"all metal wants to be a sword"

I had a really profound experience today.

I was just casually listening to a podcast on ancient anthropology because it autoplayed while I was doing housework, and it got into the nitty-gritty of how humans spent their time for most of the hundreds of thousands of years we've existed.

During the day, we would spend 15–20 hours a week on essential processes needed to sustain life. We would chat to each other about practical things: food, water, logistics, etc. Even during leisure time.

But at night, around the fire, the conversation shifted. This fireside conversation is now considered to be the cradle of human culture and the strongest creator of human bonds.

And it was mostly storytelling.

So like. I’ve never really understood my compulsion to tell stories or, for me, how essential it is that those stories then lead to conversation and connection. I always considered it a bit of an embarrassing insecurity, really, craving interaction from something I wrote.

And just hearing that one thing, on this one podcast, made me realise how bullshit that is. Stories are, since the beginning of our species, designed to form and strengthen connection. It’s human nature for me to want connection from them. We have 150,000 years of evolution to thank for that.

There’s a reason your local fanfic writer wants you to comment on their fic: because that’s part of the reason they’re writing it—for connection with their readers. Because human nature dictates storytelling is for connection.

suicide baiting (often machine translated into other languages)

asking you to mail them your work with a promise of payment

As always, please be cautious if something in the comments seems untrue or strange, and follow internet safety best practices.

—Inspired by this tweet:

like, are they in cahoots. can they laugh together. do they have a similar enough or at least complementary enough outlook that they can connect over something being funny (even if it's funny in a fucked up way! sometimes those are the best in-jokes!)