once in 5th grade my mom bought me this set of like 200 glitter pens because I had mentioned that everyone at school was obsessed with them but I didn’t really care for them so the next day I brought them to class and kids started offering to buy them so I sold them for $3 each and I made almost $500 and then I got sent to the principals office and was told I couldn’t sell them anymore like sorry that I was a natural born entrepreneur
When I was a freshman in High School our Junior/Senior classes were like 90% stoner kids. When you’re a junior/senior, you can leave the school for lunch if you want, so the majority of the kids would go hot box their cars in an abandoned parking lot a few blocks over during lunch hour.
However, since they needed time to air out, they always got back after the kitchen stopped selling lunch, and they, of course, had the mega munchies.
I started selling kids homemade baked goods at outrageous prices, but I’m a great baker so nobody complained. I was making 25 bucks for 4 muffins, and 8 dollars a brownie.
I made like 2 grand before the school made me stop selling food because it wasn’t a “school official bake sale.” but my regulars would slip me cash + orders in the hallways when we passed each other, and there was nothing in school policy about giving away food, so I would just bring them their snacks the next day. The school couldn’t touch me, I was rolling in dough, and rolling out dough, all freshman year.
Find your loopholes, kids.
born entrepreneurs…. insane…
LOL i know two kids like this.
she made some soap and offered some to my dad and said “Uh 17, I mean 7″ and I was like no, you said it right. 17.
other one sold bracelets
I know a guy in highschool who made so much money in sophmore year selling cupcakes the school shut it all down.
a kid at my school has a panini-maker so he sells paninis to other students and everyone called him Dan the Panini Man
but the campus police people shut him down because it’s not legal to sell food if it’s not a bake sale or w/e
so now he’s Dan the Paper Towel Man and he sells paper towels, but with each paper towel purchase, you get a free panini
Don’t invite me anywhere last minute I enjoy doing nothing so I need to know ahead of time if my plan to do nothing needs to be changed
This is legit and people don’t realize it.
“hey what are you doing?” “nothing” “oh great! so you are avaliab-” “no you don’t understand. I’m doing nothing.”
I have learned the following:
“Hey, what are you doing?” “Why? What’s up?”
Then you have the entire space of their answer to come to terms with potentially doing something, or come up with a better thing to say than ‘nothing’.
Alternately, I find that answering with ‘relaxing’, totally conveys the right mood and people then generally reply with, “ohhhh I know that feeling, no problem, go relax!”
I think almost every time I’ve written a situation where I planned for a character to get killed off, when I thought like “well what if I didn’t do that” the prospect of them just dying seemed like the lazy way out, or something I was just writing because “that’s how stories like this go”.
Like, years ago when I thought I was going to be on an extended hiatus I was planning to do a MGDMT graphic novel that had nothing to do with video games and just focused on the original super soldier characters. Mostly the idea was the same theme, Macho Action Dude Reacting to Movie Tropes Like A Reasonably Normal Guy, so it was gonna have all the motions of those same old conventions, but play out differently. At one point the idea was “the girlfriend character dies and he has to deal with it like an emotionally believable person and not a larger than life action guy”. But when I thought about it, that didn’t sit well with me, because even if it was trying to comment on a trope, it was still “female character gets killed for no reason other than the male lead to have a character arc about it” and that rubbed me the wrong way. So I thought, okay, what if she still gets kinda messed up, so they build her some cool robot parts and she’s like Shit Yeah! This is the best! And she thinks it’s so rad having robot parts it kinda throws off the course her life was going down because suddenly the idea of being Robocop seems a lot more exciting than nesting with her high school sweetheart. And he doesn’t have to go have emotions about a dead girlfriend, he has to learn to come to terms with someone he was very close to having a life experience he can’t exactly empathize with that put her on a road to becoming the person she’s decided she wants to be, but not the person he ever planned on her becoming. So his arc is sort of dealing with the grief of a lost hypothetical person, and learning to respect her autonomy to make decisions that he might consider “a bad idea” but improve her quality of life as she wants to live it. Which, in the end, felt like a lot more of an interesting story than “the girl dies so the main character can have emotions about it. But I only got to that point by recognizing the original idea was stale and racking my brain to do something different.
I guess what I’m saying is, when I see professional TV writers get excited about what a twist it is that they kill a beloved character in something to shake up the snowglobe so to speak, I can’t help but think that they fell into that rut of thinking “this is the convention I have been trained to attach to this story”, and didn’t even stop to think there may have been a more interesting and unique route they could have gone. Intrigue comes from giving the audience something they don’t expect to see. It’s easy to think that killing a character for shock value suits that task, but that’s become such a normal device to throw out there that it doesn’t surprise anyone anymore. It’s always worth at least considering what would happen to the story if you didn’t just go down the first path that came into your mind, because the first will almost certainly be the most well-trodden with the least surprises along the way.
You know who I’m always really happy for? The little guys who light the Beacons of Minas Tirith in Return of the King. Like their entire lives are sitting next to these pyres, just staring at another pyre, waiting for fire. Trudging up what looks to be Mount Fucking Everest and shit to get to these things, then just sitting and waiting. They can’t not be there, bc GOOD JOB TERRY GONDOR CALLED FOR AID AND YOU DECIDED TO SLEEP IN NOW GONDOR IS DEAD. So they just sit and wait, loyal but bored out of their skulls. Then one day it happens, Gondor calls for aid, and the first beacon is lighted. One by one, they ignite. And Terry is sitting there, fucking doing soduku or some shit, when he sees the flame flicker on the mountain across the way. This is it, this is fUCKING TERRY’S TIME TO SHINE. So he grabs the ignition stick leaning up against the beacon, sticks it into the small fire he has going to cook his breakfast and lunch on, barely containing his excitement as the rag-covered tip ignites. He takes a deep breath and then touches it to the dormant pyre, a mixture of awe and pride swimming through his veins as the flames lick up the wooden tiers, creating a blaze so large he has to step back. It’s beautiful, his orange and gold masterpiece. He whips around to look behind him, eye trained on the next beacon in the line. C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. And then finally, another fire! And Terry can’t contain it, he jumps around the burning beacon with joy, whooping and waving his ignition stick, having completed his sacred duty. His purpose is fulfilled and realized. He is elation personified. He has done it – hefted his share of the burden, played his integral part.
Four for you, Terry. You go, Terry.
I’m watching RotK again and it’s this scene and I still can only ever think of Terry. Lightin’ that beacon, savin’ that Gondor.
“Wanda,”
Steve said quietly, wrapping his hand around hers—he had tried to steer her by
an elbow at first, the old habits of the forties coming up under stress, but
she had stumbled back so quickly she’d barely missed falling off a curb. “Come on, let’s go.” He gave a tug and she drifted after him,
silent. He steered her toward the couch
in their newest hideout and she let him push her down until she was sitting
down, her hair pulled back into a tidy braid and her hands linked tightly
together in her lap. A blanket settled
over her shoulders—Sam—and she slowly pulled her legs up to her chest, binding
her arms tightly around her knees.
“We’re
just going to be in the next room, kid,” Sam said, resting one hand on her
shoulder, and waited, as if to give her a space to reply. When she said nothing, he squeezed her
shoulder and followed Steve out of the room.
Wanda waited until they were gone and reached out with her fingers to
catch the blanket and tug the corners over her hands.
if a girl is making you uncomfortable, YOU ARE ALLOWED TO SAY IT.
fucking crush the stereotype that men are always supposed to “want it”
It’s really such a sad idea. I remember once with my ex, I was kissing him when we were in bed, and it started getting more heated, but I could tell it felt different. I stopped and asked if he wanted to carry on, and he said yes, but I knew him well. I had to ask again before he admitted he wasn’t really feeling it at the time. It just made me feel so bad and so upset for him. I think there’s more pressure on men to be sexual. Men love sex, they’d never want to turn it down, if they do it’s unmanly, it’s gay, it’s girly. It’s something ingrained into them from such a young age. It’s terrible and wrong. They think they have no right to not want sex.
Not all men have sky-high sex drives. I doubt any man in the world wants sex 100% of the time. It’s fine to reject it in any situation, whether a planned one night stand or a committed relationship. It’s fine to change your mind before or halfway through.
Men, it is FINE for you to not want sex, and it is FINE to say no if you want to. In fact, please do. It’s not guaranteed the other person will be able to sense your discomfort.
All of this. It’s always okay to say no, or wait, or maybe not right now or whatever it is you’re feeling.
Guys, this is not a drill. Antarctic scientists need you to study photos of penguins to help them figure out how climate change is affecting these stumpy little flightless birds.
Scientists from the UK have installed a series of 75 cameras near penguin territories in Antarctica and its surrounding islands to figure out what’s happening with local populations. But with each of those cameras taking hourly photos, they simply can’t get through all the adorable images without your help.
“We can’t do this work on our own,” lead researcher Tom Hart from the University of Oxford told the BBC, “and every penguin that people click on and count on the website - that’s all information that tells us what’s happening at each nest, and what’s happening over time.”
The citizen science project is pretty simple - known as PenguinWatch 2.0,all you need to do is log on, look at photos, and identify adult penguins, chicks, and eggs in each image. Each photo requires just a few clicks to identify, and you can chat about your results in the website’s ‘Discuss’ page with other volunteers.
in the empress au who does vader care more about, padre or the twines (ie. if she ordered him to do something like kill them, would he?)
… ha. ha. ha. hahahahahahahahahaha THAT IS A GOOD QUESTION, FRIEND.
Look, there is not really a “care more about” there, he literally can’t parse that between those three, but I think we can all agree Vader is not quiiiite hitting on all eight cylinders here. He has LITERALLY dissociated from “Anakin” as thoroughly as he is able to except for when Padmé wants the persona trotted out and oh yeah he’s still convinced Obi-Wan deserved, you know, to be SKEWERED and LEFT FOR DEAD in a FUCKING LAVA PIT. And look, sure, he murdered basically everyone he ever fought beside who isn’t currently under lifetime mind control, but that was for PADME, so it’s fine. Like, obviously.
But long story short, yeah, Padmé COULD get Vader to kill the twins. She would have to do it in a very specific WAY–one that fit the script, one that was For The Best–but she could do it, yes. And he WOULD do it, yes.
Alternately, the twins could get him to kill HER, if they came up with a reason that fit the script. It would be REALLY FUCKING HARD to do, though, and the likelier result would be ending up with a broken Sith Lord, and possibly whoever was trying to talk him into killing the other person being the dead one instead. Or, you know, both! ‘CAUSE YOU KNOW, HE DOES HAVE A HISTORY OF THAT KIND OF BEHAVIOR.
Basically, you do not want to force Vader to choose, because if you do? He’s probably not choosing you.
Wherever Steve is living, no matter if it’s in DC or Brooklyn, the Avenger’s tower or a cramped cabin at sea, at any given moment Natasha is either in the process of or has already broken into it.
Steve can never catch her; she is Schrodinger’s Russian.
And while she certainly has the skills to make it appear as if no one had been there, that’s not really Natasha’s jam. She’s doing Steve a service. She is being an awesome friend.
Sometimes Steve will return to wherever it is that he sleeps (where he closes his eyes, where he falls unconscious, where he is completely unprotected and what the hell this isn’t funny, except it totally is, Steve, get with the program) – he will return, and he will find that she has brought him a little gift.
It is a gift of home decor.
She has found enormous American flag blankets and draped them fetchingly along his couch. She has found flag throw pillows and placed them artfully on his bed. She once carefully replaced all his dishes with ones that had the Declaration of Independence printed on them in full; on one fateful occasion, she found a framed Mount Rushmore lovingly rendered on crushed black velvet with generous layers of glittery acrylics. (That, she put in a place of honor above his television, with a picture rail and directional lighting.)
Her personal best, though, is the time Steve went to the deli down the street, talked for a few minutes with the owner, helped an elderly man at the crosswalk, and gave the rest of his spare cash to the homeless vet on the corner before returning home, opening his bathroom door, and finding that she (or someone that she had inexplicably let into his very private rooms, jesus Nat why) had somehow in the intervening time completely redecorated it in the most surreal and gut-heaving rendition of country-craft Americana that could possibly be managed in the time allotted. There were aw-shucks red and white gingham curtains on the window, tied back with burlap ribbon. The toilet paper was in a stand-up Uncle Sam holder whittled from basswood and handpainted by someone’s no-doubt-very-talented aunt. The now apple-scented handsoap was in its own knitted cozy with a red chicken motif along the bottom. The curtain was, naturally, styled as a cheery patchwork quilt. And the entire room had been retiled in a jaunty red-white-and-blue striped and starred pattern that only a severely colorblind or, failing that, terribly insane person could love.
The floor tiles shifted a little when he stepped on them, rendering an unfortunate dip in the previously perfect grouting. That was the only sign that the room hadn’t always looked as if the proud vendors of a town-wide craft fair had vomited noisily all over his home.
Natasha has never admitted this was her doing. She has, in fact, never admitted to doing any of it. Steve, she will always say very seriously from where she has propped herself on several flag pillows, are you sure you didn’t do it?
She will stretch her legs, and curl deeper into the flag blanket she would have immediately claimed upon entering his living room. Pretty sure it looks like your kind of thing, Steve, she will say, and at no point whatsoever, no matter how long Steve waits, will she admit to how she got into his building, went up the stairs, broke into his apartment and placed a four-foot mounted fish
above the toilet without a single goddamn witness.
Natasha will always just smile. (She is an awesome friend.)
shoutout to all high school dropouts, students who didn’t get accepted into college, students who used to be on honor roll but became overwhelmed, students who study for hours but still fail tests, or student who don’t study at all due to depression/anxiety, you are all stars and I’m wishing y'all the best luck possible to get back on your feet
how come xmen quicksilver can save 31+people, a dog, and like 5 goldfish from an exploding building and yet aou quicksilver can’t even stop himself from getting shot
how fucked up is it that so many men associate periods and menstruation with women “acting shitty” towards thembecause of pms,when women are literally the ones who go through actual painbecause of the whole thing?
I mean, dude, this is so not about you. grow up and get over yourself.
me looking for fanfic of a common pairing:
it gotta be 20k+, finished, set in Estonia in 1999, T-rated, cooking show AND fake marriage au, no character death, everyone is a genderfluid panromantic ace, at least three cats and seven penguins are involved
me looking for rare pair fanfic:
HOLY SHIT IT'S IN ENGLISH *immediately starts reading without even checking the summary*
This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.
A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.
Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic? She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing. But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great. She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success. So - what gives?
His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.
I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way. I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did.
It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this. But no one ever told me. I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes. No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.
I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.
I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.
So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while. But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not. Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.
This post is one of those things that I will reblog every time it appears on my dash. This is so important, and no one ever tells you about it.
I almost didn’t read this but then I did and I’m really glad that I did.
Sam, Clint, and Scott were all a little beat up. A few cuts and bruises, a lot of anger. Some of that's the battle. Some of that's them being arrested and thrown into maximum security cells.
But Wanda?
Wanda’s in a straight jacket and a shock collar. Wanda’s collapsed on the floor, leaning against the wall, silent, white as a sheet, and barely moving.
Wanda wasn’t just arrested. Wanda was tortured by the government.
Because how do you get an all-powerful and uncooperative young woman into a straight jacket? You knock her out, probably shoot her full of tranquilizers until she stops struggling.
Because why put her in a shock collar if she’s already restrained? To keep her quiet and docile. Because they don’t understand her or her powers, what they do or how they work, so they’ve tried to cover all the bases.
Because why wouldn’t Wanda speak to Tony; why wouldn’t she snark and quip like Clint and Scott and Sam; why wouldn’t she spit and curse and scream? The last time she tried, she got shocked. The last time and every time before that, they shocked her. She was in constant pain from moving or speaking - because every time she did something, anything the guards thought she was trying to use her powers, trying to attack them - so she decided the best option was to sit still, keep quiet, and stop fighting. Don’t make any sudden movements; don’t make any movements at all.
She’s been in this situation before, with HYDRA. But even they didn’t restrain her. At least they let her move, let her speak, let her use her powers. At least they let her throw herself against the walls, let her scream, let her manipulate the fabric of the universe. (At least she still had her brother.) She knows what prison feels like - knows confinement and pain by heart - but this is worse.
When Steve comes to break her out, how much do you want to bet that she flinched at the sight of him? Moved into the corner when the door opened? Cringed when he tried to unbind her? Whined when he got close to the collar because she was afraid it would hurt him or her or both?
How screwed up do you think Wanda is after being tortured by people who say they’re doing it to protect the greater good?
How long before she tries to speak again? Is it just a whisper at first? Is she quieter than she used to be? Does it take her days before she’s willing to speak above a mumble, weeks before she shouts to be heard, months before she screams of her own volition?
How long does it take Wanda to let people touch her again? Does she throw Clint across the room the first time he places a hand on her shoulder to comfort her? Does she flinch at loud noises? Stops wearing necklaces because they make her feel collared? Refuses hugs because they make her feel restrained?
How much time goes by before Wanda dares to use her powers again? How long before she lets go of the fear of being shocked for something that’s a fundamental part of her? How long before she embraces the energy again?
How long before she stops being scared and starts being angry?
Also NONE OF THIS makes Vader less vicious or violent out in the world. Sometimes this makes Vader MORE vicious and violent out in the world, in fact, because he figures out slightly quicker than Padmé exactly how much SHARPER she is with him when he’s gone farther than she wanted him to go. And it’s not even the sharpness he wants specifically–it’s the ATTENTION–but he’d never say no to it. When she figures THAT out … hah. Haaaaah. She doesn’t even have to fucking TOUCH him, when she figures that out.
She DOESN’T touch him when she figures that out. He goes fucking CRAZY with it; he falls the fuck APART with it. She doesn’t even look at him for a full week, not even when he goddamn BEGS her to. The Empire could probably have collapsed without either of them noticing, if the Senate hadn’t known exactly how dead they all would’ve been if it had.
Just–Padmé Amidala literally riding the FUCKING TIGER here, with the fine line of giving Vader enough Dark to be content with but not enough to damn himself with. As if that even matters, now. As if that COULD matter, now.
It matters even more, now.
But what Vader wants from her is so much tenderness, and so much terribleness, and so MUCH, and sometimes Padmé isn’t sure if she’s the bloody bite-mark smeared down his throat or the soft hand stroking through his sticky, sweat-soaked hair. Or worse–if she’s both. What is she, if she is both those things to someone?
What is she if she is both those things to the GALAXY?
Like I would add more here but WHAT IS THERE TO ADD?? What. What could I even put here? Except maybe the part where Padmé realizes that even as she’s wrapping a tighter leash around Vader’s throat than anyone else ever has, he’s fucking THANKING her for it. He’s always had a leash or a collar or a slave chip, he’s always been OWNED by something or someone, and he’s always hated it. But HER leash, HER rules, HER orders–those aren’t like anyone else’s. He’s HAPPY under her, and all it took was a few thousand murders and betrayals, all it took was killing himself for her.
Vader doesn’t know how to be free, because the Force doesn’t expect him to be free and even Anakin never really knew how to be. Even though this is the MOST free that either of him has ever been. He could do anything he wanted, go anywhere he wanted, and all he wants is his Master.
Padmé realizes this. Padmé HATES this.
Padmé also rewards him when he obeys her, and punishes him when he doesn’t.
Absolutely. Absolutely and ENTIRELY. The only choices Anakin Skywalker ever really made were picking his master, picking the person to follow, to swear himself to, and he was never a good slave or a good Jedi or a good Sith, but he’ll be good for HER. Padmé is the only one who didn’t betray him or try to make him deny who he was, didn’t lie to him–Palpatine wanted him to think she had, but that was just more proof that Palpatine wasn’t the right master. The right master wouldn’t have needed to lie to get his loyalty.
The Jedi told him he couldn’t have attachments; they told him he couldn’t be Dark; they told him he couldn’t have HER. That he couldn’t GIVE himself to her.
But Padmé is his Master. The only worthy one he’s ever had.
(shut up, Obi-Wan, bastard, traitor, liar, you don’t know you refused to understand you would never have treated me like that if you REALLY–)
Padmé is Vader’s Master, so he gave her everything. His loyalty and an empire and the lives of every soldier in it, the lives of every Jedi who’d ever served beside Anakin Skywalker, the life of every other Master he’d ever sworn to. If he has to belong to someone–if he’s always going to be a slave, a servant, a tool, a possession–then at least he’s strong enough to pick who owns him, now. He’ll take all her orders, do everything she asks of him, make the GALAXY do anything she asks, and he will thank her for it every time. It’s better this way.
Sometimes he thinks it would’ve been better if it’d always been this way.
Humans quickly get a reputation among the interplanetry alliance and the reputation is this: when going somewhere dangerous, take a human.
Humans are tough. Humans can last days without food. Humans heal so fast they pierce holes in themselves or inject ink for fun. Humans will walk for days on broken bones in order to make it to safety. Humans will literally cut off bits of themselves if trapped by a disaster.
You would be amazed what humans will do to survive. Or to ensure the survival of others they feel responsible for.
That’s the other thing. Humans pack-bond, and they spill their pack-bonding instincts everywhere. Sure it’s weird when they talk sympathetically to broken spaceships or try to pet every lifeform that scans as non-toxic. It’s even a little weird that just existing in the same place as them for long enough seems to make them care about you. But if you’re hurt, if you’re trapped, if you need someone to fetch help?
You really want a human.
you know fantasy dragon soulbonding fic i want more of that where the humans are the dragons, like, we’re huge, we’re old, we’re scrappy as hell, and if you are small and cute enough we would be delighted to carry you around on our back
Oh god, now I’m imagining sapient species with lifetimes of, like, a year, and there’s one family that’s been attached to, like, a pirate since she rescued the doll-sized matriarch. She was 23 and just getting command of her first space cruiser, and because she rescued the matriach, the entire family regards her as their protector, they literally live in her bedroom until they reproduce too much (They have a litter every month), then they start traveling around her ship, and there’s entire societies all throughout the ship after, like, 5 years.
She goes down to the engine room for the first time in a decade because she has to find the head engineer for reasons, and there are literal little beasties down there who hail her as the “First guardian” and are so astonished to see her, and they want to come with her to the promised land, and she’s just like “Where?” They describe a luxurious land of softness, and she realizes they mean her bedroom.
So she starts making a habit of visiting every place on her ship multiple times a year, bringing the little buggers to see her room and bringing them home, and her legit crew thinks these guys are hilarious and adorable, and anyone with one of them in attendance has permission to visit her room, and long story short, after 20 years, she’s like a crazy cat lady, but with hundreds and hundreds of doll-sized little aliens who literally worship her.
Alternatively, what about the story where we’re the equivalent of the sentient cats? Like we’re small and kinda funny-looking and our lifespan isn’t that great, but we bond with other species like whoa, so most starships have a human as a mascot (the long haul freighters have an entire family, maybe even a village)
And mostly we’re just seen as the cute mascot. But then every now and then the shit hits the impeller. And that’s when you get stories like “he jammed our sonar, and he had a gun on us and we thought we were done for! But, I guess he’d forgotten how flexible humans are. Our ship’s human had crawled out of her nest and behind the console, you know, in that wiring gap? She jumped on his back and ripped his antennae out! With her bare hands! He threw her into the console and she just got right back up and kept fighting, smashed her upper joints into his flaps over and over again, and she didn’t stop until he quit moving, even though she was leaking everywhere and we could see a piece of her inner skeleton! We rushed her to the med techs but we were sure she was done for. But, did you know, humans can reattach their skeleton parts?? She gets around just fine now, says it doesn’t bother her. She saved all of us. She could have just stayed in her nest and been fine, but she defended us and saved the ship. I’m never serving on a crew without a human ever again.”
“Yeah, did you hear about the crew from over Ktl'ree way? They had a gas leak in the middle of that awful nebula they’ve got, took out everyone but their humans. Turns out, their humans rewired their wormhole drive so they could get the ship home in time to get everyone medical attention. Said they figured they’d either all survive or they’d all go together. Now that’s loyalty. Can you imagine?”
“I’ve heard they’re even more fierce about defending the ship if you have a bonded pair. We’ve just had the one, since we’re short haul, but we’re looking for another one after that incident. It’s hard to find one the right age who doesn’t have a ship, though, never mind one she likes. There was one attached to another ship, they actually did bond for a bit, and the other ship offered to pay for our search for a new pair if she’d come with them. We talked to her about it—but she refused to leave us. She said ‘girlfriends come and go but we’re family.’ Can you believe that?”
“They’re amazing. I don’t understand ships who don’t have at least one. I served on a luxury cruiser that had a whole bunch, five or six families. Have you seen their young? They’re so adorable!”
“I know, right? Ours has offspring-from-the-same-parents she talks to whenever we’re in port, and she shows us pictures of their young. We’d find the room if she wanted some, but she says no, she’s not ready—but maybe if we find another one she can bond with. We’re kind of hoping.”
Yesssssssssssssss. This is awesomeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!! I am INSPIRED.
… have you guys not read @seananmcguire’s stories featuring The Mice?
CHEESE AND CAKE! CHEESE AND CAKE!
I feel like there needs to be some kind of post for MCU fans on How To Write About Africa because I feel like there’s a lot of people out there who want to write about Wakanda and T'Challa but are worried about being problematic and that makes me sad because there’s SO MUCH GREAT meta to be had about T'Challa and Wakanda but at the same time there’s a lot of legitimate concerns about perpetuating racist stereotypes and yeah.
T'Challa and Wakanda could be such a great way to introduce people to amazing sci-fi concepts that people should know
This is SO needed.
It’s so easy to be like ‘just try it!’ but the problem with this website is that people don’t think its okay for people to make mistakes. I’ve gotten messages from people who want to write about T’Challa/Wakanda but are nervous about how their work will be perceived and its so sad.
We really need to gather some people who’d be interested in writing a nice little info post!
Here’s something I’ve learned while writing about other cultures, don’t use the linked posts until AFTER you have your first draft. You are going to be too worried about getting things right that it’s going to affect your story. Make all the mistakes you have to, I’ve made a few of mistakes about my culture so it’s okay.
Take your time, get your first draft, preferably even get your second draft,and then you can worry about this, this is also when you can start looking for opinions.
Now there’s also @writingwithcolor they always have useful stuff, here’s their navigation page it’s got a lot of useful info, from books you can read to stereotypes and tropes to inspiration and description.
if a guy is hitting on u and he is clearly the alpha in his group of guys.. go for the third in command and undermine their whole power structure
Oh god, I used this tactic so often. Because in most cases I was trying to pull dudes for my friends, rather than myself. You figure out who their leader is, go for #3 or #4 in the group, who is generally much cuter and a bit more shy. This is why he ranks high, but not too high. You go hard on this dude. You hold his hand and smile at him. You don’t even have to go further. Dude #3 is just bewildered you brushed off #1. This makes the dude at the top antsy. It causes dissent in the ranks. Your friends can now swoop in, picking from the remaining dudes as they start to scatter in the wind. They have lost all sense of self. You have secured free drinks for the rest of the night. And whatever else your genitals desire.
there is a common thread that I’ve noticed among women wherein many of us (rightfully) believe ourselves to be good girlfriends and wives. and this isn’t without reason. entering into a romantic relationship and we naturally mold ourselves to our partners wants and needs. we think, I’m going to throw the shirt they left here in the wash so they don’t have to worry about cleaning it later. I’m going to pick up ingredients at the market for their favorite meal and make it for them. I’m going to leave a glass of water on their nightstand for when they wake up. I’m going to inconvenience myself in this small way in order to make their life marginally easier. these sacrifices hardly even feel like sacrifices. if anything they’re pleasurable: their happiness is your happiness. and yet it’s clear to me that this is a particularly deeply entrenched tendril of socialization. men rarely think like this, rarely reorient their thinking so radically when in a relationship. it presents a dilemma for women. you can either continue being overtly caring and nurturing, even if it’s not reciprocated or even necessarily appreciated, or you can actively become more withholding, which is emotionally taxing in its own right. what can you do. womanhood is synonymous with dissatisfaction and disillusionment
First, thank you for asking. This is something I feel is important!
Second, to those who wonder where this question came from, a while back, I reblogged this, and added the comment about squicks not being the same as triggers.
So what, you ask, is a squick?
A squick is an old fandom term for something that makes you supremely uncomfortable and you absolutely do not want to read it. It can be a trope, a ship, a concept, or just an event that happens within a fic or in canon. For me, abused animals are a definite squick. I don’t like it, and will generally avoid reading any graphic descriptions of such. (That includes tumblr gif sets and such too, people! Tag that shit, will you? Even if it has a happy ending.) Another deep, deep squick of mine is infant age play. Don’t like it, don’t get it, don’t want to think about it.
Now, neither of these things are dangerous to my mental or emotional state. I have never experienced either in my life, and they do not bring about any sort of PTSD, dissociation, or spiral of depression, anxiety, etc. They are simply things I prefer not to think about in my daily life, or read about in my escapist hobbies. Therefore, theyare not triggers. Triggers are very real, very bad things for some people, and to label things we choose not to read because we find it disturbing or gross or weird is to diminish the very real danger of actual triggers.
I love the term squick. It perfectly describes the concept without assigning any negativity to the thing you dislike, or to people who do like the thing you dislike. It is something you personally do not care for and wish to avoid, simple as that.
On Aug. 26, 2007 his mom took a photo of him at 11-months-old, standing on the beach in a green and white shirt, staring into the camera and making a determined little fist. Soon after, the photo morphed into the “Success Kid” meme, and Sam was Internet famous.
Reading other people's writing:
Yes. I want to write like that. Look at that humor, the diction, the perfect way this particular sentence makes this story amazing.
