blissfully unaware of any UI changes because the evil skull protects me

another win for the evil skull

how come you'll say tragedy is your favorite genre and then 100 thousand million people will be like "you should check out this adaptation of this famous tragedy but the twist is there's a happy ending this time." GET THAT AWAY FROM ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

nobody ever tells me to check out a Hamlet adaptation where things go ever worse for him

IF NOT FOR EAT WHY CAKE?

IF NOT FOR MOUTH WHY HONEYCOMB?

IF NOT FOOD WHY LOOK LIKE FORBIDDEN SNACK?

[hunched trembling in a dark corner with a knife] I can be normal about normal things and I can prove it

watching @nanowrimo within a single hour:

im juust in literal awe of this fucking mess.

AND THEY'VE DELETED THE POST. PACK IT IN EVERYONE GO HOME

in light of NaNoWriMo the nonprofit org announcing that they'll be shutting down less than a year after this horseshit may i just say

i'm still fucking frustrated, i'm still fuckign disappointed, i'm still just SO furious that some stupid repeated management dipshittery took a fun event that encouraged people to just WRITE and not get stuck in their own heads and fucking turbo spiked it into the mantle of the fucking earth. FUCK them for ruining this. FUCK them for killing something that helped me connect with other writers. FUCK them for ruining something that actually made me write. Clowns and fucking fools.

how can u sleep when there are literally various games and a plethora of toys

Actually that no punctuation plot hole ooc wattpad fanfic written by that 12 year old will ALWAYS be better than character ai. And I love that 12 year old btw

I wish age gap discourse hadn't spiraled the way it has because I want there to be a safe space to say "Men in their 40s who date 25 year olds aren't predators, they're just fucking losers"

... honey you just described a predator LOL

No, I said what I said. But thank you for providing an example of how this topic has become insufferable on the internet.

i am honestly burningly curious about how a 40 year old man who fucks around with college grads is not a predator

"College grad" is not a developmental stage, nor is it what I would describe a 25 year old as. I was 4 years out of college at 25. My mother had two children at 25. You can be a fucking congressman at 25.

There's a difference between a man who is immature and buys into misogynistic views of beauty and aging and one who is a predator. Also, many actual predators? Not losers and able to move through society pretty freely being seen as cool and the ideal, so conflating the two isn't helpful.

This is going to be my final response to any attempt at discourse. You're welcome to continue amongst yourselves.

also sometimes a 40 year old and a 25 year old just weirdly find each and it's a perfectly normal relationship - like all human relationships are complex and situational, it's so rarely an either/or thing let alone just one thing only

if a 40 year old dude only dates 25 year olds, DiCaprio style or something adjacent to it, then yeah he's a loser

if a 40 year old dude meets a 25 year old through social event or friends or whatever and they happen to hit it off and make a go of it, and this isn't some sort of reoccurring pattern for the guy, that's just a relationship with an age difference

being predatory means something specific, and man I agree w/ OP and really wish people just stopped ascribing it to any and all relationship dynamics they personally might not like

predator and groomer - two words that need to go up on the "can't use till you learn their meaning" shelf

people in the usa are so uninformed/misinformed/propagandized about socialist countries that even knowing like, basic facts about the electoral system of marxist leninist countries feels like being privy to some kind of forbidden knowledge.

most of my ride-or-die mutuals probably already know about al of this, but for any of the non-tankies who follow me who might not be aware:

in most marxist-leninist countries, the way the elections work is that the citizens elect representatives to the local council/assembly, who in turn elect from amongst themselves a delegate to go to the council/assembly at the next level up, all the way up to the national assembly, which in turn elects from itself a president/chairman. depending on the country and time period these selections by the assembly might also be put to a confirmation vote by the public, to either confirm or veto the assembly's selection, but this is largely a formality.

let's use cuba as an example, since it's a small country and consequently it's system of nested assemblies has a lot less layers and is much easier to keep track of. community meetings are held where between two and eight candidates are put forward for a single seat to the local municipal assembly. the municipal assemblies, in turn, elects from themselves a representative to go to the national assembly. prospective representatives to the national assembly are also put forward by various trade unions and other mass organizations which represent students, the elderly, non-working mothers, etc, these proposed candidates are also voted on by the municipal assembly. the national assembly then in turn elects from itself the 31 member council of state, which in turn elects the president. these representatives elected by the municipal and national council are then put to a confirmation vote by the whole citizenry, but again, this is largely a formality. there also used to be provincial assembly that was above the municipal assembly and below the national assembly, but this was removed in order to streamline the system and give a more direct path from the democratic input at the municipal election level to the national assembly.

now, i'm sure there are any number of critiques you could make, or ways this system might be improved- but anti-communists by and large aren't interested in critiquing the cuban electoral system (or any other marxist-leninist electoral system) as it actually exists. they completely ignore the multi-candidate municipal elections, ignore the electoral process by which the municipal assemblies select the delegates to the national assembly, and instead laser focus on the mere formality confirmation vote on the representatives the municipal assemblies elected, to paint a narrative that in communist countries you can only choose one candidate. you know the drill, "in communist countries, 'elections' have become a sham, a farce! you have no choice, but to vote 'YES' for your evil dictator overlord- under communism, so-called 'elections' are merely a method of control and humiliation, meant to enforce total submission to a system you have no say in!" here's just one example of that kind of rhetoric: [link]

the very existence of multi-candidate municipal elections utterly debunks this of course, people in communist countries choose between candidates in elections all the time. even if you completely reject the "bottom-up" method of leninist democracy, and you think that the elections by the municipal assembly of representative to the national assembly have no meaningful democratic content, (if this is you, just out of curiosity, what's your opinion on the electoral college? or the supreme court?) it's pretty hard to deny that the competitive races in the municipal/local level put at least some democratic input into the system.

now, i can already hear what some of the anti-communists who lurk my blog because they hate-follow me are thinking. "multi-candidate municipal elections? in cuba????? where the fuck are you getting this dogshit. let me guess, you read it on the website of some tankie political party, and like the gullible moron you are, you immediately believed it. pathetic. find any source, *any* source at all that isn't overtly communist that corroborates this claim."

this is a genuinely good point! i did originally learn about this from overtly communist sources, and if those were the only sources claiming this, it really would cast some pretty serious doubt on the veracity of these claims. so, can i find anti-communist sources that corroborate this?

yes.

from the congressional research service:

[link]

given that this is an anti-communist source, they are of course playing up the confirmation vote in the usual ways (ouagh! aough! only one candidate! no choice!) but given that this document is intended to be viewed by congress, and isn't really intended for the general public, it has to at least passingly address actual reality at least a little and can't spend it's whole time rolling in propaganda slop.

or check this out, from fox fucking news:

and this is in an article about overt anti-communists successfully getting nominated as candidates for the municipal assembly! (they lost their election though lol bye bozos) [link]

they're trying to spin it, of course- the part about the "government electoral commission" is misleading and inaccurate (as previously stated, the other half of candidates are put forward by mass organizations such as trade unions, which are then voted on by the municipal assembly. the electoral commission simply approves the selections made by the municipal assembly.) fox news, engaging in anti-communist disinfo? unheard of!

but even here enough of the truth is shining through the lies to put to bed the idea that there's no element of choice in the cuban electoral system.

and what's crazy is that all of this info is just out there for anyone who cares to look. but a lot of people are simply too incurious to bother, they were told that the Enemy Country is a totalitarian regime without any democracy and it just never occurs to them to check into it. the US ruling class barely even needs to try to hide the truth, because most people in the US are too lazy and apathetic to look for it.

did good on my bread final

no no no no. you did well, not good. you do well, you are good.

thanks for the grammar lesson but I don’t need it.  I’m majoring in bread

Shoutout to characters that are both genuinely deeply kind and also genuinely terrifying and willing to spill buckets worth of blood to get something done. And neither of these are an act, they're just both very true.

“Hozier is a lesbian” “Hozier is a man written by a woman” “Hozier is like if a man was raised by lesbian mothers” “Hozier is like if a man was a woman” quick give me one reason why a man can’t be soft and gentle and poetic and in love without sounding like a terf or a misogynist

“They’re written by a woman” “they’re written by a man” is just another way gen z has reinvented gender norms but make it cool and edgy and a little queer and hopefully no one will notice that they’ve reinvented gender norms and actually are misogynistic

If there is another transmasc having an existential crisis out there that needs to hear this. You didn't 'take the easy way out' by transitioning, because living as a trans man or a transmasc is not easier than living as a cis woman. There is only one thing you are really and truly escaping when you transition, and it’s the misery of going through the song and dance of pretending you're cis.

this is fetish content masquerading as silly content.

Idk about anyone else here but personally...yeah? Thats why I reblogged it? I was extremely aware when that the extremely attractive man crushing fruit with his bulging muscles and getting extremely messy and wet in his slutty tanktop and workout shorts was meant to be sexual. I reblogged it because it was horny.

For those of you that may have just finished watching Cory Booker’s record-breaking senate speech and are inspired to “get in good trouble”, you have a great opportunity for it this Saturday!

On April 5th, numerous advocacy groups are banding together into one nation-wide rally that will be held in major cities all over the country - you can easily find a participating location here!

www.handsoff2025.com

I’ll be volunteering as a safety captain at my own local rally, and I encourage all of you to go out there too and get in some good trouble as well!

for the record when I say a lot of major cities I mean a LOT of major cities :P

My state is banning "obscene depictions of minors in content (or someone that looks like one)"

It's safe to say that they don't care about protecting real kids. If they did, child marriage and child beauty pageants would be outlawed.

More than likely, they're using this to conveniently label LGBT content as obscene and then ban it, regardless of context. But of course, if I question this, I'll be called a pedophile.

remember: They say a word like "obscene" and you think "Oh, when they say obscene, that means obscene. As in, you know, really bad things. Well, I definitely am against really bad things. This sounds like maybe a good idea."

Except the thing is that the are not using words in good faith. When they say "obscene", they mean the things that are obscene to *THEM*, not the things that are obscene to you.

Some things that conservatives find obscene: Queers existing anywhere. Women having the right to vote and medical control of their own bodies. Anyone having sexual autonomy. Interracial marriage. Equal pay. Immigrants breathing near them (anywhere within a 2500 mile radius). A Black person making eye contact with them. People speaking a different language where they can hear it.

By the definition they are thinking of, an "obscene depiction of a minor" could be a photograph of an interracial couple on their wedding day, smiling together with their daughter, the flower girl. You think this is a joke? Nope. This is Fascism 101, baby.

Your "obscene" and their "obscene" are not the same thing.