How I think I’m writing: Using eye contact, or lack thereof, to display emotions such as intimacy, shock, denial, or nervousness. 

How I’m actually writing: She looked at me, and I looked away. I tried to look back, but she was already looking at the sky. “Look,” she sighs, looking back at me for a split second. “I don’t know how to say this.” We looked at each other and time stopped, but then she looked her lookers at something else to look at, looking tired. 

I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT THIS IN DRIVING SCHOOL

Stop says the red light, go says the green

Wait says the yellow light, twinkling in between. 

KNEEL, SAYS THE DEMON LIGHT WITH ITS EYE OF COAL  SAURON KNOWS YOUR LICENSE PLATE  AND STARES INTO YOUR SOUL

THIS IS ALWAYS FUNNY

@irritatedlifeguard I agree with your tags.

@hellsite-hall-of-fame

Imploring people to realize black and white morality is still black and white even if you swap which one the audience is supposed to root for. If you go "Well actually in this story the HEROES are actually all terrible people with no nuance and the VILLAINS are all sympathetic with no bad traits" the actual moral complexity is exactly the same. Especially since if you define "hero" as "protagonist" not even the roles have meaningfully changed.

*through gritted teeth* when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my character. when i do something wrong and am politely asked to change my behavior its just a simple request to fix a problem and not an indictment of my worth as a human being

you understand that there's nothing wrong with wanting people to pay attention to you, right? it's not intrinsically evil, you are allowed to want to be seen. you can do it in soft and nice and good ways, but you don't even have to. you can just want to be seen.

if you respond to sincerity with "ironic" deflection, people will learn that they can't be sincere with you. do you want people to be sincere with you? you have to be sincere with people.

if you want to be loved, don't play hard to get, make the act of loving you feel good. if you liked it, just say thank you. being embarrassed is cute.

2025 went by in the blink of an eye but at the same time if you mention something that happened in january it feels like a lifetime ago

It’s Jane Austen’s 250th birthday today and I just want to yell about how much modern writing (in the English language) owes to this woman.

Jane Austen did things with stories and characters that had simply never been done before. Do you like flawed characters who grow over the course of the story? Jane Austen pioneered the art of doing that in novels. Do you like it when a story is filtered through a character’s perspective, so you can hear their voice in the narration? Say thank you to Jane Austen.

I’m going to very, very generally summarise what novels looked like when Austen started writing. The first important thing is: they were an incredibly young genre. The first English book that everyone agrees ‘this is definitely a novel, not a collection of short stories, or an allegorical fable, or a political commentary’ is Robinson Crusoe, published 1719. Austen’s first book was published in 1811. That’s less than a hundred years!

"They got themselves into this mess, don't feel bad for them"

Buddy, do I have news about a significant percentage of the messes you're going to get in.

I love this post. This is, so seriously, the first step in being kind to people (especially people who are different from oneself) a lot of times.

In my mind, it's kinda connected to the idea that one's situation in life is not permanent. Oftentimes, one is either absolutely fucked right now, has been absolutely fucked in the past, or will be absolutely fucked in the future. One shouldn't get cocky bc one could be in the same position as the person one is looking down on, like, tomorrow.

I think more men should take offense to "boys will be boys". Like if you want yell "not all men are like that!" at somebody, please take it to that situation. Fucking get offended when someone justifies their little shit acting like a spectacularly evil little monster by saying it's normal because their child is male.

Stop letting shitty parents excuse their shitty kids' shitty behaviour by implying that being violent, cruel, disruptive and incapable of functioning in a society is somehow an inherent male trait that cannot be helped.

sometimes a theme recurs in your work without your permission. and sometimes it reaches a threshold where you're like. well now i think this is saying something about me against my will. don't know what though

Things I've Googled While Editing Today

What birds sing really early in the morning

When were alarm clocks invented

Types of espionage

Types of men's shoes

When does the sun rise in August

How to beat a lie detector (I google this one a lot bc I keep forgetting)

What artery to take your pulse in your wrist

How far away do people stand in knife-throwing competitions

How to throw throwing-knives (are you seeing a theme here)

How to get abs

how long does it take for dough to rise

how did ovens work in the 1700s

plus a lot of time spent on foodtimeline.org because I need to know things about cinnamon rolls and also what might've been considered 'junk food' in a roughly 18-19th century sorta setting (i write fantasy so i usually just do whatever the fuck i want but i also want it to feel sorta old-timey)