#physh be rambling

[physalian]

Gentle reminder that the “it makes me happy I don’t care if it’s bad” excuse won’t help you in the long run.

Saying this now in the wake of TikTok, to any and all flocking back to it because they miss their comfort nonsense videos and don’t want to think about the big picture.

But it came from having a friend who is an alcoholic who, despite making over 50% more than I do, lives paycheck to paycheck because of their spending habits, alcohol included. Their defense? “It makes me happy and I deserve things that make me happy when my life is terrible.”

What I implore them to hear instead of just criticism: Find something else that makes you happy.

Nobody is a bad person for wanting to escape the shit reality we’ve just run back into like an abusive ex.

But does doomscrolling really make you happy? Does letting the hours burn by watching funny videos make you fulfilled?

You can take baby steps, no need to quit cold turkey. Say, 20 minutes of the time you would spend on TikTok (or wherever you get your fraught escape) go do something else.

Go start a puzzle you’ll never finish. Rearrange your bedroom. Redecorate. Walk around the block. Lie in bed and listen to music. Take a bath. Take a nap. Give your pet some love. Organize a deck of cards by number then by suit and mess it all up again. Play dress-up with the clothes you never get to wear. Watch the rain. Be bored.

Be bored and be okay with your own thoughts and you might surprise yourself.

[physalian]

Being a writer sucks sometimes because I’ll be watching TV, trying to just relax, and a character will say something and I’ll go “Hm, that was a poor way to give that exposition. I would have done it differently.”

Writer brain don’t clock out.

[physalian]

Saw an argument against a ship for a very popular fandom basically saying: "But L is straight and A is ace!!!!"

... That. That is what fanfic and fanart is for? How have we gone full circle here to defending the sanctity of a straight character's canon straightness? It'd be like screaming that Dean Winchester is straight thus Destiel is toxic. The last 60 years of fandom would love to have a chat with you.

I know the answer is that ship discourse has taken a bizarre turn toward heated arguments over whether or not a ship will become canon instead of how X and Y would be cute together in another life.

Which I think is an unfortunate and unpredictable byproduct of actually having more queer characters in popular media? Like, before, everybody knew there was absolutely zero chance of their wild ships going canon, no matter how much chemistry X and Y have. But now, there's a non-zero chance, because writers recognize that queers exist and just might do it for certain shows.

So the line between fanon and canon, for some shows, has completely blurred and, y'all, it's all made up anyway, why can't we just have fun with it? So long as the writer doesn't retcon A's aceness thanks to squeaky-wheel shippers' demands, and I doubt that the writer will... who cares?

Anyway RadioApple is hot. I'm a sucker for enemies-to-lovers.

And as an ace myself, there's a whole lot you can do with an enemies-to-lovers pairing beyond just smut. Give me a fic of "nobody fucks with you but me" queerplatonic situationship and I'd be all over that like a house on fire.

[physalian]

I’m somebody who, by and large, does not participate in fandom because trying not to piss somebody off just isn’t worth the effort.

I grew up on PJO, for example, and I have seen just. So many takes. That I have a problem with. Whether it’s superficial shippy posts or bad faith arguments against or for a character, or the declining quality of the series at large in how it panders to these kinds of posts, or from fans who like the Disney show, whatever. Very nitpicky about this series in particular because it means so much to me. To the point where I would absolutely come across as some gatekeepy first-series purist and I own that.

However.

It is a beautiful thing to see something I hate and go: “Huh. You and I would not be friends. Anyway I’mma keep scrolling.”

And I think more people should be able to experience the liberation of “I don’t actually have to be upset by this and furthermore, spend more time stewing in that upset harassing OP about it.”

You should try it, it’s fun.

Even if I see an incendiary post that completely shits all over the story and 99% of other fans would unite in bashing it: bare minimum, I’m giving a troll what they want.

Even if you’re doing it out of some obligation to educate somebody on how wrong they are—how much are you stressing out and upsetting yourself in the process, and why’s it gotta be you bearing that burden? It’s just fiction, it doesn’t matter.

[physalian]

There is an extreme divide between “toxic positivity” and “aggressive kindness” like one minimizes your pain and shames you for feeling it and the other sees your pain and punches it in the face for you.

The difference between “It all works out in the end just be happy and look on the bright side.”

And

“Yeah you can be sad like you can absolutely do that but how about we use this sadness constructively to get you out of this hole? Your sadness don’t control you, babe, I believe in you.”

[physalian]

While I love my various YouTube chefs, there’s a common throughline of content they make that’s like “here’s now to make a healthier [insert fast food item here] at home!”

And, that’s great, I get what they’re going for, but people don’t buy fast food purely to eat unhealthy. We know this is unhealthy. We do it because we either don’t have time or don’t have the motivation to go about prepping all the ingredients, or buying them. I don’t even like most fast-foods and am very frugal with my money, so I end up not eating at all sometimes. My current kitchen is a glorified hotel kitchenette and isn't built for home chefs at all.

All that to say: If you’re like me and you oscillate between “I am cooking every night this week look at me go” and “I haven’t eaten something green since lunch 3 days ago and my dinner was an entire sleeve of Saltines”

Don’t underestimate the power of frozen peas.

No joke. If you’re not allergic to legumes, peas are great. Why? They’re high in protein and unlike other frozen vegetables, their texture doesn’t change much when you cook them, and they don’t have that much flavor, so they go great with a wide variety of seasonings. Broccoli and carrots never have that fresh crunch and corn isn’t super nutritious.

But the best part? They’re so small that if you make a bowl of butter noodles, 3 ingredients (pasta, butter/oil, salt), you can just dump in a ¼ cup of peas at the end and the heat of the noodles will defrost the peas for you. No microwave, no second dish, no worry about overcooking them. Typically, I still microwave mine in the bowl I plan to eat with to save time (and a dish). Heck, you could eat straight out of the pasta pot.

Canned, too, if you’ve got them, but if you’re sodium-conscious, watch out for that.

Too unmotivated to cook?

Buy a box of Minute Rice (or those bags of pre-cooked seasoned rice), toss it in the microwave, add your peas. Or even frozen edamame.

Random box pasta. Add a pad of butter. Then your peas.

Instant mash potatoes. Or a whole baked potato. Add a side of peas.

A sleeve of Saltine crackers. Add a side of peas.

Peas.

A whole bag might cost you anywhere from $0.99 to $2.99. Cheap, versatile, neurodivergent-friendly protein. If you can get up and make it to the kitchen to grab a box of crackers, you can take it 2 steps further to heat yourself some peas.

[physalian]

The 150 Widget Maker (Fuck Corporate America)

I need to vent for a second, m’kay?

Let’s say my job is that I have 8 hours, no lunch, to make 150 widgets. And I’m really, really good at making widgets. I have the system down pat and I’ve personalized my method to make it as efficient as possible for me to make 150 as quickly and accurately as possible.

My job is not “make as many widgets as possible in 8 hours”. It is “you have 8 hours every day to make at least 150 widgets”.

I do not get extra pay for going above 150. My “merit increase” is already lagging severely behind inflation to the point where it’s almost insulting when I get told I get an extra $0.40 like they’re doing me a big favor.

Now, at one point, I did once make over 150 widgets a day, and do OT to make even more widgets.

Then I suffered some burnout and had to reassess my work-life balance. So I cut back, slowly, gradually, to doing the 150, even though the minimum used to be 130, the minimum has increased while the pay has stayed the same.

Thing is.

We all have 8 hours to make 150 widgets. I however, have been caught frontloading my work and having the extra time to myself. Meanwhile my teammates who purposefully build their widgets slowly with weaponized incompetence, spread out their time. If I work, say, straight through super speedy, and make my 150 in 6 hours, that’s a whole 2 hour chunk of me time. My teammates have the exact same aggregate 2 hours, theirs is just spread out in between each widget. Difference is, I physically cannot force myself to be that lazy.

Now, obviously I’m not sitting at the assembly line under the gaze of my supervisor with a book and a coffee for those two hours. I got caught because there’s an invisible little robot in the conveyer belt counting how many times I touch the belt, while the human supervisors are far away in another warehouse.

I thought the robot only had a camera, so to speak, so let’s say I set up a me-shaped cardboard cutout weighted to keep my conveyer belt moving. I thought that was enough. No, I need to make sure the cardboard cutout is slapping the conveyer belt every few seconds and sliding widget pieces around. The existence of the robot does not encourage me to work harder at my job, it encourages me to work harder figuring out how to evade my job.

Could I make more widgets? Well yes. But I’ve learned the hard way that efficient work only gets you more work. Why should it matter how I spend those 2 hours? I know why, but just humor me. If we’re all getting paid for 2 hours of not working, then me lumping it all in at the end should be treated absolutely no differently than the people sabotaging their own output to look incompetent.

Either offer me an incentive, like a living wage, to make more widgets, or punish all of us equally for that downtime and reassess what about the process can be fixed so we maximize our efforts and want to work harder. Which starts with some fucking respect, and not micromanaging us with invisible robots like babies in a crib.

I can either be overworked or underpaid. I cannot tolerate being both.

Thanks for coming to my Ted Talk. Fuck Corporate America.

[physalian]

I hate how "I should be mindful of what information I put on the internet" used to come with the response of:

"Indeed you should, intrepid wanderer of the World Wide Web! There are cybercriminals and cyberstalkers out there and what you post is on the Internet forever".

And now it's:

"Pfft, you're not chronically online? I posted my SSN 6 months ago, you digital prude. Look at all my retweets!"

Anyone else remember that old commercial from like 2003 that was this high school girl posting a compromising picture of her to her school's physical bulletin board, and when she panicked because people were laughing she tried to rip it down and another just kept materializing back in place?

There was a line in Euphoria where Zendaya literally went "and don't tell teens they shouldn't send nudes, nudes are the currency of high school" like. No??? I know that show is absolutely not a 2003 PSA but

"Everybody's doing it so I guess it's okay," used to be the weak-ass excuse that got you grounded for a month for drinking at a party.

Not the current currency of the realm.

[physalian]

Hot take but I hope someday soon we get to a point where "Character of X minority is in this piece of media so you should watch it and support it!" goes away.

I'm tired of "It's the bi character! Look at their one hint of a line of dialogue!" and "It's the strong female character! Look at her telling the camera how amazing she is!"

Or whoever.

I don't need all the marketing to pander to me and I'm not giving anything a pass just because it happens to represent a group I identify wtih. Give me a well-written and well-acted story, that happens to have strong women, and it'll be a far louder statement than crossing your fingers and hoping by virtue of insisting that you have strong women, you'll break even on your investment.

I want to get to a place where a minority's inclusion, and I am part of several of them, is absolutely nothing special. No "first X in this genre!" As if the act of inclusion itself, regardless of how well it was done or in what capacity, counts.

I mean it is a big achievement for all the actors and actresses who break that ceiling, and they deserve all the elation and pride for doing so. I'm talking about the characters themselves, which tend to stop at "we included them and their chararcterization is simply that they're Minority. Isn't that enough for you? Isn't that what you wanted?"

Instead of "This Lesbian character is so amazing because she's a lesbian" how about "this character is so amazing and she's a lesbian".

I get the need to do it for a little while, I want to someday reach a reality where there is no need for celebration, because there is no longer the perception of a default to diverge from. Personally, I think the marketing celebrating "first X in this genre" only reminds everyone in the first place that what is happening is abnormal.

Don't celebrate the features we cannot change and did not choose, celebrate our actions and what we do with them, as you would a straight cis male character.

[physalian]

Actually gonna refine an earlier sentiment I was very long-winded about.

“You can’t control how other people feel” ok but I am upset still and they don’t get a free pass

“Success is the greatest middle finger” ok but I don’t want them taking credit for success they weren’t part of

“Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face” their hurt has consequences and allowing them to see me happy tells them that they’ve escaped those consequences, so I will continue to be upset and blaming them for it

Instead, consider this, because it took me many years to appreciate:

Treat it like “You’re not invited to my birthday party.”

As in, success *is* the best middle finger, and you aren’t obligated to share in your feats and happiness with anyone you don’t want there, who you think hasn’t earned their spot, or lost their rights to it. Be happy, without even telling them you’ve done a thing. Let them see it, from the other side of the glass, the only one not permitted to join in the fun.

I don’t go out and tell someone the equivalent of “I’m going to be happy in spite of you” I just let it happen silently, quietly, and on the off chance that they do hear about my “party” it’ll hurt that much more coming from a 3rd source. I grew up with narcissists who would think I’m bluffing if I told them, or a fresh argument would start. Letting it happen while they sit pretty thinking they’re right, and disengaging, is much more satisfying, I promise.

Who knows, maybe they were hoping you’d be as miserable as they are, and you’ve turned the tables on them.

Maybe they won’t show up, maybe they’ll never hear about your figurative birthday party, but if them not being there makes you happy, don’t you win anyway?

Leave them stuck with the version of you that no longer exists.

[physalian]

My Catholic grandmother sent me one of those religious motivational pictures probably off FB with the uplifting quote and some doves and stuff, trying to inspire me about my books/art.

And it said: "Let your light so shine before me, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." Mathew 5:16

I am now of course picturing God up there having a self-care day taking a bubble bath while indulging in a fantasy novel about unholy gay vampires.

I sure hope They like it!

[physalian]

Idk what boxes to check off on my neurodivergent/acespec bingo card here but I’ve never had an OTP? I like shipping and I write romances in books and fanfic but I don’t talk about someone else’s fiction characters in a fanon context, only canon, if that makes sense? Like you’ll see me writing fic for Pernico as a fix-it canon divergence, but I’m never going to blog about the ship or like, create a mood board, lest people scream at me about Solangelo or Percabeth.

Heck the only reason I worked up the courage to post those fics was beacuse I knew no one on here would give a fuck and go search them up. Ironically, the lack of engagement and knowing my fics yell into the void is quite freeing.

I don’t even know how to make a mood board. Where do I get the ingredients? Why would I make one? Why do people like them?

Never cared about the actors who play the characters on screen to the point of watching interviews or wanting to meet them at cons. Never tried to pick an actor to play a book character. Never had a celebrity crush, or a character crush (but Caspian is still perfect ngl).

Never owned posters or merch like pins or bags of my favorite books or movies, only what was bought for my mom, who let me read books above my age after she read them, like Twilight.

I have one (1) piece of art that’s not up in my current apartment that’s an MHA version of the old photograph “Lunch atop a Skyscraper” in black and white that was absolutely an impulse buy and only because I recognized the inspiration.

I don’t have stickers or car decals, but I do have 2 anime t-shirts that I never wear anymore and two little chibi keychains, one of which is still on my keys (the other lost his head somewhere).

I don’t even own stuff from the most famous fandoms that I like, like, Mario, or Star Wars, or Marvel.

It definitely partly comes from, as a kid, understanding: “Being into fandom things gets you bullied. Tell no one you read or watch TV unless it’s what’s popular, and your interests are inconvenient to everyone else anyway so hush.”

Maybe if Percy Jackson had merch when I was younger I would have gotten some for birthdays and christmas, but it didn't, not like Harry Potter, and walking around in a neon orange t-shirt that everyone would stare at was not gonna happen.

When one of the animated Tinker Bell movies was airing on Disney Channel, I was going to miss it so I wanted to record it, but something else was taking up the DVR spot and I'm absolutely the only one in my family who remembers the ridicule I recieved for wanting to record Tinker Bell. Pretty sure I made myself stop caring about it, like, immediately after, and never asked to record anything ever again. I just made sure I caught whatever, quietly, live.

I was driving the other day and beside me was this girl in her little hatchback with those decals where it looks like the character is popping up from the window, and they were all Hazbin Hotel and my very first thought was omg that’s so cringey. I like Hazbin, but I am definitely not in the fandom because it’s scary over there, but also that Alastor sticker was cute.

But the other part comes from just… not caring. Not understanding how anyone can get so attached to aspects of a story outside the bounds of the pages (certainly not understanding how that attachment can cause meltdowns when someone disagrees with you over what won’t ever actually happen with the character in canon).

My interest in an actor stops completely once they take their acting hat off and are themselves again. How a thing is made? Oh I’ll eat that up. Like director’s commentaries and BTS. But following an actor on Twitter? Nah.

But on the other hand, darn it, I wish I was brave enough to have stickers on my car? To buy merch and hang it up in my apartment? To actually wear my t-shirts and not make sure I have a sweatshirt to hide them with? Nobody nowadays knows the chibi on my keychain, and no one sees my keys anyway.

I want to be able to be that passionate about any one fandom to run a whole blog about it? That sounds fun? To be so staunchly oblivious to any story's problems so I can enjoy it? Or like… to care, at all, when new content for something I used to like drops? Passively hate the Disney Percy Jackson but I wish I didn’t. Could not care less about Arcane season 2 but I wish I’d enjoyed it. Both have been soured by "well you just didn't understand it fuck off". I liked the second Spiderverse but know no one who’d talk about it with me so it’s just kind of there. It’s a movie just like any other.

Friends in fandom isn’t like a thing that I’ve ever had. I’ve had friends, who also have extremely passionate opinions very different from mine about various fandoms which made “let’s talk about this thing we both like” a minefield.

And attempting to voice those opinions on here? Pfft. I’ve been harassed enough, no thank you. Fandom is dangerous for me, not fun. Idk how the rest of you are doing it. I’ve only been on here a year and the blacklist of "things we do not discuss on Tumblr" has grown quite long.

You do not understand how much conscious effort it takes to admit, out loud, that I like action movies and stuff like Transformers. I’ve wanted, for years now, a little Decepticon sticker for my car. It costs like $3. I still haven’t bought it. There's an art book (The Art of Prime) that's ridiculously rare and being hoarded by collectors that I still very much want, but it's like $800 on Ebay (or it was several years ago last I checked). It's the only unique piece of fandom I've ever actually hunted for.

But yeah, I'm saying this on The Fandom Hellsite so y’all probably think I’m insane but media, to me, has always just been an entertaining story, and never steps beyond the bounds of the pages it’s printed on and my imagination, because when it does the judgment comes. Like, everywhere I turn, I am doing fandom wrong.

Fandom is a thing best viewed silently, anonymously, and at a great distance, lest ye be known.

[physalian]

Does anyone else have words they’ll never say in conversation but will use when typing?

Mine being ‘y’all’

I’m a Southerner geographically but I don’t have the accent and never say this unless I’m being sarcastic and using it on purpose. In writing, though, y’all is a way to be inclusive that isn’t as aggressive as “you all” or “you people” as some are sensitive to “you guys”, and it’s short, sweet, and invisible.

But if I say “you guys” I talk so fast that you won’t even notice it, so it stays.

[physalian]

Hot take but these tiers for streaming services, as they all keep getting more expensive, should limit you on how much you’re allowed to watch a month, not by how many households can access the account.

I’m not going to pay for a whole Netflix for myself if I only use it a couple nights a month, but those nights are for Netflix originals that I love and can’t get anywhere else.

[physalian]

Me last Saturday when the owner of a local pizza place welcomed me back to the restaurant like we’re family: 😭

Me today when the bartender at a taco place smiled at me and later proceeded to not charge me for chips-sans-salsa: 🥺

It’s been a difficult few days. My bar for kindness and respect is 6 feet under.

I gave the bartender a 50% tip.

[physalian]

Having a junk-drawer side blog is so fuckin' freeing why didn't I do this before? It has no followers. Nobody cares. It really is a drawer of little odds and ends, trinkets and baubles and chip-clips and old pens, things I don't really want but don't want to throw away... of posts I like but have nothing to do with my main.

And, beacuse it has no followers, I can repost whatever I want and no one will harass me over it.

I know this is like, common practice, but I'm 26 and didn't get into the internet as social space until October 2023. It doesn't take much to wow me.