The 'ingredients you can pronounce means it's healthy' line implies a world in which the kind of nutrition a person requires scales with their biology education and grasp of phonics. Which isn't true, of course, but sure would imply some interesting worldbuilding if it were
"Potassium cyanide. Arsenic trioxide. Polonium 210. Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin," I say, smugly and with full confidence, before downing the glass of wine my political rival insisted on pouring for me. Seconds later, she watches with a smirk as I collapse writhing to the ground, in the knowledge that I never could hit that "R" in "pinot noir" quite right
every chapter of deltarune has a secret npc who only appears if you leave and re-enter the room 1225 times while you have a bagel in your seventh inventory slot and the npc is a sentient doorknob and when you talk to them the music cuts out and they’re like “who’s that whispering in the trees, it’s two sailors and they’re on leave, pipes and chains and swinging hands, who’s your daddy, yes i am” and then within four hours there’s a thirty minute long video on youtube titled “ASGORE IS FRIEND??? DADDY THEORY EXPLAINED” and it already has 100,000 views and then a year later people call the next chapter disappointing because it was focusing too much on developing the main characters instead of explaining the doorknob guy
yolanda garcia lost her mom at age ten. she watched the person she loved more than anything die an agonizing, drawn-out death.
consequently, yolanda can’t handle pain she can’t cure.
yolanda finds surgery so she can save those in pain without having to confront that pain. she orders more morphine and yells at the odds when the patient she is called to consult on is awake, alert, and hurting.
in july of her R2, yolanda loses a woman who looks nothing like her mom but is like her in every other regard. she is kind and warm, with this infectious laugh that is present until the anesthesia pulls her under. she is the same age yolanda’s mom was; her kids are the same age yolanda and her brother were.
yolanda runs out of that OR the moment she can and into the nearest bathroom, collapsing onto the floor, sobbing.
yolanda lets go and feels the grief—personal and professional—for the first time in years. she doesn’t notice when the door opens, when eileen shamsi of all people slides down against the wall and sits beside her.
eileen shamsi, the notorious hard ass attending, known for reprimanding residents for just a moment’s hesitation in answering a question, taking them off procedures for days until they prove their worth again.
shamsi doesn’t say anything. doesn’t do anything. she just sits there with yolanda while she shakes and sobs it all out. sits and sits and sits.
“who?”
“what?”
“you lost someone. who?”
“my mom. but it was a long time ago, i shouldn’t have—”
and shamsi shakes her head.
“how’d you know?”
“i had a miscarriage, before victoria. the first kid i lost after… i had a very similar reaction. at least you made it out of the OR.”
“you didn’t?”
“i did not.”
they return to silence after that.
shamsi does not remind yolanda that there is no room for sorrow or softness—for weakness—in surgery. especially not as a woman of color. she doesn’t tell her to be better.
she just lets her be.
they leave, an indeterminable amount of time later, without another word. they never mention any of it again, but they don’t forget about it.
yolanda is already miller’s protégé, but shamsi takes her under her wing too, toeing the line between professional and personal mentorship. yolanda becomes a semi-regular visitor to the javadi-shamsi home, a fixture at friday dinners when the stars and shifts align.
it isn’t maternal. not to shamsi, not to garcia.
it is to victoria. it seems that yolanda gets this gentle, understanding side of her mother—her mother—that victoria does not.
victoria hates yolanda for it. she resents her mother. the anger builds over the years, as yolanda continues her residency and victoria works through med school.
when victoria finally starts at PTMC, down in the pitt, and realizes that garcia is fucking reporting to her mother what she is doing, how she is doing, it clicks. finally and completely.
she will never be enough for her mother.
yolanda has long thought the same way.
she was not enough for her mother, could not do enough for her mother; she will never be enough for her mother, because her mother is gone.
Last year, I befriended a Catholic seminarian. We've gotten to be pretty decent friends. Seeing as he was staying in town for the summer and I wasn't, I entrusted him with caring for my plant.
He did a wonderful job, but as he was returning my plant to my custody, he explained "I watered her every other day, I gave her new dirt, moved her into the sunshine, prayed the rosary-"
"What?"
He looked at me, confused. "Isn't she a plant you pray with?"
"No," I said slowly. "She's a prayer plant. That's the... colloquial name of the plant."
Upon seeing his stricken face, I realized something went wrong. Turns out, this entire time, he's been including my plant in on his prayers and leaving her near icons.
Listen, totally cool. My plant becoming Catholic is a great deal for her not dying over the summer. But now I must navigate this interfaith household. Keep me in your thoughts.
incredibly bizarre and confusing seeing ppl call themselves "chuds" all the sudden b/c like
thats what we call neo nazis and shitty conservative bros? or at least its what we used to call them? why are ppl calling themselves "chuds" affectionately now
what is happening
yall know chud means fascist right like please tell me yall know that
im hoping this is a case of "younger folks on the internet adopting Silly Word b/c its Silly and not realizing it actually means something"
so here's me educating! you're calling yourselves fascists! thats what you're doing! maybe don't do that and use your head before you start using every goofy word you see!
You are a bug in bug hell but your spider torturer so fucking bad at their job that the devil himself has to grab you with his gay pitchfork and help them
please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.
you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.
first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.
now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:
in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.
and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.
and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.
it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:
• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.
• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.
• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.
• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.
• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.
• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.
and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.
what i'm asking:
if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.
if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.
india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.
The movement, which began as a satirical protest, has evolved into a nationwide challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government.
Supporters of India's youth-led Cockroach movement said Tuesday they will continue their protest in New Delhi, refusing to leave their sit-in site a day after police used tear gas and batons to disperse thousands of them as they tried to march toward Parliament.
Hundreds of protesters camped at Jantar Mantar, a designated protest site, under heavy police presence, saying they would stay until Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan resigns over alleged failures in India's examination system.
"We are going to continue our protest," said Abhijeet Dipke, founder of the Cockroach Janta Party, which emerged just two months ago.
The movement, drawing students, professionals and families, marks a rare public challenge to Prime Minister Narendra Modi 's government in its third term, reviving criticism over its handling of dissent and its use of force to respond to protests. [...]
Sona Bisht, a 20-year-old student who was part of the protest, said the confrontation strengthened her resolve.
"If the government thinks that doing this with Gen Z, they can stop us, then that won't happen. We are here talking about education, talking about securing our future. And till the time our demands are not met, we will not move from here," she said.
"Definitions developed thus far about youth, like the Gen Z narrative, have largely been linked to roles attributed by the dominant system. The rulers have invented a whole range of terms — rebellious, irresponsible, apolitical, extremist, consumerist — not to understand youth, but to neutralize it. They know as well as we do that whoever wins over the youth wins over society. [...] Thus the question is not whether youth is powerful, but in whose interest this power is directed. Today’s uprisings — such as those in Nepal, Bangladesh, Madagascar, Indonesia, Kenya, Morocco, and beyond — demonstrate that youth continues to emerge as a decisive actor. Young women like Deniz Ciya have proven this with their lives. These uprisings are not expressions of generational temperament. These „Gen Z uprisings“ are expressions of a social force confronting structural crisis inherent in the current system. [...] Recent youth uprisings — whether in the form of environmental justice protests, labor movements, or uprisings against authoritarian governments — are proof that youth worldwide are not only responding to a set of circumstances; they are consciously and collectively rejecting the narratives that seek to define them. Thus, it is crucial to analyze what transpired, and draw lessons from these uprisings, particularly in the context of building a global youth democratic confederalism. For the power of youth movements is interconnected, despite being geographically distant." — "Beyond "Gen Z": Defending Revolutionary Youth Spirit" by Lêgerîn
"The youth in general, and especially the young women, are the spark of every revolution.We can’t look at the history and found a revolution without the youth. We are a fundamental factor. We should be aware of this reality, we should take conscience of our historical role. By doing this we will provide ourselves with a plan that will allow us the unity of action and objectives. The Youth should not be condemned to be a slave of the capitalist system. [...] If we reject the labels and mentalities imposed by the system, taking consciousness as Internationalist Youth in a global level and organizing ourselves, is there someone who can stop us?" — "The youth is the spark of every revolution" by Lêgerîn.
For thousands of years humanity has selectively bred chickens to have larger breasts and to have to lay eggs constantly. We did it to get more meat and per chicken, but from the perspective of the domesticated chickens they’re sorta living in a very specific fetish scenario
no piece of teen media has ever accurately depicted the quiet psychological warfare of bullying. bullies on TV are always dumb brutes and not the evil geniuses of emotional manipulation that they are in real life. being given a wedgie and having your lunch money stolen is nothing in comparison to a classmate quietly creating a taboo against speaking to you that they intend to enforce against all the other kids. it’s nothing like continuous cutting comments from people you thought were being nice to you. that way that the work of one kid can make you feel like every person on earth silently hates you and that you are dirty, disgusting, worthless, creepy and useless. that you can have friends but many of them will not speak to you at school for fear of the social consequences on their end. how that damage lasts in any social setting for the rest of your life
you can’t even “tell a trusted adult” because you cannot begin to articulate the thousands of small transgressions you’ve experienced building to the horror of knowing your peers would like you dead. they don’t have to say it or hurt you physically. they have other ways of letting you know they’d prefer if you were worn fuel
the worst part is kindness as cruelty - the saying hi, the asking about your day, just talking to you and the joke is that anyone would ever want to talk to you and be interested in your life. it’s sickening and dehumanizing.
