Randomness

time travel regulation organization where it’s not official policy, but it’s common practice for field agents to keep a binder at their desk with the names of their family and friends, their address, their anniversaries, their schedules, their passwords. everything you would need to steal an identity—virtually anyone who’s been a field agent for more than a year has had to steal their own identity at least once. the timeline they all work to protect is concerned with wars and presidents and major motion picture releases. some margin of error is allowed, and it’s not uncommon to find agents walking around dazed, coming back from a mission to find their best friend unexisted and a wedding ring on their hand that matches the ring of a stranger. some give up on all relationships, not even letting themselves love their siblings. some wear lockets on their missions, so that if the photo on their desk has shifted in its frame on their return, at least they have something left of the timeline that now never was. agent zhang, who works hebei-shandong-jiangsu AD 1850-2000, has eighteen different family portraits. in some some agent zhang has a wife, in some a husband, in some neither. three portraits have one child, one has four, one has seven, most have none. some are in courtyard houses. some are by white picket fences. many have parents, but the newest one has none. you ask agent zhang if it wouldn’t be easier just to let the alternate timelines go. agent zhang points at a child four portraits back, a little girl with a missing front tooth and a goldfish bowl clutched in her arms. “i never learned what that goldfish was called. i took her out for ice cream as soon as i knew she existed, and i didn’t even get to see her come home from school the next day.”

Another thing I've noticed working as a children's librarian is like... kids get so Paralyzed By Choice and the adults in their lives never really register why. Like, for example, we have little scavenger hunt sheets in the children's section and when a kid completes it, they get to pick out a cute eraser from our prize basket. We also have a little toy prize chest as part of our "1000 books before Kindergarten" challenge for when kids complete 100 books--and kids will spend minutes carefully picking through everything while their parents are shooting us anxious looks like "sorry they're taking so long! I know this is silly and it's completely ridiculous that my child is taking so long to choose between a bath toy and a cube puzzle because these are cheap and arbitrary objects! Hurry up, Harper! Just pick something! You're embarrassing me!!" But in the kids' perspective, they already have so little control over what objects come into their lives, and in this case, the object represents labor and effort on their end, so of course they feel they must choose very carefully. I've always been an anxious and indecisive person, so it's striking to see how being rushed really doesn't help that and really only makes it harder for kids to figure out what they want.

Excellent choices.

#everyone including me is so obsessed with cartoons having plots and character arcs that we’ve forgotten animation’s roots: #what if some animal guy was a huge cunt (x)

You are just a humble peasant boy and in general you are very happy with your life. The only problem is that you are constantly being pestered by travelers trying to tell you that you are some sort of chosen one.

AUTO REBLOG IN CASE YOU MISSED THIS THE 1ST TIME AROUND.  It is important to KNOW YOUR RIGHTS.

advice i think we should tell children is that when adults say stuff like ‘now that i’m an adult i get really excited about stuff like coffee tables and bathrooms and rugs etc’ they don’t mean ‘and now i don’t care about blorbo and squimbus from my childhood tv shows anymore’ bc your average adult still loves all the same pop culture stuff they always did; they just have a greater appreciation for the mundane as well. growing up just means you can enjoy life twice as much now. you can get really excited about a new stuffed animal AND about a new kitchen sponge. peace and love

This is what they mean when they say life flashes before your eyes as you die

this gave me such a warm feeling i legit teared up no joke

😭