knights / medieval times

something else (tell me in tags)

Voting ended onSep 21, 2023

*including weird little girls who grew up and realized they were not girls and weird little girls who didnt know they were girls yet. also this does not imply that you grew out of said interest. i didnt grow out of mine. also if you had multiple pick the most intense / primary one <3