#I am way more millennial than gen z

[pupkou]

can we come together as a community and be honest with ourselves .. because i’m tired of seeing everything turned into an egg roll. not everything needs to be an egg roll

[cowboykeery]

so sick and tired of “stop posing like a millennial/stop the millennial pause” like why do we continue to make fun of people for the dumbest fucking reasons

[elljayvee]

image source: statista

Young friends, I'm asking you to vote. I'm asking you to get your friends to vote. I know it can feel like you don't have any power, and in a lot of ways, that's because those 70 million Baby Boomers are, genuinely, still holding onto it. About 70% of the US Senate is Baby Boomers and Silent Gen. There's more Silent Gen folks than there are Millennials. I generally think intergenerational conflict nonsense is, well, nonsense -- there's a LOT of Baby Boomers who are on the same side, politically, as I am, and a lot of younger people who are flat-out Nazis like JD Vance. But look at how much power they're holding.

And the only way to change that is to vote, and to run -- but the number of people who can run and want to run is smaller than those who can vote. You can change the political balance and the age balance in our government by voting.

Gen Z had historically high turnout for 18-24 yr olds in the last Presidential election, and I'm super chuffed about that -- but it was still only about 28% of eligible voters. Overall, turnout was about 66% across all age groups -- and Boomers turned out at nearly 70%. Pew Research has talked about how largely the differences in success and failure of candidates are not due to preference (who the population as a whole would LIKE to win) but due to differences in voter turnout (who actually shows up to vote).

image source: brookings.edu

The United States is a LOT less conservative/fascist on a population level than it is on an elected official level, and differential voter turnout is why. Voters under 30 are the most likely to support candidates who aren't creepy fascist motherfuckers, and there are millions of you who aren't going to the polls.

Voter suppression is real, and there are lots of people working to counter it, but efforts to counter voter suppression only go so far if people aren't showing up in the first place. Gen Z -- on a population level, over 60% of you don't like creepy fascists! That's great, but not liking them needs to be backed up with action. Please get out there and vote like you care about keeping creepy fascists out of power. It's not as fun as dunking on them on the internet, sure. But it's very effective.

I want you to vote, young friends. I want everyone over 18 and younger than 60 to crank those numbers out, but I especially want everyone between 18-40 at that polling booth, ready to go. I want to see sky-high, record-smashing young voter turnout in this election -- and I want to see it at the next election, and the one after that. I want there to BE a next election. These motherfuckers tried once to overturn an election -- by legal challenges and by force -- and the way to make that not happen again is to shut. it. down.

Please. Vote.

[scretladyspider]

“why do young people now hate sex? We did it all the time!”

have you considered that your friends could’ve been lying to look ‘cool’ because not wanting/not having sex meant (and often still means) people (like you) would make fun of and socially ostracize them for being ‘prudes’?

You raised generations to think their bodies and libido were sins. But now you’re up in arms that more people are openly admitting that they aren’t interested. Isn’t that what people like you wanted, for younger people to not commit sexual ‘sins’? Are you mad if it worked? what?

This same line of thinking gave us the dichotomy that men and masculine people are supposed to have lots of sex with women and feminine people, but women and feminine people should be ‘pure’ and ‘virginal’

(btw there’s nothing wrong with being a virgin, its neutral, it just means you haven’t had sex. there is something wrong with acting like people who have or haven’t had sex, based on their perceived gender, are more or less worthy than other people. AKA the way purity culture treats virginity.)

Uhm. Which is it? Or does that actually not make any sense when held up to scrutiny?

Maybe Gen Z and younger millennials just aren’t telling you about their sex lives. Or maybe you’re not including anything outside of your narrow heteronormative idea of what sex can be. Or maybe young people are having sex but those who aren’t are now talking about it openly.

Maybe Gen Z and younger millennials aren’t having as much sex and are happy about that. Maybe it’s sex positive, actually, to be able to say “no thank you” without fear of embarrassment from one’s peers. Maybe it’s sex positive to accept if fewer young people are sexually active.

And maybe it’s none of your business and you’re just weirdly obsessive and controlling other people’s bodies and sexuality. Maybe you’re just making everyone uncomfortable, the way you were once made uncomfortable by the social expectations of your elders.

And again… people do lie to fit in. Not out of malice, but because humans are social animals. You’re telling me no one you know ever lied about getting with someone, or didn’t make something up to try and look cool? Come on. We both know that’s just not true.

You can do better than to pass your trauma along to the next generation. If younger people are pressuring each other less about sex, that’s good. Nothings wrong with that. It’s good to let people safely say “no thanks, I’m good”. To me, that sounds like progress, not prudish.

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[sapphire-weapon]

and something that you always gotta keep in mind about me is

i grew up in a completely different era of the internet and of fandom than you all did.

when i was up and coming in fandom, the internet was mostly young men and boys. not just in fandom -- but everywhere on the internet. i very much grew up in a man's world in a way that gen z did not.

my earliest fandoms were DBZ, FF7, warcraft, RE, and DMC -- all of which were controlled exclusively by men and men's voices. even the feminine pockets of fandom -- the shipping parts of fandom -- were dominated by male discourse. clerith vs cloti ship wars back in the day used to take the form of proving which of the girls was more of a slut and a damsel-in-distress (and therefore worthless) -- who was more deserving to be with cloud.

so, from a very young age, i had to cultivate a very masculine presence online. i had to meet those guys where they were at -- i couldn't expect them to cater or conform to me.

it was actually very relieving for me when that presence had reached a point where people reflexively referred to me as "he." i never corrected them; i didn't dare to. because being a woman in those male-dominated spaces meant that those guys threw everything you said out the window and you got sexually harassed until you shut up and went away.

i mean i even went all the way through college refusing to get on voice chat in public game lobbies because i knew i'd get kicked the second someone heard a feminine voice. people who have known me for years like @godtier and @theggning and @friedesgreatscythe and @feelboss can confirm this.

you guys grew up in an era where slash ships are the majority, queer fans and women are the majority, "problematic ships" are a thing people are concerned about, and no one bats an eye at trans headcanons.

i grew up in an era where the N-word was commonplace, women in fandom spaces were told to get back in the kitchen, queer fans were damn near driven to suicide, and ship wars literally had discourse in them like (and i quote) "yuffie dresses that way.... to piss off her dad. tifa dresses that way.... because she's a slut."

so what i am today is the culmination of decades of existing in a space where i had to mirror and mimic millennial and gen x dudebros in their attitude, demeanor, and vernacular -- just to be heard. just to have a fucking conversation with people without it spiraling into "so do you do anal?"

i still have my deeply held very liberal, very feminist, very progressive values.

but i'm just never going to be the all-welcoming Customer Service internet personality that gen z is.

i'm gonna be that guy who comes off as arrogant sometimes and tells anon i sucked their dad's cock last night. because that's who i've always had to be. and part of me doesn't even really want to change, because it's a part of who i am, it's a mark of what i've been through, and maybe i can use it to help you guys navigate through an old fandom that grew up exactly as i did.

[thehopelessexception]

is it just me?

i've been observing a tendency surrounding women —mostly between 20 and 26— where we can't find anything close to love (from men). women are not dating, nor living a normal life, developing a femcel-like point of view. and im saying this because i want to be loved just like anyone else, but are we the problem? or is there something wrong with boys? i mean, ofc there's something wrong with boys; but every year pass by and every time is harder and harder to find someone willing to put the effort to make you feel loved and understood. was it like this 50 years ago? 100 years ago? i am very much aware that our mothers and grandmothers suffered in the world they lived in, generally with sexist husbands and mandatory tradwife lifestyle. but i am also sure that there was some exceptions, way too many more than today.

and we tend to romanticize the past, probably there's something to do with our generation. nor millennials or gen z, the ones in the middle. the girls who grew up with enough technology but not so much. the ones that went crazy over boybands and fanfiction and hung up posters in our walls. the ones that went crazy in 2018-2020 with deranged feminism just to realise, later on, nobody really cared and it maybe was a little over the top. the ones that filled our beds with stuffed animals repeatedly every time we woke up just to throw them on the floor at night so we could sleep. the girls who spent their teenage years on tumblr writing code (before men took that away from us) and making playlists of marina lana and the 1975 so everyone on the internet could see how cool we wanted to look like. probably the ones that suffered some kind of bullying in highschool or some health problem related to how we didn't fit in or how bad we looked at ourselves in the mirror (yk what i mean). we weren't the cool kids in real life or it was just me?

now i'm observing how hard it is to adapt that teenager to adult years. and maybe it's me but i don't feel like an adult. i am a tiny ball of anxiety. i suffer too much stress. i am trying to finish my degree but i don't know if im worthy of anything because i dont have money, and i don't have time to work and study at the same time because i spend too many time thinking about it and feeling a fraud and a failure.

i don't know how to talk to boys either —nor girls, in that way—. and until some days ago i was quite sure i was willing and capable of spending my whole life alone. i've given up to anything because i felt it imposible to be loved. but lately my mind goes up and down with that scene of jo monologue in little women by gretta gerwig. and it also goes with the hot priest monologue of fleabag. and today i rewatched the classic he's just not that into you. are we condemned to be the tedious rule? am i?

i've seen all of my girlfriends suffering the same mysery. and i've seen the extremes. women giving up the love they deserve —because they accepted the fate of being the rule— by dating a jerk just because they are afraid of loneliness. and i've also seen women giving up everything else just because they are not willing to give up love. those are us. hopeless romantics who watched way too many romantic comedies and somehow still expect to find someone willing to die for us just like dicaprio in romeo + juliet. —or at least a patrick verona—.

what i've never seen was actual love. all the couples i met... they don't look happy. they don't look in love. they don't look like they enjoy their own company even. they look exactly like a picture of instagram. they exist just to make us feel miserable even when it's obvious they are not gonna last. i've seen couples of what? 7 years? gone. broken up. they grew tired of each other and of course they never looked like they had anything close to sparkles in their eyes. chemistry? none. and maybe it is my anxiety speaking but i don't want that. i refuse to have that. i want all or nothing. i want always and forever. i want everyone to look at us and think "if i don't have that i'll kms". i want family —even tho im not sure i want to get pregnant, what am i a childbride?—. i don't want to change anything to fit in with the standards of a boy. i want marriage even tho im not sure i want to be legally married. i want the posibility, the future. i want the emotions surpassing myself. i want to not know me anymore and then knowing me again. i want to doubt myself. i want my heart beating so fast i could kill someone for them. i want to believe god exists. i want to laugh of happiness without they making a joke. i want my sundays to not be deppresing because i can hang out with the love of my life and have fun. i want to be the "and yet" of someone willingly enough to fall for me every single day even if i am kinda insane all the time. i want someone who cares. someone who fantasizes with spending the rest of their lives with me and is going to put the effort to get to know every single thing about me and stay because he's blown away. and aparently that's setting the bar "too high" because we are the rule and not the exception.

people always assume that by being a romantic i expect flowers every day and cheesy comments about how beautiful i look; and that would actually make me want to puke because i can do that myself. i am confortable with myself, i like myself, i love myself, i have the ego. i am not really asking for that much i just want someone to love me with every single thing that's probably wrong with me. what i want is someone curious and smart. someone who pays enough attention or wants to. i want the chemistry off the roof.

and contrary to anyone's beliefs the bar is too low about everything else. every single girl probably wants the same thing. is it that hard for men to understand that women want to feel loved?

lately —worldwide— it's all a competition of genres as if humanity doesn't need us to interact to survive. it's a loop that opened up in 2013? with the tumblr-4chan gate and right now got translated to the real world because pick-mes are back and being a man is cool. and suddenly that's how nature works!! because apparently women are boring and just a hole. maybe they all need to go all alexander the great. but it's getting boring. and we as women deserve love as much as respect.

[thevioletjones]

Listen, the DNC fucking nailed that convention so hard, I'm positive we're gonna win.

The party platform they laid out is immaculate. The stark contrast in messaging from that of the party of loveless, bigoted, weirdo, grifter, ghouls couldn't be more plain.

Somehow, in just 4 days, the Dems have officially become the party of family values, in addition to being the party of equality and inclusivity. It's actually surreal to those of us old enough to have slogged our way through many contentious election cycles and decades of hypocrytical myopic bullshit foisted upon us by old-fashioned post-Reagan conservatives.

The selection of Tim Walz as VP turned out to be masterful. Next to him, JD Vance looks even more pathetic and stupid than he already did. The men on the republican ticket are fundamentally incapable of acting like the informed, caring adults on the historic democratic ticket.

I'm disappointed in the youth on social media as usual. As an elder millennial progressive, I have always been further left than the tickets I've voted for and the administrations I've supported. Even my favorite politicians have done things I don't like or agree with. But that's the way it is. It's something we as voters and citizens do not have full control over and never will.

I believe in a free Palestine and I in no way condone the US involvement in supplying Israel with weapons in an unjust war. I also am not a fan of the barely disguised antisemitism that's permeating that cause, and I'm smart enough to know that the entirety of the conflict is much more complex than the last year's news cycle. You can seek out documentaries by credible news sources (like the excellent Vice News program previously aired on HBO and other cable channels) that detail bothe the history of Israel, the history of Palestinian struggles, and the history of the US relationship with Israel, and what that territory means to the different religious factions that want it for themselves (and how sects of Christianity have been indoctrinated into the cause of gaining it for themselves).

The thing is that this election isn't about that relationship or that conflict. It's not about anyone else's country. It's about ours.

I'm American, but I grew up in Venezuela. They just had a big election there that resulted in a steal from a dictator-like unpopular president. But unlike ee did with Trump the first time he lost, they can't actually get his ass out of the presidential palace. Chavez and Maduro have ruined that country with the same anti-democratic tactics that Trump would love to employ and pushed millions of citizens to emigrate from the country.

None of that is about the US either.

My point being, every country on this planet has it's own problems that for better or for worse, we have to largely leave in the hands of the citizens of those nations to resolve.

This is your opportunity to continue the slow correction of the path we've been on in America since Clinton and Obama. It's a slow march towards progress that keeps getting stymied and dragged back, then pushed a little bit forward again. These moderate liberals are the only vote we have that will ever possibly lead to a truly progressive hero and champion. You know, most likely someone in one of our generations.

Millenials and Gen Z have a lot in common, but as the older of the two, I'm telling you, only time and experience will prove to you that you can't have everything in one candidate or even an entire party, and wasting your ability to actually make a difference for noble ideals that won't make an actual difference to those lives you think you're trying to save is illogical.

Israel will not stop bombing Gaza because you sat out of a US election, or because you protested the DNC, or protest voted 3rd party.

Until the system is overhauled, there is no point in 3rd party voting. Of course we should have more than 2 options. We don't.

Anyway....... I am joyful this week.

I still can't believe Grandpa Joe actually got pushed out of the nomination. They are taking this swift shift to Kamala Harris and running Sha'Carri Richardson fast with it.

Get on board.

It's nice not to feel doomed all the time. I don't even care if it's partially an illusion. I know the alternative is a living nightmare that needs to end.

[myneodream]

Have you noticed how unfair the existence of Cale Henituse and Choi Han is in Earth 1?

And no, I am not talking about how Cale knew what was going to happen or how they both have the main character syndrome.

Summarizing: They are Disney actors in a world of nosy auts!

Did I just got out of shower? Yes.

Should I go eat, because it's one in the morning and I have class at 8 A.M.? Also yes.

Is this my first post to this fandom, that I haven't interacted with in a year? Yup.

BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT.

Like, think about it.

Also, I'm focusing more on Cale, but Choi Han also fits.

I don't know how it is now, but to Millennials and Gen Z, we grew up watching Disney movies and, most of them, like High School Musical, showed lies, like that High School was fun.

But the point I want to say is regarding the visual. We grew up, watching how people were supposed to be in High school, having a pattern to follow. Disregarding the fact that the actors were in their twenties!

That caused a bunch of self esteem issues, because the ideal model was someone who already went through puberty, not one that is going through it. And the comparison was the worst, because it wasn't a realistic pattern to follow.

That made me think about how the world perceives the two. I haven't read the second part yet and haven't touched anything related in almost a year, but, if I am not mistaken, Cale ends that part with 20 years and Choi Han with the appearance of 18.

BUT we all know that they are way older than that. Cale was in his thirties and Choi Han between 60's and 150's (yes, I saw both options and I don't remember which was true).

The fact that everyone at first looks down on Cale is not only because of his physic. It's because he is technically a teenager! (Regarding the Korean age, they become adults at 20. Ps: I heard it had a change, so I don't know how it is now, but this novel was written before that). That is probably why the kids also tend to hear Cale. We always hear the older cooler kids and not the adults.

And then we have two teenagers fighting a war. Multiple wars. And they won. Because, in reality, they are mostly functional adults. They had time to learn, they had experience. But to everyone, they are only geniuses. Not that they aren't, but it is more like "the trash became responsible overnight and is taking strategies from the air."

And then we consider that Cale is also a nobleman. And you know what nobles do? Always want to be the best, always comparing to others. Imagine the pressure of growing in a family like this, in a society like this. And I can say I have an idea, I'm Latina and half my family is Asian. We always have that nosy aunt that compares us to anyone that is better. Sometimes the aunt is your own mother, but there is always someone.

But get the perspective. All the next generation will have Cale and Choi Han as the ideal model. In a society that comparison and nitpicking everything is the tradition. And it will be hell for them. Because there is no way that a "new Cale" or a "new Choi Han" can be born. They are the product of a bunch of factors. So, they will be searching for the impossible.

Hence, the existence of Cale and Choi Han is unfair the same way that Disney placing adults playing teenagers is unfair to the kids watching them.

[curry-and-gunpowder]

Okay so I have some stuff to get off my chest, might get a bit heated, but I mean no disrespect to anyone, just expressing my genuine confusion and frustration and trying to make my stance on some matters clear.

Clearly I ship Odazai. But that does not mean I reject other interpretations of their relationship. Be it platonic, queerplatonic, brotherly, it's all lovely to me - I genuinely just enjoy their unique dynamic.

However, I am constantly on the brink of losing it over hearing them referred to as a father/son pair by so many people in the fandom. And I'm gonna attempt to break down why this interpretation bothers me so much.

Firstly, it just flies in the face of my personal experience of intergenerational friendships - I'm a young-ish Millennial with many Gen Z friends. And I find it completely incomprehensible to try and force people who are relatively close in age into such a dynamic. I'm aware that a lot of bsd fans are teens or young adults who maybe don't have much social contact with people outside their age range. But as a 30+ person on the Internet, let me tell you, five years? That's nothing. The plain truth is, the older you get, the less age starts to matter. Once you get out of school, you will interact with people of all ages regularly and you will have friends who are older or younger than you and nobody fucking cares. The thought of seeing any of my younger friends as my children is, pardon my french, fucking ridiculous.

Secondly, and I've spoken about this before, the fandom's tendency to parentify Odasaku way beyond what the text ever implies. It's easy to put him into the role, considering the way he cares for his orphans. In that way, he has some parental traits - but it's only a facet of his personality, and, i would argue, one that the fandom puts way too much emphasis on, imho. I'll gladly write some more meta on that at a later time, but doing that here would make the post even longer than it already is. Just to quickly reiterate, for anyone who hasn't read the dark era lightnovel - Oda does explicitly NOT treat the kids like his children. Why then would he treat Dazai like one? Dazai, whom he explicitly invites to go drinking with him in TDIPUD? How does that track? Is he supposed to be just a shitty parent? Or could it maybe indicate that he sees Dazai as his equal more than anything?

(Tangentially, I would argue that Oda's perception of what constitutes a child/an adult is horrendously skewed, considering his own past.)

Thirdly, and this is probably gonna be the one that might get me into hot water with some people, the thing I like to call the Cope. The tendency in fandom to manifest a hard line between groups of characters that somehow should never be crossed when shipping, otherwise that makes the ship badwrongtoxic. This is a phenomenon I've observed developing more and more in recent years, and it's ngl pretty worrying, because it's generally used to present one's own ship as "superior", and all "rival ships" as less than/bad. Ships with "significant" age gaps tend to fall into that category relatively often, but I suspect very few people actually genuinely care about the characters' ages, but rather use it as a shield to justify why these relationships are To Be Avoided. Odazai is an absolute stellar example of such a ship - by all means it should be way more popular than it is, considering the themes that surround it and the way its absolutely center to the nareative of bsd. But without fail, when I look up media for the ship, be it YouTube videos or simply browsing the tag on tumblr or pinterest, I see the same mantra repeated over and over - "how can you ship them, they're like father and son!"

(I'm concerned about the relationship you have with your parents, I say to myself in response.)

And its, quite frankly, just not the case. I cannot for the life of me find any indication of this so-called parental relationship anywhere in the text. All I can see is two people who are friends who have a deep and sincere love for each other.

In conclusion, not every relationship has to fall into the category of familial or romantic. Sometimes... people are just friends. Sometimes friends are some years apart in age. It's not shocking or special or anything, it literally happens all the time.

Just let them be friends. It's fine, really, it's allowed.

[solarmagickstar]

I've been hearing a lot of "gen alpha can't read cause they're iPad kids."

But like are we asking them what they *can* do?

Or how *they're* feeling even?

I distinctly remember adults when I was a kid saying we'd all be "brain dead" because of tv or texting or the Internet or some shit. And we couldn't defend ourselves cause we were literally children.

It's like this every time.

And every time each generation has to prove they're worthy of adulthood.

And this gen isn't even all in middle school yet and y'all are calling them failures right in front of their faces. It's not ganna help. If anything it'll make this much much worse.

I'm a Gen Z (well I'm in the transitional area between millennial and Z but most millennials tell me I'm gen z so fine.) I have gen alpha kids. And a lot of them (classmates and the like) are anxious asf about the world.

I wonder if they're putting up a tough front to keep the only control they have in the world as children.

Or living free before they have to become the overworked adults they see in their lives.

Or ya know death by school shootings if they're in America.

Or idk die from a once in a century plague cause their parents won't let them get vaccinated.

Or maybe it's something we could never describe or understand since we're not in that position.

Honestly every commentator I've seen on this topic hasn't asked a child how they literally feel. Like you don't have to put them on camera obviously (maybe don't actually for their safety) but like just ask? Or find ways to ask, kids can be shy about their true feelings sometimes. Especially if we keep pretending like we know them.

Teachers are over worked, parents are over worked. But haven't they always been? (Maybe we should actually do something about that? Like a lot have already been saying, but like actually do it? Maybe baby sit your friend's kid or go to the grocery store with them to help chaperone them? And try and do it for them for free, I get it if you can't but those who can should. I'm also not saying your should steal baby supplies, I'd never say that, I'd also never say to just steal food and hand them out, or to steal teaching and school supplies and just give em away or anything of course not! And I wish I could put the proper tone marks on this but for legal purposes I am being sarcastic.)

And doesn't each generation come with more problems or perceived problems because that's life? We're always going to find something wrong with the younger generation, we're constantly evolving and we're constantly looking for ways how.

Last thing.

What is intelligence?

Is it *really* being able to read?

Is it *really* scoring high on tests for studies?

Didn't we *just* talk about how standardised tests are wild and are often not very good at displaying what kids can actually do? Or are often hard to grade because of lack of staffing? Something something Pearson? Something something my history text book was older than me something something "Bill Clinton the president everyone is looking forward to!" Written on the back page Something something coming home to see late night TV making jokes about his shitty behaviour but making it more about the person who was literally harmed by this and making fun of her well into the 2000s..... (Oh has our education system and environment for kids always been kinda shitty? No way almost like it's a never ending battle.)

Have we truly figured out if the kids are alright?

Have they ever been?

Do we even know what that fucking means????

[dgcatanisiri]

I saw a critique of Picard season three put forward as "a story about how only boomers can save the day from the bad thing," and... I can see it, I'm not saying that it's an invalid critique, but at the same time, I don't think it's altogether fair.

Like, for one, I feel like if there's any age-based or generational-base of the storytelling, it's in the realm of "being old does not mean you have nothing to contribute." Which is kind of a big deal when most of the time in media, you see Hollywood specifically trying to draw in and appeal to the demographics of youth, to hook them in and hold them for life. Meanwhile, Picard centered on a character in his nineties played by an actor in his eighties, and aside from Jack Crusher and Sidney La Forge, every major character and actor in the season was older than forty, at least, with the TNG cast all over sixty, with only two under seventy.

It's a pretty big deal, especially when you remember that the last time that Star Trek was directly addressing the aging of its cast, the characters involved were in the fifty/sixty range, and talking like they were near the end of their years of being able to contribute something, that they'd come to the end of their road and were just going to fade away soon after. So while the TNG characters weren't necessarily on the front line and acting as line officers, doing the day to day field work, they were also very clearly shown as being able to contribute to the world they lived in, being able to make the difference.

Plus the framing of Seven of Nine, I feel, makes a refutation of the idea as well - she is, despite being a returning character we the audience already knew, at the head of the "new generation," we see that throughout her framing, particularly in her relationship with Shaw. Not just with her advancement to captain, but also in particular in that last message from Shaw in the finale, where he acknowledges that he's representative of the old ways standing in her way and that if she's writing a new book, it's because the old one needs to be rewritten.

Now, maybe you could look at this in like a "boomers versus millennials/Gen Z" thing, but - and maybe it's just my general trend towards optimism, particularly in my Star Trek - but what I see is NOT generational conflict, but more of a call for generational UNITY. Y'know, the first half of the season, we saw how Sidney's faith and trust in Seven helped save the Titan, because she respected Seven to call her by her name, stopping the infiltrator. Although it was part of the Borg hijack, Jack's connected nature helped to save the day multiple times. And Seven also trusted that Picard and crew could do something against the Borg.

Hell, I could even take this further, and call this a metaphor AGAINST generational conflict, that it's saying that others will try to use generational differences to divide and disrupt, and we need to overcome that - this is something I KNOW I've seen talked about plenty on Tumblr, how we have all this stuff trying to pit millennials and Gen Z against one another, in the same way that millennials and the baby boomers are. That this is an effort by the forces of power (power that goes beyond generation) to keep the masses divided against one another so that they aren't a threat to that power structure.

Because sure, the Supercube and the Borg Queen were destroyed by the TNG crew flying in and saving the day, but Seven and company retook the Titan and held off the assault on Earth long enough that they could do that without Earth and the Federation falling, and a major point is that Jack had to CHOOSE to leave the Collective, that it had to be his decision. Everyone had to work together for that happy ending, rather than alone.

Maybe I am being overly optimistic and taking the best faith interpretation at the expense of something else being involved and at play... But then, isn't that something that Star Trek has always tried to ENCOURAGE, to believe the best in things?

[utilitycaster]

Hi, first religion anon (NOT the same as the second religion anon). My main complaints are with TUC (mostly s1 but the ‘Jesus is real’ thing in s2 really bothered me) and the way that Laudna and a few other characters engage with the gods on CR. I have 0 complaints with Sam, I think his engagements with religion as both Scanlan and FCG are fascinating. I think things like ACOC and Kristen on D20 are done fine, but when they move outside of Christian allegories they tend to stumble. I know Brennan and Ally have philosophy backgrounds and Emily has a religious studies background, but frankly I’m not super confident in American universities’ ability to make people deconstruct Christian hegemony, and things like Emily using the phrase “Judeo-Christian” aren’t super encouraging to me.

thanks for clarifying, I was wondering about the second anon bc I was like "the first anon came in being fairly normal even if I don't agree and this feels...bad and also just a hunch but it feels like it's coming from a Cultural Christian who is not American. (also I did get your follow up question and I want to answer that one separately bc I think it's a good but separate point).

I know it's not terribly popular to say but being weird about the term "Judeo-Christian" feels like one of those things that Jumblr and other people in Jewish Millennial/Gen Z spaces online made a big deal about and I'm like "uhhhhh this was a thing my actual Jewish middle school teachers said sometimes; it's not the best term, no, but it was the go-to term in a lot of contexts until quite recently to the point that yeah, Emily going to school in the 2000s would probably hear it even from Jewish profs, and so it's not so much a red flag as a sign that she graduated before 2010."

I also honestly don't mind Jesus being real in TUC 2; at some point if you've decided all other mythology is real why not Christian religion. It feels, in a way, far more Christian-centric to treat Christianity as something that cannot be incorporated, as too real, as compared to say, Norse or Greek myths or Golems.

I will say that I agree that Ally and Marisha do tend to be a bit more limited in how they engage; I actually don't mind Laudna's frustrations with the gods from a "I think this comes from Marisha's personal feelings" perspective more so than a "could we...actually explore this as a throughline rather than a bunch of random-ass statements." I do think that Ally does tend to pull from their own experience; understandably so, but yes, it's very different than my experience as someone not raised Christian let alone strictly so.

I guess, and this might just be difficult to do as an anon ask thing, that I am looking at this very holistically. I am looking far more at what the GM is doing than an individual player, and I haven't had issues with Matt, Brennan, Murph, or Aabria's portrayal of divine forces. I find that Worlds Beyond Number has been explicitly very not Christian (and indeed, heavily influenced by Shintoism and pre-Christian Irish religion) in how the spirits are portrayed, and while I think Matt does tend to draw a lot from Catholic architecture and imagery and vibes, the way the gods engage with the players does not feel exclusively Christian (notably in Campaign 2; none of Fjord, Caduceus, Yasha, nor Jester's experience feel inherently cultural Christian beyond the fact that Travis mentions he doesn't feel like he can connect with the Luxon because 'it's a shape'). So it means I'm not looking to Ally for example for an exploration of religion that is as accessible to me, but I do find that actual play on the whole feels fine. I find a lot of the claims do feel like they get really hung up on specific details (eg: the Santa jokes in Chetney's backstory) instead of the overall feeling (eg: the fact that many of the deities have a very open, fluid, and at times intellectual form of engagement; the fact that the general message is that suffering is not purifying but rather simply sucks; Melora death domain traditions and especially Caduceus's philosophy which is very much outside American Protestantism; the polytheistic society of Vasselheim.)

[freeuselandonorris]

director's cut for just found me a brand new box of matches and how writing your second fic for the pairing felt versus the first, pleaaaaaase!

tysm this is a fun one to think about!

sooo after years of claiming that foot kink was one of the few kinks i did not fuck with (nothing against it, just never really did anything for me) i wrote a throwaway line in my first landoscar fic about lando chewing on oscar’s socked foot and thoroughly poisoned that particular well for myself. the image of it absolutely haunted me, and even though i wasn’t super familiar with lando’s personality back then in the way i am now, i definitely knew enough about him to be able to imagine him being a “foot pics pls” style replyguy and i found the image a) very funny and b) hot in a slightly gross/sleazy way (one of the best kinds of hot ofc).

i DO think i found this one slightly more difficult to write in terms of having a bit of stage fright about it. i posted my first landoscar fic — a prompt fill and one about them pissing all over each other — with very low expectations because piss fic usually gets very low engagement and i was used to the formula e fandom which consists mostly of me and my five friends all in different wigs at this point — and so the fact that people seemed to read it and like it and thought i’d caught their voices well slightly shocked me. i was also very up in my head about just how much younger than me they are, and whether it was going to be very obviously a millennial trying and failing to write gen Z dialogue.

having said that, i don’t thinkkk i did too bad a job with it? there’s a few things that annoy me now when i read it back (mostly really small and petty pointless things that probably nobody else notices like: i now know that lando is a PC gamer not a console gamer so he probably wouldn’t have been playing a PS5 while at home; yes i DO realise that my commitment to realism is borderline insane. but there’s also some of my favourite lines of landoscar dialogue i’ve ever written, like oscar telling lando the playlist is lo-fi beats for studying and doing weird sex stuff. i think maybe i was trying a bit toooo hard in places to replicate the snappy/funny dialogue that had come so naturally in the first fic, but yeah, overall i still really enjoyed writing it and i think it was pretty successful.

also i came out of it 100% into feet, so y’know, there’s that.

[thejudgingtrash]

Yass, time for adult!Percy!

I was wondering about life past the current Riordanverse and I really like the idea of gathering different possible jobs for Percy, for fics and for fun.

So here’s a few:

1. Teacher/Counselor

First of all, what kind of teacher? Is he an elementary teacher? Does he teach AP classes in high school? Which subjects? Public school or private school (let’s not forget, Percy spent a good chunk in his life in private schools as the token poor negro kid and was surrounded by awful arrogant rich kids like Nancy and Matt)? Montessori school?? And most importantly: no, I absolutely do not see it.

Percy’s ofc very compassionate and aware of surroundings, so he’d be on high alert with his students but with the current and former state in schools I don’t think he’s willing to get traumatized each and every single day at school.

2. Marine Biologist

Call me basic but since it’s essentially canon, Imma stick beside him (tbh I can’t remember anything past PJO lol). But marine biology is such an interesting and diverse field?? Like c’mon now!

Yes, it’s a lot more chemistry and math and physics than one might think but the possibilities? And the benefits with his powers? Let Percy get a minor in psychology and study animal behavior by actually interviewing them, IT’S A GENIUS MOVE IF YOU GET THE VISION!

3. Marketing Manager

Hehe. My field of study. Am I biased? Of course I am! Was this part of my fic Oh. It’s Them Again? Yessss, mama!

Again. Such an interesting field with many possibilities! And he’d get more than just a good check in NYC if he switches positions enough! Like… is Percy a digital marketing manager? How much does he hate Google, Meta, Amazon and co.? Is he working in strengthening brand awareness and if so, how? Is he forced to work in newsletter/email marketing? Is he a sales machine and constantly on the road? Or is he a key account manager and simply focuses on a handful of important clients?

Is he, as a disgruntled millennial, forced to work with spoiled gen z influencers he hates and has to figure out the TikTok algorithm like a grandpa on the sofa whilst unhelpful Annabeth is laughing at him (shut up Annabeth, we all know you use IG reels and occasionally YT shorts at best!!)? Does he accidentally go viral and HATES everyone calling him daddy in the comments??

Oh, the possibilities.

4. Firefighter/Paramedic

Hell yes. I saw someone else posting about this ages ago (if you can remember, feel free to @!). But this is so interesting. If you want to somewhat stick to canon and let Percy use his powers, this could be an option.

I see it, helping and saving people that way could be an option. Still, also more on the traumatizing side but I actually think this is more interesting than a teacher. And oh, the possibilities in stories are endless! Saving people and pets from burning houses. Coordinating shifts in the station, being a first responder… oof.

That said…

5. Doctor

Oof, I should really work on The Wedding Dance in the future even tho it’s hella minor plot point…

Hospital doc? Owning his own practice doc? Doing 1 first and 2 next? What type of doctor is he? Simply an internist? A gastroenterologist? Pediatrician (could be traumatizing)? A surgeon to let out his god complex? Okay, let’s note down surgeon for Annabeth… a neurologist? Endless opportunities. Where’s the PJO x Grey’s Anatomy fic we all need??

6. Hotelier

Whilst the service industry is incredibly fucked (pre- as well as post-Pandemic), this is also interesting. Let Percy and Sally own a bed and breakfast. What does it look like? How many rooms are there? How much do they hate booking.com and AirBnB for taking a good chunk of commission?

Where’s the hotel located? In Montauk? In Manhattan? In Greece?? What are the roles? Does Sally do the cooking and house keeping whilst Percy does repairs and is the receptionist/clerk?

Who are the guests?? You decide!

7. Chef/Baker

Ahhh… Chef!Percy my beloved, you will always be welcomed. So. Much. Stuff. To. Think. About. And yes, this will actually be relevant for one of my fics, IFYKY. Head chef, deputy chef, junior chef… did Percy go the Institute of Culinary Education? Did he go to Italy or France for a few years to hone his craft? Or did he purposefully say f Europe, let’s head somewhere else? What is his specialty? How much sleep does he get per week?

Also I’m never letting go of Baker!Percy and Sally who own their sweet cupcake shop and sell all kinds of sugary shit!

8. Stay at Home Dad

My fave trope, don’t get it twisted! While I think Annabeth and Percy realistically have one kid max plus two or three pets, I love the idea of Career and Business Woman!Annabeth and SAHD Percy who’s trying to make her life as easy as possible whilst tending the baby, trying to clothe the toddler and reminding their elementary school aged kid to pack their lunch.

A chaotic, yet amazing and rewarding life (which is still stressful! Just a different kind of stressful!)

Sooooo…

What do you think? Agreements, disagreements? Anyone who’s interested/in school for/already working in any of these fields? Do you think it’s unrealistic? Is it realistic?

Mayhaps, I’ll think about other demigods and what they can do in the future 🧐🫡

[thilsworld]

[October 11th 2024]

Once again I forgot to post for a few days so... Yeah...

Yesterday was my sister's birthday though! Since her apartment is really small she decided to visit me and my mom instead of us visiting her. My mom made homemade Belgian waffles and we decorated them with whipped cream and sweet sauces (meant for ice cream but whatever) and chocolate sprinkles.

Here's a picture, featuring Storm

Unfortunately my birthday gift for her got delayed and it ended up arriving literally 2 hours after she went back home. So I'll give it to her next time I see her. Which might actually be my own birthday since that's 11 days from now...

We also played cards against humanity again since that's her favorite game. To make it a little more interesting, we also always add 1 random white card, so the person picking has to choose between 3 instead of 2. But sometimes the randomly selected card from the top of the pile is a little TOO good. At the end of our long playing round I had 19 points, my sister 15, my mom 21 and the randomly selected card 9. Which... 9 too many to be honest...

Here's a nice example of the random card fitting TOO well. Cause the first white card was my mom's, second was random, 3rd was my sister's

Now as for something about today instead of yesterday:

I'm trying out something new. For the past week I had been struggling to make my day to day life more meaningful and feel like I am productive, considering I am disabled, don't work, and due to anxiety also don't go out often. I'm basically in a bubble with just my mom and cat, and occasionally my sister, my best friend, or my therapist.

So I went looking for someone who had documented their daily life routines down to it's VERY basics. I wanted to find some habits that work for me to make my life feel functional.

I found this blog from a husband and wife, very conservative Christians so definitely not my type of people, but the wife had basically written down EVERYTHING she does from the moment she wakes up to the moment she goes to sleep. Brush teeth, pray, put clothes on, open curtains, EVERYTHING. And one thing it said was that she starts her day with a cup of coffee and the newspaper. Which, is very normal I know. But I decided to give it a try today for the first time. But in my own way cause I don't like coffee and we don't have a newspaper subscription at our house.

So I made my breakfast, and went through the news app, taking small notes of anything that seemed noteworthy. Most is quite depressing, but one thing I loved seeing that according to a research they did among millennials and gen z, about 48% of people in that age group identify as lgbtq in some way, and another 30% is an ally. How amazing is that! I love how with time we're slowly becoming more progressive, and because of that younger generations are able to identify themselves more safely from earlier ages.

It's currently 21:32 as I type this so I guess I'm gonna stop typing and just go to bed now. Maybe I'll write down my (very short) routine tomorrow, kind of like that blog I found, so I can see in the future what stuck and what improved.

3 positive things about today:

We had pizza for dinner

Mom and I played monopoly again, and for the first time in AGES i actually won

I felt more fulfilment today than the past few days. Idk why cause I didn't do much more than usual. I guess I got out of bed on the right foot

[dasboligrafo]

Illinoise -- May 24, 2025 @ St James Theatre

Oh my god, what to say about this one. Remember my theatre rating system (how many times I cried, over 5?) By the system, this show is...what percentage is infinity out of 5?

Basically, the lights went down, the (absolutely fantastic) band swelled out the first few bars of "Concerning the UFO Sighting," and I started silently weeping and I. Could. Not. Stop. for the remainder of the show. Despite being, generally, a huge crybaby, I could not have predicted that reaction.

I passed on seeing this show at the Armory (I have a string of terrible decisions involving the Armory...I still have not seen Lehman Trilogy after passing on seeing it on opening night, among so many others.) I will say I'm not sure that was, for once, necessarily the wrong decision, just because it's hard for me to imagine seeing this show there, especially from high up in the seats. I suppose it depends on the showz but that space can feel quite alienating. The St James is a pretty small theatre and I doubt there are any really bad seats in the house as a result. I'm sure the show got sanitized, some edges polished unto anodyne for Broadway. It doesn't matter. It was so fucking moving.

Before taking my seat, I grabbed my summer theatre treat of choice (the $50 big white wine, with ice. Pure class) and the lady who sold me the drink, while perfectly friendly, asked me what I knew about the show in that sort of tacky way I get asked about stuff in New York by younger white people who assume they must know more than me than whatever interest of theirs I'm about to engage in. (I guess, interpreting charitably, I look like a tourist to them.) I mumbled something about Justin Peck and NYCB, not even trying to get to -- listen, Lady, Sufjan was the music we listened to in college, so by extension, it is the LAST popular music I am aware exists. Sufjan is very much the soundtrack of my life.

Only I didn't really realize that, apparently, until I saw the show? Although I listen to Seven Swans a few times a year, I didn't realize, prior to "Illinoise," that I know every word to "Illinois."

The thing about "Illinois" is that, like all great generational works of art (there, I said it), you can receive it entirely differently depending on your age at the time you encounter it. So when I heard "Illinois" as young dumbass, I thought it was music about yearning; about the things you want so badly and might never realize and/or might not be able to front the cost. And now as an old(er) dumbass I find the record is about regret, about the things you give up and the mistakes you make ("I made a lot of mistakes...") making those choices or letting them happen to you, and about how the choices haunt you, even as you're making them. And I didn't understand that then, although the *second* word sung on the record is "revenant."

The *magic* of this record is that it is spiritual concept folk-rock opera music, still managing to connect, in an age devoid of spiritualism and shy of conceptual pop music, with an incredibly broad audience. To clarify, I'm talking about the current age; when the record came out, you could still make a concept album. I believe that age ended around 2012, Kendrick Lamar excepted. I don't know when the age of spiritualism ended, I think it was before I was conscious of contemporary art works. If you go to a Sufjan Stevens concert, or to "Illinoise" for that matter, you will be treated to the sight of literal children -- people under 15 years old -- singing all the lyrics. And crying millennials, naturally. My boomer friend told me "Chicago" is his and his (gen z) daughter's song, dating to when he drove her to Chicago for graduate school.

And oh, yes, it is a sublime piece of Americana purporting to exalt the state of Illinois and its millions of inhabitants and events, past and present, and actually examining, at the most personal level, how faith can fail to deliver you, and still impart your life with grace.

The magic of "Illinoise" is that it is a concept ballet masquerading as Broadway, of all things, i.e. an expression of universalism and accessible theatrical cliche where the text is, incredibly, a tale-as-old-as-time style campfire story anthology (hello, Decameron! I've got your story framing device here....) WITH NO DIALOGUE, about leaving your (gay) lover behind to experience the pleasure and promise of the big city and how you will feel regret and gratitude forever for the gift of having him, the gift of moving on, the gift and curse of free choice, the curse of loss.

When I think about "Illinois" only barely disguising its core concern with Christianity ("to recreate us...all things go, all things go" only a couple misunderstood syllables away from "to the Creator..." for example) and outright telling us what it's about in other places ("I made a lot to mistakes," "If I was crying, in the van, with my friend, it was for freedom from myself and from the land," etc)...this beautiful directness and lack of high-minded artifice was always already destined to be on Broadway. I didn't mind that the show is, at times, frankly...quite literal. I experienced "Illinoise" as the rare miracle of a message arriving packaged in its perfect medium. I feel so fortunate to have seen it.

Coda: I thought the dancing was fantastic, easily my favorite Justin Peck choreo this year. Genuinely accessible, technically proficient, appropriate to its text and moving.