Happiness is the goal

And literally label some of the cookies Legitimate Interest

And it's like cool so even YOU admit that hundreds of these aren't legit

Like sorry but there is 0 chance your 578 "legitimate" partners need to track my online behaviour, but it's honestly amazing for you to be like. We also have 1200 illegitimate partners that we would love to sell your data too also

Pleeeeeeeease?

Also turn your adblocker off 🙏🙏🙏

It's amazing to me that in 2026 i will see people thoughtlessly repeating, oh, but you should allow ads if you want to support x business, it's not fair to them otherwise

Bc it's like. Well. No. The only people paying for that adspace are scammers and professional malware operators

Who pays for adspace in 2026? Gambling websites. Temu. Fake app games. TikTok. Amazon. Energy supplement freaks. Weight loss poison peddlers.

Like sorry, but no. If the way you make money would be to provide my eyeballs to these fucking companies, then you don't deserve that money

What annoys me the most about the "oh but you're stealing by turning ads off!" is that like. It's the same argument that massive corporations make about people just not buying their shit. They call it "lost income" and make it sound like theft, but it was always theoretical or projected income

It was never real money. It was a projection based on manufactured data and/or manufactured consent

And it's like. No actually i do not owe any fucking massive corporate company anything, least of all my web browsing data, even if that corporation offered you a few cents per accidental click

Make a Patreon, sell merch, make better media, do conventions. Literally just get good.

Ghost Dad: WE LITERALLY CHANGED OUR VOWS BECAUSE WE DIDN'T LIKE "TILL DEATH DO US PART"

Executive dysfunction comes from a lack of available dopamine. Common advice is wrong. You need to provide your own dopamine before you can start. Otherwise you're trying to run your car on empty.

"But what if I still don't do it" well you already weren't getting it done anyway. Now you have a little treat. Try again later.

You deserve kindness and care even when you aren't being productive.

I usually suggest this technique as a "Reverse Pomodoro." In the original Pomodoro, you work for 25 minutes and then take a break for 5 minutes (the times vary, but that's the essential ratio). People with executive dysfunction often find this insurmountable, and they get even more frustrated, and then the task seems even more difficult. So instead, flip those times.

FIRST, spend 25 minutes doing something energizing and engaging that you like to do. Not scrolling social media passively, not watching tv, not napping. Try something like colouring, doing yoga, running/walking around the block, talking about your favourite tv show with someone in real time, playing with the dog or cat, making and eating a lovely sandwich, hula hooping, something active. Having a little treat absolutely falls in this category!

(on the subject of little treats: refusing yourself food until you do work is for fucking Puritans and you can be kinder to yourself)

Then, after 25 minutes (or however long it takes to eat the sandwich or finish the yoga routine, it doesn't have to be exact), spend 5 minutes writing (or doing whatever you're struggling to start). Most people can coax themselves into doing something they find difficult for five minutes, if they have already filled up the joy/energy/engagement bucket. You can put a timer on for the 5 minutes if you want, or if you find that annoying, just work for as long as you like.

The other key is: don't push yourself to keep going when you're frustrated or tired—that will just reinforce the negative belief that you already have, which tells you that this task is painful to do, and needs to be avoided. If you've commonly had to force yourself to do this kind of task, that's likely part of why you think of it as painful and have trouble starting it now. Also, you should just, at a basic level, try not to put yourself in pain for the sake of productivity. So just do it till the good feelings run out. Then start hula hooping or colouring again for another 25 minutes. When the tank's refilled, try another 5 minutes of work, if you can. Adjust times to taste.

Yes, yes, tolerating frustration is an important skill, we all know that one. But I have exams to pass, a household to attend to, a life to live, and not training myself to hate things I will spend hours on each week happens to make that easier. I really recommend that.

It’s your teacher voice: no-nonsense, stern, commanding, pitched to cut through the hubbub of two dozen overexcited seventh graders. It certainly cuts through the noise of the panicking wedding guests. As you narrow your gaze, you can see people starting to calm, reacting instinctively to the note of authority (only very slightly supernaturally enhanced) in your voice. Someone is in charge. Things are being handled. It’ll be okay.

And Razhiel, Dark Prince of one of the myriad small fiefdoms of Hell… wilts.

“I came as soon as I could,” he rumbles, in a voice that sounds like sulfur smells. His horned head droops, his seven-foot frame seeming to grow smaller. “There was a situation.”

“There always is.” You sigh. “Raz, I put the time on the invitation. I even specified the time zone and the alignment of the stars. You always do this!”

“Um.” Milena, your lovely bride-to-be, leans into you, wide-eyed. “Sweetheart? Who… is that?”

“I told you,” you murmur back, though there’s no heat in it. “I told you we shouldn’t invite my brother. I told you he’d just find a way to make a scene. But oh no, he’s ‘family.’”

She goggles. “That’s your brother?!”

No one had believed it in Hell either. You’re full siblings, you and Raz, born of one of the Upper Demonic Lords and his favorite human concubine, but, well… genetics are funny sometimes. So he got the height, and the horns, and the strength, and all the other demonic traits, only barely diluted by his human blood. While you… got skin that always looks like you’re slightly sunburned even when you’re not, and canines so sharp you sometimes cut your lip, and unusually bright eyes, and the ability to inject your voice with enough force to cow middle schoolers into submission. (No small feat, admittedly, but it’s hardly commanding the legions of Hell.)

And, well… you were the younger sister anyway. He was the heir, you were the spare… so as soon as you were of age you left Hell for Earth, where you’d fit in better. You went to school. Got a job as a teacher. Fell in love.

Oh. And you also have proto-horns - very tiny nubs, hidden under your hair. Milena had found them, when you first started dating, running her hands through your hair. You’d told her you were half demon. She’d laughed.

She’s not laughing now.

“I tried to tell you?” you offer, wincing. “I did say I wasn’t joking! You didn’t believe me!”

Long seconds tick by. You can see the thoughts racing through her eyes. You wish you knew what, exactly, they are.

Finally she takes a deep breath. “We will discuss this,” she whispers, her tone steely despite the smile on her face - no doubt for the benefit of the still-spooked spectators. “After.”

“…After?”

She reaches over. Takes your hand. Squeezes it. “After I get done marrying you.”

Like a flower unfolding, a knot of fear you weren’t consciously aware of unknots itself in your chest and you smile, aware of how wide and goofy it is but unable to stop it. “Everyone please have a seat,” you call out, addressing the crowd without taking your eyes from her. “The wedding will continue. Raz, you sit up here near the front and we will talk at the reception.”

Despite the menace in the words, you can see him brighten out of the corner of your eye. “Will you have the little-”

“Yes, we’ll have the little jalapeño things you like, sit down, Raz.”

If two people on SSI are married, the MAXIMUM they can receive is $1,491 a month, total, for both of them. (Meaning marriage to another SSI recipient reduces your maximum income possible to $745 a person each month.)

Could you live on that?

AND IT NEEDS TO FACE A LOT OF OPPOSITION, SO CALL AGAIN!!

TL;DR William Henry Harrison didn't die because of his inaugural address, and Zachary Taylor didn't die from spoiled milk, they were likely both taken out by contaminated water. The past was not glorious or "more simple", it was gross.

Working in retail is really fun, and the times when major fuck-ups happen, they can be either anxiety-attack inducing, or make it possible to get through the rest of your god-awful shift with a smile depending on the customer. My all-time favorite absolute fuck-up is as follows:

This kind woman is just doing her thing. She scans her membership card from her keychain. The register beeps to acknowledge the scan. We continue as usual. Neither of us notice right away, but after I’ve scanned a few more items, I hear a very quiet, “Um,” from the lady, very polite. I look at her. She is looking at the screen of my register, blinking. I, too, look.

And lo and behold. There is a charge of over four-thousand dollars ($4,000) worth of garlic bread staring us in the face. There are no words for a minute. We’re just… in awe. How did this happen? How the hell did this happen?

She didn’t even have garlic bread in her cart.

I sputter a partial apology - I was incapable of forming actual sentences in the moment - and try to void the garlic bread. Since there was no garlic bread to scan, I try to manually remove $4,000-some from this transaction.

Well, the registers don’t like it when you try to void off more than five dollars ($5) from a transaction, so naturally it pings my manager for confirmation, but she’s not by her pager.

At this point, both myself and the lady are just… dumbfounded. She’s not even mad. I’m not even all that embarrassed. Both of us are just looking at the screen. There’s a bit of laughter, but it’s mostly just… confusion.

I have to call through the whole store for my manager on the intercom because she’s not answering. She shows up, ready to override and void it, when she too, sees what exactly is being voided.

“What… did you do?”

“I genuinely. Have literally. No. Idea.”

She voids it, and I go to finish the transaction and tell the woman her total (minus the garlic bread). My register pings. It tells me that she hasn’t scanned her membership card. Odd. I distinctly remember her doing that. The woman goes to scan her card again, and I notice that her library card is stuck to her membership card. I tell her gently, and she separates the two and scans her card.

My manager, hovering nearby still, sees this and says, “I think it mistook the barcode of her other card for garlic bread, and the remaining digits were read as the price.”

And that’s when the laughter really came over us. There were no hard feelings at all. In fact, the woman was incredibly glad that the receipt still showed the garlic bread and the voiding of. I will remember it until the end of time, my only regret in the entire situation being that I didn’t take a damn picture, because she has proof and I don’t. But I swear to God it happened.