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bernikibites

@shadowsandcoldwords

30 year old bisexual

I don't think fantasy writers play enough with the concept of the different fantasy races having distinct ethnicities. Like imagine a group of mixed peoples, where the dwarves are all roasting each other like dwarves do, and one of them remarks that when he first saw one of the other dwarves in the group, he mistook her for a man. The other dwarves in the group blink in surprise - the closest that dwarves will go to an audible gasp of shock - and she pulls out a knife and tries to stab him.

Once the dwarves have been separated from each other and the situation has calmed, one of the humans asks another dwarf what that incident was about. Naturally a human woman would have been insulted too, but dwarves are so jovial about insulting each other, why was this matter different?

And the dwarf who was asked explains that there are things you can brutally insult another dwarf about, and there are things you simply do not touch. The dwarf-woman in question is from a completely different region of The Great Underground as the others, and her people have different norms about what kind of patterns men and women braid into their beards. The dwarf insulting her wasn't only insulting her appearance, he was being racist.

The human is surprised to learn that dwarves have different peoples, and the dwarf looks at them like at an idiot. Of course they do, they even look completely different from each other. And the human listens as the dwarf lists off various distinguishing clothing details too nuanced for a human to notice, and then how dwarves coming from different corners of the world have different physical traits, according to what kind of conditions their local stone types dictate.

The human spots a connection and goes oh! We have that too, though ours are not about rock types and tunnel air, but the weather aboveground. Humans' facial features vary by how hot, cold, arid or windy their ancestors' homelands were, and our skin tone varies by how much the sun shines in their native region.

The dwarf frowns at the last part, going "I thought you people just paint your skin and dye your hair for fun", and the human admits that yeah, we do that too, but not all the time, and not the whole skin. The dwarf asks, what of that tall woman the colour of dravite, her palms and the soles of her feet were lighter than the rest of her. Does that mean she paints herself dark to be more beautiful?

The human says no, that just happens naturally. Maybe it's because one's palms and feet aren't exposed to the sun as much, so they are paler.

The dwarf nods, still unsure whether this is actually legit or just the human habit of lying for fun, and proceeds to ask about the wild northman of their party. He is as pale as an olm, but the palms of his hands and the soles of his feet are dark. Are they painted, or naturally that way?

No, the human answers. That guy just doesn't bathe.

Abolish Tesla.

Elon uses his overvalued Tesla stock as collateral for all his loans.

If the stock price crashes, banks will ask for their money back.

The Twitter deal alone would break him - twitter has tanked in value, he couldn't sell it to pay off his loans.

Please, oh please. Not just well deserved karma, it would be so fucking funny.

Back in 1942, when making a bad cup of tea may have been grounds for a divorce…

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lovemedonlothario

You see 👀 teas grown in hot 🌞 valleys ripen too fast ⏱️🏃‍♂️ so they taste FLAT But Lipton 📦 uses teas 🌳 grown on cooler 🌡❄️ slopes… teas that ripen SLOW ⏰️😴 and gain rich FULL flavor ☕️😚 this special flavor ☕️ has made Lipton 📦 America’s 🗽 largest selling tea.

Someone out there used time travel to go back in time and make this tea advertisement extremely tedious to read as a joke no one would get for over 50 years

Some context for the ad’s joke: this is poking fun at the Folgers Coffee ads from the 60’s, which extremely frequently featured a married couple where the husband was going to divorce their wife due to her coffee being so shitty. They made like 10 commercials with the same premise

Not an invitation to cocoon yourself in a self-care bubble for four years, but a reminder to the 24/7 worriers that you can literally write "To Do on Monday: Worry about ________" on a post-it note and stop worrying about it for one day while you recharge.

This could have been a moment when the Democrats stood up as one in a great Spartacist moment of political resistance... instead we got Al Green with the bravery to not back down.

Several documentaries publically treating Luigi Mangione as guilty before his trial even started got released over the past 2 months.

Here's the billion dollar companies behind them.

while this is a completely valid warning... i just want to take a second to remind everyone that you could literally say this about almost any movie, documentary or piece of media made since 2011. 90% of the United States media is controlled by 6 companies who create over 50% of the content.

and if you want to take it a step further because Vanguard and BlackRock were listed on the original graphic, their reach is lightyears beyond just media. BlackRock and/or Vanguard are among the three largest institutional investors for 505 out of 505 of the S&P 500. (100%). one or the other is the single largest institutional investor in 422 of these (84%). they, along with State Street, control about 23% of the votes of the S&P 500 single-class companies.

the truth is that virtually all corporate-backed media that you consume in 2025 from top to bottom is going to be subject to the oversight of the board of directors for one of these 6 mega billionaire-controlled companies. you should have that fact in mind basically at all times.

It amazes me how the National Park Service is the most vocal department against Fascism. Even the Democrats are a mumble when compared to these park rangers' adamant denouncement and exposing of this administration. Support our bravest federal workers who keep our world one worth living in.

It’s not lost on me that Bernie Sanders is the only mainstream politician touring the country rn listening to Americans’ concerns, giving them hope that a better world is still possible. Not campaigning for President, not an election year, just inspiring swing town voters to use their power to incite change in their communities.

Bernie is 83yo, doing the work that every single Democrat could be doing simply in their own district. He’s packing overflow rooms by the thousands in suburban and rural towns, not “democratic strongholds”. It is possible to get through the next four years but the status quo Dems aren’t going to make that happen.

Imagine what a true progressive party could do for the US. Leftist policy is popular and wins elections. Bernie and others have told us this for decades. If you tuned out his message before, I have to wonder what side you’re truly on. Because his shtick has not wavered with everyday Americans.

Not me, us.

When I was in college in the 80s, I lived in Vermont. Bernie was the mayor of Burlington then. I had the opportunity to vote for him on his first run for Congress. Life happened and I didn’t get another chance until 2016 when I registered as a Democrat for the very first time in order to vote for Bernie in the primary. I have never agreed with every single thing he’s said or done (Shrub’s Iraq adventure was one notable thing), but I have always supported him.

Too few politicians of any stripe are willing to get out and have real, public conversations with their constituents. If your rep comes home on the regular and holds town halls or other events to listen to you, go and talk to them. Never let an opportunity pass you by. Real democracy is an ongoing conversation. Real leaders never ignore a constituent or a hard question. Public service should be a satisfying thing to do, but that doesn’t mean it has to be easy.

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