tactless-and-graceless-blog

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

The sounds of chaos reach you long before you can see the problem. The enclosures are frantic with distressed animal movement and small fires, none of which is necessarily out of the ordinary, but is inconvenient nonetheless. The closer you get to the mess, the more you can distinguish, but just being able to hear the distinctive layered roar-bleat-hiss of the agitated chimeras and the ominous rumbling boom of calling thunderbirds doesn’t tell you exactly what’s wrong.

As you approach the first enclosure--what is usually a brilliant sprawl of jewel-bright trees and flowers inhabited by equally bright birds but is now dominated by small pulsing fires--you begin to hum and whistle and trill in lulling, soothing harmony. 

It’s the old magic in your blood that allows you to layer your voice over itself, gives you the ability to make the sounds your vocal chords alone cannot. It is a gift that has been passed down in your family generation to generation, from century to century, and it is impressive even as it leaves the scowling lips of a small young woman in rumpled pajamas. 

You are grateful for your gift now, nervous for the creatures in your care even as your lips flutter and chirp in soothing phoenix song. You watch as the blaze slowly dies down, panicked death-fires calming as those silly, glorified parrots allow themselves to be reborn now that they are no longer scared and confused.

The cockatrices pace and flap and run in dizzying circles, puffed up and screeching as if a weasel had been allowed to roam in their enclosure. Your mouth twists and your teeth clack as you combine a drawn out hiss with the slow clucking of a hen in an imitation of their peaceful chatter. It calms them somewhat, to hear something like one of their own that is not distressed or afraid. They begin to slow and quiet, feathers still ruffled and tails wriggling, but definitively less agitated than before.

You manage to calm the braying pegasi and halt the combined stampeding of the al-mi’raj and the jackalopes with some clever manipulations of tongue and teeth. You are feeling fairly proud of yourself until you slip in a growing puddle and almost brain yourself in your confusion before realizing it’s raining above the large, cold aquarium where the shachihoko are kept. The clouds begin to dissipate and the waves stop thrashing with spiked tails as you draw in a long breath and thread a tiger’s vibrating chuff through the low timbre of a whale song.

Thoroughly irritated and covered in cold, stiffening mud and the occasional burn, you reach the black shucks and nearly combust from the rage that suddenly consumes you as you take in the scene before you. The large black dogs, terrifying and huge and secretly your favorite for their tendency to protect lone women, cower in the long grass that sprawls along their artificial coastline. It would almost be amusing, watching each glowing red eye peek up from the grass every now and then, hunkering bodies misting and condensing in turns as if that would save them from the creature eyeing them from outside their enclosure, if you were capable of feeling anything but unadulterated fury.

All those flat red orbs track a single creature as it paces and snaps and growls in front of the glass separating it from the demon hounds, orange fur haloing its body in an obscene mockery of all the fires you’ve had to put out.

You’ve worked with animals all your life. You were trained to do it from birth, taught to put your family legacy to use by three generations of living relatives. You can and do care for animals the majority of the human population will never even see, much less manage to touch. You can calm rampaging griffins with a sound, you’ve sung the soft pitter-pattering song of the thunderbirds, and have been allowed to pet a unicorn.

But this creature. This awful, destructive thing. Will not listen. Will not calm. Will not respond to the gentlest nor harshest of sounds you can make. So you take the only course of action left to you. 

You scoop the small, evil creature into your arms, avoiding its sharp teeth as you cradle it to your chest. And as you begin walking back toward the house, you look into its beady little eyes and make the most damning combination of sounds you can think of, the only thing that you’ve ever seen affect the tiny monstrous creature your un-gifted mother calls Widget.

“You are a bad dog.”

Your family has been raising mythical creatures for centuries. The hardest creature you’ve ever had to take care of is one completely normal (but extremely stubborn) Pomeranian.

#yay writing #i tried #my dog is half pomeranian #so i know they're evil #where is the lie

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

You’re in charge of assigning every child on Earth the monster under their bed. One child in particular has caused every monster assigned to him/her to quit. You decide to assign yourself.

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

My Mind’s Just Trying to Help 📚 by Thomas Sanders

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

I think we need to normalize the idea of marrying friends. I don’t mean in a “the best romantic relationships come from the best friendships” type way, though I do believe that’s true. I mean in a “I have zero romantic feelings for you, but I would totally spend the rest of my life committed to a future where you are my primary partner and maybe even raise a family together” type way.

Like, I don’t think it should be an aromantic-exclusive option, or a plan B when you and your best friend are still single at 40 and want to take yourselves out of the dating market.

I’ve heard it mostly as that backup plan, that “if I don’t find anyone, I’ll just marry Trish haha”, and I don’t think that’s even what I’m talking about normalizing. That’s a secondary outcome, seen as “giving up” on finding “real love”, and even if a pair of friends go for it, it’s plagued with this general feeling of “sub par”.

What I mean is that marrying a best friend (or having a committed intimate or emotional platonic relationship) should be seen as just as worth doing as marrying someone you’re in love with. It should be normal for teenagers to try as many committed friendships as they do romantic relationships. It should be normal for someone to say “this is my best friend and if everything works out, maybe we’ll move in together later” or “Trish and I have been roommates for two years now. We’re considering adopting soon, or Trish might carry a child!”

And as an aromantic person, it shouldn’t be strange for me to say “I prefer friendship to romance”. People should hear that and nod their heads like “that’s understandable. John feels the same.”

Hell, I see so many people expressing that they prefer their friends’ company to their romantic partner’s. “My friends understand me better and I think treat me better” and they’re expected to go home to this person, to marry and have kids with this person. It’s bizarre to me. Your platonic feelings for your friend aren’t inferior to your romantic feelings for your boyfriend, and if one of them treats you better than the other, I think you should probably rethink which one is your primary partner.

I also find it strange that it’s not more common in poly spaces for a friend to be considered a legitimate “partner”. In a world where friendships were just as likely to bloom into life partnerships as romantic relationships, I think polyamory would be much more commonplace. “I committed to Josephine about a year ago and now we own a home, but I fell in love with Joe about six months ago and we’re all trying to make it work.” Josephine shouldn’t have to worry about her partner leaving her for Joe just because their bond is romantic and therefore the “sensible” relationship to choose over the other.

I’m just ranting at this point, but I reiterate: committed friendships should not be seen as strange and “sad”, but as a legitimate option for a lifetime commitment. Not just for aromantics like myself, but for everyone. It should just be normal.

And not to be presumptuous, but I don’t think I’m alone in this thinking

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

Me: writing things out might help me process them

Me: *makes a personal tumblr blog*

Me: *writes a whole 3 posts*

Me: *doesn’t post anything for a year*

Also Me: maybe I should start a journal

#i'm terrible #why am i like this #trying to express myself

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

okay, so, I love all the posts that run off the assumption that humans are the most ridiculous sapient species in the galaxy

but what if it’s just the other way around

what if humans are notoriously straitlaced and obsessed with protocol. the bureaucrats of the stars.

which is obviously something we would constantly try to complain about and disprove only for some Alpha Centaurian to be like “Captain, your species formalized spirituality, repeatedly, and a recurring theme therein is that the heavens themselves are run as a bureaucracy. Even your rebellions and revolutions are meticulously planned.”

it’s not a bad thing, per se, to have a human on your team — analytical minds, good diplomats (if only because one human etiquette system can be more complex and even contradictory than the vastly varied customs of an entire species) — but be prepared for them to call attention to moral quandaries and loopholes that never would have occurred to you.

and speaking of loopholes, do be careful, because the only thing worse than a human armed with an ironclad system of rules is a human who’s found a gaping hole in them.

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

do u ever feel like ur pulling an academic icarus flying too close to your deadlines on wings of deeply flawed time management

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

when the cashier gives u back ur change and ur putting it away but u cant do it fast enough and suddenly theyre holding out ur shopping bag and u have no hands and the coins are dropping to the ground and the bag goes up in flames and the cashier is crying and ur crying and ur wallet is screaming and ur descending into hell

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

Finals

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

Finals are over. I have emerged battered and bruised from the flames of my rapidly sinking GPA. There is no escape. Ahead lies the bleak and lonely identity crisis laden summer. I paid for this. This is fine. I am fine.

#college #finals #i am so tired #i long for the sweet embrace of death #my gpa is shit #why do i do this to myself

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

Hope this clears things up a little for those who don’t understand how anxiety feels

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

That awkward moment when someone tells you they like your lenses and it takes you an embarrassingly long time to realize they think you’re wearing colored contacts...

#college #oops #colored contacts #eyes #thank you i guess #they're just like that

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

i am a college student

it is a universally accepted truth that we cannot do things without caffeine

and yet...

i also have anxiety...which sometimes makes it hard to function rationally

and...wouldn’t you know it...caffeine triggers my anxiety

which is cruel and unusual

how can coffee, my lord and savior, betray me this way?

i feel so cheated

#college #caffeine has betrayed me #fuck you too anxiety #my life is ruined by biology yet again #this is why we can't have nice things #i am a science major #i do not have time for this

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

If I hadn’t already sold my soul as down payment for my textbooks, I’d be haggling with Satan over the amount of dogs it would be worth. 

#college things #i sold my soul for this #why am i like this #i hate engineering #i just want a dog #have mercy

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

...that moment when your roommate walks into the room you’re in expecting you to be doing something productive and/or serious and finds you watching something animated...and then proceeds to look at you with this weird, confused head tilt before backing slowly out of the room...

#roommates #college #i'm a real adult #i just really love cartoons #fight me #cartoons are good #trust me i'm an engineer

[tactless-and-graceless-blog]

i’ve been having a lot of ace feels lately so i made a thing