A welcome change, though I imagine the more savvy grifters have seen the writing on the wall for a while now with virtual credit cards becoming more popular. I put a freeze date on every single purchase I make that has a recurring subscription.

Funny thing is, out of all the disc “cleaners” we sold while I was at Gamestop, we got very few complaints about it. Make the discs look like they went through hell but the product worked.

It’s hard to top the inkjet printers I’ve owned. I still can’t believe 30 years later home printer tech is not only unimproved but worse between lower quality production and squeezing people on ink costs.

Lenore from the Castlevania Netflix series.

Tons of consent issues for sure, but she’s gorgeous and smart as hell.

If we define the end of the Cold War as the collapse of the Soviet Union, that was over 30 years now. Considering other potential flashpoints (e.g., India and Pakistan), I’d say it’s more nuclear deterrence in general. No one wants to be the first to get into sustained conventional, symmetrical warfare with nukes on both sides.

We also seem to be seeing a shift in soft power. Now that raw footage of conflict is readily recorded and broadly accessible, regimes aren’t able to control messaging like they used to be. Still need public support to wage war, and it’s that much harder to obtain when people can see the faces of the people you’re killing.

Having grown up on Sierra adventure games, I still have a part of my brain thinking about saving and loading in bad situations from time to time.

One regime’s political-dissident-by-speech is another’s dissident-by-drug-addiction. America’s “War on Drugs” was purely political disenfranchisement along racial lines, and it’s a major reason why the US continues to have higher incarceration rates than the USSR had in many of the years the Gulag system was operational.

By the way, prison rape jokes have long been a part of those late night comedy shows, to give you an idea of just how ingrained the American prison culture is.

Sometimes we get immediate benefits. It took a while for capitalism to take over the Internet.

Went back to college last year and Joplin’s been amazing. More off-topic, but the only thing I wish it had was better search result organization.

Correcting someone’s English also almost never adds anything to the conversation at hand, which is the literal purpose of the downvote.

Said no to my parents more.

The funny thing about this one is there’s a big chunk of the series faithful that want it milked more, just in a more nostalgic way.

Then please, feel free to reframe the statement here. You didn’t even attempt to revise your derogatory language in the other comment chain.

You’ve been told why elsewhere, but I’ll reiterate.

It’s happening because you led off with calling transgender persons and their allies irresponsible, immature cultists, with some flimsy attempt to couch your rhetoric.

In the interest of assuming good faith–and I’m really having to stretch to see good faith here–maybe you’re just completely ignorant of the history involved. “You’ll grow out of it in your 30’s” aka “it’s just a phase” is the exact same rhetoric used against gays and lesbians a generation ago, and against any woman in general that dared step outside of the prescribed “get married and have babies” role before that. It’s not a good look.

Great, thanks for the dose of existential dread.

For a long time it’s been Kiseki no Umi. Composed by Yoko Kanno, Maaya Sakamoto on vocals.

“It’s a faaake!”

Sorry to hear that. I’m sure it’s especially difficult for those who want the lifestyle outside the bedroom too. My ex was the type that expected me to muscle up (I’m a big person) if someone was mistreating her while we were out instead of de-escalating or walking away. Obviously, that’s not my style, not to mention a good way to get killed.

I’m not looking to play the role 24/7 in a relationship, but it bleeds over enough into everyday life that I feel I can’t get to a point where I have to keep it secret.

Hah, oh no. I’m sure there’s been no shortage of kink “tourism” from guys on the goth mommy front, too. But hey, if it normalizes masc sub behavior, I’m all for it 🤷‍♂️

In new relationships where the topic of kink hasn’t come up yet, there also tends to be an expectation that men (even those of us that are submissive) be dominant to some degree. It often leads to formative behaviors where men who want to be submissive play the switch role at best. Another reason why there may not seem to be as many subs as it appears. It’s a hard habit to break.