Tell a Braver Story

I like and follow from @thewatercolours. The stories are true: “The glory of God is a man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.” - St Irenaeus

[siena-sevenwits]

Checking out a new used bookshop. I am hardly in the door and already tempted so many ways!

[kissycat]

Has anyone noticed that translating poetry is not easy

[kissycat]

It's kind of like if you were in unrequited love with the crossword puzzle

[siena-sevenwits]

Ok, let’s do it! Here are a selection of quotes from our household quoteboard:

(Regarding a pair of shoes) “I don’t like this kind of lacing. It’s dishonest.” - My brother

“Like a Sasquatch without his sass.” - Me

“Maybe I should get on TikTok. I don’t want to miss the next Rapture.” - An upstairs housemate

“She can assist with burials, which never happen on the roof.” - An upstairs housemate

“Yeah, I’m really into karate, but mostly I’m into Jesus.” (Overheard outside the house, young guy talking in a “cool” voice to a girl. We figure she must not have looked that impressed by karate, so he changed tack mid sentence.)

Me: I’d like to run away to Yugoslavia. Housemates, chorussing: YUGOSLAVIA!!!

Roommate: Stuff yourself. Downstairs housemate: Says the taxidermist.

“The sheer fact that anyone’s been able to romanticize London should hearten us.” - Me

“Dirty clothes are the fault of original sin.” - An upstairs housemate

“I am going to have so much fun theming our front steps all piratey for Christmas!” - Me

My roommate: People don’t like it when I say I have no ambitions. Me: And yet you are an honourable man.

“Better glitter than litter.” - An upstairs housemate

“We are SO liturgically with it!” - An upstairs housemate (noticing the shower curtain was seasonally appropriate)

My roommate: I love how all my quotes are about good, yet I hardly eat. Me: It’s because your mouth is not full, and thus free for witticisms.

“You may call me Tyrant.” - An upstairs housemate

“My sleep debt’s so bad, I’m declaring bankruptcy.” - My roommate

“Whenever I smell a nice beeswax candle, I just want to take a bite out of it. The only thing that stops me is that it’s blessed.” - An upstairs housemate

“If you have an ice cream scoop, you’re just preparing yourself for the Lord’s blessings.” - An upstairs housemate

“Woman cannot live by tea alone; otherwise I’d be fat and happy.” - An upstairs housemate

“I’m going to change into clothes the government doesn’t own!!!!” - Me (eagerly getting out of my historical costume I wear to work at my partially provincially funded site)

“We were making noises and trying to explain quantum physics without words.” - Friend visiting

“We have nothing against you, young guy. It’s not your fault you’re young and hot.” - Me, after reading @imissthembutitwasntadisaster’s post about the new Poirot actor. Immediately followed by, “However, we will go after the casting director with the musket.” (My roommate ran over to add this to the quoteboard, howling with laughter, mainly because I never call guys hot. In my defense, I haven’t even seen the actor in question and have no idea what he looks like.)

[siena-sevenwits]

Wanna hear funny, out of context quotes from our household quoteboard?

[siena-sevenwits]

Actually, it might be fun to write up a little scene of Raffles visiting his sister at the vicarage and taking tea with her. I wonder what she is like in her own right. And I wonder how much she has noticed about him.

(It’s difficult to say if there are many rumours about Raffles being a thief. On the one hand, Inspector Mackenzie’s rather solidly convinced, but just can’t prove it, and I think it’s said once or twice that one hears things about Raffles. On the other hand, his reputation can’t be too tainted, or all those hostesses would stop inviting him. Perhaps it’s even said that Raffles likes to pinch the odd thing, but let’s not exaggerate it. Silly pranks really — not real crimes, of course.)

But if there are rumours, will they even reach his sister down in the country?

Of course, she knows him beyond his repute, even if she doesn’t see him often. She might have a better sense than most that Raffles doesn’t actually have a reliable source of income - how is he leading such a high life? What does she think of her suave, cricket champion brother who insists on staying amateur and unpaid, who has always been a little too audacious for his own good?

Does Bunny get invited to stay at the vicarage too? What does the sister think of him? Does she think it might do her brother good to spend time with his obviously good-hearted and loyal friend who knew him in boyhood? Or might she be a little cannier, and worry for the effect her thrill-seeking brother might have on this naive friend of his?

And what’s she like, quite apart from her connection to Raffles?

[kosmogrl]

the day is gonna end anyway and your warm bed will be waiting so you might as well do the hard things and not let them ruin your day

[kosmogrl]

this is unironically how I push myself to do everything I dread

[deckhanddandy]

Anyone else thinking about Raffles’ sister

[iphigenesis]

referencing the iliupersis portion of the aeneid while transporting the raffles equivalent of the trojan horse is kind of crazy but ok

[whitebisexual]

The concept of being 4 months clean from ai...

[siena-sevenwits]

I usually post a gif to celebrate, but since it's been sixteen weeks since I last used AI as of today, this seemed more fitting.

FOUR MONTHS CLEAN! OH YEAH!

[creekfiend]

many women are excited to get old and weird, but i have great news that it's fully possible to become weird now, before you get old. just imagine the heights of weirdness you will be able to reach in fifty years if you get started now. that's what I think

[olgatysko]

a moment from episode “The Adventure of the Empty House” The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984)

[triflesandtea]

“I am glad to stretch myself, Watson. It is no joke when a tall man has to take a foot off his stature for several hours on end.”

[schmergo]

I was talking to my husband the other day and, as a random example of a boring topic that nobody at a party would want to hear about, I happened to come up with, “The history of wheelbarrows.”

But then my husband and I got curious and decided to look up the history of wheelbarrows, and we both thought it was surprisingly interesting.

The very next day, we were visiting a thrift store with family and my sister spotted a toy wheelbarrow for her son, and my husband said, “Did you know that Jesus was older than wheelbarrows? They weren’t invented until around 100 CE.”

This is why curious people are my favorite type of people. No topic is really that boring when you look into it. And everything is more interesting when you talk about it with someone you love.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i am some sort of fey creature and my cat is the human who i have arbitrarily decided is my favorite human.

[linecoveredinjellyfish]

i live, to him, an unfathomably long life

i have access to powers and locations that he cannot access independently; he needs my help to navigate the world i've brought him to

i simply found him outside and abducted him one day

there are many cats in the world, but this one is the best and my most favorite. why? because he was available to abduct that morning and for very little other reason.

i have a much greater understanding of this world than him, but he has unshakable confidence in his ability to figure it out and i find that really cute

the power dynamic is fundamentally unbalanced, but i let him have a little audacity. a little combativeness and sass. as a treat.

some humans are needlessly cruel to cats or take them in for a short time before neglecting or abandoning them. but i have chosen to love and guard this one with my life. because i think he's neat.

he is very well-treated and has pretty much everything he could possibly want or need, but he is my prisoner.

[kedreeva]

You feed him food found nowhere in nature, but that tastes reminiscent of things he could eat- birds and mammals.

You could give him divine treats at any time that taste so much better than food it might drive him a little mad wanting more. You do not give them to him on any schedule he can discern.

You can lay a dry powder on the ground which causes him to lose his mind a little and behave differently for a short time should he inhale any of it. Sometimes this is inside of his entertainment for the day, and he becomes your entertainment.

You create illusions on flat surfaces that look like prey or other things, illusions that move and sound like they are real and yet when he touches them he finds only cold, flat walls.

You give him prey he cannot eat, prey that are bright colors and make strange sounds and may look nothing like real prey and yet he is enticed to chase and kill, especially the small, uncatchable red dot.

You sleep in a nest of impossibly soft material, and allow him to share this space to sleep beside you, and even to sleep there when you are gone.

Sometimes you disappear and he can find no way to follow or escape in your absence. You create and destroy openings in solid walls at your convenience.

You speak a language he cannot understand, and sometimes you say garbled words in the language of his children, and so he speaks back to you like a mother does a child in the hopes you will understand him and sometimes you seem to.

[decadent-trans-girl]

'why is so much politically-focused genre fiction centred on monarchies' many reasons, but one which I think deserves attention: monarchy is an obvious way of tying together the dysfunctions of the domestic to those of the state

[gracewight]

💯💯💯

“Trauma decontextualized in a person looks like personality. Trauma decontextualized in a family looks like family traits. Trauma decontextualized in people looks like culture.”

—Resmaa Menakem

[siena-sevenwits]

As I always like to say, it’s our common humanity writ terrifyingly large - every choice has enormous stakes, yet the fascination is the intimate smallness of the human heart.

[valend]

Yahhh I have to build Rome. Yup it’s due tomorrow.. noo I haven’t started yet haha is that bad?

[salty-inc]

Just something I really want to share on here because it’s important.

[salty-inc]

[adhdandcomics]

this is really important to remember, even if you said something stupid and don’t feel like repeating it- it can still feel isolating to folks with hearing and auditory processing problems!

[therainbowgorilla]

I’ve got APD and this is the absolute worst thing! I promise I’m trying to hear you, my brain just isn’t working with me! Just try rewording it, say it but in different words and my brain might get it then!

[siena-sevenwits]

Maybe I just had a really bad week, and wasn’t actually sick of Antarctic exploration.