#don't judge me for the ai app I've deleted it!

[middlingmay]

So I was thinking about Fem!Bucky again and how @avonne-writes @brotherwtf and I were losing it in separate convos one time about how thick and lovely she'd be.

I used one of those shitty AI gender swap apps (hilariously bad results, as to be expected), but can you imagine Gale trying to keep it together when faced with this:

I also found out about Abbye "Pudgy" Stockton who was a female body builder in the 1940s and I'm dying a little bit because look at her. Look at them all:

And now I'm thinking what if Bucky wasn't in the women's air force but was part of a show that entertained the troops: Bucky Egan and Alice from Dallas bringing the USAAF to it's knees, and poor Gale tries not to swallow his own tongue when for some reason, Bucky Egan takes a shine to him.

[lucigraves]

I'm poor; I've lived on or under the poverty line my whole life, though I've been lucky to always have a roof over my head and food on the table. I try my hardest to find joy in small things as I navigate managing finances and debts.

I buy myself a $3 drink in the morning so I don't want to kill myself by noon. I get a text from my dental office; my insurance covered less than they projected and now I owe an extra $100+. This is not the first nor the last time this will happen, nonetheless, I suddenly feel very guilty about the $3 drink. For the rest of the day I think about what better things that $3 could have gone toward, I think about every $5 or $10 I spent on something frivolous in the last few years, convinced thar if I had been better with my money I wouldn't be in such debt.

I go to therapy; I know what real self care looks like, but I work 40 hours a week, drive an hour and a half round trip every day. On that drive I see 25+ billboards covering up the trees starting to turn golden. I think about how much it costs for that LED billboard to stay on 24/7. When I do have time to get out of the house, I end up trapped inside catching up on all of the chores I have no time to do before or after work.

Taking part in social media makes me feel guilty. Every word I type out is getting filtered through some AI I can't opt out of, trying to figure out what the trending words and phrases are, what products I need; how to advertise to me.

I talk about needing a new mattress to my friend. All of my ads are now from local mattress stores. I have all personalized ad settings turned off in every app and yet I can't have even one irl conversation without the 10 devices in my home listening to me, waiting to hear me say the name of a product so it can be the next thing I see on a screen.

I've cleared all three of my emails recently, going from 100k+ emails down to nothing in an effort to try to minimize my (comparatively) very small carbon footprint, and so I can keep better track of important documents. I mark emails from any corporation as spam. A week later I already have 2k emails back in my inbox, all from places I just spent hours blacklisting. But the whole store is 50% off and it ends today! I filter the company name through the searchbar so I can delete them all. I notice that the whole store has been 50% off and ends that very day for at least the last year and a half. I wonder how much energy is wasted on some bot sending the same promo email to every person on their list three times per day.

I download a game onto my phone, knowing the truth but still hoping that this one won't be flooded with ads in between every level. I'm quickly disappointed, immediately met with a 30 second long wait to be able to hit the x in the corner that's about 3 pixels across. Another 15 second ad for the same app pops up, this one with an "immediate download" button. Several new games I've never seen show up on my phone the next time I go to my apps; I wonder what else ended up on my phone without my knowledge. I try to download an app for work a while later, but this time I have to prove its me with an authentication code sent to my phone and one to my email. Nothing else on the app store seems to work as quickly as those ads with an faux 'x' and immediate download button.

I find time in between everything else and I start making art again. I open up my account as I contemplate posting something new. It prompts me to accept their new terms and conditions; I either have to give them permission to use my art and my content to train AI to do what I spent years trying to find inspiration for again, or never use the site. I could use another site but curating an audience just isn't something I have time for. I'm trained to judge my art's worth on how many clicks it has; I decide to post it to my private account for just 5 close friends to see.

I spend all of my freetime scrolling; that's what I've been conditioned to do. There's not enough time in the day so the dopamine I need has to come quickly and conveniently. The next post I see is from people literally dying, people begging for help, for any humanity, for laws to be passed that will give them rights and help them survive. I wonder how much money the next politician will spend on their campaign efforts. There's an ad underneath for a gambling app.

I hear about a CEO who was killed - the media wants so badly for me to feel bad; he had a loving family and friends. I think about that $3 drink I felt guilty about a few months earlier because my insurance denied coverage yet again, or how many nights I've laid awake, anxious about all of the debt I have, or if I'll be able to go to the grocery store this week, or if my rent will be late again, or, or, or. I think, he had a good life, he probably lived well beyond his means. He had food on the table every night, and probably never experienced the fear of not having a place to sleep for the night.

I buy myself a $3 drink; I don't feel bad.