Don't worry, things can and will get much, much, much worse. Most Americans have a roof over their heads, plenty of corn syrup to fill their bellies and enough treats to keep themselves occupied. The US is definitely declining, but an outright collapse is still very far away.
Whether they're all-in on China or think that Xi is the anti-Christ, the end result is exactly the same: absolutely nothing whatsoever. There isn't a local left, much less a national left; certainly there isn't anything that anybody could seriously call an international movement. The opinions of random westerners mean absolutely nothing to the CCP. Fixating on what we have zero influence over is wholly unproductive.
Maybe in 20 years we'll have cobbled together a movement that Beijing thinks is even worth offering a nod to, but right now we're a bit too irrelevant to worry about our place on the global stage.
Replace them with someone who more or less fills the same social niche. Your heart is a callous bastard and will completely overwrite all that worn-out nostalgia with memories of the new hotness. It's pretty awful in the abstract, but I've found that the only reliable to get over somebody is to make them redundant.
A girl I was seeing asked me what I liked about her and I drew a complete blank. There was plenty to like about her, but when put on the spot I couldn't think of a single thing to say. I don't blame her for leaving me not too long after that.
The alternative is admitting that they had a complete meltdown over a balloon. People can force themselves to believe basically anything if it can save them the embarrassment of admitting they were enthusiastically wrong.
Vertical gashes are very survivable, it's when the wound circles around the bark that you need to worry. My rabbits chewed up one side of a ficus and it's been doing fine for years even though none of the bark has grown back.
I'm liking it so far, it's pretty educational given that I know next to nothing about Japanese prisons. Horrific situations that are thinly coated over with cuteness are my jam, but I get why some people might think it's tasteless. If it's making you miserable, don't read the notes in chapter 3 about 'reflection rooms'.
![AssaultRifle15 [he/him]](https://hexbear.net/pictrs/image/fface207-52fc-435f-b7ae-bbc944f21e32.jpeg?format=webp&thumbnail=128)
The overwhelming majority of car accidents are caused by people with driver's licenses, so having one obviously makes you a worse driver.