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Kiana Khansmith
AnasAbdin
we're not kids anymore.
he wasn't even looking at me and he found me
d e v o n
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
@theartofmadeline
Keni
❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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wallacepolsom
ojovivo
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
Claire Keane
RMH
seen from Malaysia
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@thismachineplaysme
theyre talking about us again
NO THIS IS SO FUNNY THO
Yeah we fucking won this shit is great
I really like this article, you should go check it out.
soft sad freaks (affectionate)
Ok I feel like we deserve the whole damn quote. The Internet’s soul. It belongs to us.
weird how no one ever comments on the absence of smells unprompted. the nose just isn't a topic of conversation unless it's urgent huh
"it's dark in here" normal regular observation
"finally some quiet" relatable exclamation
"doesn't smell like anything in here" absolutely deranged sentence
"i'm not touching anything right now" small talk on the international space station
The author’s biography doesn’t always tell you anything terribly significant about a literary work, but when I think about the fact that Sir Thomas Malory, the compiler of the most well known English-language literary interpretation of the Arthurian myth cycle, was a double-dealing knight who fought on both sides of the War of the Roses, was repeatedly charged with horse thievery, escaped from prison or skipped bail at least five times, and evidently made himself so obnoxious to those in power that he was specifically excluded by name from a general pardon of prisoners on two separate occasions – an accomplishment in which he is, to the best of my knowledge, unequalled – well, that tends to suggest a certain interpretive lens, is what I mean to say.
I had to look up lots and lots of things in Moby Dick. I was pretty skeptical of all the “whale facts” in that book after an early chapter where he lists the various types of whales and includes about forty that sound totally made up (“quog whale”, “grampus whale,” “sulphur-bottom whale”, “junk whale”, “thrasher whale”, “pudding-headed whale”, “scragg whale” etc), and also included dolphins.
How-some-ever, everything else I looked up turned out to be totally true, to the point where I decided Melville MUST have gone on a whaling ship as part of his research. So I looked up his biography!
My dude Herman was born in aristocratic wealth until his father blew it all and they became impoverished, and he did indeed go off to sea on a whaling ship. Then he deserted in Polynesia and lived with the natives for a year before signing up on another whaling ship, where he promptly joined the crew in a mutiny and got thrown in jail for it. He escaped and lived as a beachcomber and “island rover” while personally battling God/having an intense spiritual crisis. Then he went home to New England, became a celebrated author and dinner party guest on the strength of thinly fictionalized retellings of his adventures, and fell shatteringly in love with Nathaniel Hawthorne.
So uh yeah sometimes an author’s biography can really illuminate the work.
What I love most about Sir Malory is that he is so un-chivalric that some interpreters have spent a great deal of time trying to convince the world that this must be the wrong Thomas Malory!*
*See William Matthews The Ill-Framed Knight: A Skeptical Enquiry into the Identity of Sir Thomas Malory or Richard R. Griffith’s essay ‘The Authorship Question Reconsidered: A Case for Sir Thomas Malory of Papworth St Agnes, Cambridgeshire’
I’m not sure what my favourite part of that whole discourse is: the tortured efforts to explain away the Winchester manuscript literally saying “yeah, the author wrote this in prison” as metaphorical or something, or the fact that there’s a reasonable case to be made that the most popular alternative candidate for the Le Morte’s authorship was also into brigandage of some description.
the fact that our tumblr consists mainly other peoples thoughts that tenderly matches with ours.. aren’t we all a constellation of each other?
oh you haven't seen taika waititi dressed as gandalf today?? let me fix that.
Absolutely OBSESSED with this caption on an old 90s Audubon calendar I found
@gallusrostromegalus
My hometown (which is actually a midsized city) has a resident population of about, 50,000 Canada Geese, but every year, the migratory population arrives and then there are 500,000 Canada Geese, outnumbering the humans, and BOY HOWDY DO PEOPLE HAVE SOME FUCKIN' FEELINGS ABOUT THAT.
Like literay everything from "I love these fat loud fucks that scream and shit everywhere and bite people. I grow fresh peas to hand-feed them, and they pull my fingernails off :)" to "Whaddya Mean It's Illegal for me to sprinkle cyanide-coated peanuts about or build a custom canon to fire pounds of birdshot at once to kill them (and any other wildlife I don't like) en masse?"
For while there, my Local Newspaper would print any letter they could read and verify that the sender actually sent. This was during the legalization of Gay marriage, the election of america's first black president, but NOTHING came close to inspiring such wild and vitrolic points of view as "Huh. There sure are a lotta geese here."
I said this on Australian television.
Wait, it got better.
Fun fact! Saint Valentine was beheaded, and here is a photo of his supposed skull! (which is kept in a reliquary in rome because catholics are freaky that way)
I can never ever leave this website actually
I see a reference to the Sedlic Ossuary, love the decor in that place.
this is a church that supposedly had holy ground or something that let people rot really fast, Idk what that’s about, but people really wanted to get buried there, and so they had overflow of dead people. so they exhumed old bodies and stored the bones in the church, before someone eventually said ‘hey, this would make a cool fucking chandelier.’ and then they started using the bones to decorate. this continued for several generations.
Looks like he’s sharing space with a bit of St. Patienta…maybe these are catacomb saints
I love the Sedlec Ossuary
what happened was, some dude from that town (it’s in the Czech Republic) went to the Holy Land in 1278 and brought back some dirt. he spread it in the churchyard, and then EVERYONE wanted to be buried there. because Super Extra Holy™. eventually they ran out of room, so they started exhuming old bodies and storing the bones aboveground instead. that’s what an ossuary is, so you have a Fun Vocab Word for the day
in 1870, the church leaders were like “these bones are kind of disorganized and just collecting dust. can anyone stack them better?”
and one František Rint, woodcarver and apparent prior incarnation of Guillermo del Toro, said, “MY TIME HAS COME”
and he. did that.
he also signed it
the church leaders must have been okay with it, because I imagine he ran the plans by them and also they didn’t immediately burn the place to the ground. but I still like to picture them looking over the initial sketches with Rint watching, and roughly these expressions on their respective faces:
(Panel from the Oglaf Comics strip, “Labyrinth.”)
I actually think the real advantage tumblr has over other websites is the ability of "reblogging" to create posts with contributions from multiple users. This allows people to build on others' posts, whether that's derailing them with a terrible joke, drawing the scenario proposed as a comic, answering the question posed originally in lively essay format, or rewriting the previous interaction as a scene in Shakespearean iambic pentameter.
This is also why Tumblr is hard to make profitable. Individual users have relatively little power to create good content. It's interactions between users that actually creates the good content, and therefore, no one involved in the good stuff on Tumblr can really claim to "own" it or be the "creator."
Posts have to navigate through Tumblr to pick up the people that can add to them in a constructive way, and then when users interact, the whole interaction can spread across the website as a new evolution of the content. There's no way to simplify this process.
Theres a whole ecosystem running here. It's not as simple as Creators and Consumers, and you can't simplify it to that. That's not how ART works, let alone posts. There's symbiosis. The users that do the nitrogen fixation aren't the ones photosynthesizing. The detritivores can't also be the predators. The "rappers doing normal shit blog" has a different niche than the person that asks why Lil Wayne has socks on in the jacuzzi, who has a different niche than the person who says "those are his hooves, you bitch!"
It's like bioavailability, you see. The user that responds "Those are his hooves, you bitch" is like a predator on a high trophic level, unable to directly feed on producers, needing primary consumers to convert the post into a form that makes a punch line possible.
This is what I love about Tumblr. It feels more like discussing a common matter with the people you meet while out for a walk than trying to hold a conversation with twenty people at once in a crowded room
I have seen a lot of these "how Tumblr works"-posts going around lately, and I think this one says it really well. I'm not necessarily here for the original post but for the snowball effect of a reblog chain that hopefully follows
College dorms in the late 90s early 2000s had poster boards everywhere and everyone stuck random notes on, some that continued a conversation. Tumblr makes me think of college posterboards.
When I lived in res, every door had a little whiteboard on it, for leaving messages, and sometimes whole conversations, so if you, say, came back to your room between classes but wouldn't have a chance to find your friend in person before leaving again you could answer a question or say where to meet up. (This was 2001, so only a few people had cell phones, and most of them had limited minutes or just out-of-province plans that didn't work properly in the tiny Maritime university town.)
They were also sometimes used for harassment and bullying. So, just like Tumblr, really.
hello esteemed goldfish! why do baby animals have blue eyes?
many baby mammals have blue eyes because blue actually isn't a color, eyes-wise!
it's the LACK of color!
see, what gives eyes their color is melanin, the same stuff that colors your hair and skin. and many baby mammals usually aren't quite fully cooked when they show up, so to speak, so the melanin in their eyes hasn't actually had a chance to form yet.
and it just so happens that the natural molecular structure of the mammalian iris DOES actually produce a color all by itself, by reflecting light rays artificially into a specific color spectrum! and that specific color is... blue!
I've talked about the phenomenon of Structural Color on this blog before, and maybe you didn't know that mammals exhibit this trait too. but basically, if there's no melanin present to color the iris with actual pigment, the eye reverts to the default color, so to speak.
eventually, the baby mammals do grow themselves some eyeball melanin, and their eyes naturally change color to what they will present as for the rest of the mammal's life.
but as I'm sure you've noticed, SOME mammals, humans included, have picked up a neato little mutation that prevents the eye from ever producing melanin at all! these individuals will keep their infant-blue eyes for their entire lives.
weird, right?
variations on this theme have also produced grey, lilac, and green eye colors in humans.
though sadly, red still remains tragically unavailable, at least outside of anime conventions.
I know this is going to make me sound pretensions but I have to get it off my chest. I feel an unimaginable rage when someone posts a photo and is like “this picture looks like a renaissance painting lol” when the photo clearly has the lighting, colors and composition of a baroque or romantic painting. There are differences in these styles and those differences are important and labeling every “classical” looking painting as renaissance is annoying and upsetting to me. And anytime I come across one of those posts I have to put down my phone and go take a walk because they make me so mad
In case you’re curious here’s what I mean.
Renaissance(distinct lines, stability and the individual man):
Baroque (bold, chaotic, dramatic):
Romantic(romanticize the simple hard working life):
Do you see the difference?
op is a vampire who painted works in all of these times
How can OP be a vampire if they misspell pretentious?
Oh all of sudden vampires can’t make typos? What all of sudden vampires can’t be illiterate? Get off my dick
How to write kids, if you don't remember being one or haven't lived with any
1. Kids never feel as small as you see them. A three year old thinks a one year old is a baby and a six year old is grown up. A six year old thinks a three year old is a baby and a twelve year old is an adult. Age is about perspective. One year is a huge age difference to a little kid.
2. Little kids might not be conscious of their physical limitations, but they can still be frustrated by them. A seven year old might see an adult do something relatively simple, like draw a straight line or perfectly crack an egg, and try to do the same thing, only to be frustrated when it doesn't work.
Imagine suddenly having an injury that makes a skill you use every day become difficult- you feel you should be able to do the thing, and you understand the thing should be easy for you, but it isn't. It can be immensely frustrating to have a brain that grasps a concept that language or fine motor skills haven't caught up to.
3. You know when you forget a word, and have to make something up on the fly to describe the word? That's pretty much exactly what learning your first language is like.
You know what you intend, but you don't have a way to express it, and it can move you to tears with frustration when everyone around you is suggesting the wrong thing, or seems completely certain they understand what you mean, and they don't.
You don't have a word for "Later"? You might try saying "next time", or, "after", or, "before tomorrow".
This might result in saying, "Are we going to the park next time?", "Are we going to the park before tomorrow?", or, "Are we going to the park after?", all of which can result in different answers.
4. Kids feel like adults are a different species. They don't get why we do certain things, and they don't understand why we don't want to run around with them all the time.
If sitting still is boring, coffee tastes bitter, and long conversations only happen with weird-smelling strangers who talk to them like they're stupid, then they truly will not understand why anyone would *want* to be left to have coffee with a friend without welcome distractions to make it bearable.
Aren't you bored? You aren't doing anything. How could you possibly be stimulated without any food or toys or music or anything? Why don't you just leave? Do you *have* to be there, the way you had to go to work? Adults are weird.
5. Children have complex social relationships that are just as varied as yours.
A room full of third graders might look like indiscriminate chaos to an adult, but pick a well connected kid, and they'll tell you that Megan is the fashion icon who can do hair really well, Thomas is the athlete, Gray gets mean when he has to share so nobody wants to play with him, Paisley can't read and the boys make fun of her for it so don't make her work in a group with Anthony, Dillon put a bug in their food once so they'll never trust him again, and Matthew's parents let him watch family guy so he says bad words and makes grown-up jokes that make other kids uncomfortable.
You don't see this stuff because you aren't inside the society. They are, and they do.
6. Time. Moves. So. Slow. Five minutes really does feel like half an hour. Sit still for five minutes? That's like you sitting in a waiting room at the DMV for an hour. Wouldn't you get annoyed and impatient? They haven't learned to hide their irritation yet. That's really the only difference.
7. "Reading in your head" requires understanding that you have a Voice, which people can hear, and Thoughts, which are audible only to yourself. This can be a difficult concept to grasp. If a kid is reading out loud, and you tell them to read quietly, there's a good chance they're going to whisper or mouth the words instead of going totally silent the way you might. Splitting the self into multiples like "Internal monologue VS public perception" or "What I look like VS how I think I look" is alien and bizarre. If a kid thinks they look like a Dragon and you laugh at them? Ouch. They might be mad for a while.
8. Repetitive chores make no sense when your awareness of time doesn't extend beyond a week or so. Why should I wash my blankets? They don't look dirty and I don't smell anything bad. Blankets don't get dirty unless you put dirt on them. If you put a blanket in a washer, you can't use that blanket AT ALL the ENTIRE TIME it's being cleaned. That might be an hour, but it will *feel* like a week. And you have to do that every two weeks?? That's overkill. Why even bother?
9. Kids have opinions about adults. They will have a sense about whether an adult is "real-kind" or "fake-kind". An adult who listens respectfully to what they have to say, asks thoughtful questions, and takes their concerns seriously? That's a good adult. An adult that oversimplifies their struggles, ignores their complex social rules, and gives bullshit advice like "just walk away from bullies" and "turn your chores into a fun game"? That's not a trustworthy adult. That's an Adult™. An Adult™ doesn't consider them to be a real human being with thoughts and emotions. An Adult™ sees them as an inferior, amusing pet. And they will actively sabotage An Adult™ like that.
10. Emotions are physical at a young age. Joy might make their body buzz until they can't help but wiggle or jump around. Sadness might be a huge physical pain in their throat and heart. Everything they experience is still relatively.New to.them, so there is very little frame of reference to decide if this is a "big hurt that will last forever and ever and never go away", or a "small hurt, that can be fixed easily and won't matter in five minutes". If someone lies to them about getting a cookie, that very well might be all the betrayal of your best friend sleeping with your husband.
Fortunately, a child probably won't be able to burn all your clothes in the yard without your notice.
this is what ancient greek philosophy is like
Diogenes driving a mobile home into the symposium to ruin Plato’s day.
"Behold, a van!"
The thing that gets me about a lot of pseudoscientific medicine is the baffling way in which they view the human body.
It isn’t the inaccuracy that gets to me; we have a long history of just fucking guessing how the body works. It’s not even the extreme simplicity of their models. It’s how vulnerable they seem to think it is.
I mean, the skin is a barrier. It keeps stuff in and it keeps stuff out. Yes, there is some limited permeability; if you smear the right kinds of things on your skin then a little bit will get into your body (this is how topical anaesthetics work, and why we wear gloves in chemical labs). But some people are like “smooth this acai berry cream on your skin to boost your immune system!” [note: you DO NOT WANT to boost your immune system], or “put a raw potato under your armpit to draw to toxins out of your body!” or some shit. I look at those foot bath things that fill up with yellow rust as you use them and people go, “all that yellow stuff is the toxins being drawn out through your feet!” and I am horrified at their mental model for how the body works. They know your insides are protected by skin, right? Right?? If I thought my body was that permeable I’d wear a hazmat suit at all times. What if I touch some mud that’s got Toxins in it and they all get absorbed into my body? What if I use the wrong root vegetable under my armpit and it sucks all the vitamins out of my blood instead? That’s terrifying!
“Drink alkaline water every morning to keep your blood pH high!” Friend, how vulnerable is your blood to pH changes? You know that a fairly small variation can kill you?? If I thought this worked I’d never eat fermented foods again. I’d never clean with vinegar in case my Super Permeable Frog Skin absorbed all the acid into my blood and I died of acidemia.
“This essential oil gives you energy! This one boosts your immune system!” They’re for smells! They make smells! In your view, how much of my metabolism and immune regulation are dependent on what my environment smells like?? Am I going to die because I bought the Strawberry Surprise scented candle instead of sandalwood and my body forgot how to make ATP?? What???
The extreme fragility that they perceive in the human body, with apparently no barriers or regulatory mechanisms, vulnerable to such tiny changes in diet and environment, would terrify me. If I thought of the body like this I would never leave the house.
Heyyyyy, it’s that thing that I wrote a 350-page dissertation about from a slightly different perspective (fears of radioactive contamination)! I argued that this obsessive anxiety about the permeability of the body has to do with an increased awareness of the fact that in a conceptual sense the body actually DOESN’T have a firm barrier between what is “it” and “not-it”— a normal, healthy body is always permeable and infiltrated, and our new ability to visualize this leads to a lot of uncertainty about how to sustain our basic model of the discrete, independent, rational person. (If we’re always “contaminated” by other substances and creatures, then how do we know what the authentic “us” is?) So that gets expressed through increasingly drastic efforts to “purify” the body, and intense fears about what will happen if this can’t be done.
So in other words: OP, I agree.
This post has passed peer review.
Lesley Imgart
The most difficult part of hiding a sword, I imagine, would not be in the actual hiding, but in squashing down the phenomenal urge to tell absolutely everyone that you *HAVE* a SWORD
Me as a super cool secret agent: (leaning in to a stranger on the bus) hey I bet you can't guess how many awesome knives I have right now
(In my head) Don't tell them you're an assassin. Don't them you're an assassin. Killing people is bad. Don't tell anyone you're an assassin
(Out loud) Hey does anybody want to see a dead senator
