because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.
you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.
you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.
don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.
if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.
you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:
how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!
aren't you happy yet?
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“In the war film, a soldier can hold his buddy—as long as his buddy is dying on the battlefield. In the western, Butch Cassidy can wash the Sundance Kid’s naked flesh—as long as it is wounded. In the boxing film, a trainer can rub the well-developed torso and sinewy back of his protege—as long as it is bruised. In the crime film, a mob lieutenant can embrace his boss like a lover—as long as he is riddled with bullets.
Violence makes the homo-eroticism of many “male” genres invisible; it is a structural mechanism of plausible deniability.”
–Tarantino’s Incarnational Theology: Reservoir Dogs, Crucifixions, and Spectacular Violence. Kent L. Brintnall.
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When I followed you earlier today and then realized this blog wasn't even two days old it made me feel like I invested in a startup.
Do you think if you did the lyrics for Fireflies by Owl City, your database would give us fireflies? (Will also accept owls. And there's a line about sheep too).
String identified:
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A a ta
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t t ta a ta
' t a
Tat at at t
t' a t a tat ' at ta
Aa ' a
'Ca tg a t
'Ca ' gt a ta g
t ta gtg g
A t t t tac t ac
A tt a a
A c at
A c a t agg a ta
' t a
Tat at at t
t' a t a tat ' at ta
Aa ' a
'Ca tg a t
a a
a t a cac
(a ta aa )
'Ca c a ac
(a ta aa )
t ctg
(a ta aa )
' a t t t a a
T t
' 'ca at g
gt t a t a a
t ' a a
a gt a a
'Ca a a a t a a
' t a
Tat at at t
t' a t a tat ' at ta
Aa ' a
'Ca tg a t
a a
' t a
Tat at at t
t' a t a tat ' at ta
Aa ' a
'Ca tg a t
a a
' t a
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t' a t a tat ' at ta
Aa ' a
ca a a tg at t a
Closest match: Sepia lycidas genome assembly, chromosome: 36
Common name: Kisslip cuttlefish
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Oh look, it seems everyone has been opted into the unfortunate "experiment" now. For everyone who has been blissfully using the old UI up until now, welcome to hell :)
Do you not like hell? Do you want to leave and crawl back up into the sunlight of the old UI? Well, have I got a link for you! A beautiful tumblr user (who is not me) has gone and fixed things beautifully for you already: https://github.com/enchanted-sword/dashboard-unfucker
You will need to have Tampermonkey installed on your browser of choice, and once that's done, just go to the github link above, and peruse the readme to install. And voila! You have your old dash back!
The authors of XKit Rewritten said during the experiments that at the time, since this was an "experiment" they weren't going to implement anything to revert to the old UI (although who knows if they'll do it now). And the dashboard unfucker has worked beautifully enough for me to where I genuinely couldn't tell if they had ended the experiment or not.
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cursed construction core hi vis bra that came to me in a dream
In the dream I saw it in the window display of a hardware/DIY/trade shop, implying it was meant to be a practical garment designed for actual female constructions workers in a Female Armour level missed-the-brief attempt at gender inclusion
The practical support from the visible underwire combined with the hi vis implying it’s not meant to be worn as an undergarment, I just-
I blame my binge-reading ND Stevenson’s gender comics talking abt masculinity and femininity incl the one abt Victoria’s Secret lingerie yesterday for this monstrosity x’D
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