OK this passage is goofy in numerous respects but I want to set that aside for a minute and just focus on one thing: “Speef” will always sound like a sound effect, but it’s better if you spell it “Spief”, right?
This is one of the things I find most peculiar about English: doubled vowels are connotatively infantile, despite being extremely common and the normal way to represent certain sounds which aren’t themselves seen that way. It’s not the sound at all, it’s just the fact that the vowels are doubled! You’ll observe that it only applies to digraphs and not to diaereses like “cooperate” or “vacuum”. With core vocabulary this fades into the background, but it leaps out with unfamiliar names or words. That’s why the British colonial use of “oo” to represent “u” sounds in non-European languages comes off as disrespectful, and (beyond the uncanny-valley effect) it’s why English speakers perceive Dutch orthography as inherently ludicrous.
This is insane, right? There’s nothing meaningful about whether a digraphic vowel uses two different letters or the same one twice, and as far as I can tell the sounds represented by -ee- and -oo- are totally arbitrary. This isn’t written down anywhere and nobody teaches it to second-language learners, it’s just this vague vibe you acquire from immersion. What the hell happened there
english orthography, or let’s be honest, english graphy
(through gritted teeth) sometimes what’s good for your mental health isn’t another do nothing day or a little treat sometimes what’s good for you is putting in some of the work. Not all of it at once but sometimes you have to finish that essay or at least take the next step or you have to clean your room or at least dust the shelves or you gotta do the laundry or at least put it all in the hamper and it’s not fun and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks and it sucks but you have to because i read a post on the internet that told me that’s what being nice to yourself is sometimes
Are you guys ok you’re all reblogging this post a lot
we’re all ADHD and glad someone else said the quiet part out loud so we didn’t have to.
Now, see, if the OP had commissioned a real artist, they could have asked the artist give the gnome some cake so big no room could contain it. A real dump truck. A badonkadonk, if you will. A truly Callipygean derriére.
Instead, the feeble machine can only offer platitudes. Shameful…
Instead, the feeble
machine can only offer
platitudes. Shameful…
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
Oh, not you, haiku
We respect haiku bot here
You’re doing your best
Generative AI vs. Analytical AI in a nutshell.
Generative AI
vs. Analytical
AI in a nutshell.
Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.
the question of fic comments is very straightforward actually. readers do not owe writers comments. writers do not owe readers fic. there is no bargain, no transaction, no debt.
fic is a gift. comments are a gift. gifts are exchanged between friends, out of love, not out of obligation.
I write for myself. I post it for others, as a gift, because their joy brings me joy. I read for myself. I comment for the author, as a gift, because their joy brings me joy. perhaps we were not friends before, but we are now, however fleetingly, because we have given each other gifts out of love.
if you do this often enough you DO become friends!
using “what were YOU doing at the devils sacrament” to mean “yeah i made an embarrassing reference but you understood it which is also embarrassing” is very funny to me
my favorite part is that absolutely nobody says this except here. so if you use it in public, it’s a dead giveaway that you spent the last ten years on tumblr. but then again, they recognized it, which means they were at the devil’s sacrament
I tested this theory in the wild the other day at work. I was on a call with my department lead and a few other folks and I replied to an email the DL had sent me, thinking that, because he was on this call, he wouldn’t notice when I sent it and would not catch me multitasking.
However, he replied to said email within five minutes, asking a question that required an answer. So I answered and was like “Also, I was going to apologize for answering emails during this call, but I see we’re both here at the Devil’s Sacrament, so I don’t think an apology is necessary.”
I watched him read that on screen and try not to laugh. And then at the end of the call as everyone started saying goodbye, he goes, “Hey, MJ, I meant to tell you. I like your shoelaces.”
And I looked straight into my camera, stone cold serious, and said, “Thanks. I stole them from the president.”
And the rest of the team was like, “What…the fuck…?” before he abruptly ended the call for everyone.
So now my DL and I know this about each other. He could be any one of us.
At a certain point, the appropriate response to “What were you doing at the devil’s sacrament” becomes “stealing shoelaces from the president.”
Reblog if you were stealing shoelaces from the President
I wish depression were an emergency. I wish someone could take one look at how sick I am and go “oh my god, we need to get you to a hospital!” and then when we get there I get rushed into surgery and the surgeons say “it’s a good thing you brought her here when you did, this is a seriously advanced case” and then they put me under and spend the next ten hours pulling metres of long, sticky black strands of gunk out of my body, throwing it immediately into an incinerator so that it can’t infect anyone else. And then they could stitch me back up and I could rest a few days, and when I leave the hospital everyone can see how much better I am and they congratulate me saying “well done, you’ve been so brave, I’m so glad you’re ok. I love you.”
my dear friend just looked up from the hat she’s crocheting for a very large spherical rock we found in the river and said, in a slightly haunted tone that revealed this was the first time she was having this thought, “i should make something for my cousin’s real human baby”
who needs a real human baby when you could have rock son with jaunty hat
When I got home the neighbor kids were hanging around the parking lot as they usually do. I saw an adult making the rounds and popped out of my car hoping to snag her and ask if she’d like plums. I didn’t see her when I got out. But I saw a little girl and I said, “Is that your mom walking around?”
No, I was informed.
“Well can you ask your mom if she wants plums?”
She ran off. I looked over and saw two slightly older girls lounging. “Do you want plums?” I called.
Yes.
I grabbed my enormous box of plums and brought it outside. All three girls were waiting and the first kid said, “She’ll take them.”
I told them I had been given 106 plums. They were suitably impressed. I held out the box to let them pick out plums but the first girl confidently took the box. “You don’t have to take them all if you don’t want…” I offered dubiously.
“We want them.”
So I handed her the whole damn box, at this point somewhere close to 87 plums. And just like that, I was free. Her mom might be upset at receiving 87 plums or maybe her daughter gauged correctly that they could actually use them but either way. I am blissfully free.
2 hours ago
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