If you ever find yourself thinking "oh, I can't write this Cool But Impractical thing into my story, it's just not realistic", here are a few perfectly realistic reasons why people and even whole cultures would rather do something in an impractical way rather than the sensible one:

i fucking hated your shoelaces this entire time

eagerly awaiting the reveal of what political science 101 concept is she going to stop the plot to teach middle schoolers about. we got bread and circuses we got the extended work on thomas hobbes my money is on haymitch starting this book as an objectivist and having to unlearn that in the face of true struggle

REAL

oh it is definitely not im genuine. i am fully aware that the series is on the younger end of YA and so ms. collins meets the audience where they’re at. love and admire her clear commitment to using her books to teach middle schoolers introductory political theory i think that’s something that should really really be accessible to kids.

day 1661

probably my most powerful interpersonal communication hack is to, whenever possible, ask either/or questions rather than yes/no questions

for example, when chatting with coworkers, i’ll often ask if they have any fun weekend plans. but let’s be real - we all feel like friendless losers when someone asks that question and we go “uhhhhh… no.” so instead, i phrase it as “so, do you have anything fun planned over the weekend, or are you just going to enjoy having some time to relax?”

phrased like this, there’s rarely any awkwardness. you’ve presented two options & given both equally positive connotations, so your conversational partner has an automatic “out,” so to speak

but it works for higher stakes conversations too!!!! my mom was saying this weekend how she and her neighbor both like walking around the neighborhood & that she wanted to suggest they take a walk together sometime, but was worried about how to approach the conversation

so i said “how about you just say ‘i’ve noticed we both like taking walks! would you be interested in going for one together, or do you use walks for some precious alone time?’”

now Walking Neighbor has an automatic “get out of jail free card” if she wants to say no!!!! which means my mom doesn’t have to worry about the conversation being uncomfortable, because she’s set it up to go smoothly

either/or questions rather than yes/no questions. it is really like magic

I'm only halfway through but means so much to me that not only does Nona the Ninth depict a character with profound intellectual and developmental disabilities with compassion and depth, she is surrounded by love and support. Her family may occasionally be frustrated or exasperated (pencils aren't FOOD Nona) but they never get upset, never make her feel stupid or useless, they challenge her without depriving her of support, and love her unconditionally.

At school the teachers are unfailingly kind and give her jobs that are within her capabilities and make her feel helpful and competent.

She is not required to go through a gauntlet of social trauma in order to earn friends. There is loving teasing among the gang but she is accepted and valued as who she is.

Even in the interactions we see with random strangers, she is viewed with kindness or gentle humor (with the one creep exception), not the disgust and aversion we so commonly see people with disabilities treated with in our culture.

So much can be written about how, even in the midst of The Horrors, Nona finds love and support, but right now I'm just holding the simple beauty that she gets to experience that people can be good.

in case any of you haven't had the pleasure and in case it helps, you should all know: having a much younger person ask your advice, and then being able to watch in real time as the story of something difficult you went through long ago for which there was no present justification is alchemically transformed between their ear and their brain into knowledge and understanding that actually helps them? feels like party drugs

when i was in the 6th grade and george w bush was president, i got the shit kicked out of me by a much bigger kid. up to today that was just the story of one time i got the shit kicked out of me. there was nothing more to it, nothing of value.

today a 15 year old asked me what she should do if she doesn't want people to think she's weak but doesn't want to fight anyone. we started talking about kinds of strength and different ways of responding to provocation. and i told her the story of when i got the shit kicked out of me in 6th grade and how come i told the principal instead of hitting back. and i saw it make sense to her. i bled on pavement in october 2006 a continent away and until today it meant nothing. as of today, it might -- just maybe -- keep a kid from throwing the punch that fucks up her life. you can't buy that. the versions of me that didn't want to live til this day couldn't have known about it. it still might mean nothing. but it feels really, really good.

does anyone else think maybe we're gonna be ok?

once again opening a ship tag on AO3 and opening a dozen fics and closing out of almost all of them immediately because they would not fucking act like that

why is it – i know why. this is a rhetorical question – that so many people have a fixed idea of what A Romance looks like and will mold the characters to fit it. rather than molding what the romance looks like to fit how the characters think and act.

like. i am drawn to repressed sarcastic bastards who would rather run into a burning building than verbalise their feelings. that is their appeal. why are you having them say 'i love you' while holding their partner's hands in full view of two dozen other people. stop that. they wouldn't fucking do that. other things can be a love confession. other things can be a display of affection. have you never anticipated someone's needs! done a task they hate without having to be asked! remembered their favourite food! rearranged your plans for their convenience! punched someone in the gut for insulting them! have some damn imagination!!!

hallmark movies won't tell you this but the love languages are actually access intimacy, in-jokes, learning the little details, attack dogism, and voluntary vulnerability

Listen All Systems Red is so so funny from Gurathins perspective imagine you grew up with Space Socialism and was hired to go help some pal with science but you weren't allowed to go unless you rented AmaTeslas Torment Nexus Alexa Dot and then when you get there you find out a whole continent of people got annihilated by their Tourment Nexus rentals so you take a moment to check yours quickly and find out it already had disengaged its Don't Kill People box, the only thing you've ever been told prevented them from mass homiciding their clients, something that LITERALLY just happened to people you knew a day ago, and when you say to your fellow socialist doctors HEY I think our Tourment Nexus is fucked up and it's files said it killed dozens of people barely a year ago and we should probably get the hell away from it the same doctors are like look at what you're saying. You're hurting the Tourment Nexus' feelings. The Tourment Nexus is just a little construct who likes Netflix Gurathin stop antagonizing it on the plane ride.

even more fucked up is it's been like six years and your project head kind of adopted the Torment Nexus as an emotional support dog/son(???) and it's also saved all of your lives repeatedly and has no particular purpose in life other than to sneak around, watch TV, and occasionally do heroic amounts of violence on behalf of all socialists and scientists everywhere and be honestly a really cool dude in a low key bitchy autistic teenager way, and then you find out it still thinks you're Kind Of A Fuck for that thing you said about it one time

this is my favourite article about the new york - dublin portal

ive gotten so much mileage out of this tweet. every time i see something on the internet that makes me mad i just think to myself "people in real life: hey man how's it going" and i keep it pushing

Wouldn't it be entirely possible, even likely, that with all the silly weaknesses vampires and stuff were supposed to have, they'd also turn out to be weak to any number of things that have only been invented more recently? Like who's to say vampires aren't also repelled by the smell of play-doh or driven insane by MIDI music? We've invented so much shit in just the last century there'd be NO predicting this. For all we know they burn to ash if they look at Luigi.

Is "Fractal Friday" anything? This new skein of Beachrise yarn for the shop will be a fractal yarn, which means that the bobbin on the right has color repeats that are half the length of the color sequences of the bobbin on the right. 🎨 In the final yarn, this means the colors will slowly phase in and out of alignment - a super cool effect that can only be made with handspun!

We all got that one vassal who's read a few too many warrior tales... Trying to get a little freaky with it on the down low... Won't shut up about his loyalty unto death... Saying shit like "my liege, I am your blade...." Bitch I sent you to guard my isolated holdings in the eastern provinces for a reason!!!!!!! #REBLOG!!!!!

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