An old Italian man lived alone in New Jersey. He wanted to plant his annual tomato garden; but it was very difficult work as the ground was hard. His only son, Vincent, who used to help him, was in prison. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament:

Dear Vincent,

I am feeling pretty sad, because it looks like wont be able to plant my tomato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. know if you were here my troubles would be over. I know you would be happy to dig the plot for me, like in the old days. Love, Papa

A few days later he received this letter from his son:

Dear Pop, Don't dig up that garden. That's where the bodies are buried. Love, Vinnie

At 6 am the next morning, FBl agents and local police arrived and dug up the entire area without finding any bodies. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son:

Dear Pop, Go ahead and plant the tomatoes now. That's the best could do under the circumstances. Love, Vinnie

Jeff I am BEGGING YOU to change your name

I've got a lot of respect for smut writers. you write something incredibly sexual, it's probably somewhat of a look into your own soul, and then bitches are too scared to leave kudos of comments half the time, so it looks as though everyone hates your work. And yet yall still do it, and I love that

cruelty is so easy. youre not special for choosing it

"The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist; a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain."

-Ursula K. LeGuin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

"Evil is boring. Right? I kinda believe in the banality and mundaneness of evil. Evil is just selfish impulses, which at the end of the day are really easy to understand. It’s easy to understand why people do bad things. It’s like “yeah, ok, you’re selfish and scared and cruel, I get it”. Being good is complex and beautiful and hard." - Brennan Lee Mulligan

Hi hello I share this headcanon and I have proof.

The fade prison is the first instance of Rook thinking the companions are dead, right? But every mage knows that what we see in the fade might not be literally true. It's Rook's regrets that leave them trapped there. Bellara or Neve saying "You picked me to die" isn't true, because NEITHER OF THEM ARE DEAD.

So I sacrificed Davrin in my first run because I have never played the Mass Effect series and I didn't know T_T. I got to that scene before the final battle where Rook can go to Davrin's room to Remember Him, and it was all about his sacrifice and how he will never be forgotten, thanking him for what he did for the team.

Ok, fair enough I expected as much when a companion is presumed dead, but that's not what happened when I sacrificed Harding.

Forced Proximity Dialogue Prompts

Haven't done one of these in a while.

This panic happens like every few months.

"should we tell authors on ao3 when we have discord conversations about their fics" i don't speak for everyone here but if y'all ever find a group chat discussing my fics you can should must and WILL send me screenshots of the whole damn thing. inflate my ego. gimme

Send me the good bits. I don't want to hear people complaining about it.

Reblog if, no matter the size of the role, you would agree to work with the Muppets if offered the chance to do so, no questions asked

THEY WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO FINISH THE PITCH BEFORE I TELL EM I’M IN

Recruiter: Hello, I'm with the Muppets and...

Me: Where do I sign?

This is an appreciation post for the fanfic authors who aren’t included on rec lists

For the fanfic authors who don’t get art of their fics

For the fanfic authors who can’t get to 1000/500/100 hits

For the fanfic authors who don’t get comments/reviews

For the fanfic authors who write for small fandoms

For the fanfic authors who write rarepairs or gen fics

For the fanfic authors who get hate for the ships/characters/fandoms they write

For the fanfic authors who write in English despite it not being their first language

For the fanfic authors who don’t write in English

For the fanfic authors who don’t think anyone reads or likes their work

For the fanfic authors who aren’t big name fans

For the fanfic authors who don’t get requests in their inboxes

For the fanfic authors who can’t write stories that are more than a thousand words

For the fanfic authors who only write one ship

For the fanfic authors who are just starting

For the fanfic authors who have been writing fic for years

For the fanfic authors who use fanfic to practice writing

For the fanfic authors who write self-insert fics

For the fanfic authors who write about their OCs

For the fanfic authors who write to vent or cope

For the fanfic authors who are just waiting for their big break

Keep creating, I love you ❤️

ADHD is such nonsense sometimes. I was worried my PMDD had escalated and was continuing into my cycle and that I’d never know the warmth of sunshine on my skin or the fresh taste of strawberries.

And then I decluttered the bedroom and removed something I’d been meaning to tackle for weeks and ah, I see. I am not in actual fact on the brink of a nervous breakdown, I was just visually overstimulated and my ADHD was doing the nervous system equivalent of a chihuahua shaking itself to death out of sheer nervous existence. As though I don’t have actual Horrors to be overwhelmed by but no, the chair in the corner that had become a dumping ground for all my stuff was my mental limit.

Turns out I’m not evil and just needed to get rid of the mountain of cardboard that’s been living in my house since January. Who knew?

I’m sure someone without executive dysfunction, but fuck them for playing the game of life without concrete shoes on.

A few weeks ago I moved a shelf out of my kitchen to make room for my new mini-freezer, and I just left it by the door because it was cold and I didn't want to take it out to the shed.

It has been sitting there ever since.

Finally moved it today and, what do you know, I don't feel like my livingroom is trying to attack me anymore! Wild.

We moved mid-february and my house is disorganized and full of boxes

Turns out, visual fatigue is really effing real and most days I want to peel my skin off

matt just fired half the remaining tumblr support staff lmao

from my sources adjacent to tumblr--from which i can spread rumors and insider information freely because i dont give a fuck about ever working in the tech sector--im hearing this round of firings was focused on purging the senior staff, and not just from support but from the entire remaining tumblr workforce. i'm hearing there are about 25 people left.

This is important, people. Please don't scroll past this one.

While I don't think that Tumblr is about to shut down anytime soon, as a fandom old who lost my community and my people when the fandom diaspora happened from LiveJournal, I want to urge that you do something NOW:

I mean this with all my heart. Get this done now. Get set up and find your people now. Tumblr is the home of fandom now, just as LiveJournal was the home of fandom way back. And you could end up losing your fandom home just as easily and quickly as us old LJ people did way back then.

It's a horrible feeling, and most old LJ users still mourn the loss of it to this day.

The rest of this gets a bit long, so it needs to go behind a cut, but please take a moment out of your scrolling to read it.

Ngl I don't have any of these yet but backing up my tumblr and maybe looking into one of these is an important idea. I'm on discord, same name, and ao3 (also same name) and I'll probably keep my name/handle anywhere I go

Mutuals and tumblr friends can find me on either of those two places and if I open another account i'll put it in my header and rebloob a post with it

I know most people don't care about anything unless it has to do with the U.S. but can we please start talking about the Canadian election.

Please don't vote for Poilievre. He's basically the Canadian Trump and plans to put in place laws that harm trans youth, and lots of other shit.

Please vote istg this is the only way anything will get better. Poilievre has been kissing millionaires and billionaires asses. He'll make life even harder, and he loves Trump.

Reblogs are appreciated, especially if you aren't Canadian.

I was gonna put stuff in the tags but no actually:

Please don't put that man in office. Please vote, and not for him.

If you're thinking of not voting, let me say this: someone is going to win, and whoever it is will be making decisions in your name. You have the opportunity to have an effect on who that person is. Don't you want it to be someone who agrees with you, at least a little bit?

If that thought (or another) compels you but you don't know who to vote for, first of all, not Poilievre and the Conservatives (blue), as mentioned above. Second of all, let me put you onto votemate.org. You just put in your postal code and it will tell you what district you're in, and then you can view the candidates for your district. Many of the candidates have info up about themselves and their platform (some don't—it's a new project and this election was called fairly suddenly, but keep an eye out because more profiles will be added as we get closer to polling time). If you want to find out more about a candidate, now that you have the name you should be able to search them up and find further details about their party and platform.

Once you've done your research and made your decision, make a plan to vote.

I for one will be very proud of you.

Adding to the chorus, please vote. Check out smartvoting.ca as well, it will let you know not only who is in your riding but also what their chances are against the conservative nomination. In some ridings that will be the Liberal candidate, in others it will be the NDP. The main goal is to block a majority for the conservatives and block as much as we can right now for what they're trying to do.

Poilievre is not only kissing Trump's ring, he and his ilk are actively using project 2025 as their playbook. I know the stats look like he's lost a lot of favour, but that only sticks if we all go to the polls and act on it.

The world right now is terrifying, and I don't want it to get worse and Poilievre is objectively worse. Find a candidate who has a platform you're interested in and vote for them. Find an MPs email and yell at them every chance you get to do the things you need them to do.

Engagement in politics and civics is down everywhere. The widespread disenfranchisement by the billionaire class has been so effective that voter apathy is the reason we are eeking out such dismal numbers in the polls generally. I know it feels like a piece of paper won't make a difference, but honestly, it absolutely does make all the difference in the world.

I don't hate the conservative party, but this crew they have now has consumed so much of the billionaire Kool aid that they are speed running authoritarian thinking. The whole point of government is to push and pull with alternating ideas. Fiscal responsibility is important, but so are social programs and the arts.

Please become interested and invested not only in your community but in the people we vote to put in charge.

Last week I accidentally took an edible at 10x my usual dose. I say “accidentally” but it was really more of a “my friend held it out to my face and I impulsively swallowed it like a python”, which was technically on purpose but still an accident in that my squamate instincts acted faster than my ability to assess the situation and ask myself if I really wanted to get Atreides high or not.

Anyway. I was painting the wall when it hit. My friend heard me make a noise and asked what was wrong—I explained that I had just fallen through several portals. I realized that painting the wall fulfilled my entire hierarchy of needs, and was absolutely sure that I was on track to escaping the cycle of samsara if I just kept at it a little longer. I was thwarted on my journey towards nirvana only by the fact that I ran out of paint.

Seeking a surrogate act of humble service through which I might be redeemed and made human, I turned to unwashed dishes in the sink and took up the holy weapon of the sponge. I was partway through cleaning the blender when it REALLY hit.

You ever clean a blender? It’s a shockingly intimate act. They are complex tools. One of the most complicated denizens of the kitchen. Glass and steel and rubber and plastic. Fuck! They’ve got gaskets. You can’t just scrub ‘em and rinse them down like any other piece of shit dish. You’ve got to dissemble them piece by piece, groove by sensitive groove, taking care to lavish the spinning blades with cautious attention. There’s something sensual about it. Something strangely vulnerable.

As I stood there, turning the pieces over in my hands, I thought about all the things we ask of blenders. They don’t have an easy job. They are hard laborers taking on a thankless task. I have used them so roughly in my haste for high-density smoothies, pushing them to their limits and occasionally breaking them. I remembered the smell of acrid smoke and decaying rubber that filled the kitchen in the break room the last time I tried to make a smoothie at work—the motor overtaxed and melted, the gasket cracked and brittle. Strawberry slurry leaked out of it like the blood of a slain animal.

Was this blender built to last? Or was it doomed to an early grave in some distant landfill by the genetic disorder of planned obsolescence? I didn’t know, and was far too high to make an educated guess. But I knew that whatever care and tenderness and empathy I put into it, the more respect for the partnership of man and machine, the better it would perform for me.

This thought filled me with a surge of affection. However long its lifespan, I wanted it to be filled with dignity and love and understanding. I thought: I bet no one has hugged this blender before. And so I lifted it from its base.

A blender is roughly the size and shape of a human baby. Cradling one in your arms satisfies a primal need. A month ago I was permitted to hold an infant for the first time in my life, an experience which was physically and psychologically healing. I felt an echo of that satisfaction holding my friend the blender, and the thought of parting with it felt even more ridiculous than bringing it with me to hang out on my friend’s bed.

Dearly beloved, we be gathered here today…

I love the idea of Spock being super queer, highly expressive and very emotional from a Vulcan view point. Like...

What humans see:

What Vulcans see:

i love how this implies that gritty is how vulcans see jim

It is.

Whoever wrote that Vanguard message did so with shaking hands, between sobs & swigs of bourbon straight from the bottle.

They're right, though. Now is exactly the wrong time to make dramatic investment moves. Everybody's shit is doing the same thing; unless you need your retirement money in the next twelve months or whatever, you're better off leaving it alone and waiting for the eventual correction. Like, this is not a comforting lie, this is good advice!

Adultier adult here, having had to talk to my retirement management people earlier this week. (I hate it. It's useless. But I told them to divest me from anything that holds TSLA in the portfolio/fund because Elon is an asshole and the company's financials are shit.)

This week has caused about three percent (3%) of my 401(k) to vanish.

And that's okay.

I can't touch that money without a tax penalty (or emergency) until the 2030's. It's not paying for cat food or keeping my electricity on. This is a privilege not everyone enjoys (yet).

If you're in a position to have any kind of investments, don't do anything rash and/or bananas with important chunks of money. (My financial guy gave me this advice, too. I specifically asked about cashing out the whole fucking thing.)

Yes. 100% this.

My qualifications: I worked in banking & mortgage for 10 years & had my Series 6, 63, and insurance licenses. I was qualified to sell mutual funds and annuities.

Obligatory: None of this constitutes specific financial advice. Please consult your financial professional who has an active license for specific advice.

That said, generally speaking, if someone has a 401k or IRAs and other retirement investments and they don't need to access them right now, don't fucking touch it. Don't even look at it. If they don't feel comfortable putting more money into it right now, that's understandable, and they can turn their contributions off (though it might not make sense to do so, depending on their tax bracket - traditional 401k contributions are pre-tax, so putting that money back in their taxable income may just turn that money into income tax payments, and that's not even considering employer matching, which is Free Money).

Shit is wild right now, but that money is not Real Money until you cash it out. All of your losses and gains are Schroedinger's Gains and Losses. Until you open the box - that is, make a withdrawal - those losses aren't realized. And since you will end up with absolutely ridiculous tax penalties if you take money out of retirement accounts early outside of a few specific circumstances, opening the box early is a bad idea.

So, since the losses aren't real until you open the box, and you can't open the box until years from now without getting like half the cat taken by the IRS, don't even think about looking at the box and seeing the predicted percentage of alive cat that you might find inside there.

Another financial professional here. I second all of this.

If you're lucky enough to have a retirement account, the best strategy is always to ride the market waves. Decades of numbers and returns back this up. Don't move or pull your money. Don't stop contributing. Especially if you are many years away from retirement.

Think long term, not short term. In the long run, the stock market still averages returns every year.

That said, I fully understand taking positions in your portfolio for moral reasons. If you want to sell any funds that have TSLA in them, and your advisor thinks that won't screw you up too bad, you do you, boo.

(Also, that email is funny, but it's very obviously fake. Telling you to not look at your 401k is not something a company should be doing, legally speaking.)

For those who want to see the real email (I received it yesterday), here is the portion that was edited. Honestly, it's pretty close to the edit, reading between the lines lol.