Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves three more, and two of those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of the two is young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

Yeah, I think I kinda get it

Just a reminder for everyone in a few months who are going to thank Trump for doing “random acts of kindness” or whatever the fuck:

Donald Trump started this nonsense.

He was the one who initially wanted TikTok to be banned. He’s the one who said that it was spyware from a foreign adversary. He wanted it gone first. This is not a new argument, this is from 2020. It has been in his plans for the entire Biden administration.

Because what Trump wants is to set up a situation where he looks like the hero. Where he swoops in and solves a problem that looks sudden and garners some good favor, despite him causing the problem in the first place years ago. He knows that the modern attention span is practically zero, focused on the shiny object, so he will do something flashy to distract everyone from the massive overhauls to basic human rights he’s doing in the background. He wants to kill us while we’re not looking, so he has set up a little magic trick to keep our eyes off the real world.

Take your eyes off TikTok. If or when it comes back, do not thank Trump. Do not get so lost in scrolling that you forget the world around you, and how it is about to go belly up. Do not forget about Project 2025, or his plans to raid schools with border control agents, or his planned cabinet. Do not let one pre-planned “good” deed distract you from the fact that this administration is about to do real harm to and outright kill a lot of people. Keep your eyes on him and his administration with extreme scrutiny, because he wants you to look away.

The scariest part about Trump is that he’s smart. We call him stupid, but he’s not. He is incredibly clever when it comes to entertainment, and will play any role if it gets him where he wants to be, and he plays them incredibly well. If we do not scrutinize his every move as some sort of act, we give him more space to do things than he ever deserves to have, and that space will be used to do incredibly cruel things, and the blame will not only be on him, but us for giving him the opportunity.

So yeah. Don’t go thanking Trump for any of this shit. He’s playing a long game and he’s playing a role that he knows you will like. Do not forget.

The propaganda machine is working fine

I need ya’ll to realize running back to TikTok like nothing fucking happened is exactly what this motherfucker wants. He wants you to run back and to be grateful. He wants you to forget that the Supreme Court has just passed something that indicates they can pursue intense censorship and remove our access to free speech and non-propagandized/monitored spaces whenever they want. He wants you to be so focused on all this that you completely forget that he’s about to pass at least a hundred horrific policies stripping us of our rights as soon as this week. He wants you to stop talking about Palestine who is still in danger and is in desperate need of aid despite the ceasefire. He wants you to turn your attention away from all the people in LA suffering thanks to the fires.

I don’t want to say it’s just an app, because it’s not. I was incredibly sad about losing TikTok yesterday. Many of us had a community that meant a great deal to us torn away suddenly and I am not saying we shouldn’t be upset about that. But I am saying that as much as the Supreme Court has more important things they should be focusing on over banning TikTok we have more important things to do then run back to an app that was obviously used for a publicity stunt by Trump and will inevitably be influenced by him and his fascism.

We’ve been discussing boycotting Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, and other Meta platforms due to their connections to Trump and his posse of billionaires. TikTok must be treated the same way so long as the CEO and company is in Trump’s pocket.

Important, discord compromised. Careful.

apparently what actually happened is that someone got their hands on an email address and layout that LOOKS official. no actual hacking of their systems happened. i feel like it would be more widespread and catastrophic if it had. as of right now just make sure you absolutely triple check to make sure any emails from discord are real! if you get a message saying your account got TOS'd, try and log back in first. if something is wrong, contact discord support yourself.

i repeat: discord's email servers are fine! this is a phishing scam and nothing more

Outlines of two alligators that slept through the rain.

Queued right up for it

to be fair to Cain if nobody had ever died before and I didn't know it was possible I would probably also hit my brother over the head with a rock if he was being really annoying

Can we maybe stop making shows for people who don't watch shows and writing books for people who don't read books and making video games for people who don't play video games and making sports for people who don't like sports and making music for

“Raw milk is better for you as long as you boil it” so true bestie now imagine if we could like. Super boil it. To really get all the bacteria out. And if we could do that quickly and efficiently. Imagine that.

FYI iPhone users!

Oh... oh that's disgusting.

For emphasis - YOU HAVE TO TURN THIS OFF FOR EACH INDIVIDUAL APP

I am glad this is getting noticed, and also as someone who has been anti-siri for years … this has always been the case. You will have to do this every time you have an iOS update. Sometimes it toggles and sometimes it doesn’t. Even for “small” updates. You need to look every time.

I was curious, so I checked...

Artists, please note this is also happening to your iPad. TURN THAT SHIT OFF.

Y'all.

This has been on iOS since iOS 9 in 2015.

All it's for is to power the suggestions in Spotlight (i.e. how often and when you use the app) and some other local suggestions. See Apple's userguide for more complete details.

Most of the data isn't even sent off device, and what is is end-to-end encrypted between your devices without Apple having any access it.

See this from the privacy policy:

This article also explains it further:

say what you will about xue yang but creating a toxic found family is an insanely original idea

It can actually only be called "misleading" if it was the author's deliberate intention to mislead the audience. If the author had no intention to lead you to the wrong conclusion, and you simply arrived at one all by yourself, it's just sparkling Your Lack Of Reading Comprehension.

Hey, maybe you don’t use tiktok anymore. Maybe its gone to shit. Maybe you think banning it isn’t a big deal.

Don’t let tiktok get banned. Because its not about tiktok or kids online or any of that. Its about how many rights can be taken away from us, how far these officials and congressman can go, how much power they can accrue without us fighting back.

Do you know why KOSA is back for a fucking third time in a much tamer form? Because they are trying their hardest to pass it. It doesn’t keep anyone safe, and even if the newest version had anything good in it, It still shouldn’t be pushed through because of its horrible history.

We all know that if we give them an inch, they’ll take a mile. I know its exhausting, but they WANT to exhaust us. So don’t let them. Fight.

As the Supreme Court is now hearing arguments on the TikTok ban, I feel like this is an excellent time to remind everyone that getting rid of TikTok is NOT a good thing

And the reason I bring it up specifically on here is bc I have seen far too many people claim that the ban is for the better, that they're so glad it's gone, that people spend way too much time on it (side note, that's social media in general, it's not just TikTok babes. You're spending 15 hours on Tumblr alone, I'll bet). Even if you don't use TikTok and you absolutely hate its guts, trust me when I say you'll want it to stay

Firstly, there's been very little evidence that TikTok's Chinese owner, Bytedance, has been data mining Americans on order of China. Majority of the evidence has not been released to the public and the stuff that has has been censored. Of course the risk that it could exists-- but you cannot simply assume it's doing this all the time, 24/7, when no current evidence has been presented

TikTok has been taking massive steps to insure that American data is protected, primarily with Project Texas. All American data is stored in the United States and controlled by Americans. Again, American data is with AMERICANS

It is also one of the very few apps that is not dominated by American companies. Does no one find it odd that the only foreign-owned application is being singled out, when companies like Meta and Google have arguably done worse damage? Is no one pointing that out?

Due to this, it allows for less mainstream news to flourish on the app. Palestinians have been able to raise their voices and call to attention what is happening in the region, and activists have pushed the crises of Congo and Sudan to the forefront. No other major social media app and news organization has done this, in fact, Meta censored pro-Palestinian content and immediately toggled on a feature for all users that limited political content

And TikTok is just the start. If it gets banned, do you really think everything else is safe? You think you're safe here on Tumblr? On Ao3? On Instagram? NO

At some point they are going to start going after other apps. They'll celebrate and pat themselves on the back that they "protected democracy" but really they limited free speech. They limited alternative voices. It is not an "if" but "when" they begin going after apps that do not conform to their every single standard

If TikTok goes down, they all do

AU comic

I did a redraw of that cover lmao