If you're lamenting the fact that you used to be able to shoot through a 500-page novel in like a day when you were in middle school and now you can't, it's worth bearing in mind that a big part of that is because when you were in middle school, your reading comprehension sucked. Yes, mental health and the stresses of adult life can definitely be factors, but it's also the case that reading is typically more effortful as an adult because you've learned to Ponder The Implications. The material isn't just skimming over the surface of your brain anymore, and some of the spoons you used to spend on maximising your daily page count are now spent on actually thinking about what you're reading!
Reading as a kid: "I can tell that this is supposed to be an emotionally moving ending, but I genuinely cannot remember who two-thirds of these characters are."
Reading as an adult: *reads a paragraph* *pauses* *reads the same paragraph again* *flips back and re-reads the preceding page to make sure you didn't misunderstand something* *stares into space for ten minutes as the Implications sink in*
the default way for things to taste is good. we know this because "tasty" means something tastes good. conversely, from the words "smelly" and "noisy" we can conclude that the default way for things to smell and sound is bad. interestingly there are no corresponding adjectives for the senses of sight and touch. the inescapable conclusion is that the most ordinary object possible is invisible and intangible, produces a hideous cacophony, smells terrible, but tastes delicious. and yet this description matches no object or phenomenon known to science or human experience. so what the fuck
this is what ancient greek philosophy is like
False! “Sightly” is a positive word, so the default way for things to work is good as well.
The true most ordinary object is beautiful, horrible sounding, very smelly, intangible, and delicious.
I still don’t think it matches anything in existence but to truly understand a thing one must know its true nature.
"touchy" is also a word! however it's mostly used for things that aren't objects, like subjects of conversation. it either means "oversensitive and irritable" or "requires careful handling/wording, delicate"
i think the second one works well for our hypothetical object. so we can use that.
therefore, the Default Object is:
- beautiful
- makes a horrendous sound
- smells absolutely awful
- is very fragile
- tastes delicious
and i still cannot think of anything that matches this
Pan Dulce 🍰
(sneak peak for a food-themed washi tape design I’m making with The Washi Station. This was my chance to rep my Mexican culture through bread!)
Know what? We all need some pure innocence combined with satisfying accomplishment.
https://fms.cmsvr.com/fmi/webd/Food_Plants_World
This guy is my new hero. I LOVE learning about native food plants that just grow everywhere without human help.
The database is a little clunky to use (especially on a phone), but still loads of excellent information.
Here’s their website - Food Plant Solutions - and they can use volunteers! And $ of course. What they really need help with is connecting with NGOs/groups on the ground already working in countries, to get them access to the database. They also need help from formally trained agronomists, people good with website stuff, and people good at marketing / getting the word out about their project.
REMINDER: the part of a comb jelly that looks like a mouth is in fact a mouth
Turns out I do need to clarify that these particular comb jellies are actually not filter feeders :)



these are also the true actual first animal group that’s ever thought to have existed; comb jellies or ctenophores are survivors from the *ediacaran,* the point in time where we can’t even guess what kind of animal most of the fossils are. But, maybe all of them were just wacky shaped comb jellies???? we will never know. this one ate them all.
YOU ARE SO SMALL!!
i thought i was ready when i turned the sound on. i was not. he is indeed.
so small.
actually i'm reblogging this again with commentary, fuck it.
There's people in the notes talking about "not basing your worth off numbers", and like. that isn't what this post is about. It's not a threat, either, it's a comment on how this site works, at a mechanical level.
Likes are worthless. Let me say that again.
Likes. Are. Worthless.
They don't do anything. They're a bookmark. They were never part of how tumblr works - in the early days we didn't even have a like button, and the site still more or less acts as though we don't. They're personal bookmarks and the only people who "get" anything from them are you (you bookmark the post) and the OP (maybe a very slight serotonin boost), but they don't keep the post in circulation, they don't keep it alive.
Without reblogs, a post will be dead in the water within an hour. No matter how good it is, no matter how many hours of painstaking love and attention its creator put into it, it will be dead within an hour and never seen again. It gets pushed down the dashboard and nobody aside from the followers who were online when it was posted will see it.
And there's a huge difference in engagement on posts that get even one lucky reblog from someone with wider reach - that one reblog shows your post to five, ten, fifteen other people, and if one of those people also reblogs it, and so on and so forth, that's how posts stay alive and in circulation.
It's like a contagion, but we're sharing creativity instead of disease.
And that matters. That "lifespan" of the post matters, artists and writers give up on this site and go to sites where posts have longer lifespans because it sucks to spend hours of your life, maybe even days, to get two notes and some fucking pocket lint for your efforts.
We create for ourselves, but we share because we want people to see it, because that engagement offers positive feedback and encouragement to continue.
But more than that, if every post (whether art, fic, gifset, whatever) is dying within an hour or a day of being posted, that means it's not making it onto your dashboard. And if it's not on your dashboard, you won't see it. This kills the site, after a while. You stop seeing the posts, because nobody is putting them on your dashboard, because this site doesn't have an algorithm like twitter and insta's and it shouldn't, it's the last bastion of chronological timelines.
Forgive my giant fucking rant I am so tired right now and full of the plague but like stop acting like artists and writers are just being whiny little babies, or "threatening" to withhold our fucking work (you're not entitled to it! it's ours! if we get nothing out of sharing it we're well within our rights to keep it private!) when we say this site will dry up without reblogs. We're just stating facts.
also I’ve seen some people in the tags say ‘oh there have always been more likes on posts’ no there haven’t ????
these are posts from 2013, look at the ratio
not to sound like a nursing home resident but back then people know that the point of this site was to reblog things and share them, not to bury them away among your other 23k liked posts
Reblogs are the default way of interacting with a post and likes are to file a post away in your favorites to reblog later. It is normal, healthy, and in fact beneficial to reblog even a hundred things a day, it's not "spam" but the reason we're supposed to be here at all
How we roll:
Gasters: Full.
Antennae: Groomed.
Queen: Fed.
Larvae: Sorted.
Mandibles: Sharp.
The whole gang ready!









































