Apr 25
when you use the phrase "a couple", you most often mean
Exactly two
Either two or three
Between one and a few
Between one and several
I don't use that phrase naturally
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when you use the phrase "a couple", you most often mean
Exactly two
Either two or three
Between one and a few
Between one and several
I don't use that phrase naturally
Non-answering selection
See the issue is I slurped up The Raven Boys with an unhinged gluttony that you would not believe but i can not get my hands on the Dream Thieves yet and i can’t just go on ao3 without risking major spoilers but god do i want to start inhaling fics like a neurodivergent kirby
the number of times I've been called a "Russian spy" throughout my entire life for simply wanting things like human rights and better healthcare etc. is hilarious
purely because my mother was called a "Russian spy" for protesting against the Vietnam War after her first husband was drafted and killed for nothing in a war he didn't want to be in
and my grandmother was called a "communist red sympathiser" for mourning the death of her first child in the 30s due to medical malpractice worsened by her family's poverty during the Great Depression (no money for a good doctor, no money for any pregnancy related healthcare, etc.)
it's frustrating, and so sad.
anyone who is even slightly to the left in the USA with perfectly understandable and fair reasoning, anyone with perfectly understandable trauma and pain related to imperialism, capitalism, the unique cruelty of the American Way, we've all been getting called some variation of "Russian spy" for generations
and the teens today are still getting called "Russian spies" for wanting *checks notes* the exact same shit, very basic shit, very basic human rights and a decent life for everyone as much as possible
but somehow wanting a good quality of life makes us all "Russian spies"
(being an actual Russian spy would offer better pay and healthcare than anyone in the fucking USA could ever get doing pretty much anything, I'm just saying)
and both Dems and Repubs have said this exact same shit forever, it transcends party lines because of course it does because the rot of ignorance goes deeper than just being isolated to one side or the other
and I'm just thinking about this because the Politics Hag has once again accused Pro-Palestine protesters of being somehow both Russian spies and apparently Chinese because of course she has to be racist on top of doing the same Cold War shit both of the major US parties just fucking love so much
the first time I was called a "Russian spy" was in a history class when I was seven years old and I told the teacher that free Soviet healthcare seemed like a pretty decent idea, actually
and the teacher called me a communist and told me to "go work for the Russians if I liked them so much"
and I still remember that because it was blatant weird hatred of a Soviet Union that had then recently already collapsed anyway (possibly just general Russophobia which is a huge problem in the USA in general)
but also because even just a child expressing the most basic of observations, that providing healthcare is blatantly better than not providing any healthcare at all to millions of people, was somehow an "evil", "communist" idea
Like I didn't fully understand the politics behind it until years later, but I remember it felt weird at the time due to the sheer vitriol in my teacher's voice, and in retrospect yeah, of course I was right to feel uncomfortable. I was seven.
And yet, I was somehow an "evil communist" for observing that if my disabled family had actual healthcare, none of us would be struggling as much as we were
even as a small child, that stuck out to me. I wanted a better quality of life for everyone, and that somehow made me the Sworn Forever Enemy of the Government and Nation, and it was like, what the fuck. I was seven years old.
and even now, in fucking 2024, the same USA political crowd is spewing the same shit at people who still just want the most bare minimum
we want peace and human rights and for those in power to be held accountable for the abuses of that power and we want healthcare and education and housing and somehow this makes us "evil communists"
it's the same Cold War shit they spewed back in the day, it's the same pre-Cold War shit they used to spew back in my grandmother's day
it's racist, xenophobic, blatantly hateful and ignorant, and is designed to evoke the "ideological bad guys" of the American socio-political zeitgeist in order to both other those seeking better lives from the presumed "American Standard" while also dismissing us all as being so vile to our overlords that they are not only being xenophobic and racist but actively stripping us of our identity as citizens in the process
to these USA politician fuckheads, calling an American a Russian or Chinese spy is intended to be this insurmountable insult, and it's so intentionally hateful and racist on top of being this insidious way to signal to their specific voter bases that "if you want a better life, you can't possibly be an American, and if you're not with us you're against us by default"
and that is both ignorant and racist while also placing all us "Russian spies" in significant danger, because that shithead rhetoric positions us as bring some kind of enemy of the people, when in reality, we are the people and we want lives that are worth living to a higher standard of quality of life
but they don't give a shit and it's easier for these USA politicians to just call all the leftists Russians or Chinese agents rather than make even the smallest effort to realise the severity of the circumstances in which most Americans are living
it's easier to turn leftists into Enemy Number One by not even acknowledging us as citizens at all, we're demoted from Fellow Citizen to Foreign Agent as a uniquely ignorant and racist way of dehumanising leftist Americans in the eyes of the establishment, because they refuse to believe that such a thing as a leftist American can even exist, they fundamentally do not understand and do not care to.
these are all just some thoughts I've had in the past few hours, since the Politics Hag has once again barfed out this exact fucking line once again
and it's so telling that their number one way of being shitty to people begging for peace, for justice, for any improvement in quality of life on this planet at all
is to immediately go to the same old ignorant, racist shit.
"you want good things to happen for once?? you're a fucking communist!"
My grandmother was called a "Russian Red" for demanding better healthcare after the loss of her first child caused in large part by the failed American medical system.
My mother was called a "communist bitch" for mourning her husband who was killed in action in a war he never wanted to be forced to fight in.
I've been called a communist and a Russian spy, purely because I've witnessed incredible systemic injustices and suffered some myself, and I want to improve the future so that ideally nobody else would have to suffer in these various ways ever again.
But of course, we're all just Russian spies or Chinese agents, because all of these fucking old USA politician shitheads never got over the end of the Cold War and they all grew up inundated in the racist ignorant Lavender Scare Red Scare Everything Scare era and have not cared one bit about anything that has occurred ever since.
They do not care. They are happy to watch everyone around the world die forever, slowly, in entirely preventable ways, because they are still obsessed with fake bogeymen that only live in their own dilapidated heads and have no desire whatsoever to look around then and see anything resembling reality. These politicians cannot be decent, even if they could pretend really hard like they ever wanted to be.
So they spew the same ignorant, racist shit, generation after generation, all the whole refusing to address any of the concerns anyone is trying to scream in their faces, no matter how serious and important and legitimate those concerns are.
US politicians are ruling over a desperately divided nation, steeped in systemic injustices and a socio-political culture that leaves no room at all for even the most basic humanity.
So of course, their reaction to Americans trying to cry for action, for help, for peace, for healthcare, education, the environment-- We're all just dismissed as their Cold War era bogeymen.
The racism and ignorance is designed to paint us as outsiders, because they refuse to acknowledge that the citizens are, in fact, not okay and are not going to sit through this shit quietly.
Because speaking truth to power is not the "American Way", it's something those Other Countries With Bad Leaders do, and USA politicians do not have the awareness necessary to realise that America is in all seriousness a Country With Bad Leaders-- They themselves are the bad leaders, and perpetuate all of this misery causing all of this discontent, and they cannot tolerate that truth. They cannot see it, and when they briefly get a glimpse of it when looking upon crowds of millions of protesters, they shrivel up and instead of looking inward, they cast the protesters out and push it all away and dismiss it all over and over, always in the same ways.
It's so fucking predictable and depressing.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure actual Russian spies and Chinese foreign agents get paid better than I do, so I mean, shout-out to any actual spies for having one of the only well paid jobs in the fucking world at this point, lol. I assume they at least get decent healthcare, so they're doing better than 99% of everyone in the USA by default.
also I have a headache so this might not be too coherent, this is why I never check the news lmao
shout-out to my family for having 3 generations of us written off as beatnik communists, honestly if I could put that on my résumé I would
I'm gonna take a nap now, anyway the USA sucks and honestly the ideal future is where the East gets a global cultural victory after the West collapses under the weight of its own bullshit, which is looking more and more likely every single second
where are those really meticulous Alternate History writers when we need them
also I'm just realising that being called a Russian by most of my teachers throughout my formative schooling years for simply wanting healthcare may have influenced my actual appreciation of Slavic stuff in general, which is the last thing they wanted lmaoooo man fuck the USA it sucks so bad
on the other hand I always thought Slavic stuff was cool so to be honest as a little kid I mostly took it as a compliment, it took me a few years and some more brain development to realise that apparently being called a Russian was supposed to be a bad thing, then I just ignored all these fucking teachers and immediately started listening to bootleg CDs of various Viktor Tsoi songs by the time I was in middle school LOLLL
lmao at the idea of learning Russian so I can tell my old teachers to go fuck themselves properly, though (but also so I can talk to my Russian friends better and watch a bunch of really good Russian movies and enjoy the fuck out of some choice Russian literature and music, it's so fucking good holy shit I'm so mad the USA just entirely ignores that all of this even exists but that's a rant for another day)
anyway nap time, I have to fucking sleep now lol
I'm gonna sleep better knowing that the fact that I taught myself how to read Cyrillic would give all of these politicians a fucking aneurysm, like that alone would be enough for them
looking forward to the dream future where any American can turn on a TV and there's only one channel and it'll be a public access broadcast of someone's Russian grandma telling people about the objectively correct way to preserve fruits in those little glass jars and a bunch of other stuff, fuck yeah staraya baba channel let's goooooo, and then for the evening broadcasts it's the same concept and the same channel but it's a Chinese grandma teaching stuff, Eastern cultural victory please god I need the Grandma Knowledge Channel
can you tell I couldn't take my ADHD meds today
bedtime now (I've said it like three times but now I mean it)
closing statement: fuck xenophobia, fuck racism, fuck the USA, and we are right to strive for world peace and international harmony as human beings with compassion and open curiosity in our hearts and the desire for a good quality of life for everyone
fuck the oppressive system and all oppressive systems everywhere, I love my global comrades and none of these ignorant hateful old bastards can tell me that I'm wrong to indulge the very nature of the human spirit, which is to seek out and explore all that is different and beautiful and interesting about all peoples and to make friends and to care about those friends regardless of whatever else
In accordance with Vulcan philosophy: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations 🖖
camila mendes and maya hawke had all that chemistry and what for exactly like in no way one could call it queerbaiting so why do i still feel like i was indeed queerbaited am i the problem here im actually angry at myself cause like i KNEW it couldn't go there but i still kind of did and that's fucking weird
if i pet bolarola will bolarola make mrrrp sound
Parents always fucking do this. They KNOW they’re omitting, or purposely saying something that they KNOW bothers their kid. And they fucking KNOW that their kid KNOWS that they KNOW they’re being an ass. So why do they do it? This scene made me so angry. Coach KNEW Bitty KNEW that he KNEW something was up. The whole goddamn time. And he didn’t say a damn thing. Maybe I’m being unfair to Coach because the treatment isn’t “as bad as others have it” or some bullshit but as a kid who grew up with a super strict, misogynistic mother who KNEW that what she said and how she treated me made me FEEL LIKE WORTHLESS SHIT ....this scene made me all types of mad. Ugh I need to go walk
The Linburg-Comstock Variation
The Linburg-Comstock Variation is where the flexion of the thumb is connected to the flexion of the index finger (and potentially the middle and ring finger). Here is a demonstration:
The thumb cannot be flexed without the index finger likewise being flexed. You can also see some flexion in the middle and ring fingers, but for me this is fairly minor. Some other people can have more significant flexion in those fingers, akin to what you see in my index finger.
Do you have the Linburg-Comstock Variation?
Yes (both hands)
Yes (one hand)
No
Prefer not to answer