Mothra

Okay, I don't know if the word has a very specific meaning in contemporary military vocabulary.

All I know is that a mercenary is an umbrella term for a "warrior for hire". It's typically associated with having to do jobs most others don't want to do, either because they're very demanding physically or because they're morally questionable. And this is where your confusion with assasins and hitmans comes in. A mercenary may also be a hitman, it depends on the context. But not necessarily. Usually mercenaries are supported by ( because they work for) either the government or some other legal entity. An assassin or hitman usually doesn't, or at least isn't supposed to.

In other words, a mercenary has a reputation for taking morally questionable jobs but isn't regarded as a criminal, whereas assassins, hitmen, and evil henchmen are criminals from the get go.

I hope that helps

This depends on the amount of time and dedication you put into it plus your natural ability to understand and represent the world visually. Which isn't the same for everyone. Nature and nurture both make a difference.

In short I've seen most people make significant progress in the first year or two of their art journey, but after that you sort of hit a plateau. Here's where the difficult stuff begins and it's a life journey. Whether or not that is good enough for you and what you want to draw is only for you to decide.

That guitar looks gorgeous

I don't know where that candid jesus image is from but it has so much Dicaprio Raising Drink energy that if it hasn't been memed already then it should

Yes

Your grandma sounds like a legend. I know for a fact mine couldn't have touched the topic

Good on her!

Yes I remember seeing the 70s Playboy magazines for the first time in my life just a few years ago, and I loved them. As you said, they were more about erotic nudes but it was also mixed up with tasteful art, literature (not all of it erotica either) and articles on contemporary culture. I would absolutely want to buy a few issues if I ever get the chance.

Kudos to her, I don't think my own mother would have bothered to go get books if she didn't know how to explain things to me. I think most people's reaction to facing something they don't know how to do is to just avoid it, which she clearly didn't. So yeah, cheers for progress!

How old were you at the questioning time?

Anecdotally, the stork along with other stories (did you know? Human babies can also sprout from cabbages) were more effective a few generations ago when people were actually in contact with and interacting with storks or cabbages etc.

My mother has a large family. Some of her aunts/uncles would tell the stork story to their youngest kids so that when the newest baby had to be delivered (at home, in some rural area) the kids would be distracted looking for a stork in the skies while their mother yelled her lungs out in pain from the contractions indoors. Once the kids grew up they figured it out obviously, and as adults they would laugh about it, but as a tool for distraction I think it's pretty clever. It makes sense in the context.

Very interesting, a step in the right direction at least.

Now, I don't understand things in fine detail but wouldn't this "force with package upon purchase" that google does with the play store and chrome the same gimmick Windows does with its Microsoft suite trash (and other apps)? If you manage to uninstall some of them they'll be reinstalled the next update without your consent.

So my question is, why is only Google getting in trouble when there are others doing similar things?

Did you resent the avoidance at any point? Also, did you have questions before getting sex ed talks that went unanswered? I guess that's what I'm curious to find out, from those who didn't have any talk or had it too late, what did they do before hitting the first school lesson on the subject.

Nice write up. Yes, I couldn't agree more. I guess it's the potential for abuse where things get really complicated, not so much the biological and mechanical side of sex- which makes even more baffling to see being avoided as a topic. Getting a child to understand the many ways they are vulnerable is certainly difficult no matter the topic.

Glad to know nothing happened to you, scary to see how easily someone could get groomed online. I've had a close call with a pedophile when I was a kid, in spite of being well aware of sex in many ways at that age, but at the time I didn't recognize his attempt at manipulation for what it was- precisely because there was no mention of anything sexual at all. I got really lucky that nothing happened to me either, and walked out if it absolutely oblivious to everything, but unlike you I do owe some of that to good parenting though. A few years later when I remembered the incident and realized what had been going on it hit me like a truck. An "oh shit" moment.