The Insecure Writer

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[sphinxofgrease]

the word “sabotage” is p much short for “fucking shit up with a wooden shoe”

[futzingbarton]

what

[sphinxofgrease]

fucking shit up with a wooden shoe

[futzingbarton]

oh my god

[genderhasnobearingonability-blog]

well wooden shoe look at that

[nerdismyhobby]

I’M FUCKING CRYING AT THAT PUN BE MY FRIEND PLEASE 

[dreamsy990]

i saw someone say nobody needs to know what a .txt file is anymore. what the fuck is the world coming to

[dreamsy990]

unironically i think we need to bring back computer labs because APPARENTLY some people WERENT taught basic computer literacy and internet safety in school

[dreamsy990]

things about computers/the internet i think kids should be formally taught in schools because theyre important to know and the amount of soon to be grown adults i know who know NOTHING about any of these is quite frankly almost all of them (and resources to learn if you dont know these things, because its never to late to get better with computers)

how to troubleshoot by yourself when you have a technical problem

what common file types are

some very basics on how to use ""developer tools"" on your computer (because i cant think of a better way to refer to them) like task manager and command prompt (and their mac equivalents, terminal and activity monitor ofc)

how to read and understand a privacy policy and what your personal data is, as well as what it being collected actually means and steps you can take to keep it private

how to understand terms of service (hey. if you have trouble with reading legalese and worry about being able to understand these policies anyways, here's a site that gives basic summaries of privacy policies and ToS)

what a cookie actually is

internet privacy and your digital footprint!! seriously i dont know why we stopped teaching people that they shouldnt be putting their entire real identity online in a world where your online actions can ruin you irl

basic safety measures like antivirus software (and why you should use it or if the built in one on windows or mac is enough for you) and backing up your computer (also a mac guide)

common keyboard shortcuts (and on mac)

as an additional note: things i think everyone should know on computers and the internet but schools may bit hesitant to teach about for whatever moral/legal standards schools pretend to operate on

vpns and adblockers! (btw for most of these where you can pay for things im purposefully not recommending any specific software but seriously just use ublock origin for an adblocker)

how to not get a virus while pirating something

what a temporary email is and when to use one

red flags that you shouldn't trust a website (and how to quickly check the security of a site)

what javascript on a website does and how to disable it to get around paywalls

[dreamsy990]

ok one last addition! if you want to take it one level higher, i think learning the very basics of at least one programming language is good for people. it makes computers less scary and it makes you feel very cool, and a lot of people get discouraged about it because it seems overly complicated and hard to learn outside a formal classroom setting, so heres some resources for learning the very basics of python (because i consider it the easiest language to learn and knowing one language will make it easier to learn others)

an online compiler so you dont need to download anything or worry about running code directly on your computer if that makes you nervous

a basic video guide to introduce you to python and walk you through beginner steps

a guide to some syntax and commands you should know (this was literally my lifeline in my first CS class)

some performance tasks to give you things to code to practice and assess yourself

[noodles-07]

websites often misjudge how far I will go to avoid ads. "you can't use this site until you turn off the adblock sowwy" I Am Leaving Your Website

[opalsiren]

disabled/chronically ill people in general do not have the same number of usable hours as ableds. i can't meet my friend tomorrow because i need to wash my hair, and i can't meet them the day after because i need to do a load of laundry. i can't meet them thursday because i have an important appointment on friday, and if i overdo it on thursday i'll have to cancel friday's appointment. then i can't meet them on saturday because i'll be recovering from going out on friday, if i even manage to make it out the house. the old 'we all have the same 24 hours in the day' saying does not apply to us.

[queer-cosette]

'dating rules' are so fucking stupid btw. "don't talk too much about your hyperfixation on a first date, it'll scare them off!!" it'll only scare them off if they're a coward. Someone worthy of my affections will listen to me talk about my goal of visiting every whale exhibit with a life-sized effigy of a whale in it in the world for a solid half-hour and come away from that experience desiring me carnally.

[queer-cosette]

One time I went on a date with a guy who stared at me with raised eyebrows while I told him about my plan to go to ComicCon as Daphne Blake, and then he scoffed and said it was weird for me to be so into Scooby Doo at the age of 19. Last year I told my boyfriend (before he was my boyfriend) that next time I got ComicCon tickets I wanted to go as Rapunzel, and he gasped and said "NO WAY I WANTED TO GO AS FLYNN RIDER". So, like, not only is talking about your hyperfixations on an early date a good way to learn quickly if someone is going to treat your whole personality with respect or not, you might also find a kindred spirit.

[queer-cosette]

This doesn't just apply to dating btw. Any platonic acquaintance who acts like you're cringe for having a lot of enthusiasm about something is not someone you want in your life. The people who matter will do things that you want to do with you because they love you and like when you are happy. Case in point I could not have paid my high school official-best-friend to spend four and a half hours in London's Natural History Museum taking photos in the whale gallery but my adulthood best friend agreed in a heartbeat despite knowing the bare minimum about whales.

So yeah. Be openly enthusiastic about the things you love and the right people will love you for it.

[pavlovs-titties]

Hey, in the most respectful and platonic way possible? I desired you carnally off the first post alone, and that gave me seconds of you.

If someone does not love and respect both your proper and your freak? They were not meant for you.

No more 'being on our best behaviour' for first dates. Let them see your gremlin. Perceive their gremlin. Fall in ooky, whacky, gremlin love.

[queer-cosette]

MWAH kissing you in a nineteenth-century-author-writing-a-letter-to-a-close-friend-that's-now-heavily-debated-as-evidence-of-their-queerness-by-historians kinda way <3

YOU GET IT

[hbosscreations]

I ended a 15 year friendship over this exact thing.

I loved my dear friend, but it became clear to me in recent years that my friend did not love me.

Oh, she was happy to come and stay at my house half the weekend and tell me all her woes and how excited she was to do pottery and about her job and the men she was pursuing.

But she could not handle a five minute conversation about comics or movies or books or art that I was working on. She would sit there silently and say 'I have nothing to contribute' or she would start watching TikTok WHILE I was talking until I gave up.

It wasn't as if I didn't try, I only brought up topics in those genres I thought might interest her, or referenced things she'd talked about in the past, but it starting being very obvious that she didn't want to have a conversation, she wanted me to listen and affirm while she told me things.

And it genuinely hurt my feelings, because I don't particularly care about pottery or glazing, but I listened and learned and asked questions and eventually learned enough to have an actual conversation on the topic with her. Because I loved her and that is what she loves.

A few weeks ago, I went to see a different friend and she asked me if she could play a video game while we talked. I didn't mind, I was used to trying to fight with TikTok for attention.

We spent five hours talking, actually talking. Five hours of me getting to talk about the novel I've been working on for nearly two years at this point and for her to tell me all about the construction and design of her favorite game franchise, and not once did I feel like I was fighting for attention. It felt very much like hanging out and playing video games when I was a kid.

If someone isn't willing to try to meet you where you're at, especially if you're doing it for them, it's not a good relationship. You deserve someone who'll meet you at your level of freak, you deserve to be listened to and treated with respect.

[homunculus-argument]

 Hey btw, another worldbuilding thing: You can, and actually should have weird and impractical cultural things. They’re not inherently unrealistic, for as long as you address the realistic consequences as well.

 Let’s say you’ve got a city where there’s tame white doves everywhere. They’re not pests, they’re regarded as sacred, holy protectors of the city, and the whole city cares for them and feeds them like they’re pets. They’re so tame because it’s a social taboo to hurt or scare one. Nice pretty doves :)

 Then someone points out that even if they’re not seen as pests, doesn’t having a completely unchecked feral pigeon population - that not only isn’t being culled, but actively fed and cared for - mean that there would be bird shit absolutely all over the place?

 A part of you wants to say no, because these are your nice, pretty doves. To explain that there’s a reason why they’re not shitting all over the place, maybe they’re super-intelligent and specifically bred and trained to not shit all over the place. The logistics of how, exactly, could anyone breed and train a flock of feral birds go unaddressed.

 An even worse solution would be to not have those birds, editing them out of the world. No, they spark joy, you can’t just toss them out!

 Now, consider: Yes, yes they would, but the city also has an extensive public sanitation service that’s occupied 90% of the time by cleaning bird shit off of everything. One of the most common last names in the area actually translates to “one who scrapes off dove shit”, and it’s a highly respected occupation. And thanks to the sheer necessity of constantly regularly cleaning everything, the city enjoys a much higher standard of cleanliness, and less public health issues caused by poor public sanitation.

 The doves do protect the city. By shitting fucking everywhere.

[moonybyte]

While I absolutely love your idea, I just want to say that you can easily reduce public bird shitting from Pigeons by offering them comfortable lodgings where they can sleep and feed. Sure, you need to clean THOSE, but the pigeons shit a lot less all over town.

The Augsburg concept has one big pigeon house every 500m in which wild pigeons are fed, protected from weather and have nesting opportunities. Cities doing that have WAY less uncontrolled populations (since they can take out eggs if they feel they need reduce the population), way less shit AND a healthy population since it’s easier for veterinarians to notice and get to sick animals.

So I’d say one can of course still keep your general idea……but there’s also those MASSIVE palace-like pidgeon houses and only the most worthy are allowed to enter and directly interact with the pigeons (feed them, heal them, clean their lodgings). One big entrance for the human servants (priests??) and millions of small holes for the pigeons.

In fact, one could potentially turn your idea around IN THE PIDGEONS FAVOR. So your world is like ours and most major cities have a big feral pigeon population. And most of those cities HATE the pigeons and try to fight them and stuff. And they think that pigeon worshipper town is frigging cuckoo. BUT when comparing, then pigeon worshipper town is ridiculously clean and beautiful. No bird shit everywhere, no ruined house facades and statues from erosion through bird poop. Pigeon haters go “how tf are you so clean, you have birds EVERYWHERE???” and the worshippers shrug and show their little bird temples spread around town that keep their precious birdies AND their town pretty.

[plucky-passerine]

I think this is a really good example of how research can greatly improve your worldbuilding! You don’t have to be perfectly accurate - it is fantasy after all - but the real world is so much more clever and beautiful than any of us know

[curlicuecal]

advice that’s stuck with me: you don’t have to work inwards to justify a premise (e.g., ‘how would it ever be plausible to use snakes as currency’) as long as you work outwards in interesting ways from that premise (e.g., ‘how would a society that used snakes as currency look different? what would they use for wallets?’)

[gholateg]

I love this idea that OP thought there wasn’t a town that had already handled it’s “We fucking love birds you guys, like for fucking reals” problem already through sheer human chutzpah.

Humans are THE pack binding specie. A way will be found.

[shaudo-of-a-doubt]

For anyone else interested in or looking for more information about pigeon houses, the traditional word for them is dovecote.

[24x81]

what they don't tell you about writing is that you're gonna spend way more time moving those guys across a room than you ever thought you would

[pixie-unger]

This is true. It is also true that some of them will be interesting in uncomfortable or even scary ways. Which will help you learn about yourself.

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

I wish to purchase goods and services without entering a blood covenant that entitles the provider to email and text me forever and also store a bunch of my personal data that they’re going to apologize for exposing in a breach in the next five to ten years

[mbrainspaz]

idk what neurodivergent young adult needs to hear this but you are NOT supposed to give 100% at your job. I've gotten more promotions and raises since I started giving 40-60%, which my evil CEO uncle informed me is what bosses actually expect when they say 110%. My mental health has improved tremendously. I've spent 2 out of 5 workdays secretly writing my novel for the last 2 years and I've never been more respected and appreciated. Also--when you see glaring wasteful errors in the company's operating systems, say absolutely nothing! Embrace inefficiency. It is your friend in this capitalist hellscape.

[constance-mcentee-deactivated20]

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work.

"I can note your interest in that feature for future development."

[pixie-unger]

"it went 'beep' but it didn't actually do the thing. Let me try again."

[allthingswhumpyandangsty]

[pixie-unger]

You can just post a nice comment about something you liked in the fic without nagging the author to finish

[umber-cinders]

Random writing pet peeve. I fucking hate the straight quotation marks and apostrophes. Bring back smart quotes as the default 😭

" " ' '' <<<< These look DUMB

“ ” ’ ‘’ <<< GIMME MY CURLY TYPOGRAPHY SMART QUOTES!

🥹 They're prettier.

[oleandera]

Sugar tongs with claw feet

[funoftheday]

You don’t say.

[a-spoon-is-born]

[timemachineyeah]

For the record, she actually abandoned the movement BEFORE they all got whooping cough, but abandoned it too late. There’d been a breakout of measles in her area that caused her to reassess, and she and her doctor had already drafted and started a catch-up vaccination schedule, but her kids caught whooping cough just before it could be started. Then she wrote a blog post for The Scientific Parent explaining how she and her husband had come to wrong decisions in the first place, how they changed their mind, the consequences they suffered as a result, and asking other parents to please vaccinate their kids. And now she’s an activist for destroying the misinformation of anti-vaxxers, and reaching out to anti-vaxxers because she’s understands their fears but knows their kids deserve better. 

She was trying to the best for her kids and just didn’t know how to interpret the validity of information or its sources, an actual skill that can be actually difficult and that is under-taught and a necessary first step to being able to trust vaccination research, so chose no action over taking an action she wasn’t sure of. She kept looking into it with family and friends and even eventually came to the right conclusion before her kids became sick, but it was still too late.

Honestly it was pretty brave of her to publicly admit she was wrong. She could have just quietly vaccinated her kids and not become a national news story, but instead she spoke out, even saying “I’m writing this from quarantine, the irony of which isn’t lost on me.” and also “I am not looking forward to any gloating or shame as this ‘defection’ from the antivaxx camp goes public, but, this isn’t a popularity contest.  Right now my family is living the consequences of misinformation and fear.  I understand that families in our community may be mad at us for putting their kids at risk.”

She understood the consequences and still put herself and her story out there. 

[hatey-mchaterson]

You know what, it does take a big person to admit they were wrong so publicly and work to undo the harm. I believe I made fun of her in the past, but timemachineyeah changed my mind.

[snarklordofthesith]

“I never thought leopards would eat MY face, until I realized they totally would, and they will eat your face, too!” warns defector from the leopards-eating-faces party

[aqueerkettleofish]

don’t hide this in the tags….

#really important actually#like. it’s so important that we allow people to STOP voting for leopards eating faces#because if you attack anyone leaving the leopards eating faces party when they realize it’s bad#the only support system they’ll have is the people who want them to come back to it#you have to make it possible for people escape instead of considering them forever tainted and impure and inherently evil

[elfwreck]

The #1 trait of anti-vaxxers is not “they’re stupid” or “they fell for propaganda” but “they don’t know who’s safe to trust.”

The movement is pushed by women, especially suburban moms, because they know damn well you cannot trust doctors. You cannot trust the medical industry, the billion-dollar corporate zone of “you should lose some weight and maybe the pain will stop.” Cannot trust the ones who keep changing diet advice - is it no sugar? No carbs? No fats? Is it dangerous to let kids eat things in wild colors? Food pyramid: good or bad? They cannot trust the BMI chart that says they should lose 75 lbs to be “healthy.” (Whether or not they “should” lose 75 lbs, they know damn well that “healthy” does not describe any part of the journey to getting there.) Cannot trust the ones who keep giving them incomplete and sometimes incorrect information about contraception. The ones who said “that’s false labor; you have two weeks more” 12 hours before they gave birth. And so on.

So they have their kids, and they want so much for their kids to be safe, and the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

So they ask: What about if there’s complications? An allergic reaction? Side effects?

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

This is… not reassuring.

And they ask, My sister-in-law’s cousin had a really bad reaction to the MMR shot and I want to know how I can tell it’s safe for my kids.

And the doctors and nurses say: Get them vaccinated.

Throw in the right-wing/libertarian faction yelling YOU CAN’T TELL ME WHAT TO DO and the insurance companies saying “hey um you need a specific type of coverage for that; we probably cover those vaccinations but you’ll need this special paperwork to be sure” - and then you have the actual anti-vax propagandists yelling some combination of cherry-picked statistics and outright lies, and you get a whole lot of moms willing to say BUGGRE ALL THIS FOR A LARKE.

There is no amount of facts that can fix this. They’re swamped with facts from 300 directions. What they need to fix this is empathy and the kind of connections that lead to trust.

They need to trust that, even as the medical industry dismisses a whole lot of womens’ concerns, in this particular area, they’re right.

[embervoices]

Add in the consequences of having a significant portion of your social support network tied up in a particular worldview, leaving it, much less openly condemning it, is really hard and means losing your community support. In a world where the system can’t be trusted to pick up that slack, Moms can’t afford to risk the change - until the cost of staying clearly outweighs the coat of pushing back, not just in general, but for their kids.

Kindness doesn’t just matter because it’s more ethical - it'salso a more effective strategy.

[great-and-small]

You can go back in time and spend the day with one extinct dog breed; who are you petting?

Tesem

Molossus

Salish Wool Dog

Hawaiian Poi Dog

Techichi

Fuegian Dog

Other/ Not pictured here/ tell us in the tags!

Voting ended onDec 17, 2025

[grison-in-space]

*slams button for Fuegian dog so hard*

Domestic. Culpeo. Now!

[pixie-unger]

Salish Wool Dog! Purposefully and aggressively rendered extinct by colonizers to make the locals more dependant on capitalism.

[pixiemage]

Please, for the love of god, please don’t be this person. No matter how long it’s been since an update, no matter how many unfinished stories are sitting on their account, no matter what - do not be this person.

Not only is it insanely rude, but you also do more damage than you think be being such a self-entitled ass about something someone created for free and for fun. “This author” can see what you say.

RIP decency indeed.

[mondengel-deactivated20231111]

I was literally about to post a chapter once and got a snide comment similar to this - not addressing other readers, just me - and decided to keep the rest of the story to myself. It's still there. I could post it anytime. But I'm not going to.

I also got a glowing compliment on a fic and went into a flurry of writing, suddenly inspired, then by happenstance got a nasty, impatient comment on that same fic a few days and moved onto writing a different fic that didn't have that associated annoyance.

Like. I am writing for fun. For me. I reread and enjoy my fics all the time because they're exactly the story I want to read. I get the same enjoyment out of a fic wither or not anyone else ever sees it or knows it exists.

I'm sharing it for fun too.

I'm not going to share if sharing isn't fun.

[pixiemage]

I’m not going to share if sharing isn’t fun.

[vmures]

I once got a comment on a fic that just read RIP with my username. It's really fucking demotivating. Maybe the work will end up abandoned, maybe it won't, but don't fucking leave this sort of shit on a fic. It's more likely to prevent any future updates than encourage them. Authors are not vending machines. You can not shake us and force the story out (believe us, many of us have tried doing this to ourselves because we want to finish the story but sometimes life and other shit gets in the way).

[asparklethatisblue]

i keep seeing "they lied to you about birth control, here's a list of ALL the side effects the pill has, you have to quit it immediately to get your life on track don't even speak to a doctor"

and yes it fucking sucks to have those side effects but for the love of god, stop acting like it's some unique evil conspiracy? As someone with chronic conditions since my childhood, EVERY kind of medication has side effects. I've had stuff I needed to change meds for several times, or stuff where I had to fiddle with dosage or time of day or whether I take it on an empty stomach or not just to stop getting motion sickness from walking. I mean, good for you if birth control is the first medication with side effects you ever had, but I really don't like the trend of "girls, all of these birth control methods are a conspiracy to make you suffer" for every damn thing. It's absolutely an individual choice of what kind you use, or what brand works best for you, but being scared away from something that might be just fine really won't help anyone. At the very least talk to any medical professional before deciding to throw out meds