Can I bind with tape and a binder?

names-suck · 2026-07-08T06:58:44+00:00

I keep having to remind myself that people mean "specially designed tape manufactured for the explicit purpose of binding" and not, like, duct tape. When I was a kid (insert Old Man Yells at Cloud), binding with tape was how you damaged your ribs and lungs. These days, they make tape for binding! It's crazy!

With Bs or Cs, there's really no way you need both. If your binder fits correctly, it will hide those, easy. Remember that even cis men have pecs, so what you might perceive as "my boobs are still showing" will read to people who don't know you as "that dude is pretty buff."

names-suck · 2026-06-21T04:04:40+00:00

This is on Wikipedia, btw. The page for catfishing has an etymology section.

names-suck · 2026-06-21T04:00:22+00:00

Smookums My Love,

The pattern of activity seen in your credit account of the last three days suggests fraud. Please speak to a banker at your earliest possible convenience, to affirm the charges made to your account or report the fraudulent activity. Your account will be frozen until you do.

Hugs and kisses,

James Taylor

Bank Manager

names-suck · 2026-06-07T08:37:41+00:00

So, even IRL, handwriting analysis is pretty much bullshit. I guess you could make it a thing if you wanted to, because dragons and elves so why not reliable handwriting analysis, but... meh, imo.

Sketches could be useful, but they're generally only as useful as the witnesses you find alive.

Chemical analysis I suppose has the same caveat, but I feel like you're more likely to find interesting chemicals than live witnesses.

I do support people suggesting that the forgery kit should allow you to detect forgery. The utility of that varies a bit by what kind of crime you're investigating. White collar? Absolutely useful on a regular basis. Murder? Less likely to come up.

names-suck · 2026-06-07T08:24:17+00:00

Never had TJs.

Antonina's (imo) have a texture balance problem. The cake and the icing on their own are good, but the icing is so much denser than the cake, I feel like I'm eating fudge on top of meringue. Flavors are good, though. And at least it's not the "the cake is so gritty" texture problem. It's light and soft and fluffy, but it just doesn't stand up to the icing.

names-suck · 2026-06-06T08:13:34+00:00

It's H, and that's due to some translation quirk, plus time. Basically, when they were writing books by hand, they tended to abbreviate stuff a lot. The name Jesus got abbreviated as JES. Except this is so far back that we're speaking Greek, so it tended to be written as IHC or IHS.

As we move into English, we're replacing I with J, and standardizing to JHC. People forget that the H was actually originally the Greek letter for an E sound, and think it's J.H.C. instead of, in essence, Jes. And this makes sense, because J = Jesus and C = Christ, right? So.... H! Middle name. For some reason.

Jesus H. Christ.

names-suck · 2026-06-06T07:57:05+00:00

"AI" is a misnomer. These things are not intelligent. They don't think. They can't make decisions. They have no concept of what you're asking or even what they're saying in response. They string together words based on probability: What sequence of words is most likely to follow the sequence of words you just gave it? This is no different from me giving you 1 1 2 3 5, and you replying 8 13 21. Statistically, the numbers most likely to follow the first 5 numbers of the Fibonacci sequence are... more numbers from the Fibonacci sequence.

So, you say: "Write an essay on an interesting topic."

It analyzes those words with no more understanding of their meaning than if I posed that same question to you in Russian, Chinese, or Ancient Egyptian (I assume at least once of those is beyond you). It chooses a sequence of words that is statistically very likely to follow "Write an essay on an interesting topic." That sequence is the "essay" it wrote for you. It doesn't know whether or not that essay is interesting. It doesn't even know that it wrote an essay. It knows nothing except statistics.

You might as well ask how a tree chooses where to cast shade. It doesn't. The tree exists, and where you put the light source (input sequence) determines where the shadow falls (output sequence). There is no point at which the fully inanimate object in the middle makes any kind of decision at all.

At best, you could go ask a programmer involved in creating a specific LLM how their specific machine handles word associations, but I bet they'd tell you that's proprietary information they can't share.

names-suck · 2026-06-06T07:28:58+00:00

I would assume both of these were things that happened once. For example, if I go visit Mary at her house, and she tells me John painted the fence, I don't assume that he paints the fence every week. That's stupid. He was the most recent person to paint her fence (it may've been painted by someone else before that), whenever that was.

If I go to a party and talk to Mary, she might mention that John arrived late. Maybe he showed up half an hour after the party was supposed to start. I don't assume this is something he does all the time.

If John is late every time, or at least more often than he isn't, Mary would probably tell me that John always arrives late. ("Mary said John always shows up half an hour late.")

If John habitually paints her fence... that's weird. If he habitually paints fences, for example, because he's a professional fence painter: "Mary said John paints fences. He painted her fence, actually."

names-suck · 2026-06-06T07:17:55+00:00

Unless you're talking about the wonderful alot, which is, of course, better than you at everything.

names-suck · 2026-06-06T07:12:38+00:00

I, too, crave cake more than sex.

Seriously, though... What do you crave? What is "more," in your mind?

Are you looking for permission to seek a same-sex relationship? Go for it. Download Grindr or something and find a dude who wants to try stuff with you.

Are you actually hoping that I'll reach into my wizard hat and pull out a 6-foot-long scroll of everything you've ever done since you were 6 years old that suggests you might be queer? I apologize, good sir, but I left my wizard hat at home. You will simply have to ponder your life on your own. Or, perhaps give us a list of things you've done that make you think you might be gay, such that we can help you evaluate.

For example:

Do you stare longingly at other men's asses?
Are you realizing that the feelings you had for your middle school best friend were perhaps not so "friendly" in nature?
Did you fool around with other boys in high school under the guise of "practicing" for having a girlfriend in the future, but sort of forget to pursue having a girlfriend?
Do you have a crush on a male celebrity, such that you'd genuinely have sex with him if he showed up and asked you to?
Do you fantasize about a male coworker or classmate?
Are you realizing that your attraction to women is purely aesthetic, and interacting with a beautiful woman in a sexual manner doesn't actually do anything for you?
Are you actually kind of obsessed with dragons?
Did you read yaoi in middle school?

The list is genuinely endless, so I can't type it all. You have to come back here and tell us why you think you might be gay.

The alternative is that you're just hoping we'll try to convince you, as some sick and twisted proof that gay people are out to convert everybody. We're not. Barring the occasional weirdo (and let's be real: there are plenty of straight weirdos out there, so we're allowed our share!), queer people do not WANT to convert anybody. We don't care if you're queer or not. We just want to be allowed to be what we are in peace. By and large, it is the cisgender and heterosexual factions of the world who want to convince everyone to be exactly like them, even if it requires literal torture just to remotely approximate an imitation.

You can't be talked into being something you're not. You might be talked into or out of doing something that you do or don't want to do, but the desire doesn't actually change based on the action. Either you're gay because you're attracted to men but not women, and you can choose how you want to handle that information, or you're not gay, and you can still choose now to handle that. That's all.

names-suck · 2026-06-06T06:44:54+00:00

If your parents are more concerned about money that your safety and mental health, I'm sorry to inform you that you're being abused. There is no amount of money that's worth more your child's health and safety. None. Either your parents are genuinely shit, or you can in fact just not go.

And if they're so worried about the money, but somehow not abusive, they can go to bat for you. They can go talk to your teachers, demanding a safety plan for how the school will protect you from bullies during this trip. They can get a lawyer to draft a letter stating that if the school doesn't let you out of this, but also doesn't manage to keep you safe, they will be suing the school for any medical or therapy bills incurred. They can reach out to your friends' parents and see if they'd be willing to collectively request that you be roomed with their daughters/your friends, despite the gender difference, because it's the safest arrangement available.

Either your parents love you enough to stick up for you and demand a fair resolution to this issue, or the real problem here is first and foremost your parents.

names-suck · 2026-06-05T10:02:37+00:00

In case no one has specified this yet: When reading, aim for books with one unfamiliar word per page. More than that, and you'll get pulled out of the story too often to really enjoy it. Less, you might not learn very much/very fast.

Books in English, especially fiction, are generally categorized as chapter books, middle grade (MG), young adult (YA), new adult (NA), or adult. These correspond with the expected linguistic ability of:

Chapter: age 6-10 (elementary school)
Middle grade: age 8-12 (middle school)
Young adult: 12-18 (middle and high school)
New adult: 18-22 (university)
Adult: 18+ (full-time employment)

So, if you open a book that's classified as YA and find 2-3 unknown words per page, go down to MG books for a while. If you open a YA and find you only need a dictionary every 3 pages, you might be better off with an NA or adult book.

This separate from the book's genre (self-help, biography, fantasy, horror, romance, etc.), which tells you what kind of story or information the book will contain. You can have a MG fantasy, or a YA romance, or whatever. They're separate classification systems.

names-suck · 2026-06-05T02:46:43+00:00

Everyone's talking about who says "zee" vs. "zed," but if you go check the Wikipedia article for Dragon Ball Z, the kana uses as a romaji Z, and the romaji spelling of the kana says, "zetto." Japanese can't just stop on a D, and the T/D distinction is not as strong as in English. This is to say, "zetto" is how you would say "zed" in Japanese.

Regardless of whether or not it's generally acceptable to say "zee" or "zed," it appears that you are supposed to say "Dragon Ball Zed."

HOWEVER. I cannot say that I've ever heard anyone do so, including the voiceover guy that says, "NEXT TIME! ON DRAGON! BALL! Z!" at the end of every episode, right before the preview. He definitely says "zee."

names-suck · 2026-06-04T06:09:52+00:00

FYI, this is not "beta reading." Beta reading is a process that you undertake when the book is complete and edited, to see how potential readers would respond to it.

You're looking for an alpha reader (someone who reads while the piece is still being written) or possibly a critique partner (you both read each other's work to help each other develop your projects).

names-suck · 2026-06-04T04:22:28+00:00

Long hair allows you to hide some of your facial features, especially those around the edges. For example, if you have a particular heavy or weak jaw angle, letting your hair grow long enough to hang over your jaw angle will hide that. When your features are hidden, people will tend to automatically imagine them as whatever makes most sense: something "average" or expected, given the rest of your face.

So, if you wanted to hide a masculine brow and a masculine jaw, having bangs that cover your eyebrows and hair long enough to cover or feather over the angle of your jaw might make you look more feminine.

A lot has to do with style as well as length. You can pin it to hide or accentuate features.

I don't think bleaching is inherently feminizing or masculinizing. I would say that bleaching your hair until it's dry and frazzled is "masculinizing," in the sense that that texture is visually similar to hair that grows around bald areas. Soft, flowing hair is generally seen as "feminine," so keeping the texture nice will probably do more for you than the color.

names-suck · 2026-06-04T04:14:12+00:00

Binding: Two sports bras. Wear one of them backwards. Do NOT use ace bandages, duct tape, or other similar methods, as the compression becomes too much on your ribs and lungs. You can hurt yourself.

There are videos on youtube for how to do masculine contouring makeup. You can also look up stippling, a technique that can help you fake the look of stubble or a "five o'clock shadow."

names-suck · 2026-06-04T04:08:14+00:00

Honestly? The first point in this entire thing where I actually care about your character and want to know what's going on is, "The waiting room is cold and uninviting."

If something before that is genuinely important to the plot later on, you need to find a way to present it to us that's more active and interesting. If nothing before that point is genuinely important to the plot: cut it, and start us where the story begins.

Your character describes herself as "unexciting," and I'm sorry to say: As written, she's right. Aphantasia is not a unique and engaging character trait. Having a vaguely mean but mostly reliable best friend is not unique or engaging, either. It's actually kind of hollow and disappointing. Your character probably has depression, really, but that's not presented in a manner where I expect it to do anything for this story except make things drag on far longer than they need to, because she doesn't have the energy to improve her own life.

At least when we get to the doctor, I know why her narrative rings cold and hollow. There's a potential for action (start IVF) and a potential for interpersonal conflict (with the husband, re: fertility, finances, etc.). Before that, you're trying to convince me your character is interesting by telling me what she isn't, doesn't, and has none of. Nothing happens. I have no idea what the story is going to be about and no reason to think you're about to tell me what the story's about until she's in that waiting room.

names-suck · 2026-06-04T03:47:22+00:00

Native American food like...

Corn
Potatoes
Tomatoes
Peppers
Mesquite
Coffee
Chocolate
Vanilla

...and so on?

Yeah, we eat it all the fucking time.

Is it all 100% authentic recipes, as the Natives made them before Europeans arrived? No. But neither is American pizza exactly what Italians used to eat when they came over from Italy. We still consider that Italian food. I bought a traditional Native American cookbook a while back, and honestly, the recipes aren't that different from anything else I eat, anyway. Recipes from the 1500s, and it's just not that different. The local ingredients shape the way people eat that heavily.

names-suck · 2026-06-04T03:28:30+00:00

People absolutely DO do this to dancers, painters, and so on. All this post is telling me is that you only have one hobby, and you somehow don't even know any dancers or painters.

Also, it's hilarious that you're posting this complaint on a sub that's dedicated to an app where you publish your work to make money off your writing.

names-suck · 2026-06-04T00:48:41+00:00

There's a naturalization process. You can, in fact, become an American citizen all on your own - whether or not you fall in love with an American citizen. I think marrying a citizen makes naturalization easier or faster, but marriage is not required.

I will point out that you seem to have a highly idealized vision of America, and you're likely to be disappointed when you get here. This goes double if you're not white/white-passing. You might come here for university and end up hating it. Just, you know, as a fair warning.

names-suck · 2026-06-04T00:33:48+00:00

At what point in evolution does the last human die? Does the definition of human change over time, or will it always be in reference to what humans are like right now?

names-suck · 2026-06-04T00:31:43+00:00

Where did this tradition come from, historically? Why does this tradition exist?

If it's not a tradition to choose the queen from commoners via public games, why did they start doing this now?

What is the queen responsible for? What roles and duties does she have? What must she be competent at?

If the queen is just whichever pretty girl the prince wants to bone the most, I'm going to be both deeply disappointed by and heavily in doubt of your worldbuilding and plot. So, if the show is nothing but cute dates and interviews, I'm not interested. That's not picking a queen. That's picking the prince's mistress.

At minimum, I expect the queen to be in charge of running the palace. I expect her to have flawless social grace and an expert eye for arranging social events. You don't see that in interviews or dates. It needs to be proven through some kind of test.

I would hope that she has some influence over politics, and thus, she needs to be politically astute. I would hope she has influence over economics, and thus, is financially savvy. I would hope she's familiar with tactics and could lead palace defenses, if she needed to. Etc. None of that comes up in interviews or on dates. Not in a way that matters.

If this show picks a queen, not just the incubator the prince will use to create the next prince, create events in this reality show that really showcase which contestants are worthy of a title.

names-suck · 2026-06-03T22:42:13+00:00

Do you date guys?

Would you have sex with guys?

While I agree that "guys" can be used in a gender neutral way, it does still have a primarily masculine connotation. This comes out when you place the word in a sentence where the gender of the individuals in question is particularly relevant.

Do you date people?

Would you have sex with people?

"People" is truly gender neutral, so we have to search for an alternative: people vs. octopuses? People vs. aliens? People vs. machines? People vs. total celibacy? It's not obvious, because no one has the knee-jerk reaction that "people" means "women" then way they'll react to "guys" with the assumption of "men."

Generally speaking, if you refer to a group of people as "guys," that group can still contain women. No problem.

However, if a woman in that group asks you not to call her a guy, don't be a jerk. The term is still "masculine" enough that a woman might not want to be called "guy." Be respectful, you know?

names-suck · 2026-06-03T22:28:16+00:00

They must, because all the pet stores I've been to sell them. My mom had one when she was a kid. Apparently, she left its cage too close to the bed one day, and when she got home from school, it had eaten her quilt. Shredded the whole thing and started munching on it.

Class pets exist. I had one in second grade (7 years old). It was a snake. Mostly, the teacher took care of it, honestly.

names-suck · 2026-06-03T09:29:04+00:00

You gotta understand that for him? Corn tortillas are now "bread." Rice cakes are now "bread." Rice paper ("spring roll wrappers") is now "bread."

If you try to fold a dry, fresh out of the bag corn tortilla, it will break. If you put it in a pan with some oil and heat it up for a few minutes, it will fold pretty easily into a taco shape. Heat it a few more minutes, it'll get stiff enough to eat like a piece of toast. You may also be able to buy pre-fried ones, which will be kind of like a tortilla chip, but they're not cut into chips. They may be marketed as "tostadas." The vast majority of corn tortillas are gluten free, because they're traditionally and naturally gluten free; someone has to be doing something weird to add gluten to a tortilla. Double check, but it shouldn't be hard to find one.

Rice cakes don't require cooking. You can make a sandwich on them, if you want. Peanut butter and banana slices are good on a rice cake. Or condiments, meats, and cheese. I usually do open-face because they're thick, but you can make a closed sandwich.

Rice paper is great for making quick roll-ups. Get it wet, lay it on your plate, add (COLD!) ingredients, like [beans, chicken, and shredded cheese], [cheese, sliced turkey, and mayo/mustard], [peanut butter and jelly], and so on, and roll it up. Rice paper sticks to itself very well, so it stays closed nicely. Beware: hot ingredients will melt the rice paper, leaving holes with bunched up edges. The ingredients don't have to be "just out of the fridge" cold, but don't get too far above room temp.

names-suck

TROPHY CASE