women are like diamonds: synthetically-produced women are not meaningfully different from naturally-formed women, and anyone trying to tell you otherwise is probably trying to justify keeping their women mines open
I always think that sport events, especially international ones, are primarily about fun and cultural exchange and hanging out together; it gets lost sometimes when people pay too much attention to keeping scores, but joy and building bridges should be more important. So glad this seems to be happening right now!
So how is it that second-hand embarrassment is the single most powerful and weakening emotion one can feel from media?
Tragedy? Delicious.
A hard-earned happy ending? Wonderful.
A convoluted narrative? Keeps you glued.
Simple slice of life? It’s entertaining.
Second-hand embarrassment? Hang on, g, I gotta pause this for fifteen minutes, no, I cannot continue watching this right now, I am just not strong enough.
"You can't ship those characters because they have a problematic height gap" well, strictly speaking we can't ship one of them. The other is well within the size and weight limits of most domestic parcel couriers.
I’m going to level with you. I have listened to The Devil Went Down to Georgia for most of my life. We were a country music household, this was a staple of my childhood along with Johnny Cash, Garth Brooks, and that one Chipmunks country album.
I have no idea what “Fire on the mountain run boys run/The Devil's in the house of the rising sun/Chicken in the bread pan picking out dough/Granny does your dog bite no child no” means and at this point I’m too scared to ask.
this is the key part of the song, that a lot of people miss. people have this misconception that the contest between Johnny and The Devil is about who is the better fiddle player. but it isn't. its about who is the better fiddler.
in a time before things like radios and record players, every time you heard music was because there was somebody in the room with you playing an instrument. and many, many, many social events involved dancing, which requires music. so, if you're planning any kind of gathering in the american south or appalachia, you need to find a fiddler. and the fiddler's job is to play music that everybody knows and likes and can dance to.
the mistake The Devil makes in his bet with Johnny is that he misinterprets the contest as being about technical ability, so he has this big flashy song. he plays fast and impressively with a band of demons playing unfamiliar instruments in unfamiliar rhythms. he's definitely more skilled at playing than Johnny, and thinks he has it in the bag.
but Johnny wins because the contest is about being the best fiddler. the song uses these lines mentioned above as a shorthand for saying that Johnny is playing these songs. Johnny launches into a set of the most popular songs, played well, and that's what gives him his big win. A good fiddler knows all the hits, and can read the room to know what to play next. The Devil loses because he completely fails to read the room, and doesn't know the right songs.
this girl was showing all the signs of being a secret mermaid so i pushed her into the pool and she turned into a forty foot long mosasaurus which is tbh way cooler
for those of you asking why i pushed her into the pool in the first place: i work for a duplicitous small town aquarium and i'm trying to kidnap mermaids to jump through hoops and shit to entertain tourists and make money. fucking obviously. now that i know she's actually a mosasaurus though i Have fallen in pure-hearted love with her
Please call your representatives: VOTE NO on the FEDERAL BOOK BANNING BILLS HR 2616, HR 8705, and HR 7661!
Transcript below the cut.
Page 1:
There are currently THREE FEDERAL BOOK BAN BILLS aiming to ban all TRANS BOOKS from U.S. public schools! HR 2616, HR 8705, HR 7661
June 2026 / Maia Kobabe (a trans author, for three years in a row the most challenged author in the U.S.)
Page 2:
HR 2616 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools if they “teach or advance concepts related to gender ideology,” as defined by an Executive Order signed by Trump in Jan 2025. It would also cut funding from schools unless they require “parental consent before changing a minor's gender markers, pronouns, or preferred name on any school form.” HR 2616 HAS ALREADY PASSED IN THE HOUSE! Please call your Senators to say NO ON HR 2616!
Page 3:
HR 8705 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools which teach “discriminatory equity ideology or gender ideology,” as defined by two Executive Orders aimed at suppressing “critical race theory” and trans representation. This bill is named after the late far-right activist Charlie Kirk, “The Charlie Act.” HR 8705 has passed out of committee, but has not yet been introduced in the House. Please call your House Reps to say NO ON HR 8705!
Page 4:
HR 7661 threatens to cut federal funding from public schools which offer material deemed “sexually oriented," treating any LGBTQIA+ identity as sexual content. It specifically forbids “gender dysphoria or transgenderism,” and “lascivious dancing” (drag). This bill, titled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” has 22 co-sponsors and has passed out of committee but has not yet been introduced to the House. Please call your House Reps to say NO ON HR 7661!
Page 5:
CALL SCRIPTS
“My name is [name] and I’m calling from [city, state, zip code]. I’m asking [Senator] to vote no on HR 2616. I oppose HR 2616 because it would restrict student’s access to books and it would specifically harm trans, nonbinary, and intersex students. Please stand against book bans and protect queer students!”
“My name is [name] and I’m calling from [city, state, zip code]. I’m asking [Rep] to vote no on HR 8705 and HR 7661. I oppose these bills because they would restrict student’s access to books and accurate history, and would especially harm BIPOC, trans, nonbinary, and intersex students. Please stand against book bans and support public education funding!”
Page 6:
Author Maia Kobabe: If HR 2616, HR 8705, or HR 7661 pass, it would be almost impossible for any public school in the U.S. to offer or teach my books, unless they’re willing to risk their federal funding. Students would be even less likely to learn about trans stories or accurate U.S. history.
Page 7:
Please call your representatives: VOTE NO on the FEDERAL BOOK BANNING BILLS HR 2616, HR 8705, and HR 7661!
Follow AUTHORS AGAINST BOOK BANS on insta & bluesky for updates on these bills!
insta / patreon / portfolio / etsy / my books / print store / bluesky
Maia always makes these actions clear and accessible and I so appreciate eir work.
If you don't know who your Senators or Representatives are, you can use Ballotpedia's Who Represents Me tool! (Note: there's a field for you to input your email address on their page, but it's not necessary to get your results. They just need a mailing address to confirm who your reps are.)
Once you've got names, you can look up and save your Reps' phone numbers in your phone. I find this makes it easier when I'm wavering about feeling brave enough to place a call. Just pressing a button instead of going and looking up the phone number all over again makes it just a liiiiittle easier, and sometimes that makes the difference between calling and not calling!
Belphie is in constant need of mental stimulation, so there's not really a wrong way to interact with him. you can pick him up, flip him about, and put down him down facing the opposite direction, and he'll just go "hey, that was novel!" and approach you for it again.
meanwhile I have to tell people "if you approach Pangur respectfully and hold out your hand for her to sniff, she will scratch you and draw blood. please just let her lurk in the corner and stare at you."
We have Tinkerbell, and Tinkerbell has a psychological problem. She truly, desperately, wildly wants you to pet her and if she realizes you're about to pet her, the anticipation of the act overwhelms her tiny mind, causing a display of petting aggression that involves teeth as soon as she is touched.
Tinkerbell is also very soft. Petting her is a gift from the gods. It's just that you have to disregard her boundaries and all rules about petting cats. Just walk up and get the hell in there, no warnings, no offering her your hand. Don't give her the time to psych herself up.
my dad is very intensely involved a battle with his city’s public administration over a playground they have tried to forcibly remove like five times in the past 20 years and DID remove once in like 2005 but then had to rebuild because my dad was such a pain in their asses and came through with undeniable receipts of the zoning plan from the 60s/the historic/cultural value of the urban planning…. like there’s a woman in the city office who is his arch nemesis. he is literally the daredevil of urban planning
slowing intuiting the rules and goals of solitaire through trial and error on what the computer does and does not let me do rather than looking up the rules because it's a much funnier way to learn
FIRST RULE OF SOLITAIRE: aces are useless. put them on the top right.
SECOND RUE OF SOLITAIRE: two's are about as useless as aces.
discard them to the ace pile as soon as possible
THIRD RULE OF SOLITAIRE: it's hard.
FOURTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: it's really hard;
FIFTH RUlE OF SOLITAIRE: you need to make the cards count down. But watch out. You must Alternate The Colours
FOURTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: make if you already have a red king and only have one more spot to add a king do not add another red king. You will lose.
SIXTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: make sure to do every possible move with cards already on the board before adding cards from your draw pile. You WILL screw yourself over
SEVENTH RULE OF SOLITAIRE: good luck. Don't forget to beyourself and have fun
never lose hope. somewhere, a middle-aged, gender ambiguous person with an advanced degree in an esoteric field and a fiber arts hobby could be crashing out and pinning all their remaining mental health on getting obsessed with your otp. any day now, the most elegantly written 100k fanfic you have ever read is going to hit ao3. it could happen. it has happened.
last week I was deep in the trenches ploughing through work and mid-afternoon realised I'd neglected to open the blinds and the room was a little dim, so I got up to do that and discovered that a car had flipped onto its roof directly outside my flat and the entire street was closed and flooded with emergency service while they dragged someone out of the vehicle and packed them into an ambulance. so now every time I open the blinds I'm a little like the dog with the ham sandwich bush. what the fuck could it be today.
blakekathryn
ellievsbear
stormborns
snowghoul
pixelskylines
dailybridgerton
