#which is a whole other issue imo

[muirneach]

toronto residents who dont care abt hockey but have been here for the past 57 years are sooo funny about the leafs. convinced they will lose every game no matter what

[oceanwithouthermoon]

another thing i dont like about the belief that soulmates are a strictly romantic thing is like... people in this fandom will be like "aiura and saiki are only not dating because hes aroace" which does not make sense and is weird 😭 so like you think soulmates have to be romantic but it can cancel out if one of them is physically incapable of feeling romantic feelings... which, even though its STRICTLY romantic in your mind, is apparently totally possible and somehow more acceptable than just not dating your "soulmate" because you dont like them like that

"theyre not dating AND hes aroace" makes sense. "theyre not dating BECAUSE hes aroace" does not make sense.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what is your favorite thing about charles and your favorite thing about erik? separately, as in what you like most about their characters :]

a devious question this one is, my friend!!! it's hard enough for me to explain my thoughts cohesively, but having to pick ONE thing i particularly love is difficult. with characters like charles and erik, theres been so much done with their characters over the decades and so they have so many components to them that make them so interesting and fun to observe. BUT I TRY FOR YOU TODAY. under the cut i kinda ramble and the size of this text box makin me anxious

i think if i were to be simple and broad, what i enjoy most about charles is his determination to help others, even if he isn't really thanked and/or if people don't even like him. ofc, this isn't to say he hasn't done wrong- to be honest, the fact he does wrong/questionable things at times is another aspect of him i really enjoy, maybe because- broadly speaking- he's meant to be altruistic (intent vs outcome and all that). i don't know if that's super exciting to most people, but it is for me

as for erik, my reason for liking him is easier to explain tbh. To Be Simple And Broad, his progression from villain to antihero over the decades has been fun to observe (as much as i have so far anyhow) and analyze. i think to be a bit more specific, him using his rage and pain as justifications for his villainous actions is definitely what compels me the most: hurt people hurt and the sort, an idea i've always found interesting (something something vicious cycles and the like). yet now, he recognizes this wasn't really. A Just Thing To Do and is beginning to change that, which i enjoy

[statementlou]

i’m sorry to bring this up again, but i wanted to ask how are you making sense of harry having his former girlfriend’s name tattooed on his thigh if you don’t think they were really together? i’m not a larrie and i follow you for your louis content, but i respect your opinions, so i guess i’m coming more from a place of curiosity rather than seeking reassurance. do you not even entertain for one second the idea that you might’ve been wrong about things? that harry was really in a relationship with olivia? that he might actually be attracted to women? that he might’ve been with louis once upon a time but not anymore? have you ever challenged your confirmation bias? again, i’m not trying to attack you, i really just want to understand where you stand. i hope u don’t take this the wrong way.

well first of all you bring up the very good point that there are actually multiple Qs at play and not just one, despite the fandom's (and my) attempts to simplify things. I personally am open to the possibility that Harry and Louis are no longer together- we don't have enough info to say for sure either way about that, and I am constantly recalibrating and considering and I'm going to be totally honest, getting flat out ANNOYED at how often I find myself being like oh damn they ARE still (or again) together ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? Because it seems so improbable and illogical! You think I don't KNOW I sound fucking crazy?! Absolutely infuriating, and yet there are just all these little Things all the time. Plus ofc the fact that they both constantly wink wink larrie stuff to the fandom which could just be playing to the crowd... except then they both continually take it that little extra way that makes me go oh but... you really didn't NEED to go THERE that seems VERY pointed?? But also sometimes I go well. Okay, maybe not. Since they both seem super happy at this point, it doesn't stress me out to think they might have split, the way it would if they seemed miserable and were still churning out heartbreak songs, but it's schrodingers relationship and with all the savvy they've acquired around this stuff and all the balls they're keeping in the air wrt to fandom etc that's unlikely to change in favor of us knowing anything for sure for a very long time, if ever. But I do not doubt that they WERE together, it's simply not realistic. The evidence of it is overwhelming and imo undeniable when taken all together. And the thing is that knowing one thing with certainty (that they were together back when), having really looked at the things that happened during that time, does actually have a lot of bearing on the rest of it even if they aren't together anymore. Because knowing that and having seen the way fake relationships to make them seem straight were managed back then means that when I see the EXACT SAME things being done in the current day, like they are working from a fucking blueprint, no, I don't look at that and think it might be real. I know that Louis and Eleanor wasn't real in... whenever they allegedly got together lol, that story still isn't even quite straight, so why would I believe they were together in 2020? And if I know Louis has a tattoo for a fake girlfriend why would it change my mind about a million things I can see with my own eyes if Harry did the same (if indeed he even has who tf knows)? So despite what I said at the beginning, in the end it kind of does just come down to the one question people are always asking, are you a larrie? Because when you've actually been down the rabbit hole of details that ends up with you saying yes to that question, it's like acquiring a rosetta stone that unlocks the ability to read everything else, like putting on xray glasses, and I look at what is so obviously a publicity relationship (holivia) and whether H and L are still together has nothing to do with why I don't think it's real. Like could a celeb relationship be both used in typical ways for publicity and be or become real on some level (looking at you Liam, heyyy), sure, but for this question the fact that I have never seen Harry show the slightest sign of attraction to a woman in his whole life and he so clearly embraces and identifies so strongly with gay male culture in every possible way and never shuts up about how much he loves cock does play into my thinking; I simply do not think he is attracted to women, no, and I have yet to see him do anything that doesn't seem consistent with things a closeted pop star might chose to do. So in conclusion yes I have challenged my bias and decided I'm right lol! But for real- all the time I consider that they perhaps aren't together but that isn't really the point when it comes to believing they are gay.

[pulquedeguayaba]

Been crying regularly since June last year but these last couple of weeks damn, specially this one that just ended.

I dont think I've ever cried so much in my life

[violentlydefending]

genuinely always so shocked to see mirei hate. like literally god forbid women do anything.

[maplefield]

honestly, that fact that they essentially found a pendrive and just plucked it into a supercomputer.......

[please-picturemeintheweeds]

..

[aberooski]

Okay so, if y'all know me you know I adore tmnt. It was my obsession before I ever watched even the original YGO much less GX. And now I'm watching tmnt 2012 for the first time, I'm about halfway through season 2 and honestly you guys are so lucky I'm not live blogging it because well.... I don't like it 💀

I will say I'm enjoying season 2 more than season 1 so far but still 💀

[roscoehamiltons]

Seems like the floor damage he also had in fp2 couldn't really be fixed i guess, they probably just slapped some tape on it and it fell off during the race. The onboard was hell. Yeah max had a complete crash out like in hungary deliberaty causing a collision but only got 10 seconds for it and swearing like a sailor. 11 penalty points now. This guy... actually dangerous

Ah I didn’t realize it was from a practice session… I’ve only watched the qualifying session from this weekend although I do remember lewis saying they figured out and fixed why he was so slow for fp2— but I guess they didn’t actually fix it after all 🤦🏻‍♀️

Re: max, it’s not the first time he’s driven into someone on purpose (Brazil ‘22 also comes to mind) and it probably won’t be the last either unless if harsher penalties are applied. It’s wild to me that someone admitting driving into someone on purpose isn’t harshly punished

[r-osehips]

this is a good article for the most part but imo misses the core issue even though one of the guys quoted lays it out pretty explicitly:

Paying for parasocial engagement saved Matthew from having to put himself out there. It’s funny, he says, how highly sexual he is online compared to how timid he is toward women in real life. “It made me give up on meeting someone,” he says of Chaturbate. “It was a safe place where I could get the same result, or so I thought, and not have to put in all that work.”

this is why I don't feel bad for men who claim the Male Loneliness EpidemicTM (not a real thing) "forces" them to turn to porn etc.: it's the other way around. they choose to seek out one-sided and/or transactional "relationships" with porn and online sex workers because they are completely uninterested in an actual relationship.

because an actual relationship requires work (everything from basic personal hygeine to listening skills to shared housework) -- work that to a healthy person is only occasionally dull because when you care about someone and find them interesting, there's pleasure in that work.

but to these men it all feels pointless and joyless because they do not care about women and it's not worth it to them. they don't want to have to listen to a woman talk about her day, let alone about her problems (especially not any problems she might have with him). they don't even want to engage with a woman face-to-face irl. they want a woman who cares only about them, and who doesn't ask them to care about her.

and then when their misogyny leads them into self-isolation, debt, and resentment, they turn around and say it was the fault of women all along. and then a whole society, including a lot of women, fall for it and ring the alarm over male loneliness: a problem created solely by men, and solvable only by men, which stems from misogyny and hurts women more than anyone else. it's such bullshit.

[kedreeva]

Hi Ked! Having chickens when I finally get my own place has been something I've wanted for a while (am currently putting it on hold despite in the near future acquiring said own place due to H5N1). However, I have become a little enamored of quail recently in comparison. My goal would be to have eggs and fluffy yard buddies, do you recommend either one over the other?

If you want birds that can free roam your yard, it can't be quail. They are game birds, like pheasants, and will just leave (or get immediately eaten by.... everything, but especially hawks and domestic cats.

If you don't mind having them contained, then 100% quail are a better option right now.

Quail don't take up nearly the same space; an average sized quail tower takes up approximately a 2x3 foot space, and depending on how many levels you have and how densely you populate them can hold anywhere from 15-40 quail. That amount of space cannot even house 1 chicken long term.

Quail are not NEARLY the same initial investment; on average people end up investing around $200-500 in quail equipment/caging/birds depending on how into it you want to get, and $2k+ in appropriate chicken equipment/caging/birds. These costs can vary greatly depending on how handy you are and what connections you have to acquire scrap materials, or how fancy you want to get.

Since quail are not kept on raw ground, they have MUCH fewer health problems on average- they rarely get parasites, they rarely pick up bacterial infections, they rarely pick up anything viral (and if their caging is kept in a more enclosed/covered space there is almost no chance of them picking up HPAI). Since they're contained, there's not very much chance for them to injure themselves (although like any bird, if there's a way they have the will to find it).

Their eggs are more nutritionally dense than chickens. You can compare nutrition per gram anywhere online.

They're (in my experience) more consistent layers than chickens; give them light and feed, and they will lay daily year round, only taking a break to molt in the fall.

Quail's full lifespan is shorter than chickens. This may seem like a downside, but the productive years for a chicken are generally 2-5 years, with a lifespan that should be 7-12 years. Quail have the same 2 years of production, but on average only live 3-5 years, so even if you don't want to butcher the spent hens (which most people do), you aren't caring for nonproductive birds for many years.

Quail are easy to butcher at home with almost no equipment- all you need is a hefty, sharp pair of kitchen shears, a 5g bucket (with or without a liner), and some ice water in a big bowl. No plucking, no scalding, no killing cones, nothing special for cleaning. They can be packed for freezing whole in vacuum sealed sleeves.

If you get or build rollout cages, the eggs gently roll to the front of the cage and "out" into the tray, where they can be picked up clean!

If you get or build wire-bottom cages, you don't technically have to buy bedding. Cost efficient! You can provide resting boards or have solid-bottom portions of the cage, and giving them a sand bath bin will be REALLY exciting for them.

Coturnix quail come in such a huge variety of color and patterns that you can surely find some type you like.

Both species can come with aggression issues- it takes FAR less time to breed it out of quail because they hit breeding age in a matter of weeks, not months.

The downside to quail is that most coturnix quail are not terribly cuddly. you might be able to imprint one (I did once, because my pigeons hatched him and then didn't like that, so I took Robert in), but the majority will just be cute look-don't-touch birds. They are FASCINATING to watch though, so it works out imo.

the downside to both species is. the roosters crow. terrible noises in both cases. I couldn't handle chicken roosters.

Anyway, I think that in all honesty, when MOST people are considering getting into chickens, what they ACTUALLY want is the experience of having quail. Small, cute, easy to handle/raise, genetic manipulation through generations of selective breeding easy to hatch, cute eggies. There's a LOT of people getting into chickens right now because they think it will be a solution to the expensive eggs in the supermarket, but it won't be. They'll end up spending more on the chickens than they ever would have on just getting eggs, and throw a stone in a chicken group on fb and you'll hit 17 people who have had horrific health issues related to parasites, illness, injury, predation, etc.

Meanwhile.... quail groups are largely chill and questions are usually about colors and feed/housing (since most of the problems are bad feeding habits or caging, or genetic issues).

[luxiomahariel]

I’m kinda sad seeing egg culture turn into a weapon. I mean the whole egg thing already had some issues IMO (guessing people’s genders is … not great tbh, but I think the overall “haha yeah doing XYZ cracked my egg” is harmless fun). It was just a silly thing that wasn’t taken super seriously. And nowadays I’m seeing it weaponized, especially by transradfems. Seeing “which could mean nothing” and egg emoji and “checking back in a year teehee” and so on in tags of people’s posts… and always on the posts of gnc men, masc folks, enbies, etc. Hell, I’m transfem nonbinary, and comfortably so (I’m not a woman despite being on hrt, I use they/them, etc), but I’ll say things like “I put on a skirt and I felt so cute” and transfems that I know hang out in the vicinity of trf circles will post egg emojis and such. And when I say “hey. I’m nonbinary. Please stop.” They’ll just respond with “yeah that’s how we all start off lol” and only give half-apologies if other people speak up. It’s starting to feel like trfs only see their own identities as the true endpoint of being trans, and even as a transfem myself I feel so fucking erased and ignored and belittled by this.

Sorry idk if vent-adjacent stuff is allowed to be sent but. I guess with all the rancid toxic discourse and anti-transmasc stuff going on, I just wanted to point out another way that the radfem rhetoric “splash damage” is big and so many transfems that don’t fit their vision are being harmed as well by their words being used.

I hope you have a wonderful day. Trans unity forever and always.

.

[relaxxattack]

via the last ask, is Karkat a freak or would it just be a form of troll polyamory? or am I forgetting some important quadrant lore or smth and this is a dumb question

KIDS REALLY DON’T KNOW THAT KARKAT’S GAY ANYMORE… i joked about this earlier but i didn't think it was true 😭😭

ok i don't blame you for not knowing since, imo, fandom seems to have forgotten this when it comes to karkat and alternian analysis. somehow. even though it's his whole thing.. let me explain.

basically, karkat vantas is queer.

his arc sort of pointedly mirrors dave’s in that it’s about how hard he’s compensating for that - constantly obsessing over romance and “doing it right”, then enforcing that on himself and others.

karkat starts as a bootlicker. he wants to be in the military, he wants to fill his quadrants, he wants to lead, he wants to be the best and most successful troll that's ever lived... to make up for the fact that he's mutated. this isn't just implied, it's stated; karkat is desperate to prove he can be the Standard Alternian Troll.

karkat is a mutant marked for extermination, which obviously is different to sexuality. but it's worth noting that karkat's arc is already about putting up fronts for things about him that are "wrong"...

...especially when it's revealed that his sexuality is also "wrong".

trolls believe in having one destined partner per quadrant- four separate relationships that must not mix. it's enforced both culturally and by drones. but the concept of a troll romance that goes "beyond the four quadrants" is introduced to us by karkat's ancestor. we come to realize that karkat's romantic issues might not just be circumstantial-- they might be a legitimately different form of attraction he feels.

towards the end of the story, when davekat is officially canonized, the story plays a little cheekily about "nobody knowing" which quadrant dave and karkat settled in.

because just like how dave came to terms with how bullshit the cultural restrictions of human sexuality are, and talks about this at length; karkat may have realized that it's okay to break the rules.

while some people think that this means karkat was destined for "human romance"... i personally think that's a bit silly, since karkat has proven he can't stick to pure red feelings for someone. it's more likely that his new relationship involves all those quadrants he loves, simultaneously. who cares about rules?

TL;DR: yes, karkat vantas is queer for a troll and that's all there is to say on the matter.

[nicosaysnope]

i do find it very interesting how different the foxes and the trojans go about caring for and supporting each other. well, actually, i mostly find it interesting how differently people seem to feel about it, especially in regards to kevin's drinking problem.

the way kevin's clearly unhealthy relationship with alcohol doesn't get condemned or fixed in the original trilogy for example is something that many people in the fandom have been pretty upset and critical about for many years and jean's reaction to it seemed to have really moved people (though that in particular, imo, had at least as much to do with jean's very restricted and in itself unhealthy relationship to food and drinks as with him uniquely seeing and caring about kevin's substance abuse issues. like, yeah, he really, really cares about him, but i don't think he'd have been thaaat much less upset if kevin was coping by eating chips or something. but well, whatever).

but to me, that never really read as no one caring about kevin or thinking alcohol is the ideal way for him to regulate his emotions.

the whole premise of how wymack runs the foxes and how they treat each other is just very built around the idea that all these people have been through awful things and that the way they'll cope with that won't always be pretty. but as long as they cope at all, they'll be around for another day, and another, which'll buy them to actually get better.

which is how you get stuff like wymack, in good conscience, not only tolerating but at times even soliciting underage drinking. and looking past the harder drugs some of the team are doing. and it's how him and the team all accept that neil is definitely lying about pretty much everything but mostly just leave him be. and how they all agreed to let andrew get off his legally mandated medication during games even though that could have terrible consequences for all of them. and how matt's mom said "sure random eighteen year old calling me on the phone, do give my addict son speedballs, you seem to have a higher success rate at getting teenagers clean than me 👍" because they all view life less as you're either doing good or you doing bad, and more as you're either surviving whatever it takes to do so, or you don't, so who cares if you aren't coping in healthy or acceptable ways, as long as you are coping. (and then once they're ready to work on getting better, they do have a support system in place to help them get there)

meanwhile the trojans are mostly pretty normal and well adjusted, so they have a pretty clear idea of what a healthy person who's doing well looks like, and that's what they generally want for other people, especially those they care about. so when they see someone who's not doing well and not dealing with it in healthy ways they are very direct about it, sort of a "your behaviour is not healthy, stop doing it" thing. your eating habits are really restrictive? try eating different food anyways, it's really good, i prommy. you hurt yourself when you're upset? here's how to physically stop this from hurting. you get incredibly startled when you're touched unexpectedly? well, just let me try hugging you again. you drink to deal with your feelings? please don't, it's not good for you.

and obviously that's a lot more normal and straight forward than what the foxes are doing, and it's done with love and support. and a lot of fans find it very moving and beautiful and sweet. but i also know that i'm not the only person who was really put off by this and still finds it kinda disconcerting. to me it feels, especially in contrast to the foxes, who would largely find this sooo overbearing and rude and uncomfortable, kinda like strongarming someone into doing well, with (at least in the context of these specific books) shockingly little regard for personal boundaries.

my point isn't that one's better than the other or anything, i think both approaches are going to work differently well for different people and within the books it makes perfect sense why the different teams would act this way, and it's also perfectly understandable why some people really resonate with one approach and find the other irritating or unkind. it's simply some thoughts that have been rattling around in my head. building up to: nothing really. oh well

[voidpunkpal]

'dr who makes history with first ever explicitly, canonically queer kiss between the doctor specifically and someone else on the show' just doesn't have the same ring to it ig

DO NOT BELIEVE THESE HEADLINES

THIS IS NOT DOCTOR WHO'S FIRST GAY KISS

WHY ARE WE FORGETTING ABOUT THESE

That being said, Rogue was still a huge leap. It was undeniably gay: Nine/Jack could be interpreted as platonic and Eleven/Rory definitely wasn't romantic. Bill/Heather was undeniably gay and the closest we've had, but Rogue kissed the Doctor himself, which is a much bigger step. Then there are all the other gay couples who should have kissed but were left ambiguous (Clara/Me, Thirteen/Yaz, and bi characters like River and Amy who are "up for interpretation").

The point is, the gay kiss was a big step, but let's not erase Doctor Who's queer past.