Sugar Water Bitch

call me nina or tardis. 30, this is an 18+ blog. they/them. seeking individuals with cerebellar hypoplasia, tell all your friends. my chronic illness blog is @counterspin

[kuttithevangu]

I feel like one of the conversational skill failures it’s really easy to fall into is assigning the other person an opinion, rather than asking what their opinion is. This kind of inherently puts them on the back foot, which is uncomfortable, so people don’t like it.

Starting a conversation by informing the other person that you KNOW their feelings, and you are acting based on the feelings you assume they have, without giving them a chance to tell you what feelings they ACTUALLY have… No one likes this!

You may have learned it from your parents doing it to you, in which case I can only imagine you didn’t like it either, but you still internalized it as an acceptable mode of communication because we are always internalizing stuff from our parents even though we don’t like it. It’s kind of a quintessential passive-aggressive parent move: “well, you never want to help me, you don’t appreciate everything I do for you” etc. It puts the addressee in the position of defending themselves and their actual feelings instead of inviting them to SHARE those feelings.

People generally find it easier and more pleasant to converse with you if you go into it with an attitude of curiosity rather than what is essentially a power-play. Assigning your interlocutor an opinion based on your assumptions about their internal experience expresses an unconscious sense that you believe you are and should remain in control of the conversation. But friendly conversations aren’t really supposed to be about control.

[str-ngeloop]

your strengths are harder to see than your weaknesses because the problems you're good at solving don't appear as problems, because you're so good at handling them before they become problems... unlike the relatively rare problem that becomes a crisis, which demands undue attention. it's sort of like a reverse survivorship bias. the problems that become noticed as problems, the moments where you notice your capacity has a gap, are only the ones that aren't cut off at the pass by your strength and capability, before they become problems. so if all you focus on is problems then all you'll see is your weaknesses. which isn't accurate

[toasthaste]

[viewfindercomics]

what does this have to do with sea sponges???

(catching up with Tiger Tiger)

[viewfindercomics]

CONGRATS TO EISNER AWARD WINNING WEBCOMIC TIGER TIGER!!! 🎉🎉🎉

[worldscoolest]

[resemblingthegrave]

Cosy Corner, Jacques-Émile Ruhlmann (1879–1933) Amaranth wood corner unit with canted sides forming a sofa, comprising three sections with open shelving. Projecting pediment ornamented with ivory scrollwork accents highlighted by alternating dot patterns. Corner sofa featuring a low, exposed-wood apron decorated with an ivory dentil frieze; upholstered in velvet (worn). Losses to the ivory inlay. Height 186 cm (73.7 in.) – Width 270 cm (106.3 in.) (overall) – Depth 128 cm (50.4 in.) (x)

[suspiciousmammal]

So whenever the news cycle gets too depressing, I scroll through horse sales ads while drinking my morning coffee instead. Even tho I'm not around horses anymore, and don't intend on getting back into that world.

Now, my partner hasn't been around horses much at all. So you can imagine my surprise when he not only became very invested in looking at random horses with me, but started actively enforcing horse ad time like it's some long-established relationship ritual we have.

After like three months of this, he has a surprising amount of opinions on horses and horse breeds despite never having been around one since he was 8. And since I kinda live for his comments on these horses by now anyways, here are some highlights:

he seems to have a nagging suspicion that irish cob yearlings aren't real, because they look too fluffy to be true. I'm with him on this

he likes Mustangs the most, because they have the friendliest faces.

He groups ottbs into the 'boring' or 'looks like a very big dog' category.

He dislikes American Miniature Horses so much that whenever we come across one, it's like he's discovering them all over again

He has developed a certain dislike for Icelandic Horses specifically. When I asked him what makes him hate Icelandics but love shetlands for example, he gave me a rather passionate explanation of how Shetland Pony ads are at least honest about selling some equine poltergeist, while Icenaldic Horse people act like they're selling Sleipnir itself. And jfc he's got a point?

Speaking of shetlands, he's a big fan of shetland sales ads and the euphemistic language they use

He also always asks me to save particularly... memorable pictures of horses to add to his growing collection. Here are some of the recent additions:

[suspiciousmammal]

He has since dropped the fact that his family history includes one grandpa who, upon failing to become a saddlers apprentice, pretended to be 16 to join the "cavalry" of the german military in wwii. It was near the end of the war (which is also why nobody cared about an obviously underaged 13yo kid signing up), cavalry charges were a thing of the past and what few horses were left alive got put to use pulling artillery and supplies for the nazis.

But he was 13 and an idiot and signed up to join some glorious cavalry. In reality as soon as he'd been issued a uniform they were sent on foot towards the eastern front.

He ended up captured, lost his teeth but eventually got released. It took him a couple more years to walk back home, where he worked in the trades for the rest of his life. In his home he had a small office room that his grandkids called the "horse room" as he had decorated it with paintings, newspaper clippings and the odd horseshoe.

I may have been swinging wildly at the childhood memory piñata of his, so now he's enforcing horse ad time like a cockatoo terrorizing its owner until he puts on its favourite song.

He also has some more opinions on horses that I'm allowed to share if anyone is even still seeing this

[evilscientist3]

the two fundamental truths of historical and contemporary mankind:

we were just as smart then as we are now

we are just as stupid now as we were then

[byjove]

I came across an interesting Reddit post where a Redditor was angry that their great uncle’s FindAGrave biography mentioned that their uncle had died in a domestic violence murder-suicide, killing his girlfriend (the mother of two young sons) and then taking his own life. The event happened decades ago but the sons and the grandchildren of the woman his great uncle killed could still be alive. It is common for newspaper article clippings and explanations of the decedent’s circumstances to be included in the FindAGrave entries of murderers, the descendants of murder victims seem to support this, additionally, there is an argument that this is important so that passersbys understand why certain graves are set apart and do not have flowers and do not feel undue sympathy. The person who edited the entry to describe the Redditor’s great uncle’s crimes was likely a local who remembered the act or a descendant of the woman who he killed but the Redditor was highly offended though the information was factual. I’m wondering how everyone feels about this.

Should FindAGrave biographies contain factual information about the decedent’s heinous crime(s) when applicable?

Yes, it is a matter of public record & vital biographical info.

It should be the choice of the descendants of the victim of the act.

It should be the choice of the descendants of the perpetrator, like the Redditor

No, never. Let the dead rest in peace.

Something else (leave in tags or replies).

I don’t know enough about this/I’m undecided.

Remaining time: 6 days 11 hours

I will say, I think it is very interesting that the graves of famous outlaws always mention that they are famous outlaws with no pushback but this person can’t stand the idea that everyone knows his great uncle was a piece of shit who killed an innocent woman. Additionally, one of my ancestors was a murderer (though it was allegedly a semi-justifiable act of revenge) and I would not care if someone edited her bio to mention that.

[byjove]

I said this in the replies but I think it is important to say it here, genealogy work is not for the faint of heart. We’re all descended from/related to highly imperfect people, sometimes people who did things that are unequivocally evil. The answer to finding out that one of your ancestors or family members was a terrible person or did terrible things is not to scrub all record of those actions from existence, it is to disavow them and work to be a better person. An ego-driven desire to save face and whitewash your ancestors into being innocent people can make you complacent in what they did and shows you are more focused on the possible effects on your own image than horror/disgust at the action itself or a desire to distance yourself from the behavior.

I’m pretty upfront with some of the terrible discoveries I’ve made in my genealogical research. For example, I have ancestors who fought on the wrong side of the Civil War (and some who fought for the Union, the family was right on what became the Virginia/West Virginia border) and instead of conveniently ignoring that or trying to scrub any record of their association with the Confederate Army, I continue to try to point out revisionist neo-Confederate narratives and continue to try to educate myself on anti-racism. Because no, I am not my 4x great grandpa, I never knew him but I know he did harm.

[byjove]

You are not alone and I think this is one of the most common downplayed ‘family secrets’ that gets hit with the whitewash and ignore treatment. People will be descended from a girl who was 11-17 when she got married to her 25+ spouses and totally ignore how fucked up that was, even if the female ancestor openly spoke about how detrimental it was to her during her lifetime. Families will put abusive and/or pedophilic patriarchs on a pedestal and say “Well, it was normal back then.” as if it didn’t affect the wife and their resulting children just the same. Maybe it was common back then but that did not make it right and I think admitting that goes a long way. Girls and women were (and still are) forced into marriages by their families or coerced into marriage by predators, painting a rosy picture of family life for every generation is a dangerous thing to do.

[werewolf-transgenderism]

only 62 more frogs until we hit 8,000 species described. the moment we've all been waiting for

[werewolf-transgenderism]

there are an average of about 150 new amphibian species described per year so I remain hopeful that 2026 will be the year of 8,000 frogs

[werewolf-transgenderism]

I do love that somebody tagged tumblr's own frog scientist on this post. chop chop dr scherz, we've got 62 more frogs to discover and you're the only frog scientist any of us knows

[werewolf-transgenderism]

GUYS amphibian species of the world is still at 7,994 species of frog BUT amphibiaweb is at 8,008 species of frog, and do you know who is a co-author on the 8,000th species of frog there???? TUMBLR'S OWN FROG SCIENTIST DR SCHERZ

[markscherz]

[strong-resilient-indigenous]

yall we did it

we made it to boob frogs

[markscherz]

[incendavery]

also wrt to the shitshow on my instagram: i am more convinced than ever that polyamorous people are a fucking canary in the coal mine when it comes to rising hate and intolerance

like the amount of people insulting me for being polyamorous is insane, and i think it's because they really really wanna be mean to me bc im trans or bc im queer, but kinda know that will make them look like a bigot to the average person

[incendavery]

don't get me wrong! there are absolutely people who are going whole hog and insulting me for all the things at once. but, i think that is also telling

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

as humiliating as it is to repost myself from a light-mode-user's reddit screenshot, i cannot allow this year's zenquish to go uncelebrated.

celebrate my favorite holiday with me, my friends.

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

if the emperors of rome can add extra months that actually fuck the calendar up i'm allowed to add a new month that lasts 0.0000 picoseconds

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

the last holiday that hasn't been commercialized

[estrogenesis-eeveeangelion]

i made this up when i was a little kid and nothing would make me happier than to see people celebrating it for years to come

[estrogenesis-vaporeongelion]

zenquish approaches. prepare to rejoice! briefly!

[sobcat]

[kcggggg]

I collaborated with the Human Artistry Project to make this strip alongside other web cartoonists to make the point that “Stealing isn’t Innovation” when it comes to A.I. usage. It seems to be doing numbers on instagram and elsewhere, so you may also read it here, tumblr.

May the discourse that ensues be long and unhelpful.

[incendavery]

my divorce announcement broke containment over on instagram, so i had to make a followup explaining a bit further

[fuckhugeoctopus]

For years, sci-fi has asked, what if aliens were wetter than us. Project Hail Mary posits a new, daring question. What if we are the wet aliens

[sleepy-bebby]

[foxes-in-love]

[pangur-and-grim]

I was looking a photos of baby Belphie during my flight, and this one nearly made me burst into tears

[pangur-and-grim]

this one was also really good