fuck it, i never ever do those âreblog for X, this one really works!â posts, but this one doesnât have any of that BS, this is just straight up wishing us good things; and then the comment doesnât even say any of that either. Zero claims on this post, all positive vibes
May you end this week feeling ever more certain of a future youâll love
May you end this week feeling ever more certain of a future youâll love
i told my friend’s dad that he was hot (it was in context with the conversation, he was complaining that he was feeling old, etc), and he said a very genuine thank you and the conversation moved on to other topic, my friend was now talking about something else entirely when his dad goes
“i think if i were born in your generation i might have been bisexual”
The straight woman is unsatisfied with straight studio porn. She wants to get off to something in which the actors actually emote and show passion beyond canned moans from the women and, at best, vacant grunts from the men. She turns to gay porn. She knows it’s not “for her,” but neither was the straight porn, and at least the actors look like they’re enjoying themselves. And for a short while she is satiated by Sean Cody et al, but she runs into the same problems she had to begin with. She was not looking at sex but a simulacrum of sex, trapped in Plato’s cave. Unsatisfied, she turned to vintage gay porn, harkening to a time when most gay bars still had darkrooms and reliably smelled of piss and Amyl Nitrate. Here was the real thing, in all its animalistic passion. But she still couldn’t immerse herself in the fantasy. She wanted the media to engage with her own imagination and meet her half-way, rather than having it spoonfed to her onscreen. She turned to yaoi, with its elongated figures reminiscent of mannerist portraiture, then bara, including hardcore BDSM scenes. But the tactile sensations depicted in the pages didn’t do justice to their real life counterparts. She turned deeper into her own imagination, this time reading erotica. No, not the poolside paperbacks sold at Barnes and Noble. The good shit. Why then, was she still not satisfied? She dug deeper, searching for the true meaning of eroticism. She studied the psychoanalysis of Freud, the cultural criticism of Susan Sontag the feminist poetry of Audre Lorde. She took vacation time and flew to Europe, starting at the caves of Lascaux to explore the human urge to create, then traversed the Camino de Santiago on foot, along the way meeting a 56 year old carpenter from Burgos named Andrés, with whom she had an explosive affair. They both knew it couldn’t last, which made them cherish each other’s touch all the more. Upon flying home, she gave up. If her search for true eroticism never bore fruit this whole time, why would it now? It would take years before she stumbled upon the answer by pure happenstance: dubstep.
you’re grabbing lunch with a nice man and he gives you that strange grimace-smile that’s popular right now; an almost sardonic “twist” of his mouth while he looks literally down on you. it looks like he practiced the move as he leans back, arms folded. he just finished reciting the details of NFTs to you and explaining Oppenheimer even though he only watched a youtube about it and hasn’t actually seen it. you are at the bottom of your wine glass.
you ask the man across from you if he has siblings, desperately looking for a topic. literally anything else.
he says i don’t like small talk. and then he smiles again, watching you.
a few years ago, you probably would have said you’re above celebrity gossip, but honestly, you’ve been kind of enjoying the dumb shit of it these days. with the rest of the earth burning, there’s something familiar and banal about dragging ariana grande through the mud. you think about jeanette mccurdy, who has often times gently warned the world she’s not as nice as she appears. you liked i’m glad my mom died but it made you cry a lot.
he doesn’t like small talk, figure out something to say.
you want to talk about responsibility, and how ariana grande is only like 6 days older than you are - which means she just turned 30 and still dresses and acts like a 13 year old, but like sexy. there’s something in there about the whole thing - about insecurity, and never growing up, and being sexualized from a young age.
people have been saying that gay people are groomers. like, that’s something that’s come back into the public. you have even said yourself that it’s just … easier to date men sometimes. you would identify as whatever the opposite of “heteroflexible” is, but here you are again, across from a man. you like every woman, and 3 people on tv. and not this guy. but you’re trying. your mother is worried about you. she thinks it’s not okay you’re single. and honestly this guy was better before you met, back when you were just texting.
wait, shit. are you doing the same thing as ariana grande? are you looking for male validation in order to appease some internalized promise of heteronormativity? do you conform to the idea that your happiness must result in heterosexuality? do you believe that you can resolve your internal loneliness by being accepted into the patriarchy? is there a reason dating men is easier? why are you so scared of fucking it up with women? why don’t you reach out to more of them? you have a good sense of humor and a big ol’ brain, you could have done a better job at online dating.
also. jesus christ. why can’t you just get a drink with somebody without your internal feminism meter pinging. although - in your favor (and judgement aside) in the case of your ariana grande deposition: you have been in enough therapy you probably wouldn’t date anyone who had just broken up with their wife of many years (and who has a young child). you’d be like - maybe take some personal time before you begin this journey. like, grande has been on broadway, you’d think she would have heard of the plot of hamlet.
he leans forward and taps two fingers to the table. “i’m not, like an andrew tate guy,” he’s saying, “but i do think partnership is about two people knowing their place. i like order.”
you knew it was going to be hard. being non-straight in any particular way is like, always hard. these days you kind of like answering the question what’s your sexuality? with a shrug and a smile - it’s fine - is your most common response. like they asked you how your life is going and not to reveal your identity. you like not being straight. you like kissing girls. some days you know you’re into men, and sometimes you’re sitting across from a man, and you’re thinking about the power of compulsory heterosexuality. are you into men, or are you just into the safety that comes from being seen with them? after all, everyone knows you’re failing in life unless you have a husband. it almost feels like a gradebook - people see “straight married” as being “all A’s”, and anything else even vaguely noncompliant as being … like you dropped out of the school system. you cannot just ignore years of that kind of conditioning, of course you like attention from men.
“so let’s talk boundaries.” he orders more wine for you, gesturing with one hand like he’s rousing an orchestra. sir, this is a fucking chain restaurant. “I am not gonna date someone who still has male friends. also, i don’t care about your little friends, i care about me. whatever stupid girls night things - those are lower priority. if i want you there, you’re there.”
he wasn’t like this over text, right? you wouldn’t have been even in the building if he was like this. you squint at him. in another version of yourself, you’d be running. you’d just get up and go. that’s what happens on the internet - people get annoyed, and they just leave. you are locked in place, almost frozen. you need to go to the bathroom and text someone to call you so you have an excuse, like it’s rude to just-leave. like he already kind of owns you. rudeness implies a power paradigm, though. see, even your social anxiety allows the patriarchy to get to you.
you take a sip of the new glass of wine. maybe this will be a funny story. maybe you can write about it on your blog. maybe you can meet ariana grande and ask her if she just maybe needs to take some time to sit and think about her happiness and how she measures her own success.
is this settling down? is this all that’s left in your dating pool? just accepting that someone will eventually love you, and you have to stop being picky about who “makes” you a wife?
from time to time i see posts saying that people act like 80s jay was an angel while he was portrayed to have anger issues even back then, and what i have to say to that is: no. it’s plainly not true that jason ever had anything that could amount to be called “anger issues” in his original robin runs. he was shown to get exceptionally angry maybe twice and both of these times took place in really extreme situations. both of these times the anger was rightful and out of care. + nearing the end of his run and closely towards his death, starlin did want to make him more snappy to make him unlikable, but even then it wasn’t portrayed as his natural trait; it was a result of the circumstances and his insecurity.
if you think someone getting angry when they meet a murderer of their father or when a woman is raped and driven into suicide means that they have “anger issues” then idk what to tell you. or if you think a child being a bit impulsive or irritable at times dictates their whole personality, then i really don’t get your standards. especially that otherwise, jay is pretty consistently shown to be sweet, caring and preoccupied with stuff like getting an extra credit at school.
i said it before, but for me, jason’s kindness is the core of his story. in his robin days, his anger comes from this place: it’s a reaction to injustice and other people hurting. he never was on a truly temperamental side, not like dick. actually, let’s compare him to dick quickly: dick got into vigilantism for revenge. as a kid. dick is also often shown to be more neurotic, and it seems to me like he’s channeling this energy into commitment to justice. i think for jason it’s the other way around: he first got into vigilantism out of sense of duty, and only when failing to protect people or directly confronted with a source of personal trauma he became angry. and i guess that’s still healthy. if you don’t sometimes get angry, are you paying attention?
but jason’s anger post-resurrection? that’s a tragedy on its own. i think it can be framed as an almost pathological reaction for him. wherever it comes from, fear or disillusionment with the world, trauma or lazarus pit– i think it’s foreign to him, and that he doesn’t really know what to do with it. making this kind of anger productive isn’t easy, because it doesn’t go away. i think it’s eating him alive, and that he can barely recognise himself. he probably flinches at his own violence.
so anyway, angry jason? that’s jason pushed to the extreme. jason at his rock bottom. and also jason who cares so much that he can’t reconcile with how cruel the world is. i think viewing it this way rather than assuming it’s his natural trait makes him a much more human and interesting character.
Dick didn’t set out to murder Zucco with the intent of being a killer. He viewed it as an unfortunate byproduct of his actions.
His real goal was to “purge the world of criminals” because “darkness needs light.”
Do you realize how unhinged that sounds?It means Robin wasn’t created from anger. It was created from the messed up psyche of a child who realized at 8 years old that the entire world needs something better than what it was given and so he went out and became it.
I cant properly explain how insane that is. It’s like putting the logic of the Joker inside the mind of child but turning it for good. Everything is falling into place now. That is why the Joker hates Dick-he is the one Robin the man couldn’t break. Literally COULDN’T because when he’s facing Dick, he’s facing the version of himself that would have existed if he had put himself to good. That was would break HIM.
Imagine spending the better part of your life doing your utmost worst to show Batman that people and the system are inherently evil only to have him fall head over cowl for a version of yourself to completely invalidate your reason for existing. How psychotic would you turn when you realize you have nothing to prove?
This also explains why Dick is so well adjusted and sociable in a way that Bruce and the others aren’t.
Bruce loses it when he loses his children, he thinks it’s a failure of his abilities and doubts his life’s work.
Jason loses it when he thinks he’s been replaced because his reason for being is having someone care for him.
Tim loses it when he comes to a dead-end. He feels helpless and lost when he doesn’t know the next move because his reason for being is being able to solve what’s wrong.
Damian loses it when he feels abandoned. He feels hurt and broken because he’s a child who wants to be loved.
The reason Dick was the perfect choice for Dark Crisis and to become the dawn of DCU is because his sole reason for being is to be the light.
That is why Bruce refused to destroy a planet when Superman asked him too. That is why Dick was the only person in the universe who could control the Darkness infecting him when even Deathstroke lost his mind to it. That is why the evil Justice League chose Dick of every one to kill-to make a point.
This is why he’s looked up to by major heroes such as Superman, Wonderwoman, the Titans, the children, the villains, and the civilians.
This is why Harvey Dent called Robin Dick “Batman’s secret weapon.”
Although anger was the baseline emotion, Dick doesn’t have anger issues because:
Robin wasn’t created for revenge. It was created with the intention of building a world so unrealistically good, that the level of the vision Richard Grayson was aiming for and set the standards for- is so terrifyingly inconceivable.
oh my god this is me. i was addicted to designer amphetamines and completely delusional at the time of writing this. i had lost forty pounds and thought i was hot shit. i thought i was the reincarnation of Kurt Vonnegut. this was serious, and my friends laughed when they saw this go viral on twitter. it made me realize i had issues and im sober now. im also shocked i managed to stay employed at that time. To answer your question: im from LA but I grew up all around. I was living between Baltimore and NYC at the time. My mom is a beautiful Italian woman (Milan by way of Bolzano) and my dad is an insufferable Mexican from Montreal.
fwiw, my Reddit was suspended for this, im doing a lot better now, life is good, and im really happy :)
this is the most viscerally effective anti-drug PSA iâve ever seen, not least because i think itâs plausibly true, unlike the ones i normally see
The DC subreddit is just like this. All the time. Every day.
fucked up how cooking and baking from scratch is viewed as a luxuryâŠ..like baking a loaf of bread or whatever is seen as something that only people with money/time can do. Iâm not sure why capitalism decided to sell us the idea that we canât make our own damn food bc itâs a special expensive thing thatâs exclusive to wealthy retirees but itâs stupid as hell and it makes me angry
bread takes like max 4 ingredients counting water and sure it takes a couple hours but 80% of that is just waiting around while it does the thing and you can do other things while itâs rising/baking
plus im not gonna say baking cured my depression bc it didnât but man is it hard to feel down when youâre eating slices of fresh bread you just made yourself. feels like everythingâs gonna be a little more ok than you thought. itâs good.
bread is amazing and itâs also been sold to us as something really hard to make? Every time I tell someone I made a loaf of bread I get reactions like âyou made it yourself???â and âdo you have a bread machine then?â I havenât touched a bread machine in probably 10 years. You CAN make your own bread, folks, and itâs actually pretty cheap to do so. I believe the most expensive thing I needed for it was the jar of yeast. It was about $6 at the grocery store and lasted me MONTHS (just keep it in the fridge.) The packets are even cheaper. destroy capitalism. bake your own bread.
You can also make your own yeast by making a sourdough starter, so that cuts cost even more.
But you have to feed the starter daily/weekly and that means it grows quickly, but there are tons of recipes online for what to do with your excess starter. Cookies, pretzels, crackers, pancakes, waffles, you name it!!
Make it even easier - âNo-Knead Breadâ. All YOU do is mix the ingredients together and wait until itâs time to heat the oven. The yeast does all the rest.
Hereâs @dduaneââs first take on itand the finished product. Weâve made even more photogenic batches since.
Kneading is easy as well; either let your machine do it, or if you donât want to or donât have one, get hands-on. Itâs like mixing two colours of Plasticine to make a third. Flatten, stretch, fold, half-turn, repeat - it takes about 10 minutes - until the gloopy conglomeration of flour, yeast, salt and water that clings to your hands at the beginning, becomes a compact ball that doesnât stick to things and feels silky-smooth.
Hereâs what before and after look like.
My Mum used to say that if you were feeling out of sorts with someone, it was good to
make bread because you could transfer your annoyance into kneading the
dough REALLY WELL, and both you and the bread would be better for it.
Then you put it into a bowl, cover it with cling-film and let it rise until it doubles in size, turn it out and âknock it backâ (more kneading, until itâs getting back to the size it started, this means there wonât be huge âis something living in here?â holes in the bread), put it into your loaf-tin or whatever - weâve used a regular oblong tin, a rectangular Pullman tin with a lid, a small glass casserole, an earthenware chicken roasterâŠ
You can even use a clean terracotta flowerpot.
Let the dough rise again until itâs high enough to look like an unbaked but otherwise real loaf, then pop it in the preheated oven. On average we give ours 180°C / 355°F for 45-50 minutes. YM (and oven) MV.
Hereâs some of our breadâŠ
Hereâs our default bread recipe - it takes about 3-4 hours from flour jar to cutting board depending on climate (warmer is faster) most of which is rise time and baking; hands-on mixing, kneading and knocking-back is about 20 minutes, tops, and less if using a mixer.
Here ( or indeed any of the other pics) is the finished product. This one was given an egg-wash to make it look glossy and keep the poppy-seeds in place; mostly we donât bother with that or the slash down the middle, but all the extras were intentional as a âready for my close-upâ glamour shot.
I think any shop would be happy to have something this good-looking on their shelf.
Weâre happy to have it on our table.
Even if your first attempts donât work out quite as well as you hope, you can always make something like thisâŠ
can we have more posts like this in future please? this is really useful and could help those who are struggling
Signal boosting because you can bake your own bread and itâs awesome. I think people think itâs super complicated because yeast is justâŠweirdâŠand also if you make the water too hot or too cold when you put the yeast in, it can fail to activate. Optimal water temp is between 105 and 110 degrees fahrenheit, or if you want to ballpark it, run the hot water tap in your kitchen sink until it feels hot and use that.
Anyway, fresh bread is fantastic and eating it makes people feel good. And yeah, unless you are trying to get fancy, itâs basically flour, water, yeast, and salt. Pizza dough is basically softer and more elastic bread and itâs the same ingredients plus olive oil. You can make pizza dough and then make your own pizza or calzones. I used to do that all the time and Iâd still do it if it werenât for the @$! insulin resistance.