#and so I will

[watching-constellations]

I think people need to accept that there's more than one way to be human. That may sound really obvious, but I'm not talking about identities, or opinions, or looks. What I'm saying is that not everybody wants to do a silly little dance. At all. Ever. It doesn't have anything to do with embarrassment or shyness or ability. Some people just don't want to.

I've been going to this dog training school with my new puppy recently, and one of the things they're having us do is train our dogs to stay put in a sit while we do a silly little dance next to them. I know this exercise is meant to be approachable to standard beginner trainers, but I can't even begin to describe how anxious I was when the trainer told us to do this. I remembered years of getting in trouble at summer camps for not participating in icebreakers and name games, being called a spoilsport in school, being called cold and distant as a teenager, and even been made fun of in a mean-spirited way and getting trouble in college for opting out of "group bonding activities". I refused to do the silly little dance. Instead, I've distracted my dog by shaking and dropping objects, stepping over her, sitting down, doing pushups, whatever. To my surprise, the trainer complimented me on my choice, and I could finally breathe.

It's not that I can't dance— I've trained as a dancer for years. It's not that I don't like being silly, or that I don't want to look stupid. I make myself look stupid on purpose on a regular basis because it's fun, and I love a good joke. It's just that there has to be consent for this to be fun. I don't need to loosen up and enjoy myself. I won't enjoy myself, because I don't want to do the silly little dance. I never want to do the silly little dance (not alone, not in a group). I don't want to be loud and yell, I don't want to do a call and response game, I don't want to mirror your body movements, I don't want to play zip zap zop, and I don't want to introduce myself with an animal that shares the same letter as my first name. It's not that I'm shy or quiet or even introverted— I just don't want to do it. I don't connect that way. It's not fun for me, it's miserable.

There is nothing wrong with any of this. I do not deserve to face any kind of repercussions for not wanting to do the dance. I'm not less fun because of it. I want to play tug of war with you— hand me the end of the rope. Sit down and let's tell a story. Let's make dumb jokes about street names and let the energy bounce off of each other and crackle. If our group plays mafia, no one will ever know I'm the killer. Come walk with me through the woods, and let's look for bugs under rocks and logs. We can eat lunch on the ground and poke at the moss.

I've spent so long thinking something was wrong or broken with me because I didn't want to do the silly little dance. I like dignity. I like elegance. It's not that I'm pretentious, it's that I like being ridiculous on and within my terms only.

Honestly, I was worried that, when I decided to get a dog, I wouldn't be the right kind of person to train one. I mean, have you seen how people act around dogs? I was worried that my lack of external bouncy enthusiasm, and profound disdain of doing squeaky voices, would make my training and my relationship with my dog fail. I thought I wasn't the right person for a dog, because I'm not even really the right person for a person. Turns out, I don't need any of that. Every now and then, because she's a puppy, people come up to Evie in their standard "dog-mode". Whenever they start doing... whatever it is people think they're doing with dogs... Evie pauses and looks up at me. I swear she's asking me what the hell is wrong with them. And, well, all I can do is sigh and shrug. She waits patiently for them to stop with their bouncing and squealing, and then cheerfully greets them when they're done. It doesn't seem like my dog wants to do the silly little dance either.

[nylwnder]

JACUZZI SAID EAT ME

[feline-insolitum]

man whenever i express wanting to wait until christmas or my birthday to get something because i dont want to spend my own money for fear that ill get reprimanded my parents will be like "youre allowed to spend money!! youre not a burden for spending your money that you have that isnt our money in any way!!!" so then i go and spend my own money and they reprimand me and yell at me for spending my money

????????????? absolutely baffling.

[morningdewflop]

today i want to draw boys kissing

[amayikes]

So on the 27th DeepSeek R1 dropped (a chinese version of ChatGPT that is open source, free and beats GPT's 200 dollar subscription, using less resources and less money) and the tech market just had a loss of $1,2 Trillion.

Source

[vee-lociraptor]

tiktok refugees i believe you are few but it is VITAL that you know on tumblr you can speak freely. kill. die. sex. fuck. you can say things here

[bloodbending]

can’t believe tiktok is actually getting banned, twitter is infested with bots and brainworm-infested musk bootlickers, facebook is king of QAnon, instagram caught the plague from facebook and is dying a slow death in real time… and as the dust settles… only Miss Tumblr is left standing… failing upwards once again

[never-quite-buried]

Nope now it’s at the point that i’m shocked that people off tt don’t know what’s going down. I have no reach but i’ll sum it up anyway.

SCOTUS is hearing on the constitutionality of the ban as tiktok and creators are arguing that it is a violation of our first amendment rights to free speech, freedom of the press and freedom to assemble.

SCOTUS: tiktok bad, big security concern because china bad!

Tiktok lawyers: if china is such a concern why are you singling us out? Why not SHEIN or temu which collect far more information and are less transparent with their users?

SCOTUS (out loud): well you see we don’t like how users are communicating with each other, it’s making them more anti-american and china could disseminate pro china propaganda (get it? They literally said they do not like how we Speak or how we Assemble. Independent journalists reach their audience on tt meaning they have Press they want to suppress)

Tiktok users: this is fucking bullshit i don’t want to lose this community what should we do? We don’t want to go to meta or x because they both lobbied congress to ban tiktok (free market capitalism amirite? Paying off your local congressmen to suppress the competition is totally what the free market is about) but nothing else is like TikTok

A few users: what about xiaohongshu? It’s the Chinese version of tiktok (not quite, douyin is the chinese tiktok but it’s primarily for younger users so xiaohongshu was chosen)

16 hours later:

Tiktok as a community has chosen to collectively migrate TO a chinese owned app that is purely in Chinese out of utter spite and contempt for meta/x and the gov that is backing them.

My fyp is a mix of “i would rather mail memes to my friends than ever return to instagram reels” and “i will xerox my data to xi jinping myself i do not care i share my ss# with 5 other people anyway” and “im just getting ready for my day with my chinese made coffee maker and my Chinese made blowdryer and my chinese made clothing and listening to a podcast on my chinese made phone and get in my car running on chinese manufactured microchips but logging into a chinese social media? Too much for our gov!” etc.

So the government was scared that tiktok was creating a sense of class consciousness and tried to kill it but by doing so they sent us all to xiaohongshu. And now? Oh it’s adorable seeing this gov-manufactured divide be crossed in such a way.

This is adorable and so not what they were expecting. Im sure they were expecting a reluctant return to reels and shorts to fill the void but tiktokers said fuck that, we will forge connections across the world. Who you tell me is my enemy i will make my friend. That’s pretty damn cool.

[windwenn]

This drawing made me realise that actually I love the comfort zone and I would like to go back into it. Also that I must draw more tigers.

[auxoubliettes]

[bixels]

As gen-AI becomes more normalized (Chappell Roan encouraging it, grifters on the rise, young artists using it), I wanna express how I will never turn to it because it fundamentally bores me to my core. There is no reason for me to want to use gen-AI because I will never want to give up my autonomy in creating art. I never want to become reliant on an inhuman object for expression, least of all if that object is created and controlled by tech companies. I draw not because I want a drawing but because I love the process of drawing. So even in a future where everyone’s accepted it, I’m never gonna sway on this.

[tierras]

in los angeles, the historically Black community of altadena has been decimated by the ongoing eaton fire.

afropunk has created a spreadsheet of gofundmes of displaced Black individuals and families affected by the current los angeles fires. the list is constantly being updated.

please donate what you can and share widely.

[tawnysoup]

Found my fav Slay the Princess route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖

Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!

[yeagrave]

my contribution to this trend🙇

[charbroiledchicken]

if it's good enough for you, then it deserves to be made. don't let anyone else decide if your story is worth it or not.