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[deathwise]

A surprisingly helpful bit of social maneuvering I've figured out from trial and error: Throughout your life, you are going to need things from people. Often, it's going to be on a deadline. And when that deadline passes, you generally want to know what's going on. So, you need to ask them.

There are two kinds of people, broadly, in this situation. The Shameless will tell you what the holdup is, with absolutely no regard for if the reason is "good enough". This is actually very helpful, because you get the real reason immediately, and can start working on a solution.

The Ashamed is trickier. People who are Ashamed are people who were often told they were giving excuses when they were trying to explain, and they'll often avoid you until they solve the problem on their own. This causes them and you a lot of stress, and often takes a lot longer to solve.

Long term, the strategy for dealing with people who are Ashamed is to provide a supportive environment where they're comfortable sharing any problems they're having with getting things done. But, there's a way to at least partially short-circuit that:

Provide an explanation for them.

One example might be "Hey Susan, I noticed that I don't have your report yet. Are you busy with other projects?" The readymade explanation signals that you're willing to accept an explanation, which is the big anxiety point.

Sometimes, you still won't get an honest answer- especially if the honest answer isn't "good enough" by the standards of the person who traumatized them. But, I've found that it often at least gets you a lie that lets you give them some slack or work around the problem.

Let's say that Susan has actually completely forgotten that she needed to do the report. She's horrified at herself, and completely unwilling to admit the real problem. But, she can now safely reply with "Sorry Jennifer, I've been swamped, and it got lost in the mix. I can have it to you in two days. Does that work?"

From there, so long as Susan gave an estimate for when she can actually do it, she and Jennifer can hash out a solution.

It's not a perfect solution, but it works astonishingly well for how small of a change it is.

[deathwise]

sorry i was researching the author of a victorian book about raising children and now i'm fascinated by her. clear my schedule we're talking about lydia maria child.

[deathwise]

Back in 2017 I signed up for one of the Cards Against Humanity sillies and did their Cards Against Humanity Saves America. Basically they were like fuck Tr*mp and his border wall and used the funds from the campaign to buy land and to make all 150,000 contributors part owners of said land across the US/Mexico border.

It was fun and silly and I got a little certificate.

Today I got an email that Elon Musk illegally annexed that land for SpaceX and that CAH are suing him over it. So possibly I’ll get like $100 if they manage to win a lawsuit and stick it to Musk. It’s like even more bang for my original buck.

[deathwise]

my beautiful new human oc

[deathwise]

I understand why a lot of fantasy settings with Ambiguously Catholic organised religions go the old "the Church officially forbids magic while practising it in secret in order to monopolise its power" route, but it's almost a shame because the reality of the situation was much funnier.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

It turns out that if you give a bunch of dudes education, literacy, and a lot of time on their hands, some non-zero percentage of them are going to decide to be wizards, no matter how hard you try to stop them from being wizards.

[deathwise]

they should pay you extra if you have to be the only fag in the workplace. they should give you a bonus for that.

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[deathwise]

Anxiety

Fanart of @canisalbus' characters! I love these two a lot, I hope I did them justice!

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fuckin around, sketchin

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ah yes, the two genders:

man and bath

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Campfire Friends by MatthewDobrich

[deathwise]

worrying is like worshipping the problem

[deathwise]

we all have that friend that reminds us of a wretched and despotic boy-king

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[deathwise]