The parts my editor cut

We're just friends with benefits. That's all. That's all?

It doesn't hurt nearly as much as watching my boss care more about the competition than me.

Nigel Farage is the leader of Reform UK, a far right party who are currently in the process of a serious bid to become the UK government. they are just straight up evil.

Count Binface is an intergalactic space warrior with a bin on his head. he likes to run as a novelty candidate in general and mayoral elections. a big thing he likes to do is run as a candidate against the incumbent prime minister:

(Also pictured: Boris Johnson, Elmo)

Anyway, in brief:

Nigel Farage is currently in the midst of a big scandal about his finances

He has decided to deal with this by 1) making a show of nobly resigning from parliament and then 2) immediately running in the resulting by-election

He has stated that he is letting 'the people' judge his actions and implied that if he wins that will prove that he has been exonerated in the court of public opinion

His goal was presumably to get a big resounding win over the other parties, proving that The People still love him.

the other parties have thus far decided that this is a 'vanity election' and, well, there is one very easy way to ensure that he will not beat any of them, and that is simply not to play.

and as a result the only person who has so far confirmed they are running against him is Count Binface. no matter the outcome this makes Nigel Farage look like, u know, a fucking clown.

The fun part is that you could do this extremely easily by just bundling a key with an item you can't buy unless you're 18. Like a beer that includes a PGP key, or a pornographic magazine with a page that's a randomly generated key.

The site/app doesn't need to know WHO you are, only that you have access to something you can only get by being 18. This way they're putting the burden of verifying your age onto someone else, someone else who is already legally required to do exactly that.

But no one is interested in developing this because the point of age verification has never been age verification. it's always been governments trying to tie a real-world ID to internet identities, and companies trying to get more private information on users so they can sell it to advertisers.

some of my art!!!

[In a quaint farmer's house]

Mira: So... How were you born?

Rumi: [shrugs] My mom fucked a dragon *casually sips her tea*

Mira:

Zoey:

Totally understand you, Lal:

My latest Guardian Books cartoon.

Protagonist now remembers key facts about important people. He no longer develops convenient amnesia between cutscenes.

Protagonist now has a cooldown on certain adverbs. Adverbs have been buffed by 30% to compensate.

Developer note: Adverbs are important to writing but they are sometimes overused. This change keeps adverbs relevant while encouraging the use of adjectives and verbs.

The horse now has a name.

Solved a glitch where supernumerary limbs would sometimes emerge during complex physical interactions.

Should no longer display “[insertnamehere]” during conversations and narration. All of such occurrances have been replaced with the appropriate tags.

Conversation continuity has been improved. Characters will no longer inappropriately respond with lines from previous iterations of the narrative.

All references to “Event A” have been purged to reflect changes in narrative structure.

Paragraphs which contained two or more instances of the same adjective have had their adjectives updated to accurately reflect a player’s vocabulary inventory.

Minor time traveling issues have been resolved, all characters should now exist in the same tense.

Punctuation has been improved. Commas have been reduced by half.

Characters sighing has been reduced by 30%.

Characters looking at things or people during conversations has been reduced by 40%. To make up for this, characters thinking about the conversation has been boosted and descriptive narrative has been added.

#🥵🥵🥵

Hear my soul speak. Of the very instant that I saw you, Did my heart fly at your service.

Happy Pride!

Dusting off the old favourites, just because...I mean, do I need a reason?