Veni Vidi Amavi

Hi! This is a rickroll. Please visit youtube dot com, type "never gonna give you up" in the search bar, then click on the first video that comes up. Thank you for your consideration.

the secret lives of real birbs!

Here's a remade masterpost of free and full shakespeare adaptations! Thanks @william-shakespeare-official for this excellent post. Unfortunately, a lot of the links in it are broken, so I thought I'd make an updated version (also I just wanted to organize things a bit more)

Bonuses:

From the original post:

I feel like in the rush of “throw out etiquette who cares what fork you use or who gets introduced first” we actually lost a lot of social scripts that the younger generations are floundering without.

A lot of tough situations where we now feel like we “don’t know what to do or say” had social scripts just a couple of generations ago and they might have been canned phrases or robotic actions but they could still be meant sincerely and unfortunately we haven’t replaced them with any more sincere or easier new script.

a lot of people are giving examples in the notes of things they just find annoying like not using headphones in public, but OP is talking about actual literal scripts of things to say in awkward situations

if you have a date or two with someone and you don't see a relationship developing? most millennials / gen Zers just end up ghosting. but a social script that might have been taught and rehearsed in the past could be:

"I really appreciated getting dinner with you the other night and I enjoyed your company, but I'm afraid I didn't feel a spark. I wish you the best, and hope you find that special someone!"

like it sounds kind of trite but it was at least something to say and it can still be meant with kind sincerity. it also communicates in 2 sentences that you don't want to see them romantically again, but there aren't any hard feelings about that. that's it!!! that's all it takes!!!

Another example is that at parties a lot of people talk about how awkward it is to mingle or talk to people they dont know. But at old timey parties that was traditionally the HOST'S job, and there was a specific scripted way of doing it that eased the process! The host would bring you in, introduce you and maybe even a little bit about you like what you did for a living, and then guide you to a group you could talk to. They didn't just let you in the door and then ditch you to fend for yourself in a sea of strangers. That would be unthinkable and no one would be surprised if a get-together like that wound up being awkward.

I still do the party-host thing and yall can, too! (Thanks Mad Men for teaching me a lot of outmoded social scripts... no really tho)

Remember things about your friends! Ask people about their weekends, hobbies, holidays, studies, and jobs! Listen for the concerns people have and what they are working on! Draw connections between one person and another to get the ball rolling. "Oh, Maura, you just got your first cat! You should talk to Felix, he used to work at a rescue. Felix, please tell Maura all the new-cat-guardian pointers."

"Bill, Sheila, Xan, this is my friend Kale. Kale is really into Star Trek, Bill you and them should talk about it!"

Orrr whatever! After you make the introduction and draw the connection you just float on into the next interaction with someone else at the function. Just listen, care about your friends, get our of your own head, and think of how you can bring other people together and you will feel 100% less awkward.

hi i am so excited about this post because i have posted this exact thing MANY times on here, often in the specific context of how formal etiquette is so useful for autistic people especially, but also for everyone. even if you come off a little bit formal, which you will sometimes, having Old School Manners (or just knowing what they are) for various common scenarios is like having a magic ticket that will just sail you through all kinds of social iinteractions, gatekeeping, social weirdness, and as is pointed out in the above posts about introducing people to each other, can make you into a really valuable and helpful person for an entire gathering or group of people.

i also want to point out that knowing what the polite thing to do in all situations makes you a lot more effective at being rude and obnoxious when the situation calls for it, which is also a valuable and necessary adult skill

The Wicker Man (Robin Hardy, 1973)

Margaret Atwood, “Thoughts from Underground”, Selected Poems: 1965-1975

I hope this email just barely grazes your cheek

I hope this email gets stopped by the bible you keep in your breast pocket

I hope this email lands in your foxhole but doesn't go off

It is vital for kids shows to have the horrors in them. The children YEARN for the horrors. They CRAVE the horrors. I craved the horrors and so will the next generation. And so will the next. Years and years and years of craving the horrors. Which is why you gotta put scaries into the kids stories.

No matter how progressive or well-read you are, there are always going to be moments in your life where somebody pushes back against something that's so culturally ingrained you never even considered it before. And you'll say "Huh, it never occurred to me to challenge this but you're right" and that doesn't mean you were "morally toxic" before, it means you're a non-omniscient human capable of growth.

this is so cool and also rosencrantz and guildenstern's sign names are killing me lol

New York City ballet production of Midsummer Nights Dream

The fact this isn't a painting is a testament to one of the greatest feats of set design and production I've ever seen.

My god just look at this! The lighting, set design, photography... I've just never seen anything like it.

I think this is the first time I've ever been wowed by "this ISN'T a painting"!

Ok I looked it up because I didn’t believe it was a painting, and it really is a photograph. It looks like that because it’s from 1966. Here it is on The New York Public Library’s digital collection:

and here are some more photos from it

our fates are entwined whether you like it or not you stupid bastard

physically go to your local library at least once. seriously.

look around. find a random book with a cover that catches your attention. read the description. read the first page. if you like the sounds of it, borrow it and take it home to read. borrow a handful of books even.

if a book loses your interest, drop it. if a book grips onto you, ride that wave.

i've struggled to read recreationally for years despite having read so much as a kid. a lot of us are frozen by the seemingly infinite choices. even when we buy books to take home, we don't read them because which book is worth reading first? we don't have to decide, we have it right here in our bookshelves, we have an eternity of never deciding.

in this past month, i have read five books, most of them i've never heard of when i spotted their cover at the library. most of them, i've ended up loving. the due date of library books maintains the ability to read a book so i can return them to the library and leave the library with more books. an even better incentive than borrowing ebooks, because i actually have to leave the house and not be a hermit.

so if you used to enjoy reading but struggle with it now, ignore the book recs you hear. go to the library, come across a book that piques your interest, and read one page after another until you either lose interest or finish the book.

then it's onto the next one.

Sometimes Tumblr is a lot like trying to explain a toddler that you can't eat bugs and spiders because that's bad for you, and then someone shows up to lecture you about how spiders are a completely different class from insects, also you got "centipede" and "millipede" mixed up, so obviously you don't know anything about what you're talking about.

And if you try to answer like "do you want me to just let this kid just eat bugs or what", they'll get offended because correcting you about being wrong has nothing to do with implying that anyone would be eating bugs off the ground, obviously nobody is stupid enough to be doing that in the first place, that's a straw man and insulting to every group of people ever.

And then you look up at the other side of the yard and the toddler is there right back at it, slurping up centipedes like spagetti.

A valuable addition:

where's that post about people on the internet making up a hypothetical strawman and accidentally summoning that strawman or something

Tumblr is like the land of Oz: Every once in a while an unprompted walking, talking strawman shows up to do a little dance and sing a song about how they have no brains at all.