#I love being a cog in the machine that is capitalism

[a-dumb-sarcastic-bisexual]

Nimona trio house headcanons

So I said in a post that I cant find because I've made like 30 headcanon posts that the trio’s house is a perfect combination of them

But I feel like I’ve been purposefully vague about where they would live because I didn’t really have an idea before now but now I do 

Imagine literally any Disney cottage and you have it 

It’s a small three bedroom two bath single floor unassuming little thing 

There’s enough room for all of them and an office but if they hadn't been through Hell and back together it would feel stupid cramped  

They live in a heavily forested area that has a decent amount of houses around it with enough space between them to give the comfort of privacy 

When they bought the cottage they were really looking for qualities that they would all enjoy 

The cottage being surrounded by trees was actually really beneficial for Nimona 

It actually kept her from leaving for a very long time because she spent a solid 6 months mapping out the forest and discovering new things almost every day 

It was far enough from the city that Ambrosius felt like he could breathe 

This was the first time when paparazzi weren’t within arms reach and when he realized that he cried tears of joy 

And the house was enough of a fixer upper to give Bal something to do for at least 2 years 

The house was very old by their standards so he spent months figuring out how he was going to renovate it before they even signed the papers 

Their neighbors are also saints who know no one as high profile as those three move all the way out there for fun

They came over to offer housewarming gifts like food and other things but they mostly keep to themselves unless they need something or are explicitly invited

This was a breath of fresh air because for some reason the people in the city were unusually nosy 

You’d think it would be the opposite but no their apartment neighbors wouldn’t leave them the hell alone 

You’d also think that they would hate the trek to and from work and that it would be harder to lose paparazzi but again no

The three of them love long car rides and the heavily forested area makes it easy for them to lose them in the trees 

Their new neighbors also noticed that they did things like keeping the outside of their house as unassuming as possible 

Like Ambrosius planted flowers outside and they have some knickknacks that are too big for the living room 

But the house is painted a similar color to the rest of the area 

They also park their vehicles behind the house and make sure their names aren’t visible on the outside of the house 

And the curtains are drawn most of the time 

So the neighbors do little things like park their cars behind their houses so this habit doesn’t seem weird or text the boys when they see an unfamiliar vehicle driving down the street 

Or let them know to stay in the city for a little longer cause someone has driven back and forth down the road at least 10 times 

Every time they do this Ambrosius and Nimona bake them something or Bal offers to help them around their house 

Literally anything to show how undeniably grateful they are for all their help

And most of the time the neighbors turn down the help and share the food the trio made with them 

Because they’ve done more than enough already

[mosquitinho]

one of the regulars at my job is an old lady whos a seamstress and she teaches free sewing classes on saturdays at a cultural center and my gf+i went to one of her classes and she rules it was awesome i relearned how to use a sewing machine also have i mentioned she's an aikido master . i love her shes my grandma now

[fuck-customers]

Got a new coworker at work and she's already getting on my last nerve. She's a boomer, so obviously she's one of those 'I love working and being an insignificant cog in the corporate machine' types. So far she's tried to advocate for us to deep clean the place EVERY NIGHT because it's "not clean enough" (my work place isn't dirty, we do thorough cleans during close and deep cleaning jobs are handled on a rotating basis but ofc, as with every place, there is your standard amount of dust and grime) and is insisting that we should come in early unpaid. She's also the type who gets really passive aggressive if you stop working for longer then a minute.

The other night I had to handle stocktake. When I got to our frozen goods I decided to lean against the adjacent counter will counting everything out because why the fuck not - I'd just finished moving a lot of heavy product around and I was sore. She comes past, looks at me, and goes "if it were me, I'd be pulling everything out, cleaning the fridge and rearranging it all neatly WHILE counting". Okay?? What do you want, a fucking medal?? Cause corporate won't give you one, let alone a 5 cent raise for going 'above and beyond'. I'm not making $100 an hour, so they're not getting that level of work off me. I'm not a suck up, I'm not here because I love capitalism; I have bills to pay and the job is a means to an end. If they stopped paying me, I'd stop coming in, it's that simple. How do people like this actually exist?? Like, I'm glad she's not the usual dopey, lazy ass new hires we've been getting but goddamn there's gotta be a good middle ground between that and authoritarian robot employee.

Posted by admin Rodney

[birdiethepoet]

womanhood is my cursed commercial prison. i want to exist but must do in the confines of oppressive expectations, or be condemned. i want temporary love and intimacy but i know it’s bad for me. nothing hurts more than empty human interaction. please don’t leave me on a shelf to be objectified, but please let me be something. not a doll to be beautiful. isn’t it awful how i want to be beautiful anyway? has capitalism made me this shallow or was i always meant to be morally dubious and hypocritical? is the universal human experience, that we all suffer, something i remind myself to numb how complicit i am in my suffering? i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know. we are condemned to a system that doesn’t love, and capitalists prey on carefully constructed insecurities that actually, seriously, don’t matter. the beauty industry is bullshit. you were born and now you must hate yourself. the fact you breathe in crisp air and appreciate simple walks and sweet pastries should be enough, but it never is. become one with the machine. you’re a useless, feminine cog in a system that hates you and teaches you to succumb to these fanciful, idiotic expectations because this is how you survive. this! can you believe it? being a woman means living as a third-person observer to your own life. constantly wondering if you’re beautiful to anyone and how to be more attractive. then you’re demonised for thinking it. it’s not your fault for being socialised to be this way, but it might be your fault for perpetuating it. narcissism is the death of human empathy, especially for women. what is the answer to it all?

[theproverbialpen]

Musings from a Hazbin Fan and Hotel Employee

Yeah, that's right—I'm posting to this blog for the first time in years because I got into Hazbin Hotel of all things. Not only did I get into this cursed fandom, I'm writing fan fiction for it. Fan fiction. I think the last time I wrote fanfiction was...2012? 2013? And I only ever told 3 people about that one. Now here I am posting on main. The brainrot truly is unquantifiable.

If you're one of the few people that survived the purge of those I know IRL, congratulations. Please don't judge me lol. Anyways, actual musings are below the cut!

So I’m writing a fun little fanfic on AO3 and after someone left a comment (if you’re reading this, still genuinely one of the nicest things anyone has ever said to me about my craft), it occured to me—as a Hazbin Hotel enjoyer, I have a pretty unique perspective on the series as an IRL hospitality professional. So! Thought it would be some cute bonus content to talk a little bit more about my life at an actual hotel and how it’s impacted my experience with Vivziepop’s hit series. 

Please note: this is written purely for shits and giggles. I don’t actually have any issues with the setting of Vivzie’s narrative or how it plays into the stories she and her team want to tell. I fucking love this show, to a potentially unhealthy degree, and I haven’t had this much fun with a series since like…okay well my hyperfixations change like every few months, but still. Point is, this isn’t actually critique, or satire, or anything with negative or critical intentions. TLDR; this post is for funsies, get off my dick.

So Who TF Am I, Anyways?

A little background on myself, for context. I’ve been employed at my hotel for almost a year now, and it’s my first hospitality job. I work in the Sales and Events department and I’ve come to learn that Group Business is actually integral for keeping a hotel up and running. When your average person (read: me before this job) thinks about hotels and traveling, you’d think it’s all about the families, bloggers, and individual travelers when it comes to guests and revenue. But in actuality, most of a hotel’s revenue—at least in the market I work in—will come from contracted room blocks and events. 

That’s where folks in my department come in. We work with clients to negotiate contracts and secure occupants for our hotel year round. Simply put, if we don’t do our jobs well, then no one else gets hours. So as much as the anti-capitalist in me will sometimes hate being a cog in the machine, it is really fulfilling to be able to help clients meet their needs while also making sure my coworkers are able to put food on the table. 

Speaking of being a cog in the machine, because of my role in Sales, this means that whenever I travel or think about hotels, I’m always thinking about the revenue side of things. I also work more with the Events team, so operations are also on the forefront of my mind. Which leads me to my principal quandary for this little blog post:

How in the Hell does the Hazbin Operate?

I have a laundry list of questions. A laundry list that’s almost as big as the actual pile of dirty laundry that is currently plaguing my bedroom floor. I will summarize (which is a generous word given how fucking verbose I can be) below:

Issue #1: Revenue Generation

Okay listen, I know Charlie is the Princess of Hell. I know she probably has unlimited capital, whatever that looks like in the HelluVerse. And I know the Hazbin is literally there to help rehabilitate people so charging them to stay would be counterproductive.

But my dude…do you understand how much money would be needed to run an operation of this scale?

At the end of Season 1, the new Hazbin is huge. Like it easily looks as big, if not bigger, than the hotel I work at which has nearly 500 rooms. Do you know how much revenue our team has to generate to keep this place running? Do you know how many millions our target goal is set at for each quarter? How many hundreds of thousands my coworkers’ individual quotas are set to? And sunshine in a bottle over here doesn’t charge her residents anything????? 

How does she get all those decorations? How does she order food or inventory? We know Hell has an economy, like Angel literally says he needs to save money for drugs in his first appearance. Is she…does she even pay her staff???

It is utterly appalling that Charlie is able to operate a hotel of this scale, both because of how it doesn’t make sense from a business perspective and because there are IRL billionaires that could probably do the same thing and solve homelessness overnight. 

Speaking of scale:

Issue #2: The Hazbin’s Systems, Or Lack Thereof

Okay so, yes, there’s only like…one official resident of the hotel, maybe two if Cherri moves in and doesn’t become a staff member (RIP Pentious, you would have loved living with Cherri Bomb). With the staff the way it is, that’s a solid 5:1 ratio, which is beyond ideal. But—and I touch on this in the fic—I feel I must reiterate: the new Hazbin is fucking massive. And you know what that means? It’s going to be able to hold a lot of guests. Guests that will need staff to take care of them. Let’s review:

Charlie is the owner and mostly teaches classes. Vaggie is the co-owner and kind of acts as the Executive Assistant to Charlie’s General Manager. I guess Alastor is the Hotel Manager? I’m gonna be honest, I have no idea what he does, but generally speaking he’s supposed to be the jack of all trades and manage the rest of the staff. Niffty handles Housekeeping and I guess would be the director of that. Husk is the bartender but like canonically only really eats pub food so he definitely can’t be the Food & Beverage head. 

Let’s say we scrap the Sales and Revenue Departments because clearly they don’t need income, but we keep a Marketing position so that Charlie can get the word out about the hotel. That leaves us with the need for Engineering, Front Desk, Rooms, and F&B staff. And like, not just one person—that would fucking suck—but proper staff. And given their track record of organization and managing the hotel…let’s just say, I would not be applying to the Hazbin Hotel anytime soon. Honestly, it sounds like that job would qualify to be the new tenth circle of Hell. 

What Does the Hazbin Get Right About IRL Hospitality?

So yes, clearly the world of the Hazbin Hotel leans towards the more fanciful—it is a story about Hell after all. However, there have been some moments that have made me chuckle as a hotel employee, things that are relatable for us in the hospitality world. Allow me to highlight them for you below:

Everyone is Bat Shit Crazy

Hospitality professionals are weird. So weird. Before I started my job, I was terrified of the level of professionality I would need to have. When I first got hired, I was given a whole packet on dress code and appropriate conduct. As you can probably tell from my writing style, this was concerning: I can be professional when I need to be, but I cannot maintain that guise for extended periods of time. Call it my toxic trait.

I also already had this impression of poised and put-together hotel staff from my previous experiences with travel. All the Front Desk agents would be in these clean and wrinkle-free clothes with kind yet business-forward attitudes, office workers would be walking around in full suits, and occasionally you’d see the hotel management on the floor if you were looking. Let me tell you now—it is a facade. An act. An incredible stage production unfolding in real time where all the staff do their absolute damndest to make you feel like you are in an organized and professional institution. Not unlike a certain hit animated musical.

My direct supervisor, the literal Director of Catering and Events, once told me that being a liiiiiittle crazy was a prerequisite for working in our department during the hiring process for a new Sales Manager. She was wrong—the prerequisite is not “a little” crazy. The prerequisite is being bat shit insane. And it’s not just our department, oh noooOoooOo, it is every department. Downstairs in our little basement dungeon, we make out of pocket comments, scream at random intervals, and swear way more than we should (that one might be my fault…according to my partner I swear more at work than at home and apparently it’s rubbing off on my colleagues), but that behavior is in no way restricted to just the Sales Team. 

I process the checks that are sent to our property and our Director of Rooms makes me say “can I get a WITNESSSS” before she signs off on the drop log (Charlie-core). If I don’t say it high pitched enough or with enough vigor, she makes me do it again. I once watched a guy in Engineering climb a tall step ladder balanced with two legs on a platform and a third leg balanced on a wooden plank his coworker was holding steady. The fourth leg was over the open air. Let me reiterate: the open. Fucking. Air. Tell me you can’t see Angel Dust and Cherri doing that shit.

Speaking of Engineering, you wanna know what dumbass thing happened just this morning? The Regional Director of the department—regional meaning he manages teams all across our area, like top level type shit—told us about this cursed ass Instagram trend he found where allegedly, putting ketchup on a Kit Kat tasted like fudge. So right there and then, him, myself, and two other coworkers decided ‘why the fuck not?’:

I would never seek it out willingly again, but I honestly didn’t hate it. 

The point of all of this is to say—the antics the Hazbin crew get up to? Totally realistic. I could see my coworker Robert throwing me into an active battlefield against my will. We have deadass done the role playing thing Angel and Pentious did during our trainings, and it was just as unhinged. Every day some shit happens at this hotel and I’m just like, “Yup. That could happen in Hazbin.”

“Call Now! Or Don’t! I Don’t Care! We Still Don’t Have a Working Phone!”

I would like to preface this section by saying: if you happen to be a Front Desk associate, I’m sorry. This is not directed at you, this is directed at your managers and their communication skills that may or may not exist. If you are somehow a manager reading this, uh—first of all, cringe. Second of all, I hope these next few paragraphs don’t apply to you. If they do and you’re offended: that’s a certified you-problem, babes. 

There are three certainties in this life: death, taxes, and miscommunication from your fucking managers. Tell me why in this past week alone I have been in 5 different email threads regarding fuck-ups and complaints from guests about things that we had clearly communicated. Tell me why in these email threads, people were attempting to throw me under the bus or shift the blame to my team. Tell me why I have gone to every single individual office in my department complaining about this. Tell me why this isn’t the first time this has happened.

Another hotel tidbit: across the board, Q1 (Jan-Mar) is supposed to be slow, for all of hospitality. It’s the time to get the metaphorical phone lines working, ya know? Our Q1 was stupidly busy, so I get it, people were slammed and short staffed. But like… we had time. Time to iron out our communication, time to create systems and processes that would ensure we’d be all set when things got busier. Yet here I am at the start of Q2 with an entire fist shoved up my ass being puppeted around to fix other people’s mistakes. 

It’s times like these when I go back to rewatch Hazbin for the like 26th time and I watch Charlie and Alastor run the hotel and I’m just like “whyyYyYyYyYyYy”. Like I KNOW Vaggie has had days where she’s like, “what…what am I supposed to be doing right now? Like what is my job, what… What?” 

It’s not just Front Desk either. It’s every department, even my own bosses. Like the call is coming from inside the house, sweetie, why did you tell this Sales Manager that I was taking care of all her commissions but you didn’t tell me this. Why am I blocking a room for an Orientation the following Monday at fucking 5:45 PM on a Friday. Why am I JUST finding out about a VIP guest when I have been asking you if you had any notes for me for the whole week.

I touch on it in my fic as well but like…pretty sure Charlie just, decides to host her classes day of. And that drives me insane. Like I…there are processes. Things that need to be done so that everyone is on the same page. You don’t just wing this shit, that’s how you end up with Susan calling your Director to tell her that you’re a useless waste of space not even deserving of the air in your lungs because you didn’t give her her fucking breakfast voucher. 

As a character, I love Alastor. If I were ever in the same room as him, I’d probably hate him. But if there’s anything relatable about that Geneva Convention Violation on Legs it’s his absolutely done attitude in Episode 1’s opening commercial.

Charlie Loves Helping People, and So Do We!

Alright, I’ve complained for enough paragraphs, let’s be positive for a second. The thing that is by far the most true to life in Hazbin Hotel is how much joy Charlie gets from taking care of her guests. Like…that’s our bread and butter in the hospitality world. Well, maybe just the butter; we need that bread in the form of cold hard cash (or direct deposits, whatever works best). But as much as I will bitch and moan about the difficulties of working in a hotel, there’s nothing quite as fulfilling as a guest telling you that you made their entire trip better. The butterflies I get reading reviews where my coworkers are mentioned by name and a guest writes about how we completely turned around their bad day are an absolute delight. It just means the world knowing that you can have that kind of impact on someone, even if it’s just in the little things.

In Episode 2, when Charlie and the crew are welcoming Sir Pentious and she just starts vibrating with excitement is exactly how I feel when I get to meet a client that we’ve been working with for months and finally welcome them to our property. When they sing “It Starts With Sorry” and just get to have a moment of empathy and compassion together, it reminds me of the clients and the phone calls I take where I get to ask them about their goals and help them feel like they’re supported and heard. In the grand scheme of things, is a nice phone call or interaction with some hotel employee going to change your life? Probably not. But for those few moments when their burdens seem lighter is why I love my job.

This goes for guests, and for my fellow coworkers. I’ve been very blessed to start my hospitality career in an unusually supportive work culture. Yeah, we can be some right petty bitches sometimes, but overall everyone is so encouraging and so quick to help lighten each other’s loads. Like in Episode 5 (best episode btw, for obvious reasons) when all the Hazbin Crew are working together to prepare the hotel for Lucifer’s arrival, that shit made me so giddy cause like- that’s us! Look at us go! We workin together so hard, we’re so cute! Like when Niffty and Pentious are baking and she looks up at him all excited n’ shit—that’s literally been me working with our Director of Restaurants on new food menus or promotional material. 

There’s something about being in an occupation where your whole purpose is to take care of people that really brings out the selflessness in you, and I think that’s what makes the hotel such a great setting for Charlie’s mission of redemption. I didn’t realize that until writing this paragraph tbh, but yeah, it just kinda…works. When your job is to make sure other people have a good time and feel supported and you’re surrounded by people that make you feel the same way, it’s a lot easier to want to choose to do good, to do right by the people around you. So as much as I have some silly little nitpicks…yeah, I can admit—I love that this show is about the Hazbin Hotel specifically.

Anyways, if you made it this far, thanks for reading! Next update for Life is In Redemption will be out in the days to come, just thought this would be a fun addition while I work on some of the content with my friends. This upcoming chapter is going to have a co-author, so get hyyyyyped :)

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2024: #23

23. POLAND Luna - "The Tower" 29th place

Decade Ranking: 85/153 [Above Luke Black, below Tvorchi]

POLITICS CLAIMS ITS FIRST VICTIM!!! ORACLE NATALIA WAS RIGHT!!

JK, I wish that were canon, but I cannot reverse-engineer our reality into a fiction where Serbia qualifies over Poland by a hair because they blanked them after Xi's visit hijacked the live broadcast.

Anyway, this section of the ranking is always chaotic and inconsistent. Bad songs with acts that made me lol, alongside kind of charming hopeless filler, alongside great songs with painfully bad lives.

Enter "The Tower". People been saying it's a bland, generic song and as is often the case in a democracy, the people are fucking WRONG!!!! Quirky indie wenches with brittle voices singing metaphorical build-me-up synthpop is MY safe zone and you won't make me leave it!

This came with the addition of Luna having the best warbled pronunciation since Maggie Burger ("BREAUXKEN BAWDEEZ SCAATERT FRUE MAHISTERRY" OB*SESSED*.) and being relatably bad at chess (same, girl.) I refused to believe Luna was birthed into this world. She emerged fully formed from a pod, (designed by the same crazy medical students that have now captured Slimane to use his live voice as ethical (for the patient) cancer therapy), created with the sole purpose of fitting the template of a Bubblecore Fave. Luna represents EXACTLY the sort of act I would love to overrate at my leisure.

Sadly... nope. It all kinda went the way of Roxen in Malmö. It was badly performed and badly mixed. I feel like a lot of Poles (I'd say "people" but do "Poles" count as such? Isn't selling your entire soul for the first bad banger a mandatory initiation for Eurofan Poles?) would just scapegoat Luna because THAT WITCH BEAT JUSTYNA, but I disagree. I sympathize with her and I think her team did her dirty. This Polish NQ was a group effort and Luna was only one cog in that machine. 🙂 Besides, Justyna deserved a break from the spotlight so she can enjoy her four remaining Christmases.

The capital mistake was to not recognize the level of performance maturity Luna had. She's fairly inexperienced and not the most powerful vocalist. She's also NOT a dancer. At the time of the contest she was at a level of "can hold a tune when standing still, on a good day."

So if she struggles to perform the act you've planned, somebody's got to step in and make it so she can perform it every time.

Simplify and practice it until she's able to do it.

and do not, for the love of Sennek, make her MOVE WHILE SINGING?!!

LET HER CONCENTRATE ON HER VOCALS, YOU SHITS.

WE ALL SAW HOW ROXEN MURDERIZED FOUR SONGS INTO AN EARLY GRAVE FOUR YEARS AGO AND THEN DIED THE FOLLOWING YEAR WITH AMNESIA UNDER AN ELABORATE CHOREO.

HOW HAVE SOME DELEGATIONS STILL NOT LEARNED THIS EASY, ESSENTIAL STAGING LESSON?!

IF YOUR PEFORMER CANNOT SING + MOVE, PICK ONE ("sing" unless she's Kaleen) AND STICK TO IT. FIND SOME OTHER WAY TO ADD IN MOMENTUM.

(lol sorry for the rant but i'm writing these late at night on whatever energy reserves I have left so I can to keep up with 1 update per day. Anger's all I have left. 😔)

It's not like the MV didn't offer an easy way into good Eurovision-friendly staging. Dear TVP, what exactly was wrong with this?

Just stick her in the middle of the cross on a podium, and drape finery around her until she resembles the titular tower. The song was about self-discovery and growth, and that would send the message across with minimal confusion.

But Poland went with what they went with and sigh. It was the opposite of Slovenia, really - it looked AMAZING but didn't really compensate from the fact that it sounded VERY BAD.

But if the staging looked that good, then why was it bad? Well, Poland had a concept, an idea and it could have worked, but it didn't.

Conceptually, this is good staging. The backdrops and floordrops were rad and the chess-themed styling worked gave it a beautiful and unique feel like we'd never seen before.

However, it came across as Poland making an attempt at directing the part of Europe that weren't on Xi Jinping's visit schedule away from their song, and this an erroneous display of disrespect. Visualize according to what the song needs in order to shine as a song. Don't obfuscate it with flourishes that don't synergize with it.

There were too many elements. You don't need three chess piece dancers, AND LED sorcery AND an elaborate choreography AND two giant rook props AND two fucking dress changes (one of which happened in wideshot because ofc it did).

The beauty of Art is knowing what elements you can keep and which you can (and should) take away. (does not apply to "minimalist art" which lands somewhere between "decoration" and "scam".) Simplify, rather than complicate. Don't thrown in all the ideas you have as a Hail Mary (notice that this route is often taken by desperate countries that are notoriously shit at Eurovision - Poland, Denmark, Malta, etc). Test out which elements work, and choose those that suit the artist the best.

Poland's failure is choosing excessive staging that pushed too hard for (1) a performer who was not ready to execute all the pieces (2) a really simple, fun basic synthpop song. It overwhelmed both Luna and "The Tower".

It was not Luna's fault. Not entirely. The Polish creative team had a series of lapses in judgement, and it ended up in a shock NQ that I didn't see coming until it actually happened. Even though I like the overal package (the song's really that good!) I didn't feel it was an undeserved elimination.

What killed Poland wasn't just inexperience, politics or overambition.

It was foremost a lack of confidence in their own product.

THE RANKING

[thejollywriter]

So I'm going to be real, I have been struggling in a way that is difficult to articulate. In January this year I was working for Pizza Hut, doing delivery work in this new Northern City that I share with some tumblr mutuals.

One night at the end of the evening I was robbed. I wasn't physically hurt but a man pulled a gun on me instead of paying for his pizza and had an accomplice take the thermal bag and walk away.

Man put a gun in my face and threatened to end my life for pizza. When I get back to the store my manager was wildly unhelpful aggressive with the cops, and generally uncompassionate to me.

I quit a couple of days later because said manager wouldn't make changes to our delivery range after a certain times of day in order to protect me, the only delivery driver that actually worked for this particular store. Every other delivery was literally handled by doordash.

I've been struggling ever since, in some ways financially but in a larger metaphysical way that I haven't really been able to give voice to until a couple of days ago.

I admit being hung up on the fact that a man put a gun in my face over Pizza. I don't know if it's reasonable to be hung up on that fact, that a man threatened to end my life over take out. And given that context, I have struggled pretty immensely to give a single solitary fuck about the normal things that I had been worried about before then.

How do I fucking care about a cubicle job in the face of that?

There's a phrase; don't borrow grief from the future. But given that the guy put a gun in my face there is only the potential of what he could have stopped if he had pulled the trigger. All the books I haven't written, the friends I haven't met, the partner I haven't seen, like.

I would like to have a more stable job, and make more reliable money but I just can't bring myself to fucking care about the pantomime of the nine to five. And that's really hard to deal with because it's just like, I can't ignore that I almost fucking died over Pizza, it's not fucking worth it and yet that's what happened. And I'm supposed to just keep on playing the exact same game as if that's all my life is fucking worth? 15 bucks an hour and dying for pizza?

I don't know how I'm going to solve my money problem. But I'm kind of throwing myself into my art and my patreon and my streaming because it's just like those are the only things that matter, cuz it ain't about the money it's the fact that like these are tangible things that will be left when I'm gone. There will be art with my name on it that will be left in my absence.

I hope to live for many decades and spend a lot of time with the woman I love and my friends and just experiencing a big beautiful world, but the violence of capitalism is making it really fucking hard to cope with there being no recourse to; I almost died over takeout and I'm now fundamentally incapable of playing the game of being a happy little cog in a worthless machine.

I cannot physically do it.

[scherzosa]

20 days of productivity dedication

I decided I hate measuring my work in terms of "productivity". capitalism is so pervasive that even our passions, our art, ends up being termed a "product". I won't stand for it! I love what I do, I love research and learning. I am not working towards any monetary goal, I am not a cog in the machine. I study for me! for no one else! so instead, please welcome to my 20 days of dedication.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ day 2/20 - finished up my research for one section of the paper and read a whole bunch of articles! making progress :)

(painting by @999999999sx on instagram)

[kharmii]

Someone posted more garbage blaming male isolation on 'white guy culture' and 'capitalism', and then, like a coward, they made it so a person couldn't reblog. I still wrote something in reply:

No, it's not the usual bullshit sheltered left-wing college kids want to blame it on. No, everything isn't the fault of 'capitalism' or 'eeebul white guys'. Again, secular progressivism has caused more death and misery worldwide than all religious wars combined. If anything, leftwing culture has made everything more effed up for men with screw around culture creating an environment where we now have the greatest percentage of unmarried men in recorded history. For sure, it's not healthy for men to treat their SO as their only source of emotional support, but now they don't even have that.

Everything started going wrong during the Carter and then Reagan administrations in the 70/80's. Before then, men could get good paying jobs in a factory near where they lived and make enough money to support a wife being a stay-at-home mother and a couple of kids. Pushing women to enter the workforce 'for independence' is a huge scam foisted on us, because now we have a culture where both parents often have to work to barely afford a couple of kids and a mortgage. Women find it more noble to be cogs in the machine. Some people can't even manage the kids, (or they are lazy and selfish) so they end up with a butt-licking poop-eating stanky dog-child to get extra weird about.

Next thing you know; they're leaving rude comments about Kristi Noem shooting a damn dog (it's a fucking dog, calm down weirdos) while gushing, "I love my dog so much! Look at my shit-breath baby that just got done eating its own ass and is now licking off my ice-cream cone! Isn't that cuuuuute!"

Anyway, another problem we have (that goes along with the point about men in social clubs) is that we don't have close knit communities anymore. We don't have neighborhoods where everybody knows each other. How many people live in isolation on social media and don't even know their neighbors? How often do you see block parties or guys inviting the other guys on the street over for a cookout? Less people have children, so you don't meet new people having other peoples' kids knocking on your door asking if your child can play. (I suppose theoretically you could meet new people letting your stank-beast 'child' run around a dog-park).

-So then you have isolated men who have to meet other male friends through work. How would that work out for me if I was a male? It sure didn't work out for me being a female. I married and had children with a man from the other side of the goddamn planet while the losers I worked with labeled me as no fun because I wasn't into the Dem voting blue state party culture.

If you are a man in my place of employment, you have to be into the casino boats, betting pools, smoking pot jokes, telling the same stupid stories about getting drunk at bars and ballgames during your long-ago youth....and it's no wonder half of them ended up childless, unmarried weirdos in their forties and fifties. There was the one lowlife into fuck-and-dump culture, (and even he lived with his mom until age 40) but most of them are incels who are getting fatter and balder. None of them have grown into mature role-models with great character. None of them are the elders at the church or the guy you'd go to if you needed advice.

Side note: The guy they've talked into stalking me doesn't fit in with the culture. Under better circumstances, (like if he wasn't a misogynistic patronizing asshole who isn't even attracted to me, and I'm not really sure what the deal is.....) I might be into him, because for an older man, he's physically fit. He's into one of those Sierra Club type groups full of people doing outdoorsy shit, such as camping, hiking, canoeing..etc. He belongs to a lot of co-ed social clubs where they play cards on Thursdays or whathaveya...

Meanwhile, the flabby lowlife goobers complain that 'there's nothing to do in a small town! This is why so many men are dying of fentanyl!'

I've taken the piss about this so much. The Kharmii be like.......you mean there's not enough lowlife shit for low lives to do in a small town? Low lives have to OD on fentanyl out of boredom because there's not enough for dirty rotten low life scumbags to do? You have to drive all the way up to the suburbs for strip clubs and casino boats, and the Biden economy has made gas over $4/gallon?

[illnessfaker]

reading books is good but i think acting like doing your school/institution-assigned readings as required gives you some kind of superiority over people who don't do them just makes you look like a suck-up, idk if y'all forgot but usamerican english classrooms & the education system here at large don't serve to actually develop and proliferate knowledge and wisdom - they serve to prepare the population for becoming a cog in the machine. doing your homework to the letter doesn't make you better than somebody else it just means you're better at performing to the system's standards, which uh, good for you. the fact that this mentality has taken such root in "progressive" circles is pretty baffling ngl.

plenty of people suck at school & academia while happily reading books (including classical works) and developing their knowledge/exposure to such material outside of the context of an institution demanding it of them, and there are those who would love to but otherwise have their energy sapped from them due to the fact we live under capitalism and most of our time is parasitized by the ruling class. i don't think anyone is stupid or lazy for not wanting to bother reading what is academically assigned to them - i think we live in a society that is structured against actually developing and building knowledge. while that's the case being all "maybe if you actually paid attention in english class--" is eye-roll worthy.

[nyaagolor]

Assorted Halcandra headcanons because I’m in the mood

- During the Silver Age (I put the Halcandran kingdom timeline into ages which I can explain in another post) science was most organized and systematized, so there was a class system set in place to distinguish the type and “value” of science being practiced

- The uppermost echelons of science functioned a bit like renaissance artists, in that they were sponsored by aristocratic patrons. However, as per the kingdom rules, the patrons weren’t allowed to actually dictate what the scientists studied or made— that was up to the researchers to ensure as unbiased a field as possible

- These scholars were well cared for and had all their needs met so they could focus on advancing the technology of the kingdom. Typically, they had their own labs, which were put in wizard-esque towers, the idea being that their work would be touched by the light of heaven and so they could receive the gods’ wisdom by being physically closer to them. It was a superstition, of course, but the scientists had a tendency to be egotistical and megalomaniacs love towers

- Halcandrans mostly wore robes and wraps and assorted similar things, so embroidery to show status and class was a huge thing back then. Tassels and earrings were big. They also covered their mouths, the idea being that their work was the only thing that could truly speak for them. The fancy high class scientists and scholars in particular had golden cogs or stylized cog-like pattens sewn into their robes, since gold was the color of royalty and an extreme status symbol. A certain someone mimics that in his own, modern clothing

- That particular kind of science was very experimental and artsy, but only included a small fraction of the actual mechanics, researchers, and scientists that were present on Halcandra. These scientists were of a lower class and did not have the status, patronage, or wealth that the upper class scientists did. Rather than push the fields of knowledge past their limits or make fancy machines for royalty, these scientists were mostly focused on the production and maintenance of everyday items

- The working class scientists’ color was blue, the same color as many laborers within Halcandra. The bright blue stood out like a sore thumb among the mostly warm colors of the surface, making it easier for workers to spot each other at a distance (and also it was easy to make, as the most common mineral in halcandra stains a bright blue when rubbed onto fabric)

- Other than the use of blue for practicality, there wasn’t much in the way of class identification for most scientific laborers because that sort of display has little value outside the capital or very wealthy areas. The flowy, showy robes were swapped for job-specific protective equipment, since Halcandra actually did have pretty decent labor practices

- One specific job I want to highlight is “diving”, which was very often done by orphans or unskilled laborers under the direction of a middleman. The divers would go to clockwork graveyards (a fancy name for junkyards full of Golden Age scrap) and scrounge for parts— valuable metals, circuit boards, blueprints, anything that could be recycled or sold. The middlemen were mostly merchants, and would appraise, sort, transport, and sell the wares brought to them by divers. Magolor was one of these as a child, but often smuggled bits and pieces he especially liked back to his house to tinker with. He managed to teach himself quite a bit about science and Golden Age metalworking through experimentation, which caught the attention of a particular adventurous upper-class scientist named Koppoko who took him on as her apprentice

- Little guide for a few Halcandran outfits as demonstrated by 10 year old magolor (note: he wasn’t a high class scientist at the time and wouldn’t have owned such fancy and gaudy robes like on the far right but it’s good for a demonstration)

[necroangelz]

IMPORTANT NECROANGELZ ANNOUNCEMENT

hey guys. its me. future missing person necroangelz from the necroangelz Tumblr account. i just got back from spending the morning outside, and i have some thoughts to share and an important announcement. i hope uu can listen

spending time outside really gave me alot of perspective on the world. i stood outside, my feet on the gentle green blades of grass, admiring the towering trees with leaves that flowed with the wind. the wind was strong and i felt myself so free I could unfurl my wings and fly into the sky, like the sail of a ship, or a kite, guided by the wind.

just like how the sun crawls up into its rightful place on the horizon and how it illuminates the savage lands below, i came upon a realization

i wanted to spend more time outside! i loved seeing trees and the greenery, i loved seeing the ocean, i loved breathing in natural air, i loved feeling the sun on my skin! i was made to go outside and touch grass!

but of course, i cannot relish in a blessing without sacrificing another thing.

that is why i must quit Tumblr and editing to touch grass. no, no, don't worry about little old me. this angel will be alright. I'm happy being outside. and, you know, somewhere down the line i will also finish my education and get a high paying job. i can contribute to society and our economy and capitalism and be yet another faceless cog in the machine that serves our billionaire corporate overlords. and i don't have to do this alone. i encourage you all to do the same, and do it with me. let's all quit the internet and touch grass.... together.

here are some pictures i took this morning while i was outside. maybe my message and my photos can touch someone's heart out there.

so, this is goodbye. thank you all for making my time in this website so wonderful.

[mush-dooms]

I have decided to be done working for the day and have been doing fuck all at my desk for the past half hour. I am a great and valuable employee. I love being a cog in the machine that is capitalism. I am also. slepy.

[mcd-incorrect-quotes]

i forgot thanksgiving was yesterday but my mom woke me up at 3 am to tell me happy thanksgiving that being said remember that america (and europe, but i'm assuming since i started this blog in america my audience is mostly american) is built on the backs of oppressed people and you are nothing more than a cog in a capitalist machine. companies care about money and not people. but this holiday's also about community! so reach out to your community, through your family and friends, and always cherish the connections you have together. the capitalism machine profits off of this holiday, but don't let that make you forget that while the founding of the holiday is horrible, the core of the holiday, the reason we enjoy it, is because of community. love your friends and families. they love you. :]

[queerauntie]

November Reads

November was a blast, I quit my toxic job and these books really helped me from falling into depression again. Before that job I had been unemployed since July and it was dark y'all. While we aren't fully out of that hole (summer, summer hurry up!) reading has been such a transformative way to heal from the misery I'd been feeling these past few years. Without further ado, November's novels:

Love Radio by Ebony LaDelle

Rest is Resistance by Tricia Hersey (Founder of The Nap Ministry)

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab

Odd One Out by Nic Stone

Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab

Black Girls Must Be Magic by Jayne Allen

Love Radio was a delight. The characters were so cute and well thought out, and their personalities were fun to see interact together, making them a perfect match! While it's a red flag to me when someone is so persistently pesuing someone, I am willing to call it a Doppler/Dahmer (a himym reference ifkyk) situation and lean in. I'm glad I did because Prince ended up being worth the leap of faith. Talk about someone who genuinely wants to show up for YOU, in any capacity they can. So many people (read men) feel like if they have feelings for a girl, the only way they can have a successful relationship is if it's a romantic and sexual one. FAKE concepts like "the friend zone" are their way of telling us they can't love us in any other capacity, because it's not about us, it's about the claiming of us. Prince loves Danielle and he isn't caught up with those ideas and he sees Danielle for who she is, an amazing young woman who's on her journey and deserving of love. Danielle goes through a gutting experience that she deals with throughout the story, and as she's not initially open to romance, Prince doesn't see that as rejection or a "chase" or "tease". He truly hears her and is happy to meet her where she needs and shows up the way a true friend would, which Dani definitely needs at this point. I loved this story, and even though I saw it at Target, it breaks through the Target Tear, I definitely Loved this book!

Rest Is Resistance by Tricia Hersey is a book I've been highly anticipating! I've been following @TheNapMinistry on twitter for months now, her message is simple. Rest is not something we have to earn, we rest because it is our right. Her work centralizes Black People who've had their rest robbed for centuries, reminding them that rest and dreaming are key to liberation. This message extends to non-Black people as an introduction on how to start breaking down our cultural brainwashing and recognize how our complacency upholds capitalism, white supremacy, and patriarchy. When we prioritize resting over the never-ending machine that is American capitalism, we become a wrench instead of a cog. This book, right next to How We Show Up, go right on my required reading for friends and community. This book will also be read again, every time I need a reminder!

The next book on my list was the first major book I read this year, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. While almost all of the books before this were around 6-9 hours, Addie LaRue comes in at 17 hours! It was very intimidating, and I initially was reading the book wrong, I was looking for the rising action to begin and was zooming through the first half thinking it was merely world-building. I was wrong, it was all a part of the journey that Addie herself was on, figuring things out as she went and learning so many important lessons along the way. Once I understood that I needed to be a part of the story with Addie, not a ghost viewing from above, the story took hold of me fiercely and I was completely hypnotized by this world. It was a thrill ride to the end, trying to figure out where it could possibly end, and what solutions could we possibly come to. Another read again to simply be in that world again, and of course, to prep for the hinted-at sequel!

Odd One Out was a book that was recommended by my bestie, this is the book where I started to go "maybe I just don't like male characters..." because there was absolutely nothing Coop could do that I didn't take issue with! The author really had me in the first half because I was ready to fight him for not getting over his crush on a LESBIAN! But bestie told me to give good faith, and I held out hope. Spoiler alert it does not end in a polyamorous ending, I'll rip that bandaid right off for ya cause no one did for me. But the ending was satisfying and I guess if it's vaguely personal, I can't be mad someone got a happy ending!

Black Cake was a haunting and beautiful journey. I've talked about it more here, so please go read that, or better yet, just read Black Cake. It's definitely in my top 10 of the year, it was pulling on the heartstrings, keeping me on the edge, and immensely satisfied by the end. It was a novel I could trust, whether it was a happy or sad ending, you could feel the care and love the writer put into this novel, and it was beautiful to experience this story and I hope it continues to gain lots of attention, it deserves all the flowers!

A Darker Shade of Magic! Wow what an amazing story! This is my best friend's favorite book by their favorite author, so it was LONG overdue that I read this book! By God it was fan-fucking-tastic! It was another Schwab immersive world I couldn't get enough of. I was thrilled that there was an entire trilogy to enjoy, and even more, so that a second trilogy is in the works. I will be talking more about V.E. Schwab as an artist because she is just phenomenal and I am looking forward to reading more of her works this upcoming year!

Black Girls Must Be Magic was somehow better than it's predecessor, how many sequels can say that? But it absolutely felt like catching up with an old friend and I was beyond thrilled for her in this chapter of her life. Healing from the loss of her grandma, Tabi continues to face work struggles and personal problems. But she's been working on rebuilding her support system so she has her besties to confide in and work through those things with, instead of doing it on her own. I am so proud of the growth she's made in this journey, and I can't wait for the third book to come out. I have a few more thoughts about this series here, so enjoy!

I did it, I got through november! Stay tuned, December shall be posted within the next 2 hours!

Yearly Book Count: 23/??

[scrreeeamformx]

fuck this weather

why is everything moving even slower than before today? im currently typing this in a dinosaur aged laptop belonging to my sis sitting at home with god knows what's the weather out there now, 35 degrees? and alternating between needing to sweat and also not overheating myself. i seem to remember that my sis describes me as being a carnivorous plant, i need water and moisture if not i just die which literally happened to me 2 days ago. temperature shot to 39.3 and i was delusional. body aching too much to get on my feet to wash up and head down to our family doctor, was in a half dazed mood the whole day, the bloody meds making my tongue all numb and all food tasting bland. well glad all thats over.

today is the last day of my so called medical leave and gotta return to being a cog in the machine of capitalism? economic growth? whatever it is, its the thing that gives me money so i can spend it however i like and on whoever i like. i just realised my last post was early april this year and it always feels like a whole year has passed since i last written in here. at least its still a consistent thing for me. no matter how infrequently i write. i still got opinions and stuffs to say, maybe not to humans but online. because this space is not meant for anyone but myself. so no judgements, no stonewalling, nothing, just peace and quiet, exactly how i want things to be.

my job is chaotic now, so different from the previous one but the time passes really quickly and im learning new shit which is all good. colleagues are pretty good as well, no mind games and management is old school/traditional which is fine by me. still not very sure about working under a female boss but time will tell. man once this week passes, it will be 3 weeks im in this new company, time sure passes quickly. the rest of my life is pretty much the same really. i miss hanging out with my group of 5, me included. can be totally myself with them, all of us feel the same way. minus the smoking and hard liquor. i think my 3 cups of soju bomb was my max till i flatlined. man at least it was in their home and not some pub or strangers home. glad to always have them, need to catch up soon like for real. for real.

why am i talking like im a homie? pretty soon i will be saying bruh to everyone and hierarchies be absent. i dunno i mean i read about this new generation now called generation Alpha? like how weird is that? i thought the alphabets thing was already weird enough but now we have alpha? said it came from being ipad babies, born and raised using ipads. sounds privileged and kinda sad though tbh to have ur whole world shaped using electronics without being able to use ur 5 senses to discover the world around you. damn im glad i was born a millenial, if i have a kid next time, wouldnt know if i am raising an alien or a child anymore. they be all smarter than us and taking over all our jobs in no time is what im saying.

guess thats all i have to say for now. peace out, love this community.