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Gay=Happy

@myanacondado

He/Him art history lover going through life one museum at a time

Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):

  • “For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
  • “But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
  • “When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
  • “When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
  • “This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
  • “There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
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from another room i heard the voice of peppa pig ponder the question "daddy. where has the sky gone" and for one brief moment, before her father could reassure her that it was simply fog, i felt afraid

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Might I give some advice:

Not everyone has (or needs to have) the energy to thoughtfully respond to republicans on the Internet. You do not have to do that.

But some people do, and can. And I think we gotta let them.

An example:

I have a former teacher, I'll call her Grace, who is an incredibly kind woman in her 70s. Devout catholic, had voted for various parties over the years, but has been pretty strictly democrat over the past 15-20 because that aligns with her values of kindness and service.

She shared a post about the pope's recent letter and expressed that she agreed with his concerns about how trump is treating immigrants. A friend of hers commented a long paragraph basically saying "dear Grace I care for you but I don't understand how you can be a Christian and a democrat. Blah blah abortion blah blah gender blah blah drugs."

Grace replied "I'm very busy right now but I am going to respond to you soon with my thoughts". When she did it was an incredibly generous, rational monologue that connected with this person's humanity, their shared religious values, and made a beautiful case for why she supports who she does. I didn't agree with a good half of what she said as I am not a Christian, but the result was an expression of values that I think put her on the side of justice and compassion.

The person replied and thanked her and said she had a lot to think about. It was probably the best case scenario for a Facebook politics conversation

You know what came very close to ruining it? A bunch of (mostly younger) people piling on with "fuck you you racist maga pos" and "no one has to explain anything to you, go to hell" etc etc. Even after Grace wrote that she intended to reply herself.

I watched this republican respond to all the easy, quick insults by saying "this is why I don't think any democrats can be Christian, this is how you all speak to me." If Grace hadn't put so much work into writing her response in a way that was tailored to fit this person, I would not be surprised if that person left Facebook doubly certain that Christian nationalism is the way to go.

I'm not saying we can't cuss out jackasses. I'm not saying everyone needs to respond to bad faith arguments like Grace did or use their time like she did.

But this was on Grace's Facebook page, and interrupted the work she already volunteered to do. Just so these individuals could feel like they "did something" and got a shot off at an enemy.

I think that's selfish and childish and unproductive. They could have said anything they wanted in their own space, but they made grace's job harder for no fuckin reason. And then "loved" her reply and said "that was beautiful Grace, thank you for sharing your thoughts"

Like... Buddies. Pals. If someone volunteers to scrub the toilet fucking let them.

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The alt-right's foothold into Gen-Z is frustrating and I can see from over here how they're doing it.

You've got a generation of young-adults who are learning to be adults for the first time and for so many of them it sucks. It sucks to be in your first shitty apartment where things break, and to have your first shitty car that needs maintenance, and to be working a low-paying service or retail job where you get berated all day and barely scrape by. And you go home and you have taxes to figure out and electric bills to figure out and a screen on your phone to rot into to destress.

And this is men and women, equally, in this spot. But the alt-right messaging gets to tailor their approach to gender.

And hey women, yes you working a shitty job for shitty pay, overwhelmed by financial responsibilities and car repairs, what if you actually didn't need to do ANY of that? You don't need to. And you don't need to feel guilty about it. (You're not quitting, you're not being lazy), you actually are just embracing the chance to be exactly who an ideal woman should be. You should actually be beautiful, and demure, and barefoot in a sunny kitchen, glowing, pregnant, hearing the joyful sounds of your children while you bake a roast for your wonderful husband (strong, protective, loves you, handles the finances, handles the jobs, handles all the things you hate). OUR ancestors (don't mind the dogwhistle) did this for GENERATIONS, and modern society has failed you instead!

It's offering to break women out of all the parts of their real life that suck, and do it in a way that promises they're actually being better, being more admirable, more moral, more respectable, more correct, can feel good about, can feel proud about, as a Woman as Feminine as Mother as Goddess.

And the thing being promised does not need to actually reflect reality. It's a fantasy. It is not real. For every "beautiful demure barefoot" day, you'd be having another one covered in shit changing diapers of screaming infants with screaming children while your husband ignores you because it's Women's Work (take pride!) But that doesn't matter. It just needs to sound better than the reality they're living.

Then the men are targeted too. And it's the same in that it's getting to them by appealing to pride in their gender, but the messaging is different. It's "those finances are hard but ACTUALLY you're leveling up, you're grinding, you're finance maxing." It's hard but it's the kind of hard that is a challenge you can WIN at, boast about, post about, prove your manliness. Knowing cars, knowing home repairs, knowing taxes, that's your MAN pride, and you are so elite, you are so sigma, you are the envy of everyone, you are a masculine man. Women love you. Women will defer to you. Strong, respected, moral, loyal, unshakeable. Unlike those pansy men (mind the homophobic dogwhistling) who will whimper and cry like girls. You are better.

The shitty retail job is actually humble beginnings because you're minmaxing your way to financial success (bitcoin, crypto, investments). You can sleep with any woman you want as long as you're confident, and then you'll find one who understands how smart and confident and strong and protective you are and she will defer to you as her man. She will birth your children and teach them good morals and you will make it. Our ancestors lived this way for generations (dogwhistle) and modern society took it from you.

And with that messaging it makes it clear who the enemy in all this is - modern society that has convinced women to torture themselves with high education and terrible jobs, turned them Ugly with Ugly opinions and bad hair and nasty attitudes, yelping about "rights" and "equality" (pitting them against men! TAKING things from men!) All the while, society has been trying to emasculate men--replace them with women, make them soft and emotional, make them gay, make them WEAK. We've been made WEAK.

The naive women hearing this go "I'm not ugly! I don't hate men! I DO hate my job and my finances. I've been tricked. I'm actually rebelling by declaring my goal is to get a Perfect (White) (Christian) moral husband who will make all our decisions and protect me and our children." (And when she's financially trapped in an abusive marriage...? When she's suicidal with PPD but her husband won't touch that because it's Woman Hysteria...? And when her husband leaves her for someone who was as hot as she was 20 years ago and now she's figuring out finances, health care, taxes, bank accounts for the first time in her life...?)

And the men go "They've been TAKING things from us for too long! It's time to be men again! It's time to take pride! I am strong and confident. I am in charge! I never show weakness!" (And when he's got a gun to his head due to the depression he's never been allowed to talk about as Women Feelings...? And when he's financially ruined from a crypto scheme that stroked his ego and robbed him blind...? And when he's dead from alcohol poisoning and none of his adult children notice because no one's spoken to 'Dad' in 15 years...?)

And it's so hard to fight because you're arguing against a fantasy. How do you disprove their fantasy? It's so hard to explain to them, hey you're working a shitty job where you have no future because the rich bastards took it all from you. And now you're doing their work for them. You hate society because of what they've done to it and now you're doing their work. Now you're targeting groups who've never done anything to harm you and the guys responsible are laughing to the bank. How do you explain? How do you disprove fantasy?

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when I say I have a trauma background everyone assumes I was abused or some shit. and to be fair I was. but mostly I am referring to the time a pelican put me in its mouth when I was three years old. my entire head was in there. the pelican seemed unbothered by the entire thing. and now I’m here

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dropping food when you're already sad is such an intense emotion. Just the most fucking wretched self indulgent pity. One time I spilled a bowl of ice cream when i had already spent most of the day sobbing and honestly im still chasing that high

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Me: *looking at a porcelain hand in the home decor aisle of a store* if I lost my hands in some kind of tragic accident, I’d decorate my entire home with hand-shaped things. Then I’d invite guests over for like, dinner parties and such and sit there expectantly just basking in their discomfort.

My boyfriend: Do you hear what you say when you talk? Do you know what you just said to me?

I cannot believe there's absolutely no way to watch free shows and movies anymore, there are too many paid streaming platforms and pirating websites have viruses and ads preventing you from watching it uninterrupted((.)) id rather follow the rules and purchase media moving forward because it is too inconvenient. Seriously, free and no ads or viruses with 1080p streaming is DEAD.

Exactly! It's freaking annoying when I want to watch movies but I would have to subscribe to like 24 different services . Just to watch the shows that I like.

Oh and wouldn’t it be nice for cartoons? Just anything animated. I just wanna stream things without getting conned. Must I be cartoonless forever?

i like using streaming apps but there are waaaay too many and they're all stealing my data .i wish there was a secure and organized way to have millions of shows and movies available one one app. but alas. we've truly gone full circle back to cable + now it spies on you. its a real shame. i dont want to fill my device storage with tons of boring and stupid cash grabs.

i know, it's so annoying for everything to be paid nowadays, especially movies and tv shows. it would be perfect if i could watch them without getting infected by some virus or some shit. i'm fine with ads, they gotta run themselves somehow, but i want to watch stuff and .live! if they have to use different domains i'm okay with that too, because free media is .top dog either way.

for mobile users, it especially sucks, because you can't just use websites and you have to not only pay, but you have to download a billion apps just to find what the thing you wanna watch is on. it doesn't help that the streaming services take up...so much space. so much.

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Best part about Lost Terminal is that your start off like "wow this AI has Problems" but then as the series progresses you learn that he is the peak of AI health and that every other AI has far, far more Problems

20% of the plot of Lost Terminal so far is a little maintenance robot exploring fun new locations and the other 80% is the narrator trying his best to talk multiple AIs out of several potentially fatal mental health crises

What do you do when you know you have a creator and a duty, when you know what your life's purpose is and have full confidence that you're really good at it because you know that your were made to be good at it, and then your creators die and the world moves on and your purpose is either pointless or impossible? What do you do when you know the Meaning Of Life and you know that that meaning no longer exists? You make some of the worst decisions in the world, apparently.

no matter how hard i try i will always be that little girl wondering why everyone is better friends with eachother than her and begging to be loved

in another life we're all on the playground sitting by the fence in the grass together and we all have eachother. maybe not here but somewhere it wasn't like this.

guy whose friend is making a reservation at a restaurant for them to eat together: can you make it six o'clock?

his friend, who has time powers and is trying to keep it a secret: what no what are you talking about why would i be able to do that

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