#on forgetting

[nebulaahh]

On Grief

or, On the Best Friend You Met in Middle School who will Never Graduate College

giuliano macca / wendell berry / janice / kate elizabeth russell / langston hughes / benjamin alrie saenz / gustav klimt / @ whitealbum / @ robertszombie / beau taplin / stephen king / theodor kittelsen / @ nebulaahh / arch budzar (taylor swift) / @ inanotherunivrse / unknown / @ nebulaahh

[musings-n-museums]

i miss you so much (i forget why)

clips of all too well: the short film directed by taylor swift \\ scared of my guitar by olivia rodrigo \\ anything (demo) by dodie \\ post by @inanotherunivrse \\ tiktok comments by harashsidhu and ashmanathletics \\ tonight i can write by pablo neruda \\ the glass essay by anne carson \\ i miss you, i'm sorry by gracie abrams

[petruchio]

unknown / ocean vuong / eternal sunshine of the spotless mind / taylor swift / rene magritte / ashe vernon / leila chatti / chris marker / the 1975 / taylor swift / anne sexton

[sicknessinmotion]

on forgetting & remembering. / billy collins — nick flynn — gwendolyn brooks — alex dimitrov — ocean vuong.

[fishingforwords]

what else am i forgetting?

fernando pessoa, the book of disquiet: the complete edition || arturo ferrari, in the old street vicolo san bernardino alle ossa a milano || madisen kuhn, please don't go before i get better || james bay, let it go || imagine dragons, i was me || holly black, the cruel prince || amazon || billy collins, forgetfulness || salvador dali, disintegration of the persistence of memory

[strawbsnhoney]

i'll forgive you i'll forget it it'll leave me and i'll let it

dodie - don't wanna know

[beemintty]

i remember things that what i do!

i remember numbers and chemical formulas and biological process and why stars burn out when they do and thousands of song lyrics and book quotes and names and faces and moments and every little detail about the people i love.

but i can't for the love of god remember the list of things i have to do or the things i started but forgot to finish or the thing i meant to do after i finished the other thing i immediately forgot about... and then it makes people feel horrible for having to ask me over and over and over again to do the same bloody thing.

i don't forget on purpose but sometimes my brain is so full of the things that matter a whole lot to me... so i forget the chores.... and my mother feels more and more unloved because of it.

i'm so sorry my brain is so full... i forget that your love language is service.... it's the one important thing that i forget.

[thechaosandtherain]

[astriiformes]

I know that realistically you can only fit so many movies into a list of approximately 100, but I cannot take that "How many of tumblr's favorite movies have you seen?" list that's been going around seriously because there are some truly egregious omissions.

Some of it is very clearly recency bias, which makes me wonder if the op truly wasn't on here in 2013 or so, but you're telling me you made a list of "tumblr's favorite movies" that doesn't include Pacific Rim or Mad Max: Fury Road? Because, like, I was there, Gandalf.

[so-i-did-this-thing]

The evolution of (trans) man.

(Well, this one, anyway.)

Age 9: "Tomboy"

Age 15: Strictly enforced femininity

Age 30: Hitting the mental limits of being closeted all his life and about to crash HARD

Age 47: Fifteen years now since starting transition. Far more good days than bad, no regrets.

The world may be full of uncertainty and danger, but I resolve to continue to find joy in who I am. Be joyful to be kind to yourself and be joyful to spite the bastards who would tear us apart.

[caritalastima]

heart shaped forget-me-nots

[anistarrose]

Disability is not a punishment, but I think the world would be genuinely improved if every person involved in writing or regulating ingredient labels was mysteriously inflicted with at least one food allergy falling under each of the following categories: "natural flavors," "modified food starch," "artificial flavors," "spices," and "color." Down with ingredient labels so vague that they defeat the entire fucking point.

[darcyolsson]

in loving memory of tumblr's april fools' pranks 💐 2014 - 2024

icymi, tumblr used to do an elaborate april fool's prank every year, but this year they suddenly stopped. here's a somewhat detailed recap of everything they did over the decade:

2013 - mishapocalypse (honourable mention): tumblr staff didn’t start doing april fools until 2014, but the mishapocalypse happened on tumblr in 2013 and i feel like this list would be incomplete without it

2014 - tumblrpro: upon opening your dash you were greeted by an “inspirational” video, that ended with the option to get “tumblrpro (for free)”. all it did was put a top hat on your icon.

2015 - tumblr executivesuite/coppy: a copying machine appeared in the corner of your dash. it would offer tips on how to use tumblr, like clippy the paperclip used to do in microsoft word. as the day went on, it slowly broke down and died right in front of your eyes. many people hated him (but not me). you could also make a (small) spreadsheet. @executivesuite2016 is the official blog.

2016 - this is decision/lizard election/tumblrdecides: a parody of the 2016 US elections. there were 4 lizards (well, one of them turned out to be a salamander in a scandal) to vote for. the dash looked different and there was a live news report with election updates, as well as an election blog for each lizard. they all had their own slogans and you would get an "i voted" button after you voted that would get slapped next to your icon. there were built-in functions to make an election poster for your favourite lizard and to create a text post that supported your lizard of choice that autogenerated a statement for all your followers to read. imo tumblr’s april fools peak. @thisisdecision2016-blog is the official blog, @mop-2016-blog @wretchedtooth @timefordeborah-blog were candidates. rick also had a blog (rick-official) but that now seems to have vanished because he ended up dropping out of the election. mop won, if you're curious. by far the most elaborate prank tumblr ever did.

2017 - horse friend: a tamagotchi-inspired game where you had to take care of a little horse in the corner of your screen. it came with a randomly generated name, and you had to feed and clean up after it. if you didnt take good care of it, it died. you could then hatch (yes, hatch) a new one. there was also an option to look at the names of all your dead horses. this is now available to buy in the tumblr shop. @horse-friends is the official blog.

2018 - tumblcoin: a parody of cryptocurrency (this was the year bitcoin took off). you could ���invest’ in tumblcoin, with which you could in turn buy things with to spice up your dash, including last year’s horse friend, coppy from 2015, and a frame for around your icon. you could share the amount of tumblcoin you owned in an automatically generated gif post which would be tagged #tbc2018 and #tumblcoin. @tumblcoin is the official blog.

2019 - @memories: this blog still functions the way it did on april fools itself! it's like mad libs, where it takes post templates and then adds in tags you use a lot and users you frequently interact with on your main blog. like a personalized shitpost bot.

2020 - group chat prank/@storybot: it was so hard to find info on this because it was contained entirely in the now-defunct group chat function, which no one used. i had to go through the notes of this post for information because no one cared enough to actually write anything explaining it. turns out, you could write a story with your mutuals by adding storybot to your group chat. it also kept working after april fools (well, up until the group chats were deleted) just like memories. many people missed out on it entirely because they did not use the group chat function.

2021 - tumblcryptids: tumblr allowed you to adopt “non-fungible tumblcryptids”, a parody of NFTs. clicking a button that said "Summon thy Tumblrcryptid" would spawn an image of a little blob-shaped creature with a short description, which would always read "Hi! My name is [randomly generated name]. I love [thing most people like]. I hate [thing most people dislike]. Like my parent, I can't get enough of #[tag from your main blog]." you could share them in a post, which would automatically add the tag #NFTumblcryptids to your post. and yes, people on the piss on the poor website freaked out about it because they thought they were real NFTs harming the environment. @tumblcryptidadoptioncenter is the official blog.

2022 - click-a-thon: when you clicked a light switch on your dashboard, a bunch of colourful things showed up, like a sponge you could move around, an "engagament meter", clickable buttons, and a “Summon Crab!” button, which would summon a crab when you clicked it. you could. the crabs, like horse friend, are still available in the tumblr store as of 2025. here's some screenshots. there were various ways to share your crab activities, which would all get tagged #april fools 2022. the prank was presented as a marketing technique created by Brick Whartley, a fictional businessman character created by tumblr, who (afaik) originated in a post on the official blog of the 2018 april fools prank, albeit originally in a different role. around this time he also started functioning as the mascot for tumblr's shop ( @emporium )

2023 - abstract reactions (emoji reacts): buttons were added to every post that allowed you to add emoji reactions, many of them based on tumblr inside jokes (horse as a reference to horse plinko/horse friend, vanilla for the vanilla extract meme, pikaman, bug for bug race, and brick whartley, who wasn't a meme but staff really wanted him to be). if one specific emoji was used a certain amount of times it would add an effect to the post, eg many cheese emoji reacts would cover the post in cheese. this was also attributed to Brick Whartley ("his" blog @brickwhartley also documented the day)

2024 - boop-o-meter: allowed you to “boop” other users who had opted in to the booping, like facebook’s poke feature back in the day. depending on how long you held the button, you would either boop, super boop, or evil boop. on the dashboard there was a counter for both how many times you had booped others and how many times others had booped you, as well as how many boops were given side-wide. when booping someone, an image of a cat paw appeared. you would get badges (which can still be used) for booping 1, 100 and 1000 times. if you gave/received more than 999 boops, the counter would switch to showing a three-letter word (see this post for specifics). this was brought back for halloween 2024 (as BOOp-o-meter. get it), with a ghost, skeleton and mummy paw. no official blog, but here's an official recap for april first from staff. i believe this was the only april fools prank that was mobile user friendly.

2025 - @fandom is running some polls, i guess

[crafteeauthor]

Gentle reminder that they almost definitely planted evidence on Luigi and arrested him to distract from the fact that the real UHC shooter got away with killing a billionaire. One of us successfully killed a billionaire and one of us could successfully do it again

(edit: Thompson was a millionaire but my point still stands billionaires and millionaires who make money through killing thousands gotta go)

[lovely-v]

okay okay i can close some tabs i don't need this google image search of "pear trees"....well you never know actually