#and obviously the singles are very very good

[lastoneout]

Sorry to add on(also sorry it's so long) but this is also why now is a good time to start wearing masks if you stopped.

We have been on the road to a potential Bird Flu(H5N1 or HPAI) pandemic for the last year and while we still haven't seen evidence of Human to Human spread...monitoring that and giving the public information in case thing change was the job of the CDC, NIH, and FDA, all of who have been silenced by Trump. There's a very real possibility that H5N1 could go H2H and without anyone noticing and/or without the ones who notice being allowed to speak about it. Currently samples from any US H5N1 cases HAVE to be sent to the CDC to confirm, most hospitals and state agencies don't have tests that can distinguish between different types of Influenza A, and the CDC just got gagged. One of the only agencies in the US that can confirm human cases and tell the public if H5N1 goes H2H was just forbidden to talk to anyone at all.

Every single disease expert and vet and doctor who has been talking about H5N1 is sounding the alarm on this because the US's reaction was already painfully inadequate, and now we don't even know if the US government is going to do anything about it at all. And like, we don't even know for sure how bad H5N1 could be as a pandemic! There are already off-shoots like the one in cows that seems to mostly be mild in humans, but that's just one variant. Worse ones have killed or nearly killed people, and all versions have devastated animal populations around the world, and it's already proven extremely difficult to contain even in countries that ARE doing everything they can to stop it.

We could be fine, or we could have a pandemic with a virus that can kill way more efficiently than COVID living in a country led by a president who oversaw COVID and who's inaction during that disaster is responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths who fills his government health positions with anti-vaxxers and raw milk snake oil salesmen and forbids the agencies that are supposed to handle this from talking about it at all.

We are in the dark. We don't know when the CDC, FDA, and NIH are going to be allowed to speak to us again(they said Feb 1st but I don't trust them not to extend it, and that's still too long for them to be silent, we were supposed to get several H5N1 alerts today and that obviously didn't happen) and tbh just seeing what happened with TikTok does make me worry they're also going to come back wrong.

So please, start masking again. Get your flu and covid shots(and others you might be due for). Buy extra masks if you can, and be willing to pass them out to friends and loved ones. Keep you cats inside, and do NOT feed them raw pet food or milk. You also should avoid raw milk, pasteurized is still safe. Avoid interacting with wild aninals, especially birds and especially ones that seem sick. Wear an N95, gloves, and goggles if you have to clean up a dead one. If you can stay home when you're sick please do and if you can't PLEASE MASK, studies have shown if you wear it properly even a baggy surgical mask is better than nothing. And like OP says, pay attention.

This gag order is genuinely really scary, worse than what I expected back in November, so please do what you can to minimize the damage that can be done to yourself, your loved ones, your community, and the world as a whole. We're on our own but we're still in this together. Don't give up, but be safe.

Trump has ordered the FDA, CDC and NIH to "pause communications with the public" until February 1st, with includes new regulations, announcements, press, we posts and more until they are "approved by a political appointee". Please keep your eyes on this. Trump is about to fuck up FDA shit again and we may potentially see a radical change in regulations on our health and food.

Some in my circle were talking about subscribing to European FDA communications and only taking medications and advice vetted in Europe until then or for the foreseeable future.

[bitchface24-7]

I love the name combos- We got Honey and Sugar PLUS Sugar and Spice! My FBI agent has to know about my growing hunky Latino men addiction. My tiktok is feeding me Jayce content with “Beso Al Aire” and it's making my latina heart do fucking backflips.

Do you think we could get a DILF!Jayce with a reader who takes care of his kid and homelife while he's working. They know he’s a busy man so they guarantee him that his kid tucked in sound asleep, the house is clean, and a warm plate of food is waiting for him.

I so desperately need to talk to someone to feed my growing Jayce obsession.

DADDY’S HOME - JAYCE X READER

synopsis: you're the babysitter to a incredibly cute little girl, Isabella. Her dad unfortunately has a very busy job and is constantly out of the house (against his will, of course) so you take care of her for him. You take care of him too. Who wouldn’t want to care for Jayce Talis?

warnings: age gap (early 40’s Jayce, mid-20s reader), oc daughter, teasing, flirting, risky sex (like hello there's a kid in the house), quiet sex

genre: m/f or m/m

p.s. Older dilf Jayce save me. Please older dilf Jayce 🙏🙏

Isabella Talis is the cutest little girl you've ever seen. She's damn near a carbon-copy of her dad. Big brown eyes, bouncy black hair, sun-kissed skin, and big 'ol dimples when she smiles.

You've been babysitting her for a while now, about a decade now. You got the job when you were fifteen, now you're twenty-five. You started babysitting Bella when she was three, now she's thirteen. Honestly, she makes you feel old.

Especially since so many people assume you're her parent.

Going grocery shopping with her, going out to eat, having girl's days together, going to school events and celebrations; you can see where people are coming from.

Especially since Bella listens to you without hesitation. She only calls you by your name or nickname, but that doesn't matter. You're her parent in all the ways that matter.

Isabella's mom wasn't ready. She didn't want to be a mom, you can't blame her. Jayce was in his late-twenties to early thirties when Bella was born, her mom was a few years younger than Jayce. So Jayce became her single-dad with Grandma Ximena helping care of her.

So, you’ve gotten quite used to caring for young Isabella Talis.

You’ve also gotten used to caring for her dad, Jayce Talis.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

Jayce Talis is a very well known man. A co-creator of Hextech, a councillor of Piltover, constantly working. Poor thing is exhausted.

So you ensure he’s taken care of.

You clean the house, you make hot meals for him, you even meal prep for him.

He can’t tell you how grateful he is for that.

But he shows it in his actions.

He ensures you’re also cared for, he pays you well for your work (even though you try to deny it every time. He insists), he gets you gifts that you’ll appreciate for life, he’s even physically affectionate.

Sometimes you think it’s wrong, but you don’t care.

A kiss to your cheek, your neck, his beard tickling your skin, his hands on your waist, your hips, long loving hugs. Hands playing with your hair, hands massaging your neck.

God, you feel like you’re in the foreplay section of a porn video.

“Babysitter gets ruined by Older Hot Boss. 35:12”

You’ve always found Jayce attractive, you obviously didn’t act on it since you were underage. It was wrong, taboo. Now, you’re an adult.

Having your fantasies isn’t wrong, it isn’t against the law.

But you’re quite certain Jayce feels the same way. You remember the last time you were cooking for Jayce after he came home, Isabella already sleeping in her room.

You remember Jayce pining you essentially to the stove top as you stirred the boiling pasta. Kissing the nape of your neck as he slowly ground his hips into your ass. You felt how needy he was, and you let him continue.

Poor thing is pent up, and you did promise yourself you’d do anything to help him out.

It also helped it made you feel good too.

You two didn’t talk about it when eating dinner together, but your heated gazes said more than any words could.

Turns out the fantasies you’ve had since you were a student at the academy may actually come true.

· · ─────── ·𖥸· ─────── · ·

You have to be quite. No if’s, ands, or buts. Isabella is sleeping just down the hall, and you don’t want to traumatize her having her hear you two have sex.

So you cover your mouth desperately as Jayce pounds into you. Thank god the bed doesn’t squeak.

The two of you angle yourselves so your skin doesn’t slap together. You don’t want her to hear anything. You know how awkward and traumatic it is to hear your parents have sex and you don’t want Bella to go through that.

But damn does Jayce fuck like a sex god.

His salt and pepper hair falling into his face, his mouth curled into a sneer as he holds back his moans, his hips punishing.

Your eyes water at the overwhelming pleasure. You rip your hand away from your mouth and desperately kiss Jayce. His hips stutter a bit before picking up speed, the two of you whining into each other’s mouth.

A desperate grip causes Jayce’s back to get red lines. The cuts lightly bleeding as you cum around his cock. The fluttering of your hole cause Jayce’s eyes to roll the back of his head as he cums inside you.

The two of you pant as you kiss, Jayce essentially falling on top of you. You grunt due to the weight but don’t complain, he’s the perfect weighted blanket. You caress his face, his beard surprisingly soft.

“We probably shouldn’t have done that.” Jayce states quietly, your hand pauses for a moment, “Probably. But I don’t regret it.”

“Neither do I. Stay the night? I don’t feel comfortable having you leave so late at night.”

You smile sweetly at Jayce, he’s always cared for you the entire time he’s known you. What a sweetheart.

“Of course.”

Jayce smiles, the crows feet near his eyes deepening as his pearly whites beam at you, the little gap between his front teeth make you want to coo, “Isabella is gonna freak out knowing you slept over and it wasn’t with her for once.”

You lightly laugh as you slap Jayce’s back, he laughs too.

“You’re such a shit disturber.”

“You have no proof.”

Yeah… your fifteen year old self would be screaming and fainting right about now. Your inner teen is immensely satisfied.

As are you as a twenty-five year old.

Dilf Jayce 😩😩 he 100% gives girl dad

[lynnthefrenchtoast]

"shen yuan transmigrates into one of binghes wives instead of shen qingqiu" au where shen yuan is, actually, completely fine with this arrangement. like ok yeah the boobs were a bit of an adjustment, but getting to experience a xianxia fantasy world? getting to be extraordinarily beautiful all the time with zero effort? access to the biggest library in the world, just across the courtyard? being able to see his favourite characters in 3D?

three months pass and he's not even a little bored.

the "gilded cage" thing doesnt bother him either, because number one NEET and introvert shen yuan is very used to confining himself to a single space voluntarily. said space was also 100 times smaller than a palace, and he wasnt coughing every moment now!

case and point: shen yuan is having a lovely time as a wife before meeting binghe.

and then he meets binghe. and he looks cool, and handsome, and strong, blablabla, but he also looks... rough.

and, well, that's his binghe alright!? not in a weird wife way, but in a totally heterosexual "you're my favourite fictional character" way. sure, he's read every book in the palace about binghe by now, but that's not creepy! it's just what he's used to! sue him if he sees his favourite character suffering and kind of wants to help out...

cue shen yuan reforming the palace structure (with the help of ning yingying, who just adores him by this point. this sweet little thing who receives none of her a-luo's attention but so obviously loves him.) to make binghe's life easier. stupid small inventions that make life so convenient but that no one in this world could even think of (luo binghe is baffled at the xianxia-equivalent of a hairdryer that appears in his bathroom one day.)

it's only when a wife plot hits that luo binghe finally, formally meets shen yuan. bro wakes up from a near death experience and bam: the heavenly demon emperor is at his bedside.

but binghe's only there out of necessity and once shen yuan has waken up and shown to be in good health, he leaves. but as he leaves, he offhandedly mentions a detail - a clan - and it jolts shen yuan's memory, and he sits up from the sick bed and exclaims out of the blue, "don't trade with that clan!"

(when the clan ends up betraying binghe, and simultaneously, binghe is informed of the genius inventor who's been going around making the castle feel warmer...)

shen yuan gets his first night-visit from luo binghe. it is framed as a "reward for my wife's dutiful efforts." they make it about five minutes before shen yuan looks so uncomfortable that binghe leaves before a single kiss transpires.

cue normal bingqiu misunderstanding shenanigans. shen yuan showering binghe with all the love he doesnt know he has, and binghe eager to reciprocate this love in the only way he knows how, only to get totally shot down each time. "if you dont want me to kiss you, why are you taking care of me!??" shen yuan sees no problem with this.

[kirbmey]

　 ྀི︶˚̣̣̣⠀⠀⠀arguing w bigbrother!caleb⠀⠀⠀˚̣̣̣︶ ྀི

synopsis: as much as you love your older brother you end up second guessing him, tired of only being allowed to talk to him and wishing you had some friends like other girls did ૮𐔌っ˕ -｡꒱ྀི𑁬

tw: angst, caleb slaps reader, they argue (obviously), tons of manipulation, rape mentions, drug mentions, caleb’s a fake to people, pathetic reader, overall this is really toxic, etc.

caleb was waiting for you parked in front of your uni, toying around with the necklace you gifted him when you were kids while his mind drifted away.

he was so excited for today, friday’s being his favorite days of the week since he took you out to eat and then had a walk by the meadowy park near your house. it was simple but he enjoyed every second he shared with you.

he didn’t need much more than that, really. he just needed you.

all the girls at your uni were hands down for your handsome older brother, trying to approach him every chance they’d get and getting politely rejected, even though he felt disgusted by them and thought they were vulgar whores; he was pretty good at hiding it.

you, on the other hand, started to feel lonelier each passing day.

ever since you were a kid you shared all of your time with caleb up until now. you told him everything, lived every moment together. there was no memory in which he didn’t appear.

and you really really liked that, you wouldn’t want that to change. but there’s been the longing for a friend, someone who wasn’t caleb, someone new.

you’ve always tried to get to know some of your classmates, feeling a little bit guilty when you disobeyed your big brother’s orders. it wasn’t hard for you to socialize, you were actually very good at it!

a nice sweet girl with a pretty voice and soft smile? who wouldn’t want to be friends with you?

well, every single time you thought you made a friend they would separate ways with you in a couple days, which made you feel sad and insecure.

why are they living you so fast, were you rude, said something bad, appeared weird perhaps?

far from reality the only one to blame was caleb, who had his eyes glued to you every second of the day and didn’t miss on how you tried you break free from the brainwash he managed to give you throughout the years.

he learnt this would happen every so often, and stopped confronting you about it long ago.

yes, he used to argue with you about this kinda thing, complaining about you getting along with other people and playing the victim, crocodile tears down his face as he begged you to never leave him.

so what he’d do now it’s confront the person in question directly, maybe to threat them, maybe to beat them up, maybe to kill them if they got too annoying.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“hey, pips, how was today?” he asked with a boyish smile plastered on his round lips, frowning when he noticed your crossed arms and pouty face, not even greeting him and looking out the window to avoid his purple eyes.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“i’m talking to you.” he mentioned your name in a serious manner, locking the doors before grabbing both your cheeks with one of his big hands to make you face him.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“i want to go to the party.” you simply muttered, avoiding his gaze while you tried to pull away from his grip, making him wrap your throat now. “we’ve already talked about that, princess. and it’s still a no.”

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“but mom and dad said i could go!” you complied, crossing your arms again. a tantrum is the last thing he needed from you today.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“mom and dad don’t know what’s best for you. i do.” he spat, letting you go and mimicking your pose now. “you wanna know what goes down at these frat parties, hmm?” caleb challenged you, tracing the shape of the steering wheel while speaking.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“there’s people getting high on anything they can find, fainting, vomiting because of how drunk they are, fucking everywhere.” he knew the party you wanted to attend was nothing like that, your classmates telling about the party to your parents and describing it as ‘chill’ and ‘safe’.

caleb totally believed that, they seemed fucking boring.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“what? no, that’s not true! you’re a big liar!” you yelled at him, feeling how his hand collided against your cheek; you knew you crossed the lane when you raised your voice at him. so you just took it, going silent after that.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“if you wanna get drugged and raped by the whole fucking class the go ahead, i’m done with this conversation.” he spat, engine vibrating beneath your feet as he drove you two back home. what a failure of a friday.

the whole drive you sat down there, tears rolling down your face as you quietly whimpered, cleaning them with the sleeves of your sweater.

you just wanted to make friends and go on a party for once to at least die knowing how it feels to be like the other girls. but that made your gege upset, and you loved him more than anything, more than you loved yourself.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“it hurts me more than it hurts you.” caleb broke the silence after parking in front of your house, resting his head against the headrest and sighing, looking at you now.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“‘m sorry, gege. i’m being selfish.” your voice trembled, reaching out for his hand to hold it up against your lips, kissing it several times, tears wetting his pale skin.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“i don’t like hurting you like this, you know that. why you make me do it, doll. why can’t you just listen?” he kept on questioning you, his palm pressing against the cheek he slapped minutes prior, caressing the imprint his fingers left.

⠀ ⠀ 　　　“i know, i know, i’m truly sorry. please forgive me, please gege. i love you.” you kept on apologizing, rubbing yourself against the attention he gave you, feeling the tears fall again and again.

he wasn’t faced by your crying. sure, he didn’t like to see you cry, but he knew he had to be strict with you in order to make you behave. you really hurt his feelings and you had to know your actions had consequences.

it took him a few days to completely forgive you, days in which you had to wake up without him, in which you had to cook for yourself and come back home by foot all alone.

days in which you remembered your gege was all that mattered in your life and realized that you didn’t need any friends, because no one would know how to treat you or take care of you like your old brother did.

and just like that caleb got away with it again, torturing you to make you behave, obliging you to live without him even if it was just a couple of days to make you see how much you actually needed him.

you finally understood after all; no friends, only caleb. you made yourself believe you were okay with that. ⠀ ⠀ 　　　

a/n: this was a request from an anon! I hope you like it, bunny. I feel like i outdid myself with this one, this is how i see caleb in my mind fr ᥩྀི ´ ᩳ ` ꒱

— masterlist.

[sunnirayss]

Pretty much, shifting is not something that has been proven or pushed as acceptable by mainstream society so by definition, shifting is "weird". Not a bad or harmful weird, just something that deviates from what is considered normal. But of course, the definition of normalcy itself changes and evolves over time.

It used to be weird for a woman to wear pants or be good at math, in extreme cases it could even result in her being accused of witchcraft and publicly executed. And if you stood up for that woman, people would decide you were under her "spell" and execute you too! But now, no sane person would find that odd and anyone who did would be (rightfully) dragged for it.

And I'm not surprised that people who were interested in shifting as a "trend" are now backtracking and claiming that it's "obviously fake". Because there was a good amount of "normies" who branched out into weirdness during the quarantine, while we were all stuck in our houses and all the regular, socially acceptable activities got cancelled. Normalcy was disrupted by the pandemic, everything was weird because some virus had flipped the world upside down...so everyone could be weird without fear of judgment.

Some got into alt culture and fashion, others joined fandoms for the first time, a lot of people even took the time to experiment with their gender expression and identities, and of course, the possibility of shifting to new realities had never been more intriguing! People had some kind of outlet online to explore new things and sides of themselves, they thrived...then the quarantine ended and normalcy returned.

I noticed that after 2022 or so, people really started scrambling to explain away their "quarantine phase" as they called it. Cringe culture returned and people started to punch down upon the very communities that had welcomed them with open arms not that long ago. Like many trans and nonbinary people said they were cis again, that they had always been cis and only thought otherwise because it was "trendy".

And now with shifting, it's not uncommon to see tiktoks like this with hundreds of people confessing that they lied, confirming that it's definitely fake and just lucid dreaming/daydreaming/psychosis. Meanwhile they're the people who tried the raven method for a week and gave up, or were always judging and feel validated that the mainstream agrees with them.

A lot of these people only view things as trends, they go along with everyone else when they think about who they are and what they can be interested in. Even if they truly are interested in something and it makes them happy, their fear of being "othered" outweighs it and they'll suppress their true selves if it means remaining in everyone else's good graces.

And the kicker is that if societal standards change and something fringe and crazy suddenly becomes mainstream, they see that as permission to resume their interest like something was stopping them before. If and when shifting is somehow proven as 100% real according to whoever they seek approval from, people will be scrambling to shift and dig up their "cringey" shifting scripts that they made back in 2020.

That's why shifting even as a concept is so liberating, because it shows that we are not bound to the rules or circumstances of a single reality. This reality isn't special when infinite other realities (often much better than this one) exist. We can forge our own path because we're the ones who make the damn path, everything else is just noise.

Shifting was never just a trend. If you get that, and I know you do since you're still shifting in 2025, then you will shift I guarantee it.

Yes because we're 5 and can't differentiate between imagining something, dreaming or literally living it.

Everytime I start liking tiktok it proves me wrong.

Don't let this discourage you people, shifting is very much real and everyone can do it!!

(edit: dreaming is a part of shifting! Go check my masterlist to read that post.)

[i-am-mrhyde]

Really good way to portray Hyde imo is just to have him be every single one of Jekyll’s repressed emotions dialled up to ten. Yes he’s the violent thoughts Jekyll wants to act on, but he’s all of his polarising emotions all at once too. Hyde flitting between loving himself and what he represents to collapsing to the floor in self loathing and nauseating guilt. Most times we see Jekyll he’s very reserved (the repression ofc), so Hyde just being all of those things manifest just make sense to me. He obviously had MORE than just violent thoughts swimming around (internalised homophobia, for one (HYDE LIVING IN SOHO)). It just makes sense to me for Hyde to have a deeply unstable existence, hence why he pretty much couldn’t exist once he couldn’t be Jekyll again.

[reginadeltrash]

Since I've had some free time I would like to present you a new little AU that I affectionately call 'Percy Jackson!Athena is Epic!Athena with brain damage'.

The idea is simple, Zeus' real reason to strike down Athena, during god games was that he's scared, let's remember that there's a prophecy about the child of him and Metis dethroning him, and he always assumed it was gonna be a son, because obviously, it was his father who dethroned his grandfather, and it was him who dethroned his father.

But now he's starting to realise that the prophecy never said 'son', it said 'child', and Athena just demonstrated that she's successfully able to get people on her side, both people that generally like her like Hephaestus, but more dangerous, people that usually don't like her like Aphrodite and Hera.

This is dangerous, so for the first time Athena isn't his favourite little girl, she's a threat to his throne and so he strikes her down to reprogram her; this all started because she met that mortal, she was so perfect and emotionless before, so he's gonna make sure that she never really remembers Odysseus.

But doing it immediately is dangerous, the guy is still alive, he may upset the scheme, so he waits and when both Odysseus and his son die he starts subtly gaslighting Athena, also in this version Zeus is the one who wrote the Odyssey to make Odysseus look a lot worse, and also to make himself look better (he never make the Ody decide between him and the crew and he immediately says yes to his baby girl when she asks him to free him, also he omits the argument in My Goodbye, he just makes it seem like Ody and Athena were never that close to begin with)

He also gets Hera on the plan, he tricks her saying that they have to tarnish Odysseus' memory or else the poor little owlet is gonna be devastated and so non-useful, remember how useless she was after Pallas, glancing at the void for hours.

So, yeah, Hera is the reason Odysseus so blatantly cheats in this universe's version of the Odyssey, because that's the worst thing someone can do in her eyes.

So with the constant gaslighting and the lightnings that are still buzzing inside of her, no matter how much Apollo tries to help, Athena quickly becomes a shell of herself, she reverts to being very lonely, harsh and all together like we meet her in the Percy Jackson's series.

Zeus even agrees to cleanse her scars, just because she was such a good little girl and Athena doesn't even know anymore why she had those scars in the first place.

She tries to fill this void that she has, but doesn't know what it is (a friend, the answer is a friend) but misinterpreting that she believes that it's a romantic connection cause it's basically what everyone around her is doing, thus her mind's babies.

And then, suddenly, after the trial of Apollo, the god of the sun insists that everyone else spends at least a little time with their children, Athena makes sure to do everything in private, she can tolerate a child at a time, nothing more.

And so the moment to go to Annabeth arrives and honestly Athena was sure the Poseidon boy was gonna be there too, they're a bit guarded at first, but she promises she comes in peace, she talks with Annabeth, normal deadbeat mother and daughter stuff (How is school? And your boyfriend? Still like sculpture, sorry it was architecture?)

And then Percy just casually arrives with his baby sister Estelle and he's like 'Annabeth can you hold her for a sec? I need to call my mom for something very important and I don't want her near when a monster inevitably attacks!'

And her daughter laughs, shaking her head 'C'mon, Seaweed brain, I'm sure that the important thing is literally just you wanting waffles'

And Percy laughs like a dork and hands her the baby.

And for a moment Athena is sure that she saw this scene somehow and for a single moment she's in Ancient Greece again, seeing Penelope and Odysseus joke with each other with baby Telemachus being passed around, and for only a little moment she wonders how she knows so much about it, she was merely an acquaintance to the Ithaca royal family, wasn't she?

So yeah, this is the idea, if you have questions I beg you let me know, it would make me the happiest girl, because I have too many ideas!

[spellmage]

sorry i'm still yapping about this album but if there's two songs i had to recommend off the new unto others album (not including the singles) it's 'never, neverland' and 'time goes on'. they're so good trust me

[spectral-phases]

I'm not sure anyone from Jersey has ever written anything for Batman related stories ever.

Did you know Batman speaks 20+ languages in canon comic book sources, but not a single one of them is Italian? In the Italian crime family owned city of Gotham, in Jersey, a state with a lot of Italian Americans. Never speaks Italian, apparently. Knows Latin, though.

Some Jersey things from a native Central Jerseyan:

It is Jersey, not New Jersey. It is North Jersey, Central Jersey, and Sojo/South Jersey.

Very passionate about what the food is called. OP, ily bestie, but your North Jersey is showing. Gotham is in Sojo. It's pork roll, egg, and cheese. On a bagel or a roll with spk (salt, pepper, ketchup). They call it pork roll (not Taylor Ham, the package doesn't even call it Taylor Ham. It's a Taylor Pork Roll for crying out loud. Call it Taylor Pork or Taylor Roll and I will let you be), hoagies (not subs). If you're adding in Italian American heritage, they will kill each other over marinara being called gravy or sauce. None of them will pronounce the words like a proper Italian, and they will be very passionate about it.

Going to the shore is popular. You are very close to the shore in Jersey. Gotham is very close to the shore and the boardwalk. Which one? Just the boardwalk. Which shore? Any of them, but likely Cape May given where Gotham is by the river.

Halloween is bad? Try mischief night. Fucking outlawed in Gotham, for all the good that will do. Crane's having the time of his life.

More swearing. We like our swearing. All the batkids have a pass to swear starting at 14 because they're in Jersey.

Listen, everything? Costs too damn much. Jersey property taxes? Insane. Car Insurance? Absurd.

But if I see another person disrespect our produce? We are the garden state for a reason. Drive anywhere in Sojo/Central Jersey outside of a city, lots of farmland. Lots of farms along the highways with all their cornstalks. Local produce is huge. Going apple/peach/whatever orchard picking? Huge. Cost too much? Sure. Is it bad? No.

Jersey has a huge Latino population. We have good Mexican restaurants and many Hispanic grocery stores.

We have many Asian grocery stores. We have a lot of all types of ethnic grocery stores in addition to all the "regular" chains. Our chains? Shoprite for discount/average prices, Stop & Shop for expensive, Trader Joes/Whole Foods/Wegman's if you have more money than God. Aldi's new. There's a deli everywhere you turn and bagel shops and small mom and pop grocers.

There is a large variety of food available here and types of restaurants that everyone eats at, even outside of the cities.

Speed limits? Nobody here has heard of those awful things, much less has the time to obey them. Sure would be nice if everyone else could learn to drive, though. Or park. Dear god. Can the rich assholes learn to park?

You must like the Boss to live in Jersey. Rules are rules. Who is the Boss? Pains me to have to explain Bruce Springsteen to you (I don't actually listen to Bruce Springsteen, mostly because I will hear him no matter where I go at some point during the year). Same thing goes for Bon Jovi.

More Sojo things? Aside from hockey (Devils) it's Philly teams or bust. Obviously, they support their Gotham teams in Gotham, and probably outside of Gotham. We are very salty about the Jets having their stadium in North Jersey but being a New York team. Fuck you, Jets. Fuck you.

Doing a high-school prom thing? The other students are going to Wildwood afterwards. What is Wildwood? It's a shore town with a boardwalk.

All these DPxDC fics and not ONCE is one of the Batman taking Danny to eat a Taylor Ham, Egg and Cheese sandwich. Sacrilege.

[insomnya777]

joel etho single dads au .........

[mohntilyet]

not to mention the entire antaam fleet like 😭 that was the PERFECT moment to show off what the lords could do!!! The antaam fucked over rivain, theyve been a thorn in the whole nations side for a long time now, they would not pass up a chance for payback via full scale naval warfare so that the veilguard can do what they need to!! Sure dreadnoughts are dangerous but at this point they probably have tricks up their sleeve, thats one of the few things they have!

also wouldn't it be personal because does solas not try to blow up kont-aar because he's trying to 5d chess tevinter and the qunari into destroying each other. like. i know technically this would not be incredible widespread news because the attack was stopped, but i don't think the wonderful citizens of kont-aar would have missed the tsunami that nearly hit them and the shockwave that actually hit them. rumors go around. and i assume irian/vadis tell varric. who i think would tell isabela. who would tell the group she leads. who would care because ofc, they LIVE IN RIVAIN, and now know that solas and his followers thinks they can trade rivaini lives* to further his plans.

*while i also think there's probably a divide between kont-aar and the rest of the nation, it's one that the rivaini love to jump across and back over. an interesting comparison to be made here with most of rivain having similar sentiments towards dairsmuid and the chantry. like this is the country specifically mentioned to have a lot of citizens who follow the qun/are non-andrastian + it being MUCH more multicultural and accepting than other nations. any attack on rivain, even if it's a qunari settlement, would fan a lot of flames that solas cannot put out so the idea of trying to him taking multiple steps back because he didn't realise how intensely the qun/rivaini/lords would react is very fun for me. it would have been soo interesting for rivain to be a hub for efforts against solas because of how it's not influenced by andrastianism, how he (or his agents) specifically fucked them over, and (maddeningly for solas) also part of this resistance has spirits who willingly guide them against him. this could have even been a plot device where the door goes both ways and solas finds out rook's plans because he manages to eavesdrop through a seer or something.

and on the spirits. all the stuff where the mourn watch regularly communicates with spirits could have been done with rivain as well, and with different takes on being 'friendly' with spirits. iirc there's a spirit in the hall of valor which is so interesting but it's literally just there for flavour text. THERE'S A SPIRIT IN THE HALL OF VALOR THAT DOES NOTHING BESIDES LIKE. SAY HI. ??? bioware i would have liked to see more spirits and seers and the matriarchal pantheists you have talked about please. and also the idea of the peaceful qunari settlement being pushed to protect the country they are part of and what that means for them as qunari vs. rivaini. taash's storyline could have contributed to this . so A LOT less about choosing a side, more about how kont-aar has developed, changed, how rivain has influenced it and what it means to be qunari. not the qunari agents and fighters that we have seen, but their 'civillian' way of life in kont-aar.

complete waste not seeing any of established lore reflected in the lords of fortune or rivain because i stupidly actually thought we were going to see some kind of settlement and be introduced to a very different cultural norms.. in my beautiful mind i like to think taash is a little taken aback by how badly mages/elves/etc are treated. like they understood it was different outside of rivain (they would have been young when the dairsmuid circle annulment happened right? so they don't 'remember' it themself, they likely heard others talking about it when they're old enough to understand) but until they actually saw what was happening first hand, they had a weird dissonance about it. but what we got was a deserted beach, ties to another faction (wardens are fine!! they are great !!!! the fourth blight is interesting!!!! yet they are not the faction with a lack of info about them!!!!!) and also the hall of valor that exists as flavor text with nothing meaningful behind it besides a pub used in a few cutscenes and a minigame.

[peridots-pixiwolf]

been forever since i posted any art here so. wheat field i drew as a tribute after finishing portal 2 three months ago upon you all :]

[Start ID. A sketch-like, pixellated rendering of the seemingly endless wheat field at the end of Portal 2. The wheat is golden with harvest, and stretches out to fill the entire lower third of the frame, the sky is a deeper blue and dense with far-off clouds. Uncountable rows of almost-parallel lines, some much on the shorter side and others long and sweeping, shade and highlight the grasses, give texture to the sky and clouds, and halo the sun at the top center. Each of the four blues that make up the sky are the exact inverse of an orange tone in the field, and vice versa. End ID)

[Start ID. An edited version of the previous, wherein the transparency in the sun has been filled in with white and the sky with blue. An obvious filter has been overlayed which makes the whole piece look vertically striated, like the effect of an old computer or console screen, darkening it overall and creating odd tinges of red, green and magenta in some spots. End ID.]

[siryouarebeingmocked]

“I’m just asking questions” (also known as JAQing off)

Honestly, I'm surprised you didn't just call it "sealioning" or "concern trolling".

I've actually seen people who used to ask questions because they were too cowardly to make an actual case*. I've also seen people use thought-terminating cliche labels as excuses to ignore disagreement.

Yes, the irony there was deliberate.

Thing is, being indirect about the point you're making is not inherently some trick, or immoral. Even if one claims it's in "bad faith" (based on mindreading).

*Including one who claimed he was using "the Socratic method". Which was obviously nonsense.

Because when people actually responded, he constantly dodged questions and ignored counterpoints and never, ever, admitted he or a single person on his side was ever wrong.

Heck, I caught him in a blatant lie, once. Not even a very good one.

[ @feotakahari ]

Okay, I found the point where I was confused. I didn’t realize coming down hard on sexual predators was supposed to be a change. I mean, isn’t that what courts do already?

As Americans, we keep getting reports that the UK are giving short sentences to violent criminals, letting them out early, or prosecuting "hate speech."

The problem with reduced trust is that the distance information can travel on the graph collapses. Someone will say, for instance, that "the critics are racist" because "there isn't enough data." Well, of course, the government can decide whether to create that data, can't they? And if they're still concealing the scale of the problem, they might use the bureaucratic tactic of just deliberately not creating the data, and then claiming it doesn't exist.

A defender might point to one example of an offender getting a long sentence, and that would help (it's a far sight better than just shouting "racist!"), but if someone on the outside thinks the defender would omit information about other offenders not being prosecuted or getting shorter sentences, then the defender can only establish that >0 offenders were properly prosecuted, and not that the problem has been "solved" and is no longer relevant to other politics.

Someone can demand infinite evidence as a political tactic, but this goes in both directions - someone can also say "he's just demanding infinite evidence!" (when the demands are not actually infinite) as a means not to do the work of being trustworthy.

This is a good reason not to exile people from the coalition for not being highly conformist. People who are a bit more disagreeable and independent-minded, who have a history of sound or at least reasonable criticisms of coalition leaders, can establish a path of trust to reach people who could not otherwise be reached.

Politics is about coalitions, margins, and thresholds.

If there were only one right-winger in the UK and he had 50% of the vote, then he could just refuse to cooperate. However, opposing political coalitions are composed of a large number of varying people, and not only are their personalities and life experiences not identical, but their beliefs are not perfectly inflexible.

People are human beings, not merely political units. There should be a focus on cooperating to create good policy, not merely building temporary engines of power, and where it is too difficult to cooperate, it may be necessary to first step back and see how it might be made easier.

[batsplat]

bat splat thank youuu for saying the pecco jorge rivalry is just for pecco as opposed to having the specter of Vale hanging over it. I want to ask tho, I have been seeing people say the only reason pecco wins the race is because he copies jorge's setup throughout friday/saturday/Sprint. Wanted your opinion on this because I have also heard that Pecco gives decent engineering input and builds his race slowly over the weekend. Was just confused about how much data sharing can actually help, and how much does it help with the ducati specifically!! Have a nice day, love your posts

have a good day too, anon!! and I will gladly spread the pecco narrative independence agenda!! it's something I really do like about the rivalry - expanded a bit in the comments under this, but it's neat to have something that really is Just Pecco's. from inception it's very much his own rivalry, his own narrative... idk, this sport is too reliant on valentino to provide any kind of narrative tension, and it's just sort of refreshing to see this multi-year narrative play out that has fuck all to do with that guy. enough

on the set-up copying, obviously that is bullshit. I mean, to be clear, I'm sure pecco absolutely copies the set-ups of other ducati riders, but that's very much a mutual process - it's something that benefits all the ducati riders, and they've all openly spoken about this. it's very helpful to be able to see the data from seven other riders!! that's a big part of why ducati has been so bloody good!! the main difference is that jorge tends to be faster from the start of the weekend, whereas pecco tends to take time to reach his level. which I suppose makes some people draw the conclusion that pecco is only fast once he's copied someone's set-up. again, this isn't the case - it is just a difference in approaches. points come... well, unfortunately, not just on sunday anymore, but they certainly do not come on a friday. pecco knows this, which is also why sometimes he's not even trying to top an fp1 session - this year there have been quite a few instances of jorge but not pecco throwing on a fresh set of tyres towards the end of fp1 and setting a particularly impressive lap time. there's also nothing wrong with THAT approach, jorge is playing to his strengths, but at a certain point we're just talking different run plans

(there is also a very obvious logical fallacy with this line of reasoning. if you are copying someone's set-up, then by definition you have the same set-up as them. and if you beat someone with the same set-up, then it stands to reason that you were riding better than them. sure, you can argue the success is less earned because your team... idk, just lazed around all weekend, but at the end of the day surely you still cannot be a bad rider if you are getting more out of another rider's set-up than they themselves are able to manage)

and yeah, pecco is known for giving good feedback! just being a good learner in general. here, actually, a little throwback from start of 2019 where pecco's crew chief gabarrini (who also ofc has worked with casey, lorenzo and briefly with marc) compared pecco and marc:

"A driver - all of them do this - starts at a certain level and ends the day at a higher level. What makes the difference is starting again where you were. Few have this quality: it often happens that a driver sets good times - without knowing why, without being aware of how he got there. The 'good' ones, on the other hand, have this characteristic: they achieve a result and know why they did it," explained the chief technician. Gabarrini even goes so far as to compare the MotoGP rookie with the current world champion: "I saw this quality in Márquez: I was with him when he made his debut in the MotoGP World Championship. His ability to not forget what he had learned impressed me. Once he had understood an aspect of the riding style, the set-up or any other thing to be faster, he had it in him forever. Pecco also has this quality." "In Valencia we started with a base similar to the one Lorenzo used: on paper it suited Bagnaia, based on what you could understand when you saw him riding a Moto2 bike. From then on, the normal changes to the set-up were made so that he could ride the bike as he liked. In the meantime, Pecco has worked enormously to adapt his style to the Ducati."

and there you have it - pecco's good at progressively getting better at stuff, including over the course of the weekend. as for the set-up copying thing, partly it's just typical competitive paranoia (even though it feels like the fans are currently doing it more than the riders). back in the day, valentino and jorge used to have the world's dumbest arguments about this every other week. led to one of my all time fave messy jb moments:

god I miss that guy so badly. they don't do ride-or-die like that anymore

the point is that both sides were engaging in pretty silly mudslinging, just kind of for the vibes of it. valentino/jb trying to get under jorge's skin and jorge a bit more earnestly aggrieved. as ever, if you want to read more about how that particular era of jorge/valentino unfolded, see here. this is just to say, this kind of faffing about is a tale as old as time and it's always a bit silly... you had jorge say that it was impossible for them anyway to copy each other's data in the very same answer as he accused valentino of copying his set-up. like, I'm sorry, I am not going to take this seriously. a lot of sports is about having dumb arguments

and yeah, again, pecco does gradually build up his level over the weekend. more of a valentino than a casey, it's fair to say. and that'll hurt him in the sprint format - which I talked about a bit recently while going through casey's latest interview about how sprints are satan's providence:

so yeah, casey thinks that if anything there isn't enough time to work on set-up, and mat oxley thinks it's rubbish to say pecco relies on sprint data to be better on sunday. (as I said in that post, I do find it fun if unsurprising that casey is so virulently anti-sprints, because you'd think a lot of aspects of the format - including less time for everyone for working on set-ups - really would have suited him. keeping it real.) so on the whole... y'know. maybe he just gets better over the course of the weekend. it's been known to happen. there's actually some pretty significant ways in which the current version of the sport isn't all that pecco-friendly, from the shitty michelin front tyre we're keeping for another year to the sprint format we appear to be stuck with. it's just that he also happens to be on the best bike - and the fact that he's winning a lot but simultaneously isn't highly rated by fans makes people want to believe that the current series is 100% ideal for him

a lot of fans are loathe to admit pecco might actually be a good rider so they'll find basically everything to justify that prior. including getting into increasingly conspiratorial territory. but my actual take is this - if pecco has been gaming the system so expertly that he is somehow the only guy able to take full advantage of everyone else's data, so shrewd and cunning that he can spread magic dust on his bike so that he suddenly leaps ahead of jorge, such a dastardly operator that he can steal the set-up that poor jorge perfected on friday morning to fix his bike five minutes before the sunday race, then... good. I support it. I hope he's cheating. the more unearned the success is, the better in my books. long live corporate espionage and foul play

[ssaalexblake]

absolutely hate it when something stupid and negative somebody wrote on one of my positive fandom posts gets stuck in my head but like, i truly wish i'd asked the rando person who said they just Couldn't keep watching 13's era because of the constant put downs of men if they'd legitimately gotten her era and moffat era dw confused (which does, quite frankly, have a ~girls rule boys smell~ lean to it uncomfortably often) because that is simply preferable to the alternative that they meant it and genuinely think that men Not being front and centre is an affront to men and that they couldn't deal with it. But I blocked them bc Be Real. But I regret not asking even though I strongly suspect that the answer would have given me a headache.

[blossoms-phan]

the intro of 360 by charli xcx playing in my head like a Pavlovian edit-fueled response whenever I read a comment on a gaming video that’s like “dan is such a brat”