Words of Maeve

If it's not pizza I don't want it. I'm a writer, baker, general romance enthusiast 🫶🏻✌🏻

[rocketsaurus]

PUBLIC COMMENTS ARE OPEN FOR GENDER IDENTIFIERS ON US PASSPORTS

Right now, you can submit a comment for consideration on the proposed changes to US Passport law that will include requiring a change from "Gender" to "Sex" on all passports and require that people identify with their sex assigned at birth.

THIS IS THE LAW THAT WOULD BAN TRANS PEOPLE FROM UPDATING THEIR IDENTIFICATION

Please take a moment to click through and submit a comment. This kind of thing is fast, easy, and is one of the many ways to show your support of the trans community to the people that need to know how many of us there are.

[rocketsaurus]

YOU HAVE TWO MORE WEEKS TO COMMENT

This is an excellent low effort way to make a clear statement to the government that you do NOT support the unnecessary and expensive process of changing everyone's passport just so that a tiny population that has done no measurable harm to society can feel afraid.

Public comments are one of the many tactics we have to show the people in power how many of us are willing to stand up and say fuck this. Stand up and say fuck this in every single place that you can.

[stephenroot]

Writing Effective Comments

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Will accept comments up to March 17, 2025.

[naamahdarling]

There's only 12,000 comments. We can do better!

[chronurgy]

[vulcanette-deactivated20260506]

[thememedaddy]

[chucktaylorupset]

(via hornedchick)

Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “When I was 15, I spent a month working on an archeological dig. I was talking to one of the archeologists one day during our lunch break and he asked those kinds of “getting to know you” questions you ask young people: Do you play sports? What’s your favorite subject? And I told him, no I don’t play any sports. I do theater, I’m in choir, I play the violin and piano, I used to take art classes.

And he went WOW. That’s amazing! And I said, “Oh no, but I’m not any good at ANY of them.”

And he said something then that I will never forget and which absolutely blew my mind because no one had ever said anything like it to me before: “I don’t think being good at things is the point of doing them. I think you’ve got all these wonderful experiences with different skills, and that all teaches you things and makes you an interesting person, no matter how well you do them.”

And that honestly changed my life. Because I went from a failure, someone who hadn’t been talented enough at anything to excel, to someone who did things because I enjoyed them. I had been raised in such an achievement-oriented environment, so inundated with the myth of Talent, that I thought it was only worth doing things if you could “Win” at them.

[gaymboii]

[prideandprejudice]

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE (2005) + Joe Wright’s DVD Commentary

[dilfdyke]

betraying someone who trusts them deeply is one of the sexiest things a character can do its unparalleled. cause either the relationship is irrevocably changed and said character is completely at fault (guilt complex, hot) or it isnt and then both sides have to deal with the fact that they care about each other enough to overlook the betrayal (unceasing devotion, also hot)

[389]

Tegan Davis

[theaftersundown]

this is your sign

[ghw-archive]

light of Aurora, Anastasia Trusova, acrylic, 2021

[weepingwidar]

Jikai Zhu (Chinese, d.o.b. unknown) - Waterfall (2024)

[vintagenatgeographic]

A single shaft of sunlight breaks leaden clouds on New Zealand’s Dusky Sound

National Geographic | September 1971

[vexheart]

Life finds a way, even in the cracks of concrete.

[pillowspace]

It feels like this every time I write a fic

[wordsofmaeve]

Dear Tumblr Diary,

I’ve been searching for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe for ages, and last night as I tested another recipe, it spurred me to reflect on my writing process. (Keep scrolling for a peak at some incredible cookies)

There’s a few reasons I’ve been on the hunt for a perfect CCC recipe:

1. I love chocolate chip cookies (obvious)

2. My childhood family recipe is not my favorite (blasphemy against the sacred kitchen of my mother)

3. I’ve never felt like I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for in a cookie recipe (I’m picky, it’s fine)

Now how is this like searching for the perfect writing process, you ask? Let me explain.

1. I love writing (obvious)

2. The processes I’ve followed throughout my life needs to continue to evolve as I want to improve my craft (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh curse you growth mindset)

3. What’s worked for me in the past won’t work for me now (starts to sing Changes by David Bowie)

Wow, look at that. It’s almost like art reflects art. And yes, baking is art and if you disagree you can talk to the 3521 pictures of baking and bakes in my camera roll.

I’m thrilled to say that the recipe I tested last night is my favorite one to date! Huzzah! The recipe was simple, included browned butter, and only had to chill in the fridge for two hours (fun fact: if your recipe doesn’t call for chilling your cookie dough, it’s likely due to a higher flour content that ensures your cookie will not spread too much in the baking process. This results in much chewier, cake-like cookies than those that require chilling.)

The cookies themselves turned out ~amazing~ in all the ways I wanted. They were crisp on the edges, soft in the middle, and had that distinct browned butter flavor that did not overpower but added to the unctuous bite.

Does this mean I will stop my search for the best cookie recipe? Probably not. But I’ll use this one till I want to find a different one!

Coincidentally, I recently landed on an outlining process that I will also use for the foreseeable future. Thanks to a friend (shout out to them bc they’re the reason I’m still writing today after years of pushing through the slog), I was introduced to the chiastic story structure.

Not to exaggerate, but it’s life-changing.

Maybe you knew about it already, maybe you didn’t, and maybe it’s not as helpful for you because you don’t need percentages to figure out where in the story different things should be happening! But for lil old me, it’s exactly what I was looking for right now. It clearly defines what should be happening when, and how to create a story with well-crafted foreshadowing and mirroring throughout.

So, here I am, admiring both incredible cookies and a story outline that I feel 100% confident in.

Happy Monday!

[nonsequituringtest]

I HAVE A RECIPE FOR YOU.

I have made this recipe countless times. It's not always perfect, but when it's not I don't claim that batch because the ones that work are SO good. There are easy and complicated ways to do a lot of the steps, so I've finely-tuned a lot of it for what makes them most reliably perfect. I don't know much about browned butter--I'll leave that testing to you. Also, this is in imperial units, so I don't know how precisely they'll translate if you use metric.

-ingredients

(steps or tips)

Recipe:

-3 cups flour

-1tsp baking powder

-1tsp salt

(these go together mixed in one bowl, then set aside.)

-2 sticks butter, room temp

-1 1/4 cups loosely packed LIGHT brown sugar (light and dark brown sugar have different molasses contents)

-1/2 cup white sugar

(cream sugar and butter until COMPLETELY homogeneous. I do this by using my hands, because I like to and the one time I used a hand mixer it they came out... Weird. That may have been something else, though.)

-2 eggs, room temp

-2 tsp vanilla paste (imo better than extract by a long shot)

(add to sugar and butter, mix until it's completely homogeneous again.)

(add flour mix a portion at a time, mixing in gradually. HOLD BACK a few tablespoons of flour to make sure you have the right texture--sticks to your hands in a way that scraping it off leaves a thin layer of dough, if it comes off completely, it's overfloured)

-chocolate chips to taste (I have never once measured this ingredient)

(wrap in plastic, forget in fridge for a while. I've never made a specific timer for it, I usually put the dough in at night and then make the cookies after I get home from work the next day.)

(take dough out, line sheets with parchment paper, and hand-roll dough balls into spheres. The shape doesn't matter, but the time you spend on it warms the dough back up a little so it's not completely cold.)

(after your dough is balled, preheat to 350* F. This gives the dough more time to thaw.)

(I usually set a timer for 11-12 minutes, then check them every minute or so until they look about as brown as I want them, another 2-4 minutes based on the size of the spheres. Your specific time may vary by size.)

I usually end up with 26-31 cookies, depending on the size I make. Let cool and enjoy!

[wordsofmaeve]

I will ABSOLUTELY be trying these!! Thank you 🫶🏻

[ladyazulina]

True are the stars, the light, the distance that sets us apart.

Truth, Flash Fiction February 2025, by Tomas Gimenez Rioja.

[wordsofmaeve]

Dear Tumblr Diary,

I’ve been searching for the best chocolate chip cookie recipe for ages, and last night as I tested another recipe, it spurred me to reflect on my writing process. (Keep scrolling for a peak at some incredible cookies)

There’s a few reasons I’ve been on the hunt for a perfect CCC recipe:

1. I love chocolate chip cookies (obvious)

2. My childhood family recipe is not my favorite (blasphemy against the sacred kitchen of my mother)

3. I’ve never felt like I’ve found exactly what I’m looking for in a cookie recipe (I’m picky, it’s fine)

Now how is this like searching for the perfect writing process, you ask? Let me explain.

1. I love writing (obvious)

2. The processes I’ve followed throughout my life needs to continue to evolve as I want to improve my craft (uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh curse you growth mindset)

3. What’s worked for me in the past won’t work for me now (starts to sing Changes by David Bowie)

Wow, look at that. It’s almost like art reflects art. And yes, baking is art and if you disagree you can talk to the 3521 pictures of baking and bakes in my camera roll.

I’m thrilled to say that the recipe I tested last night is my favorite one to date! Huzzah! The recipe was simple, included browned butter, and only had to chill in the fridge for two hours (fun fact: if your recipe doesn’t call for chilling your cookie dough, it’s likely due to a higher flour content that ensures your cookie will not spread too much in the baking process. This results in much chewier, cake-like cookies than those that require chilling.)

The cookies themselves turned out ~amazing~ in all the ways I wanted. They were crisp on the edges, soft in the middle, and had that distinct browned butter flavor that did not overpower but added to the unctuous bite.

Does this mean I will stop my search for the best cookie recipe? Probably not. But I’ll use this one till I want to find a different one!

Coincidentally, I recently landed on an outlining process that I will also use for the foreseeable future. Thanks to a friend (shout out to them bc they’re the reason I’m still writing today after years of pushing through the slog), I was introduced to the chiastic story structure.

Not to exaggerate, but it’s life-changing.

Maybe you knew about it already, maybe you didn’t, and maybe it’s not as helpful for you because you don’t need percentages to figure out where in the story different things should be happening! But for lil old me, it’s exactly what I was looking for right now. It clearly defines what should be happening when, and how to create a story with well-crafted foreshadowing and mirroring throughout.

So, here I am, admiring both incredible cookies and a story outline that I feel 100% confident in.

Happy Monday!