#I'm so tired of this bullshit

[alegriavida]

A recent study shows that US Americans have a much lower life expectancy than comparable countries, and it keeps dropping. Mortality rates for children are rising, and for all of this, people are blaming it on bad habits and obesity. Meanwhile we have medical bills that are in the hundreds of thousands of dollars with scarce access to health insurance, and the government is focusing on killing trans people.

[usurperss]

Not someone crediting my OC art, claiming them as their own characters....

[thatgoblin]

I'm losing any motivation to share my writing on this fucking website. I've been a part of some toxic fandoms before (fucking Superwholock as an example) but holy shit, the COD fandom is becoming more and more garbage.

I keep seeing hot takes about telling people to kill themselves because they wrote a kink someone didn't like and cried morality about it.

Policing who can and can't write for the characters because someone doesn't like the pairing. (That's just a thing everywhere but it's overwhelming the mount of it here.)

People acting as if canon fucking matters and everyone should be abiding by it.

All the fucking gate keeping.

And that's just the shit between the fans.

There's also the people who fucking act disgusting to the actors.

There's no fucking winning and it's disheartening.

So either I stop posting or I start posting some fucking wild queer bipoc kinky shit because spitefulness won.

We'll see.

[joanna-lannister]

still feel like my uterus is gonna murder me 🙃

[nutelloona]

not this lesbian refusing to kiss me after learning I'm asexual

[mearcatsreturns]

rant incoming

I’m in my mid-late 30′s. I look at least a decade younger. I have one post-grad degree and will be finishing up another in a few weeks. I have over a decade of work experience, too. One of my “pay the bills while I finish grad school” jobs is at a wine room, and I know my stuff reasonably well. We sell some beers and spirits (mostly local craft brewery/distillery stuff), which I don’t know quite as well, but I can put a good showing. 

today, we got one of ~those~ customers who came in, put his grubby hands all over the freshly cleaned glass coolers, then couldn’t tell me what he liked about German beers (which we don’t have, but again, I can tell most people what they’ll like if they can tell me whether they like about the hoppiness/bitterness/maltiness), assumed my friend/manager Brandon was the owner in spite of the many “woman-owned business” stickers, then called me sweetheart. We don’t live in the South, where that would be tolerable, if still not my favorite. It’s infantilizing and patronizing. 

this is just a couple weeks after the local artist painting our patio seating (who is also the SO of one of the bartenders next door, where I used to work), came in, saw me at my computer--Sundays are usually slower and I do homework/writing. She then said kind of snidely, “it’s great that you kids these days have phones and computers to keep you occupied during slow shifts, I just had to read a book.” I lifted the book next to me, and she then said, “oh, it’s great kids are still reading.” I told her that I am, in fact, the age I am. She got flustered and tried to play it off like a compliment that I look younger, but UGH. like ma’am, I am probably 5 years younger than you. 

I NEED people to stop assuming ages/experience levels/interests by looking at a person

[riikiblr]

guess who had to say sorry again when it wasn't my fault 😀

[vankaar]

I don't know who needs to hear this but it's normal to have a less than spotless house.

Even if you tidy up every fucking day there's always moments where everything is a hot mess.

And it's normal to have days or weeks when work, life or your own brain or body gets in the way and you don't clean.

It's not a problem, it's not shamefu, it happens and it's normal.

Let's normalize messy houses. \0/

If you want to put a photo of your own mess you're welcome.

[oppossums]

FRUSTRATION!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! ANGER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[chaos-bringer-13]

Three in the morning. Time to read those seven articles for my tomorrow today history lectures. Gonna pretend that I watched those three episodes of a TV program I was supposed to watch for the same history lectures. Think I study history? WRONG. Programming.

[entropyunending]

ugh. i was fine all day, but almost the second i decide to stop drawing i start feeling like shit for no god damn reason.

[eowyntheavenger]

Hey, is it another annoying and miserably uninformed comment on my post again? Nice! Since you're clearly allergic to reading the news or engaging in critical thinking, I'll help you out. By the way, it took me like five seconds to find sources for this stuff. 1) Biden has approved over a hundred billion dollars in student loan forgiveness. Do you think Trump is going to do something like this? Hmm? Yeah, I didn't think so. https://www.forbes.com/sites/adamminsky/2024/01/05/132-billion-in-student-loan-forgiveness-approved-who-qualifies-and-whats-next/?sh=34236cc34a01.

2) Biden has tightened limits on drone strikes, reversing Trump's expansion of them. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/us/biden-drone-strikes.html. Or maybe when you say "no more foreign wars" you're complaining about aid to Ukraine. Well, I think it's a good thing that the Biden administration wants to help Ukraine defend itself. But the Republicans don't want that, and if Trump returns to the White House, Ukraine will be on its own. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/06/us/politics/senate-ukraine-aid-bill.html

3) The Biden administration has fought against family separation and made serious progress—they recently reached a settlement, which has yet to be approved by a federal judge, that would prohibit family separations for the next 8 years. They've also reunited 3,126 families and are working to reunite the remaining 1,100. https://www.texastribune.org/2023/10/16/biden-lawsuit-family-separation-border-settlement/ The settlement, if approved, would also help families pay their medical bills for health issues caused by the family separation policy. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/biden-admin-reaches-settlement-aclu-separated-migrant-families/story?id=103999466

Notice how this settlement is only valid if it's approved by a federal judge? Do you know who appoints federal judges in the first place? The President appoints them—and they're confirmed by the Senate. WOW, IT'S ALMOST AS IF VOTING FOR DEMOCRATS IS A GOOD IDEA BECAUSE IT ADVANCES OUR INTERESTS. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?!

By the way, I know this isn't enough. We still need more student debt relief, we need to abolish drone strikes completely, and we need to ban family separations forever. But the Biden administration is making good progress on a lot of issues with the power it has right now, despite Republican obstruction. This progress MATTERS. This progress would not have happened under a second Trump term. It can and WILL be reversed if Trump is reelected—and I'm not even touching on abortion rights, gay rights, trans rights, minimum wage, education, climate change, the environment, healthcare, you name it.

So, yeah, stop spewing cynical nonsense and actually make the effort to read the news. And vote.

Americans, these are things we are NOT saying in 2024:

"Voting blue won't solve anything." Yes it will: if enough of us do it, it will solve a problem called Trump's second term in the White House. We unfortunately live in a two-party system. If you refuse to vote, you're effectively voting for Trump. I shouldn't need to explain this to people, yet here we are.

"It doesn't matter who's president. Both candidates are the same anyway." No, they are REALLY not. Biden was never my first choice, and his shipments of arms to Israel are despicable, but don't try to tell me even for a second that a second Trump term would be the same for the world as a second Biden term.

"But voting blue won't fix [fundamental underlying problem in America]." Voting for Democrats cannot fix every issue, this is true. But by saying this and ONLY this you are discouraging people from voting by making them feel hopeless. Voting is one of many tools in our arsenal, not the only tool, but an important one, and it does matter.

"You shouldn't vote blue, you should do [other thing] instead." See above: you can vote and protest and organize at the same time. It's not either/or. You can do it all. Stop discouraging voters from exercising their rights under the guise of leftism.

"Voting is just legitimizing government power. It makes you part of the system." Literally just shut up. Women and people of color didn't fight for their voting rights to have you say things like this. If you live in America and you can legally vote, then you should fucking vote, and vote blue. There is no neutral option.

"Voting blue just makes you complicit in [this bad policy]." Inaction, and allowing Trump to have a second term, is worse for the entire world than any Democrat policy. Yes, even that one. Voting is not about finding a perfect unproblematic candidate. It is about choosing the lesser of two evils.

"Voting doesn't work because—" STOP IT. STOP DISCOURAGING PEOPLE FROM VOTING.

You know who wants you NOT to vote? Trump supporters, that's who. You should be suspicious of ANYONE who is suggesting that your vote doesn't matter, or that both candidates are the same, or that Biden's policy on XYZ means you shouldn't vote for him. Trump supporters aren't trying to get your vote by saying, "Vote for Trump!" They're trying to get your vote by DISCOURAGING YOU FROM VOTING AT ALL.

I don't like Biden either, but Trump is unequivocally worse. Voting doesn't fix everything, but it is the minimum fucking requirement of living in a democracy. Voting for president has real, tangible, immediate impacts on people's lives, and choosing not to vote is not the rebellion you think it is, it is just relinquishing your voice. So fucking vote. THIS IS A GROUP PROJECT AND DAMN IT WE ARE NOT FAILING BECAUSE OF YOU.

[telepathicfeline]

Every time someone on Project Runway decides to do a “gender fluid” or “non-binary” or “gender-neutral” outfit it is always the most absolutely boring, and usually very feminine, thing.

And it’s not that feminine clothes can’t be gender neutral (let’s be real all clothes are, or should be, gender neutral), but these designers put a feminine woman in a dress, or my other most hated thing when they say they’re going to give a woman something masculine and then it’s the most flowy blouse and pants and a full face of make up, and keep saying they’ve done something radical.

And what gets me is it’s even LGBTQ+ and specifically genderqueer and gender non-conforming designers doing this!

(And obviously Project Runway isn’t the most avant-garde place for fashion but it is a reflection of the fashion world in so many ways and it’s especially frustrating to see LGBTQ+ designers do this)

[youwillfindilluminating]

it’s glaringly obvious that el/on mu/sk has an embarassment kink, but this is taking it a bit far...

also none of us consented to take part in this with him. like dude stop bothering us.

[fiercynn]

wait you mean this part of voting is not harm reduction: an indigenous perspective???

We don’t dismiss the reality that, on the scale of U.S. settler colonial violence, even the slightest degree of harm can mean life or death for those most vulnerable. What we assert here is that the entire notion of “voting as harm reduction” obscures and perpetuates settler-colonial violence, there is nothing “less harmful” about it, and there are more effective ways to intervene in its violences. [x]

wow way to cherry-pick a single line and ignore the ENTIRE FUCKING POINT

[hbosscreations]

Cool take, super condescending about the whole 'ego stroking' thing, but this sure is a take. Here's the thing, though.

Most people who are posting fics and art this way? The ones who are hurt because people won't take a single solitary second to leave a 'good job'? The ones who are asking the people actively reading and talking about their shit to tell THEM?

They already ARE doing it just because they love it. People don't spend years of their lives on projects because they're ambivalent and don't really care. They don't tend to write novels about movies and comics and tv shows because they hate them. People, as a general rule, create because they are inspired and enjoy what they are making.

That being said, WHY THE FUCK SHOULD THEY BOTHER SHARING THEIR SHIT IF NO ONE IS GOING TO SAY ANYTHING?! DO YOU GET HOW CRUSHING IT IS TO WRITE 100,000 WORDS AND HAVE NO ONE WHO READS IT SAY ANYTHING?!

The people who are upset are the ones who are looking for a community. Fandom used to be about ENGAGING with other people. SHARING the things you love. It used to be about TALKING AND MAKING CONNECTIONS WITH PEOPLE WHO GET YOU. It used to be you could upload art or stories and god forbid MAKE FRIENDS WITH LIKE MINDED INDIVIDUALS!

Now it's a content mill and the creators didn't sign up to be alone.

You're telling people who are creating beautiful art for the sake of OTHERS to sit down and shut the fuck up because they don't DESERVE for their hard work to be recognized with even the barest of 'nice job' or 'I loved this'. Because if they loved it, they'd just keep cranking out content for you to jerk off over forever without a crumb of acknowledgement.

Genuinely, if you feel this way, go fuck yourself. The fandom community doesn't need people like you. Go tell someone you liked what they created and crawl back into your goon cave where you belong.

A writer friend told me something that broke my heart a little bit today; they're going to quit publishing their fanfic.

My instant thought was that they had been trolled or attacked or that something terrible had happened in their life because this person is so passionate about their writing. It wasn't any of that. Engagement with their works has been going down, as it has for many of us. Comments are like gold dust a lot of the time, and just looking through the historical comment counts on old fics on ao3 demonstrates this trend very clearly. It was not simply the comments dropping off which caused them to decide to stop posting, however.

My friend came across a discord server for their fandom (I should point out here that their fandom interest and mine diverged a couple of years ago, we stay in touch but don't currently read each other's posts because I'm not into their fandom and they would rather gouge their eyes out with a wooden spoon than read anything Star Wars) and specifically to share fic in that fandom. They joined, because we all love a good fic rec, only to discover that their latest multichapter fic, which has almost no comments and very few kudos, is being hotly discussed in this server as one of the best stories ever. Not one of these people has bothered to say this to them on the fic. When they asked, none of participants could see the point in telling the author of the fic they apparently loved so much that they love it.

This discovery has absolutely destroyed my friend's love of sharing fic. They share because they love seeing other people's enjoyment, and fic writers do that through comments and kudos/reblogs/likes because we don't get paid. There is no literary critic writing a blog post/article about how amazing the story is for us to copy and keep/frame. There is no money from royalties. All we have are the words of the people reading our works.

Those people on that server could have taken five minutes of the time they spent gushing about how amazing my friend's story was to other people and used it to tell the one person guaranteed to want to hear that praise how much they loved it. They could have taken a moment to express their opinion to the person who spent hours upon hours plotting, writing, editing, and posting those chapters. Instead, they deprived my friend of thing that keeps them sharing their writing, and in the process have killed their love of it. My friend now feels used and unmotivated.

I won't be sharing a link to their fic, they said I could share their experience but not their identity. I know they plan to post one final chapter. I know they intend to express their hurt at being excluded from the praise for the thing they created, and I know they intend to announce that as a consequence they will not be posting for a long while, if at all.

So please, I beg you, don't hide your love of a story from the writer. It's just about the only thing we have.