mysterious

yes yes very suspicious | Annie

[shamebats]

"it's just stress" oh thank god, it's just the silent killer that slowly kills you, perfectly harmless, no need to worry

[so-many-ocs]

immediately after an interaction: i have GOT to get more normal oh god i need to get more normal immediately i have to get more normal or they're going to hunt me down they're going to hunt me down and flay me for sport

during an interaction: and why not put a little spin on it? why not add some conversational zest?

[thulium]

[angeltiddies]

reverse gaslighting where i pretend to know exactly what you are talking about

[oneheadtoanother]

[hotfussisbetter]

Theres something about how even in spring the big oak tree in my garden still holds onto a couple of dead leaves whilst the new ones come in. Brown and fluttering in the wind.

They serve no purpose, they should have left long ago with their sisters, but resolutely they stay on those branches. Is it the tree that holds them, does the leaf not want to go despite the time being up, or is the bond simply too strong in the petioles for them to abscise despite both the tree and the leaf not gaining anything from them being there anymore

[hotfussisbetter]

The 10 year anniversary of the beginning of what was categorically the worst 2 years of my life (so far, but also hopefully ever) is upon me. With it I find myself thinking about how lucky I am to have had a love thats loss wss felt so severely that it ripped me wide open, and to have loves which, eventually and patiently, sewed me back together.

What happened irrevocably changed me and I miss who I was before, I cannot deny that, and I know such transformations will happen again and again. But what is life if not a continuous journey of discovering things which will bring you immeasurable joy and sadness on repeat forever?

[cerullos]

susan is EVERYTHING

[thecouchwitch]

When I was a child I thought Susan was needlessly mean to Ross. Then as I got older I realized Ross was an asshat and Susan was the only one on the show that could see it.

[tastefullyoffensive]

[joosh-actual-deactivated2018092]

My favorite meme is everybody knowing who Tony Hawk is but never recognizing him in public.

[skzhhssh-deactivated20190330]

*gets in an uber* hi yeah i know i said i wanted to go somewhere but im actually just going through a hard time rn can you put on some fleetwood mac and take me through a carwash

[pangur-and-grim]

I’m seeing some Gross Folk reblogging one of my posts, so here’s a reminder: Pangur & Grim love eachother, and they love trans people, and they have figured out how navigate keyboards w their small cat beans specifically to block terfs

[boarcriminal-deactivated2018052]

A Straight: I didn’t know you were gay.

Me: I didn’t know you were straight.

A Straight:

Me:

[ithelpstodream]

[amatara]

I’m pretending all the time to be, kinder, stronger, funnier, more sociable than I am. I guess we’re all like that but it just feels so inadequate.

[animate-mush]

What’s the difference?

I know it sounds flippant but… certain things are fundamentally performative.  And other things are so close as makes no difference.

Kindness is performative.  Actions are kind, and people are kind by performing those actions.  You can’t “pretend” to be kinder than you are, you can only perform kindness or not perform kindness, and choosing to perform kindness is always worthwhile, no matter how much you may second-guess your motivations.

Strength is so many things.  It takes strength to pretend a strength you don’t feel.  And the way to achieve strength is to exercise it, so long as you do it in enough moderation to not strain or break anything.  Being able to affect strength when necessary while being able to put it down again when that in turn is necessary is healthy.  Everyone starts weight training with the littlest weights.  It’s not fake or pretending to do what you gotta do in any given situation.

Funniness lives in the interlocutor, not in the speaker.  It doesn’t matter how funny you think you are (or think you are pretending to be) - that’s not how it’s measured.  At what point are you “pretending” to be a musician if the music still gets made?  And often what it’s tempting to describe in first person as “pretending” is more accurately described in the third person as “practicing” - which is of course the way you cause things to Be.

Sociability is also performative.  Pretending to be sociable is just…being sociable, despite a disinclination towards it.  It’s making an effort towards something you value.  So long as the effort is not so great that it backfires into resentment, there’s no practical difference.  

Qualities or activities or whatever are no less worthy because you have to actively choose to perform them.  If anything, the worthiness lies in the act of choosing.  It’s not “pretending” - it’s agency.

tl;dr: ain’t nothing wrong with “fake it till you make it.”  A plastic spoon* holds just as much soup as a “real” one

* I keep wanting to talk about semantic domains!  Artifacts are defined by their utility, whereas living things are defined by their identity.  So plastic forks are still forks, but plastic flowers aren’t flowers.  So there’s two pep-talk messages to take away from this: (1) for certain things, the distinction between “fake” and “real” isn’t a relevant one so long as they still get the job done, and (2) the purpose of a living thing is to be the thing that it is.  The idea of a “useless person” is as semantically nonsensical as the idea of “pretend kindness” (or fake cutlery).

[pyrrhiccomedy]

I love this post. It illustrates what I think is maybe the key difference between a developing self-identity and a formed self-identity, which is, like…confidence? If you are BEING kind, consistently, if you are prioritizing that over your own comfort or fatigue or even, occasionally, your emotional inclination (because OH MY GOD FUCK THIS GUY, I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE–uuughhh, but no, I’m not gonna lash out at him, that won’t accomplish anything, and besides, he’s probably had a bad day, he’s under a lot of stress, I don’t have to be an asshole about this…), guess what? That makes you kind. That is literally what kindness is. Same for patience, same for strength, same for all of this stuff. You got it. You’re doing it. You’re not faking anything. Stop second-guessing yourself and cutting yourself down. Give yourself enough credit to look at your actions and confidently assert to yourself that you are no longer just making things up as you go. 

[valtsv]

yeah you’ve grown all your wisdom teeth but what about your strength teeth? your charisma teeth? your

[vmae]

Charisma teeth are the fangs

[valtsv]

this is the single most terrifying reply to any of my posts i have ever received

[lilttlekingtrashmouth]

Myself @ me: you need to wake up earlier so you don’t waste the day Me @ myself: sorry I was sleeping and just saw this lol wyd

[heartlessqueen]

my advice for 2018

[asexualizing-backup-deactivated]

liking abba is not your taste in music it’s a way of life and people who don’t like abba can’t reach the ideal world and that is what plato talked about

[zelda-miku]

“if you don’t like dancing queen then fuck you” -Plato, 320 BC