Pennytextrix

@AO3_Status This is a gentle reminder to everyone who is panicking because they don't have a bedtime story to read - when AO3 is back up, you can save a local copy of your favorite fic(s) for when this happens Also thank you to the AO3 team for everything you do, we love and appreciate you

@CapFishmael @PUPPYC00 Oh they’re definitely real places. I work in one 😂

@PUPPYC00 Arts colleges and classes are not real places and should be disregarded for skewing the stats.

Bro I dare you to step into an arts college, you are gonna be very surprised

@CapFishmael @PUPPYC00 There are plenty of places in London where queer is normal and straight people kind of wander in ‘cause they’re lost 😂

Something I like to do with older men is when they interrupt me I just keep talking. Most young people notice they interrupted and immediately stop but old men will also keep talking, and you will play chicken for like 30 whole seconds, talking loudly at the same time.

@4thOfJuly365 Kids are still learning cursive in the UK and France, probably in much of Europe. Is it not being taught anymore in the US? Xx

I doubt most Gen Z-ers can.

@CrazyVibes_1 She’s told me how unusual this is & that she gets treated like a lower class servant, & talked down to in a lot of houses. She isn’t allowed to go to the bathroom or have a drink of water in some houses. Some people are just on a nasty power trip.

@CrazyVibes_1 Nope you aren’t wrong, and that’s a bit of a red flag from your boyfriend. She’s a person and a skilled professional who deserves respect and kindness. I always offer tea, coffee and snacks to my cleaner & we have a quick chat.

I have a cleaning lady who comes to my house every other week. She's super hardworking, really nice, and I completely trust her. She comes while I'm at work and I get to come home to a clean house! the best feeling. One time she told me she drank a can of Pepsi from my fridge and even asked if she should pay me back. I told her she has my permission to take a break and eat/ drink whatever she needs while she's there. Since then she'll occasionally have a pop, a glass of juice, once she said she had a piece of toast. She's never helped herself to any meals, snacks, or anything beyond that. My bf was over the other night and said he saw my cleaning lady "stealing from the fridge." I told him she wasn't stealing lol she has my permission, and she's definitely not sitting around being lazy. She was taking a break! My bf said it's weird, unprofessional, and that it could lead to boundary crossing. I told him I've known this woman for two years and nothing like that has ever happened. My bf thinks I should fire her before it gets WORSE. I don't understand HIS logic. Am I wrong for thinking: like why change something that's been working perfectly fine? Am I being weird?

@kurtstieI I learned that not everyone graduated from ao3

@dhairellen My Nan used to say ‘ what other people think of you is none of your business.’

How do y'all SLEEP at night knowing people don't like you??

I'M GONNA IMPLODE

@LiviaBellona @travisakers Everyone saying this is ChatGPT because it’s clear, concise and uses em dashes, but to me it just reads like someone who can write properly and has an academic background.

@travisakers I'm sorry, but that reads 100% like it was written by ChatGPT. I absolutely recognize the writing style. I hope this is trust someone using it to put their thoughts into writing and not someone trying to pull one over.

A message from a Kindergarten teacher: After forty years in the classroom, my career ended with one small sentence from a six-year-old: “My dad says people like you don’t matter anymore.” No sneer. No malice. Just quiet honesty — the kind that cuts deeper because it’s innocent. He blinked, then added, “You don’t even have a TikTok.” My name is Mrs. Clara Holt, and for four decades, I taught kindergarten in a small Denver suburb. Today, I stacked the last box on my desk and locked the door behind me. When I started teaching in the early 1980s, it felt like a promise — a shared belief that what we did mattered. We weren’t rich, but we were valued. Parents brought warm cookies to parent nights. Kids gave you handmade cards with hearts that didn’t quite line up. Watching a child sound out their first sentence felt like magic. But that world slowly slipped away. The job I once knew has been replaced by exhaustion, red tape, and a kind of loneliness I can’t quite describe. My evenings used to be filled with construction paper, glitter, and glue sticks. Now they’re spent filling out digital reports to protect myself from angry emails or lawsuits. I’ve been yelled at by parents in front of twenty-five children — one filming me with his phone while I tried to calm another child mid-meltdown. And the kids… they’ve changed too. Not by choice. They arrive tired, anxious, overstimulated. Their tiny fingers know how to swipe a screen before they can hold a crayon. Some can’t make eye contact or wait in line. We’re expected to fix all of it — to patch the gaps, heal the trauma, teach the curriculum, and document every move — in six hours a day, with resources that barely fill a drawer. The little reading corner I once built, full of soft beanbags and paper stars, was replaced by data charts and “learning metrics.” A young principal once told me, “Clara, maybe you’re too nurturing. The district wants measurable results.” As if kindness were a weakness. Still, I stayed. Because of the small, holy moments that no spreadsheet could measure — a whisper of, “You remind me of my grandma.” a shaky note that read, “I feel safe here.” a quiet boy finally meeting my eyes and saying, “I read the whole page.” Those tiny sparks were my reason to keep showing up. But this last year broke something in me. The aggression grew sharper. The laughter in the staff room turned to silence. The light went out of so many eyes. I watched brilliant teachers — my friends — vanish under the weight of burnout, their joy replaced by survival. I felt myself fading too, like chalk on a board that’s been wiped one too many times. So today, I began my goodbye. I pulled faded art off the walls and tucked thirty years of handmade cards into a single box. In the back of a drawer, I found a letter from a student from 1998: “Thank you for loving me when I was hard to love.” I sat on the floor and cried. No party. No applause. Just a handshake from a young principal who called me “Ma’am” while checking his notifications. I left my rocking chair behind, and my sticker box too. What I carried with me were the memories — the faces of hundreds of children who once trusted me enough to reach out their hands and learn. That can’t be uploaded. It can’t be measured. It can’t be replaced. I miss when teachers were partners, not targets. When parents and educators worked side by side, not in opposition. When schools cared more about wonder than numbers. So if you know a teacher — any teacher — thank them. Not with a mug or a gift card, but with your words. With your respect. With your understanding that behind every test score is a heart that cared enough to try. Because in a world that often overlooks them, teachers are the ones who never forget our children.

@AmphibDeckape @LiviaBellona @travisakers It’s also a mark of academic writing in the humanities. She may just be well educated and able to develop a narrative argument. I use em dashes all the time. Where do you think ChatGPT scavenged them from?

@LiviaBellona @travisakers And you are correct. Notice the use of the “em dash”. That’s a hallmark of the AI output, particularly ChatGPT. Someone created a prompt, perhaps with good intentions, perhaps not. But it is an AI output. So who knows how much of it is actually real vs generated.

@NoNonsenseND I still don’t really understand what I did that was so terrible or why effectively saying to someone: ‘I know, it’s horrible. I get you. I’ve experienced this too and here’s what might help’ is so fundamentally wrong.

@NoNonsenseND I have gotten in so much trouble, been yelled at so many times & even lost relationships for doing this that having any kind of personal conversation now feels really unsafe and makes me very anxious. Even so, and while I intellectually understand the social convention,

@AutisticCallum_ And good luck if you ever get a long term illness and become disabled. Friends, spouses - even family - don’t hang around. I can’t imagine doing that to anyone. Let alone the people I love. It’s incomprehensible to me.

@AutisticCallum_ It’s so gutting and I don’t learn. I will never get how you can feel so close to people, feel deep connection, confide in them, spend a lot of time together, share interests and experiences and then they just leave, stop contact. I never know what I did or didn’t do right.

The autistic experience of thinking that you’re friends with someone because they are so warm, friendly and inquisitive when you speak, only to later realise that they only contact you when they want something and their interest in interacting with you always dissipates after you’ve helped them - until the next time they want something from you.

shoes so iconic you don’t even need to see their faces

We'll always have Michael and David ❤️🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

There is a decorum to being sick that no one talks about. You are allowed to be ill but only if you are quiet about it. Gracious. Inspiring. Not too angry. Not too messy. Never inconvenient. You can be in pain but do not talk about it too much. Do not show how it’s destroying your life. Do not name the loneliness. Do not say you want to die. Smile through it. Say thank you even when no one really helps. Apologize for being a burden. Perform your suffering in a way that makes other people feel comfortable. Because the second you cry too loud need too much or admit you cannot take it anymore you have broken the decorum. And they pull away. It is not just the illness that hurts. It is the pressure to survive it politely.

@africajpg The state of some of these replies. I hope Gillette are super happy with themselves for inventing this fear of body hair by telling everyone it’s gross and unhygienic. Hell of a way to sell razor blades.