#that doesn't require money to get into

[daybloomcrow]

anybody wanna go to a mall with me and hang out until we get kicked out because we're actually enjoying the experience and not spending all of our MoneyCoin on ServiceProducts?

[commsroom]

eiffel is the kind of man who would be happy to let his daughter paint his nails, i don't think he has a complex about it, but i literally can't imagine him painting his own nails. at most, he tried to paint them black once as a teenager in the 90s because he thought it'd make him look like a cool guy in a band, and just made a mess of things.

he does not have piercings of any kind, but almost definitely does have at least one really awful tattoo that he doesn't remember getting. he would not get a tattoo on purpose, not because he wouldn't want one, but because he would be a real baby about it.

[figofswords]

the post grad why did i get an art degree what am i even doing what do i want in life where am i going crisis has finally hit i want to. lie down in the dirt. or something

[idsb]

.

[icewindandboringhorror]

If you became super rich and could design your own house, but could only add THREE unnecessary/random/expensive home additions (like how people will have bowling alleys, movie theatres, closets with museums of shoes, car display rooms, spa rooms, wine cellars, etc. in their mansions) - what three would you choose?

[alullinchaos]

wait off topic if I change Cinder's semblance for my rwby canon-adjacent au.... would this be controversial editing to warn people that the tags are novel length but that i love them and also @graythegreyt pls read them when u have a chance

[arrowpunk]

It's really weird being in this like free college program for under-served young adults, and having to take a professional development/financial literacy class, that really frames things like 'well if you just worked harder/worked smarter/did everything right then you wouldn't have any problems financially' when like. This program is specifically aimed at people who are below the poverty line, and are unable to get a job working a living wage.

Like it is. Incredibly bold of them to look at this room of burnt out, impoverished young adults, some of whom are disabled, and many of whom have very unstable housing situations, and tell them that if they just tried harder they really wouldn't have these problems. And oh aren't you all so lucky you're in this free program, wow don't kids these days have it sooooo easy.

[theokusgallery]

What do you think Nick and Sunny's ethnicities are?

I've always somewhat headcanonned Sunny as Japanese-American, and Basil as having at least one European parent, both living in Europe, and an American grandmother. I have no idea where that second headcanon comes from. It's probably me projecting my own French-ness onto my favorite little blorbo -- another explanation is that OMORI seems to be pretty explicitely set in the USA, but Basil's parents are said to travel frequently and Sunny's never seen them in his life... and since it's easier to travel in Europe in my (limited) experience, my brain might've just made the association. Sunny being Japanese-American is a pretty popular headcanon because of his chara-design so I don't feel like I have to explain that one.

Anyway, they both live in France for plot reasons.

[serkonans]

the way we handle medical leave in the states even for people with good benefits is cruel

[skeleton-in-a-hoodie]

I feel like ageswap Saki cares a lot about how he looks. Like he's the heir of the Foot Clan, he wants to make a good (read: intimidating) first impression. When he meets someone for the first time, he wants them to think that this is someone who knows what he's doing and is deserving of their respect.

(Also he was raised by Shinigami, and when he was little liked helping her do her makeup.)

Yoshi, by contrast, has turned up to fights in sweat pants and a jumper that used to belong to Casey and has seen better days.

[206024]

prolonged baby fever vs the knowledge that we will never have the money to raise a child properly

[yeahivegotanaccount]

Anyway I'm relearning why I go bonkers over the stuff I love. Most things are a drag or actively annoying. And this isn't even attention thing, I am able to focus entirely on the activety if it's <2 hours.

[grunge-mermaid]

i miss payless

[trainsinanime]

I wonder: Do Americans know about american school buses? Not their existence in general, but how they're seen overseas.

Over here, they're one of the symbols of America, on par with the Statue of Liberty, the flag, the Eagle, and well ahead of any chain restaurant you can name. People won't know any US states, but they will know these vehicles.

The thing is, here in Germany, we don't have dedicated school buses. The general idea is that kids go to school on their own. When that's not practical, they're expected to use (and given free tickets for) public transit. Public transit is designed around this requirement; there are many places where there is a bus, and anyone can get on it, but the route and timetable really only makes sense for school children. In case a dedicated school bus is really needed, that's generally subcontracted out, and the lines either use something like a Sprinter Van for smaller routes, or a normal city or interurban bus (often a used one that's a bit older). School trips are normal public transit, or a rented bus, typically a coach or regional bus.

It's not a perfect system, in the past couple of years there's been an epidemic of people bringing their kids to school in their cars instead of letting them walk, which is less than ideal. It is what it is. But building a dedicated network of public transit lines only for students, and building dedicated vehicles only for that, has never occurred to anyone here.

Of course we know about these buses, from movies and such, but they're as foreign here as cacti or pick-up trucks (actually we're seeing more and more of these here) or yellow cabs (all europeans will assume all cabs in the US are yellow until they actually visit).

You do see these buses here at times, because people still generally like the idea of the US, even if they have a lot of issues with a lot of details, and so folks bring them over, along with stretch limos and stuff (also not really a thing here). And of course, if someone goes to all that trouble, they don't do it to haul school kids, they rent it out for city tours or as a party bus or whatever.

So you see these yellow things as a symbol of faraway places, scenic vistas, some vague undefined idea of freedom that doesn't necessarily hold up to any contact with reality, and it's just a huge part of the whole US aesthetic.

And then you go to a student exchange with the US, and you finally get the chance: You yourself get to ride in one of these iconic chrome yellow buses! It looks just like in the movies! You get in, you drive in them a little…

…and you realise they're shit. Just the worst buses in the western world. Terrible suspension. Uncomfortable seats with weirdly high backs (so they don't have to put seatbelts in, they just restrict how far kids can fly in an accident). Everything made out of the cheapest materials. Turns out the reason why the US uses school buses like that instead of normal modern city buses, which the US has, is to save money and because they just hate kids.

And then it hits you why US Americans say "as American as apple pie", a dish that is made and enjoyed literally anywhere in the world, instead of "as American as yellow school buses". Of course the Americans already knew all this. They got tortured by these things forever. It would never occur to them to see this as a symbol of America, it's just a normal part of life for them. It's a symbol of school and school life and sometimes normalcy, and tells us that these actors getting out of it are supposed to be teenagers, nothing more.

But most people in Europe have, of course, never ridden on these buses. So when they see them in movies and TV, that's a giant big yellow signifier that we're not in Hessen or Wallonia or wherever anymore. A symbol of a different world, one that may be at most a once-in-a-lifetime-experience for most people, just like a picture of a tropical beach, Mayan Pyramids, the Great Wall of China, or Hildesheim (there's no reason to go there twice). And I think Americans don't know that, and that's fascinating.

[threadmonster]

Who wants to marry me so I can be a house spouse because God am I productive when I don't have to go to bed by 8:30pm so I can wake up at 6:00am and go suffer for 8 hours.

[phoenixyfriend]

I feel like a good shorthand for a lot of economics arguments is "if you want people to work minimum wage jobs in your city, you need to allow minimum wage apartments for them to live in."

"These jobs are just for teenagers on the weekends." Okay, so you'll use minimum wage services only on the weekends and after school. No McDonald's or Starbucks on your lunch break.

"They can get a roommate." For a one bedroom? A roommate for a one bedroom? Or a studio? Do you have a roommate to get a middle-wage apartment for your middle-wage job? No? Why should they?

"They can live farther from city center and just commute." Are there ways for them to commute that don't equate to that rent? Living in an outer borough might work in NYC, where public transport is a flat rate, but a city in Texas requires a car. Does the money saved in rent equal the money spent on the car loan, the insurance, the gas? Remember, if you want people to take the bus or a bike, the bus needs to be reliable and the bike lanes survivable.

If you want minimum wage workers to be around for you to rely on, then those minimum wage workers need a place to stay.

You either raise the minimum wage, or you drop the rent. There's only so long you can keep rents high and wages low before your workforce leaves for cheaper pastures.

"Nobody wants to work anymore" doesn't hold water if the reason nobody applies is because the commute is impossible at the wage you provide.