This post genuinely altered the trajectory of my life and how i make a lot of my decisions and i think about it so much

this is going to sound like such a little sibling ass take but i genuinely believe that being a little bit annoying is actually a greater sign of maturity and self awareness than being universally likeable and on good terms with everyone

if some people find me annoying and can't stand me because of how i think and act then that means i'm a fully realized human being with my own personality and opinions and free will and not just a reflective surface for other people's desires, which is in fact a good thing despite what people who want you to just be a reflection of their own opinions and desires will tell you, and why being considered "cringe" or whatever doesn't bother me at all

also it's really funny when you're confident enough in yourself to know that people not liking you isn't always a sign that you're the problem. like there's something undeniably hilarious about being aware your mere existence has the power to piss someone off and ruin their day and i recommend embracing it.

How i look when I see a loud noise

if I saw a loud noise I'd look at it just like this

This is how @averixus looks when they see a loud noise also

what I think will happen if I message my mutuals

the image was making me really sad so i drew the little guy being taken care of

a lot of stories treat romance like it makes the relationship between two characters self explanatory and to be honest it doesn’t

story: they're in love :)

me: why?

story: what do you mean? they're in love :)

me: what do they bring to each other's lives? what do they admire about one another? what draws them to each other?

story: love :) :)

me: ok... so what is that going to look like now?

story: like love :) :) :)

me: are their personalities going to clash at all? are they going to have arguments? learn to compromise for each other? will they need to adapt to sharing their life with another person? is it going to be smooth perfect harmony from day one? are they going to be always together? see each other sometimes as their occupations allow? how does this relationship affect their lifes.

story: they're in love :) :) :)

— Clarissa Pinkola Estés, from Women Who Run With the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype.

Well put. (Source: Writing About Writing Facebook page)

as a lawyer who’s been practicing for six years now I can say with certainty that this 100% applies to lawyers

Honestly bizarre that tomatoes get all the flack for “not being a vegetable” because they're technically a fruit when:

A) There are a ton of fruits that get categorised as vegetables. Like this also applies to pumpkins, squashes and cucumbers.

B) The fucking mushrooms are standing there at the back of the crowd in this witch trial, trying to look inconspicuous because they somehow got into the vegetable club with no fucking controversy despite the fact that they're not even plants.

"technically tomatoes are fruits--" THAT MUSHROOM OVER THERE IS MORE CLOSELY RELATED TO A FUCKING SHIH TZU THAN IT IS TO LITERALLY ANY PLANT

This from In Writing, a collection of writers reflecting on practice, really resonated with me.

[Image transcription:]

Sophie Mackintosh, novelist

I find the concept of the bay leaf very helpful when I'm redrafting.

The bay leaf is something you have in your work - a scene, or a description, or a character that you're attached to - but eventually you realise you have to take it out. You think, 'I really love this scene, and I don't want to remove it, but I don't need it any more. It's not working.' That's fine. It served its purpose - it helped you get to this point, and now you can let it go. It's the bay leaf.

Major human pastimes:

i read CS Lewis’ A Grief Observed one time years ago and i’m still not recovered from it

— A Grief Observed: part i-ii, C.S. Lewis x

Captain America: Infinity Comic #1 (2021)

just found out about this cute little birdy and i am in love

from the above-linked ebird.org:

oh my god

groove billed anis are a hilarious cuckoo situation where they ended up laying their eggs in one another’s nests instead of anyone else’s. they hang out together in groups of up to five pairs until a nest gets built (sometimes by committee, sometimes they just hang around hopefully until someone does it all on their own) then they start sneaking over and laying an egg in at a time. the females who lay for the first time will sometimes flip prior eggs out of the nest like ‘oh i KNOW this one isn’t mine! away it goes’ but eventually everyone’s laid a couple eggs in there and is stuck with the mutual hostage situation. then they take turns incubating until all the kids hatch and everyone pitches in on feeding them, because no one knows which of the kids are theirs so they all might as well.

they also like to do a team handshake where they clump up and mutually make a low bubbling noise together, to signal group affiliation. go team!

Also their eggs are incredibly beautiful. They’re a very pretty blue color, but covered by a white chalky outer layer that is easily scratched off, so they end up in various stages of in-between.

(Photo © Henrique_Anizio, shared under CC BY-NC).

Of bed gravity and international airports

I have been thinking about the landscape of things one can do as if it is an actual landscape with hills and valleys.

Things things like looking at Facebook and lying in bed sit at the bottom of deep valleys, because it is very hard to move away from them. In the sense that if you are doing them one moment, it is very unlikely that you will be doing something else a moment later. And it will eventually take some kind of mental energy to escape.

Other kinds of looking at my computer might be half way down a hill, because they are unstable and easily lead into the Valley of Facebook and similar places, though with some effort I could also roll sideways to somewhere else.

Standing outside my house is more like the top of a local hill, because it doesn’t lend itself to falling into any particular valley rapidly, and I have more of some kind of freedom to go in lots of different directions. And psychologically, I kind of feel more free. A train interchange is a bigger hill. An international airport feels to me like a giant hill, because your next step seems like it could be anywhere, though in practice you usually have a specific ticket.

I’m not sure this model makes sense in the details, or is helpful (note that this is my travel/mundane views blog, not my blog for insights and other substantive contributions - maybe I’ll put it there if it still seems useful in six months).

One implication is that if you are in a valley, the main priority is to get out of it, rather than to do some particular other virtuous activity. So if you are looking at Facebook, and it wouldn’t seem terrible to go outside, you should do that and then reassess how to get into the place you want, rather than trying to move directly from Facebook to editing an annoying document across whatever bare cliff faces the landscape in that direction happen to contain.

I think I also benefit from being able to generalize the good feelings of climbing out of a valley across superficially different activities. For instance, if I am feeling proud of my ability to stop lying in bed on command, I also expect stopping watching TV to add to my sense of power.