First sketch > Flat Colors > Finish | x

once again thinking about this guy at the pigeon museum who was giving a little presentation about pigeon mating habits or something, and takes one look at me and my partner and immediately goes "oh and pigeons can be GAY, too!!!"

Pelicans at Walvis Bay, Namibia

Photo by Bernd 📷 Dittrich on Unsplash

Why did the societal norm become pasta on plate? Pasta in bowl makes so much more sense

me, just now: what's the opposite of fomo? like you're glad it's happening but ultimately you're glad you went home? happiness of missing out? homo???

With the Reddit 3rd party app crackdown and the ongoing horseshit Elon Musk is pulling with "X", I realize a lot of people here might be pretty new. So I put together a quick and easy guide for using Tumblr for anyone new who might need it.

Tumblr was made by David Karp and we call him Daddy around these parts (^///^)

You are not safe from fandom-gif attacks ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Speaking of fandoms, the tumblr fandoms are always ready to grab their [object] and go to war against the Beliebers ╰(*°▽°*)╯

The only safe refuge from fandom tumblr is with hipster tumblr. If you can get a cool alt-girl to take you under her wing, you might be safe... for now (●'◡'●)

You will watch the first episode of Supernatural... and then you're part of the Winchester family. (Or if you skip right to season 4, we don't blame you. It's where Destiel starts (*/ω＼*))

This is not a glomp-free zone ☆*: .｡. o(≧▽≦)o .｡.:*☆

Use missing e. It's the only way to make Tumblr useable on Internet Explorer (this is the most popular browser and you're probably using it right now) :-D

Our only adult-supervision is John Green... and even then does that REALLY count as supervision? DFTBA! φ(゜▽゜*)♪

Just this once, everyone lives. It's bigger on the inside. Elementary, my dear Watson.

If you see Misha Collins staring at you, the polite response is "Saving people, hunting things, the family business." O.O

I might lose followers for this, but this blog supports gay rights, and yours should too (14 gifs of Sherlock and The Hobbit)

Tumblr will teach you more about the world than you'll ever learn in school. ○( ＾皿＾)っ

Tread carefully... we have teh yaoiz O.o. Oh you don't know what that means? Well let's just say... it's full of lemons here.

If you see Hannibal Lector in a flower crown, tell him it looks very nice. His boyfriend Will Graham made it for him. (´▽`ʃ♡ƪ)

Do not enter the dog park. The dog park will not harm you.

Bisexual girls with their boyfriends like “I’m getting that boy pregnant”

Hey there. I'm writing a story set in New York City and am not American. I have few characters, but most of them are arab or white. I can't help but feel a bit wrong about it, given that America is much more diverse than that, and NYC being an emblem of that. Do you think I should force myself to include more representation or should I just tell my story, and leave that more diverse cast to some other story I could write? I know this is a neverending debate and there are many opinions about it, but I've always agreed with everything you've said in matters of representation in fiction, and so I'd be curious to know your personal answer on it.

I'm a little confused by how you're using "representation," here. It sounds like you think representation = "randomly sticking BIPOC everywhere." I think when most people use that word, it means something more like "create an accurate or at least plausible depiction of a group or place." In actual New York, there are plenty of Middle Easterners and white people who live in relatively homogeneous small communities where they might only see someone of a different ethnicity on the subway. If your story is set in one of those communities -- and you do stick some random BIPOC in that subway scene, because that's plausible -- then it sounds like your characters might be an example of good representation.

(Note: if you're not writing something set in the real world, but it features human beings, it needs to represent humanity as a whole, unless there's a good in-world reason not to. But if it's our world? You can get specific.)

Here's the catch, tho: plausibility is relative. If you've absorbed some biases and haven't done enough research, then you might end up writing something that feels plausible to you, but which isn't actually representative or plausible to anyone else. The way to avoid this is to do the research and check (to the best of your ability) your biases. For example, you aren't American, I assume you've at least visited NYC? If not, you should. You can visit some of the communities I mentioned! You can eat in restaurants, visit mosques, have conversations with actual real people who are living the life you're writing about! If you don't have the time, money, or spoons to do that, there are other ways to do good research -- films and YT/Tiktok videos made by people from the communities in question, for example. But you'd need to watch a lot of them to get a good representative sample.

I recommend this book to all the writing students I've taught at Clarion, and other writer workshops: Writing the Other, by Nisi Shawl and Cynthia Ward. There's a particular part of it that seems relevant here, which is a kind of hierarchy of "appropriate" appropriation, I think first mentioned by Diantha Day Sprouse but included in Writing the Other. Basically it says that if you want to write about a culture that isn't your own, you can learn about that culture in one of several ways: a) You can be an Invader, and just go take whatever intellectual and artistic tidbits from that culture that you want, regardless of how damaging this might be to members of that group. Example: non-Indigenous people who write about actual secret practices, or who encourage the desecration of sacred places. b) You can be a Tourist, in which you're still mooching from that culture, but at least you're figuratively paying someone for it and accepting tidbits that the culture has chosen to sell. Example: getting a sensitivity reader. Or c) you can be an Invited Guest, who brings in as much as they take out, and who has formed relationships that are beneficial to all involved. Example: being part of an exchange program, both as a student and later as a host, and maintaining those friendships outside of the program.

The goal is to be an IG, but that isn't always possible. Tourist is still better than being an Invader. (...I feel like I'm leaving out a category. It's been a while since I read the book; any more recent readers want to check me here?) But the closer you can get to actually participating in that culture, the more your work will be informed by reality instead of biases or misinformation, and the more likely your work will read as plausible not just to you, but to your widest possible audience -- people familiar with the culture and people who aren't.

(I'm a little concerned about your phrasing of "force myself to include more representation," note. Why would that need to be a forced thing? A writer's goal should be to write something that feels lived-in and authentic to [if it's a real place] most people's experience -- not to meet some arbitrary standard, but because that's how you master immersion and characterization. If good immersion and characterization feel forced to you right now, that suggests you need more practice. I recommend writing short stories!)

Please reblog for bigger sample size

As a wheelchair user I'm trying to reframe my language for "being in the way."

"I'm in the way," "I can't fit," and "I can't go there," is becoming "there's not enough space," "the walkway is too narrow," and "that place isn't accessible."

It's a small change, but to me it feels as if I'm redirecting blame from myself to the people that made these places inaccessible in the first place. I don't want people to just think that they're helping me, I want them to think that they're making up for someone else's wrongdoing. I want them to remember every time I've needed help as something someone else caused.

Are you trapped on tumblr right now?

Is there something you planned to do before you got trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Are you yelling at yourself to get up and do the thing, but you can’t, because you’re trapped in the endless tumblr scroll?

Consider this your save point.

Put tumblr down, stand up, stretch, and go do the thing you planned to do. Future you will be incredibly grateful.

You wouldn’t last an hour in the asylum where they raised me

Um

The Cat on the Pillow (Adolf von Becker, S. XIX)

I am not immune to the Big Strong Scary being treated Soft

I'm doing grad student work in technical writing. I'm writing an essay about adjusting user manuals to match the reader's preferences.

Please share this poll around! This is secretly a poll about Kolb's Learning Styles. I've never seen a poll about Kolb's styles before, and I'm trying to see if there's an actual preference here.