A bookworm's whims

Ace and aro, Queer as in fuck you. Avatar by my lovely friend gentleperrin. Mid-twenties

[teaboot]

Took Ollie to the vet today. And I'm not gonna say who. But ONE of us had a panic attack immediately after the checkup and wouldn't get out of the sink

[dontwannabeaphyrexianidiot]

[vaspider]

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/german-advocacy-group-lodges-criminal-complaint-over-meta-ai-glasses-2026-08-12

Good.

[bisexualwario]

[20th-centuryghost]

sorry this was going to be a tags addition because I only get to use my coated pantone swatchbook like 6 times a year when i have a new enamel pin to design, but...

METALLIC GOLD PANTIES ????

[purlturtle]

[mayfay]

[pangur-and-grim]

the book people said that I need to write a "Dear Reader" postcard, but this is all I have so far

[pangur-and-grim]

the book people said this is alright but that it’s too short, so this is maybe what I’ll add to it

[erry-cherrybomb]

@theshitpostcalligrapher “death of the author requires you to kill me” goes pretty damn hard right?

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

oh heallll yea

ink: ferris wheel press, cloak and forest

[pangur-and-grim]

by the way, this is the illustration I did for the other side of the card

with calligraphy courtesy of @theshitpostcalligrapher

[queerautism]

Hey so as the economy continues to get worse in the next few years, gambling companies are going to go extra hardcore predatory as people become more desperate. Yes, even more than they already are. You have to promise me right now you're not going to fall for it. No gambling, okay?

This is going to be especially bad with prediction markets and sports gambling, and it's already really fucking bad. But it also goes for loot boxes, blind box collectables, trading card games, and ESPECIALLY gacha games.

[zorin-os-official]

THE HOUSE ALWAYS WINS

GAMBLING IS NEVER PROFITABLE

RESIST THE URGE

[rudeboimonster]

#i cannot overstate they will make the horse girls gayer to get your money#im sorry thats just literally what it is#japan knows about yuri money

[prismatic-bell]

Listen, okay. I used to work in a gas station and as part of my job I sold lottery tickets. I'm about to tell you The One Big Secret State Lotteries Don't Want You To Know:

Scratchers have more prizes when the game is new, but those prizes are pretty much enough for you to break even and get addicted to the game.

They are the "first time it's free" wins. Because your brain doesn't remember that you won $10 on a $10 scratcher, it only remembers that you won. So you go back. And you go back. And in a few weeks you spend $100 to win $10 but it's fine, it's just a streak of bad luck, this game pays out all the time.

I once watched a woman pour almost $500 into scratchers, using her "winnings" to buy more and going back to her car and coming back in, jittery and shaky like every depiction you've ever seen of a speed addict in withdrawal. The symptoms didn't end until she lost her last dime. And then she tried to use our ATM. I'd actually called my manager in between buying bouts to beg her to let me do something, because I wasn't allowed to refuse the sale and if I did and it got back to corporate I'd be fired but I felt like I was handing lit matches to someone covered in gasoline, and she'd told me I could say the ATM was borked. So I taped a huge sign over the screen that said OUT OF ORDER STUCK CARD.

She was the most dramatic case, but far from the only one. I had people who came in every day after work and dropped $100 on scratchers. Daily. And that's not even the scariest part.

I had a customer I became friends with. We'll call him Jim. Jim invited me out for his birthday with his husband and a couple of other friends. We went to a casino, and because it was my first time I got a $10 free credit. And I was like "cool! I can play nickel slots all night long and never spend a dime of my own money!" And that is indeed what I intended to do. Early in the night, I won a $56 jackpot. I decided that was super-cool--I could fill my gas tank, grab a snack, and still have a little left over to throw in my savings account. Only five or six bucks, but hey! That adds up.

So I spent out the end of the original $10 and ended up with $63 total in winnings. At this point we'd been there like three hours, I was out of the money I'd been willing to spend/lose, and the noise and cigarette smoke was getting to me (the casino had gone nonsmoking but the carpets and stuff were still totally saturated, it was awful). So I said I was going to cash out and call it a night.

Jim physically took my playcard from my hand and forced it into a machine and said "no, no, you have to spend it ALL." He literally wouldn't let me leave the casino until I'd lost my winnings. And again, these were not huge winnings. These were "oh, that's nice." But he couldn't stand the idea of not gambling to the last penny--not just his last penny, but anyone's last penny. I hadn't realized until that moment that he had a problem--because he spread his lotto buys between multiple gas stations and never shared how much he spent at the casino.

Now Jim was a very nice guy with a very big problem (a few months after this he ended up in therapy for gambling addiction). I don't say this to slag off on him. We're actually still friends on Facebook. But he lost tens of thousands of dollars, several friends, and almost lost his husband, and he was taking other people with him. He was so deep in his addiction that he was putting the financial stability of other people at risk. I drew the line at spending my own cash--I'd actually left my bank card at home on purpose--but what if I hadn't? What if I wasn't autistic enough to basically have a built-in timer for flashing lights and ringing bells instead of finding them attractive? What if I hadn't grown up hearing my mother say "never take more money into a casino than you're willing to lose"?

Gambling addiction isn't just life-destroying, it can (in a way) be contagious. Your boss buys you a scratcher to put in your holiday card as a nice little token. What can it hurt? Your church holds a weekly bingo game for cash. It's just a chance to get out of the house, right? Your friend has a little casino outing for his birthday. You're just going to have a couple of drinks, play slots or blackjack for a couple of hours, meet some interesting people and go home--

--until you do more than that.

Be wary, kiddos. Don't take more than you're willing to lose. And the minute you think "this time I'm gonna--" you get your ass up and get out. Because that way lies debt and destruction, and the people raking in the billions don't care.

[godlessondheimite]

the mark of a real actor is if they did theater before they hit it big and continue doing theater after. if they didn’t do theater before, then they are hacks and if they stop doing theater after, then they are dilettantes who lucked out. obviously this applies to all actors ever and there are no exceptions.

[vaspider]

"Underlying conditions." That's what killed them. Not the virus, not the measles, not the tainted lettuce. Underlying conditions.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. go to work. go out to eat. don't be afraid.

They weren't killed by the slashing of the CDC. They weren't killed by the administration's demonization of masks, that brought on by the vanity of one man who didn't want his bronzer to come off. They weren't killed by an industrial food system which will only do things Right if it's forced to, if it's inspected and made to, and over which there are far fewer watchdogs than there used to be. No! Don't worry. They were killed by underlying conditions.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. the engines must keep running. don't be afraid.

Don't think about the fact that 12% of the population, or just about the same percentage of the population that marked themselves as Black on the 2020 Census, has diabetes. Don't think about the fact that 10% of the US population, or approximately the same percentage which has blue eyes, has at least one autoimmune disease. Don't think about the fact that 6% of the adult US population, or approximately the same percentage as 'people under the age of five', has a chronic heart condition. Don't think about the fact that the CDC says that 40% of the US population is obese, and that is an "underlying condition," too. That percentage? It's about the same as every US resident between the ages of 25 and 54.

don't be afraid. don't be afraid.

"Underlying conditions" is a way to wave away responsibility, yes, but it's more than that. It's a way to put separation between the average citizen and the two people -- so far -- who have died from food infested with parasites, the two people who literally shit themselves to death because the Trump administration has fully abandoned all of its proper functions in order to strip down everything it can get its hands on and cart it away for itself. It is not enough to grift billions through American Liberty World Financial Bitcoin, Gold Shoe, And Bible-Printing Emporium. It is not enough to set up a literal "please bribe the President" ATM for foreign governments to shovel cash in via cryptocurrency. They have to grab everything they can that isn't nailed down, and to do that, they have to rip everything they can out of the walls, fire everybody they can get away with, and shuffle the money into ICE, and from their into the pockets of friends no-bid contracts.

It is not enough, and so they whisper "underlying conditions," because that tells so many Americans, "Hey. Don't be afraid. It's okay. You don't have 'underlying conditions,' right? You are good and virtuous. You have done Everything Right, and are thus blessed with Good Health. You have Worked Hard and Been Proper and thus you will not be touched by the seemingly-random hand of fucking death hiding in a bag of Kroger lettuce." It's the same voice that says, "You don't want those layabouts getting disability and cheating you out of your money, so we should make it harder," except now it's saying, "Actually, just like COVID, the only people who died were the people who were sick already, and obviously you only have underlying conditions if you weren't taking care of yourself, which you are, so don't worry! We don't actually have to do anything. This will sort itself out."

don't be afraid. don't be afraid. after all, it's not you. it's them.

[vaspider]

#you have done Everything Right and are thus blessed with Good Health #is just prosperity gospel is just predestination

[brellstudiosart]

grace after finding ilyukhina's hidden bag of vodka and lipstick

[jabberwockypie]

Me: I don't know, maybe I was overstating how bad my migraines are to the neurologist. :-/

My best friend:

[jabberwockypie]

#THIS BITCH #do you know how many times a week this winter she got a migraine??? #Or this spring? #THIS SUMMER? #CALL OUT POST#between this and 'well maybe I don't have asthma and am just choosing to wheeze for aesthetic purposes' #I will be inflicting one million 'well maybe I could talk if I just tried harder' DON'T TEST ME (tags via @arinrowan)

Arin did you just turn MY post into a callout post?

[arinrowan]

Crawling out of the well of deep tumblr for the purpose, yes

[jabberwockypie]

#for every note this gets op has 1(one) day where she's not allowed to say maybe her disabilities what disable her are fake or made up (@arinrowan again)

I don't think you can do that?

[arinrowan]

Can I do that?

Yes

No

Remaining time: 2 days 15 hours

[kikokuso]

I have a new favourite batshit rail idea

Please build it for the funny please please please

[vacuously-true]

You're right. I SHOULD be able to take the train from Minneapolis to Berlin.

[homunculus-argument]

Fun fact: In several European countries where the drinking age is 18, and the age you can get a driver's license is also 18, there's a window of time where someone who just turned 18 and doesn't have a driver's license to use as an ID yet will simply use their passport. Shitfaced and unsupervised just-newly-legal-adults teenagers from the heart of central Europe showing up in Canada because someone thought "hey let's go to Texas lmao" and nobody was sober enough to say that that's a terrible idea.

[cozymushroom13]

I’d like to add that in Germany the legal drinking age for beer, wine and drinks with similar alcohol amounts is 16 (14 if you’re with a legal guardian) and 18 is the age for anything with hard alcohol.

You can also get a license at 17 but are only allowed to drive with a designated adult (that has a license and is noted on your temporary license, if I remember correctly)

[homunculus-argument]

Good addition: the "drunk european teenager who is legally an adult, going around unsupervised with a passport" excludes Germans.

[malignedmare]

it is genuinely so unbelievably annoying to be a child trafficking survivor and have to listen to people argue about shadows on the wall when it comes to children’s rights and child abuse prevention. the only true way to prevent child abuse is to take away parental control. give children rights. give them the education, resources, and rights to say yes or no to whatever and whoever they desire. i know what would have helped me. i’m so mind numbingly sick of all of this. everyone wants to feel like a hero, but nobody wants to help anyone.

[malignedmare]

there is not a pedophile cabal hiding in the shadows waiting to kidnap children. parents are the number one perpetrators of child sexual abuse. my kidnapper was my mother. my traffickers were all paid by her and had legal custody over me. i was forced thru constant manual labor and sexual humiliation in the name of “therapy” because parents are allowed to do whatever they want with the children they own. the end of adult supremacy is the only way to end child abuse.

[rosieandthemoon]

starting a new tag called “rude but necessary oracle” where I make general statements that some people need to hear, and they won’t like it.

[rosieandthemoon]

You are not, in fact, smarter than most people, and yes they can tell you think so.

[helenvaughans]

[helenvaughans]

as predicted, people in the notes who are mad about this can’t actually refute her point so they just resort to ad hominem attacks

[oldshrewsburyian]

I finally saw The Odyssey, and one of my takeaways is that Robert Pattinson was tragically born too late to be a queer-coded antagonist in 1930s swashbucklers. That man is clearly meant to strike campy poses and get into his rival's personal space and be in slutty swordfights.

[sharpsarcasm]

Like this?

[oldshrewsburyian]

Exactly like this. Also like this:

[chennnington]

I think I should start bragging about my adopted son’s achievements when people around me start bragging about their kids. Ooooh your child can count to 10 in mandarin? Well, my child found 110 landmines! And he’s only 6 years old!

[reasonsforhope]

I <3 HeroRats, I've been following them for years and they're still one of my favorite things

(I also <3 rats, and used to have pet rats, so admittedly I am super biased, but they're such sweet babies! Forget the anti-rat propaganda!)

Meet the HeroRATs: The Unlikely Rodents Saving Lives From Landmines

Dr. Cindy Fast, APOPO's Head of Training and Innovation, explains how the adorable 'HeroRATS' are saving lives across the globe.

You can adopt a baby yourself here ;)

There are also HeroRats saving lives by sniffing out tuberculosis, illegal wildlife trafficking products, and survivors of natural disasters during search and rescue operations! (source)

[picsthatmakeyougohmm]

[anaxaver]

the miracle of life

[waitafrikk]

i hate when a book describes a pause as pregnant. get your dick out of the pause

[lunyselene]

terry pratchett is the only person who actually knew how to use a pregnant pause