Little-infj-cafe - Littleinfjcafe's Blog

there is a cat in my lap. i know the cat (lives in this house. is my dad’s cat) but i do not at all remember when the cat got in my lap. just fucking. appeared apparently. i looked down and cat was there.

I want really really badly to do the whole, corkboard covered in red string and pictures but i have Nothing To Do It For. this is a problem that i could solve by Making Shit Up but also the corkboard is in my room where people go and being percieved is scary as shit.

i love when posts in which i complain about writing have more notes than my actual writing

I had a really weird experience with my teacher the other day.

Now for context, he's not my teacher. I had him for calculus last year after I switched from AB to on-level and got a near 100 in the class. I signed up for a teacher assistant position with him, thinking I'd be helping teach calculus. Nope. I ended up being a TA for Algebra 1 instead.

He's a very... interesting person, to say the least, and I've heard really mixed things about him over the year. I don't know where he stands on any issue I care about very much. I haven't had the courage to ask him about AI. I don't think he particularly cares for politics that much—not that I particularly care what he thinks—and has given very mixed responses on things. He seems to like Elon Musk, as he said that we're "Very fortunate to be in a time with him in it" or something of the sort because of what he did with electric cars.

But one thing I am absolutely certain of is that he doesn't like psychology and said at one point in front of the class of freshmen that I want to pursue a career in "stupid science." Now, mind you, there are at least two other kids in that class who want to go into psychology for a career. Which is awesome. I love that people have a passion for studying the mind.

He said that therapists (in a different instance) are hurting people more than helping people, and if I want to be a therapist, then I should just open a workout therapy place and call it a day. Because, according to him, workout is just as affective against Depression as antidepressants it's for mild depression, mild depression you ignorant fuck not major depressive disorder-- -_-

Anyway, I noticed that the kids in my class are making some rather inappropriate jokes about schizophrenia and being gay (which isn't a mental disorder, but I heard some distasteful comments that I couldn't let go unnoticed) before the break, and I had a long time to think on it, so when I came back, I asked Mr. Algebra teacher if I could talk to the class about how what they were saying wasn't okay.

He said that I have two minutes at the end of class, which isn't nearly enough time for me to talk about everything, but whatever. What struck me as odd and probably a Red Flag was how he kept trying to refute it and say that I shouldn't talk about it too seriously because they're just being immature. I made the argument that, yes, it's immature but it's also perpetuating stigmas that we don't want going around that can seriously hurt people and that what they were saying wasn't okay regardless. He said that people back in middle school said worse things like the r-word (which was also said here, but I didn't mention it), and I said sure but this is still bad as well. He said that I WAS RIGHT TO DO THIS AND SHOULD DO THIS 99 percent of the time, and internally I was just like why are you arguing with me and trying to backtrack this accomplishes nothing. He told me that I shouldn't expect for the issue to be resolved completely. I said I didn't expect it to.

I go up there and deliver my very awesome speech that he interrupted to make me get to my point faster, I guess. After I finished, he pulled me to the side and asked me what went well and what didn't. Which just felt... weird? I said that I think it went really well overall and that I didn't think anything was wrong. He said that he wished I didn't group the conversation about the gay stuff with the conversation about the schizophrenia and ocd stuff. To me, it felt like a very clear connection but oh well. He reiterated that I shouldn't expect to see much change. I said okay.

It's been almost a month.

GUESS WHO HASN'T HEARD A SINGLE COMMENT ABOUT SCHIZOPHRENIA, GAY INSULTS, OR ANYTHING REGARDING CALLING ANOTHER CLASSMATE OCD?

ME.

Take that, Mr. Algebra teacher.

It's the little wins that help me make it through the day, but honestly, this one is just completely boosting my self-esteem and confidence about being in the psychology field in the future.

Me when I finally found someone to share all of my writer brainrot autism and stories and characters with

Writing Tips

Punctuating Dialogue

✧

➸ “This is a sentence.”

➸ “This is a sentence with a dialogue tag at the end,” she said.

➸ “This,” he said, “is a sentence split by a dialogue tag.”

➸ “This is a sentence,” she said. “This is a new sentence. New sentences are capitalized.”

➸ “This is a sentence followed by an action.” He stood. “They are separate sentences because he did not speak by standing.”

➸ She said, “Use a comma to introduce dialogue. The quote is capitalized when the dialogue tag is at the beginning.”

➸ “Use a comma when a dialogue tag follows a quote,” he said.

“Unless there is a question mark?” she asked.

“Or an exclamation point!” he answered. “The dialogue tag still remains uncapitalized because it’s not truly the end of the sentence.”

➸ “Periods and commas should be inside closing quotations.”

➸ “Hey!” she shouted, “Sometimes exclamation points are inside quotations.”

However, if it’s not dialogue exclamation points can also be “outside”!

➸ “Does this apply to question marks too?” he asked.

If it’s not dialogue, can question marks be “outside”? (Yes, they can.)

➸ “This applies to dashes too. Inside quotations dashes typically express—“

“Interruption” — but there are situations dashes may be outside.

➸ “You’ll notice that exclamation marks, question marks, and dashes do not have a comma after them. Ellipses don’t have a comma after them either…” she said.

➸ “My teacher said, ‘Use single quotation marks when quoting within dialogue.’”

➸ “Use paragraph breaks to indicate a new speaker,” he said.

“The readers will know it’s someone else speaking.”

➸ “If it’s the same speaker but different paragraph, keep the closing quotation off.

“This shows it’s the same character continuing to speak.”

Meta doesn't want you to know about Sarah Wynn-Williams book Careless People. So much so they got the courts involved so she can't promote herself. Would be a shame if a bunch of people not tied up in court promoted it for her…

Bookshop.org

Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism

sorry my fault

for some reason ive had to viciously fight the overwhelming urge to add “dawg” to my every day vocabulary for like, the entire past month. No one i know says it. where did it come from? why is it here?? how do i get it to stop??? no but seriously i think ive heard it like, twice my entire life how did it get into my brain and why wont it leave.

10 Writing Things That Have Saved My Creative Soul (and Sanity)

↳ If your character’s arc isn’t making you slightly emotional or existential, it’s probably not finished. If they start and end the story the same person, that’s not a character arc—it’s a flatline. Make them squirm, learn, lose, grow. Bonus points if they make you question your own moral compass in the process.

↳ Worldbuilding is not a license to drown your reader in lore like it’s Game of Thrones on steroids. If you have to write a wiki page to understand your own plot, fine...but that doesn’t mean your reader has to read it. Give us breadcrumbs, not a 12-course feast on page one.

↳ If the theme of your story can’t be summed up in one slightly aggressive sticky note, you’re probably overcomplicating it. (“This book is about choosing yourself even when no one else does”—boom, theme. Now go make your characters suffer for it.)

↳ You will hate your manuscript somewhere between 30k and 50k words. That’s your cue to keep going, not quit. It’s like the literary version of hitting mile 18 in a marathon. Everything hurts, but that means you're doing it right.

↳ That “genius idea” you had at 2 a.m.? Save it. Write it down. But don’t drop everything for it. New ideas are seductive chaos demons. Your current project deserves monogamy… at least until the second draft.

↳ A character’s greatest fear is a shortcut to their heart. Forget favorite color or coffee order...what keeps them up at night? What would destroy them if it came true?

↳ If you don’t know how to end your story, figure out what question it’s been asking the whole time. Once you know the question, the ending becomes the answer. Maybe not a happy answer, but a satisfying one.

↳ No one’s going to write your weird little story the way you will. That’s your superpower. So go ahead and write the morally gray necromancer love triangle in space. Your people are out there. And they’re hungry for it.

↳ You are allowed to be a slow writer. You are allowed to be a fast writer. You are not allowed to be a cruel writer—to yourself. The world will criticize your art for free. Don’t do their job for them inside your own head.

↳ Some stories just aren’t meant to be novels. And that’s okay. Maybe it's a short story. A play. A fever dream disguised as a poem. The shape doesn’t matter. The story does. Let it tell you what it wants to be.