#i hate successful people

[joestrummen]

holy shit he can sing

[inkskinned]

one of the things that's the most fucking frustrating for me about arguing with climate change deniers is the sheer fucking scope of how much it matters. sweating in my father's car, thinking about how it's the "hottest summer so far," every summer. and there's this deep, roiling rage that comes over me, every time.

the stakes are wrong, is the thing. that's part of what makes it not an actual debate: the other side isn't coming to the table with anything to fucking lose.

like okay. i am obviously pro gun control. but there is a basic human part of me that can understand and empathize with someone who says, "i'm worried that would lead to the law-abiding citizens being punished while criminals now essentially have a superpower." i don't agree, but i can tell the stakes for them are also very high.

but let's say the science is wrong and i'm wrong and the visible reality is wrong and every climate disaster refugee is wrong. let's say you're right, humans aren't causing it or it's not happening or whatever else. let's just say that, for fun.

so we spend hundreds of millions of dollars making the earth cleaner, and then it turns out we didn't need to do that. oops! we cleaned the earth. our children grow up with skies full of more butterflies and bees. lawns are taken over with rich local biodiversity. we don't cry over our electric bills anymore. and, if you're staunchly capitalist and i need to speak ROI with you - we've created so many jobs in developing sectors and we have exciting new investment opportunities.

i am reminded of kodak, and how they did not make "the switch" to digital photography; how within 20 years kodak was no longer a household brand. do we, as a nation, feel comfortable watching as the world makes "the switch" while we ride the laurels of oil? this boggles me. i have heard so much propaganda about how america cannot "fall behind" other countries, but in this crucial sector - the one that could actually influence our own monopolies - suddenly we turn the other cheek. but maybe you're right! maybe it will collapse like just another silicone valley dream. but isn't that the crux of capitalism? that some economies will peter out eventually?

but let's say you're right, and i'm wrong, and we stopped fracking for no good reason. that they re-seed quarries. that we tear down unused corporate-owned buildings or at least repurpose them for communities. that we make an effort, and that effort doesn't really help. what happens then? what are the stakes. what have we lost, and what have we gained?

sometimes we take our cars through a car wash and then later, it rains. "oh," we laugh to ourselves. we gripe about it over coffee with our coworkers. what a shame! but we are also aware: the car is cleaner. is that what you are worried about? that you'll make the effort but things will resolve naturally? that it will just be "a waste"?

and what i'm right. what if we're already seeing people lose their houses and their lives. what if it is happening everywhere, not just in coastal towns or equatorial countries you don't care about. what if i'm right and you're wrong but you're yelling and rich and powerful. so we ignore all of the bellwethers and all of the indicators and all of the sirens. what if we say - well, if it happens, it's fate.

nevermind. you wouldn't even wear a mask, anyway. i know what happens when you see disaster. you think the disaster will flinch if you just shout louder. that you can toss enough lives into the storm for the storm to recognize your sacrifice and balk. you argue because it feels good to stand up against "the liberals" even when the situation should not be political. you are busy crying for jesus with a bullhorn while i am trying to usher people into a shelter. you've already locked the doors, even on the church.

the stakes are skewed. you think this is some intellectual "debate" to win, some funny banter. you fuel up your huge unmuddied truck and say suck it to every citizen of that shitbird state california. serves them right for voting blue!

and the rest of us are terrified of the entire fucking environment collapsing.

[yeonjune]

Yeonjun about the strain he felt while preparing for his debut solo project ✙ "GGUM" MAKING FILM

[ahaura]

im sure its been said already but as the election draws near more and more liberals will come out of the woodwork to shame people with a conscience to give away their vote to the democrats for free. i'm already seeing posts saying "why aren't people more concerned about a trump presidency?" you want to know why? it's because people already know he's bad. everyone already knows what he is and what he's done and what he'll do. there's nothing to discuss. he's a racist despotic worm of a man. there's nothing else to say.

biden is currently president. the genocide is happening under his watch. he's the one funding isra*l and arming them; he's sidestepped congress more than once to give them weapons. by oct. 27, the biden administration already knew that "Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets." the state department/biden have engaged in atrocity propaganda, cast doubt on the legitimacy of the death toll recorded by the gaza health ministry, and so on. the united states is currently in the process of trying to pin the "war in gaza" on netanyahu (see sen. schumer's speech) after months of backing blatant genocide as a means to act as if they're "doing something" about the genocide (Instead of, say, threatening to cut off all aid to israel with the condition that all hostilities in gaza, the west bank, and occupied jerusalem are halted immediately and permanently, allowing palestinians freedom to travel, allowing aid into gaza, etc etc etc.)

the long and short of it is that liberals view their own lives as being worth more than palestinians'. that's it. they'll vote for another 4 years of the guy ushering in genocide and supporting apartheid + settler colonialism because he isn't outright attacking them (despite various laws and rulings happening both at the supreme court level and at the local level all over the country that will endanger people). they'll settle for the illusion of safety and security and shame anyone with a conscience and accuse them of "supporting the republicans" when in an actual democracy you would be able to use your vote as leverage to extract concessions from those who want to be elected. that's how it's supposed to fucking work.

democrats are not owed people's vote. if biden loses, it will be biden's fault; it will be his campaign's fault; it will be the democrats' fault. trump is bad; the republicans are bad. we already know this. this is not an endorsement of either. but if democrats are too cowardly and feckless and servile to the motivations of the american empire and never do anything for their constituents then why the fuck should anyone vote for them. you want to get mad at someone, why don't you do something useful and stop worrying about team-sports with a purely selfish basis and start hounding the people in power who are supposed to serve you, the voter.

[hildrynprime]

[lesbianralzarek]

being able to criticize something you love isnt a chore youre morally required to do, its fucking freeing. yeah, i am "critical of my interests" and after some self-reflection ive determined that everything i love fucking owns even when its bad. im taking an honest look at it, and deciding which parts to hype up without feeling like i also have to downplay its problems, or get huffy and defensive, or be vigilant about steering the conversation away from its issues

"you like this? how can you ignore all of its flaws?" well first off, im not ignoring shit, im aware of all that and dont judge anyone for considering them dealbreakers. second off, did you know ronald reagan died of ligma?

[commsroom]

cutter was born in the 20s, and he'd become "arthur keller" by the early 70s, so obviously pryce's story at the beginning of brave new world can't be taken literally - that's not even an old man, much less "older than anyone she had ever met." it's also inarguable she was an adult already working on her... ideas for the human body when cutter sought her out; "i want you to make a doll for me" and "i found people who had some very bold ideas about how to... tune up the human body [...] i funded their work, and provided them with a willing test subject" are pretty definitely referring to the same events. so, it's fairy tale language, but the question is: why? why frame it this way?

one part of it is the "fountain of youth" in connection to immortality, strength, and health. the implication isn't literally that cutter is very old and pryce is very young; it's that she represents this power, and that he wants her to bestow it upon him: "then you and i will fix the world. i will be young and you will be whole." cutter and pryce choose to look eternally 28, while referring to and conducting themselves as if they're very old: it's not just vanity, it's part of their self-mythology. simultaneously young and old, having overcome the natural order.

that mythology of "overcoming" natural limitations is especially significant for pryce: characterizing herself as a "little girl" within her own story is both self-victimizing and self-aggrandizing. pryce does not see herself as disabled so much as temporarily inconvenienced; even the usual limitations of the human body are something she hopes to transcend. "instead of being wretched or afraid, the little girl decided to be clever." she was put at a disadvantage, but overcame it all by herself because she was smarter and better than other people. by extension, anyone who can't do what she did just isn't good enough, even as she's closing doors behind her and making it harder for others like her. and at the same time: it's an underdog story that requires her to have been an underdog. she hasn't been in a very, very long time, but the power she holds over others remains justified in her self-perception by this image of a sick little girl who was hurt by the world. there's an implication of inherent worthiness, and even a sort of expected assumed innocence in characterizing it that way. the first thing people notice about pryce is her eyes, and... sure, maybe it's the technology, but if cutter can catch bullets without any visible signs, it seems likely to me that, like her age, this is at least in part an aesthetic choice. it intimidates people. she's turned this point of hurt and vulnerability into a power play, and remains attached to it.

and that's the other part of the mythologizing that's going on: presumably, pryce was not the only person who worked on all of this. cutter funded others. but the story retroactively simplifies it, in a childish fairy tale way, and paints an image of them as exceptional, uniquely capable and so uniquely deserving, people.

i think there's something interesting to consider here about pryce in contrast to hera: that pryce is a woman who self-justifies her cruelty via a mythologized girlhood, while hera is a woman who was never a girl, who was never considered innocent or even allowed the same recognition of the ways she's been a victim. pryce resents humanity and all it represents, resents her body and its limitations, feels that being human has only caused her suffering, but still clearly believes that she has more of a claim to humanity than hera does by nature of her biology and upbringing. pryce's "bootstraps" attitude re: disability and her own self-victimization are the crucial things here, but i think that is also particularly interesting if you read hera as a trans woman.

(incidentally, this is part of why i have a particular love for hera designs where she's just a regular woman, more angular, and maybe even older looking - a natural 30-something in contrast to an unnaturally maintained 28 - than pryce. they're both women who have chosen how they want to look, and it highlights something.)

[awesomewithoutme]

I don't wanna generalize an entire website because there's some really nice people on here, but sometimes it's reeeeally scary and obvious how much most of tumblr hates women. (It's definitely not just tumblr, but that's the only website I use.) People constantly make gross violent threats towards Taylor Swift because apparently she's the devil herself, and Swifties are just brainless npcs who couldn't possibly be Real People, right? People on tiktok or wherever the hell were mad at Chappell Roan because *checks notes* she doesn't want to be stalked or harassed. Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber haven't been together in like, 12 years or whatever, but people are STILL pitting Selena against Hailey Bieber. Not to mention the bodyshaming and endless fakes nudes made without consent that get posted and reposted all over. Maisie Peters was on the Eras Tour, but people started bullying her about her voice. It was all fine and well to like Sabrina Carpenter, but only up until she got popular. Because popular = bad, right? Apparently choosing to wear more makeup than other people is a punishable crime on tumblr.com. People are trying to find "acceptable" ways to be awful because they can't get away with calling women sluts or whores anymore, but I literally see right through it, and it's not cute.

[stewy]

2.01 | 4.04

[yuri-puppies]

on the topic of arranged marriages in the post-canon, my dumbest and most inescapable headcanon is that falin and kabru get lavander married

partially out of my love of lavander marriages and the historical tradition of queer men arranging marriages between their lovers and their sisters

and partially because every time i see a labru baby fanart i think "the rumor mill believes that falin and kabru had an affair and the king legitimized his sister's bastard as his heir" and the comedy of errors that would result from trying to cover up kabru's pregnancy/fake falin's is hilarious to me

[nxctern]

Number one boy

[tvckerwash]

I like to think that during pfl (using his s9 characterization, not s10) wash is the guy you go to when you want to know something (ah la a line in the fall of reach novel I believe where chief says the enlisted personnel always seem to know stuff bc wash is clearly enlisted).

he's in a position where he's privy to information from the higher-ups, and he's friendly enough with the lower rungs that he knows the gossip going around. as a bonus though, wash ain't no narc, so if you want that information you need to offer him something of equivalent exchange (consequently fueling the 'guy who knows things' thing). for example, north had to tell him about using equipment in the field in order to get him to tell him what his meeting with internals was about.

wash isn't the only guy who knows things, of course, but he's the guy who has the widest base of general knowledge. ct is also someone who knows things, but she's a lot more specific, and what she lacks in scale she more than makes up for with how in-depth her knowledge is. wash is where you learn about something from, ct is where you get all the juicy details (to the point of it almost being tmi). she also has an equivalent exchange policy, but people tend to be a bit more reluctant to get information from her because of what her knowledge is (and the borderline 'insane conspiracy theorist' energy doesn't help either).

florida? well...you don't wanna know what he knows. the cost is simply too high.

[perfectphony]

Mis chamacos 🫶🫶

[allamericanb-tch]

you can’t use the lack of canon content about the girls to justify not liking them or writing about them or talking about them and then like or write about or talk about evan or regulus or james or frank or literally ANY of the boys

[azrielgreen]

remember why you started

it can be so easy to start creating for others and stop doing it for yourself, but that's where it fucks up every time. there has to be a pure vein of creation just for creation's sake, for your own wild and weird indulgence in the things that caught your attention and stoked your passion. when you trade that for external praise, you begin to lose your natural love for the core experience, and it becomes work. you become obsessed with numbers, with interactions, your "place" among others and before you know it, some bullshit hierarchy has formed and all that matters is no one overtaking you, no one doing the things you were doing first because what if they do them better? what if people stop looking at what you're creating? what if you gave everything you had, and everybody leaves anyway?

create for yourself. create for YOU and you alone, in at least one area of your life. not for money, not for attention, not for validation. just one little piece of fertile earth preserved for your weird little universe of exploration and inspiration and delightful failures and unexpected brilliance.

of course it feels wonderful to have people praising your work, to have touched people in some small way, to be SOMEONE, but here's the thing. you already were someone. you were you. and this attention, this validation and praise and interaction... it never lasts. it can't last. everything passes. the only way to truly get people to stay longer than they would, is to give everything you have and more, to break yourself down into pieces and sell them off one by one, become a content machine, or worse, to become a person who steps on others to be taller. someone who polices what others create.

but none of it is real or lasting. tumblr isn't real. twitter isn't real. the cliques aren't real. of a hundred people you know in your fandom experience, three of them might be true friends.

what is real, and what lasts, is what you create.

that's what people will find in ten years time when scrolling AO3 at one AM after a horrible fucking day, if the internet hasn't gone down forever, and that is what touches people. not the things you made purely for validation or comments or popularity. the art you made for you. imagination through the lens of a person whose experiences have shaped them uniquely, beautiful and strange and unknowable to someone else who has not had that same life experience, yet there, available, open and inviting, would you like to feel something new?

so please, when you find yourself dedicating more time to your socials and the construct of your online persona than the actual thing you were creating that first set fire to your passion, think about this. if it won't matter in five years, don't give it more than 5 minutes.

when you find yourself thinking "if i write this, people will really love it and respond to it, it's what's popular right now, everyone's talking about it, this will get me back where i was before" my darling, no it won't. creating for the sole outcome of interaction and praise and attention is a waste of your beautiful energy.

i've made plenty of mistakes, i'm still making them as i go along, but i have never stopped creating for myself and i never will.

people will write the thing better than you, they WILL get more attention, comments, reblogs, impressions, likes, kudos, you'll never hold onto the height of it, because everything changes, everything passes and that's how it should be. passion is river; depriving your interests of momentum and variation will make it a stagnant pond. embrace the new, trust that it will feel good again in new ways and just keep creating what you love, for the one person who needs it most - you.

you make art for yourself first.

that's why you started.

you made the thing you couldn't find anywhere else, your way.

and THAT is what will last.

[mysterycitrus]

was writing a fic from jasons pov a mistake knowing that people would ignore the unreliable narrator tag and jump to conclusions