Not exaggerating at all, I genuinely think Terry Pratchett was one of the greatest English writers of the 20th and early 21st centuries.

Hugo Simberg, The Garden of Death, 1896.

Every time I see this I always wonder what the painter’s intended message was. It looks so pleasant, that middle skeleton looks so happy with its work.

Maybe it’s supposed to be a memento mori, but a comforting and encouraging one.

This is one of the most famous paintings in Finland. There are multiple interpretations of it but they all share the same base idea:

“According to Simberg, the flowers represent people’s souls, the skeletons are aids to Death, and the Garden of Death is a purgatory of sorts for souls waiting for entrance into heaven. This artwork invites the viewer to consider the afterlife, to take comfort in his or her own passing, and to not fear what happens after the body fails to function.”

“It depicts Simberg’s thoughts on afterlife, which is not run by angels but skeletons who take care of the heavenly garden with a gentle hand, while waiting for more “gardeners” to arrive. It is derived from the medieval belief that the dead sleep in a blooming garden.”

“In Simberg’s garden the humble Death-like figures struggle against harsh conditions; the landscape around the garden has burnt yellow, it is dry and barren. The cherished flowers grow in exotic shapes, slowly, requiring constant care. The black-clad figures love their nurslings. The garden is a place where Death is allowed to realize its feelings of affection. The Garden of Death can be seen depicting the impossibility of this love; maybe the flowers are tender and fragile because they can not handle the love of Death. Love has two faces: one of them is the face of devastation.”

SPILLED.

Charlie Squire, “Mattel, Malibu Stacy, and the Dialectics of the Barbie Polemic,” evil female (Substack), 2023.

By the river

My cartoon for yesterday’s @guardian books.

Did you know that the very first assembly of photographs in sequential order to create a motion picture was a two-second clip of a Black man on a horse? Yes, it was. Yes, it was. Look it up.

NOPE • 2022, dir. Jordan Peele

this is like how people always say “oh this would kill a medieval peasant” girl you strongly underestimate the resilience of these fuckers. they would embrace your challenge with love and curiosity

And its not like gay sprang from the Feywild, fully formed, in 1968. There is a non-zero chance that Goodman John is gonna say “You meam there are people who CELEBRATE that they gargle cock? Wrap me in this strange fabric, for I, too, van be PROUD!”

—

Tim Hitchcock, English Sexualities, 1700-1800, Macmillan Press, page 63

kink at pride is easy af to explain to kids, idk what yall are talking about. "mommy, why is that mostly-naked man wearing leather?" because lots of gay men think it looks nice. "why is that guy on a leash with a mask?" hes playing pretend. "why does she have a whip?" she thinks its fun. you know how you like to play with water guns? its like that but only for grown-ups, and she wont play with anyone who doesnt want to play with her so we're all totally safe

if your 6yo's next question is "is that a sex thing?", thats fucking wild and a completely different problem. for you. not really an "Us Problem" collectively for all pride-goers, tbh. something's going on there thats hard to call the dominatrix's fault

homophobes think that being gay is already a weird sex thing thats hard to explain to kids. did yall forget that already? why are you trying to play respectability politics for people who will never respect you?

A platypus to end the year. Love you, besties, see you in 20XX.

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Most appreciated

Pls do not reblog anything with the old disability pride flag, it does cause seizure and migraines, please use the new one which was created by the same person with the feedbacks of many other disabled people.

This is the safe one:

Dont use the zigzag one, your making disabled space inaccessible for a part of the community.

[Image ID: tumblr tags reading “I appreciate the fact that it’s by the same person” and “like a quality of life softwar[e] update but for a flag”. End ID]

patch notes 1.0.1: visual contrast no longer causes strobe effect when scrolling. Zigzag design was difficult to visually process and anxiety inducing, and was removed. Colors have been lightened and desaturated. For the safety of all users, please make sure you are up to date.

Now this is what I mean (metaphorically) by "enrichment in my enclosure"

Otter enclosure immersive experience...

i love him though

tumblr users love to say "we don't censor things here like on Twitter" and then type things like "r3ylo" and "jk r*wling"

if you say "and then this fucking r3ylo-" that implies that "reylo" was the bad word in that sentence

tiktokers do it because they have to, we do it because it's mean ☺️

Okay I know this was mostly a joke but I just feel the need to point out - this didn't start out as being mean, it started - and largely continues - as the opposite.

For a long time, tumblr had tags and no other search function. You wanted to find a post that wasn't tagged, you had to go to Google and type in your query and add "site:tumblr.com" and hope for the best.

As it is now, that method is STILL better than our native search function most of the time, but the quality of tumblr's native search function isn't really what's important here, what's relevant is how they implemented it.

See, the search bar in the upper left corner of the site - you used to type in something there, and it would take you to posts tagged with whatever you searched. Then, one day, they quietly rolled out an update that instead brought you to a search page that pulled up nearly every post that even mentioned your search term.

This...did not mesh well with the site culture.

Because, see, we had an etiquette guideline - do not post your negativity in the public tags. Why? Because people go into the public tags to find content about things they LIKE. Posting hate in a public tag was basically seen as being a raging dramamongering pissbaby troll LOOKING to start a fight over petty nonsense.

So imagine, suddenly, you log in one day, and someone's sending you anons angry about you allegedly posting hate in the tags, when you have NEVER done so. You use what you THINK is the tag search function to prove it, and - what the hell? Your UNTAGGED post about how annoyed you are with your notp...is appearing there???

So people started censoring things like that. Usually not because we all think the thing we're complaining about is profane (though sometimes it does get a giggle to think of it as such), but to keep it from showing up when people are searching for what they love and to prevent pointless drama. To avoid looking like some asshole troll going onto a fan forum specifically for The Blorbo Show and making a thread entitled "THE BLORBO SHOW SUXXX AND YOU ALL SUCK FOR LIKING IT!!"

And now it's just part of our site culture, for both peacekeeping reasons and petty glee.

The more you know.

On tiktok, you censor for the algorithm. On Tumblr, you censor for the users.

‘dont say gay if youre bi’ lmao lets all leave the house! lets all go outside and get a big gulp of fresh air is what im thinking

middle aged women have like a sixth sense when it comes to choosing the worst group of teenagers to call "ladies"

Man sees crab for the first time.

does he…

Live in the

Some fucking

mollusk

pulls up

Here’s the rest it’s just as funny