#when it a) is not who I am and b) is not fair to the people who DO have this identity. like it's not that I DON'T feel romantic attraction

[fantastic-nonsense]

@panacea420 : Porto Rico doesn't want statehood. Why. The people would lose their free money. Yes, they get money they won't vote for statehood . Second Trump trying to clean out Washington is a good thing. Think. A more efficient government. More money to keep in your pocket. Third my biggest hope will be flat rate taxes. Think. If we're supposed to be equal then we should pay a flat tax no deductions. Every person bissness. No give backs. Think. About it billionaires can't use tax breaks. If you make a buck pay a dime. No one gets a break. Were equal under the law. Plus a simple 5% national sales tax. Another way to make corporations pay their fair share. (After they try to say we didn't make a profit or pay their ceos too much. ) think about it?? Also stock options still you have to pay taxes on them as income. Then if the make money on them they pay again. Unlike the current policy. Of only when they cash out . Flat taxes are the only fair taxes I am a liberaltarian. Not a republican. And a registered independent. Why?? Think about this. If a political party thinks you'll vote for them no matter what. Then they will. Not care what you want??? Make each party work for your vote. Just think about that . Used to live in Indiana they didn't have a independent group why?? Again think about it. If both party's are in. Bed with each other?? Dick Chaney was the most hated person by the democrats now he was working with the democrats to keep Trump from winning???? Again think about this please

Sir this is a Wendy's and I have no idea why you put these replies on my post. Anyway, let's get a few things straight:

"Porto Rico doesn't want statehood. Why. The people would lose their free money" Puerto Rico has affirmatively voted for statehood four times over the past decade: in 2012, 2017, 2020, and a week ago, on November 5th, 2024. Yes, the exact significance of various individual referendum results is heavily debated due to a variety of local politics (including referendum boycotts, leadership infighting, and differing status choices), but the point stands: Puerto Rico has voted for statehood several times in the past decade, including a 52.52%–47.48% win in 2020, when Biden won. Hence, why I noted that the Democratic trifecta should have done the correct thing and admitted both PR and DC as states immediately upon taking their seats.

Second Trump trying to clean out Washington is a good thing. Think. A more efficient government. More money to keep in your pocket.

One, this is not what's going to happen. By any objective standards, Trump ran an insanely corrupt, incompetent, and inefficient government during his first term in office. He's a six-time failed businessman and convicted felon who cozied up to corrupt dictators around the world and attempted to run the government like he was Vito Corleone. He was literally impeached for corruption and attempted intimidation of another world leader. He's not interested in "cleaning out" anything, and you're frankly stupid for thinking he is. Why on earth do you trust a corrupt businessman who partied with Jeffery Epstein for years to "clean house"? He is part of the problem you're complaining about.

Two, it's hilarious you think anything Trump does will "put more money in your pocket." He has no interest in helping you. He does not care about you. He will not put money in your pocket. He will not lower your rent or put more groceries in your shopping cart. He's a conman who only cares about himself and enriching his own family and billionaire friends. Or did you forget about how US billionaires got over $1 trillion richer during the four years of Trump's presidency, or how Trump personally reported that his businesses made over $1.6 billion dollars in the same timeframe (largely due to the aforementioned corruption and attempts to curry favor)?

What happened to you in that same time period? Did your wages go up? Did your healthcare get better? Were you finally able to buy a house? No. Because Trump doesn't care about you and your "normal working class person" problems, and never has.

Third my biggest hope will be flat rate taxes. Think. If we're supposed to be equal then we should pay a flat tax no deductions. Every person bissness. No give backs. Think. About it billionaires can't use tax breaks. If you make a buck pay a dime. No one gets a break. Were equal under the law. Plus a simple 5% national sales tax. Another way to make corporations pay their fair share. (After they try to say we didn't make a profit or pay their ceos too much. ) think about it?? Also stock options still you have to pay taxes on them as income. Then if the make money on them they pay again. Unlike the current policy. Of only when they cash out . Flat taxes are the only fair taxes

Flat taxes are regressive. People whose incomes are lower end up paying a larger portion of their income than rich people under that model! They do not create "equality." If you're actually concerned about making sure rich people and corporations "pay their fair share," I am begging you to understand that flat taxes do not accomplish that goal. Rich people WANT you to advocate for flat taxes because it means they end up paying less money. Please go sit in on a Political Economy 101 class, I am begging.

But since I'm nice, I'll give you the short tl;dr on why flat taxes are bullshit and make rich people richer, straight from the IRS:

Take a look at Chart A and Chart C. Look at the actual amount of money that Family A is left with vs. Family C in those two scenarios after you take out taxes. Now compare those numbers to Chart B. You taken a good look at those numbers? Do you understand why flat taxes would be useless at "making billionaires pay their fair share" now, when Family C ends up with $98,000 in Chart A and $80,000 in Chart C vs. the $70,000 they end up with in Chart B (the correct way to tax rich people)?

Finally:

I am a liberaltarian. Not a republican. And a registered independent. Why?? Think about this. If a political party thinks you'll vote for them no matter what. Then they will. Not care what you want??? Make each party work for your vote. Just think about that . Used to live in Indiana they didn't have a independent group why?? Again think about it. If both party's are in. Bed with each other?? Dick Chaney was the most hated person by the democrats now he was working with the democrats to keep Trump from winning???? Again think about this please

I have no idea what you're trying to say here with your rambly little rant except "I hate the system as it stands." Which like. fine. Whatever. so do a lot of us. But this has absolutely nothing to do with anything I actually said and no, actually I don't have to "think about it." I would actually very much like you to shut up and stop rambling incoherently in my replies about something that is wholly irrelevant to the content of my post.

Anyway, this is all to day...sir, this is a Wendys and I am uninterested in you. Go back to high school civics class and come back only when you can actually explain to me, a political staffer, how any level of government (federal, state, or local) actually works on a basic, operational level.

Ok it's been 24 hours and my official post-mortem is literally just "Elizabeth Warren was right: Democrats should have appointed an Attorney General who was committed to prosecuting Trump and everyone who enabled him, cleaned house of Trump's appointees, nuked the filibuster to pass DC and Puerto Rico statehood, and prioritized dealing with corruption"

[would-this-pokemon-be-a-friend]

how about a driftloon!! they ‘could try to take children away’ but are just small little curious guys… i love them..

I too love drifloons and am happy to report that these little “Signposts for Wandering Spirits” (Platinum) would make fairly good pets. I think? Maybe? It’s complicated.

Size-wise, obviously, drifloons are perfect. Since these pokémon remain airborne at all times, they should be comfortable in any home. They do tend to prefer damp, humid environments (Diamond), but they don’t necessarily need these conditions to survive. If you live closer to the equator than not, then that’s bonus points for a happy and healthy drifloon.

Now, are these guys friendly? It’s really hard to say. Their reputation has been mixed up in folklore for years now, and cutting through to the truth can be difficult. What is objectively known is that these pokémon like to spend time around human children. It has often been reported that drifloons seek to “steal away” these kids, either physically or spiritually (Pearl), which would indicate some sort of malice behind their behavior. It’s even been said that any children who even grab onto them are liable to go missing (HeartGold/SoulSilver). More recent pokédex entries, however, seem to cast doubt on the validity to this folktale, emphasizing that these stories are merely whispered tales and postulating that these pokémon may merely be seeking to befriend and play with children (Ultra Moon, Sword). If you have children, you may want to keep an eye on them just in case, but there’s no definitive proof that this is something to be overly worried about. What we don’t have even a little information about, though, is how drifloons get around with adults. Since there’s not really any indication of antisocial behavior in the pokédex, I think it’s fair to assume that you would be able to get along with one well enough.

So why the B ranking? Drifloons, unfortunately, are pretty dangerous. While most of their moves would be inconvenient at best, two moves in particular — Self-Destruct and Explosion — are a bit of an issue. These explosive moves could easily be fatal, depending on how close you are to the drifloon when they use them. Thankfully, it seems unlikely that a drifloon would be quick to use these moves, even when upset, since it seems that they would cause them a lot of pain. According to the pokédex, “if for some reason its body bursts, its soul spills out with a screaming sound” (Moon). That sounds unpleasant at best. Nine times out of ten, as far as I can tell, you should be okay with these aloof, chill pokémon.

Before I close out, of course, I have to bring up the issue that comes up so often with ghost-type pokémon on this blog. According to the pokédex, drifloons are formed by the spirit is of both humans and pokémon (Diamond, Shield). Are these pokémon aware of this fact? Do they have memories of their past life? Is it okay to have a reincarnated human spirit as a pet? These are all big questions that I am not equipped to answer. When you adopt a ghost-type pokémon, you’re stepping into a mire of ethical mud, and you’re just gonna have to be okay with that.

Look, at the very least, if you’re an adult, there’s no way a single drifloon is strong enough to steal you away into the sky. Unless a bunch of them latch onto you like you’re the house from Up. In that case…good luck?

[jamiepaige]

Constant Companions Closeup #2: NOT QUITE THERE

(also on spotify!)

b-b-back once again

Round two of the Constant Companions Closeups - a series of in-depth dives into the songs off of my latest album, Constant Companions! Yesterday was track one, Dyad - today is track two, Not Quite There, featuring the incomparable telebasher!

This one's a bit of a dark horse relative to the rest of the album, but it may very well be my personal favorite song on the entire thing so dammit let's Yap

---

For the uninitiated, this song pulls heavily from a song off my previous album called Gummyworm, both in vibe and by very directly quoting its synth motif.

Both of these songs deal with two sides of the same emotional coin. I actually don't want to go into too much detail about it - I feel like the lyrics spell things out clearly enough - but I will say this:

When it's all you know, it's easy to believe that a love that isolates you, a love that doesn't respect you, a love that hurts is better than no love at all.

You deserve better. There are always people who genuinely want what's best for you, who want you to feel truly loved. It certainly isn't always easy - it's genuinely good if your interpersonal relationships have a little friction sometimes - but love should make your life brighter.

You deserve a love that's fair.

---

The original version of this song was actually intended to be on Bittersweet alongside Gummyworm. The original concept for that album had a whole heady concept involving duality, songs reflecting each other, the two halves basically being reprisals of each other... Ultimately, I'm glad I scrapped that idea, because it was waaaaaay too much for me to manage after a couple years of barely making music. Maybe I'll revisit it someday though?

The drums on this song are sampled from an Instagram post by Louis Cole, where he's doing this crazy one-handed hi-hat blast by holding a drumstick sideways. I'm a drummer and that shit genuinely scares me a little like i dont know how he does half the things he does its fucked BUT. I bring this up because he's one of my biggest inspirations as a musician! I'm really big on jazz in general, in case my love for spicy chords wasn't enough of an indication, but his specific brand of freaky hyperactive bullshit just does it for me.

Seriously, go watch his band KNOWER play their song Overtime. Absolutely insane performances across the board. also Clown Core

This whole song is really just my attempt at matching some of that hectic jazzy energy with my own style of music, so I figured it only made sense to make it another collab with another musician making delightfully frantic jazz bullshit - the legend herself, telebasher! I really am such a massive fan of her work, and I struggle to think of anyone who plays guitar quite like she does. We previously worked together on another Bittersweet track, Asemic Speech, and her guitar work is a major reason why that song is still one of my favorite I've ever released!! She's just built different like listen to this oh my god!!!!

Lastly, since this song was one of the first written for this entire project... it is admittedly a case of me shoehorning the album's leitmotif in after the fact. It's a little forced when it shows up in the backing vocals! But, the choir of vocal synths during the guitar solo served an additional purpose - my own voice doesn't show up on the album again for another four entire songs, and this would've otherwise been the only song on the entire album that didn't feature any vocal synths. Thus did I attempt to bridge the gap, as it were. Hopefully it makes the final product feel more natural!!

Either way, that's all for today's post.... i think.... which means that tomorrow.... we're gonna rot.... for clout

[blitz0hno]

Me pondering: kids are capable of going through and understanding complex problems and their feelings should be taken seriously when it counts.

Me practically: who are all these annoying fucking kids in the milgram fandom and why are they posting the worst takes and most irrelevant bullshit I've ever seen ever???

I think these are valid to coexist.

[a-commas-a-pause]

Was doing some cursory research about low concentration salicylic as an over-the-counter acne treatment (been having a flare-up, likely due to a combo of stress and shifting environmental factors, and since I'm a terrible skin picker I'm trying to find ways to avoid giving myself scarring without needing to visit a doctor) and as I was scrolling through the Wikipedia page I learned from the epidemiology section that acne apparently affects women slightly more than men:

...and I don't know why, but this really struck me.

I guess I grew up with the belief, picked up from the culture and media around me, that acne was this "greasy teenage boy" problem, in some way inherently unfeminine. I didn't really think boys got it more than girls, I figured that was a stereotype, but I kind of assumed the stats were pretty much equal. And back when I still thought I was a girl, I felt worse about my own acne, since it felt like yet another way I was performing girl/womanhood incorrectly.

Finding out it's actually slightly more common in (cis) women is throwing me for a loop, even though it rightly shouldn't be - that's a very neutral and harmless fact! But you never see acne treated as just a feature of a teenage girl's face, it's always something awful that needs to be fixed (never mind that in real life, you often can't "fix" acne completely, can only manage it). That's not to say it's treated as something positive in boys either - usually boys with acne are also treated as undesirable, be that a loveable nerd or just a creepy loser - but I'm not sure I've ever even seen a girl character with even moderate acne (like I had at that age, though it certainly felt severe at the time) on screen.

I took isotretinoin for my acne in school, which is a pretty powerful medication that is highly effective at stopping acne but also comes with some serious risks - I had to take regular blood tests when I was on it to make sure it wasn't killing my liver. Due to my (mentioned before on this blog, lol) massive phobia of all things medical and spiky, I fainted for every single one of these. On top of that, it increased my already very high (I'm about as white as you can get) sensitivity to sun, so I couldn't go out even on cloudy days without suncream. And it causes birth defects, so they kept making me take supervised pregnancy tests "just in case" for months, until I changed dermatologists and the new one was like "what? why? no, you don't have to do those, just sign a thing saying you're not sexually active and it's not our fault if you're lying about that and you're chill".

It was a Lot, is what I'm saying.

Isotretinoin isn't the first port of call for treating acne - my GP tried several topical solutions and two different kinds of antibiotics (one of which I was allergic to, which naturally, me being me, I discovered by fainting about it. Again. in music class, this time) before finally referring me to the dermatologist who was allowed to prescribe me The Serious Drugs. Moreover, I stand by my decision! I wasn't pressured into taking it by family or friends, I was allowed to make my own choices, and going through all that rigmarole was absolutely my choice.

...I might even have taken the same choice if I'd lived in a society without all this weird stuff around acne, to be honest. As mentioned at the top of the post, I have a skin picking problem and acne not only doesn't help with that, it was causing me actual pain.

But also. I don't know. The societal stuff didn't help at all. My dermatologist suggested at the time that insecurity about my acne might be contributing to my chronic neck and upper back pain, of all things (much like the acne, something that started in my teens but hasn't stopped since I left them), since it might be making it harder for me to stand up straight with confidence. I laughed the idea off at the time, but now... I don't know. It could certainly have been a contributing factor.

I wish I had a call to action here, but I don't really know what can be done about this, especially not at the individual level. This is a societal gender discrimination issue, and I guess an ableism issue as well? I wouldn't normally call my acne a disability, but it is certainly a medical condition, and it does affect my life (and acne can certainly be the basis of unconscious discrimination, though I'm very grateful that that hasn't been something I've faced personally). If anyone has any more productive suggestions, feel free to add them onto this post. And I guess, put characters with acne in your stories? Including women, and including adults! 5% is one in twenty. One in every twenty 40+ year old women (according to that cited study, anyway, which I can't currently verify because my institutional access is fucking broken again) still "have problems" with acne. That might be worth representing.

[rainingincale]

Bro no joke, forgetting that not everyone hates capitalism and then having to try have a reasonable conversation with someone about buying things... *eye twitch*

[pepprs]

ok actually yeah. i really need to do dishes and go to bed and not stay up late mentalillnessposting a little too viscerally on tumblr the night before i facilitate a workshop in front of the literal president of the university and the vp of my division (LOL about that btw. actively shitting my pants.) but oh my GOD. so saying goodbye to lia was actually fine in the moment. neither of us cried and we talked about all the ways we’ll still be in each others lives and reasons we’ll have to interact in the near future. and she gave me an extremely heartfelt thoughtful gift and we left on a very hopeful note and i felt better and content bc there’s still the rest-of-life and we’ll see each other there. but like an hour before that as i mentioned i was HYSTERICALLY sobbing. in full view of people i know AND people i don’t. and i just sat there and sobbed while everything carried on around me. everything carried on around me!!! and i feel like im about to sob again thinking about it.

[opens-up-4-nobody]

How is it that after watching The Terror literally countless times, I still want to rewatch it?

[vegaseatsass]

Theory of Love is definitely one of the hardest BLs to take seriously that I've watched so far (NOBODY SPOIL ME PLS I am up to ep6 and hoping we're gonna switch at some point from Gun POV to Off POV and turn the perspective on its wet-from-water-bottle-showering head, but I don't KNOW for SURE so don't tell meeee) but one thing I'm really vibing with is just how well it captures the sheer disastrousness of disastrous gay friendships!!!

I don't love watching a bunch of dudes be toxically masculine @ every girl that walks past them (though I understand that this performance is the sibling to the boy craziness I performed at all the girls I was in love with in grade school), but I just love the dynamic within the friends group of like WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON? WHY ARE OUR FRIENDS SUDDENLY ALWAYS MAD AT EACH OTHER??? WHERE IS ALL THIS DRAMA COMING FROM?????

The drama is coming from Disastrous Queer Friendship. From two friends who cannot/will not communicate how they feel for each other or why "just" friendship is not working. There is no escaping it my guys all you can do is ride the ship through the storm at your bros' side

[welcometogrouchland]

not to ask to be put down like old yeller the moment things get slightly hard...but-

[beechicory]

Argh.

[wikipedie]

not me planning how i'm going to spend my money on books <3

my 2023 going strong lmao

[eyrieofsynapses]

y'know, I'm chill with other people smoking/vaping/etc. it's absolutely not good for you, but bodily autonomy is a thing for a reason, we all only live once, some people find that it helps with other issues etc. etc. it's like doing just about anything that's bad for you, which is, you know, a lot of things. not getting enough sleep is bad. eating too much processed food is bad. hell, just sitting on our phones all the time is awful for us.

what absolutely pisses me off--what makes me want to shake people by the shoulders--is everyone who does it in an indoor space where others live without asking if it's okay. because here's the thing: when you smoke by yourself, you consent to all the stuff it'll do to you.

but. everyone else? did not consent to the culprit fucking up their body. it's the equivalent of punching them repeatedly in the jaw. except that is, at least, blatant, immediate pain. secondhand/thirdhand smoke and vape? that is fucking insidious. that's carcinogens, and chemicals that sit and build up inside your body, slowly but surely screwing you over. it may be decades until the consequences unfold. or it might only be a few months, if you're sensitive to it. might make everyone in the house feel sick within a day or two, if they're sensitive at all. and, of course, there's everyone with asthma and other chronic conditions for whom this becomes even worse, for whom it does not merely irritate but suffocates.

back when we didn't know how bad cigarettes could fuck us up--back then, there was an excuse. but now? now everyone knows what this shit does. hell, plenty of us have family members who died of lung cancer. so there is no excuse, now. now, you know you're hurting people when you do it, that every poisonous puff is worming its way oh so slowly into everyone else's cells, bodies, lungs, blood.

some people struggle with addiction. I'm not targeting that. sometimes you know how bad a thing is, and you do everything you can to stop, and you just can't. (doesn't make you less culpable--but it isn't all carelessness, at that point.) I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about all the damn generation Z people (my peers) I run into lately who display a ridiculous lack of caring for others' health. and you know, I'm just... impressed, really. at how anyone can justify that to themself. at how you could possibly call yourself a good person and still do that.

our generation grew up with endless, endless messages explaining exactly what cigarettes do to us, exactly why we needed to avoid secondhand smoke like the plague it is. I know kids of smokers who deal with the ramifications of it even now. how the hell, how the living bloody hell, could you possibly learn all of that, know people who went through that, and still justify exposing other people without a care in the damn world?

[musical-chick-13]

They should invent a life that is not lonely.

[multifandom-fanfic-writer]

I just got a comment that made me so asdfqgsjafbakslhdqjajldjahafkaoeucvhenquxoanqpeflvjahdalfkalalskdjgfhsjalsflajkl!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !!!!! !!! !!!!

[everymlmhybrid]

i'm sorry gay people i'm giving up i miss a certain brand so i'm gonna allow myself to buy women's clothes again. sorry for my girlmoder swag