#It's not at all that I can't afford it

[inkskinned]

i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".

it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.

do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.

but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.

do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).

you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.

walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.

no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.

do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."

you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.

there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.

i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.

he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."

[justactgaussian]

I have these pens I really, really like.

For some (to me) unfathomable reason, they have made a limited edition Naruto themed set:

I am considering using them to take notes in meetings at my very serious and professional office job. But I already own functionally identical pens, so I find it hard to justify buying these just to confuse my colleagues. Especially since I've never actually watched Naruto (and have no desire to do so).

My friends would like help convincing me to do it anyway, so:

Since I can't help myself, my propaganda for the pens in general is under the cut.

+ They're erasable, in my experience more so than pencils. Just wait for the ink to dry a little first (~5 seconds is usually fine)

They're called Frixion Clicker, made by Pilot

+ No need for a separate eraser, they have a non-eroding rubber tip for that. It's precise enough to erase single letters in the middle of a word. Do make sure to keep it clean from graphite and other inks, so that doesn't smudge the paper

+ You can buy refills for them

+ The ink dries fast. I never get smudges on my hands

+ They come in 13 different colours and three line thicknesses

+ If you don't like clicky ball point pens, there's also capped pens, fine liners, markers and highlighters with the same type of erasable ink. I use the last two for drawing battle maps during DnD sessions

+ If you like clicky pens, they're great! Satisfying, nice and sharp sound, if a little loud. 8/10

+ I once managed to convince 5 people to buy them with just a single very short demonstration. They all still use them

+ I like the grip. They were the main writing utensil me and my study group used in university, and none of us had problems using them for hours at a time. There's also a fancy metal version for the same type refills if you prefer that

- They are advertised as being erased by friction, which is sort of true. The friction is just a way to generate heat, which turns the ink colourless. Don't put a hot plate on the paper

- Supposedly, the ink can also regain its colour if exposed to something cold enough (under -12°C). I have never tried this

+ You can use the heat thing to your advantage. The hot plate method is good for erasing a lot at once (I used it to clean my textbooks before reselling them)

- Erasing in the same spot several times can discolour the paper some. I still find it cleaner than using a pencil in the same manner

- Erasable pens should not be used for signatures, hand written exams or other official documents

[mellosdrawings]

So... heat waves are fun (not)

(Bonus : Mama Jamil)

[winged-fool]

Oof imagine hyping up this big announcement all week only for everyone to react by saying it's the worst idea ever. A swing and a miss, my guys.

[latenightsundayblues]

This idea came to me in a dream and it impacted me so violently i had to sit down for a while

Diana being ADAM'S daughter instead of Lawrence's. Financially struggling single father Adam. Trying-his-best father Adam. Can anybody hear me

[heritageposts]

The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, by Ilan Pappé (2006, p. 72)

The rhetoric from Israel and their defenders really hasn't changed one bit, has it? Months and months of terrorizing Palestinian villages, and the moment they retaliate, it must be because the Arabs are violent Nazis set to exterminate the oh-so-peaceful Zionist settlers for no other reason than them being Jewish

And what were the Zionists settlers - with Ben-Gurion's explicit approval - doing at the time?

Pappé (2006, p. 58)

Similarly, in the villages:

Pappé (2006, p. 57)

Still the same playbook, 75+ years later...

Also, it's important to understand that these violent attacks against Palestinian cities and villages - and there were many more in the winter of 47/48 than the examples included here - were part of a larger, deliberate operation meant to 'drive out' (i.e. ethnically cleanse) the Native population of Palestine. It didn't matter if the Palestinians were just quietly living their life in the countryside; if they were not Jewish, they would had to go. And if the Zionists could not find a pretext for retaliation, they would make one.

In the aftermath of the UN partition, this operation of ethnic cleansing - without 'pretext' - was not only openly discussed, but approved of, by Ben-Gurion and the rest of the Zionist leadership:

Pappé (2006, p. 64)

What we're seeing today in Gaza - with the collective punishment of 2 million Palestinians - is the continuation of this very same Zionist program of ethnic cleansing that Israel was founded on.

[hyacinthsdiamonds]

I'm sorry but the irony of Nico calling Max unprofessional is sending me so bad like sir there's an entire garage full of people, who were literally in the trenches trying to survive the Brocedes fallout while just doing their jobs, who might have a few things to say about your (& Lewis') level of professionalism at that time 😭✋️

[marzipanandminutiae]

"this old mansion is $20 million, but it's really hard to find a buyer because four spaces inside have preservation restrictions and the rest needs extensive work to convert it back from a dormitory to a house again!"

I know, off the top of my head, at least ten museum workers who make under $35K/year who would absolutely cherish this building and pour their hearts and souls into preserving and restoring it. and they'd make sure it was done RIGHT, too. you want public access for scholars and researchers? guaranteed. they'd fall all over themselves to make it a study center or something

but. they can't do that. because it's $20 million. so it sits there waiting for that rare billionaire who actually cares about something bigger than themself, empty and unrestored

do you ever just want to Bite Things?

[fascinationstreetmp3]

I have what you're looking for. High quality. Befitting a man of my tastes. I have a room over on Divisadero, not too far a walk.

[cortex-rampage]

I find the way that BBC Merlin set up Merlin's powers in the first episode to be quite funny. I mean, we see this sort of lanky guy and it is established that he is Merlin and (according to our own common knowledge) therefore he is the most powerful warlock ever. Okay, cool. One might assume that he has come to Gaius to develop his powers, that maybe he's only in the beginning of his magical journey. But instead the exposition shows Merlin, in the pilot episode of this 5 series show, stop time and employ levitation to save someone's life with magic, and then it is announced that prince Arthur is essentially his soulmate, and their joint power will create the most glorious age Camelot has ever seen. Quite an exciting set-up. And then for the rest of the entire show this man who we know possesses TIME-ALTERING POWERS mostly uses them on-screen to do common chores and annoy and prank THAT SAME Arthur. Like that one post said, "All of it's destiny and all of it's his fault." :p

[tridentkickflipper123]

pointless

[nothingbizzare]

Finishedmy sketchbook today with this silly hualian art as the cover of it :D

Here is my last sketchbook cover :D

Looking at how I think I became more confident with my lines and using pencils and watercolors !!

[dennisboobs]

standing in front of a firing squad would have been easier than reading this script i need to be shot

[sergle]

yall are about to piss me off by not having any PASSING basic knowledge of the way the u.s. military manipulates its recruits into joining by typing up one of your uninformed, unresearched, unempathetic, individualistic, unbelievably annoying posts about how 100% of the people in the military ended up there because they just Love America So Damn Much! they're extremely mature and informed at time of recruitment, they can totally leave anytime they want, they totally had tons of other avenues in life they could've taken, there was no rush at all to get income as fast as possible, and everyone in the military also totally is part of the combat divisions and personally enjoys being IN the military very much, big believers of violence. everyone in the military is shooting guns all day, that's how that works. they LOVE BLOODSHED. also I love the "amewicans haha" twang to this type of shit because you're actually TOTALLY stealing our Thing, which is turning systemic issues into Individual Issues. Instead of talking about the powers that be, it's so Personal Choice up in here. It's, "well you shouldn't have done it then. I totally wouldn't because I know better." you don't wanna talk about the military industrial complex as a whole, and you don't want to talk about recruiters, you just want to pin the blame on Specific Individual People one-by-one, as if they're responsible for the system that they're being ground up in. someone was in the military? bad person, no matter what. it's easier to believe that, I guess, than to acknowledge that Normal People (with high school educations) are manipulated and incentivized into joining a system that is Bad. at like age 18. but yeah no that 18 year old should have just been smarter lol haha anyway here are some screenshots for no particular reason

side note this reply of someone going "umm just get loans and go into a high paying field it's easy XD" as a direct response to someone trying to explain how most americans joining the military are being funneled in that direction out of a need for money.

and another person who Decided that americans join the military just CLENCHING their teeth thinking of other people, and not thinking completely selfishly about their own selves and their own income/housing/healthcare.

[christinafaaaye]

it really amazes me how many people still expect every piece of content to be free 🙄

[webshood]

the reason Jason has a lot of fans is because you don't really have to "read" his comics to know what's his deal, his animated movies + videogame appearances usually come with a very summarized and cohesive version of him, ppl see big man, kills nazis, Batman's son and immediately like him

you don't even have to buy this content, like I can pirate the ditf and utrh movies on my language in less than ten minutes and watch someone else playing a dubbed playthrough of AK on YouTube, other characters are sadly restricted to comics or lesser popular movies/games

also, a bunch of these comics don't get translated and are only sold in the USA, importing a 70$brl comic with 20$brl for taxes + shipping is not something the average person would be down to do