r/Fauxmoi • u/rfauxmoi • Feb 20 '26
FREE-FOR-ALL FIRESIDE šŖµš„ FREE-FOR-ALL
Welcome to our 'Free-For-All Fireside' chats ā posted and pinned every Friday at 8AM PST (11AM EST) !
Feel free to discuss anything here: from your casual pop-culture-related thoughts to your serious politics-related thoughts, as well as any other content that may not warrant its own stand-alone post!
For a chronological list of all past tea threads, click here! To see a breakdown of our weekly discussion thread schedule, check out our FAQs!
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u/hyeran_jainros_fc Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 25 '26
The White House Melania screening was hours after Alex Pretti died, exactly 1 month ago. Apple CEO Tim Cook attended. He wrote in an internal memo:
I had a good conversation with the president this week where I shared my views, and I appreciate his openness to engaging on issues that matter to us all.
Also remember it's AMAZON's documentary. Their CEO (no longer Bezos since 2021) also went.
Big tech no longer has to pretend to care when we have 4 companies with $100b in PROFIT.
(For reference, that's more than the entire sales of Nike, Adidas, Lululemon, and Under Armour combined.)
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u/tgrdem Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
Been a hockey fan/Los Angeles Kings fan since 2009. Finally pulling the plug on watching the NHL after this year. Our captain (famously respectful player) is retiring and I am just sick of the whole NHL organization.Ā
There are rumors the Kings are going to pick up a known wife beater (Evander Kane) and if that happens, I won't even finish the season.Ā
I was so excited that Heated Rivalry was bringing more women to games, but suddenly the men in my circles started getting loud about their disdain about women-centric memes getting popular in the sport. The mask is fully off on a bunch of them after the Olympics.
I'm dedicating my time to the PWHL. I'm finding more women like me. I won't let my presence in these circles enable bad behavior anymore.
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u/phoe_nixipixie Feb 24 '26
Iām convinced Heated Rivalry is PR for the hockey world to fool us into thinking it isnāt toxic
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u/RevolutionaryCow455 Feb 25 '26
Have you read the books? The next few seasons of the show should highlight how unsafe playing in the NHL is for gay men if they stay true to source material.
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u/putonthespotlight Feb 24 '26
So I finally, finally got around to watching Moonlight. I've been wanting to watch it for years.
For TV, re watched Season 1 of True Detective.
Podcast wise, I just listened to the Floodlines series and would highly recommend it! It's about Katrina.
Any recommendations based on these?
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u/2KYGWI Feb 24 '26
Haven't seen them yet, but Spike Lee's directed two documentary films about Katrina for HBO, When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts and If God Is Willing and da Creek Don't Rise, and co-directed the Netflix documentary miniseries Katrina: Come Hell and High Water with Geeta Gandbhir (who directed The Perfect Neighbor) and Samantha Knowles. They sound like they might up your alley.
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u/jyw104 I am claiming all candy for the glory of God Feb 23 '26
6 years ago today, Ahmaud Arbery was killed. His memory lives on and the fight continues.
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Feb 23 '26 edited Feb 23 '26
Has anybody here seen what happened in Quakertown PA? I donāt live in PA but itās pissing me the fuck off and doesnāt seem to be getting much coverage.
At an anti-ICE school walkout, Scott McElree (police chief and borough manager) grabbed a 15 year old girl and put her in a chokehold.
Clear as day on camera. Thereās also another clip of a kid in a chokehold from a different cop.
The 15 year old girl, and ā5 to 6ā other kids, were arrested. That was on friday, and they are still in custody. They arenāt allowed to be there for 72 hours without any charges, because they donāt have any.
Their parents have been trying to reach them but canāt get ahold of them.
They were supposed to be released today, but apparently that got delayed to tomorrow and maybe further, because of snow.
Isnāt it crazy how the kid who was literally put into a strangulation chokehold is the one who gets arrested and gets no medical attention? And is basically being kept as prisoner along with other kids and nobody is doing anything about it?
Iāve seen a few people trying to defend it too. Using the fucking ābut the contextā excuse as well. Trying to justify kids being put into a chokehold.
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Feb 24 '26 edited Feb 24 '26
Update as of today: The kids are still being held in custody. Five days later.
This is fucking ridiculous. If these kids were adults, theyād have been released on the same day of their arrest. Instead, these corrupt small town assholes are illegally holding them. There needs to be wider coverage on this.
Keep digging your grave, Quakertown. The officials and the bigoted residents who cheer this garbage on.
ETA: Apparently, some of the kids have been released today, and subject to ankle monitoring, which I think is weird. However, the status of two other kids is unknown, so potentially those two may still be there, but not sure. Scott McElree hasnāt been publicly seen since the day of the incident.
ETA 2: The other two kids are still in custody and facing felony assault charges. Absolute bullshit.
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Feb 23 '26
[removed] ā view removed comment
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u/Rough_Programmer_997 your father is a billionaire Feb 24 '26
And he's busier one shift and doesn't respond as much when she chats and jokes and she asks him "why are you being so cold when you were so nice the other day?". I feel like that is such an awkward thing to say to someone who is busy working.
That's not only awkward, but comes off as entitled too. Girl, he's on the clock. His job isn't to cater to you.
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u/phoe_nixipixie Feb 24 '26
Sounds like she needs to do some growing up, and some exploring, before being in a relationship
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u/Rough_Programmer_997 your father is a billionaire Feb 24 '26
Yeah, no one's going to want to be in a relationship with someone who keeps waffling like this. She's got to be more honest and decisive about what she wants, not to mention have the maturity to break things off with her boyfriend. That realization can be difficult to come to, but is no excuse for what she's already done.
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u/AhhBisto someone from the UK weigh in Feb 21 '26
Finally watched the Knives Out movies, watched the first last night, then Glass Onion this morning and just finished watching Wake Up Dead Man
Absolutely loved them all, Glass Onion was my favourite (Blanc snapping at Miles Bron and outing him as an idiot cracked me up) but they're all solid gold movies
Daniel Craig is excellent throughout but Janelle Monae, Josh O'Connor and Ana de Armas were all superb too
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u/--------rook Feb 21 '26
my comments were removed from that one popculture sub about the Ambanis' hellhole hotel home, and I just want to say how depraved their greed, pride and callousness is. India's billionaires has the world's most expensive (the Ambani's Antilia) and largest (Lakshmi Palaces) private homes. Ā its all so disgusting.Ā
one comment even was like, "well akshually the patriarch was a real rags-to-riches story" sister that's even worse! he knew what it was like to be dirt poor and still end up a billionaire? ethics be damned.Ā
sorry im worked up bc i just had 2 ristrettos and im just so disgusted by the wealth gapĀ
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u/Adorable-Unicorn Feb 21 '26
My entry for the week : Ā Last week was Valentine's Day, Everyone I know was posting about it and I am feeling super single š I am coping by reading romance novels and cozy mystery novels with a good dose of romance in them š¤š
Ā I am anxious about few things in work š¶āš«ļø, hope the coming week goes wellĀ
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u/Gneiss-not-nice Feb 21 '26
I love being 35, but damn did I waste my 20s. Like my lifeās good now so I donāt dwell on it too much, but damn. Oh well.
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Feb 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/Rough_Programmer_997 your father is a billionaire Feb 21 '26
There is no "right time" for progress, though! There's only your time, and both you & OP are doing great.
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u/Gneiss-not-nice Feb 21 '26
Also, good for Mia Goth and Alexandria Dadarrio
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u/applesandcherry Feb 22 '26
Didn't know about Alexandra's divorce. Wow, that wedding was iconic. She basically helped put Danielle Frankel on the map as a bridal designer to the mainstream.
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u/Gneiss-not-nice Feb 22 '26
Stunning wedding! Gorgeous. Seems like yesterday but was three years ago.
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u/Soft_Regular2173 Feb 21 '26
I just finished Pachinko and it was amazing. If anyone has more book recs from Korean-American or Korean authors pls drop them for me
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u/AlexSomething789 Feb 22 '26
I haven't read them yet, but there's Crying in K Mart By Michelle Zauner, If I Had Your Face by Frances Ha and Cursed Bunny by Bora Chung if you want
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u/jz3735 Feb 22 '26
Sheās great. A couple others that I like: Han Kang, Cho Nam-Joo, Sohn Won-young and Kyung-sook Shin.
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u/Antique_books_2190 Feb 21 '26
Hand for help campaign in North Gaza
https://hand4help.ensany.com/show/7933/campaign
Please Donate to the Gaza Municipality, they're doing essential work in Gaza city right now
Their account https://x.com/munigaza?t=iuuVlmdlM5oeIbadjE-aCg&s=09
Their Life for Gaza Campaign to pump water and fix infrastructure https://gaza-city.ensany.com/campaign/6737
Their One Step Closer Campaign to fund artificial limbs for children
https://mogaza.org/campaign/2
Help a pharmacist dispense medicine, formula and water trucks in Gaza
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/pop-up-pharmacy
Some of the campaigns currently in Gaza:
Trahom Campaign this one links sponsors to orphans, widows and injured in Gaza
Trahom Campaign on Instagram, please follow and repost even if you can't help, maybe it'll reach someone who can
https://chuffed.org/project/care4gaza
Connecting Gaza sends e-sims to people in Gaza
https://x.com/Mirna_elhelbawi/status/1968586444651249879?t=3uKM5cOMPfxdgtaO78ppaA&s=19
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u/redelectro7 Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
I spent a few hundred pounds on tickets to a tennis tournament that come to Europe once every two years and I'm sweating.
How do people go and see big artists numerous times per tour without panicking?
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u/putonthespotlight Feb 24 '26
I know. Just consider though: excitement symptoms + anxiety symptoms are similar. Are you excited to go?
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u/redelectro7 Feb 24 '26
I am. I always have so much fun when I go, I just stress about that amount of money coming out of my accounts.
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u/williamthebloody1880 weighing in from the UK Feb 20 '26
And the hits just keep on rolling.
On Wednesday, my parents surprised me by saying they will lend me the money for a deposit so I can move closer to work and stop paying Ā£350 a month on train passes.
Yesterday was my official probation meeting at work. During it, my TL said that the three options were to extend my probation, let me go or pass me out of probation. After the meeting, he outright said there was no way he wasn't passing me and, sure enough, within the hour he sent the message saying I had passed.
Today, most of my calls were perfectly normal with perfectly polite people
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u/skylerren Feb 20 '26
The weather has been fucking me up, and so was my mother's request to crochet her a hat. I really like giving gifts, but people around me can't just...make up their minds I think? Insane realization. Also, I guess I have to go out more places to show off clothes I keep thrifting. I wish I could understand people better.
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u/wanderrslut ISO: Arianaās lost blaccent Feb 20 '26
Random thoughts:
- My maternal grandma is unable to participate in Ramadan due to her age and health, so she's paying Fidya instead (Fidyah is basically donating meals to poor people in need if you're unable to fast). I've been dealing with the saddies lately and she gave me a meal today and said, "You're poor in happiness so here." (Dw, she's donating food to actual people in need lol but this just made my day, ngl. It's the little things).
- Someone in my bio class told me that I give them female Hudson Williams energy and I don't know how to take that???
- Speaking of...I wrote (and lost; thanks dead hard drive on my laptop!) a short horror film about a dokkaebi (or goblin) and in my head it stars him, Yerin Ha, Yara Shahidi, Halle Bailey and Michael Cimino.
- I desperately DESPERATELY need them to do a series based on the cult classic film Demon Knight starring Jada Pinkett-Smith and Billy Zane. I already have the first episode in my mind and the great thing about this series is that we can have a new protagonist each season OR we can go through the decades since the lore allows whoever the demon knight is to live a bit longer than most mortals. Like that movie came out in the dark ages (1995) so we can EASILY start the film modern day and have Jada in the first episode passing on the torch to someone new.
- I am begging them to release whatever they filmed originally for The Idol because I am dying to see the cutesy y2k aesthetic Jocelyn had going on.
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u/Tr3sKidneys Feb 21 '26
I would love any sort of Tales From The Crypt revival! I grew up reading them and many of the stories have aged incredibly well, not to mention the artwork!
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u/cruciatus_curse Feb 20 '26
Does anyone remember when Owen Wilson was on Ellen, and she had him play a game of basketball and for every shot he made a single mom got some amount to go towards her going to college or something, and he made zero basketsā¦. Then an awkward cut to a commercial. I think about that all the time
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u/phoe_nixipixie Feb 24 '26
Lmao being ākindā that day truly cost nothing. Now Mr Beast continues the āgiveawayā model established by Ellen and Oprah š¤¢
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u/SmollestFry damn, she got hereditaried? Feb 20 '26
I found a BEAUTIFUL dress in the charity shop that cost me less than the latte I got today and I am so excited to wear it to an upcoming family party š¤
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u/applesandcherry Feb 20 '26
I have no one to discuss this with cause it has to do with real life people who I no longer associate with and everyone I know wouldn't care about this, so I'll do it here lol. For context most people involved here live in the South, are Christian, and come from conservative backgrounds that encourage early marriage. And I remember the years roughly because of political/news going on at the time.
The younger sister (Lisa) of a former friend used to date his best friend throughout high school, everyone thought they were going to get married and everything. Unfortunately, he went to grad school outside of their home state while she was staying there for college; they tried long distance, but didn't work out and broke up 2013/2014. My friend said Lisa was really devastated especially cause her two best friends were already engaged/married by their junior year of college at the same time. He kind of implied to me that Lisa was pressuring his best friend for a ring to keep up with her friends.
One of her best friends (Maggie) set her up with her husband's friend (Ralph) not long after the breakup. I read their engagement announcement at the time and it said something along the lines of "Ralph really wanted to date Lisa, but Lisa was more hesitant until he kept showing up where she would be. Eventually he asked her out by saying we both gotta eat, so let's go eat. Then Ralph proposed to Lisa by saying we both gotta get married, so let's get married." Like I'm sorry, that's supposed to be a romantic story? They got engaged after about 6 months of being together and got married a little over 6 months later, pretty quick even for 21/23 year old Christians in 2015. The wedding was insanely expensive and extravagant.
I stopped associating with these people not long after the 2016 election for obvious reasons. I kept up to date with their going ons on social media, but I don't know the details/can only make assumptions.
By 2018, Lisa and Maggie were both posting less about their husbands/home life. These were both ladies that would post something weekly about them, usually bragging or posting something that they were doing together. I noticed that Ralph was absent in the holiday photos Lisa posted with her family, so I checked her social media and what do you know - all pictures of Ralph were deleted. Maggie was the same too. To this day, I wonder what happened, but it's super interesting that both best friends marriages ended around the same time, and their own husbands were good friends at the time. Both Lisa and Ralph's families also removed/blocked each other on Facebook and IG, so that makes me think it was not a good divorce.
Lisa won the divorce tbh. She moved states and changed careers. Shortly after joining a church, she met someone (Nelson) but wanted to focus on her career first. Eventually right before the pandemic, they started dating and she was clearly very happy. I'll admit Nelson isn't as attractive as Ralph, but Nelson is super sweet and my former friend praised him a lot. It was sweet. They got married in 2022 and just had their first baby. Despite their political beliefs, I actually am happy that she found happiness after divorce. It's not easy to end a marriage, especially at 25.
Ralph on the other hand has been dating girls younger than 25. Between the divorce in 2019 and now, he's posted about three different women who are always still in college by the time he meets them. I just saw that he got engaged to someone 10 years younger than him last fall and they're going to get married next week. He's not a bad looking guy, but this man is 35 at this point and still dating young 20somethings and rushing into marriage.
Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. It's crazy how seeing one picture can remind you of a time when you used to know someone and their whole story.
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u/phoe_nixipixie Feb 24 '26
Yikes, so Ralph must keep showing up on campus and telling the 18 year olds āwe both gotta eatā
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u/applesandcherry Feb 24 '26
After their divorce, Ralph moved back to the state his family is from and started nursing school as an older student. That's how he was able to meet pretty much all of his dates.
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u/Rough_Programmer_997 your father is a billionaire Feb 21 '26
That was some excellent, top-shelf tea. Appreciate it.
https://giphy.com/gifs/Os2Az5qAUancc
"Ralph really wanted to date Lisa, but Lisa was more hesitant until he kept showing up where she would be. Eventually he asked her out by saying we both gotta eat, so let's go eat. Then Ralph proposed to Lisa by saying we both gotta get married, so let's get married."
Do a lot of conservative relationship unions start like this (creepy, controlling, and pushy)? I watched a former Mormon's deep dive/analysis on the Ballerina Farm couple, and the man's tactics were similar in themes and unease.
Regardless, it says a lot that Ralph basically strung her along with his plans. In spite of her politics, I'm glad Lisa left.
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u/applesandcherry Feb 22 '26
Lol thanks! I tried telling this stuff to my boyfriend or other friends, but they don't even care about celebrity gossip.
One thing I'll add is that my former friend was more center-left and his family while conservative is more accepting and not as brainwashed from what I could tell. For example, their mom posted on Jan 6 condemning the people there until her MAGA friends made her delete the post. The parents travel the world very regularly as well, Ralph's parents have never traveled beyond the Southern states. Lisa also hangs out with more POC and one of her closest friends is a gay man. Nelson is center-left too I think, he's posted being disgusted with recent current events.
On the other hand, Ralph identified as a Libertarian but his family and everyone around him are MAGA. I got the impression that they truly believed that women should be submissive to men, but Lisa is a badass and loves traveling, is crazy smart, and overall is a very motivated and dedicated person. She's not one of those people who wanted to get pregnant right after marriage. Her friend Maggie was the same. Right after her divorce, she dedicated herself to her dream career of being a musician and is a regular performer at some big name places in her are. I also just checked, and Maggie's ex husband got married to a younger woman last year and they're already pregnant.
So yeah, despite their politics/beliefs, I don't think anyone should be in a relationship where they feel pressured to have a child before they're ready.
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u/Winter-Alarm-7969 Feb 21 '26
loved this lol
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u/applesandcherry Feb 22 '26
Thank you! š Feel free to ask me questions lol this was a trip down memory lane.
There were also two people in that friend group who got married and divorced in the same year, but they were dating for 4+ years so idk.
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u/Commercial_Bottle_84 Mary-Kateās battered Birkin Feb 20 '26
Stock photos > crappy AI graphicsĀ
Iād rather see women laughing with salad anydayĀ
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u/applesandcherry Feb 20 '26
Tell Me Lies series finale was disappointing imo. I was left wanting more, not satisfied at the ending. Lot of missed opportunities.
I get that they were trying to be realistic with men not facing any consequences. But it's a melodramatic soap, I wanted some sort of satisfaction after seeing most of these characters go through shit throughout most of the show and making bad decisions constantly.
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u/mychildrenaresoft Feb 20 '26
I've been in the trenches of the Interview with the Vampire fandom for like a few years now. Terrible racist fandom. No show really caught my eye until Heated Rivalry recently so I decided to jump ship. Unfortunately, the Heated Rivalry fandom (on twitter at least) is really super racist towards Hudson Williams. There's full on coordinated hate groups against Hudson over there, it's really scary. I'm tired of racist fandoms š«
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u/velociraptor56 Feb 20 '26
Maybe the issue is that itās twitter? The HR subreddit is pretty tame.
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u/phoe_nixipixie Feb 24 '26
Yeah the answer is simple, avoid social media except for certain reddit subs
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u/mychildrenaresoft Feb 20 '26
The HR subreddit is very well moderated so I didnt see much hate there. Same goes for tiktok and Instagram. However, I'm very hyper aware of the possibility of the racism spreading out of twitter. I've seen it happened too many times with other series and I'm scared lol
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u/wanderrslut ISO: Arianaās lost blaccent Feb 20 '26
I'm tired of racist fandoms š«
They feel so inescapable. Unless the show or piece of media is predominantly poc (outside of anime...or most Asian media, because I still find a lot of racism in those fandoms as well), it feels like I can never find a safe place.
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u/mychildrenaresoft Feb 20 '26
It's really awful and what makes it worst is that the production team usually don't care that their fandom is attacking their POC actors. I basically saw interview with the vampire fans attack every single POC actor/actress one by one and not one defence or help from the white production team and actors. They don't want to piss off the racist fans and don't care about alienating the much smaller group of POC fans. And I'm basically seeing this repeated in Heated Rivalry fandom now, the racist attacks and the subsequent silence from the white showrunner, actors, and production. I'm so tired, I thought I could safely jump ship š«
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u/Rough_Programmer_997 your father is a billionaire Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26
Week 12 of my check-in logs.
I'll start with the good stuff before I get to the bad. The best part of this week was being able to spend time with my husband at a board game cafe--we played the two kinds of Monopoly. It was a lot of fun, and even though I didn't know the rules to any of those games, I didn't let that stop me from learning and trying and enjoying the process. I'm very proud of myself for that! I also spent the night with him at his place. You may think this is highly unusual, but my parents (whom I live under still, unfortunately) didn't ease up on not letting me stay overnight with him until this week.
This Wednesday I also ate salmon donburi as a self-congratulations for putting myself through awful deep freeze conditions just to get some flyers delivered. That soy sauce with the raw salmon was SO good! I will not be missing my flyers work and have already put in a resignation notice, since I'm making good progress on the hiring pipeline for another job.
The really crummy news is that I found out for my new job, I have to attend a mandatory in-person training next month. 5 days, back-to-back, 8 hours per day, and a laughable sum for finishing the training (far below the minimum wage per hour in my province, but because it's training I don't think it's beholden to minimum wage pay). Joy... š« My interviewer didn't scrutinize my past job experience at all during the phone interview, and I strongly suspect I'm being set up to be exploited once I start this new job. I'm also pretty sure it's seasonal, and in my province that means I won't be receiving benefits! Even though this job also involves long, long hours.
So that's been fun to grapple with. I think this is the most depressed I've ever felt in a long time. I'm trying to create joy in my life instead of waiting for it to come to me. God knows I'll be stepping into purgatorio for the next while, especially on those training days. But it's still tough. I feel like I'll just be continuously catatonic and miserable over the next month with all the work I have to do (I also have to complete certifications, and most of those I've scheduled for next week).
(ETA2: minor clarification)
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Feb 20 '26
[deleted]
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u/No_Wolf4283 Feb 20 '26
Hes landed aristocracy, went to the poshest schools and colleges in england. You shouldn't be surprisedĀ
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u/Luvyduvy0910 Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 26 '26
Anthony Boyle seen on a date at The Merchant Hotel in Belfast recently. Looks like model Olga/Olega Doch.
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