'Ello! :D

ideal living situation is what i call the 'sitcom special' : having all your closest friends live in the same apartment building or neighborhood where you each have your own space but can wander in and out of eachothers homes at will, seemingly always welcome and never at bad times. and also all of you only have jobs when its important to the plot.

This is great especially for women in the workplace who have learned kinda self-demeaning patterns of behavior in order to not be seen as a bitch. I started communicating this way in my VERY male dominated field and people definitely started taking me at least slightly more seriously. If that makes sense

Even in my heavily female-dominated industry (and office), using this kind of phrasing sees me taken more seriously by management, HR, and clients. I also find that for things like requesting PTO or schedule flexibility, I’m more likely to get uncomplicated agreement from the company if I phrase it as a statement of intention rather than a request for permission. This also goes for asking for accommodations; “X is not going to work, I need Y and Z” is a lot more effective than “I would like Y and Z, if it’s not too much trouble.”

These are also easier for the other party to deal with. The responses being replaced feel more humble or less demanding when you’re writing them but they’re actually asking the other person to do very slightly more work. For a busy person getting their tenth organise-a-meeting email for the morning, being told a time and checking their calendar to see if it’s free is slightly more convenient for them than being asked to propose a time themselves. Receiving a courteous but self-assured response is marginally less emotional work than getting an apology or insecure-sounding backpedal where they have to spend a second trying to figure out if you’re being polite or if you need reassurance. Not only do these replacement phrases make you sound more competent and confident and give you more control, they also make you very slightly easier to work with, and if you’re interacting with the same people all the time, that adds up.

I have never seen someone escape the cycle of suffering and reach true and perfect zen the way that one of my D&D players, an honest-to-god tenured college dean and professor, does when he inhabits his 7 INT bardlock elf prettyboy. Brain goes in a jar on the shelf for two hours. Nothing between those pointy ears but one jingle bell rolling back and forth. Refers to his patron as his "sugar mama" and That Warlock Cantrip as "Elvis blast." You can SEE the player knowing and suspecting things and gleefully not acting on them. I love it so much. Next week I'm gonna see if I can bait him into fucking a vampire milf. I bet it'll work

UPDATE: despite the best efforts of the orc fighter/paladin, he did in fact fuck the vampire milf

when you save alarms for specific things but then you just keep reusing them. like sure wake me up at the chocolate milk alarm, what do i care

affirmations for writers: i know how to write. i have seen sentences before, and i know how to make one. i can identify up to several words and their meanings. i am not afraid of semicolons.