how it's done
…and at the end, he takes a bite because it’s all chocolate.
🤣🤣🤣
But seriously, my favourite part is him eating a sandwich because that might mean he has a union.
(You know that box in the basement where you go if you blow a fuse? This is how you set it up. So all the lights and appliances and what not funnel into those wires, and then into the board.)
Tom Thomson aka Thomas John Thomson (Canadian, 1877-1917, b. Claremont, Pickering, Canada, d. Canoe Lake, Canada) - Northern River, c. 1943, Silkscreen on Board
One of the things about becoming an adult and understanding where your parents were coming from a lot better, is that sometimes you can also follow that line of thinking back to where the miscommunications happened in the first place and do better with the younger people in your own life.
Like, it can be tempting to just leave it there. You understand now why Mom would get so exasperated with asking you to set the table, it's one little chore to help the whole dinner process run smoothly, especially at those hectic final stages of a family meal where everything is getting ready to serve.
Why didn't you understand this before? Well, because you didn't appreciate the work that was going into dinner. But don't stop there! Why didn't you appreciate it? Obviously you're not just the type to never empathize or get where other people are coming from, or else you wouldn't now be going, gee I understand Mom a lot better.
Stick with it and you might find that the problem was actually that Mom would just bark at you all in the chaos to get that table set, interrupting whatever other thing you were doing. She probably did that because she was distracted by all the other stuff she was doing, but from your own perspective you were just going about your own business and got this job thrust upon you with no warning and not even any politeness, making you sullen and resentful because no one likes to be treated that way.
From your adult perspective you might see where Mom was coming from and understand that she was just harried, but if you combine that with the child's perspective of not being communicated with like a person but instead barked at like a dog, you can go, hm, yes I see. I'll ask my kids to set the table before I'm at the chaotic final stages.
Then when your kids don't set the table because they have "plenty of time" and you end up hollering at them anyway, you can go, y'know, I told you to do this half an hour ago, and when they go yes but I got distracted, you can go this has happened the last twenty times what is going on with you, and they can go I don't know, and you can figure out that they have ADHD symptoms and get them a diagnosis and medication and then realize that actually you also have ADHD symptoms and so, in fact, did Mom, and wow that's an entire family curse you've just sort of unravelled! Good job!
endlessly funny that some pets will just decide they are service animals now without any training or feedback from humans. babygirl no one hired you. you do not have a license for this
I’m not talking about humans pretending their untrained pets are service animals so they can bring them places they shouldn’t be allowed. I’m talking about my dog, who took one look at the two people with severe ADHD time-blindness and executive dysfunction who adopted him and was like, “Great. I am your Watch Dog now, as in, dog who functions like a watch. That is, if your watch was a seven-pound furby that could run this house like the goddamn navy. I will catapult myself onto your chest and nip at your hands when you fail to get up and Do Things in response to my incessant whining that it is Time For You To Eat Lunch/Get Out Of Bed/Go Exercise/Take Your Meds/Etc Now Now Right Now. This is a service I provide for to Helping You. No, you cannot opt out of the Helping You. Do not attempt to resist the Helping You.”
My cat knows when I should stay in bed and screams at me until I do and then sits on me so I don't get back up. If I do get up she follows me and screams until I sit down again
She knows by sniffing my mouth first. Which she does at least once a day
When I am struggling to eat she'll do her "I need food" act even when her food is full until I eat
@thebibliosphere I think we've found Holly Mop's people
Some beloved critters really take the ‘companion’ role so seriously they train themselves to go above and beyond to the point where you’ll find yourself being bullied into lying down by a 10lb Shih Tzu. And then they’re right. You were getting a migraine. (It’s me. I’m in bed with a migraine with a 10lb Shih Tzu lying on top of me.)
love how much of Aragorn’s initial interactions with the hobbits is just telling them not to say things
aragorn: could you stop casually invoking the dread name of the ancient and terrible evil that even now follows at our very heels for FIVE MINUTES
aragorn: hey I gotta take a breather can you take over the hobbit duties for a bit
gandalf: no worries got you covered
Aragorn’s given up
elrond: hey you can’t say that here
gandalf: you can’t tell me what to say, do I look like a hobbit to you
The film repositions this for comedy, but in Return of the King, there’s this scene:
Gandalf, outside the door: oh hang on, just a sec. for reasons I won’t explain; this is about to get super geopolitical. Try not to spill too many beans in front of Denethor.
Pippin: Do I have that many of them?
Denethor: right, you ignorant child! Under my skilled interrogation I shall force you to spill the beans.
Pippin: I know three things about beans and will share them (under skilled interrogation, discourses for a full hour on beans, the preparation thereof, the cultivation thereof, and the Shire’s various thoughts on beans in general)
Gandalf: (pretends to be annoyed) denethor if you wanted SENSIBLE discourse on geopolitical beans I am RIGHT HERE
Denethor, fascinated: no! I already know everything you’re about to say and I’m NOT accepting criticism at this time. And I genuinely have no idea what this guy’s going to say next - do you have ANY idea how fun that is for me
Pippin: now the classic market share of baked beans inna tin belongs to Heinz, but I myself am a Branston man, because - referencing my previous statements - if you want beans, you do NOT need to faff about with a tin opener. The decision to retain the pop-top -
Gandalf: this is unbelievable. denethor, can we -
Denethor: BZT! ✋ let him cook
(Later)
Pippin: are you mad at me for talking about beans for an hour
Gandalf: it was, in a weird way, the best move on the chessboard, and so politically savvy that it furthered three of my agendas, and was also really funny to listen to. Denethor has the long sight; he is accustomed to reading the minds and hearts of men at a long distance, these long years. Actually, maybe this has jaded him as much as anything else. To meet a mind whose umwelt, whose very nature, he has not already fully plumbed is not just an act of political obfuscation on our part; for Denethor himself, could such fresh provocation burst his stagnant social bubble, and save him from being so terminally fucking online? Might we have uncovered the potential of a Theoden thematic parallel? Much to ponder. The only unfortunate bit was that you kept freezing up and looking guilty when Denethor asked you about containers
Pippin: you said not to spill any beans and I was worried he’d trip me up
Gandalf: it is, as ever, like talking to a fucking genie with you people
It feels almost unbelievable that there's an Olympics this year. Not just this year but next month. Like can you please come back another time thanks
At least they're in Italy though
One under-appreciated breed of fic writer are the ones who hyperfocus on logistics to the exclusion of all canon shortcuts, and thus usually strike upon an awesome way to flesh out the worldbuilding or characters.
Like, I’m not necessarily talking realism here since often it’s still pretty far from realistic, but more like, “someone has to be running spies in this fantasy kingdom, and we’ve seen the whole royal court, so which background character is it? How does that change these three major interactions?” Or “real life historical nobility did in fact have some things to do that were like jobs, how does this human disaster cope with running an estate?” Or “there’s no reason for a sci-fi robot detective to know how to whitewater kayak, where’d she learn?” Or “if this guy is serving the emperor directly he has to be way high up in the space empire servant hierarchy, why is he doing this menial task for someone else? What’s his motive? Does he perhaps have the secret space telepathy?”
Anyway I’m always DELIGHTED to find a fic or writer who asks these questions because the fics themselves are universally bangers.
person who knows how logistical things works has picked up the cannon, hefted it thoughtfully, and put a single chalk mark precisely on the problem.
Controversial take maybe but “Weird Girl Lit” to me feels like one of those terms that starts out well-intentioned but rapidly veers into belittling territory. What do you call it when a woman writes something subversive and dark which unsettles the status quo and makes cis men uncomfortable…? Oh dw it's just the girlypops being weird again.
OP, your mind is amazing
editing my rb to pull one of my favorite quotes from op:
Well, I’ll pose the obvious question: why aren’t the men writing dark speculative fiction dubbed Weird Boys? Why isn’t there a Weird Boy movement?
Because it’s patronising. We know this.
I hadn’t heard the term “Weird Girl Lit” before, but I immediately hate it. As OP points out, it’s dismissive and infantilizing. Can you imagine anyone calling Edgar Allan Poe a “weird boy”? Or calling men who read Poe’s works “weird boys”?
Women in previous decades had to fight tooth and nail to be referred to as “women”, not “girls”, and it feels like there’s been such a backslide in popular culture. It’s bad enough when men call adult women “girls”, but it’s particularly galling to see women participating in their own infantilization with these “[adjective] girl” memes/trends.
To be honest, I don’t like the term ‘weird’ as a category name for this type of literature, either. To me, that label minimizes the seriousness and purpose of these works, and reduces them to a gimmick. Charlotte Perkins Gilman didn’t write 'The Yellow Wallpaper’ to be quirky– she wrote it to draw attention to the horrors of both the “rest cure” and women’s lack of agency in society.
