I believe to have watched more and more places sprout up that seem both openly welcoming and encouraging of pedophilia. Games like zenless zone zero (gacha games in general) have really seemed to breed communities that are not simply overtly lolicon, but overtly proud of it, calling anyone who dares call them out on their destructive disgusting behavior a “puritan”. r/AnimeTouristsCringe is a good example of a community that is unabashedly pedophilic in nature. It’s been shit in quite a lot (deservedly) but I’m not trying to single it out, I’m moreso complaining about a concerning trend in online communities I was formerly a part of (zzz)

Looking at Neha Bora today makes me think how loud Umar Khalid's voice would have been today if he was out.

This post isn't about if Umar is innocent or not, we'll let time tell that. Barring this point please tell me your opinion on activist/student leader/ left wing politician/ scholar Umar Khalid.

Quick story short, I had a friend who said that he can invest in my ideas, we weren’t that close, but he said he was rich. I started a dropshipping store selling dog beds, specifically pouch style beds.

Ran facebooks ads, after a year of heard work, we’ve made over 100k in usd, he held on to it as we planned to re-invest it, and then suddenly, our Facebook account got shot down for a billing issue, he tells me he’s card isn’t working and if I could send him a k of my own money, I sent it to him, and then he « found out » that card was negative 800$ so now he can’t pay it off.

We also have 5k in orders, or about 60 dog beds waiting to be shipped that he needs to buy. He also did buy a nice m4 this year. Weirdly, I don’t even feel angry right now. I just feel gone.

Give me anything you got. I don't care if its crap, anything involving gay and bi men in prominent roles. Any era, any country. Just something that I'd like to see over the next few days. If its something I've seen, I'll let you know.

I’m a 27 year old black man. I grew up pretty much exclusively around black people my entire life and I have not met a single black girl/woman that looks like this. Like, really? I don’t care that it’s “stylized” it looks terrible and racist. Not every black person has prognathism and if they do, it’s NO WHERE near like this. I mean look at her fucking jawline. There are memes made by actual fucking racist Nazis that look just like this character

Like, are we serious? Do these people think this representation is doing us a service? Why do they ALWAYS make black women look either inhuman or masculine ?

There are so many gorgeous black women that I encounter every day, gorgeous black celebrities that people can use as a reference point like Megan, maya boyd, anok yai ect ect yet, every piece of progressive media portrays black women as the most hideous things ever. It’s fucking exhausting

Concord, hades, Wendell & wild, death stranding ect.. all feature black female characters that are either super fucking fat or with masculine/exaggerated features, like a jawline that’s about as long as a fucking arm

Why cant they just make black people look good or even just normal??? STOP putting us in your shit If you’re going to make us look this fucking terrible PLEASE

Tl:DR: I’m tired of black people being depicted as racist caricatures in animated/video game media instead of normal looking like everyone else

I dunno if this is a hot take or not but I really hate this trope for several reasons. The examples shown are:

Orcs - J R.R. Tolkiens Middle Earth
Goblins - Goblin Slayer
Demons - Frieren

I’m not trying to moralize or virtue signal, I promise, but I do genuinely think the trope is intellectually lazy and symbolically troubling.

When you have an entire race of species capable of critical thought, civilization and advanced communication, you are fundamentally no longer looking at a wild animal acting on instinct, that isn’t how it works. So then the trope usually goes, there is something about their nature that makes every member inherently evil and sympathizing with them is like sympathizing with a tornado.

And that’s cool and all, but… you wrote it. It’s not real. You chose to write them in that manner. Here’s why I have gripes:

A. Troublingly, the logical solution is to genocide the entire race of beings. In a vacuum inside fiction, it’s not a huge deal because it logically checks out. However, rhetoric that an entire sapient race can be inherently evil and therefore must be eliminated is troubling, and you may think, “but people can tell reality from fiction!” and they usually can. But especially with my experience with the Frieren community, it often invites a lot of genuine fascists.

B. If they do not have the capacity to choose good, how could they possibly even be evil? They don’t have the choice to do anything but evil.

C. It can stifle good opportunities for advanced and interesting worldbuilding in favor of “evil guys must die”, in my opinion. There are tons of ways to write a species of evil or grunts without making them intrinsically evil, using explanations like militaristic societies, social conditioning, war, or even at least showing defectors.

I could just be yapping, but this trope bothers me a lot.

The wheel is one of the first simple machines that humans develop. Most societies are also capable of building chairs. Hmm.

I don't understand why anyone thinks that it's somehow lazy for a fantasy setting to put those wheels on a chair for a person to use. Making wheelchairs is a thing people do, and there are examples of wheeled chairs in myth and antiquity. IRL companies keep demoing robot legs that can climb stairs, and people still use wheelchairs because, despite their limitations, they're affordable, reliable, convenient and comfortable.

These nerds don't seem to be begging for wheelbarrows and carts to all be replaced with golem lobster legs or whatever, which means they're only selectively pedantic when it comes to the inclusion of a disabled person. And if SFF fiction moved to only show disabled people in hover carts and golem legs, I promise you that they would complain that it's so unrealistic compared to wheels.

When I'm running a game of D&D and a character is in a mundane wheelchair, I might ask the player how their character navigates the terrain and award inspiration if their answer is interesting. Otherwise I just assume their character is good at what their sheet says they can do.

Edit: I don't find the "but they could just be healed" argument persuasive. This character can't. They tried, it didn't work. They're not a doctor or a cleric and aren't here to infodump lore that justifies why disabled people exist in a particular setting to the shirtless barbarian who tanks arrows to the chest.

I apologize in advance for the AI-generated image, i’m not a graphic designer, so I don’t really know how to use image editing tools, I just wanted to convey a rough idea of ​​what I was looking for. Naturally, there are details that the AI ​​doesn’t get quite right, but it’s somewhat helpful for establishing a concept. I’m sure Ibanez could have done a better job than just pasting a PNG onto the body of your guitar.

I bought two blue 2TB iPhone Duos directly from Apple’s website. Both arrived on Friday, October 23. One for me, one for my wife.

By Monday evening, October 26, I noticed that the two halves of my phone move relative to each other when it is fully folded closed, with a quiet mechanical sound coming from the hinge. By the following morning, the movement felt noticeably more pronounced.

The movement is small. The sound is quiet. But you can feel it, you can hear it, and the phone does not feel solid when closed.

This happens while the phone is completely closed. I’m not talking about the hinge moving as I fold or unfold it.

My wife’s phone seems fine so far.

I’ve owned Samsung Galaxy Folds from recent generations, and none of mine had anything remotely like this when closed. They felt solid. At roughly $3,000, that is absolutely the standard I expect from this phone.

Then I went to the Apple Store.

Today, October 27, an employee at Apple Mall of the Emirates in Dubai inspected my phone and compared it with the Duos on display. We checked approximately seven units in different colours.

Every single one we checked showed similar movement, to varying degrees.

The Apple Store service record is attached.

Finding similar behaviour on the display units doesn’t make me feel better about the build quality. It makes me want a proper explanation of what Apple considers acceptable.

If this amount of movement is within the intended tolerances, Apple should explain that clearly, including whether it can increase over time and what it means for durability. If it isn’t, owners need to know what Apple will do about it.

Other owners are asking related questions:

• Play between the halves when folded — the closest match to mine, although that owner describes a tactile click without audible noise.
• “Loose hinge, is this normal?” — play with the phone unfolded.
• “Hinge creaking” — looseness and creaking while open, as clarified by the author in the comments.

Those reports may have different causes, but they show why clearer guidance would be useful.

Does your Duo have movement between the halves when fully closed? Has it become more noticeable since you got it? What has Apple told you?

I paid around $3,000 for this phone. I expect it to feel solid when closed. I should not be four days into owning it and already wondering whether the hinge is going to keep getting looser.

My guy friend is 25 years old, divorced, and he’s my coworker. He tells me that he met a girl online from a different country, and because I’m here to support him, I’m happy that he’s putting himself out there again. One day, I invite him to a concert with me and he invites his girlfriend because she’ll be in town, I’m cool with it. Before the concert, I pick them both up and I’m asking if we would like to buy some drinks before the concert because me, personally, I like to loosen up before a concert. My guy friend, point blank, tells me “we can’t go because she’s 18.” I’m appalled, bamboozled, too stunned to speak because he’s never brought up her age to me. I’m sorry, you’re a 25-year-old man and in what context did you find this to be okay?

Men are weird, ladies!

Not even because they CAN'T succeed but rather because they're too stubborn.

Almost any time a guy complains about not doing well online, I look at his profile, KNOW the issue, suggest a change or will even make the change for them, and then they either won't apply it or will super half-ass it.

It's like they care more to be right in their shitty worldview than actually dating women.

Also selfish as fuck behavior when someone takes the time to help you out and you're too egotistical to even try it because you think you're smarter than everyone.

In a sense, this might be a good thing. The trash is taking itself out. Imagine a woman having to deal with them in a relationship.

I used Claude to create what I thought was a pretty cool Linux Desktop Environment, so I shared it in r/unixporn. Wow.. those guys were savage with their feedback.. Honestly I was really depressed for a few days because of it. What kind of experiences have you guys had and in which subreddits?

Feminism must remain centered on the material realities of being female as its goal is to liberate women. Women’s oppression is rooted in sex-based biology, including reproductive capacity, sex-based violence, and the historical exclusion of females from political, economic, and social power. A movement that cannot articulate what makes women a distinct political class risks undermining its own purpose.

The reality is, feminism is not for males. It is impossible for a male to become female, and vice versa. Seeing as TERFs are the only ones to not cater to and center these males who think they’re women, they are the only true feminists.

Topic discussed several times already. I like it though so I'm bringing it up again. I like it because of my own personal story. I was 27 and my wife 19 when we met and started dating. We met in a third space, I didn't prowl around for young people, and dated people my age before she came into my life. Been together for fifteen years and married for thirteen.

People don't understand power dynamics. The existence of a power dynamic does not constitute moral failure. The exploitation of said power dynamic is what is the moral failure.

You, the reader, already agree with this even if you don't think you do. Because if the above wasn't the case then men could never be in relationships with women. Men are stronger than women. Zero serious people dispute this. There exists a power dynamic in every heterosexual relationship where the man can easily kill the woman at any time. The existence of this power discrepancy is not seen as a moral failure. The exploitation of it, or leveraging of it against the weaker partner is the moral failure (and we prosecute it).

Similarly, a power dynamic exists in an age gap relationship. It does. Nobody is denying it (at least not me). The moral failure would be the high-power partner utilizing the financial or experience gap to restrict options or exits of the low-power partner (either gender) with the intention of entrapment. If this exploitation is not done, there is no moral failure in the relationship and society must let two autonomous adults make decisions for themselves.

Note: I'm not saying you don't get to have an ick about it. You can. Nobody can tell you what to feel. What you can't do is conflate your ick with morality, because it isn't.

Good morning fellow Bass heads. Credit to Jaenga music https://www.instagram.com/jaengamusic I realize this isn't for everyone. But for the others, I see you fam!

We're approaching 24 hours of ridiculousness here. None of you have even touched this device yet. And 99.999% of users of this device will NEVER know the difference between 60 and 120. Further, the 0.001% that would will acclimate to the screen in under a day of use and never think about it again.

For the love of god, move on.