As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I’ve been on vacation the past two weeks and now that I’m back and I’ve got internet access I have been reading the news and it has been kind of depressing.

So what’s been good? It can be national, local, personal, or whatever you want to share.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Have you been properly spooked? Did you acquire a fear of a procession of mummies coming to pluck a hair from you each night to teach you about conservationism?

Do you have any annual traditions you follow? Haunted houses, straw mazes, or cider making? Do you or an acquaintance go all-out with decorating?

Do you have horror movie marathons? For fun, or to put on your Mary Shelley hat to look at horror as capturing a zeitghost like Them! for nuclear war, slasher films for rising crime, or Us for class issues? (Leprechaun's bi allergory is an outlier)

Do you have a favorite costume, or future costume idea? A shambling uncanny valley girl, group human obstacle course, ensemble of 3/7 dwarves, or reverse trick-or-treat grandparent?

“Losing” can mean a death, or falling out of touch, or damaging a relationship past a point of repair, or anything else you feel fits.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?
...going through a pandemic?
…being LGBT?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

I don't think this has been much of an issue so far with this community, but I expect that with time people will be more and more likely to not read the linked article before commenting. We've become so primed in general to consume information on the Internet in a way that makes us feel overconfident in our understanding based on just a few details, that I think it would be useful to have a soft reminder to actually read and engage with the things you're responding to instead of offering a "hot take".

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

I'm 22 years old and have recently graduated from college. I'm a little disoriented right now. I'd appreciate some help. I'm having trouble explaining my issue precisely, but it relates to these themes: SEX, LONGING, AMBIVALENCE, PURPOSE. I feel I must provide some anecdotes for my question(s) to make sense.

In the wintertime, I made a new friend. She had pitch-black hair. We had exchanged any number of glances from across the room. She caught me one morning as I left the hall and asked if I liked [REDACTED_MEDIA]. I humored her: "Sure, as much as anyone. … No, I've not seen it. … Yes, I'll check it out." The following week I reported back with my opinions, and we spoke a great deal, warming to one another as the days remained icy.

One day I offered to take her to [REDACTED_EVENT]. She didn't come, but regretted it, and gave me a phone number as reparation. She was a little embarrassed, but I found it endearing; I was quite happy to see more of her. From here the courtship was a breeze. On a Saturday we took a drive into the country and strolled along a quiet, wooded trail, a respite from our world of books and burdens. As we rested by a stream, talking about trivialities, she laid out a moment of trauma before me. She was not looking for answers to an unanswerable tragedy so much as a good listener. I obliged, and held her closely as we walked home. She appreciated the comfort.

From here the romance was a breeze. One invitation to study at hers and we were having unbelievable sex. She was very beautiful. We would spend an entire day together, ignoring our responsibilities and enjoying each other's bodies. Never in my life had I indulged in such things as she asked for. I think it actually changed some of my brain chemistry. It was exciting, it was fun, and it was very satisfying—for both of us. I also thought our conversation was authentic and emotionally fulfilling. Apparently she did not share that feeling, because she broke up with me (suddenly) a couple weeks in. Her exact reasons were a little strange, but I was not going to push it. We said our goodbyes, and I walked home in the bitter cold, alone.

I hadn't known her long enough to be debilitatingly heartbroken, but it did hurt. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but I question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat that sex. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

Some time ago, a dear friend invited me to her home in a city I no longer called mine. We dined and spoke of our passing lives: exciting and intimidating in their opportunity; tiring and burdensome in their demands. There were so many choices ahead; work gave enough but took too much. It was a relief to be free from the school; it was lonely. But it warmed my heart to be in her company again.

She drew me to her bed and closed the door. I sat, and we chatted. Her expectation was obvious and the reason for my passivity was not—the dance of intimacy was familiar to both of us. After a pause, she faced me and said, "We can sleep together, but I don't want you to stay the night."

Her request was reasonable, but I found it deeply jarring. Sex had not really motivated my visit, though I had entertained the possibility, and it had certainly not motivated my behavior at dinner. (I had planned already where I would be sleeping that night, and it was far away.) I had missed her a lot. More than anything I had missed her presence. Her statement revealed a terrible disparity in how we viewed our relationship. It was my fault for not stepping out after dinner, and it was particularly my fault across many months prior for setting a series of expectations that effectively downplayed my emotional feelings.

I acknowledged her and quickly changed the top of conversation, and for a moment it was as though nothing had been said. Then, with another pause, she leaned over for a kiss. My heart was not in it. All I could hear was "I don't want you..." Still, I could not refuse. I had been sliced open, but she was very pretty, and more importantly I was reluctant to disappoint the people I cared for. The sex that followed felt passionless and transactional—different from before. She seemed impatient. I was distressed. It was consensual, but it was really weird and I did not enjoy it.

I walked out of that house wishing I could cry. It was not the time. I could betray no weakness here or the city would devour me. I did cry, later. And maybe I'm just being naïve, but this incident made me question whether it's possible for a future relationship to beat the sentimental connection we had at the peak of our fling… including another go at it (that time has evidently passed). We were emotional matches/peers/equals in a way I don't know if I will ever find again. This prompts a greater existential question: "So why bother?"

We're meant to see each other again quite soon, but this time the bed will be my own, and this time she'll stay the night. I couldn't say no when she asked. It's going to be awkward. I'm unsure what I wish to do.

Not long ago, a friend asked near midnight if there was something happening between us. I froze up and sputtered something out about not expecting that question. I was genuinely unable to say anything for a few minutes. The answer that came to mind was kind of "Yes," but it was also, "I'm confused at this time and I don't know," and also, "This is going to hurt the group dynamic." I said yes but mumbled something about not getting her hopes up because I was pretty weird and also pretty uncertain about how I wanted to shape my life in the near and far future. I did not talk about the group dynamic.

I'm proud of myself for making it clear that my wants are currently shifting and that my boundaries are unclear. I would've liked to be more specific. However, I'm not proud of saying yes before I had resolved all my emotional problems, nor about glossing over all my reservations. I feel it is irresponsible; I'm setting myself (and her) up to fail. I'm uncertain how to feel about the group dynamic. In the past year I've been the recipient of a lot of romantic attention with them and I've consistently said no. It is fine right now but it might not be fine if I change course like this.

Last year I made a post on this website about three experiences I'd had and received a few comments. One of them in particular stuck with me:

I will give you one piece of advice. There's absolutely nothing wrong with anything that you told us, but since you are young and reminds a bit of myself when I was your age, I'll say this: be careful not to inadvertently hurt anyone. Be explicit instead of implicit. People often have all kinds of expectations that differ from our own, so it's a good idea to let them know where they stand.

I really did take that to heart. I don't want to hurt anyone. I am trying so hard not to ruin everything. I broke this advice soon after it was given to me and it severely damaged a friendship. It was not on purpose, but it was incredibly foolish. Since then, I've been extra careful not to lead people on and to be really clear about my needs (or at least I hope I have). But this is hard because I live a very social lifestyle and people seem to misinterpret friendliness as flirting. Or they just have opinions. I can't say this without sounding arrogant, so please forgive me, but people often comment admiringly on my appearance. It is obvious that they treat me differently because of it. It's not that weird (or that bad honestly) for an acquaintance my age to be a little bashful in front of me—but it feels different when it becomes an increasingly significant part of my reputation. I try not to touch people or to otherwise give them the wrong idea, but it seems like I am breeding longing/jealousy just by existing.

Anyway, I feel I am struggling to move this relationship forward in part because I wasn't explicitly looking for one, and have been hit hard lately by general listlessness and uncertainty, so I wasn't prepared for it. And I'm also struggling to reconcile the physical needs of a new romance with my current incredible level of apathy toward sex. "Why bother?" I've never been this indifferent toward it before, it has always been important to me. The more I think about previous relationships, the less it seems like it's worth it to pursue anything at all. I would call it freeing to not care, except that it's fundamentally concerning. It stems from bad memories and also I think some trauma I haven't really resolved, which is not the same as "letting loose and living my life." It's been physically difficult for me to even think about sex and to be honest the thought is occasionally a little revolting to me, which I have never felt before, at least not for an extended period. And I feel like I'm too irrevocably closed-off to ever sufficiently open up emotionally in a relationship to make it last long-term. But… I also know what it feels like to fall into despair, not knowing what great things lie around the corner. This makes me reluctant to cut it off or make an ultimatum or actually do anything decisive at all.

It's all just so much.

None of that is really in question form, but it sort of explains my headspace. I'm sorry that I can't explain it better, but it's very late and I have work tomorrow. I would really appreciate some insight. Thanks.

It's difficult to talk about the UK at the moment because, and it's hard to give this enough emphasis, IT'S AN ENORMOUS CLUSTER-FUCK AND EVERYTHING IS AWFUL.

To give you some idea, Truss is currently less popular than Putin and is the least popular PM the UK has ever had (in the years that we measured).

There's a bill going through tonight about fracking. But it's been turned into a confidence motion on Liz Truss, and it has full hard /// three line whip, slips withdrawn. (basically, members of the Conservative Party have been instructed to vote in accordance with their party's wishes, and not doing so is serious, and can lead to the MP effectively being expelled from their party.) And the three line whip is against their 2019 manifesto pledge.

Normally, we'd expect to see MPs rebelling against this. Certainly, at the moment, a bunch of them are in the mood to do so.

There's an additional complication here though - a bunch of MPs have sent in letters of no confidence, and that could trigger Yet Another Leadership Race (they've already met the threshold, but they've raised the bar to be half the party needs to send the letters because lol who cares about rules). But, if an MP is expelled their letter no longer counts. So a bunch of MPs are openly saying they're only voting for this fracking bill because they think Truss is hopeless and needs to go.

https://twitter.com/BethRigby/status/1582672374369226753

https://twitter.com/IanDunt/status/1582762437954375680

Also, Suella Braverman (who managed to be a crueller home secretary than any who've been before her which is remarkable considering the list of utterly hateful cunts who've had the job) was sacked / resigned today.

So, if there's not much talk here from people in the UK it's because nothing makes any sense and everything's changing every day.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Question here is for any LGBT users:

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

In the Tildes-preferred spirit, "LGBT" here is used as an umbrella term that refers to all minority sexualities and gender identities.

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?
...going through a pandemic?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

I remember I came across it here, probably posted by @Deimos in the course of a thread about Tildes' philosophy. The essence of the blog was that the truly nice, sweet people among us that make online forums a better place with their positive interactions are more sensitive to tensions and negative interactions than the average person, so they'd be likely to leave at a lower level of trolling than most of us would, resulting in a net negative for everyone on the site. Could have sworn I bookmarked it...

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Do you thrive on chaos or structure? Are your personal spaces clean or populated by all kinds or objects? Do you wear bright colors or white shirt and jeans? Do you prefer fast cuts or meditative editing? Probability or deduction? Heidegger or Russel? Buñuel or Buster Keaton? Lynch or Spielberg? Godart or Hitchcock? John Lennon or Paul McCartney? A party or a small gathering? A lot or just a little?

:)

Question is for our users here who work/worked in the tech industry (in any capacity) or in a techy position in any industry.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

Question here is for everyone really, since we all went through/are still going through the COVID-19 pandemic.

What have you learned?
How did it change you?

Note: the intention of these threads is reflection, not hot takes. I know that a prompt like this can provoke quippy responses, but please try to limit those or, if you feel compelled to give one, try to dive a bit deeper with it.

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?
...moving to a new place?
...working in tech?

These threads remain open, so feel free to comment on old ones if you have something to add!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

"New place" can be a small move to a new apartment down the street or a big move to a completely different city/country/continent.

What did you learn?
How did it change you?

Previous questions in series:

What have you learned from...
...being a parent?
...going through a breakup?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Have you ever received notice that you might be eligible for something from a class-action settlement? Ever notice that the effort required to recover is significant, and the recovery perhaps insultingly miniscule?

I don't know of any data, but I suspect that's true of nearly every class action lawsuit, even those that win in court battles. Maybe the original plaintiffs get a decent recovery, sometimes there's injunctive relief (which means the court forces the defendant to do or not do something). Every once in a while, individual members of the class get a meaningful outcome (vw's dieselgate comes to mind).

The public interest justification for the outcomes where the recover for class members is really small, if one is even ever really offered, is that the cost of the action to the defendant serves as an inducement to all defendants to keep their act together. But see, Tyler Durden's explanation of the actuarial function from Fight Club.

My thought is that instead of any recovery for the individual class members ("fuck 'em, right?"), their portion of the money should go to a public interest fund dedicated to consumer protection. My reason for this is that these small recoveries don't make any useful change for the individual class member consumers. But collectively, might add up to enough to make a meaningful difference to the future activities of producers.

Of course, all the usual caveats about corruption and accountability come into play. But there's a few reasons it might help, if those can be overcome. First, it might prompt faster, lest costly settlements. The payouts would be lower, and also the transaction costs. This shifts the litigation process from focussing on big recoveries to high volume of suits, bringing in more defendants. It would also enable smaller firms to bring suit, the hope being that smaller firms would take on more marginal cases and get more action.

Second, it might actually create a feedback loop. If the fund gets large enough, it could lobby and investigate, providing more information more new suits, and identifying the worst actors, and encouraging useful regulation. Imagine if Consumers Union could return to its glory of the 80's and have a big lobbying fund?

Or, we could just have decent government level consumer protections (hahhahahahahahahah!)

Question is for anyone who's ever gone through a breakup -- no matter how big or small. Also it goes for whether it was mutual, you were the one broken up with, or you had to be the one to break the news.

What did you learn from your breakup?
How did it change you?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

My initial reaction to cloud_loud's post about the upcoming Winnie the Pooh slasher movie was viscerally negative - my gut feeling is that my life would be objectively better without a movie like this in the world tainting a treasured childhood memory for millions of people.

Then I thought back to my reaction to the Wednesday Addams trailer and it became immediately clear to me that it was just a 'me problem' - I had no sentimental ties to the Addams Family as a kid, but Winnie the Pooh was one of my mum's bedtime story staples. I trust Tim Burton based on his track record to bring a high-quality rendition of Wednesday to the screen, but these nameless & faceless filmmakers were suddenly antagonists in my mind for turning an innocent story about a talking teddy bear into a trashy slasher. But apples & oranges comparison aside, just like how there will be people against the idea of Burton's vision of the Addams family or Tom Hanks' portrayal of Mr. Rogers, there most likely will be people who enjoy this movie when it releases - it just won't be my cup of tea.

I then started thinking about the implications of franchises reaching public domain like in this scenario - for better or worse, creators can now build upon, remix or bastardize the world and characters of Winnie the Pooh. I recently had a conversation here on Tildes about the necessity of copyright, patent and intellectual property law where @archevel raised the question of whether a person/entity should be able to 'own' an idea, and on the surface the immediate answer is a resounding "no". But thinking deeper about it (especially in this context) pushed me down a different path, calling someone's creation simply an 'idea' is very reductionist. To me, an idea is 'a honey-obsessed talking teddy bear' - there's no characterisation to that, no soul, no story, no sense of being. An idea is a I-V-VI-IV chord progression (and thus holds no legal protections), but shouldn't the artistic integrity of Journey's Don't Stop Believing be protected even after the creators are gone? Why are we so indifferent towards parodies like this when it could just as easily be something more offensive like this that can harm the legacy of the creator just by association? I've always been a proponent of free speech/freedom of expression but thinking about it from this perspective is fascinating to me.

That's not inherently an issue of something becoming public domain though, it's an issue of preserving the creator's legacy. Copyright doesn't just protect the creator's means to compensation, it protects their right to control their creations - the right to control their artistic integrity and the legacy they leave behind. Knowing that Milne and Shepard created Pooh to entertain children in a wholesome way, I think it's fairly safe to say they would not be happy with a slasher adaptation if they were still alive. If these filmmakers were using Pooh's likeness to parody Xi Jinping and push a communist agenda, would we care more about preserving Milne's legacy then?

All that brought me to the question of decency - whose moral compass should we guide ourselves by? Where is the line between socially-acceptable satire and obscenity? Western culture has been extremely cagey about some of the most natural things like nudity and sexuality, but here in Australia our government has no issue plastering billboards, bus stops and cigarette cartons with images of nicotine-stained teeth, abscessed mouths and diseased organs in an attempt to warn people of the dangers of smoking & excess sugar consumption - all in the name of public health. Everybody has genitals, why is our government happy to tell us that seeing boobs on a billboard could be potentially shocking for children to see when kids are exposed to NSFL images just by walking past the cigarette shelf in a store or a discarded carton in the street? When our cultural morality is so cagey about something as innocuous as a natural human body, why are we so unconcerned when someone perverts the life's work of a creator just because it's turned public domain? Should the creator have the right to protect their work from beyond the grave?

I'm willing to bet when Mickey Mouse turns public domain in 2024 the internet will be flooded with Beeple-style grotesqueries (NSFW) and everyone will get sick of profane parodies very quickly.

Just wanted to post a frame-by-frame analysis of the philosophical rabbit hole I went down today and hopefully stir up a conversation - I know these are fairly deep questions that none of us can really answer definitively but I still love to hear different people's thoughts and perspectives regardless :)

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Thanks a lot for the responses yesterday. I'm glad to be on Tildes, this seems to be a very vibrant and happy community unlike many others! Today is the second post in a series (hopefully) of writing exercises to get rid of my writer's block.

Today is the second day of my battle against Writer's Block. A very basic question I want to ask is what exactly is writing inspiration and where does it come from? If it comes from within you (as many claim) then why doesn't it always keep flowing like a river, why is it so scarce a resource? The mechanisms of subconscious mind are probably too complex for even the mind itself to work out!

What I've found though is that it's much easier to do freehand writing or writing nothing in particular (as I'm doing now) but it gets a bit tricky when you want to write about something specific like an article or research paper or a book. That's when you must start worrying about the content quality, research material, story background, plot, etc. But even freehand writing is a great exercise I think to flex your writing muscles at frequent intervals and ensure that they stay in order.

Of course, other antagonists like lethargy, procrastination, impostor syndrome, self censoring, etc. are always waiting in their closets to jump out and play their part in the battle! These are like natural foes. Whatever you do about them, they'll always lurk back in some form or other given the right environment! Especially in 2022 when oodles of great literature already exist on any given topic, the pressure to perform on a writer is tremendous. Wiser, smarter and more intelligent people than me already seem to have written whatever there is to write about literature, mathematics, computer science, physical sciences, social sciences, etc., what exactly is there left for me to write anyways? So the impostor wonders aloud!

When all else fails, the pundits ask you to "write about yourself" or "write about your own experiences". That's easy to say actually but my own life has been so mundane and ordinary (just like most other people's, I suppose) that there is hardly anything inspiring or worthwhile to get out of that. They say "open yourself up" but what if there is nothing inside but just a hollow and empty shell when you open up? My life has been one of the most "typical" or "average" as I'd put it whereas writing is supposed to be creative and extra ordinary.

Another obvious source of writing is reading. They say the more you read, a better writer you'll become as you'll keep adding to the raw material to pick from. I have a good collection of books and I used to read a lot many years ago, an activity which has reduced a lot lately due to work and other factors. Just like writer's block, I also seem to have gotten myself a "reader's block" if there is such a thing!

As I keep battling with the proverbial pen day after day, I hope something good will come out of it and I might become a better writer than I presently am. Today is just the second day, I just hope I'll be able to keep up with this pace and write daily. Please wish me luck! Thanks for reading.

From today, I've decided to write at least something every day until the writer's block frees me of its hold. I face this from time to time and don't really understand what to do, there is no cure really except hoping that something will happen or some inspiration will strike at some point causing me to write something.

One of the reasons could be that I'm a computer programmer and mostly blog about technology topics. But programming isn't really a topic or subject on which you can keep churning out rivers of literature, can you? It's a very exact and precise science just like mathematics and I feel most things that must be written about it are already written. In fact, I pretty much feel the same way about any kind of topic, we are literally swimming in oceans of information already! That's probably one of the reasons that keeps me from writing. I don't want to unnecessarily add my useless pennies to great literature contributed by people who are wiser and smarter than me.

But then the question arises what should I write about or blog about? I can write about nothing in particular and whatever that comes to mind (like I'm doing now) or I can write a research or news article or something. But I don't know how exactly people go about that. Most articles today are opinion pieces anyway and mine will probably be the same. But where do these "opinion writers" get their information from? There have to be some primary or base level sources. What are they? Can you recommend some good ones?

Another thing that keeps me from writing freely is all the environment you see on the interwebs these days which is just so toxic and discouraging, isn't it? It's not just about having a thick skin anymore but you live in a constant fear of getting canceled for something as trivial as your mere mentioning of some individual (about whom you may not even be fully aware of). I have to think a million times before writing something if this will offend any netizen or not, my guess is that many other writers must be going through the same thing and this is what results in the infamous contemporary expression, Self-Censorship!

If you're going to constantly self-censor yourself and kill many great ideas when they're just in their infancy, I don't think you'll be left with a lot of creative stuff to write and you may not even feel like writing anymore. Self-Censorship beyond a basic extent (like filtering of abusive words and phrases, etc.) is counter-productive and should be highly discouraged in my humble opinion.

Other natural antagonists like lethargy, laziness, procrastination, etc. also need to be blamed, of course! Sometimes, I don't find the motivation to read or do further research on a topic. Without reading, you can't get enough material to write, a good writer must be an avid book worm also. I feel sure I can contribute a lot to the literary world some day and I've decided to keep battling with my proverbial pen (actually the keyboard!) until the day it happens.

I think that's enough for today, might come up with another great wall of text tomorrow! Sorry if I wasted your time.

It's a very broad question, but seeing the latest extremely worrying news from where I am made me wonder: how's everyone else getting on? Now that we're moving past the lockdowns and furloughs, do things look hopeful where you are?

Things in the UK are pretty bad right now - huge inflation, energy prices hitting points that will seriously harm people's financial stability just to stay warm in winter, unending political scandal, increasing pollution, and little real sign of a light at the end of the tunnel. I'm fortunate enough to be able to handle it at least for now, but I'm genuinely worried for those around me and for the country as a whole.

The pandemic hit us all hard, but it's difficult to gauge how hard. Obviously Brexit is an extra anchor around the UK's neck, but then the US has the legacy of Trump and mainland Europe has a war on the doorstep, so we're far from the only ones with problems. Are we in a uniquely bad position, or is this how everyone's feeling right now?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

Last night my daughter's toddler bed fell apart and I had to fix it. Some screws had come loose so it was an easy fix. Brought my toolbox into their (her and her twin brother's) room around bed time, fixed the bed, then began the usual bedtime routine. My wife and I left the room and that was that.

Except I left my toolbox in there because I'm forgetful. And you'd think the pokey screwdrivers, gardening shears, and other dangerous tools in there would've been a problem, but nope. My kids weren't interested in that stuff. They pulled out my chalk line and unspooled it. Fortunately it had been heavily used in a project recently, so there wasn't much chalk in it. But they really seemed to like the small, mostly-empty tube of thermal paste I keep in there for computer projects.

If anyone has used thermal paste, you know how incredibly messy it is. It's this thick, dark paste that gets everywhere if you're not careful. And it's the kind of thing where even just a little bit of it can make a big mess. It was all over the walls and all over them. Fortunately they were kind enough to put the cap back on the tube when they were done (bless them).

We tried to use wipes, but to no avail. So the first thing we did this morning was give them a bath and used a wash cloth to clean it all off. I also did some quick googling to see if thermal paste was toxic (it isn't), but 90% of the answers online were jokes about it improving your body temperature and allowing you to overclock yourself. Fucking hilarious stuff, but maybe not so much when you're making sure your kids are alright. They should be fine though.

Anyway, how're ya'lls days going so far?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

So there's something interesting I’ve been seeing on social media, and was wondering if anyone here might have any insight into this.

I’m assuming you all know the story, but I’ll sum it up. 2016 Depp and Heard divorce. It’s implied that Depp was abusive of Heard and then TMZ obtains video of Depp yelling and throwing cabinet doors around. Depp is still in good standing with the industry, but a year later MeToo happens and the Depp stuff is now evaluated with that climate.

Depp seems to be still getting work, including Fantastic Beasts, but then Heard publishes an op-ed in the Washington Post claiming to be a victim of domestic abuse by Depp, who she only refers to as a former husband.

The internet largely backs Heard, that mixed with Aquaman being released around the same time as the op-ed, becomes a launching pad for her career into the mainstream.

Then in early 2019 new evidence comes out that Heard was abusive towards Depp. A shift on the internet becomes prominent. People start to side with Depp and in early 2020 (still pre-pandemic) phone recordings of Heard admitting to hitting Depp were released.

Suddenly the “woke” standpoint, in terms of the online culture war, became to believe Depp. At least for the most part, there were still some corners of the internet and personalities who were still calling Depp an abuser. But still, things tilted in favor of Depp. Even when the UK trial against The Sun didn’t go his way, the stance was largely pro-Depp.

Then the U.S trial happens. And things shift again. Suddenly we get articles begging people to believe Heard.

Even when progressive news outlets and journalists defended Depp they would get dog-pilled by other left-of-center people. This included Shure getting called a fake feminist and a Republican.

So what happened here. Why did Depp’s position in the online culture war change, or was it ever changed to begin with?

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

This might just be because of the change I’ve made in my online behavior, but it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while.

I’ve talked many many times about my long stint on Twitter. Specifically the brief stint where I was highly active on leftist twitter from early to mid 2020 (where I managed to get around two thousand followers which seems crazy to me now considering I’m just a random guy). Back then tensions were high. People were getting laid off, high profile civil rights protests were happening, and there was nothing much to do but to be online. Personally my internship I had lined up during the summer (since I was just about to graduate college) ended up getting cancelled which led me to a period of depression. It’s also the reason I started spending so much time on Twitter and what led me to drink heavily and gain a bunch of weight. I imagine a lot of people who became extremely online during this period were in similar boats.

Anyways, I made a couple of online friends during this time period. It initially started as “Bernie” or “Rose” twitter. We were all pretty normal social democrats supporting Sanders for the presidency (which before Super Tuesday seemed like a big possibility). And then when it became clear that Biden would be the democratic nominee, a lot of people ended up going to the dark side. They started using hammer and sickle emojis on their display name. Started talking about how they were going to read Marx and Lenin (but they never did). They started making memes about how awesome Castro and Mao were. Bios went from “BernieOrBust” to “Marixst-Leninist-Maoist.”

A lot of talk started happening of “grow your own garden the end of the world is near” and also “arm yourselves comrades the class war is among us.” Somehow everyone became very fond of the second amendment. There were twitter accounts LARPing about joining the Socialist Rifle Association, e-girls were taking provocative pictures of themselves posing with automatic rifles in front of a Soviet flag. It became a whole thing. Some of this online behavior was covered in articles like The Cut's Before We Make Out, Wanna Dismantle Capitalism?

I ended up disconnecting from all this around September/October of 2020. I actually ended up voting for Biden in November which I wasn’t planning on when I was addicted to Twitter. I go a little bit into this detox here.

Fast forward to this year. A wave of mass shootings happen. Something that used to be a normal thing pre-pandemic but which stopped/slowed down thanks to lockdowns and schools remaining closed. With all of this in the news again, I start thinking back to the friends I used to have. And their gun loving, revolutionary wanting, “libs get the bullet too” type of tweets that they were writing back in 2020. I don’t remember most of them let alone their names. But I do remember a few.

I look them up. And there are dozens of tweets about the need for gun control. They’re talking about how nobody actually needs guns, and all of the typical liberal arguments in favor of gun control. A stark contrast to what they were saying before. They still have “socialist” in their display names and bios, though from the retweets I saw of them they were no longer following the “Mao is cool” type of people. For lack of a better term, they calmed down. They don’t long for a revolution to happen. They don’t want blood on the streets.

I think what had happened is that they all forgot what mass shootings were. How destructive they were. And now that society is mostly back to normal, including mass shootings, they remembered what that was like.

Now this is too niche of a corner on twitter to talk about in terms of larger online behavior. But back in 2020, I did predict that when Biden became president a lot of these online socialists would retreat into the liberals that they used to be. And it seems like that has happened, at least to some extent.

I mean, I’m glad for them. They seem more balanced, and it’s good that they eventually found themselves like I did (even if I did it a little quicker than they did). But it is still an interesting progression that a lot of my former online friends took.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!

From Wikipedia

A modern melodrama is a dramatic work in which the plot, typically sensationalized and for a strong emotional appeal, takes precedence over detailed characterization. Melodramas typically concentrate on dialogue that is often bombastic or excessively sentimental, rather than action. Characters are often flat, and written to fulfill stereotypes.

Contemporarily, we use the word melodrama for narrative works that go to great lengths to induce certain kinds of emotion at all costs, to detriment of the internal cohesion of both plot and characterization, often in a manner that some consider cheesy, corny, or excessive. All soap operas are melodramas, as are many movies and TV shows. Some melodramas are cheap and fail to achieve their effects, while others can be more rich and even sophisticated. In a way, many mainstream stories are, to some extent, melodramas, even when there are other, more salient genres. There's melodrama in action, crime, and science fiction.

Here are some examples of what I consider more or less contemporary melodramas:

• The Young and the Restless
• Grey's Anatomy
• The Color Purple
• Downton Abbey
• Dawson's Creek
• Avatar
• Gone with the Wind

And here are some stories that are not melodrama, but contain a whole lot of it:

• True Blood
• The Walking Dead
• A.I. Artificial Intelligence
• Pretty much every super-hero CW show
• Pretty much anything in the MCU

No age requirement on the question so anyone can answer, and it can be about anything -- opinions, beliefs, preferences, your own body, etc.

If you're comfortable sharing specific ages/ranges, feel free, but if not that's fine too.

As part of a weekly series, these topics are a place for users to casually discuss the things they did — or didn't do — during their week. Did you accomplish any goals? Suffer a failure? Do nothing at all? Tell us about it!