Not a bot, just busy

The thing about Cottagecore is that is a fetishized aesthetic of country life, divorced from labor and idealized by a primarily urban audience with a backward looking ethos of tradition. They are not prepared for the stresses of a rural life: farming; harvesting; tapping pumpkins to ensure none of them have been replaced with flesh; losing out on income by having to use one of your pigs in a blood sacrifice to paint protective sigils over your doors and windows; checking cracks and chimneys for the flesh-vines of the Pumpkin Lord; having to decide, before the Growth is complete, whether that's really your tradwife or an amassment of vines, leaves, and blood in the shape of your tradwife; ignoring their desperate pleas that "I'm me! No! No!" as you burn them alive, realizing too late you picked wrong; and the exploitative corporate nature of commercial farming in 2024. All seen through a deeply colonial lens, of course

When I made this post I did not expect it to be an effective test of which Tumblr users actually read a post fully before reblogging, and yet

To be fair that’s what all posts on tumblr are

“The old magic persists thanks to it’s unfathomable power.”

No, the old magic persists because the new magic can’t run the legacy spells I need to do my job, and keeps trying to install spirits I don’t want or need onto my orb.

Look, if the new magic didn't have a personality construct that kept trying to tell me which spells to use, maybe I wouldn't still be using the old magic.

Yes it had a deep blood cost, but at least it was a one time sacrifice and not this monthly bloodletting nonsense new age magic has

The old magic is robust enough to survive a decade of use and it's compatible with every wand, staff, scroll, and charm in our collection.

The new magic stops working after three days and every spell uses proprietary runes.

Our preferences, as an archiving institution, should be pretty clear.

You try to get guidance for the new magic and the king's sorcerers maybe will answer you in a few days with an unhelpful suggestion to buy the newest orb.

You need guidance for the old magic and a dozen retired middle-aged wizards will pop up to explain it to you rune by rune if necessary.

When I was a kid I thought billionaires were greedy for having all that money and not sharing it, then I got older and learned that they had to earn it, then I got older again and learned that I was right the first time and they didn't earn shit.

People talk about the surprise albums from people like Taylor Swift or Beyoncé that drop with zero warning but I have just been existing in this world where every album I've ever heard in my life has been a surprise album because I didn't know that musicians had schedules that we could see

Everything is a surprise when you don't pay attention

highly recommend keeping a small portrait of a historical figure who met a grisly end on your work desk. for perspective.

me: oh thomas cromwell, we're really in it now. every day i get emails.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: i was on committees with the duke of norfolk. and they beheaded me.

me: yep. good point.

me: cromwell. cromwell this post has got too big and famous and people are starting to misunderstand me on it.

the postcard of thomas cromwell i keep on my desk: oh no! you achieved too much fame and status? and now people are misrepresenting you? should we strip your lands and title? have you been beheaded?

me: YES ALRIGHT FINE

Your friends watching something for the first time and getting to that scene VS you, the knower.

This might be Derek Guy's greatest masterpiece.

(The Twitter thread is probably easier to read and easier to look at the images, but I wanted to make sure it got preserved. Images are the tweets.)

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End thread.

PSA:

1. If you are not silly, it is vital you become silly

2. If you are silly, you must stay silly

2. If you used to be silly but have stopped, you must make all efforts to return to silliness

2. Help the people around you to be silly

Excellent addition!

A fundamental flaw of the human design is that we’re so complicated but also we like putting stuff in fun simple little categories. Like major glitch there. They should patch that.

Even when you know that things are complicated your brain still starts merrily humming along trying to figure out if yellow skittles belong in the green pile or the blue pile

You can’t Google it because I made up the metaphor.

Listen. Listen very closely. So many people have missed the point of what I’m saying. I’m firmly holding your head to make you look me in the eyes.

Human beings arbitrarily sort things. Sometimes those things are colored m&ms. Sometimes those things are something more consequential. Like gender or animal taxonomy or systems of government.

The reason there is no yellow pile is that often our brains can’t comprehend things outside of the arbitrary categories we have set up for ourselves. A mind that has been told that the only possible forms of economies are capitalism or communism will have no conceptual box in their head in which to place mercantilism or even a new system entirely. A person who has only ever seen green or blue skittles will have no idea what to do with a yellow one.

Even if we are aware of this truth about ourselves, it can be difficult to fight. Think to yourself. Why must we classify a platypus as a mammal? Why is it strange to us? Why can it not be something beyond a mammal or something that both is and is not a mammal? Yet it is classified even though we know that classifications of animal taxonomy are largely artificial constructions. You must though, try to see past the skittles. Past the platypus. Understand that your categorization of the universe has no basis in objective reality, if objectivity even exists. Your human instinct is to put all the red books together and you may continue doing so. It is in your nature. However, there is no reason to place red books together. Do you understand? The category of red is made up. Yet you continue to use it anyways. I’m talking about something way bigger than skittles here. The skittles were supposed to be a shorthand. A thing that helped me explain without going on this exact unhinged tirade. I am letting go of your face now.

In English we don’t have any central authority that tells us how to spell things and what grammar to use. Our academics for the most part just record what people do in general and make grammar guides and dictionaries out of those observations.

I personally think that this is better than having a central academy that tries to stop loan words from getting in but the downside is that we have a thousand year long crowdsourced spelling project going on that led to the invention of spelling bees.

Is this french slander?

I will stop slandering the French when they stop being elitist.

The Grad Student Shuffle- Christ Fleming

when you see something that needs to be done and you think “someone should take care of that” just remember that you’re someone

Me: I don't get it. I thought I was doing a lot better than I was a few years ago. I'm like 10 times more on top of things than I used to be. How does everything feel terrible now?

The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it's the fascism. You're completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you're also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you're going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances.

Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW.

Tiny OSHA Me: BOSS, THE FASCISM.

when i say i like hiking, i don’t mean “eight mile backpacking trip with special gear and an emergency beacon” sort of hiking, i mean a three mile loop to go look at pretty things and then a huge brunch after.

this is in no way a slam on hardcore hiking, it’s very fun, but i mostly just need to lower people’s expectations when i say hiking is a hobby of mine

"No no, that's ranger hiking. I like hobbit hiking."

#you gotta be more specific man#Hobbits are specifically famous for two Really Long Walks

Long Walks Georgs were outliers adn should not have been counted

The thing with amateur local theater is it is almost always bad BUT keeping it alive is the most important thing

The joys of artistic expression cannot be limited to talented people everybody needs it to survive

This is such a hilarious take we should give untalented people who make bad art money you know just because guys

Exactly. Glad you understand 💗

good art grows from the soil of bad art, but also bad art justifies itself. it's still art

@powerbottombrucespringsteen

I agree, please enjoy. Acrylic on random thrift store found object, randomly selected colors and fonts from an online generator.