from my sources adjacent to tumblrâfrom which i can spread rumors and insider information freely because i dont give a fuck about ever working in the tech sectorâim hearing this round of firings was focused on purging the senior staff, and not just from support but from the entire remaining tumblr workforce. iâm hearing there are about 25 people left.
This is important, people. Please donât scroll past this one.
While I donât think that Tumblr is about to shut down anytime soon, as a fandom old who lost my community and my people when the fandom diaspora happened from LiveJournal, I want to urge that you do something NOW:
Get your backup account(s) elsewhere NOW
Let your moots know your username(s) at those places NOW
Follow your moots at their places NOW
I mean this with all my heart. Get this done now. Get set up and find your people now. Tumblr is the home of fandom now, just as LiveJournal was the home of fandom way back. And you could end up losing your fandom home just as easily and quickly as us old LJ people did way back then.
Itâs a horrible feeling, and most old LJ users still mourn the loss of it to this day.
The rest of this gets a bit long, so it needs to go behind a cut, but please take a moment out of your scrolling to read it.
Once you start thinking about humans as a species in a biome, it affects your entire way of looking at normal things.
The other day I referred to female morning joggers as an âindicator speciesâ in that if you see women jogging in the dark it means that the environment provides migration pathways (sidewalks, clear signs) and doesnât have any known predators of female morning joggers (guy with knife, bear, BigTruck, male morning joggers).
Though, I think that people consider framing humans as animals reacting to their environment as rude.
honestly it seems really unfair that if you have a shitty childhood you have to deal with all these extra problems once youâre older. i think that you should get to have some kind of beam attack and a double jump instead
âSome years ago, I was stuck on a crosstown bus in New York City during rush hour. Traffic was barely moving. The bus was filled with cold, tired people who were deeply irritatedâwith one another; with the rainy, sleety weather; with the world itself. Two men barked at each other about a shove that might or might not have been intentional. A pregnant woman got on, and nobody offered her a seat. Rage was in the air; no mercy would be found here.
But as the bus approached Seventh Avenue, the driver got on the intercom. âFolks,â he said, âI know youâve had a rough day and youâre frustrated. I canât do anything about the weather or traffic, but hereâs what I can do. As each one of you gets off the bus, I will reach out my hand to you. As you walk by, drop your troubles into the palm of my hand, okay? Donât take your problems home to your families tonightâjust leave âem with me. My route goes right by the Hudson River, and when I drive by there later, Iâll open the window and throw your troubles in the water. Sound good?â
It was as if a spell had lifted. Everyone burst out laughing. Faces gleamed with surprised delight. People whoâd been pretending for the past hour not to notice each otherâs existence were suddenly grinning at each other like, is this guy serious?
Oh, he was serious.
At the next stopâjust as promisedâthe driver reached out his hand, palm up, and waited. One by one, all the exiting commuters placed their hand just above his and mimed the gesture of dropping something into his palm. Some people laughed as they did this, some teared upâbut everyone did it. The driver repeated the same lovely ritual at the next stop, too. And the next. All the way to the river.
We live in a hard world, my friends. Sometimes itâs extra difficult to be a human being. Sometimes you have a bad day. Sometimes you have a bad day that lasts for several years. You struggle and fail. You lose jobs, money, friends, faith, and love. You witness horrible events unfolding in the news, and you become fearful and withdrawn. There are times when everything seems cloaked in darkness. You long for the light but donât know where to find it.
But what if you are the light? What if youâre the very agent of illumination that a dark situation begs for?
Thatâs what this bus driver taught meâthat anyone can be the light, at any moment. This guy wasnât some big power player. He wasnât a spiritual leader. He wasnât some media-savvy âinfluencer.â He was a bus driverâone of societyâs most invisible workers. But he possessed real power, and he used it beautifully for our benefit.
When life feels especially grim, or when I feel particularly powerless in the face of the worldâs troubles, I think of this man and ask myself, What can I do, right now, to be the light? Of course, I canât personally end all wars, or solve global warming, or transform vexing people into entirely different creatures. I definitely canât control traffic. But I do have some influence on everyone I brush up against, even if we never speak or learn each otherâs name. How we behave matters because within human society everything is contagiousâsadness and anger, yes, but also patience and generosity. Which means we all have more influence than we realize.
No matter who you are, or where you are, or how mundane or tough your situation may seem, I believe you can illuminate your world. In fact, I believe this is the only way the world will ever be illuminatedâone bright act of grace at a time, all the way to the river.â
cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it
âThe trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain.â
-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
âEvil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundaneness of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. Itâs easy to understand why people do bad things. Itâs like âyeah, ok, youâre selfish and scared and cruel, I get itâ. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard.â - Brennan Lee Mulligan
my dad likes to call the stretches of time where youâre not creating âdreaming periodsâ and says that theyâre meant to allow you to absorb all of the beauty, life, and inspiration from the things around you so that when youâre able to create again, you will have fanned your spark back into a flame. sometimes its hard to see those moments as anything but stagnation, but he always says that theyâre natural and healthy and neededâthings that should be embraced rather than feared.
i had a dream i worked in an underwater restaurant and people kept ordering ice in their drinks and then getting mad at me when it would float away. and iâd tell them beforehand that the ice would float away & theyâd be like lol no thatâs not how it works just give me the ice. Iâm fighting customer service battles never seen before
âkids spend too much time on their devicesâ well what else are they supposed to do? thereâs no corner shops with pinball machines in them on every corner anymore. thereâs no malls or stores in small towns for teens to hang out in without being suspected of shoplifting or kicked out for loitering. sidewalks are too broken for them to ride their bikes and thereâs no bike lane in the street to make it safe for them. i just donât understand where they expect these kids to go when they keep taking places away from them. and yes having no safe public places for them is what leads a lot of teens into addiction if they end up at a place where people arenât truly looking out for them.
