The IRS is shut down, along with much of the rest of the federal
government, but unattended servers running on autopilot are sensing that
no progress has been made on taxpayers’ attempts to clarify disputed
and overdue bills, and so they are initiating asset seizure proceedings.
Even if this turn of events is sufficient to terrorize you into paying a
disputed bill, there’s no one at the IRS to accept your payment – and
of course, if you maintain that the bill isn’t correct, there’s no one
to discuss it with.
Many people will read this sign and feel, strongly, that it says “Goth Clowns Only.” Perhaps they will find that this makes a certain kind of sense, and they will immediately form a convincing mental image to go with it. They may experience a funny feeling of disconnect between what the sign actually says – “Cloth Gowns” – and what their brains insisted on seeing. This isn’t necessarily dyslexia, although it might happen to people who are dyslexic. Generally, it’s likely to be a type of “brain autocorrect.” “Cloth Gowns Only” is a somewhat rare sentence, and it presents a VERY tempting Spoonerism, and the image doesn’t present any other context: perhaps it was a typo! maybe we should fix that! wait, what?
Reading is the process of looking at abstract patterns and getting meaning from them. Brains usually like to identify patterns and skip ahead. They frequently autocorrect to make sense of the world without slowing down to process every individual piece of data. Signs like the one above can force a slowdown, and introduce you to your brain, as if it is a stranger. This can feel kind of funny, like a Joke.
For example, your nose is permanently in your field of vision, and suddenly you might notice it and be able to see it, despite your brain’s insistence on constantly editing it out.
The squares marked “A” and “B” are actually the same color. Here, I’ve copied and pasted the squares – they’re on the right.
Seriously. Same color. it’s easier to tell when they’re completely separated from the context of the image:
But in the context of the image, our brains usually insist that B is lighter, because in the context that we understand, it is a white square in shadow. So much of what our brains declare to be ABSOLUTELY FIXED TRUTH is simply due to context and expectations. Expectations can actually change what people see. Thus, of course, the blue/gold dress. And this meme:
I cdn’uolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg: the phaonmneel pweor of the hmuan mnid… it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm.
Not everyone can read that mess, but some can understand it because of pattern recognition. Words, to people who read them, aren’t just letters in the right order, they’re also shapes and context. GOTH CLOWNS ONLY has a perfectly reasonable shape/context, so brains may say: this makes as much sense as anything else.
Sometimes you can deliberately irritate your brain by toying with its desire to make sense of everything, and its desire to “fix” the stuff that doesn’t make sense, without consulting you. For example, if you can, try the Stroop test – reading the names of the following colors aloud. Don’t read the words, just the colors. The first line should, of course, read “Green, Red, Blue.”
As you read this, you may find that you have a sort of “automatic reading” app in your brain, which insists that the letters somehow take precedence over the colors. (Obviously, this isn’t universal – for one thing, this image assumes that you automatically read English, and that you can see, and that you can see colors.)
So, in the case of GOTH CLOWNS: some of it will be familiarity and context. If you’re more used to seeing those words, your brain might helpfully suggest it as an autocomplete. (If you are more used to seeing CLOTH GOWNS, you might see that arrangement first.) If there was more ‘goth’ type stuff surrounding the post on your dash, that might influence you. If you’re used to skim-reading, that might influence you.
If your family are gnome-clans obsessed with Spoonerisms, that will definitely influence you.
Native bees ARE excellent pollinators! But honeybees are also very good at it. There are certain native flowers that ONLY certain native bees can pollinate, but on stuff like apple trees and goldenrod and many other native/imported plants, honeybees and native bees alike are both very good at pollinating.
Other native pollinators like butterflies, bats, hummingbirds, ect also do very important pollination work!
I’m coopting this post to remind folks that cacao trees are pollinated by mosquitoes who are also very very important if marginally annoying. Importantly, none of the species currently known to be carriers of disease, such as malaria or West Nile virus, have anything to do with chocolate. But there are mosquitoes that pollinate cacao trees.
I forgot about this! But yep! 10/10 excellent addition.
When you just can’t love yourself, just work on giving yourself basic respect.
When you just can’t practice self care, aim for basic hygiene and keeping yourself alive.
When you just can’t have positive thoughts, focus on ignoring the negative ones.
When you just can’t quit those bad habits and unhealthy coping mechanisms, be sure to take care of yourself afterwards.
When you just can’t make yourself eat enough, aim for something three times a day, even if it’s something small.
When you just can’t stop binge eating, just do your best to forgive yourself and focus on something else instead of dwelling on it for any longer.
Not everyone is at a point where they can recover, and so thinking about recovery can be intimidating and make them shut down, because they just feel like they’re nowhere close to getting better so they might as well not bother. There needs to be more advice on dragging yourself through the days. Self care to the bare minimum. Aiming for “feeling okay with yourself” or “feeling less awful about yourself” rather than loving yourself. Baby steps.
The SINGLE most valuable thing I acquired from my undergrad degree was internalising this: something is better than nothing.
‘Perfect’ is the enemy of ‘good’. ‘Good ‘is often the enemy of ‘done’. Best practices are almost always the enemy of better practices.
I have spent a lot of time in my professional life – in several different fields, actually – trying to convince people to do something. Because something is always better than nothing. Even if it’s a very, very small something. It’s still better.
I’ll never not be amused by the fact that I can drop the words “crucifix nail nipples” into a conversation and some of you who have been with me since the livejournal days will join me in the flashbacks, screaming and crying all the way.
I require context. Because this is a very interesting start of a story, and now I need the rest of it. Could I get a link, or a summary, or something? Pretty please?
All right buckle the fuck up kids, it’s the year 2012 and I’ve just been handed what should be an easy editing gig by my senior editor. It’s a vampire erotica story because one of the final Twilight movies is about to come out, and everything is vampires. Everything. I haven’t edited a single thing in months which isn’t about vampires. I am ready, I can do this. So I open the file and notice there’s a typo in the title, which really should have been my first inkling that something horrendous was about to go down, but you see I’m not quite dead inside yet so I carry on, bushy tailed and bright eyed with my faith in humanity intact. It’ll be dead by page 24, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just editing one more vampire boner fest.
The MC is a girl who we’ll call Sue. Sue is a Good Girl™, Sue is Not Like Other Girls™, she is pale and awkward and a virgin and has somehow managed to find herself a Bad Boy™ for a boyfriend. We’ll call him Dickhead.
Now Dickhead as previously stated is a bit of dick, he tries to pressure Sue into sex because he knows she is The One™ but he loves her really so it’s okay. Except it’s not okay because Sue is a Good Girl™ and holding out till marriage which he’s fine with except he’s got such a bad case of blue balls that one night walking home an attractive stranger lures him into an alley with the words “hey stud” and he follows, dick out before she’s even finished her sentence. Well turns out that was a mistake for Dickhead because she’s a vampire, but not just any vampire, a Dick Biting Vampire. So what started out as a skeevy blow job behind a club that he’ll feel bad about in the morning, turns into him being bitten on the dick and drained of his life essence and left for dead. Except DBV fucked up and now he’s a vampire. Are you still with me? Good, cause it’s about to get weirder.
Realizing he is now an abomination, Dickhead flees, becoming a creature of the night and feeding on animals rather than humans to repent for being such an asshole in life. Sue meanwhile is heartbroken, but carries on valiantly with her life and goes to bed each night crying for the loss of her One True Love™ who she would do anything to bring back. Well guess what Sue, Dickhead never really left you! He’s been “instinctively protecting her from rapists” by hiding out on her roof and fighting hobos who try to get to her open window via the fire escape for months now. Because that’s not fucking terrifying at all.
Upon learning of his predicament and how it happened, Sue can do nothing but blame herself. Oh if only she’d let him touch her secret places, then perhaps all of this could be avoided! Meanwhile Dickhead is having another dilemma of his own, realizing too late that his vampire powers have given him super senses and now he can smell her blood and he can’t decide whether he wants to get with her or eat her. And I don’t mean in the French sense. But he is strong! And over comes his base manly vampire instincts and neither rapes not kills her. Hurrah! And this is so romantic that Sue gives it up, but not before she launches into a theory about how in all fairy tales, True Love saves the day, so maybe her magical pure vagina that has never been touched by anyone, not even her, can bring him back to life. So Dickhead being a dickhead agrees and rips her clothes off, but not before he takes one last moment to marvel at the beauty of her purity, because he will never again look on her again and know she is Pure.
If you’ve only vomited once by now, I applaud your resolve.
So they hop on the good foot and do the nasty, except she is literally so pure in spirit, her flesh burns his. And I quote you from memory because these words are burned into my soul: “her breasts bit into his hands, like crucifix nail nipples tearing at
his flesh, but he did not care because he loved her so and couldn’t
stop”
This phrase haunts me. I dread that it will be the last thing I think about on my death bed and my last words will literally be “god fucking dammit” as I die, carrying that mental image with me into the afterlife. My own solace is in knowing that I inflicted it on other people too, like @ahzuri who is somehow still with me after all these years.
When the magical burning sex fails to heal him and leaves her bruised, battered and broken with “a dainty blue bells of bruises around her secret flower” (I am genuinely quoting this, I could never make something as horrendous as this up without being on acid) Dickhead leaves. Yeah. Off he fucks, leaving her to the mercy of the hobos at her window, and into the night to be the true monster he really is. But wait, there’s more. Remember the dick biting vampire? Well turns out she has figured out she made him into a vampire and has also been stalking HIM and is totally jealous of Sue, so tries to kill her. But again Sues Purity saves her, because sex before marriage which was done out of True Love is not a sin, so she is still a spiritual virgin and I’ll be honest, I started drinking heavily at this point and it’s all a bit of a blur.
A fight ensues some pages later after Dickhead returns, realizing the mistake he has made. And he rescues Sue from the Dick Biter, but not before he assaults Dick Biter, and calls her a slut for luring innocent men into alleys cuts her heart out by cutting her breasts off, at which point i screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU REACH THE HEART” and my brain short circuited completely and I have no idea how it ends because I realized there was 30 pages left and my soul couldn’t take it. I emailed the chief editor like ?????!!!!!!????!!!!!! and the book was immediately pulled from the work line and the author dismissed from the publishing house. Turns out she was a friend of a friend and that was how she got the manuscript past our entry levels for requirement.
And that’s the story of how an author sent me death threats for over a month because I stopped her shitty vampire porn from ever seeing the light of day. You’re all fucking WELCOME.
Sorry to bring this searing back into your lives fam, but I feel it’s worth noting that people are tagging this as an “ancient relic” of tumblr text posts and how they’re so happy they see this every year and like guys, I hate to tell you this, but uh, this post is only six months old. I posted in on March 3rd 2016.
It only seems like years because every time you see it you age five years.
This is maybe my favorite story ever…
WHAT DO YOU MEAN THIS POST ISN’T AT THE VERY LEAST 5 YEARS OLD??? HOW????
It’s like the reverse Dorian Gray of posts. Every day it exists on this hellsite the power within grows stronger while I wither and age with time.
You’re all just mere casualties to the warping of reality.
Also anyone claiming to have read this on LJ back in the days of yore is likely not being honest. I never wrote about Crucifix Nail Nipples publicly on LJ, it was a friends only locked post shared among a group of maybe 20 mutuals, most of whom I still talk and who are all pissing themselves laughing that this has come back to haunt me through my own folly.
And even then the post I DID share back on LJ, was vague as shit and didn’t go into detail because I had no desire to be fired for bitching about work online. Most of the horror was recounted directly over windows messenger to people like @ahzuri who could be relied upon to scream “What the Fuck” at all the right intervals while I had a minor breakdown over my workload.
Happily I now no longer suffer from such contractual restraints and you all get to suffer with me 🙂
But yea, no. Unless someone else was bitching about it publicly back in 2012 (and I know the other editor who worked on it got fired so it’s not impossible), you saw it here first on my tumblr early 2016.
Which god help me was honestly a simpler, more hopeful timeline than the one we’re currently in.
As for everyone else saying they know I hate this post, I don’t hate this post. How can I hate something that has given so many people both joy, horror and dare I even say it, hope, in equal measures. It has also brought many wonderful and amazing people into my life, so while I might be Tired, I’m not bitter, and I certainly don’t hate it. Any complaining you see me doing is largely amused exasperation at the fact that I was very nearly able to forget this story, and then I made it fucking more popular than if the book had actually been published. I played myself. Like a fool. And god help me I might be in perpetual vampire nipple hell over this post for the rest of my life, but I’ll be damned if I’m not taking all of you screaming with me.
Happy belated two year anniversary of me losing control of my life to this hellsite.
I firmly believe that every time this is reblogged, a tiny bit of positive energy is sent to @thebibliosphere and her health and life improves just a smidge.
Callout post for @amusewithaview for putting this onto my dash again at 3am, I was unprepared.
Also sorry to everyone who started following me for other reasons but I feel it’s only valid you know my origin back story on this hellsite lmao
Reasons I believe my friend is secretly some kind of deity
1) First time we spoke was a week after the beggining of freshman year she summed up my entire character and most of the events of my life Sherlock style. I asked her how the hell she knew all that. She just shrugged and said she figured out our entire class already.
2) The one time we had religion class instead of ethics she listened to the teacher for a few minutes, laughed and told me:
“Humans have wished to be gods so much they’ve forgotten they have to ability to create them. Imagination has truly suffered from this ‘monotheism’ stuff.”
I was confused and asked her if she was an atheist. She rolled her eyes and said:
“Oh I believe in god alright. I just don’t think the bastard deserves to be worshipped.”
3) Out of nowhere she gave me this advice:
“The only truth a liar ever told was that lies weren’t going to save you. Don’t become the liar who has to pass that wisdom on, because they speak from experience.”
4) To this day, she has one of those old-timey phones with buttons she only uses to ocassionally call someone. When I asked her why she never got a smartphone she got pouty:
“I hate social media. On Facebook they talk a lot but never say anything. If I wanted to listen to people moan about their problems and ask for help they don’t expect I’d listen to their prayers.” (Notice the choice of words)
5) I noticed she was stiff and I offered her a massage since I’m really good at it but when i started kneading her back I swear to this day those were not muscles I felt. I asked her what she did to turn her muscles into rocks covered with a thin layer of skin and she kinda froze then shrugged and said she was just really, really stiff. My hands hurt after ten minutes when I can usually go for an hour. Next time I offered she seemed surprised and laughed. She still has rocks for muscles.
6) We were having a debate over the way neural pathways are formed (I study biology and she forensics) and I jokingly asked if I could have her brain for study when she dies. She laughed.
“Sure, if you find a way to kill me you can have it. I’m actually curious what you’re gonna find.”
7) One time she was tired and miserable and I tried to comfort her. We both have really dark sense of humor so I told her she could scare the dead out of their graves with that glare. She told me the dead can’t come back and I rolled my eyes and said ‘obviously’ but she continued:
“When you die you descend to the underworld with nothing to lose. To keep you, they give you something to lose. When you want to return, they will demand it back. That’s why nobody ever leaves. The only way out is to never enter.”
8) One day she just came up to me with a disappointed look on her face. When I asked her what was wrong she was quiet for a few seconds and then just told me:
“Betrayals committed in good intentions are still damning. Just… keep that in mind.” Then she left and didn’t speak to me for three days. I still don’t know what she meant but even three years later I haven’t forgotten it.
9) We were casually sitting on a bench when, out of nowhere, she asked me: “Is it just me or have humans gotten dumber? Or have they always been this stupid and I just haven’t been paying attention?”
10) She asked me if I ever wondered what it was like to die. I said no but told her I would tell her when I found out. I meant it as a ghost joke but she smiled at me and said:
“Great. I’ll wait for you to come back. Maybe you’ll even remember me.”
In conclusion, she is some kind of low-key god and she lost her faith in humanity even before we lost our faith in her but she’s stuck with us because immortality is a bitch.
P.S. I just remembered her name is a variation on ‘Eve’. Maybe I should reconsider my atheist status?!
She totally sounds like a goddess from one of Rick Riordan’s novels honestly. I kinda love her. If you have more stories, update us, cause I love this stuff.
