Daily OpusEverything I write is freely rebloggable. Just keep the source and tell people about my books :D [Until I decide otherwise, my pronouns are Ze/Hir/Hirself. As in "Ze went to the shops to get hir medication hirself". Thank you for the respect.]
Thank goodness someone broke this shit down cause these stupid arguments make my blood boil.
this is sooo disingenuous. who the fuck compares having a ps5 or a FUCKING CUP OF COFFEE to paying thousands of dollars for college and think they’re saying something smart? WHO?!?!
The exact same people who see owning an iPhone as proof that you could afford healthcare if you really wanted to. Never mind that even if you bought that iPhone outright with your own money, if it wasn’t a gift or subsidized by a phone plan that you need to exist in the modern world, that money wouldn’t cover a fraction of the cost of health insurance, never mind copays and out-of-pocket costs and etc….
These people know it’s a lie in the first place, but they don’t give a fuck, because apparently it’s a good enough argument to fool so many people. They don’t need a better argument, because so often this nonsense is all it takes.
WHAT IF I TOLD YOU THAT THE SHIP CARRYING THEM, THE “EVER LAUREL”, WAS ALSO PART OF THE EVERGREEN MARINE CORPORATION WHOSE SHIP CURRENTLY BLOCKS THE SUEZ CANAL
There were cupcakes, which immediately drew attention to the activity. There were also the ship’s humans, both of them, sitting quietly and sipping from fancifully patterned drinking vessels, despite usually becoming a shrieking maelstrom of highly active competition when interacting with one another. There was a small container with a spoon in it that, upon inspection, contained sugar.
…there were more cupcakes than two humans could reasonably eat on their own. There were extra cups. There was, it turned out, an open invitation to sit down and join them to anyone who was interested, until all the seats were taken. – Anon Guest
Humans will drink anything. Worse, they’ll make a culture out of it. Ceremonies. Rituals. Establishments. As pack creatures, they involved the sharing of food and drink as part of their bonding process. This just had to be one of the more involved rituals.
The table had been laid over with an ornate cloth. There was fine china, paper-thin and delicate. There was cutlery made out of silver. Not so extraordinary in the current age, but the craftsmanship visible told any observer that they were old. Older, perhaps, than space travel. This is a special occurrence, said the layout, but the empty places and settings said, We are waiting for people.
The fare available on tiered platters scanned as harmless to all crew. So, too, did the liquid inside the ornate teapot. Which said, You are welcome. Companion Hrik still approached with caution. As soon as the Humans noticed her approached, they looked… anticipatory. It was hard not to feel like she had decorative vegetation behind her ears.
and while it was thoroughly humiliating and i’d much rather forget about my moment of poor judgment entirely, i’m posting about it in the hopes that someone out there can learn from my mistake and save themselves a lot of trouble and money.
like millions of u.s. americans, i found myself unemployed due to the pandemic and have been searching extensively for a new job. i was recently contacted by a hiring consultant on behalf of a prospective employer, who had seen my resume listed on indeed. as directed, i contacted the employer and set up an interview. the questions were standard, and the only thing that was strange was that it was conducted over whatsapp. since i’ve worked with startups before and had some unusual but ultimately harmless experiences, i didn’t think too much about this, but in hindsight, these were red flags.
after being offered the job, i was sent the offer letter, which looked official,
to sign and return. the name was of an existing company, and it had good reviews on both indeed and glassdoor, as well as a website. then i was sent a check, instructed to deposit it, and then contact a third-party vendor to pay for necessary work materials. i didn’t know it at the time, but this is a huge red flag. the materials never came, the checks the “company” sent bounced, and the funds i paid to the vendors ended up being taken from my own checking account. i was also liable for the chargeback of the bounced check, and in less than a week lost all my meager savings.
by the time i realized something was wrong and contacted my credit union, it was too late for them to halt any payments or refund any of my money.
no one ever warned me about this, and i was raised to be obedient, and not to ask too many questions or challenge authority figures, and that really bit me in the ass. so please be careful, and if you have any doubts about a company, ask questions, do all you due diligence, and never send any money on behalf of an employer.
please boost this so others whose mamas didn’t teach them this can learn from me
(and finally, if you wanna help me out, i have ko-fi and paypal. y’all have my everlasting gratitude ♥ )
“I see you’re sick/sad! Let me do my best to distract you from that so you can stop thinking about it and feel better!”
“You’re really excited about this thing and I don’t understand it but I’m trying to be excited about it too because you love it!”
I legitimately cried reading this list.
Addendum to “here is a story of my best screwup…”
Not really knowing what to say to comfort someone (or just not being able to think of a response in general) and defaulting to, “I will tell a story about something similar that happened to me as a way of indicating that I am listening and their feelings are understood and valid!” BUT then later realizing, “Oh… did that come off as me making it all about me? I just meant to commiserate as a way of bonding/cheering them up/relating to them but I think it came off as just blowing them off to talk about something else.”
Also: someone tells you a thing and you respond with “OH I KNOW THINGS ABOUT THAT THING or something tangential but related to it” and next thing you know you’re infodumping and steering the conversation in several different directions and you realize too late that you just commandeered the original point and it makes it seem like you aren’t interested in what they had to say or like you’re being a know-it-all and no one can follow how you got from point A to point X (least of all yourself) and aaaaaaa this was not the intention I was just trying to be an active participant in one (1) social interaction. I will now be silent for the rest of the day
Power is power; it is pure, cannot be corrupted, intentions can. It is up to the individual whenever or not they use their power to ascend to divinity or fall to hell – Anon Guest
They say, Power corrupts. They say, Absolute power corrupts absolutely. What they fail to recognise is that those who grasp for power are already corrupt. There is a true difference, indeed, between those who grasp for power and those who have to accept it. It begins with those who have to accept power also knowing what responsibility looks like.
They called her the Bent Queen. A combination of Scoliosis and surviving infantile paralysis[1] left her with a crooked spine and a shrunken leg. Thanks to social pressure, her father the King had prevented her from being seen by the public, by the council of lords, by anyone but a select few devoted to her care.
As a child, Agatha crept into the council meetings, listening in to the voices above the ceiling of wood. Listening to the debates and absorbing wisdom by pure osmosis. Her lessons in history - applied with better supervision - let her predict the patterns. Her lessons in economics made her wonder if the voices above her head had ever paid attention to the same ones. She only ever made one mistake in that atmosphere, reciting the simplest of lessons, “Coin is best for the economy when it’s flowing, you dummies. Don’t dam it up in your vaults!” Her father the King found her in seconds. Caught her in seconds more.
Community members gathered this morning to demand that the tent community in Echo Park be left alone from LA city council member Mitch O’Farrell. O’Farrell has a history of siding with developers and real estate and has allowed or carried out multiple acts of violence against his unhoused constituents.
Surprising to absolutely no one, a few hours after these lovely photos were likely taken, LAPD brought hell down on the demonstration. I saw estimates of 400 cops, 100 cop cars and helicopters (that are at least $900/hr).
So when we say defund the mother fucking police, think about this moment when possibly tens of thousands of LA’s tax dollars went to this pointless show of power instead of to the unhoused community the demonstration was in support of 😡
And please tell everyone of ‘Echo Park Rise Up’ and support this movement.
