History

people are punished for being poor in every aspect of life

~insert Adele's Love is A Game here~

laughing that so many people’s (correct) response was ‘well now i just cannot show my face ever at the library again’

Summary of this week's episodes:

echofades

So Vanessa is a terrible person for “abandoning” Noah and Moses, but we’re not going to mention the fact that Charity abandoned Moses herself by leaving him with Ross the entire time Vanessa was gone, simply because she couldn’t be bothered to look after him? Or the fact that she literally adopted Johnny and therefore had rights to him, insisted he was “her kid”, but a week after Vanessa left she just completely forgot he existed and showed no interest in attempting to contact him or get access?

Le sigh. This is actually two of my pet peeves of fandom, one being that people refuse to understand that children can’t be on set all the time. Especially mega since it’s been a worldwide pandemic so children under the age of 12 were not on set for over a year. Did you really not notice that? The other being that there’s a distinct lack of nuance; the assumption that any criticism must mean that the person hates the character or something is bizarre, to say the least.  Part of watching television is critiquing it.

Did I say Vanessa was a terrible person? No, because she’s not. She’s a complicated female character. She’s as selfish as she is selfless, she’s as manipulative as she is gentle. She’s many things. Acknowledging that what she’s done is a HUGE issue to overcome doesn’t mean I hate Vanessa or Vanity, simply that I’m aware that her pettiness involving the children should have repercussions because that is what happens when you date someone with children. They remember you lied to them.

Anyway, Charity was literally homeless, kicked out of both her homes by her family it only made sense that Ross had him for a while. That is not a comparable situation and it’s disingenuous to imply it is, It was mentioned at least once that he was living with her and Diane though. 

There was a whole scene where Charity asked to see Johnny but was rebuffed by Tracy, which was followed up by Vanessa. Do you really think it would have been a good idea to have spent months and months in legal litigation with Vanessa in order to get time with Johnny? Charity follows Vanessa’s desires sometimes to her own detriment. The second Vanessa was back she went for time with him. That storyline would have accomplished nothing because Michelle was on maternity leave and wasn’t available for filming.

Ultimately, people can make all the excuses they want, but Vanessa left Sarah, Noah and Moses without even sending them Christmas gifts. She cut them out of her life completely. Both Charity and Vanessa are complicated characters with as many flaws as virtues and any Vanity shipping that doesn’t take that into account doesn’t really ring true.

I’m kind of agnostic on the blame side of the kid conversation because Covid / Maternity leave, meant it wasn’t an actual choice and Kerry/Amelia is proof of how it can be dealt with. BUT I think the writers decided to use what they were given and make us some extra soapy drama.

I absolutely agree that Charity has unexplored mental health issues. And I think most of her bio family are toxic as fuck and treat her like she was some femme fatale when she was literally April’s age when her older cousin knocked her up. I appreciate the recent exposure of the sheer number of under age girls Cain has targeted and harmed. Gross.

It just feels like Noah’s story is a chance to dive into all of this mess. Charity is unstable and blows up her life on a regular basis. Cain and most of the Dingles epitomize toxic masculinity and the words they’ve hurled at Charity in Noah’s presence are not that far removed if at all from the things Noah is currently saying. But conversely, Charity herself had that moment Noah witnessed where she screamed about how much she hates all men. That moment was…understandable, but Noah witnessing it was sad.

Once the Noah situation finally gets to the stage where Charity realizes there is a real problem I want Vanessa to have a role in fixing this (if it is fixable) and realize that she is one more person in a long line of those before her, like Jai in particular, who abandoned Noah after his mum screwed up.

I don’t particularly like that they may choose to lean into this as a reality because it doesn’t feel to me like something Vanessa would have done without circumstances beyond all control, but since they had her trying to keep Nate away from Frankie it seems like they want to make it more intentional, and I wonder if it is for this story.

If so, I expect Vanessa to own this decision as a mistake and take responsibility for it because that’s who she is. I also think there’s room to give her some leeway because cancer and chemo and living with a mum who doesn’t laugh (per her recent convo with Rhona about Mary) likely impacted her own mental health. I am wondering if getting away from her mum was necessary for Vanessa to start her own actual recovery the same way the same might be the case for Charity as related to Mack.

I dunno I mean I knew a lot of Americans were against it but I assumed they were all elitist right wing weirdos.

What's the mainstream left wing position then if it's not socialism?

Oh

Oh no

Your first warning sign should have been when they called the Bismark Model of healthcare, literally named after the nationalist monarchist and noble statesman who invented it, far left.

I don’t know how to explain to people that, in any other country, Biden would be a conservative and somehow most Americans have been convinced he’s a commie.

- What do you want anyway, you fat-arsed bitch? - Your radiant, fragrant presence down here, now.

Scott and Bailey s02e01

Do non-americans realize that the United States is literally just a bunch of countries in a trench coat that agreed to be semi-nice to each other in order to sneak into the Big Boy Club? Because let’s be honest that’s just what the USA is

The rest of the world: So… you’re a big country?

The states, standing on each other’s shoulders: Y- yes,,,

I love how everyone who’s reblogged this hasn’t added anything on or tagged anything on it. They’re all just like “Yeah. That’s it. That’s the entire United States summed up in one post-”

#oh my god is THAT why you guys are so weird

Yeah 100%

Don’t let these tags die omfg

10/10 can confirm

absolutely bonkers that my own tags have crossed my dash like this more than fifteen reblogs after i wrote them

I moved to another state. 30 minutes away. My family acts like I betrayed them and can’t understand my life choices. It’s completely different way of life, especially during covid. Completely different country.

every single fucking time one of those articles of “things europeans find weird about america” complains that sales tax isn’t included

states set the sales tax!!! it’s literally different across state lines!!! american retailers can’t add it bc they’d have to account for 50 different prices!!!!!!!

It gets even more insane! California’s clean air standards for cars and other such things are so much higher than everyone else’s! So if a car manufacturer in Detroit wants to sell their damn cars in California, they need to build their cars to California clean air standards. But retooling an assembly line and car design to have some cars meet California clean air standards, while building others to other clean air standards is a lot of work, so car manufacturers all over the country have to build all their cars to California clean air standards.

Which is why California went into an uproar earlier this year when the Federal Government tried to argue that states can’t set their own environmental guidelines! “Fuck you!” says California, “we remember Los Angeles in the 80s, how bad the smog gets, go pollute your own damn air over in your own damn state where there isn’t a thermal inversion layer to trap all the smog down near ground level!”

“But you’re making it soooo haaaaaard to sell our cars everywhere else!” they whine.

“Fuck you!” California shouts. “And while we’re at it, we don’t give a shit what you say, Mister President, we’re gonna open our damn states when we’re good and ready, and our friends Nevada, Oregon, Colorado, and Washington State agree! Also, we’ve decided to legalize weed!”

“But the Federal Government says it’s illegal!” shouts the other states.

“Fuck you, we make the drug laws in our state, and we say toke up!”

“Now, hang on!” shouts the Federal government. “You can legalize weed in your state, but all banks are federal agencies, so if your weed dispensaries set up bank accounts, those accounts have money from illegal practices in it and are subject to seizure by the federal government!”

“FINE!” shouts California. “Hey, weed guys, you can keep selling weed, but you can only deal in cash!”

“How the fuck is that supposed to work!?”

“I DON’T FUCKING KNOW, TAKE IT UP WITH DC!”

“By the way, if you’re gay married elsewhere, we won’t recognize it,” mutters Texas.

“OH FUCK YOUUUUUUU!” 

And so it goes and so it goes…

“What’s sales tax?” says Montana. “What’s road maintainence?” “also what’s a speed limit?”

*gestures at Florida* Oh also, the reason Florida is “so weird” is only PARTIALLY because people who live here are bonkers – it’s also because Florida state laws around privacy do not include the details of arrests! So in other states, when you’re arrested, it can just show up in the registrar like “25 yo man arrested 04/30/20” but in Florida they can (and do) print the details of why they were arrested: “25 yo man arrested 4/30/20 for riding an alligator through town while naked and smoking weed.” I promises you the other states have PLENTY of weirdos, they just don’t get their dirty laundry gleefully aired in the local news.

No, definitely not :D

Well, that was a … post. I guess.

Y'all forgot to explain that you can have city AND state sales tax.

It’s really fucking jarring after being in Oregon to go to Seattle for a convention and be charging customers WA tax AND Seattle sales tax.

Also I can’t believe no one talked about how we get about regional food and also about how Texas basically controls all K-12 textbook contents for the whole fucking country.

Did he not fucking remember when Trump got impeached for withhold military aid to Ukraine to get dirt on Biden. How Trump hired Paul Manafort and Rudy Giuliani who advised pro Russian leaders in Ukraine. There’s a direct freaking line from Trump to Russia all the way.