smolfangirl

[smolfangirl]

When boarding buses, or any sort of public transportation where you have to walk past a driver to board, always smile at and greet the driver as you're boarding.

It doesn't waste anyone's time, yours or the drivers, to smile and greet the driver, as chances are you probably have to pay or scan your pass which is going to take a second or two, about the amount of time it takes to smile and greet the driver.

When we don't look at or acknowledge the driver at all, this can make the driver feel dehumanized to not be acknowledged by other human beings all day. Being a bus driver is a difficult job, they have to do customer service AND deal with traffic all day. Bus drivers also face a lot of burn out because they are often treated poorly. The least you can do is humanize them by smiling at them and greeting them.

[smolfangirl]

a drawing about optimism

#good things #comics #meret

[smolfangirl]

To anyone who believes fairy tale romances never happen in real life, may I remind you that JRR and Edith Tolkien met and experienced a forbidden love in their youth, and then were separated for five whole years because of his guardian’s rules that he could not date till he was 21, and she got engaged to someone else only because she assumed he’d forgotten her and lost hope that she could ever be with him, but then on his 21st birthday, he wrote her a letter saying he still loved her and wanted to marry her, she responded basically saying ‘if I’d known you hadn’t left me on the shelf, I would never have said yes to anyone else,’ then a week later she greeted him at the train station and then immediately dumped her fiancé, and they got married and she converted to his religion and danced for him in a flowering field far away from the trenches into which he was drafted, which left such an impression that he crafted an entire story about the most beautiful maiden in the world who danced in the woods and made enormous sacrifices to be with the man she loved, and they had four kids and remained faithful to each other and blissfully grew old together and their gravestones are now marked with the names of that same fictional couple that he created, who broke every rule and overcame every possible obstacle to be together and get a happy ending, who only did all that because he based it all on their own real love story.

#jrr tolkien #omg that's so sweet 🥺

[smolfangirl]

(for the purposes of this poll, there is no monkey's paw situation: the chore you pick stays the same level of difficulty/grossness/etc. as it normally is for you, and you only have to do it as often as you want to. the chores you don't pick are magically done for you exactly the way you'd want them to be, just with zero effort on your part.)

#picking up clutter #it's an easy task for me that's usually quick but with immediate and satisfying results

[smolfangirl]

Captain Wentworth had no fortune. He had been lucky in his profession; but spending freely, what had come freely, had realized nothing. But he was confident that he should soon be rich: full of life and ardour, he knew that he should soon have a ship, and soon be on a station that would lead to everything he wanted. He had always been lucky; he knew he should be so still. Such confidence, powerful in its own warmth, and bewitching in the wit which often expressed it, must have been enough for Anne; but Lady Russell saw it very differently. His sanguine temper, and fearlessness of mind, operated very differently on her. She saw in it but an aggravation of the evil. It only added a dangerous character to himself. He was brilliant, he was headstrong. Lady Russell had little taste for wit, and of anything approaching to imprudence a horror. She deprecated the connexion in every light.

It's interesting to me, Persuasion is the last novel Austen wrote and she had this trend prior of "W" being a villain (Wickham and Willoughby) and this paragraph about Wentworth makes me think about her other dubious men. He's gambled or spent all his money away, just like the other two, he's confident he'll get more. Wentworth and Henry Tilney are the only heroes with wit, but only Wentworth has this magnetic charm that seems to draw every woman in the room. Very Wickham of him, recall how drawn every female was to him when he came into Meryton. Wentworth feels a lot like Austen's villains, especially at first.

It makes me feel that Lady Russell was right to be worried. This sort of magnetic person, with very pretty words but no substance to back it up. It could have been a Willoughby-esq whirlwind romance and left Anne with nothing.

#captain wentworth #persuasion #there is also a hint that he risked more unmarried #he might not have been as successful otherwise #<- that's what I keep thinking about! sure *he* was confident he should be lucky but as he admitted himself he desperately wanted work after #the engagement. and I think it's highly likely he risked more bc of loosing Anne and perhaps started saving out of pettiness to be the great #match he knew he was. and all this in the end led him to finally securing her hand #the only reason they didn't get engaged again sooner was his pride (which btw. I think he might even be prouder than Darcy somewhat #like Darcy arranged the marriage to Wickham no biggie meanwhile Wentworth adds six more years of suffering out of pride... but that's #a conversation for another day probably) #oops sorry for the ramble

[smolfangirl]

ngl every time i see stuff about like, drugs affecting cognitive development of kids and teens, i think about the fact that it's normal for kids and teens to have caffeine, even tho caffeine also affects cognitive development. i think about the fact that teens are expected to get up extremely early in the morning to get ready for school, and go to bed real late because they only get free time late at night. i think about the fact that society already puts kids and teens through so many things that destroy their physical and mental health, and yet there's no serious effort to change the world to be a kinder place to them

#coffee #caffeine

[smolfangirl]

mirror palais

#photography #that first place tho 😍

[smolfangirl]

You guys really liked my last poll so

#studio ghibli movie bc you deserve some peace and happiness

[smolfangirl]

idk who needs to hear this but jane austen is genuinely really funny. people who think she writes boring books where nothing happens, i get why you think that because society has told you that but please enjoy this banger from just the first couple of chapters of pride & prejudice:

“How pleasant it is to spend an evening this way. I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading. How much sooner one tires of anything than of a book. When I have a house of my own I shall be miserable if I have not an excellent library.” No one made any reply. She then yawned again, threw aside her book, and cast her eyes around the room in quest for some amusement.

this is funny! we all know people who are like this!

anyway look up pride and prejudice read by elizabeth klett, she does an incredible job and it’s free!

#jane austen #I love her so much and at the same time I'm terrified how she'd pick apart my character in two sentences max

[smolfangirl]

i just saw someone describe a disabled person as "someone with beautiful abilities" i cannot do this anymore

[smolfangirl]

hey. what do a selkie and a ziploc bag have in common

#puns #meret

[smolfangirl]

There is this really interesting fairy tale element to Persuasion. There is a common trope where the heroine/hero often helps an old woman/animal (often they give something very small, like half of their loaf of bread) and then later, when given an impossible task, is helped by that same person/thing. (Examples: Diamonds and Toads, Puss in Boots, The Glass Mountain)

In Persuasion, Anne goes out of her way to help an infirm widow, though all she can offer is friendship. Then it turns out that Mrs. Smith is the oracle of all wisdom about Mr. Elliot. It very much fits the trope, so much that I feel like it was on purpose. Is it to tip us off that this is all an unrealistic fantasy? Or is it a hope that the good we put out will return to us?

#persuasion #anne elliot #I think it's the reward we can get by not falling for our pride - Anne could have seen Mrs Smith as beneath her but she valued her #as a friend that was inherently worthy of her company #I'd like to think that's Jane Austen telling us to not be blinded by rank as Anne's father and sister are. bc you never know if someone #knows something that's valuable to you or can ''repay'' you with things you didn't know you needed #and maybe it's also just a little bit of ''the world is a small place'' and ''you never know how people might be connected to each other'' #Realistically Mrs Smith also could've been a narrative tool not only as a what if to Anne's first engagement but also to resolve the #Mr Elliot being into Anne subplot

[smolfangirl]

Oh strawberry... We're really in it now...

#good things #meret #animals

[smolfangirl]

#whenever I got sweaty so up to daily in summer and less often in winter #washcloths exist for a reason. I can't shower daily in winter or my skin will hate me even though I put on body lotion every single time

[smolfangirl]

He sits on my lap while I spin, he does the little jiggle

#history #meret #good things

[smolfangirl]

still amazes me that by season 45 or whatever, Supernatural was being exclusively watched by delusionally hopeful women with flamingo-salinity tolerance for bad writing and the creators still couldn’t pander to them because maybe there was 1 straight guy out there still accidentally watching it

#tumblr

[smolfangirl]

#meret #comedy