Make Them Endure

It's fine to disagree with the IAU about the definition of "planet"; however, if your definition includes Pluto but not Ceres, Orcus, Haumea, Quaoar, Makemake, Gonggong, Eris or Sedna, you don't actually care what a planet is – you just want the exact list of nine planets you learned in primary school back. Your cute little Pluto-including orbital distance mnemonic ought to be at least seventeen words long, and good fucking luck with the Q!

My Very Exciting Magic Carpet Just Sailed Under Nine Orphic Palaces, Slandering Hungry Quaker Matrons Going Erotically Southward.

I appreciate that you included Salacia but not Charon – really threading the needle pedantry-wise there.

wearing sky-colored shoes to hide from the devil. earth colored hat to hide from god

Iron breastplate to ward off fairies, Fishnet leggings to ward off cod.

good thing they're hidden from god and the devil

the thing about media literacy is that understanding why the author chose to specify that the curtains are blue is the same skill set as understanding that the way the author characterizes all black characters as angry or all chinese characters as meek and silent is racist. it is the same skill set as being able to identify when a news source is biased or when someone is feeding you propaganda. the ability to ask "why did this person choose to present this premise in this specific way?" is a critical skill in a world full of misinformation. why are the curtains blue? maybe it's a characterization detail. maybe it's extraneous worldbuilding. why is this character written as being right all the time? maybe you're intended to disagree with them. maybe it doesn't matter. maybe you should still ask why.

in my next karmic cycle I'd like to be a goldfish, please

well in my next karmic cycle I would like to be a golden retriever, but I feel like everyone wants that so unless it's a lottery type of scenario, that's not happening for me. in which case I kind of like the idea of getting flushed down the toilet when I die and being briefly mourned by a small child before they move on forever, my main impact on their life being a low stakes early life lesson in grief

@commodityproduction

"The magic system is never fully explained" yeah that's how life works. Imagine having a story set in modern day America and the characters have several pages of exposition on combustion engines and telecommunication networks before we get to the plot

i think this is absolutely correct and good writing advice but also victor hugo would like to have a word with you about the parisian sewer system circa 1832

victor hugo would like to have many words with you about the parisian sewer system circa 1831

very disappointing when someone says "the bird app" and for one lovely moment I think they are talking about Merlin Bird ID by Cornell Lab, the free app that allows you to identify birds by appearance or sound, make a list of birds you have seen, and explore all the birds native to your region.... and then I realize they are talking about twitter.

“indeed, it seems that the Pacific Northwest (Twilight) is a common locale for finding vampires and werewolves at a high school” oh my god

Can't wait to run across this drama summarised in a three hour video essay

I absolutely fucking hate this. Gold star, no notes.

my general opinion on what people should be "allowed" to portray and what topics they should be "allowed" to explore in fiction is that you can make whatever art with whatever themes you want but i'm also allowed to think the way you handled it was tasteless and should've been done differently. my negative opinion on your handling of sensitive topics is the price of admission for publicly showcasing your work. this is not a pro-censorship stance because i am not The Government

this is getting really popular so i’d like to add the important caveat that your criticism of a work is no more unassailable than the work itself. just as one is entitled to be critical of something someone else is entitled to disagree with that criticism. i add this because some of you pretend to give a fuck about thoughtful analysis and then when someone points out flaws in your argument you declare that all criticisms are valid. this is untrue. the status of a hater is no more sacred than that of a liker. get off your high horse and engage in the thoughtful discussion you pretend to believe in or perish by my blade

academic writing these days is always like “be/longing” “re-membering” “(under)standing”

@birds-in-posts

Black swan (Cygnus atratus)

@elodieunderglass

Oh it’s lovely to see this again thank you!

Im sorry I didn’t reply to your message for three weeks. I did not forget about it infact I thought about it regularly every day. It will happen again

every time someone says "that’s not how real people talk" i gain one more reason to write a character who only speaks in riddles and fucked-up metaphors

My issue with Magic Baseball Mud isn't that I don't understand its purpose. I know it's really about standardisation; if the league didn't dictate the exact composition of the mud they use to take the shine off of new baseballs, each team would have their own formulation, and they would absolutely being Doing Shit to that mud in an effort to obtain some imagined advantage. Rather, I object precisely because I do know what it's for, and I want to live in a world where every team is playing stupid games with their mud and professional baseball players need to develop specific strategies to deal with the unique texture of their opponents' balls.

Like, imagine the Drama™. Imagine how many pages would be added to the rulebook at the professional level to nail down exactly what you are and are not permitted to smear all over your balls. Imagine the documented incidents which would produce and periodically expand that body of rules. By god, it would be glorious.

Why do they need to remove the shine at all?

It's hard to grip shiny balls.