Cofiwch Dryweryn 
Ah, you’re right, I see now, boiling down Marxist critique into “can’t control emotions” and “only wants money” while celebrating the individualistic ramblings of a lead-poisoned imperial despot, is a much more rational outlook.
Systemic issues aren’t real, you just gotta stop thinking bad thoughts and suddenly the crushing oppression that Aurelius was writing in defense of don’t matter.
“Hmm, why would man sitting on the top of an inherently unjust system preach complacency with said system as a virtue? Must be because he’s super rational and smart.”
No one voted for the wanker, but we still have to pay to keep him and his incestous kin in riches while our fellow countrymen starve in the street.
He wants pity, he should abandon this hereditary rule bullshit and take all those unelected peers up in parliament with him back to the medieval age where they belong.
And getting offended by it really isn’t helping your case here.
Yes, rush to the defence of misgendering, that’ll show us uppity transgenders. /s
It’s a split between two things:
Firstly, I finally got my degree. People in my immediate surroundings got tired of the confirmed bachelor jokes after the first week of me making them.
And secondly, after a year and a half of waiting I got to talk to a gender service doctor back in February. Now I’m well on the way to get the bureaucracy part of my transition out of the way. And I’ll be getting my hormones soon.
I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and then try to envision everything my body just did to take that breath.
The intercostal muscles expanding an’ the diaphragm contracting to make a vacuum in the thoracic cavity.
The air rushing down my trachea, into my bronchus, then into the bronchioles.
The alveoli swelling individually as the air fills 'em.
My lungs filling the vacuum that the muscles created.
It’s a lot of things to keep ahold of all at once, so there ain’t the space in my mind to keep thinking of what annoyed me (until some daft bastard goes and does it again mind you).
I operate on the assumption that the overwhelming majority of people are nice, though I’ve run into more than my fair share of strangers that are complete dickheads. It feels like I’ve run into way more people who treat me kindly than cruelly (but that just be my own biases affecting my recollection).
Problem is, interacting with other people is tiring and after a long day I just want to curl up and stop existing but people waiting for the bus want to chat and strangers stop me in the street to make small talk.
Was added (yesterday I think), so now you can!
Might suffice.
Allegedly, when William the Conqueror first landed in England he tripped in the sand.
I’d’ve left a land mine where he was going to fall, turning the future king of England into a fine mist and a scattering of viscera.
Probably Sound of Thunder meself out of existence, but it’d be worth for the immediate chaos it would cause.
the cape sundew I keep on my windowsill. As someone with a lot of house plants, it has been a godsend for keeping flies and other pests out of the house.
my first aid kit. You never want to need one of these, but I’ve been glad to have it close to hand a fair few times
I don’t know how you walked away from The Shape of Water with such a shallow reading, but eh, not everyone’s taste in films is the same.
I have a great dislike for the sorts of horror films where horror is conveyed entirely by long drawn out tension into a jumpscare. It bores me and then I stop caring about what’s going on in the film. The Woman in Black is one that immediately springs to my mind, ironically because of how bland I thought it was. It’s what you’d get if you told chatGPT to write the script for a horror movie. Just a bloke stumbling 'round a house at night being scared by random shit punctuated by daytime exposition scenes. I know it was trying to trying to say something about grief but I just couldn’t care enough about it after the spooky violin lead up to the protagonist being startled by a tap making a loud noise when he turned it on.
Y’know, I’ve never thought about that before.
I guess, I would.
Eager to discuss the cool things they’ve read.
Able to make me laugh.
Cleans up after themselves (I know, low bar).
Communist of some stripe.
Superficial but:
For what it’s worth, I do find this somewhat reassuring.
I don’t know if I’ll ever get to where you are, but to hear that it could get better does make me feel a little less shitty.
Thank you.
I might have to try that, thank you.
I miss the silence of empty rooms.
I developed tinnitus earlier this year, and now I’m never gonna be able to just sit somewhere quiet and far away from everyone else and be alone with my thoughts. This ringing will follow me everywhere, drowning out the distant sounds of cars disturbing puddles in distant streets on a rainy night, obscuring all the subtle little noises that danced on the edges of my perception. But most of all robbing me of any truly quiet moment for the rest of my life.
It has its flaws, but imho Dark Souls 2 has some of the best moments in the series.
I’ll never forget riding the lift to Dragon’s Aerie for the first time.
Meeting King Vendrick at the end of the catacombs.
Since you first reached the hub town (Majula), you’ve been told that Vendrick has the means to cure the undead curse and all you need to do is find him. And so the entire game up 'till this point has been about reaching his castle and then when you discover he isn’t there, tracking him down to the very bottom of the catacombs.
At the end of a long corridor full of enemies, past a recurring boss fight against one of Drangliec’s many dragon riders, you pass through the fog wall and face Vendrick’s bodyguard, Velstadt. It’s an okay fight, not particularly flashy or difficult but at least it’s not Prowling Magus.
Velstadt falls, and the only way forward is a short, narrow corridor that opened up behind him. The corridor leads down into an unlit room and in the dark you can faintly make out some large shape moving about the farthest side of the room to you.
As you get closer you hear Majula’s familiar theme begin to play as the creature in the room takes shape before your eyes.
It’s Vendrick, succumbed to the undead curse.
So hollowed by now that he doesn’t even acknowledge your presence, instead slowly walking the same circle in a loop. His withered arms barely able to raise the sword he once used to slay the king of the giants.
“What am I supposed to do now?”
As I sat there trying to figure out what my next steps were supposed to be, I couldn’t help but contemplate Vendrick’s fate.
Time and time again this game presents you with the inescapable nature of death. Of how no matter how good a life you lived it will come to an end. No matter what legacy you try to secure it will crumble and be forgotten. The iron king in all his tyranny is naught but ichorous earth now, even Vendrick is dead (though his body hasn’t caught up on that yet).
“If life is short, and my deeds are inevitably forgotten,” I thought to myself, “Why the fuck am I living as a man when doing so makes me miserable?”
Long story short, the next day I finally worked up the courage to talk to my GP about a gender service referral.
You too, mate.