I have to say something about how to approach fiction, because while I think I’ve always done it automatically, judging by online discourse this is not universal: when engaging with fiction you should just accept the premise and in-universe rules.
For example, you reading a story set in the past and the main couple are 17 and 25. Does everyone in the story treat this as a totally normal age gap? Okay, then for now, put your 21st century morality in a little box and label it “real world morals” and then put this couple’s age gap being normal in a box called “in-universe/historical morals” and accept that you can store both boxes in your mind without exploding because you are are thinking, rational human being. Because it’s driving me straight up a wall that people can’t seem to do this!
“He kills people, what a red flag!” “Ma'am, that is a magical warlord and if he stopped killing people they would kill him. He doesn’t have an office job.”
“That was very dubious consent. I can’t support this ship.” “Sir, she grew up in literal hell, I doubt they had comprehensive sex ed there. Also, she might learn and grow?”
“She’s only sixteen, he’s a pedo!” “If society at that time says that sixteen is the marriageable age, then no, he’s not. That is not how any of this works.”
“They grew up together and their parents want them to marry? Gross.” “Yeah, it would be weird today, but everyone is treating this as normal. I guess it was A Thing.”
Sure, in a modern, non-fantasy story set in your country, judge by your moral code all you want, but if you want to actually enjoy a story that isn’t written with your exact morals, you need to accept the premise. Step back later and do some analysis, think about how society has changed (hopefully for the better), but keep in the mind the intent of the author in that time, culture, genre, or universe.
Yeah, Marianne Dashwood & John Willoughby are a creepy age gap today, but Jane Austen thought it was normal so while you read Sense & Sensibility, you can do that too. I promise it will make your reading experience 1000% better and you won’t go straight to hell or anything. If you can’t handle that, I banish you to the non-fiction section of the library.
This is called SUSPENSION OF DISBELIEF and it is in fact crucial to be able to do that if you want to read fiction
Every time I’m forced by circumstance to hand-sew something, I remember a fairytale I once read. There are lead-up shenanigans as the humble protagonist helps small animals and meets the princess and all that, but in the climax, the princess rigs a contest for her hand by setting her own task: sew her a dress in a single night.
The noble suitors, who have never sewn a thing in their lives, sabotage themselves by their own ambitions: they choose difficult fabrics to work with and cut huge, elaborate patterns and select gems and pearls and beads to sew onto it, and snip such long bits of thread that they lose time detangling their stitches, and ultimately resort to pinning bits together as they run out of time, so that their offerings initially look beautiful and flashy, but when the princess tries them on they stick her with pin ends and fall apart as she moves.
The humble protagonist uses a very simple pattern without embellishments and sews using short lengths of thread (snipped off and threaded for him by little birds of course) which don’t tangle and therefore save time. His dress is plain by contrast, but holds together and the princess is able to move freely in it, and so he wins the contest and her hand.
I particularly think about the bit about threading the needle with shorter lengths of thread, needing to tie off more often but avoiding tangles and thereby saving time.
I then ignore that piece of wisdom passed down through who knows how many years and proceed to cut the longest damn length of thread I can manage because I hate tying off beginning or ending knots and I will not subject myself to more of that even if it does mean more tangles along the way.
if you wrap the end of the thread around the needle several times you can slide it all the way down the length of the thread for a super easy beginning knot
for no reason whatsoever here’s a reminder that if you consider yourself a leftist/punk/abolitionist/anarchist/radical in any sort of way and get called into jury duty, you are to become the most square person on earth during the jury questionnaire!!!
don’t be that guy who says fuck the police in the jury questionnaire! that just gets you sent home! if you want to generate change, interact with the case and use your jury vote for good! ESPECIALLY if it’s a high profile case!
Remember, when you’re on the jury, a good “that cop’s story didn’t add up” will sway a lot more Chads and Karens than “fuck the police.”
Had jury duty, can confirm!
An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids’ whole childhoods in jail for “resisting arrest” when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)
And it still took like two hours of delibration after we’d heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues’.
Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won’t lie. I can be patient, but it doesn’t come naturally to me.
But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?
That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.
Being able to raise reasonable doubt among a jury of one’s peers saves lives. If you get the chance, take it.
aren’t gorillas gentle giants or something. i stay out of his way, he doesn’t maul me, we have a nice time picking out clothes together in opposite sides of the mall
Male gorillas are super aggressive and territorial. Also they interpret nearly every human mannerism as a sign of aggression or a challenge. Smiling and eye contact are both things that zookeepers have to be taught to suppress when they’re in the vicinity of gorillas.
Well unless the mall is his native territory I think I’m fine, I wasn’t planning on smiling at him
This is all irrelevant because the obvious answer is five black mambas. I mean, that’s not actually very many snakes, and malls are fucking huge. And unlike a gorilla you can definitely outrun a snake if it does show up. Find an open space in the mall where you can see any snake coming and just hangout out there. Fucking easy.
Misguided! I would much rather have a mallmate I can easily see and hear coming. I’m confident I can stay out of the gorilla’s way, but if I step on a snake or one otherwise gets the jump on me, it’s all over.
It’s not just about the physical danger either, it’s about my mental health. One gorilla, unless he’s actively mad at me, I just keep a healthy distance between us and make sure I never get trapped. With the snakes, it requires a lot more constant vigilance
They should substitute “chimpanzee” for “gorilla” in this hypothetical.
if it was a chimp i’m taking the fucking snakes
Black mambas have a reputation build on being very venomous and very fast. I’m not sure why you would think you could outrun one (or five) in an enclosed space like a mall.
Malls usually have pretty slick floors, and escalators. I’d choose the gorilla simply because I think that would make an more interesting story (and a better-selling autobiography, I Survived the Mall Gorilla) but I think I’d stand a pretty good chance at avoiding the mamba. They’re fast and aggressive and will chase you but unless we started immediately beside each other I think my sneakers would have the terrain advantage over scutes.
this is too good to leave hidden in the replies
fucking enamored with the implication that this gorilla is fully intelligent but is trying to manufacture plausible deniability like the movie barnyard
A Russian prankster glued a massive portrait of President Vladimir Putin to the inside of a residential elevator. He then placed a camera in the elevator to record people’s reactions.
ALT
