-….you’d make a good goth if you died your hair black and got rid of your freckles (a 13 yo wearing a black trench coat, platform boots, black lipstick)
-you have good spoofing instinct! (one of the few friends that has read my writing)
– “Most likely to mop a trail” (awarded at the end of my employment at a camp with…. unpaved dirt trails)
-YOU TOTALLY LOOK LIKE A VAMPIRE (a younger teen wrapped in a giant twilight blanket and yelling off a balcony)
– “most likely to unexpectedly have a pocketknife” (a church group yearbook)
– “best at not being in pictures” *shot of the back of my head* (the same yearbook, but more annoyed this time)
-…..i don’t know, you just seem like the kind of person who would go to renaissance fairs (a guy in my sculpture class)
– are you Russian? you seem like you are Russian, what is your name? (an excited Russian TA)
-…you aren’t small Smol, but you just FEEL smol, like, at heart (Celestine, probably?)
we got this fish who was nearly dead at the time, nursed him back to relative health, and he died in about two weeks
during this time people had visited the fish, grown so accustomed to it, grown to love it and cherish it. they would say hi to him occasionally.
when this fish passed away the whole floor of the dorm mourned. we had rest in peace signs. this fish had a proper burial. grown men in the military cried over this damn fish. it was heartbreaking. we loved him so much and loved how well he came back from death.
and just like
if people can love a silly lil tiny free fish that much….a fish that didn’t even do anything really just kinda sat there….imagine how much your friends love you??
i see these posts all like “no one would miss me if I was gone” from my pals
and
pal. if the death of a fish i knew for two weeks tore me and everyone around me apart that much
imagine how much more i love and would miss you, a entire human being and an entire friend. if just a little fish could move hearts that much, and not even know how much people love him, think about how much people love you. because i promise you, i care about you. so much. way more than that fish. it’s a whole lot.
Characters in the tags, askbox open, character synchronization set to maximum! Throw a number or two in my askbox along with a character, and I’ll answer those questions!
1. How many dead parents do they have?
2. How good are they at tongue twisters?
3. Biggest regret?
4. Are they formally trained or have they gone through a more organic learning experience for their skillset?
5. If they could hang out with one famous person in 18th century American History, who would they want to hang out with?
6. What’s their theme song?
7. What fictional character are they most like? Was this an intentional or accidental influence?
8. Paper or plastic?
9. What’s their dump stat?
10. What’s their best stat?
11. What is their favorite anime?
12. What’s their favorite beverage?
13. If they can use magic, what’s their favorite spell?
14. Most heroic thing they have ever done?
15. Most despicable thing they have ever done?
16. Are they a hero or a supporting protagonist?
17. What’s their favorite food?
18. Would they rather fight a hundred duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?
19. They have to go live on a deserted island. They can take one thing and one person. What do they take?
20. Are they religious? If so, what god or gods do they serve?
21. How did they become an adventurer?
22. Most amazing monster they have ever killed or helped kill?
23. Thoughts on death?
24. Do they have any interesting skills?
25. Favorite animal?
26. Expansion of civilization or the preservation of nature?
27. They’re at a tavern. They bump into a big burly angry drunk with a combative attitude. What happens?
28. What do they do between quests?
29. Biggest positive and negative influences on their life and development?
Auguste Toulmouche (1829-1890)
“Sweet Doing Nothing” (1877)
“The Letter” (1879)
“The Kiss”
“A Classical Courtship” (1853)
“Young Woman In An Interior” (1881)
“The Note” (1883)
“The Love Letter” (1883)
Toulmouche was a French painter who painted in the academic realism style. This trend in art was towards realism but also towards greater idealism, which is contrary to realism. He is mainly known for his portraits of Parisian women. Émile Zola spoke of “Toulmouche’s delicious dolls.”
I’m pretending all the time to be, kinder, stronger, funnier, more sociable than I am. I guess we’re all like that but it just feels so inadequate.
What’s the difference?
I know it sounds flippant but… certain things are fundamentally performative. And other things are so close as makes no difference.
Kindness is performative. Actions are kind, and people are kind by performing those actions. You can’t “pretend” to be kinder than you are, you can only perform kindness or not perform kindness, and choosing to perform kindness is always worthwhile, no matter how much you may second-guess your motivations.
Strength is so many things. It takes strength to pretend a strength you don’t feel. And the way to achieve strength is to exercise it, so long as you do it in enough moderation to not strain or break anything. Being able to affect strength when necessary while being able to put it down again when that in turn is necessary is healthy. Everyone starts weight training with the littlest weights. It’s not fake or pretending to do what you gotta do in any given situation.
Funniness lives in the interlocutor, not in the speaker. It doesn’t matter how funny you think you are (or think you are pretending to be) – that’s not how it’s measured. At what point are you “pretending” to be a musician if the music still gets made? And often what it’s tempting to describe in first person as “pretending” is more accurately described in the third person as “practicing” – which is of course the way you cause things to Be.
Sociability is also performative. Pretending to be sociable is just…being sociable, despite a disinclination towards it. It’s making an effort towards something you value. So long as the effort is not so great that it backfires into resentment, there’s no practical difference.
Qualities or activities or whatever are no less worthy because you have to actively choose to perform them. If anything, the worthiness lies in the act of choosing. It’s not “pretending” – it’s agency.
tl;dr: ain’t nothing wrong with “fake it till you make it.” A plastic spoon* holds just as much soup as a “real” one
* I keep wanting to talk about semantic domains! Artifacts are defined by their utility, whereas living things are defined by their identity. So plastic forks are still forks, but plastic flowers aren’t flowers. So there’s two pep-talk messages to take away from this: (1) for certain things, the distinction between “fake” and “real” isn’t a relevant one so long as they still get the job done, and (2) the purpose of a living thing is to be the thing that it is. The idea of a “useless person” is as semantically nonsensical as the idea of “pretend kindness” (or fake cutlery).
I love this post. It illustrates what I think is maybe the key difference between a developing self-identity and a formed self-identity, which is, like…confidence? If you are BEING kind, consistently, if you are prioritizing that over your own comfort or fatigue or even, occasionally, your emotional inclination (because OH MY GOD FUCK THIS GUY, I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE–uuughhh, but no, I’m not gonna lash out at him, that won’t accomplish anything, and besides, he’s probably had a bad day, he’s under a lot of stress, I don’t have to be an asshole about this…), guess what? That makes you kind. That is literally what kindness is. Same for patience, same for strength, same for all of this stuff. You got it. You’re doing it. You’re not faking anything. Stop second-guessing yourself and cutting yourself down. Give yourself enough credit to look at your actions and confidently assert to yourself that you are no longer just making things up as you go.
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