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pointlesscandies

A Dog and a Plane // Episode 3 + Toto's dance

#a dog and a plane

adz

an Iraqi gamer's beautiful review of Disco Elysium

can-i-make-image-descriptions

[Image ID: Reddit post on r/ DiscoElysium from u/beaMoon2016 tagged "Discussion" and titled: Never thought I'd read a story that so effectively captures why life in a broken system is worth living

Body text reads: I grew up in Iraq. When people hear this in the US, where I now live, they usually say: "Wow...that must have been hard."

I mean? I guess? I've been a couple hundred meters from ISIS bombings. The government is spectacularly dysfunctional. You never know when the electricity might be on. Most summer days are 50 C. The tap water is salty.

And I also love the wonky little generators people wire everywhere. I love the weird shark statue with Saddam torn off the top. I love the guys fishing in the river despite the fact that it's greenish black. I love how excited everyone gets about the government building one tiny new overpass. I also love the random overpass sitting in the dessert connected to zero roads. I love hearing our friends giggle as my dad ribs him for driving a Toyota Hilux, a favorite of terrorists transporting weapons. I love the stray cats that carefully pick their way over the barbed wire on our walls. I love the people that run towards a bombing instead of away because they want to help the survivors. I love the guy who fixed my glasses with a wrong-sized screw because he lived through sanctions and doesn't need dumb things like correctly-sized screws.

But it's almost impossible to explain this to most Americans. They picture a normal Iraqi life and think it would be their worst nightmare. So I'm used to just not sharing that part of my life, or ever seeing it in media.

So this game totally caught me off guard. We're in a setting in between apocalypses, starring an alcoholic fuckup from a corrupt occupier-aligned police force, who at best might keep a couple people from dying in a gang war. It's pretty bleak. It's also incredibly fucking joyful.

Just the prose alone is so sincere. You can't write stuff this goofy, flowery, beautiful, dumb, and moving ironically. The writers clearly love words far out of proportion to how much they might be able to actually change fundamentally broken systems.

And all the characters, the worldbuilding details, the interruptions from Shivers and Esprit de Corps, hell, all the bits and pieces of your brain. There's so much attention and thus so much love everywhere in this game for humans and what humans do. Doesn't matter if they might all get shot, blown up, or wiped clean by pale in a couple years. Doesn't matter if they brought it all on themselves. Right here, in this moment, they are human, and so they matter.

I feel like this game gets why my life in Iraq was worth living. Even if a lot of my fellow Americans think the world sure would be nicer and simpler if Iraqis just didn't exist.

I thought I had signed up for a fun 20-30 hour diversion, not the feeling of being loved?! /End ID]

#disco elysium #text post

dingyuxi

MY ROYAL NEMESIS 멋진신세계 (2026)

#my royal nemesis

scribefindegil

I was in a long-term relationship that fell apart partially because I was ace and my partner was very much not, and every time we looked for relationship help we got told that I was the problem. Not just that a significant mismatch in sexual desire could be a problem in a relationship, but that it was My Fault, Specifically, for not being willing to suck it up and have a bunch of sex I didn't want. To my ex's credit, he cared about consent much more than any of the professionals we talked to and refused to pressure me even when my (lesbian, billed as progressive and pro-LGBT) therapist was actively telling him to.

But it meant that we had absolutely no help or support when we were trying to work on the relationship in ways that *did* value my autonomy. There's basically no advice for people who want to try to make a relationship where there's a big desire gap work that isn't "well you should just have sex anyway" or "just break up lol". And that sucks!

Sometimes breaking up is necessary, and that's what ended up happening with us because there were other reasons we worked better as friends, but there *should* be better frameworks for discussing what people want and need that don't automatically assume that one partner's feelings are automatically more important or valuable than the other's.

geese-in-flight

I was dating someone who wanted to be accommodating and work with me to figure things out but lacked the EQ to do so in any effective way. It was my first relationship and I was still figuring out what being ace meant for me. It’s been eight or nine years, but I still remember very clearly the moment I realized we’d been approaching the entire discussion as if my orientation was the problem to be solved, and that it would be equally as valid to say that hers was.

She was significantly less impressed with this revelation than I was, but I tried to hold on to it ever since (although obviously the real problem wasn’t either one of us, but the mismatch and the lack of tools to deal with it). I think it’s super important to remember that we aren’t the ones in the wrong while our theoretical partners are the ones in the right. I was surprised by how much I’d internalized the assumption and I don’t think I’m the only one.

ineffectualdemon

The other frustrating aspect of this is allo relationships will often have periods of time where libido does not match (I'm not derailing and this will swing back to asexual people)

Just after giving birth, during a family crisis, during a mental health episode, during health problems, during stressful periods at work

There are a lot of times when one person is horned up and raring to go and the other has no interest

And the solution often presented is that the person who is going through something should just put out because they are the problem instead of like...finding ways to engage in non sexual intimacy to reaffirm closeness

An asexual person is going to get 10x the amount of pressure and blame put on them and no advice on how non-sexual intimacy can help their relationships and if they get that at all it will only be to sell it as a bridge to sex they don't want.

I really hate the selling of intimacy as only equaling or facilitating sex. Intimacy comes in many forms and should be explored more by every couple as a non sexual act. And it the given importance it deserves. In fact I would argue if we as a society put more value on non sexual intimacy more relationships would be happier and healthier

And asexual people would stop getting shit for being themselves.

the-haiku-bot

And asexual

people would stop getting shit

for being themselves.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

#text post

zylahbee

sexism in medicine kills people. racism in medicine kills people. fatphobia in medicine kills people. queerphobia in medicine kills people. classism in medicine kills people. ableism in medicine kills people.

do not downplay people’s fears about being mistreated because they are a part of a marginalised group. it is a matter of life and death and you should be angry about it.

the worst part of summer is that people get sooo comfortable expressing their disgust at having to see other people’s bodies. they’re always complaining about wrinkly old men at the nude hot springs or fat women in bikinis at the beach. I hate that shit. if you’re not capable of being normal about bodies you personally don’t find attractive, just turn your head to look at something else! and if you’re not smart enough to do that, then at least do the rest of us the courtesy of suffering in silence, because we don’t wanna hear your weird comments. thanks.

#txt

ritualday

we're getting closer to 2030 and what are we supposed to do then. that's not a number for a year to be

#txt

shuttershocky-deactivated202512

Western passport holders will never understand. To go anywhere with a third worlder passport like a Filipino one, you need your tax returns, certificate of employment, bank statements, marriage certificates, sometimes a recommendation from a citizen of the country you want to travel to, everything possible to prove that you have a job and a family at home and you're not planning to be an illegal immigrant, JUST to get hit with a rejection because the embassy didn't believe you had enough proof.

Did you have travel plans? Already booked the plane tickets and hotels? Fuck you, better hope they issue refunds (they don't).

bloodmech

Americans and Western Europeans will never understand how insanely hard and bothersome it's to travel anywhere with a weak passport, let alone immigrate.

You want to study abroad? Show us proof that there is a quadrillion dollars in your bank account. Oh, an average monthly salary in your country is $400 and you plan to work when you arrive? You can't do that, silly, a student visa only allows you to work 2 hours every third Wednesday, and if we find out that you're working a second more we will deport you.

You want to work abroad? Better be a programmer, then of course you are welcome. Doctor, scientist, white-collar or, god forbid, blue-collar worker? You can fuck right off, your visa application goes straght into trash.

But if you marry one of our first-world citizens, then fine, you can come. Because we can't upset them, after all, they are a real person, unlike you.

xantissa

EU Advice to people who have friends in places with weak passports- go to your department of foreigners and ask for something that called Formal Letter of Invitation or something similar. It usually is called something similar and costs a few euro/whatever currency you have. It will not be more than a fancy coffee at Starbucks or such place.

You will have to prove that you can afford a guest, have some income and also usually take responsibility for possible deportation cost.

But if you really are inviting a friend over, they will give you a formal document you can send to your friend. Then the friend applies for a visa while attaching the Very Official document with it. They will get the Schengen visa and most probably will get it expedited too.

It's some effort, but if it's for a friend it's worth it. And it's way less costly than the ridiculous loops the friend is being forced to go through and pay for multiple 3rd party services just to get a freaking visa for a month.

blondebrainpowered

Cat paw prints in the medieval floor tiles of the 12th century CE St Peter Church in Wormleighton, England

moonlitstargazer

why does his son have to be good at posting

#lol

jethroq

dialectics

deadseacorpse

homoqueerjewhobbit

Fellas, is it counter revolutionary to eat.

biglawbear

This is a reminder that any insane extreme position can be couched in progressive sounding language to try and persuade you of its validity, even positions that are totally contrary

imyourbadjew

rhube

I just remembered that this was a thing that was HILARIOUS in 2006 and apparently that was ten years ago now.

Old people: join with me in remembering how funny we found this on LiveJournal.

Young people: look at this lolrus, it’s so happy, it has a bucket.

And then they stealed away the bucket and we realised we had fucked up a perfectly good elephant seal and given it anxiety.

pipistrellus

listen this vintage meme is high quality and i will hear nothing said against it

rhube

20 years. I am not happy about this.

demonicsymphony

I’m delighted at the bucket reappearing but dismayed at the passage of time

luminouspica

Happy 20 years to Lolrus and his bucket!

bobdylanyaoi

plans for the summer

JERK IT

WRITE RPF

DRINK ALCOHOL

BLOG LIKE IVE NEVER BLOGGED BEFORE

job ?

LISTEN TO RECORDS

bobdylanyaoi

to the people who said “this except alcohol”: i support you & your sobriety/preference for other substances. i hope all goes well and you have the best summer ever.

to the few people who said “this except rpf”: sorry this isn’t about you. this post is for real rpfers only and if you can’t get behind that then you aren’t invited to the BDY summer plans

shamebats

"There's no thought crimes and no thought heroisms" is honestly such a good piece of life advice.

You could be having the most fucked up problematic thoughts 24/7 but if you treat people with kindness, the good you do is the only thing that matters. But if you have only the purest thoughts and all the correct beliefs, it doesn't matter one bit if you spend most of your time being an asshole to people.