I want to SOB for HOURS but it’s not in my nature so instead I will be VAGUELY CRUSHED IN SPIRIT for FIVE MINUTES

Sisters [1923] Wilfrid Gabriel de Glehn (1870–1951) Walker Art Gallery

Hello Virgo! ♍👩‍🌾 To represent this observant sign I've depicted a fun syncretism of Persephone and Demeter🧡 Virgo is attributed to several deities, but most often Persephone and Demeter. I couldn't choose between the two so I decided to great an Eleusinian combination of the two, by illustrating an archaic kore (a maiden statue often attributed to Persephone), holding sheaves of wheat, which is often how Demeter is depicted 🌿 ✨Prints and merch [X] This Greek myth astrology series features each sign represented by a character or event in mythology (whether canonically related to the sign or not - I'm vibing). I've finished the earth,  water, and fire signs so now it's air signs left!

Tumblr’s Core Product Strategy

Here at Tumblr, we’ve been working hard on reorganizing how we work in a bid to gain more users. A larger user base means a more sustainable company, and means we get to stick around and do this thing with you all a bit longer. What follows is the strategy we're using to accomplish the goal of user growth. The @labs group has published a bit already, but this is bigger. We’re publishing it publicly for the first time, in an effort to work more transparently with all of you in the Tumblr community. This strategy provides guidance amid limited resources, allowing our teams to focus on specific key areas to ensure Tumblr’s future.

The Diagnosis

In order for Tumblr to grow, we need to fix the core experience that makes Tumblr a useful place for users. The underlying problem is that Tumblr is not easy to use. Historically, we have expected users to curate their feeds and lean into curating their experience. But this expectation introduces friction to the user experience and only serves a small portion of our audience. 

Tumblr’s competitive advantage lies in its unique content and vibrant communities. As the forerunner of internet culture, Tumblr encompasses a wide range of interests, such as entertainment, art, gaming, fandom, fashion, and music. People come to Tumblr to immerse themselves in this culture, making it essential for us to ensure a seamless connection between people and content. 

To guarantee Tumblr’s continued success, we’ve got to prioritize fostering that seamless connection between people and content. This involves attracting and retaining new users and creators, nurturing their growth, and encouraging frequent engagement with the platform.

Our Guiding Principles

To enhance Tumblr’s usability, we must address these core guiding principles.

Below is a deep dive into each of these principles.

Please listen to your user base. Don’t give us an algorithm. Part of what we love about tumblr is that we get to curate our own experience. It is not difficult to use. Please fix the actual issues that we have and not this nonsense.

"Tumblr is difficult to use" Then add like a cute tutorial or some shit

@staff​

Look, the one thing Tumblr has going for it, which keeps me using it, is that I can control what I see. I like the fact that my dashboard shows me just stuff from people I know and like! I like the fact that Tumblr offers me a curated experience! If you take that away and start throwing random shit in front of me based on some algorithmic guess at what I might like, I don’t know that there’s any reason for me to stick around here, and I don’t think for a moment I am the only one who feels that way.

What if there was a dashboard tab that showed posts from newly created accounts in tags that you follow?

I might actually look at that one.

The "algorithm" shit is exactly what makes instagram etc. so hostile for artists because to get anyone to SEE your posts in the first place you have to be favored by The Algorithm which feeds everyone a billion posts that they are encouraged to spend 1.3 seconds looking at

so everyone has to be amazing at photography and make art in this clean, saturated, eyecatchy style and post neat, clean "process photos" that look like makeup tutorials and people will only follow you if they expect a follow back it's the most ruthless toxic bullshit

It’s called range, darling!

I never want to hear conservatives go on about repressive censorship in China, North Korea, and Iran ever again

To be clear to those unfamiliar: these are the companies that libraries use to lend ebooks.

They are literally cutting off library access to minors.

date of article publication: July 7, 2023

two things stood out to me from the article: Mississippi's age of consent is 16, so it's apparently OK to have sex but not to read about it. (with parental consent, girls can be married at 15 and boys at 17; with parental consent and a judge's approval, there is no minimum age for marriage.)

and also, this impacts physical access to materials too: in order to enforce the ban, the Vicksburg Library has fully deactivated cards belonging to 16-17yos until they can get a parent or guardian to sign off. for teens with unstable home situations or parents who work when the library is open or who simply won't sign off, this means they can't check out books at all. bleak! bleak! bleak!

God, I just want to cry

on my way to steal your garden veggies 

hercules sweet-talking atlas

The Snake River and canyon near Twin Falls, Idaho 

reblog if you’re obsessed with imagery and symbolism and also are a homo

sustainable architecture

Le secret de l'histoire naturelle, France ca. 1480-1485

BnF, Français 22971, fol. 60v

trying to organise plans in your mid 20s feels like trying to arrange a political summit during a civil war

“So apparently in my absence my husband has hung cat-level wall art. So sophisticated!“

(Source)

Btw much as I love to make fun of twitter and reddit's business decisions, I have 0% trust in tumblr's management to not go a similar route so this is your gentle reminder that you should regularly go to your blog settings to export your blog. That's a fancy way of saying you can download a backup of your blog so if everything goes down you'll still have a backup of your posts & convos.

It's gonna come as a surprise to most of you, but if you don't want to do that for whatever reason you're allowed to not reblog this post. I'm not holding a gun to your head here I'm just trying to spread the word for people who do want a backup of their stuff.

Also, made this guide for backup Tumblr blogs (ft. export blog method, and python 3 script method):

Tristram and Yseult by Sidney Harold Meteyard

I cannot stress enough to Tumblr staff that they do not need to change the site. Do not try to be like Twitter. Do not try to be like Reddit. Do not alter how this site works.

Tumblr will be the most popular social media site if they continue letting all these other sites implode

Tumblr, basically:

Ceramic adventures from the past few months! A local potter put on a couple painting workshops where she provided premade cups, bowls, etc and my friend and I were like oh heck yeah

The first time I painted a cup with Dionysus and Hestia chatting. Thanks to the stories where she gave him his throne I like the idea of them as an unlikely favorite auntie and nephew duo. Unfortunately the potter made a mistake when glazing them... you can't see the figures and the underglaze is weirdly pockmarked, making it impossible to even drink from it. Ah well, such is life... someday I'll make the Dionysus+Hestia kylix of my dreams...

The second time around I painted a different opposite duo, Apollo and Artemis. I like to draw Apollo wearing his more feminine accoutrements, it makes the differences between him and his sister Artemis even starker, and that's fun! And this time you can see through the glaze, woo!

Descriptions in the alt text!