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Sometimes it feels like you've lived your whole life in a house that's always a little bit on fire. Like it's usually just in one room and you make sure to wet the walls around it so it doesn't spread and that usually works. You were expected to take more responsibility over fire containment when you were like seven because it's not like you can expect your parents to always be 100% on guard about making sure the whole house doesn't catch fire, and you figure that's just how things are like.

And sometimes as a kid you visit your friends' homes and some of then whisper to you - grimacing with embarrassment - about how they're not supposed to tell anyone this, but there's a whole room in their house that's currently on fire. And you're like yeah it's ok I'm not supposed to tell people about the way our house is a little bit on fire all the time, too. And then you visit some other friend's house and there's no trace of fire anywhere, and you think "wow, these people are really good at hiding their house fire."

And one day you show up to work like "hey sorry I'm late, I forgot to wet the walls before going to bed last night and my whole house burned down", and you're startled by the way people react, acting like that must be the worst thing that has ever happened to you. And you're just like "chill, it's been years since the last time this happened, and it wasn't even that bad this time", and that just makes people more shocked, acting like that's the weirdest and most concerning thing they've ever heard anyone say, which only confuses you more.

And then someone tries to explain to you that people aren't supposed to have an ongoing house fire. Most people actually never experience a house fire in their lives. Like not even once. Not even a little bit. The normal amount of having your house be currently on fire is zero.

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if only dog had a bigger bed available, or perhaps two. maybe even a human bed. alas, he must make do with a measly little pillow.

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Actually, 'Zelda' is the name of the princess. The guy who runs around smashing everyone's pots is just called 'Zelda's monster'.

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Go read an old fic.

There's such recency bias in fandom. As an author you post something, get a few reactions, and then it goes off into the bin. As a reader you check the tags, see what's new, and move on. But a lot of old stuff is really good. It's just sitting there, gathering dust, waiting for someone to take a peek.

So go on. Treat yourself.

Read an old fic.

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This is the end result of anti-trans propaganda: more harassment of girls and women, more policing of gender roles, more gender McCarthyism.

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Illustration by Sophie Lucido Johnson

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It seems like the older I get, the more irrationally angry casual censorship makes me. And it isn't just the "unalive" "grape" alleged filter-dodging vernacular, but the way normal words will be peppered with asterisks, or screenshots will have words like "gay" "hell" "fuck" etc either partially or entirely blurred. Who is this helping? What is the purpose of it, except to reinforce shame and elevate a flimsy perception of purity and safety, however those things manifest. It's so tiresome and I'm sick of it.

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I was working with an item today that just utterly flabbergasted a part of me (the other was deeply frustrated with the catalogue record AS SOMEONE APPARENTLY THOUGHT IT WAS PRINTED ON SILK, coming back to that in a minute) … but ANYWAYS … said item is a replica of a medieval manuscript prayer book THAT IS ENTIRELY WOVEN out of grey and black silk … WOVEN … text, images, intricate grey scale, WOVEN … NOT PRINTED …

And it’s flabbergasting because it’s from 1888, Jacquard machine, IT USED PUNCH CARDS to weave these intricate pages … something like 400 weft per near square inch … IT looks like a page of textured paper, but it’s not, it’s entirely SILK … F*CK …

Anyways …

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you there. the person who claims to be a hater for fun. are you actually having fun or are you recurrently making yourself miserable looking at things you dont like

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Source

Source

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"these researchers published a paper on something that literally any of us could have told you 🙄" ok well my supervisors wont let me write something in my thesis unless I can back it up with a citation so maybe it's a good thing that they're amplifying your voice to the scientific community in a way that prevents people from writing off your experiences as annecdotal evidence

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It is your sworn duty, when you're in your 30's, to do something every day that would have gotten you viciously bullied in high school.

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daily affirmations:

i am kind

i am in control of my emotions

it does not bother me when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

everyone in the house has the right to be in the kitchen

i am kind and in control of my emotions even when someone is in the kitchen while i was planning to be in there alone

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proximity