Episode 1

Me: I don't get it. I thought I was doing a lot better than I was a few years ago. I'm like 10 times more on top of things than I used to be. How does everything feel terrible now?

The Tiny Me in OSHA-approved Hi-Vis Gear Who lives in my brain and pulls all the levers: Boss, it's the fascism. You're completely gunked up with cortisol due to the fact that your entire daily life is now underscored with a haunting awareness of the rapid erosion of your rights, dignity, and any and all social safety nets, and you're also bearing witness to the most vulnerable people immediately being persecuted. This creates a natural stress response that basically means you're going to continue having memory and organizational problems, as well as emotional imbalances.

Me: BUT I HAVE A BULLET JOURNAL AND I MEDITATE NOW.

Tiny OSHA Me: BOSS, THE FASCISM.

after all those pope and vatican posts i feel like you should know. he's just died. on easter weekend too the timing is foul 😭😭

And this is how I find out.

one of my buddies is occupying a fortified position on high ground. i'm going to kick his ass with ease

I wonder how many people out there buy Teslas because they think they’re a luxury car brand just like any other luxury brand, unaware of the daily slander their vehicles face from a great portion of the population

Can you imagine buying a car like “wow, an electric vehicle, so cool, and it’s got Features and Stuff, and I think the company is famous or something” while people who see your car boo it and it’s bloodline whenever it passes

(I know you’d probably really have to be living under a rock for that kind of thing, but I’ve met people like that, and it’s baffling, but possible)

((Maybe less baffling if you’re not in America, but I wouldn’t know))

im sorry but no matter what i will never use "ofc" to mean "of fucking course". its "ofcourse". obviously.

one of my fave DnD things is how, during character creation, people start talking in first person without realising. they start out like ‘well, she’s a paladin’ and within ten minutes their fists are clenched as they shout ‘MY SISTER DESERVED WHAT SHE GOT AND IF YOU DISAGREE I’LL KILL YOU TOO’

Pretzel Manatee blesses you with his pretzel tail 🥨

Cats and small kids are curious about what you're doing in much of the same way. Sometimes when you seem to be up to something, they want to see what it is. If you try to keep a cat from sniffing something to find out what it is, they'll keep insisting, louder and louder, "let me sniff, let me sniff, LET ME SNIFF, LET ME SNIFF!!" until you do.

And then they sniff at it for two seconds and go "oh, oooh. Now I get it. Don't care" and wander off. But the demand to know will remain for as long as the thing is kept from them.

This one time when I was in nursing school, I had a training period in a kindergarten. One day I was chatting with one of the workers, telling her about this one time when I was in Kentucky due to my boyfriend at the time living there, and I saw this huge locally native spider-

And then I got interrupted by this one specific kid - a four-year-old boy who had taken a liking to me, sharp as hell and never missed a single thing. Looking at me with a deeply baffled, wide-eyed frown that kids that age do when Shit Does Not Add Up, he asked me: Boyfriend? If you're a boy, why did you have a boyfriend?

Not sure what else to say, I just shrugged and said that it happens sometimes, sometimes men fall in love with men or women fall in love with women. And I could practically observe in real time as his confusion disappeared in a blink, as this previously completely unfathomable piece of information entered his brain, was swiftly processed, and instantly filed into "boring grownup shit that I don't care about". He only had one follow-up question:

"What happened to the spider?"

father!

THE PITT (2025-)

A social gathering of dudes who all have serious Main Character Syndrome, but all are wildly different genres. One of them is the "people don't like me because I'm too smart" Misunderstood Genius who isn't actually particularly smart, just mean. Another one thinks he's wisecracking and clever by just talking like a character in a Marvel movie. Third one thinks he's subtly pulling off a mysterious Film Noir vibe by wearing a fedora and spending most of his time internally narrating, and silently staring at people. The fourth one is a deeply dramatic purple prose self-fashioned Byronic Hero who is unaware that he would be a mildly annoying minor antagonist in a Jane Austen novel at best. The fifth one has gotten his entire personality from shounen anime.