#Conservatives do be like that though

[nikkisticki]

Conservative brains are so fried that they've forgotten what a leftist is. Anyone whose been paying attention knows this, but

You might be severely confused as these rapists aren't leftists, nor are they priests, but that doesn't matter. About a dozen comments mocking how THE LEFT won't talk about the real issue of...teachers and other people with positions of power over children being things that child molesters seek out (and not drag queens existing within five miles of a child??)

yeah, sure, nobody on the left ever comments about that

[watermelinoe]

girls will put on the kinda outfit i've been wearing since middle school and call it "boymode" and i'm just 🧍‍♂️ can you give a gnc woman a break here

[marlynnofmany]

Someone should write a very practical and down-to-earth story about a dragonriding culture and how they deal with the potential for whiplash and related injuries. I just saw a gifset from a certain realistic dragon show, and watching those tiny CG riders bobbing around up there makes me concerned for the sake of their spines.

Do the saddles have backs and headrests? Does part of training involve teaching the dragon to hold its back unnaturally steady? Is there a handy magic spell to counteract inertia/gravity? Or are a number of riders lost each year to snapped necks, along with the ones who pass out from G-forces and are forbidden from flying?

[awkward-teabag]

Love (cannot emphasis how much sarcasm there is in that word) that an official Canadian government response to high cellphone rates is to switch carriers.

Switch it to what? We basically have three companies since one was allowed to eat the forth (with the government saying it wasn't anti-competition and the company eating the other pinky promising they wouldn't jack rates up). Even the smaller companies have to rent infrastructure from the Big Three so there's only so much they can do if that rent costs an arm and a leg.

And that's not touching on how many "small companies" are actually just subsidiaries of the Big Three. You may save $5 but you're still with Telus/Rogers/Bell.

Or that the actual small companies tend to have shit coverage because they don't have the infrastructure available to them and are prevented from getting it. Or their traffic is throttled in favour of the Big Three's customers. Or both.

Or that they're extremely regional thus aren't an option for a huge chunk of Canada's population.

We have no true options and the government has shown time and again that they're fine with monopolies, in multiple industries, and don't care when said monopolies jack up prices to make shareholders and the c-suite more money at the expense of everyone else. At most there will be a verbal slap on the wrist and a giftcard for $25 that people have to register for, for a decade and a half of price gouging.

It's not talked a whole lot about outside the country from what I've seen and heard but Canada is a country of monopolies. A handful of companies own nearly everything, every province has a family or two that owns a hell of a lot (Nova Scotia is basically owned by one family at this point), and our government ignores it. Even the branch that is supposed to be against monopolies is fine with mergers and takeovers in most cases.

Because, you know, the company said it totally wouldn't use consumers' lack of options to increase prices.

[spocks-kaathyra]

I despise any narrative that positions social progressivism as a western concept. why is every immigrant narrative about escaping from the terrible inherent conservatism of the backwards culture your family comes from and being saved by america's unique progressivism. just this disgusting pinkwashing that is exactly the same as any other narrative claiming that the west invented civilization and all those third world barbarians are only just now beginning to learn it from them. america's enemies do not have a monopoly on social conservatism. white people did not invent queer acceptance or anything else of value. death to america idk

[shannonsketches]

He said "Fuck this shit, I'm out" I'm crying. Toriyama's Vegeta was so top shelf 🤌

(From Neko Majin Z Chapter 5!)

[bootkink]

So tired of seeing That Post going around I stg, I am not going to trust someone who refuses to examine the systemic implications of why they're into pretend forms of oppression.

[squarebracket-trickster]

Sorry guys, rant incoming. I considered deleting this but I put too much effort in.

"girlboss" "girl dinner" "girl math" "boy math" "gen z are making fun of us for wearing x" "here's how to dress like gen z:" "girlies" "girl's night" "boy's night" "me and the boys" "90s kid"

"I don't feel like an adult" "I'm 34 and I can tell you, I still don't feel like an adult either." "My parents seemed like real adults when they were my age." "I still feel like a teenager."

Maybe you'd feel more like an adult if you started calling yourself one. Maybe you'd feel more like an adult if you stopped trying to dress like a teenager. Maybe you should move your bed out from the wall and get a wallet. Maybe find a calendar app that works for you.

You are an adult. Even if you live with your parents. Even if you do part-time shift work at minimum wage. Even if you haven't graduated college. Even if you are single. These are adult things to do. Because you are doing them. And you are an adult. Start treating yourself like an adult. Fake it 'till you make it if you have to.

In other, writing-related, news:

That trend on TikTok of 20-40 something women authors (and writers yet to be published) promoting their books like,

"Omg! I can't believe I've sold X number of copies!! I never thought I would!" "Ahhhh imagine publishing your book and all your dreams come true and now you get to meet famous authors and work with big names in the industry!!" "Would you read a book where [proceeds to list a bunch of oversaturated tropes that tell me nothing about the actual plot]?"

It reeks of infantilization. If you didn't believe anyone would want to read your book, why should I? You made it on the NYT bestseller list! Stop acting like a mega-fan who got to meet a celebrity. You are their peer! "Would you read a book--" What if I wouldn't? Why does it matter to you what I think of your book? And for the love of god stop hiding behind tropes you know are already popular. "Here is my book: This is what it is about." Have some goddamn confidence.

It is fine to mention in passing "this idea was really far-fetched so I didn't know if it would appeal" or "I was struggling with self-esteem when I wrote this". It's fine to fan a little bit. It's fine to discuss the tropes in your book. But why are you building your brand as an author off of your inferiority complex? You are using your poor self-esteem as a marketing tactic to seem "humble" and "relatable" but it's coming across as unprofessional and desperate for reassurance. You are an adult. You are competent. The more you act like it the more you will believe it.

And of course, I haven't seen a man promote his book this way...

On another note, do any of the 20-40 something women writers who do "write with me" videos on TikTok actually enjoy writing or are they just doing it for the aesthetic?

They all have gorgeous minimalism writing spaces full of white and pink and a macbook beneath a window. Their makeup is done and they are conventionally pretty to start with. But their entire video is just them talking about how little progress they made, how many pages they deleted, how often they got distracted, how frustrated they are. And like, yeah. We all have those days. But what about the good lines you can't wait to share? The days when the words just flow? The cool stuff you learned while researching? Why don't you ever make videos about that?

Is this some other attempt to seem "relatable" by only talking about the "bad" side of writing? Because again, it's coming across as lacking confidence at best and, at worst, that you don't actually know how to write. And that is not the brand you want as an author.

Again, its always women. Why must women market their self-esteem issues in order to sell their art? Why must we be perpetually awestruck children (girlies, book girls) in over our heads?

[coquelicoq]

you reread raksura after reading murderbot and you realize that the kethel in the last book is murderbot from an outside POV. like they don't have the same personality obviously, but if the murderbot books were told from the perspective of, say, eletra from the corporation rim, she'd be talking about secunits the way that all the protagonists of the raksura books talk about the fell. which i feel really conflicted about. you write a five-book series (plus two books of short stories) with a biologically evil race and in the later books start deconstructing it and being like "hey maybe our narrators aren't exactly reliable on this point" but by then it's kind of too late imo. idk. she's doing something interesting here but i don't know if it works.

[clonehub]

American leftists smugness surrounding human rights abuses in China will always make me groan because it's always "ummm there's forced labor camps in China" there are! They also have them in the US. They're called prisons and you support them.

[sourcedecay]

i don’t wanna go to grad school. but the demons in me wanna go to grad school…

[fluentisonus]

part of the problem is that a lot of hugo's politics are really well thought out & considered & good but then some of them are like. entirely vibes-based to the point of feeling muddled & inconsistent & even straight up Bad sometimes. which is annoying

[apocalypticdemon]

I am so beyond ready to quit this job. Wednesday cannot come fast enough.

[druidshollow]

"what would your character be like without their trauma?" is such a hard question for me because it makes me feel like a massive asshole LMAO

(im attaching a picture of a tundra literally to add context to my ramble in the tags because my posts are structured by a sane person) (you should read the ramble in the tags i talk so much about rivers fsr)

[fvckw4d]

The concept of queerbaiting annoys me. I was told that it refers to a work of fiction pretending to cater to a queer audience but then pulling back from it to avoid alienating homophobes, which is an incredibly specific thing. But a lot of people seem to think that it instead means "any time there's any gay subtex, metaphor, or ambiguity" or "whenever something from 1995-2012 was being a normal amount of homophobic for the era."

[hanzajesthanza]

it kind of bothers me that witcher fans don’t really unite under sapkowski’s name like other fans of fantasy authors do (e.g. “tolkien fans”).

in practically any other fandom of fantasy books, save for the particularly rancid authors known for their disappointing and shameful behavior or views (e.g. jk r*wling), it’s just regular business to say the author’s name. but sapkowski’s name is treated like a dirty word in the witcher fandom, for really no good reason…

it must be asked — what is stopping us from doing so?! why don’t we call ourselves sapkowski fans. it would be much easier than saying “i’m a fan of the witcher, but only the books, i don’t consider the various adaptations canon, etc. etc.” … “half a hundred words, when three are enough!!”