ReadFanon

Eyyy, I'm really glad to hear it! It's a deceptively simple game but it's super addictive and I'm glad that the recommendation was a good one.

Yeah, the Casus Belli is flimsy af. Just because it is true, or largely true, is not sufficient to mean that this was the real reason for Putin's move.

I think that the breakaway states in the Donbass need(ed) to be defended and that the Crimea was under threat as the next likely target but this was a geopolitical manoeuvre imo.

Idk it's just hard to swallow Russia's military offensive as being anti-fascist when you have Putin repatriating the remains of Denikin and Ivan Ilyin to inter them with state honours.

I wonder if it should be something like /c/healthcare since /c/medicine implies a lot, whereas healthcare doesn't carry the same baggage of implication but it also casts a broader net given that someone might be seeking advice about, idk, navigating the healthcare system or developing skills for self-advocacy as a person seeking healthcare and similar things. Just a thought.

This man is a lawyer.

Do you know who else were lawyers? Fidel Castro and Vladimir Lenin.

The woman who killed Che's murderer.

I forget her name but she was of German descent and was raised by Nazis who escaped Germany to South America by the ratlines.

I'm not saying that she was a Nazi herself that did a full 180 but to be raised in a culture like that and then in adulthood to join the ELN and to take out the Bolivian military commander who ordered Che be killed is very impressive and also heroic af.

Nietzsche

Interregnum

Getting strong Rick Roderick vibes

I struggle with writing a lot too. In fact, speaking as well. There's a lot of things, even insignificant stuff like comments that I will draft and halfway through I drop them or I'll have a whole comment written out and as I'm proofing it for clarity of reading and for errors I'll just be like "Nope" and I delete it and not respond.

There's a few elements that I think can be teased out from your post:

• Autistic masking

• Understanding your purpose for writing

• Criticism, internalised criticism, self-consciousness, and how people are remembered

• Maybe radical acceptance sorta stuff

I'm just going to do a scattershot reply so don't expect this to be particularly coherent.

With regards to understanding your purpose for writing, I think this is worth reflecting upon; are you writing for self-expression, for enjoyment, for recognition and praise, or maybe other things.

If you are writing for self-expression it's not necessarily going to be enjoyable. Think like people writing down their thoughts after a difficult breakup - it might be useful and cathartic but it's not necessarily going to be an enjoyable process. Gratifying, perhaps, but it's hard to imagine tear-streamed writing about heartbreak and being like "This Is fun, I should do this more often!"

If you enjoy playing with words and finding ways to describe things then obviously it's a leisure activity of some sort to you.

If it's about getting a publishing career or to edify others or for recognition then your purpose is obviously going to be very different.

Worth noting that these things and others can overlap too.

But if you're writing for your own pleasure or self-expression then it doesn't really matter whether other people get anything from it, y'know? It can be hard to internalise this idea without pondering it and maybe hashing it out with the self-critical part of you or the part that feels that deep shame.

I have known artists and they tend to be pretty insular about their craft. If you get it, cool. If you like it, cool. If you don't understand it or it doesn't vibe with you, whatever. There's a significant degree of generosity on behalf of a person who decides to share things with you, even if it's just some rambling armchair psychologizing comment on Hexbear, and it's important to keep that in mind - they are inviting you in as a guest, to some degree, and if someone is going to demand that you rearrange your furniture then you don't really need to take that on board or to invite them back in as a guest in future. That's probably a bit abstract, I know, but when you are sufficiently satisfied with what you do then you don't really need the validation of others and so if someone doesn't like what you do then you aren't going to be inclined to chase their approval and if they think it things could be better then it's easier to take an attitude of "Okay - if that's your preference then you can make something to your tastes yourself or you can look elsewhere". Not in a bitter, vindictive sort of way but just an amicable sort of recognition that this isn't for them and that's their responsibility that you don't have to take on.

One piece of wisdom that I came across a long time ago is this: you will know that you have a sense of fashion when someone else doesn't like your style.

I think this can be applied pretty broadly - you know you have a personality when someone clashes with it, you know you have made good art when someone dislikes it etc.

It's not a hard rule nor am I saying that people should be as offensive and confrontational as possible but I guess it's worth reflecting upon - few things are universally loved, especially when it comes to art, and if you are writing something that is completely inoffensive and that nobody will take a dislike to then you're probably a technical writer and you've probably authored something with all the flair of an instruction manual.

So maybe just do some writing exclusively for yourself. Or maybe write for the sake of writing and make a clear committment that you aren't open for criticism on it, it just is how it is and that's the end of the discussion.

It's also worth keeping in mind that even highly regarded artists are remembered for their best works and the stuff that is middling often gets ignored or overlooked. And their bad stuff that gets produced usually doesn't get much attention, especially outside of the period that it is released. And I can guarantee you that there's a mountain of material that ends up on the metaphorical cutting room floor too.

Often a lot of it is about honing your craft and producing a lot. Some stuff you produce is naturally going to be better than other stuff and that's fine. It's very rare that an artist will just produce one thing or one set of things like an album or whatever and that's it, especially if you take into consideration their pile of drafts and their discard pile.

So maybe it's about embracing the fact that some of the stuff is necessarily going on be mediocre or worse. There are plenty of examples of novels that are highly regarded as stories which have varying degrees of bad writing - whether throughout the book itself or whether it's some really clunky sex scene or there's a character that's written in a really goofy/awkward/annoying way or something else.

It's exceedingly rare that every sentence is poetry and that each sentence builds upon the last to create a finished product that is the pinnacle of flawless writing.

Then there's the stuff about autistic masking and how it's etched into your brain via social trauma.

This is a big discussion but if you have people who accept you for who you are, and more importantly if you are accepting and nurturing of yourself, then it might be helpful to reflect on this and to recognise that you aren't going to experience the same rejection for your writing as it happened in that time in your past. You aren't going to lose anything by writing, there's not a whole lot at stake especially if you aren't choosing to stake a lot of your identity or self-worth on something that you have written.

You are allowed to afford yourself the grace to write things that are imperfect or flawed or, heck, even just straight-up bad.

[CW: for discussion of meat]

Start incorporating TVP into your meals, learn some good lentil recipes, work on transitioning your comfort foods and favourite recipes to being vegan.

Substitute products like vegan "meats" are great but they're usually pretty pricey and tbh if you can make them a sometimes food rather than basing your diet around them it's going to be better for you and your budget.

I like Bold Flavor Vegan and Chef Jana on YouTube - they're a really good intersection between good recipes that generally do not require extremely elaborate methods or really obscure or expensive ingredients. Sauce Stache is... okay and he's been improving on the last couple of years where it was really clickbait viewing-experience cooking where it's like "iain't makin' that..."

Try to pitch low with your cooking and your recipes - you want to make your stuff easy and accessible for those low energy days or when you're been extremely busy. Save the fancy stuff for if or when you feel like spreading your wings.

Also take a scientific approach to replacing animal products based on what purpose they serve in a recipe, don't look for a 1:1:

Does ground meat add texture to the dish? Is it protein that you use it for? Does the saturated fat provide delicious mouthfeel and richness to the meal?

Once you understand the purpose(s) that an animal product serves a dish, you can replace those with other ingredients that serve as a good approximation.

For bacon, usually it's saturated fat + smoky flavour + pork taste.

You can replace bacon in most recipes using non-virgin coconut oil, smoked paprika and/or liquid smoke, and vegan pork broth powder.

if a recipe uses butter to add richness and a little bit of sorta creaminess then a bit of cashew cream can replace it since you don't need the cream for its other qualities, if that makes sense.

It's really hard to say exactly what the path for you is because it's really dependent upon your lifestyle and especially your food preferences - if your food is pretty culturally Thai then it's going to be wildly different from if it's culturally Greek or culturally American, y'know?

And risk an international incident

People might recognize this guy from when he started releasing videos trying to find a wife.

I guess he has arrived at the conclusion that it's going to be easier for him to become the leader of China than it is for him to find a spouse lmao.

They freak out about everything turning the children trans.

It's cute to see someone putting so much latent insecurity in their own gender identity out there for the whole world to see.

Sometimes I go into those hives of scum and villainy and do deep trolling to sow chaos and discord (if I do it right). I'll say something like:

"I'm just glad I grew up in a time when men were men and we didn't have schools convincing all the kids to turn trans like they do nowadays because it's scary to think how I might have turned out if I grew up in the 2010s.

We need society to instruct our children on how to be a men. If we don't then we shouldn't be surprised when they end up feeling confused about their gender."

And if a statement like that gets any traction then I usually have those dorks erupting into debate about whether gender is stored in the balls or whether your primary school teacher gives you your gender by reading books to you.

It's fun watching a group of reactionaries arguing bitterly over which side of their inherently-contradictory political position is the correct one. May they spend their time feuding with one another over their terrible takes and may it cause their movement to fragment into so many competing factions that it would make a Trot blush.

Say no more, fam:

https://youtu.be/vlCbPKMKuB4