#no...that's not how that works. you can't ever make that specific dollar back money is a function of time too?

[novadreii]

wahhhh i want to play horizon forbidden west so badly but i refuse to pay $80 for a game. :)

:(

[fatphobiabusters]

People say weight loss is for sure possible...but no one agrees on how to do it.

Dieting works...but there's now an "ob*sity epidemic" despite people lining the pockets of weight loss corporations more than ever.

Weight loss products work...but weight loss corporations are making the Exact. Same. Claims. about their products that they did in 1910 with the products that were sold and then discontinued over a century ago.

Humans are all meant to be thin...but there are families of fat people who stay fat no matter how much "willpower" they muster and have fat ancestors going back generations.

It's about health and not looks...but people who are losing weight due to smoking, cancer, illness, mental disorders, and other health conditions are praised for their weight loss and told to keep going.

Fat people aren't oppressed...but fat people have no positive representation, no proper access to clothing, face a wage gap, endure deadly medical neglect and abuse, have their deaths by police brutality excused with their fatness, and countless other aspects of oppression that they deal with every single day.

Fat people are all fat because they overeat...but you can point to any fat person on the sidewalk and there's an extreme likelihood that they're on their 30th diet attempt in the past 10 years while there's thin people who eat whatever they want, however much they want, and don't exercise yet never gain a single pound.

Fat people are privileged because they gorge on unnecessary food...but fat people are overwhelmingly living in poverty, are not paid the same amount of money for the same work as their thin peers, are not chosen for promotions, are turned away from jobs that an employer wants more than a "pretty face" for, are at major risk of workplace harassment, and endure oppression even beyond just that.

Fat people aren't treated badly...but people use the word "fat" as a metaphor and synonym for "ugly," "unlovable," and "unworthy," while at the same time believing "fat," the most basic term for a specific body type, is a dirty, taboo insult you should never allow to leave your lips.

Professionals agree that fatness is inherently bad...but almost any weight-related research study that people, especially weight loss corporations, use to justify demonizing fat people has the worst methodology imaginable with validity errors and logical fallacies galore as well as conflicts of interest due to how many of these studies just happen to be funded by the corporations that make millions and billions of dollars off of the demonization these studies promote.

All health conditions a fat person has are caused by their fatness...but there is not a single health condition that only fat people obtain, many fat people developed the health condition in question when they were thin or thinner, weight gain is often a symptom of said health conditions, fat people are not given the same amount or quality of healthcare as thin people, and repeated starvation attempts (also known as "yo-yo dieting") have been shown to worsen a person's health.

Fat people can't have eating disorders...but fat people are the group encouraged to partake in disordered eating by this fatphobic world the most and then are not given any support to recover.

Thin privilege doesn't exist...but thin people who see the way fat people are treated in society do their absolute damndest and take whatever drastic measures they have to in order to prevent themselves from ever becoming one of "Them."

Fit and fat are mutually exclusive...but there are fat athletes as far up as even the Olympics, and sports are intentionally made inaccessible to fat people to the point of fat children even being turned away when trying to join a sports team.

Fat people are ugly...but all we grow up ever seeing in media are thin, conventionally attractive people painted with layers of makeup next to fat characters who were intentionally designed with an ill-fitting outfit, matted hair, and all other traits that fit the "ugly" stereotype that the character designer could manage to slap onto a single person.

Fat people are big, bad bullies...but studies show that weight is the number one excuse that children use to bully their peers, outcompeting a multitude of other oppressed identities considered.

Fat women are just men and vice versa...but sometimes they're androgynous, and sometimes they're basically nonbinary, and sometimes they're just things, and sometimes they're nothing at all depending on what labels a fatphobe decides will hurt a fat person most that day.

Fat people are subhuman...but fat people deserve the same love, respect, compassion, and support that all people are born inherently deserving.

Fatphobia isn't real, but—

-Mod Worthy

[dr-spencer-reids-queen]

There's Beauty in Tragedy

Pairing: Jennifer Jareau x Female!Reader

Word Count: ~2.9k

Warnings: home invasion, robbers, being tied up and gagged but not injured, mostly fluff

Summary: You own a multi-billion dollar company, and that means you're a target for a specific group of people who robs very rich. The whole experience is very scary but you meet the woman of your dreams because of it, so you can't be too mad at the situation.

Square Filled: crime scene (2023) for @cmbingo

Author’s Note: any and all comments are appreciated <3

x

This big mansion is all to yourself. A dozen bedrooms and bathrooms, a big movie theater, a gorgeous indoor pool, a luxurious spa next to it, and that’s barely scratching the surface. Why do you need all this? Well, you don’t. You’re more than happy with living in a two-bedroom house that you can craft to your liking instead of a big place like this.

You make so much money that you had no other choice but to put it toward your dream house. Your heels click on the clean tiled floor as you walk into your sleek office where you know a hoard of emails are waiting for your response. For someone who is the CEO of the best jewelry company this country has ever seen, you have a shit ton of work you need to do.

Your passion in life is to make jewelry for people to feel beautiful in. It all started in the basement of your parent’s house like every other great company has. The first people you ever made jewelry for were your parents with jewels you found while camping one summer. They were so impressed that they told their immediate family who were interested in you doing this for them.

They told their friends who told their kids who told their friends and soon, everyone in town was lining at your door for your jewelry. That’s when you started taking commissions only for people who are willing to pay which is how you were able to buy your first car with your own money. Yes, you got a job when you turned seventeen so you can get experience under your belt even though you could live off what you were making on your jewelry sales.

Once the business got big enough to work out of your parent’s basement, you used your money to buy a small space in the local mall where you could extend your services to more people. You hired a few of your friends to help you with the business for a few years, and the company was only getting bigger.

It got to the point where you bought yourself your own building, and hired a call center team, IT services, mailroom workers, and a whole fleet of teams who could do the work you were doing back in high school. You named yourself the CEO of Shining Star Jewelry and retired at an early age.

You’re doing pretty well for yourself and you don’t like to hide it. You sit down at your desk and work on answering emails for a couple of hours. Afterward, you’ll make yourself some dinner and take a hot bath while watching your favorite TV show. The first hour goes by quicker than you thought it would, and you look at the time with a yawn. Maybe you can get away with cutting it an hour early.

You’re about to log out of your account when your security cameras pick up something in your backyard. Two men are in your backyard with a big black duffel bag slung over their shoulders with the intention of breaking in and stealing shit. They smash the back door and walk inside your home.

You’re not sure what to do in this situation. Do you hide? Do you run? Do you call someone? Your security alarm is set up to send a silent alarm to the local police if you don’t turn it off, so the police are coming either way. The only problem is, you’re not sure how long it will take them to get here.

Your fight or flight response kicks in and you choose to run in hopes they don’t find you. However, luck isn’t on your side because as soon as you step foot out of your office, both men stand in your way.

“Lookie lookie what we got here,” one of the men says.

They’re both wearing skull bandanas that they have tied over their face so that the only thing showing is their eyes.

“Take anything you want. Please don’t hurt me,” you beg.

“Tie her up,” one of them says.

The bigger man grabs your arm harshly and yanks you into your office. He takes out some rope, duct tape, and zip ties that will be used to subdue you. You have no clue if you’re going to lose your life, get raped, get injured, or whatever they have planned. Instead of fleeing like your body is telling you to do, you allow the man to do whatever he wants to do to you in hopes that he doesn’t hurt or kill you. He ties your ankles together with zip ties, your wrists are tied with rope very tightly, the zip ties your ankles to your wrists so you can’t use your hands, and duct tape is wrapped around your eyes and mouth so you’re forced to breathe through your nose.

“Are you done?”

“Yeah.”

“Let’s go. A place as nice as this must have good security alarms. The police will be here any minute.”

Both men leave you alone in your office to wonder what they’re taking and where they are. You have a lot of nice expensive shit everywhere that they can make a lot of money off of, but there is so much of it that they can’t possibly take it all before the police come.

Twenty agonizing minutes later, you hear police sirens outside your house. You’re not sure if the two men are gone, and if they are, you hope your cameras caught which way they went. Two officers knock on your front door to check if you’re alright. You try screaming as loud as you can but the duct tape is preventing you from making a lot of noise.

“Check around back,” one of the officers say.

Both of them split up to see if there is any disturbances only to meet at the back door which is shattered with glass all over the ground.

“NYPD! We’re coming inside!”

Both of them train their guns in front of them as they walk inside. They stick together and sweep each room one by one until they get to your office. They walk in and aim their guns at you thinking you’re one of the intruders.

“Shit,” the first officer curses and holsters his gun. He kneels next to you and takes the duct tape off first. “You’re okay, Miss. We’re here to help.”

“I couldn’t fight back,” you cry. “I am so scared.”

“I understand. Robles, help me with the zip ties.”

Both officers remove you from your ties. They didn’t kill you. Why? Paramedics come so they can check you out while more officers come to gather intel on what items the burglars stole, where they went, and who they could be. After the paramedics clear you, a female officer sits down with you in your living room.

“I know you must be scared out of your mind, but do you mind if I ask you some questions?”

“No.”

“Okay. Do you remember what the intruders looked like?”

“They had masks covering their face. I could only see their eyes. They were wearing skull bandanas around their faces. One was really big. He’s the one who shoved me into my office. The other one was really skinny. I probably weigh more than him,” you scoff. A look of realization comes over the officer’s face. “What?”

“Excuse me.”

She gets up and walks over to another officer. She whispers to him but the sound carries over to you so you’re able to hear her.

“Call the FBI. They’ve struck again.”

You’re not sure what’s going on or why the FBI needs to come here for two people stealing shit but you have no choice but to wait for them to arrive. They’re coming from Quantico, Virginia which is only an hour by plane. Three agents go to your house while the rest are set up in the NYPD station.

“Agents, thank you for coming.” You look to the left and see the most gorgeous woman you’ve ever seen. Blonde hair, slim, and from what you can tell blue eyes. “I’m Detective Faulkner.”

“I’m Agent Hotchner. These are Agents Jareau and Morgan.”

“You told me over the phone that this matches the other crime scenes?”

“Yes. My men found Miss Y/N in her office with duct tape over her mouth and eyes with rope and zip ties. The intruders wore skull bandanas. I read through the files that they’ve been hitting houses up and down the coastline, right?”

Two men have been hitting rich houses and stealing billions of dollars worth of things. They don’t kill their victims, but it’s suspected that they sell the items and use the money for their trafficking business.

“Yes.” JJ’s eyes look over at you and you look away to prevent her from seeing your blush. “Is this her?”

“Yes. She’s pretty shaken up.”

“I got it,” JJ says to her team and walks to you alone. “May I sit?”

“Please.”

“My name is Jennifer Jareau. I’m with the FBI.”

You’re still scared and traumatized at what happened to you, but you’re not going to let her know. She is too gorgeous to worry about you crying. Her eyes are bluer up close and her cheeks are rosy which comes from a natural tint rather than makeup blush.

“Jennifer? That’s a beautiful name. It’s suiting,” you flirt.

“Thank you,” she blushes deeper. “Can you walk me through what happened?”

You tell her exactly what you told the female officer earlier.

“After they tied me up, all I kept thinking was this is it. This is when I’m gonna die. I haven’t had time to look through my things but I had some pretty valuable items, most of which can be replaced. Is it true?”

“Is what true?”

“That these men have been doing this to a lot of other people?”

“Yes. They only hit victims who have millions to billions of dollars to their name, and they just so happen to strike in the richest city in America.”

“Yeah, I try to have the best security defenses but sometimes that doesn't even stop people.”

“We’re going to work hard in catching these guys and returning your items back to you,” she promises.

“Well, I appreciate that.” She moves her long hair out of the way to reveal she has a sparking diamond necklace on. That twinkle can only be found in one place, and you smile flirtatiously. “That necklace is beautiful.”

“Thank you. I got it for my birthday last year.”

“I knew I recognized it. I designed it. It makes your eyes sparkle.”

“You have good taste, then,” she blushes.

“Beautiful jewelry for a beautiful woman.”

JJ can’t help but smile at your compliment. She has to admit, she was taken aback by your beauty when she first saw you. You’re a victim on a case she’s working so she can’t pursue you but after the case… you never know.

JJ and her team work tirelessly to capture the two unsubs before they move on to the next state. They’ve been hitting one or two big houses in each city, only choosing two cities in each state, and they’re moving across state lines which is why the FBI is involved. They normally deal with serial killers and psychopaths, never really touching on serial burglars. You’re the first person in this city to have been hit, so they’re going to hit one more person before moving to the next big city in New York.

After the police left, you tried to go back to your everyday life without possession of your things, but you tried. The press got hold of the story pretty quickly so your PR team is working endlessly to try and get behind the story before your name is dragged through the mud. You’re on your way out the door when you get a call from an unknown number.

“This is Y/N,” you answer.

“Hi, it’s Jennifer from the FBI.”

“Oh, to what do I owe the pleasure?” you smile.

“Do you mind coming down to the station right now? It’s about the robbery.”

You don’t have to look at the time to know you always have time for her.

“Of course. I’m on my way.” You drive straight to the police station which is only a ten-minute drive. You walk inside and greet one of the officers. “I’m here to see Agent Jareau.”

“Y/N, I’m glad you could make it,” JJ smiles.

“I wasn’t busy. What did you need me for?”

“We realize the burglars are going to be hitting another house soon, and we need your help locating some people.”

“Do I get to work with you?”

“If you’d like.”

“No offense to the others, but they’re not as pretty as you are,” you wink. JJ blushes once again at your compliment and leads you to an empty conference room. “So, when you mean ‘some people’ do you mean ‘rich people’? As in, do I keep in touch with any other rich folk in the city?”

“Yeah,” she says sheepishly.

“Don’t be embarrassed. I actually like to keep a record of all of my competitors in the area including who has enough money to overthrow my company.”

“I don’t think that can happen. Your jewelry is one-of-a-kind.”

“That’s very sweet of you, Jennifer, but there are a lot of people who seem to think they can outshine me.”

“Right. Who’s on your list?”

“This list is gonna cost you. Would it be too much if I asked you to go grab coffee with me? You know, like a date?” JJ’s mouth opens and closes as she tries to search for an answer. Her pale skin darkens deliciously, making you think if the rest of her skin is the same way. “I’m sorry but you’re gorgeous. When I see something I like, I grab it before someone else does.”

“Look, I’m flattered you asked me on a date, but I don’t think it would be very professional since I am working on your case. It would raise suspicions to my boss, and I don’t want to ruin anything for anyone.”

“Completely understandable. What about after?”

“We’ll talk then,” she smiles.

You give her the list of every known millionaire and billionaire in the area that you have numbers for. If someone has money, you make it your business to know who they are. The list is handed to their technical analyst, Penelope Garcia, to see if she can narrow down the very long list. The list you have in New York City alone is over seven hundred residents who are targets for this duo-team.

With Penelope’s help, that number is drastically decreased to less than fifty using the parameters they are searching for. The FBI and NYPD work on calling every person on that short list to make sure they know what’s going on and how they’re a potential target. All of them answer but one, and that’s the one that the FBI is going after thinking the two unsubs are going there.

From what you gathered, they were in the middle of a heist with bags of jewels, cash, and other expensive items when the FBI and NYPD showed up. They’re not killers but they don’t like to be cornered. If they really do work for a trafficking ring, being caught is worse than being dead, so they decided to shoot their way out.

One of them died and the other was apprehended and arrested.

They haven’t had time to sell any of the possessions they stole while in New York, so all of your items were returned back to you. Your PR team used this to your advantage to make this seem like a happy ending for you in the eyes of society. If the public can sympathize with you, then you won’t face backlash for something that wasn’t your fault to begin with.

It isn’t fair but that’s the way the world is.

JJ escorted you back home when you told her you didn’t feel safe going back there alone. She took this as an opportunity to be alone with you knowing it’s why you asked her to take you home in the first place.

“I appreciate you taking me home,” you say when she walks you up the stairs to your front door.

“I didn’t want you to feel unsafe.”

“I want you to know I will be working with my team to increase security here so we don’t have this issue again. Though, it’s such a shame to see you go. I thought we were having fun.”

“We were,” she smiles.

“Here, take this.” You reach into your purse and grab one of your business cards and a pen. You scribble your personal phone number on it since your cards only have your business phone number. “I can work remotely anywhere in the world or not at all. It’d be a real tragedy if I never got to see you again. I hear Virginia is nice this time of year. I’d love to take you out.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“Call me.” You open your front door and step inside. “Or if you have some time right now, would you like to come in for some coffee?”

She looks at her watch and shrugs.

“I got some time,” she smiles and steps inside.

x

Follow my library blog @aqueenslibrary​​​​​​ where I reblog all my stories, so you can put notifications on there without the extra stuff :)

[opinated-user]

The link to Courtney admitting to getting an anonymous donation is literally in the Lily Orchard post your responding too. There's no way you didn’t see it. This was a dumb hill to die on from start to finish. You should know better than anyone that memoryholing doesn’t work.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240107235420/https://www.tumblr.com/sweetface-the-dollbaby/738898018428993536/i-gave-25-dollars-through-the-tip-option-on

i already answered to that same post here. i also reblogued that post so it's on my own blog as well, so coloured me confused as to why you think the archive you made of that post on another blog was necessary.

i address how one of those anons (who i suspect is just you, because you all type and write the exact same) outright lied about Courtney making a fundraising for a laptop. you bring me an archive of a post i already had shared there, but not on that supposed fundraiser so i don't know what you're talking about. i also said that it's strange you'd mention a laptop at all, because the only person who ever helped Courtney to get a laptop was P and she is the only one who cares about holding that over Courtney's head. so coloured also fascinated as to why you specifically do you also care about that.

i also pointed out that anon was lying because Courtney never received anonymous donations from anyone. futhermore, even if they weren't lying, they failed to confirm that they actually did donated anything and therefore they can't be taken seriously. in that post that has the answer for all your questions, that you'd find if you actually care to scroll literally two post down below, you'd see that both me and Courtney agree that with a system like that one literally anyone can go demand Courtney money, even people who never actually donated to her and for amounts of money she never had in the first place. that anon, meaning you, is lying. you're a liar. you have done nothing to prove anything of what you say except tell me the lies i already addressed. you're insisting on this bad faith narrative while Courtney is grieving the lost of her mother, and for what? is this helping LO? is this making people stop seeing that she got a desk and was talking of buying another literally right after a fundraiser? does this make people think that LO must have kept quiet for two years because she's too much of a lady and respect the canadian goverment too much to talk about the process of immigration? is this going to make LO less likely to have groomed ginger? to have groomed Sunny? to have molested Courtney for almost a decade? to have catfished Brittany? is the lack of a receipt for cat food so valuable here that you think that has just as much importance to dismiss all of that? because let me bring you back to reality for a second here. you're not helping anyone. you're not destroying Courtney. i don't know what you're looking for, but it's not here. stop. you literally made LO look worse. you gave me more ammo to keep pushing on the notion she's a scammer. if that is what you want to do, at least be honest about it.

if you care so much about honesty and money, then go ask LO why she lied to you about having a desk and streaming on it for a stream that happened two days prior. i'll wait.

[crystalelemental]

Oh good. After writing up seven paragraphs, my computer did that thing where the screen goes completely black, and wouldn't come back until I hard shut it down, so there goes all that work.

Anyway, finished Little Goody Two Shoes. Spoiler thoughts below.

This is the worst good game I've played maybe ever.

It is a minor miracle I came away from this game with a positive impression overall. I think the general vibe gets me. It's engaging to play through once, but I don't think I'll ever do so again.

The main issue is gameplay itself. This game fucking sucks to play. The puzzles get wildly obtuse around Tuesday, with things like hints being given only after you've beaten them, puzzles completely lacking any indication of what you're supposed to be doing and expecting you to brute force it with guesswork, and some areas just being impossible unless you're popping healing items constantly because fuck dude, I don't know how to move through this maze without getting either myself or Apfel stabbed. I actually don't think I can. It is ridiculous.

A major issue was just money, and this is entirely my own fault. Resources got a shitzillion dollars compared to what you make, and with Muffy over here extorting me for fucking soup, I can't keep up with anything. Part of that is my own fault for trying to keep up with both Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen's story routes simultaneously, limiting me to one job a day. I'll own it, probably should've just picked one. I didn't expect resources to get that bad. What's worse is, once I did stop focusing on both and picked one? It never got better. I never ended a day with money on hand. It was all gone to have something to eat, or to have some healing items, or to restore sanity on the notes quest. Which, related, do not do the notes quest while also trying to do two routes. You cannot keep up with this. Maybe it would be less devastating if I could afford more pretzels. I doubt it, though!

Character-wise, as mentioned, I tried to keep up with Rozenmarine and Lebkuchen. Freya...never really did anything. I'd talk to her, but you make a decision day 1 between her and Leb, and Freya exuded nothing of interest, while Leb had that kinda "viewed as the nice girl and knows it, but has a deep frustration with the whole thing" that endeared me very quickly. So when it came down to her or Rozenmarine, who is a quirky weirdo I kinda like but felt a bit too much in on the whole fate thing, I went Leb. So I got Leb's good and bad end, the "fuck up the gifts" end, as well as the notes ending. I will note quickly that I very much like Elise as a protagonist. She's very fun. I have almost nothing to say about the townsfolk.

Notes ending is weird. It's very abrupt and...well okay, the ending specifically answers nothing. The notes themselves answer a good bit, while still not fully answering much. What I do know is that Ozzy's an archdemon who granted Halle's wish for a child, that the witch had nothing to do with it, but the witch of the forest is pissed about the demon taking up residence. This ending is basically identical to the "fuck up the gifts" ending. Regardless of which you get, the witch just shows up and takes your body, implying that her goal was to resurrect as you, in order to accomplish the one thing she could never do: bear life. Basically, she wanted to live as a woman who can give birth, apparently. I'm not 100% sure if this was always a goal, because she says she tried to learn how to produce life, or if this is specifically just spite over the archdemon creating life and her being like fuck off I can do that too you're not special. I kind of assume Rozenmarine's ending would make it a little clearer, since she seems to be the likely Lore Route.

As for Leb's...the main thing is, I'm stunned it was so black and white. Like, there is no gray area. If you go through with your wish, Leb is killed, you become rich but isolated and miserable all your life and the demon eats your second kid you have when you have twins. If you back down, everything is so good that you and Leb travel the world happily, then come back, settle down, and make the town better than ever. It's...kinda weird, actually. Like, a big thing I think is interesting is how the game's structure does make you feel for Elise's status in the town, based on how hard it is to get good ranks on the minigames and how little money you get for how much effort goes in. It sells the idea that she's under-appreciated here and that yeah, of course she'd want to get out and live a life of ease. But I had expected the ending tradeoff to be a bit more...nuanced, I guess? Like, the choice to be that going through with the wish would indeed provide the luxurious wealth and comfort at the cost of loneliness and living with what you did, while not going through with it means you have a mundane life of constant toil, but at least there's love. It wasn't expecting this to go so "deals with the devil are strictly bad and hard work pays off." My point being, the refusal ending feels too clean. Like that's basically ideal. There's no struggle to that ending and no real point to have done anything else if you're looking for a happy life. Maybe that's the point?

I don't really know what my final takeaway is, because even now as I write this, I am still annoyed. This has shifted now to annoyance at my computer, but it started because I did the bad ending where you sacrifice them last, and I feel like it's absolute bullshit the doors shuffle without warning or pause, and that one piece of ceiling fell on me, slapped me into a corner where I was trapped and just had to wait to die. What I'm trying to say is that the gameplay is exceedingly frustrating. And that it kinda warps my perception of the game overall. Because I think if some of these puzzles were less obnoxious? Excellent. Really enjoyed myself. But so many situations are hit by me being outright infuriated about some of these solutions. I think if you have a good tolerance for this kind of thing, game's excellent. If you're like me, honestly just use this guide. I gave up at the snake domain and just looked this up, I wasn't in the mood. Though it won't save you with Dick Crow's Witching Hour Fuckfest Act 2. That's just pure misery.

[puresunshyne]

Single Mom Things

I've been on a long hiatus from this blog.

Lately, though, Tumblr keeps popping up into my conscious thoughts. I've been working my tail off and keeping my nose to the grindstone since my car broke down last October.

It's been a grueling eight months since. I've spent literal thousands of dollars on rides back and forth to work. I've had people offer to help without me asking them to and then leave me in a worse place than I was in.

Blowing up my phone while I'm at work to tell me that they KNOW I've gotten my tax return back (I actually didn't even file because I haven't been able to afford $50 for an Uber there and back), that they've looked up my tax information (he of course, changed that story when I pressed him about it and acted like I was crazy for questioning him about how he would access something like that (of course during dinner rush at work) and how their grandmother questioned why they would support me by REQUESTING a handmade crocheted scarf as her Christmas present when he could have gotten the same thing off of Amazon for $10. Why on Earth he would think that was a message he should pass along to me, I'll never know. This is in between messages from him telling me how he's hoping to get fired from various jobs and having ex and current girlfriends pay his rent and bills. Meanwhile, I'm the bad guy for not sending him money that I don't even have to feed myself with.

On the other hand, I have someone constantly telling me not to call Ubers because it's so expensive who stands me up multiple times per week after agreeing to pick me up at a certain time (individual days/times, not weekly). That in turn means that I'm forced to call an Uber or Lyft because I actually can't find a ride within an hour of me needing to be at work. Then he gaslights me about how it's not his responsibility to pick me up (after him contacting me to offer) and calls me a bitch for getting upset.

And then there are the ever present men who constantly want details about how I'm struggling so they can pretend to care and try to use those empty messages as a segue into scoring a date with me. Sending me creepy messages about how they would TOTALLY help me, I just need to ASK THEM SPECIFICALLY. Homie, if you wanted to help, you would offer to help. Not tell women that if they jump JUST A LITTLE HIGHER and do this EXACT TRICK JUST RIGHT, then you'll help them. That's incel behavior and makes you seem like you're liable to take advantage of women in any form you can.

Let's not forget the guy who kept telling my daughter and I that he was going to cosign on a house to rent as a roommate situation and then turned around and made a scene in the Chili's parking lot about how he couldn't understand why I don't want to date anyone or why I'm not interested in dating him, WHY won't I explain it to him and WHY won't I give him a chance.

So yesterday, I finally gave up trying to do it by myself (with or without creepy, predatory men trying to put me in terrible situations) and created a Go Fund Me to try and pull together some of the money that I need to get my Jeep fixed.

If you can spare even a dollar or two, I'd be ridiculously grateful. I don't think any of us were meant to do this alone.

[bamboobrat]

succession s4 e2 recap: hitman santa claus and an audition tape from hell

time for this weeks recap, you guys! i'm going into gerri withdrawal, so this feels a bit like pulling teeth, but lets get into this trauma dump of an episode, shall we?

logan is apparently still in his feelings about last episode, but like any man of a certain age, he doesn't want to talk about it.

what he wants to do: take away the kids' helicopter privileges and scrutinize a poor man writing an email.

the kids on the other hand are planning the future of their brand new, 10 billion dollar media empire.

good thing they are really in touch with the people. as we all know, the american public is notoriously famous for being interested in foreign affairs.

it's also connor's rehearsal dinner and he voices his concern his sibs won't make it in the most boomer way possible.

shiv's "taking calls and looking upset" plot line continues.

we will get you that emmy, snookie.

tom's hogged all the good divorce lawyers in new york, similarly to what logan once did to caroline. a truly specific example of generational trauma or something.

logan is at ATN, just chillin' like a villain on the floor.

tom reacts to the news as any employee would, knowing their boss is in the office:

me running back from a one hour lunch after reading on slack that the boss is coming in.

tbh i'd take shiv calling me a lil bitch boy any day.

my close captions did this, and i can't figure out if it's a mistake or tom fucking with greg craig.

also, something tells me greg's sex tape does not have late night tv potential.

and now, for the main star of the show:

kerry's audition tape.

turns out she wants to be a host at ATN. i think roman and kendall speaks for all of us when they say:

never seen kendall so happy.

clearly, logan is the biggest anti-nepotism advocate out there, so he doesn't really want to have a say in what happens to kerry.

calling cyd and tom geniuses, though... seems fishy. perhaps it is not professionalism that is driving him, after all. i guess we will never know.

shiv continues to rack up the largest phone bill ever by talking to sandi (or is it sandy? i care to little to look it up) about potentially asking mattson for more money.

upside: more money. downside: he might just walk away from the table and they'll be stuck with a 10 billion dollar bill and a legacy media company where they focus on the very narrow topics of globan and extremely local.

personally, i don't even fully understand how the stock marked works, and even i can tell that this is a bad idea. but self-destructive people are going to self-destruct i guess.

speaking of:

WHY WOULD HE SAY THAT!!!!!!

logan does a murdoch type speech on the top of printing paper and rips an ATN employee to shreds.

if you ever went to j-school, you know this is the most horrifying scenario.

numbers? i'm a journalist, i can't do math.

logan also quotes a bit of daft punk:

and is completely calm and collected the entire speech, as we have come to expect of logan.

i truly believe logan and brian cox have morphed into one person during the four seasons of succession. i can't tell you why, but i also think this scene is proof.

also, logan is getting a BUNCH of screen time these first few episodes. could they pull the rug out from under us all and kill him off by episode 5? one can only hope.

the kiddos aren't allowed to take the company helicopter to connor and willa's rehearsal dinner and kendall is calm, cool and collected.

it's certainly a long way away from him running after that town car during the first attempt at overthrowing logan in season one. how far he's come. i'd like some of whatever it is he is taking.

stewy and sandi show up to convince the sibs to renegotiate the price with mattson.

i love stewy. i really do. but the show runners don't know how to use him properly anymore, i think. please, for the love of god, give the man some lavender. give him something more to do!

willa does what any young lesbian woman would do: ditch her own rehearsal dinner to have drinks with twenty of her closest friends.

it's not like the bride is needed at that sort of event, anyway.

roman shares my coping mechanism when dealing with any sort of emotional turmoil:

and so does connor, apparently:

there's nothing chocolate and a good rendition of 'don't stop me now' can't fix.

the show runners _really_ want you to know mattson is swedish with the bilar and the julmust and being aggressive whilst also saying you're not being aggressive.

it's the scandi way.

i feel represented.

the threat doesn't work on kendall, though. on the contrary, he's got kid brain and will do anything he is told not to do, so he goes back to back shiv on renegotiating the price. once again, roman is teamed up on, even though i stg he is the only one of the sibs making any sense lately.

this is connor's best attempt at being folksy:

hoegaarden haters unite. i knew there was a reason i liked connor.

positive note: he finally gets his way and they go to karaoke. negative note: he contacts logan and it all ends in a confrontation that makes me want to set myself on fire:

screaming, crying, throwing up.

we get another logan monologue of sorts, with certain interjections from the kids. potentially the first honest encounter this show has ever seen? i'm sick of brian cox face by now, so i couldn't be fucked to screengrab.

just have him die already. he's only there because he acknowledges that the kids have "got juice" and yet he calls them "not serious people".... i guess he is right, but i don't have to like it, okay!!!

roman comes crawling back and asks logan this:

logan responds that he needs him and it's the only thing i think roman has ever wanted to hear and i'm going to go scream into a pillow now.

i guess this marks the end of the siblings teaming up (for now). rip.

i feel drained.

bonus:

gerri is still out in the cold in all the ways and is absolutely NOWHERE in this episode. i'm glad she too had the chance to smirk at kerry's audition tape, but it was with hugo.... cancels itself out.

that being said, i've seen the trailer for next week's episode, and i am ready to be hurt again.

cheers!

[helly-watermelonsmellinfellon]

So, the drama currently going on in my life is Dave throwing a 3- month temper tantrum based on something I said months ago.

3 months ago, we were in a motel, and I was STILL sleeping on the floor. We had no food left besides bags of rice, cans of mixed veggies, and cans of diced tomatoes(plus salt, pepper, and garlic powder). Obviously, everyone was hungry. We only had a few dollars in the PayPal, and that money came from a renewed Subscription on my Ko-Fi.

At most, it was enough for rising-crust pizza at Walmart. Or... a tub of ice cream apparently.

See. Dave spent the past several hours complaining about there being no food and everything Bethy suggested was shot down cuz he had no money. Mom had no money. And there was less than $10 on PayPal, which was given through Ko-Fi, which PayPal took a portion of, so it was even less than the Subscription cost. And after hours of back and forth he suddenly sits up and goes, "Let's get ice cream."

So I, being the one with common sense and no small amount of annoyance, asked, "Why are we wasting money on ice cream after going hungry all day? Why would you buy ice cream instead of food?" (And his ass wonders why he can't lose weight? What is the obsession with ice cream ffs?)

Ever since then, he has been throwing a tantrum. Turns out, he HAD money of his own he just didn't want to use it personally. So, he drove out to get HIMSELF ice cream, and got like a pack of already-made cones, that he then ate all right there.

He was going to use MY MONEY to buy ice cream for everyone instead of getting like, stuff for PB&Js(which we could have afforded). He had some petty cash of his own on hand AFTER filling the gas tank, with more of MY MONEY.

His tantrum has extended all the way up to now. I've talked about how we've been able to do so much since we're not homeless anymore and we now have a stove. We've made homemade cheese sauce for mac n' cheese, homemade biscuits, homemade gravy, and homemade pasta. We've had chili, quesadillas, spaghetti & meatballs, baked chicken, ham & scalloped potatoes, hasselback potatoes, oatmeal, sausage gravy & biscuits, pancakes, rice, all sorts of canned veggies, soups, cereal, egg & cheese bagels, grilled cheese, PB&Js, lasagna, French Toast, and homemade Salisbury steak with a different homemade gravy.

Also, we made brownies. (And I'm gonna make choco chip cookies and Rice Krispy Treats soon.)

AND DAVE ATE NONE OF IT.

He whines about going hungry and having nothing to eat to anyone who will listen, but it's because of his own fragile ego. All cuz I had a problem with his plan on spending MY MONEY on shit we did not need; he's making it everyone else's problem.

(The biggest issue is that the lease is in his name this time so... mom doesn't want to start anything with him just to be safe. And ain't that a sad reality? We have to worry about potentially being kicked out if we offend him too much. After an entire year of me and donations from generous strangers keeping us afloat so we're not in a van all the time, we still can't fully relax cuz his ass is ungrateful. He's now telling people he's been working this entire time, and he will ignore all the good other people have done for us because it didn't come from him specifically.)

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

What do you think of bringing back the gold standard so our money is actually backed by something with real value?

this is something i feel very strongly about and so i might become a bit impassioned and i just want you to know ahead of time that when i talk about "you" i am referring to gold bugs in general, not specifically you anon. i mean, you might be a gold bug but i don't want to make any assumptions.

with all that said....

returning to the gold standard has to be one of the stupidest fucking ideas i've ever heard of and i've never heard a single convincing argument for why we should except for some vague gesticulating at this or that problem and blaming it on us getting off the gold standard without any real evidence.

i can't address everything but let me walk you through a few things so maybe you can get an idea of what i'm talking about.

first and foremost, i want to address what you specifically said in your ask. "actually backed" by something with "real value." i'm sorry but what "real value" does gold have? outside of maybe electronics, what do we do with it? where is the "real value"? we hoard it? wear it as jewelry? is that what "real value" means to you? maybe there are things i'm overlooking. i'm sure gold does have other practical uses. but it's not why people collect gold. people collect gold because it's rare and pretty and doesn't tarnish.

no. this is real value:

real value is found in your factories, the workers in those factories, the machines they operate, your farmers and the food they produce, the land they work, the transportation infrastructure, the guns and soldiers that wield them, etc. /that/ is real value. and i hate (read: love) to break it to you but america's got all of that in spades. and that's what backs the us dollar. all of america's /real/ productive wealth. and that, my friend, is of infinitely more value than a bit of gold. the us dollar is a religious symbol. a representation of not just america's near omnipotence, but also our trust in america's destiny.

seriously. spain was a tragedy. it had a world's worth of wealth in its borders. and what did they do? they didn't invest in their country's domestic production, i'll tell you that much. why bother /building/ things when you can just /buy/ them from other countries?? it's so much simpler! and just like that, spain (and portugal, as mentioned) gave way to england and the netherlands both of whom /did/ use their newfound capital to invest in domestic production.

"but gold prevents inflation!" you might be saying. sure, in a sense. though obviously there are historical examples of new sources of gold being discovered and destabilizing economies (like the ones mentioned above) but let's ignore that. yes. gold is supposed to prevent inflation. how? by being deflationary. and who does deflation benefit the most? creditors, that's right. deflation increases the value of money which increases the value of a bank's reserves, loans, investments, and other assets. it increased the real value of debt owned by banks making it more difficult for debtors to pay off their debt.

in the latter half of the 19th century this was one of the biggest debates in america. between a gold standard and the "free silver" and "greenback" movements. both the greenback and silverite movements were farmer-laborer populist movements who believed the gold standard benefited bankers and fought for more expansionary monetary policies. the gold standard was deflationary and constricted the economy. it was bad news all around, except for the bankers (who controlled most of the gold in case you thought your average joe did).

so farmers and laborers (read: the common people) instead advocated for unlimited silver coinage (whose real value was less than its face, essentially making it semi-fiat) and/or totally fiat greenbacks to counteract the deflationary effects of a gold standard by stimulating spending and investment, reducing the real burden of debts, making credit more accessible to common folk, increasing flexibility and independence of monetary policy, no resource constraints, minimal speculation, the multiplier effect, etc. deflation is absolutely catastrophic on the economy, but small and stable amounts of inflation mean the economy is growing.

the free silver/greenback movements believed that control of monetary policy should shift away from banks with large gold reserves to the democratic control of the people through government fiat. the government issuing its own currency would also mean the government would be less reliant on borrowing from banks which means banks would have less influence over government.

and i can keep going but this should be enough to help you understand why the gold standard is stupid as fuck. gold bugs will say "the gold standard prevents economic crises!!" but all it takes is a brief glance at 19th century america and the multitude of economic crises to know it's bullshit. the gold standard may be deflationary (which itself is very bad btw, for reasons i mentioned above) but it does not immunize economies from crisis like they want you to believe. meanwhile, giving the government a wide range of tools to flexibly deal with economic crises /does/ mitigate crises and bring stability.

when on the gold standard we were having a new depression every other decade or so. the last depression we went through was 100 years ago.

there is literally no good argument for returning to a gold standard except stupid nostalgia, delusion, and being duped by propaganda from people with large gold reserves (like bankers) who would benefit.

you would not benefit.

[pass1onepr1ncess]

I came back temporarily because I've been doing a lot of thinking and it feels like all of my thoughts have tied themselves into knots. And the way I normally straighten my thoughts out is to write them down.

Very minor mentions of Self Harm and Suicidality, and unfortunately lots of US politics

Prior to the election, I was planning on saving up and doing the research and such on eventually moving to Michigan- keyword here is eventually. I live in a very small rural town that I won't name, but the entire town from limit to limit is only about half a mile. We don't have a movie theatre or a hair salon or really any corporate entities. Every business is local because there's not enough money to be made here by brand names from the scarce amount of people that live here. We have a single library. We have about 3 restaurants in the entire town, one of which I work at part-time because we're only open 3 days of the week. There is no actual grocery store; instead we go to the Dollar General. And while that probably sounds nice to some, I'm not really a rural small town person. I thrive in the city, and I really liked Michigan when I visited.

Prior to the election, I was already scared. This aforementioned small town I live in is in south Texas, and you can't rest your eyes anywhere without seeing a Trump flag. I've overheard my employers talking about how trans people are an abomination and how they mutilate their bodies against God's will. I've heard my boss specifically say the exact words "Hate the sin, love the sinner" about gay people. We had a mentally disabled customer once and they laughed at him in the kitchen when he left the restaurant.

I am trans, and queer, and both physically and mentally disabled. I am visibly queer, at that, and I'm only lucky that my employers are disconnected enough not to make the connections.

Prior to the election, I already wanted to leave because I knew I am not safe here. I've stayed in my house, cooped up and isolated to avoid confrontation or hate. I wanted to move because it was starting to get to me and I wanted more from my life. I was making a plan to save up and do some research so that I could move in about a year or two. That way, I'd have time to prepare and say goodbye.

The election results have changed things. I can no longer afford that preparation time, or the chance to say goodbye. These past few days I've spent doing two things: obsessively playing Stardew Valley at every waking moment to prevent myself from having the opportunity to think, therefore preventing me from considering relapsing or worse, and making the arrangements to move in the coming two or three months.

A plan that I was excited for that was previously on my own terms and that I could take my time with has been soured. It's now something I have to do out of necessity because if I was already unsafe here before, I know that if I remain here by the time the next President is sworn in, I will not survive. Either by my own hand or by someone else's hateful doing, I will not survive.

And I have so many mixed feelings on it all On one hand, this is something I truly wanted and to have it happen so quickly is really nice. But on the other hand, I wish I didn't need it to happen so quickly. I had plans with friends for the holidays, people and places I wanted to see one last time and to say goodbye to. But I don't have the time for that anymore. And though I've always hated it here, I was born and raised in Texas. I've spent my whole entire life here and I've only left the state maybe once or twice. It's all I've ever known, and it hurts to have to leave it behind under such awful circumstances.

In addition to all of this, my family that I currently live with are republicans. And though they know who I am and accept me, they still voted for him. Either they didn't know about all the hateful bigoted things he's said and wants to do to people like me, or they do know and it just wasn't a deal breaker for them. And though I've tried to talk to them, they think I've been brainwashed or that I've been lied to- they think I have no reason to be scared.

And I am scared.

I can't talk to them about why my moving plans suddenly got so much quicker. I haven't even told them about it yet, and I've been mentally running in circles all day trying to come up with something to tell them when they inevitably notice I've started packing. Because I can't tell them the truth, that I'm not safe and that I'm scared of being attacked or assaulted or worse. I can't tell them that I'm scared that Texas will do everything to eradicate people like me- and Texas will. It's already started to and it will only get worse in the next four years.

I can't tell them that I'm not ready to leave yet but that I have to to survive. I can't tell them how it breaks my heart having to leave behind everything I've ever known, but I have to do it anyway because they voted and instated someone who wants me dead and who won't care about punishing the people who make that happen.

It's bittersweet, but right now it's so, so bitter. And I know it'll get sweeter when it's over, but all I can taste right now is bitterness.

I'm scared, I'm heartbroken, and I wish that all of this was under different circumstances. I wish it was something I could be happy and excited about instead of something I have to do for my own safety.

[thecurioustale]

I deal with feelings like this sometimes, in my own way. A lifetime of poverty has made me more and more down on even the middle class, let alone the rich. Not a in communist, "the bullet for the whole lot" sort of way, but more like "Oh, jeez, your car repairs are expensive? How terrible for you." I just have so little interest in financial struggles that aren't existential for people who are going to be Just Fine when it comes to money, regardless of whatever amount of "belt-tightening" might be required. Like, get back to me when you've stared point-blank at the Wheel of Fire.

We live in different worlds, they and I.

As for artists in particular, I do tend to roll my eyes a bit at the really successful ones, more so if I see little of value in their work. (And a lot of the most popular art is indeed vapid, even to the point where it exits the art space entirely and becomes solely entertainment, like the neverending barrage of superhero movies. (Not that "entertainment" is less valid than "art," but I do think it's fair to draw a distinction, to the extent anyone can attempt such a thing without becoming recklessly gatekeepy about it.))

Yet I think on the whole I have more solidarity with successful artists than I do with the broader middle class (and upper class). And that's because I recognize an intrinsic value to art and am familiar with the intrinsic compulsion to create art. I think I have more respect for artists, on average, than I do for the general population, because I think art is something that humanity needs, just like science and philosophy. I see an artist as someone who has contributed something greatly meaningful to the world, which is not something that everyone has necessarily done.

I do feel twinges of embitterment sometimes when I see artists and other creators dealing with the burdens of success, or when I see some viral YouTube video from one of these people talking about how some crisis has come up and they are doing a fundraiser, and they're getting tens of thousands of dollars, and if you go look on their Patreon they're making like $3 grand a month just from there, let alone any other revenue streams.

But the resentment doesn't tend to last, because that's the way it should be. Society should be structured so that there are pathways for artists to survive as artists. Maybe not every artist, and maybe not for the entirety of an artist's life (sort of like how you can't box your whole life), but it should be a space that people who are so inclined can move into, just like conventional industries. That the free market cannot deliver this is one of the biggest aesthetic, political, and ethical failures of the free market.

However, if I move away from talking about comparing myself against specific artists who are more successful, and look instead at the problem less attributively, I really do gnash my teeth sometimes at how it seems like there is absolutely no way forward for me to ever exist independently as an artist. Because my rate of publication is far too slow. I made like $100 bucks on my nonfiction book earlier this year. If that were fiction instead, and if I could publish five of those a week, I'd be fine! 🙃

But $100 just isn't gonna last you very long when rent is $1,300.

My entire life—my whole being—has been ruined by poverty (and by abuse when I was young). I have beautiful stories to offer the world, but the world doesn't even know I exist, and I don't think that will ever change. And I do feel bitter about that sometimes.

Just...not bitter at anybody. Intransitive bitterness. There's no one to blame; even the gods are fictitious. The world just is what it is, and it seems to me like, more often than not, an artist's fate is to sit outside the world and stare in at it, unable to truly belong to it, fated to describe it beautifully for the benefit of those who are already there.

if i can be candid, is hard for me to be moved by the idea of artists losing their job to automations. and frankly this indifference towards economic concerns of other artists stem a lot from sour grapes that i was never able to live of my art, and frankly i dont think i ever will.

i see it more as a privilege than a right to be able to live off your art. for sure you are entitled to set up shop, but are you entitled to getting costumers? if you cant get any, is this an injustice that has been ennacted on you? i dont know, i would feel pretty stupid if i were to claim that a harm has been done to me simply because i could never get enough people interested in buying my stuff such that i could live off it, and wether this is because the alternatives they prefer are other human artists or robots it makes no difference to me, at the end of the day i never got clients one way or the other. and so its easy for me to get a bit alienated from those worries.

[pastafossa]

Hi Pasta!!

I have a random question that popped up in my head the other day

Does Jane do the thread work in every city she's lived in? Like, does she ever do random jobs for anonymity purposes, ones that aren't linked to her abilities? I imagine it's much easier to track down a psychic than it is to find someone who has been working as a preschool teacher or someone working the front desk at a dentist office.

Again, just a shower thought that came to me during a reread🤣

Oooooh now this is a good question and it's not one I think will ever come up in a meaningful way in the fic so I feel free to answer it, too!

So she doesn't do exactly what she's doing in every city, no, although she often finds ways to use her threads to her benefit - I've mentioned before when she first hit Los Angeles as a teen, she got roped into a new-agey sort of shop, doing tarot like a very poorly paid trick pony - she'd use her thread abilities to make accurate enough predictions that she was worth keeping around. She pulled similar tricks in other cities early on (she's quite good at reading tarot now for others, ironically), and then on and off in various cities after, because it's hard to walk away from all the money on the table. The psychic business category alone is, if I remember my research correctly, around 90k businesses in the US, and makes about 2 billion annually. It's likely even bigger of a business in the TRT universe since the existence of enhanced people might encourage more people to go looking for psychics to help with their problems. That means billions and billions of dollars changing hands.

And money, as we know with her, is a big lure. BUT, as you said, yeah, she quickly figured out hey, I can't do this every time because that forms a pattern (which is bad). Some of it also depends on where she is - there might be way more (real or not) psychics around for her to hide amongst like in NYC, or there may be fewer. The latter cities are where she's more likely to find a different job - and she's not above faking her qualifications to get in, as long as it's a job she can actually do. She knows how to manage a store, she knows how to draw blood and so has done a round or two as a phlebotomist. Hell, she did construction under the table for a bit in Pittsburgh.

But she keeps coming back to psychic.

She's got a method for those cities now - there's a reason she's working alongside Maya, and why Maya's name is the big name on the business and hers is advertised by reputation only (hiding herself beneath two extra layers of names, essentially). There's a reason she targets specific kinds of rich - she wants the rich who are either smart enough to follow contracts (Wesley), or wary enough that they're worried about others stealing away their favorite psychic and so keep their mouths shut (or decide to hire her on at a high enough rate that she can work solely for them). And above all, her rule is to run before she gets too big. Essentially playing psychic is a tradeoff - a larger payday in exchange for a shorter timeframe in the city, as opposed to the slow and steady trickling of another job where she can stay longer. She's followed that rule for years now - either quiet jobs to take the heat off, or short bursts of psychic activity that make her a ton of money before she fades out and vanishes in 6 months to a year, finding a new name, and a new city.

Until New York City...

And until Matt...

Click go the dominoes.

[stardustedknuckles]

I'm not someone who loves the American South. I grew up there, 20 years and four houses between Alabama and Georgia. It's hot, it's humid, I almost died from a blood infection from poison ivy, and I was never quite from around here. Kids and adults were friendly to me but not really friends. You had to be from that town same as the other nine tenths of your school to be "one of them," and if you couldn't swing that you could probably get in with a Carhartt, a practiced accent, and a good grip on how to fit in the gender binary. I never had a chance, and that was true long before I realized I didn't want one.

I'm no lover of the South, so listen to me when I tell you: I am so fucking tired of any complaint a queer person makes in a rural area being met with "just move." I don't even mean the money issues that y'all one hundred percent overlook when you say that shit, either.

See, I didn't grow up loving or being loved by the South but I damn sure grew up around so many people that called it home in every sense. Loudly. Dyed in the wool southerners of all colors in homes going back generations. Tobacco-chewing, tractor-pulling, camo-hat-in-the-microwave unashamed rednecks who loved the only life and community they'd ever known - and were gay. Or lesbian. Or trans, or maybe they just kinda lived here and didn't fuss too much about the specifics of gender or who they liked. I watched the parents of those people make their queerness about them. I watched kids get put up in front of their churches to confess their sins and let the congregation pray over them. I saw a lot of people get hurt. Who would've had every right to get far away from these people, and who didn't. Because this was their home and fuck you, they were as much a part of it as anyone else. A lot of them did leave, out of the ones that could. But the point is they never should've had to. The answer for a lot of folks to "the place where I'm from is broken in a lot of ways" is not "then leave" and never has been.

A lot of them stayed and risked jobs and lifelong community for the chance to make a little bit of a difference for the next kids. The town I lived in for 17 years, my hometown whether I like it or not, had their first pride the year before I left. I went, and I watched the trucks drive by and the hooting and hollering and wondered which one of those trucks might throw something flammable and get applauded for it. Nothing happened. Most of the shouts were supportive, though I can't speak to the sincerity of them all. Didn't matter. That event only happened because of the queers that dug in to that red clay and said, "we can do better than this." Everyone who left had every right and reason, but the South owes so much to the ones that stayed. Whether they chose to or they just couldn't get out, every one of them made their home just a little safer for the next kids.

When people lament the state of where they grew up, when they grieve for losing relationships with their bigoted neighbors and their pastors and the people they knew from daycare to graduation, when they keep their queerness to themselves and hope for a better day - you don't get to tell them to "just move." That's not the gotcha you think it is, and if you handed all of them ten thousand dollars to get out and move to a city, you would be staggered by how many would turn around and put it towards healing the place they came from instead.

"If you don't like it, leave" goes both ways. And we've been the only ones told to do that for far too long. Long live the rural queers looking around at their homes and getting their hands dirty doing the work to make it a place the bigots who can't get their shit together want to leave for once. After all, it's that simple right? Just leave!

[kpop-er]

HYBE BTS MERCH PRICING

I know this is a controversial topic and I also have some strong opinions lol

It's no secret that hybe has been making their stuff more expensive each year. I have been a fan since 2017 and pls tell me why the memories dvds/blurays are getting more expensive by a few dollars each year...

Hybe simply knows that we will basically buy out anything that has to do with bts, especially when we know it's limited. From a business pov I wouldn't expect anything else from them but as a fan I feel slapped in the face. Especially ever since the shipping on weverse got more expensive too, I simply can't understand why they don't offer different shipping options. It was expensive before too, but now it's just crazy.

And the fact that even Jin was surprised by the price of the pyjama says a lot...and still, today when I woke up, it was already sold out which just shows hybe that no matter how expensive their stuff is, people will still buy it.

Another issue I had, which was more of a personal problem, were the many new releases. Every few weeks some new merch would come out and because of the huge trading/collecting community bts have, I always felt the urge to buy EVERYTHING. Like I would get my salary and I would plan out what I could buy from the new merch to pump up my bts collection. It was so hard for me to step away and force myself to buy only the things I really wanted and not give into the urge just because everyone is buying it. You kinda feel left out when you don't have something and that's a huge part of why the merch still sells out even with those crazy prices.

A system that worked for me and which might help someone else who is currently going through the same struggle: Look at your collection and point out 5 items that you love the most. For me that were mostly the concert/memories dvds and a specific version of an album. Now I limit myself to buying only one version of the album and the muster, memories and special release dvds. It's still a lot but I actually enjoy those things and I love collecting the photocards, plus for me it's manageable.

A few months ago I seriously lost control over my money, like I would run to the bank to put cash that I had put aside for vacations and other expenses, back into my bank account just so that I could order more merch. It honestly feels embarrassing talking about this, especially since I am 21 years old now and should be able to spend my money responsibly. Like I have stuff sitting on my shelf that I don't even like and that I can't get rid of.

Point is, I'm so much happier now that I have found a system that works for me and while I understand that hybe is a company that is trying to make the most profit, I still feel like they could tone it down a bit, at least out of respect for the fans who together with and thanks to bts made hybe what it is today.

I would love to hear your opinions/experiences on this so please feel free to leave your thoughts!

[not-poignant]

Hi, pia, have you ever heard of radishfiction.com? It's a mobile app specifically for serial writers and allows you to monetize your writing. And since you already have a pretty decent following I'm thinking it might be something you could use? Sorry if this is a weird ask but I adore your work and hate to think of you struggling to earn money.

I was looking at their policies and they allow explicit/dark stories as long as there are content warnings and also allow stories that have been published elsewhere. You'd have to read the policies yourself to be sure (not sure how the payment or tax system works) because I just skimmed them but it sounds good so far? I dunno 😅

Hi anon,

I did look into Radish early on (I got an email from them, actually, way back when).

I have been curious about it, I know that the pay is really terrible overall (some people are doing very well, but dollars to cents are still not really doing great compared to other places). I'm actually a member of several serialised fiction groups and Radish comes up a lot (the pros but also the cons).

The biggest issue is mostly time and labour. I'm a disabled writer with a lot of chronic illness/es. Sometimes just writing chapters each month is enough to burn me out. Putting up chapter notifications on Patreon, Discord, and Tumblr is so tiring that I wouldn't even consider notifying people on say, Twitter, even though that makes good business sense.

I could technically diversify into Wattpad and Royal Road as well, and post stories there, it's allowed. But the extra work involved is extremely intimidated. I'm not a healthy full-time writer who can afford to kind of...put everything everywhere?

I definitely haven't ruled it out, but sometimes the problem isn't that they allow dark material, sometimes it's just that there's no magical energy fairy who will come along and make me able to handle setting up yet another account, monitoring yet more tax forms, and having to advertise yet one more thing. Usually I don't like to commit to something like that unless I know it will work out re: profitability. And I'm not entirely sure it will, much with novel publishing, there are a lot of authors on Radish who are making 5-10 cents a month (or $1-5 dollars a month) with regular update schedules and appealing content. That's...a very poor turnaround for the labour involved in setting up and getting started and formatting and releasing. Are there successful people on Radish? Sure! There are also successful writers on Patreon too! And successful novelists. But for everyone doing really well with it, the vast majority won't be making anything more than pocket money (see: Me and novels when I thought that might really help my income).

The app serial market is fairly oversaturated with novelists breaking up their novels into little chunks and selling them as serials there, it's a hugely competitive market, and even many Radish authors are pulling out and moving to the Patreon model instead, because they just can't keep up. I think possibly I could make it work, but the demographic isn't one that wants sex scenes as long as I write etc. But anyway, it's definitely something I've thought about, we'll see what happens in the future!