it's a blog or something

The card deck company has been taken to court by a local self-appointed guardian of public morality, who insists that despite of no laws being broken in the creation of the deck, such lewdness should nonetheless be deemed illegal. He does not care that the models were paid well for their portraits and gave their full consent to their use, nor that they are in fact satisfied with getting free advertisement from them. He does not care about the rights nor consent of sex workers, he simply wants the cards gone.

The judge eventually deems that the cards are indeed too indecent for public sale and distribution, and the artist who designed the cards agrees to re-draw them according to the limitations dictated by the court (which sadly include prohibiting the aforementioned impressively flexible pose), on the grounds that no additional limitations are given retroactively.

It takes a year for a new card deck to be drawn and go into print, and it doesn't take long before the same people are in the courthouse again. This time the Defender Of Public Modesty is suing the card print company for personal slander, as every single drawing in the new art of the corrected deck features a man who looks unmistakably like himself, harrying and bothering the ladies of the previous deck portraits, whether by judging skirt lengths with a measuring tape, covering an exposed bosom with a folding fan, or placing a tablecloth over the infamously impressive no-knickers-hand-stand.

The Morality Warrior is enraged by this distribution of slanderous images of himself interacting with any women of questionable repute. The judge agrees that drawing an entire series of portraits of this guy harrassing these women does count as spreading false accusations of him, and agrees that the second deck should also be taken out of rotation. The artist who drew both decks consents to making a third version with the same conditions as before: no additional retroactive rules. No depictions of women in lewd poses, and no depictions of the man who sued them posing with sex workers.

The third deck is once again taken to court, as it depicts the exact same uncensored themes, outfits and poses as the first deck, except this time instead of the local Ladies Of Occupation, every card instead depicts the Public Morale Defender. The print company had to hire a trapeze artist from a passing circus to pose as reference for the most famous subject, as no other man could be found who could do a hand stand like that.

I’ve got a full length video about Jimothy if you search on my blog.

That being said, I wanna take a little more of a philosophical approach here.

Apparently Jimothy was born in 2025, so he’s about a year old. And I got a lot of questions in the comment section of my video on TikTok asking why his mama/siblings didn’t eat him or shun him and leave him to die.

And it’s because that isn’t how raccoons work. Jimothy has survived thus far because raccoon families are built on love and support and knowledge exchange.

People always say “raccoons are solitary creatures.” But they aren’t. Not really. Males use each other to stay warm in the winter (and keep each other entertained.) Females form close bonds with their children. Siblings teach each other new skills and games. In captivity, raccoons make their own family. For example, my own raccoons, Lammy and Moonshine, perfectly mimick the relationship between a daughter that should have left the nest by now, and a fed up mother that still loves her. Raccoons are so successful as a species because their families (blood related or otherwise) lift each other up. They share their knowledge with the ones they love and offer help when needed.

and ACCEPT help when needed.

The only way into my building is through the front door which locks itself when closed. There's a back entrance but it's deadbolted from the inside. This means the only people who can get into the building are me, my cat sitter with the spare keys, and the people living in the other two units.

The door to MY unit now... has no doorknob. Impossible to get in.

There is a shared BACK hallway that leads to the shared basement/back entrance. My back door into this hall is always deadbolted. EXCEPT, fortuitously, right now, since neighbor (Molly) in unit 2 had heard Patches meowing when alone and offered to spend some time with her, so I had the cat sitter unlock the bolt.

This, LUCKILY, means there is A Way into my unit. But it requires getting into the building, then going THROUGH my neighbors' unit into the back hall, then up to my unit.

Cat sitter is effectively locked out from Patches, and won't be able to get in if not fixed by the next day.

Text neighbor about predicament. They're willing to look at my door bUT (it's Christmas) they're not home and not getting home until the next day.

Next day, text for an update but hear nothing. (Neighbors aren't attached to their phones much). Communicate with catsitter saying "okay if I don't hear back from neighbors, maybe you go over and I contact a locksmith who you can let in?" (since cat sitter has the keys to the building)

Catsitter is very not keen on the idea

Patches is unaware she's a prisoner.

Hear back from neighbors. Say they should be home around 5pm.

Okay... Good Enough... (Patches graze-feeds so Luckily she hasn't missed any meals but we're going on 24 hours of house arrest Patches).

6pm comes. 7pm comes. 7:40pm I text asking for an update. Nothing.

8:30pm I'm figuring out what friends I can call to break into my own house. Text neighbor again and notice this text doesn't go through.

Text neighbor's partner being like "hey sorry, can't seem to reach Molly--". Get a text back "Sorry this is Molly on David's phone! My phone died." Family Christmas plans ran late but they're on their way back and will be home soon. Thank goodness.

9pm-ish, they get back, give Patches attention and top up her food. I get a text "David fixed your door!" Woo!

Friday 5pm I finally get home

Lugging my suitcase up three flights of stairs while I hear Patches meowing like a dying Victorian child

Shoes off coat off suitcase down fish out keys unlock door grab doorknob

...Doorknob falls off

Falls off right into my hands

Staring at doorknob. Staring at door. Patches meowing. Shove doorknob against door like an idiot and no it does not go back on.

Fucking

Go down flight of stairs, knock on Molly and David's door. David is luckily home. "My doorknob fell off again can I go home"

David lets me in. I scoot past their dogs and apparently I startled the more nervous one since she apparently tried to nip at me but I didn't even notice because I'm like my cat.

Get in through the back hall.

Patches comes bounding over.

My cat.

Doesn't even know she was a prisoner.

Doesn't even know what a doorknob is.

Later that night receive a text from neighbor apologizing for the dog and I'm like "I Did Not Even Notice."

Any attempt to leave my house now is perilous until I fix the doorknob.

Can't even leave my door cracked open because I know Patches is gonna shove her stupid little face through it and become the opposite of a prisoner.

I wanna go buy a reeces peanut butter cup but by god it's not worth the risk

I'm gonna try to fix the doorknob

Or... buy? a new doorknob?

On Amazon searching "doorknob".

You are completely right because I have now investigated the knob and can confirm the screw holding the knob to bar was loose. I have tightened the screw and it SEEMS fixed but I’m very Fool Me Once on this since my neighbor also thought they’d fixed it.

To swap in the new knob I'd need to cut a new knob-hole an inch higher in the door which

With what tools

That would leave an unused gaping doorknob-sized hole in my door which any robber the size of a weasel or smaller will use to rob my home. I don't need fucking Redwall in my home.

Probably bad for the integrity of the door

I don't wanna.

I think what I really want is just the knob like above tags said. Like the knob and the rectangular bar, which I can substitute in for my stripped-bare knob and rectangle bar. I WOULD do this with the new knob, but it's got two welded-on spokes poking out from the knob.

I can maybe drill two holes for the spokes in my door...?

(Squinting at shitty amazon listings trying to see if any knobs don't have the two spokes)

(I think the two spokes might be standard.)

Developing new respect for Jesus (carpenter).

In the meantime, because I'd already unscrewed a lot of things I DID take the genius action of flipping my current doorknob around.

This way the side that causes problems is on the INSIDE.

Doorknob fall of while INSIDE house significantly better than doorknob fall off while OUTSIDE.

I'm retightening all the screws.

So it does!

Never heard the term "spindle doorknob" before so I never would have found this on my own.

They're also all labeled "vintage" which extra feels right since my door predates the Cambrian Explosion.

Several dozen stories of other people getting locked in/out of bathrooms/basements/classrooms/bedrooms/buildings. Extra shout out to the person whose classmate managed to do this twice, in rapid4reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeesdweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Patches is on my keyboard

whose classmate managed to do this twice, in rapid succession, to both sides of a classroom door after being saved the first time.

Several people taking this as a sign to go tighten their doorknob screws, including someone whose knob fell off in their hands while doing this

10 or so people reading the "can't have shit in Detroit" meme to mean I live in Detroit. Sorry to confess I'm a fake Detroitite. Doxxing myself by 0.00001% more by informing the world I live in not-Detroit.

Many many people wondering why I'm not pestering my landlord about this. Truth is my landlord is way too sexy, cool, fashionable, smart, pretty, funny, and popular on Tumblr to it's me. It's me. I'm me I'm my landlord. It's my condo. Including, with immense regret, every single doorknob inside.

3 separate professional locksmiths who have reached out offering advice, which is very cool. I have burst into a virtual hardware store clutching my shit doorknob and fainted, only to be caught by three very strong and cool locksmiths rushing to my aid.

ALSO MY PAPER TOWELS

(Ran out of paper towels)

Old knob coming off.

Wretched thing. Accursed knob of woe.

Get undid

New knob reign by forceful coup. Went to great pains to PRECISELY wait Patches is escaping

Patches retrieved

Anyway GREAT care was taken to ensure both knobs are ALIGNED, EVEN, SCREWED ON, with the wait hang on

Patches retrieved again.

Anyway

DOORKNOB SCREWED ON

KNOB

Discovered last year I couldn’t look at my 2015 MacBook Air without it triggering nausea and migraines, and figured the screen died. Have been getting by on my phone, but concluded I really need a laptop again.

Saved up, realised I could afford a brand new MacBook Neo, and got one.

-And I couldn’t spend more than five minutes looking at the screen without massive eye strain, nausea, vertigo, and if I pushed it, I-need-to-lie-down-in-a-dark-room-for-hours migraines.

Looking up MacBook and Eyestrain explained what is going on. The liquid retina displays that Apple currently has uses Pulse Width Modulation or PWM. In order to give the screens a deeper depth of colour and contrast, PWM flickers between several hundred to thousand times a second.

And there is currently no way to turn it off. There are settings and apps to reduce it, but there is no way to stop the screen from flickering. Checked Apple forums, called Apple Support, and the time I could look at the screen kept shrinking. Got the laptop Tuesday, returned it Friday, today is Sunday and I’m still dealing with a vertigo migraine.

For MacBooks, it seems to vary on the computer model and the software it uses. In retrospect, the issue with my MacBook Air started after a major software update.

And it’s not just an Apple thing. Current Windows and Android screens do the same thing. There’s even a Reddit for people who are sensitive to PWM flickers to help find computers and screens that won’t trigger eyestrain and headaches.

So, yeah. This week has been a learning experience. But for those who are prone to headaches and migraines, this may be something to be aware of, cause I was not.