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yourfandomfriend · 5 years ago

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Salty Millennial Jams

Unlike a lot of people my age, I really do like Gen Z and try my best to sympathize with you guys and trust your judgement. Listen to what you have to say. Try not be that idiot shaking their fist at a cloud. But guys. Guys.

Britney Spears music was not good.

No, it wasn’t, you guys. It wasn’t, and I’m not gonna pretend that it’s just like, my opinion, man. No beef with her as a person or any of her later stuff I didn’t listen to, but in the 90s and oughts, her music was, to put it mildly, not okay.

But it was everywhere. And we hated it -- by “we” I mean everyone who wasn’t a sheltered tweenaged child whose parents picked out all their music or a 35-year-old creeper dude who got banned from the library computers.

Please, if you wanna try out late ‘90s and early ‘00s music, try literally anything else before you settle on Britney/Backstreet 4 Life? Despite the barrage of non-stop painful pop we were being force-fed, there was still this window between 97 and 2002 when mainstream music -- like, accessable, radio friendly bops -- was so good.

In fact, here’s a playlist that I listen to when I’m nostalgic for the late 90s and early oughts, stuff you Gen Z kids didn’t hear if your parents had bad taste.

OLD MILLENIUM PLAYLIST

1.) “Bouncin' Back” by Mystikal

From the days when Pharrell was mostly just fucking around in the background of other people’s jams, it’s this was super-timely, clean rap song about people being brave and managing the grief and paranoia that followed the September 11th attacks. And it’s really good, you guys. I play this when I feel like I need more fight in me, like right now.

Also, it’s a reminder of a bygone era when rap music had emotion and didn’t sound like it just did a bump of ambien.

2.) “Crush” by Jennifer Paige

It’s like “Oops! I Did it Again,” only good! This is what people like me were listening to when your grandpa was first getting into Britney Spears.

Yeah, you heard me.

3.) Sleepwalker by The Wallflowers

It’s the Crowley song! Which Crowley? Exactly.

4.) “My Favorite Mistake” by Sheryl Crow

This is a special song because it’s Sheryl Crow’s last single before she went, “Fuck it, I don’t care. Soak up the sun, it’s all bullshit anyway.”

5.) “Diggin' On You” by TLC

This is one of those songs from when people still bought entire albums for one single only to find gems like this a few tracks down. I mean, it just feels like summertime listening to this. The sound of sunlight radiating off pavement.

6.) “Otherside” by Red Hot Chili Peppers

Warning: This song will try to make you listen to it on full blast five times in a row with earbuds in until yours ears bleed. Listen responsibly.

7.) "Love Is In The Right Place” by Bryan White

Hey, did you know country music wasn’t always just puns and lists of rural stuff like pickup trucks and dirt roads and sweet tea and for the love of god, don’t watch the news? Yeah, there was once happy stuff, funny stuff, deep stuff, original stuff. Good stuff.

Between “Panderin’” and a couple decades of country just being “the music of sad people” there was Clinton era country, when the genre was capable of being fun and happy and making you feel good. Suspicious timing, no?

8.) Jumper by Third Eye Blind

Speaking of great albums, every track on this album was blindingly 90s. I mean that in a good way. The obscure ones like “In the Background” kinda blew your socks off, but the singles were so great.

9.) "It's All Been Done” by Barenaked Ladies

This was part of that great 60s pop revival in the 90s that made everything on the radio so much more fun.

10.) "You Light Up My Life” by LeAnn Rimes

Okay, one more country song, and yes, it’s a cover but... I never liked the original for some reason. Too self-indulgent sounding. But I feel like Rimes nailed it. There’s almost something menacing in her deep voice in the verses, so when she sings out the chorus it gives an uplifting effect.

11.) "Are You That Somebody” by Aaliyah

Had to have at least one Aaliyah song on this list. She was one of those artists who made music like the world was the way it should be, to show it what it could be. Did I steal that line from an episode of Angel? You’ll never know.

12.) Gossip Folks by Missy Elliott

I love how gloatingly bitchy this song is. It don’t apologize and neither will I. There’s a clean version but it’s not the one on my playlist, Ye Be Warned.

13.) Sour Girl by Stone Temple Pilots

I have to end the list here because the amount of late 90s in this song threw my back out and I need to crawl for one of those grabber things.

#90s music #salty old millennial #get off my lawn!#long post #gotta do something while stuck at home #might as well rock out #playlists

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rangergirl3 · 6 years ago

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My best friend just uploaded designs to his new Redbubble account! :D

Aka hey look at what my awesome husband made!

#salty old millennials #:D

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jehnt · 6 years ago

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In my opinion the weirdest thing about kids these days is they see the Harry Potter books as classics that are too intimidating to read.

#harry potter #hot take #generation z #salty old millennial remembers when these things were FRESH

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cammiluna · 2 years ago

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continuing onward

Beanish "Millennials"

In this group, we'll be referring to Fawful, Peasley, Popple, and the Relaxation Room receptionist. I try not to hard-number ages anymore, but the approximate ages of these four range from 18-30 with Peasley being the oldest (a bit younger than Peach), Fawful being the youngest, and the story overall taking place around the early 2010s (this is why Gadd and Bowser Jr use a GBA SP as a cell phone).

In comparison, Ludwig and the koopalings are Gen X and Bowser Jr is Gen Z, but we'll leave them alone for now.

I always assumed Fawful was a child prodigy from playing the games. Even in Bowser's Inside Story that scene where he was yelling and swinging from a chandelier had my throw down my DS stylus like, "DUDE'S NO OLDER THAN TWELVE!" Obviously, nobody has to agree with me because lots of great Fawful headcanons exist out there of various age ranges, but this is what I've always stuck with since the mid 2000s and I stuck with it in this comic, making him just a newly-formed adult. If you're not as open-minded as I am and hate child fawful canons, feel free to block me and be done with me forever. Chances are, if you're a follower of my blog, you totally dig it.

moving on!

Popple is definitely not a child in my headcanon for the games, but making him a plucky teenager newbie thief bossing Fawful around as his rookie was such an interesting idea, especially with everyone else in the comic being so old, plus it was an opportunity to give Popple more appearances in the comic without the idea of Fawful being exploited by multiple shady adults.

Two dingus children trying to be thieves is also just funny.

I never wrote much about Peasley or the Jellyfish girl, so we leave them out for the rest of this.

Popple has a parent that worked fulltime at the Hooniversity and Fawful was adopted by chefs who did catering occasionally at the school. Fawful himself wasn't allowed in the building, but he always dreamed of being a famous scientist there. It was his calling. ANYWAY, the two were often left together to do whatever they wanted and Popple simply wanted to make himself a name as a master thief! What's he gonna do with nerd kid though? Make him his first rookie!

When Cackletta snatched Fawful and made him her own minion, nobody really questioned it. Cackletta was a professor on campus (as well as the royal sorcery advisor in the castle) so she was trusted and Fawful got to live his dream being a child tech guru, even if he was essentially being used.

Since becoming famous after the beanstar incident, Popple vowed to steal something valuable from the now hot-shot Fawful, but Fawful's concept of prized valuables consists of junk that can be repurposed into inventions. That's why Popple gives him a frog coin on his birthday- so he can one day take it.

He still has a chance to do so if it hasn't fallen out of Fawful's pocket between all the fighting and outfit swaps that occurred during the birthday party.

What a weekend that was!

Magical Peeps

This is another trio, consisting of Cackletta, Fawful, and Kamek. The backstory between Kamek and Cackletta will come in the Evil Salty Ex arc next post, but I'll confirm here they never paired. They were shipped in every April Fools gag comic with a bake-off, but storywise, they were entirely rivals that assumed one's magic was better than the other. And this Cacky is not into dudes or the dude-identifying.

Their magic rather different. I probably missed a few canon tidbits, but whatever.

Cacky's sorcery is mainly about firing energy blasts, blowing stuff up. She can create tangible elements out of thin air and manipulate it as she wishes. The bat transformation was eventually learned, so it's not like she's limited to energy blasts. When possessing Bowser, she was able to use his firebreathing abilities fine. She can make good use of whatever supernatural abilities a person has when she possesses them.

As of her death post-Bowletta, her ghost was put into specially-outfitted jars and things invented by Fawful that allows her to still cast magic as means of self-defense, but her constant anger just had her blast everything, which made his job harder as well as his assistants'. In this regard, her outbursts were what broke Fawful's childhood headgear. He's been wanting to upgrade it to accommodate his current height and weight, but he has to fix it first and he doesn't have the time or energy to do so.

As for the jars, if she's not kept contained, she'll dive into anyone that isn't conscious, and because she's so angry and full of emotionally-fueled magic energy, the boys are afraid she'll blow their cover before they could properly revive her.

I think i have to learn Luigis Mansion lore before I can write her part of the epilogue. I've never played those games before.

Kamek's on the other hand, is dominantly transformation magic. Like that one anime that repeats the law of equivalent exchange an exhausting number of times, he can alter a thing into something else, be it resizing, turning it into something else or giving it temporary sentience. His disappearing act and anything else he can pull off is learned, and the scepter is used to help with his spell accuracy. He can't do energy blasts out of nothing, but the wand helps solidify his spellcasting which can function somewhat like Cacky's energy blasts and can burn people, but is way weaker.

Fawful can technically do both, or rather, perform Kamek's magic the way Cackletta executes hers (aka he can freehand it), but he was never able to focus his attention on casting any spells, so he avoided it and focused on his smarts. On the other hand, he has an anomaly where, in a fight or flight situation or having an emotional outburst, an antenna would spring from his head that could fire beams. He's not a fan of that and it takes a long time to disappear because he lacks sorcery experience to vanish it himself. The reasoning behind the beam is unknown to even Cackletta, but may be a side effect of mixing two types of innate magic, which she discovers later when controlling him.

When fleeing to the Oho Islands post-Beanstar Incident, he learned Firebrand and Thunderhand from the temples and made do with that for a good few years to help defend his new territory. These powers are temporary, so they were frequently either kept up with visits to the relaxation room or renewed at the temples themselves. While he was possessed, Cackletta could already freehand spells and didn't really need the hand powers. Still, thunderbrand was used in the final battle

Then there's the point in the story where Fawful IS able to cast spells on a whim. Cackletta and Fawful are both weak, so she can't manage a full possession for very long, but her inhabiting him gives him her 20/20 vision, habitual gestures for spellcasting and general knowledge of energy flow for said casting. as of Chapter 3, he has no idea she's inhabiting his head yet. He just woke up from supposed sleepwalking suddenly able to cast a spell.

She casts spells when she's in control, then he wakes up and his body still remembers just casting a spell even if he himself has no memory of it. The more times she gets to control him, the more he picks up.

When she dives into Naval, though, he's back to square one not quite knowing what he's doing.

When Cacky straight up spills her plan in his face, Fawful carries one of Kamek's scepters for the remainder of the story. He's processing a lot and definitely lost confidence in his spellcasting. Technically, she dived into him again and he got those abilities back. Naval's transformations up until the finale were technically done with Cackletta's passive assistance

The first time he truly casted a spell on his own was the double-spell that changed Naval (or Navletta) back into a humanoid form and converted his jacket into a dress for her in hopes they would be at eye level for him to announce his rebellion against her.

That didn't work, and so he executed a thunderhand in hopes to disable the body. He reverted back to using that.

The next spell about to be cast alongside Kamek was interrupted by Lima throwing her broom at Cackletta, so that didn't happen.

In the epilogue, Fawful is seen attempting repairs to a broken koopa shell, but he knows that filling the holes with magic-altering materials will have a negative effect on the shell long term. His science brain is still kicking. There will be some short lore about that before the comic ends, which will cover the mishap I've made the entire 13 years I worked on this comic that Kamek was probably supposed to have a shell but i drew him like he never had one. :O

That aside, he started getting the hang of transformation magic. Unfortunately, while he technically is capable of casting Beanish energy spells as well BECAUSE he's Beanish, Cackletta was never cooperative in coaching him how to use it. He doesn't care, though. Once Kamek is back home and out of his life, he can go back to his normal tech and foodie life.

Lastly, it was explained in chapter 5 that Fawful's speech quip was due to an accidental Cackletta spell.

now that quip is gone.

I feel like people are gonna yell at me for that, lmao.

Lastly, there's Naval, who was never a magical being in the slightest, so Cackletta couldn't perform any spells when diving into her.

The chart does list Naval and Fawful as friends, so we will have a final scene with them soon.

that was a lot!

"Babies Come from the Stork" Conspiracy Theory

a short one, and one that has no appearance in the comic. Kamek is the only one in this story who witnessed a real life situation of babies being delivered by a stork. If that was the true context of Mario and Luigi's existence or if there was another reason why the twins were hauled around by a delivery bird, nobody would be able to come up with an explanation.

but he saw it and that's all that totally matters!

babies definitely come from the stork!

Lima and Cackletta have ridiculed Kamek about this for the entirety of his retirement in Fungitown. Geno can't answer as spilling intel about Mario's origins (the events of SMRPG did happen in the past) would be a privacy violation. I'm not explaining it because I never wrote that headcanon yet and I don't know if I ever will!

Still, Cackletta, working two jobs to slowly cook her plans for world domination, told the Beanish Millennials that babies come from the stork, and did so just to mess with them. Peasley and Popple believe it to this day. Fawful was too young to comprehend the concept of "babies" even as he was scribbling blueprints for his first Headgear model.

The Yoshi's Islanders

Aka The Great Baby Relay. Last one for tonight.

While Kamek himself isn't a native here, Naval and Lakitu are.

Naval, princess to the jungle region and Lakitu (or Julius-Gabriel before being enlisted in the Koopa Troop) from the forest region were recruited in Kamek's new army when he landed on the island looking for Baby Mario.

Kamek himself was still fairly new at being a commander for Bowser's personal army which didn't exist yet, so all he had were a few Toadies given to him when he began his new job looking after baby Bowser. Where his predecessor and Bowser's parents went and where they have been is a headcanon I didn't write, but this isn't about them.

As stated by Naval in Chapter 6, the Yoshies on the island were becoming a nuisance to a lot of the locals, so they made an agreement with Kamek to stop The Great Baby Relay if he could help put the Yoshi's in their place. We all know what happened there.

The events of Tetris Attack, aka The Great Storm Spell was when relations got better between the Yoshies and the other locals. But being unable to re-recruit most of his old henchmen for this plot, Kamek ended up brainwashing several inhabitants including Raphael, Prince Froggy, and of course Lakitu.

To this day, Lakitu is still upset over that, but Kamek still insists they're best buds.

And the Mario Kart Circuit will totally, eventually hold another job fair.

Lakitu was the one who faced off with Naval when Yoshi was able to rescue everyone that was brainwashed. After Bowser and Kamek's plans had failed, they returned back to their own kingdom. Both Naval and Lakitu had vented about this and afterwards, he relocated to World 3, originally to keep Kamek from ever recruiting Naval again, but it never happened again, they became good friends and Kamek visits them casually on his rare vacations looking like an absolute dingus.

Kamek always calls Naval his minion and she was fine with it, but a lot of times he was awkward around her or protective of her like she was his girlfriend. They never spoke about it because they're both trip over their own feet over it.

The vacations stopped when Kamek was dragged to Beanbean to work for Fawful. Lakitu was in town during the story to offer "a bare-minimum amount of support" to Kamek during the Retro Mad Science Expo and Naval of course was delivered to him to be an exhibit (and to fight Fawful, which kinda never happened).

it technically worked out, exhibit-wise!

that's it for now!

We still got the Ex League explanation and I'll probably throw in a couple of others if i think of any or anyone sends me asks. Good night!

Is the text readable when fully loaded? If not, here's a google drive link to the original size

I have explanations of some of it. Keep in mind, these headcanons only relate to the Immortal Fool AU as passing these as game headcanons is just absolutely nonsensical. Very little of it may also be endcomic spoilers, but really, what's left to spoil?

And lastly, some of these bits didn’t get to be fully explored in the comic or else it would be maybe 300 more pages hahaha

Gonna split the tidbits into groups

Ghostblusters

The main trio tasks with Cackletta's revival since the events of Superstar Saga. Fawful stole Kamek from the Koopa Troop for his magic and then stole Gadd from... whatever house he was haunting i guess, for his knowledge on ghosts. Together, they were to assemble a new body for Cackletta's ghost via science, sorcery, and necromancy.

While commencing everything in secret, the trio also had lives outside of this project, and as a casual distraction from all that hardwork which Cacky doesn't seem to be appreciative of, they assemble a retro mad science festival at the Hooniversity. They become famous for it and the event has drawn in nerds from all over the world.

The festival was to happen the weekend after the present-day events of the story. Gadd had the original Poltergust, Fawful had his headgear, which he never managed to finish repairs on, and Kamek wanted his island bosses, which isn't exactly science, but he insisted.

Technically, Fawful is not that strong and the other two could have easily escaped and went home, but they had their reasons to stick around. Gadd had to keep Cackletta under surveillance and Kamek's job was given to Wendy, therefore having no home to go to. Eventually he was to plot an escape plan with Naval once she arrived. Where that would go afterwards was unplanned.

As for Fawful himself, he's been juggling his loyal to cackletta with his management of the Hooniversity and his overall fame as a scientist. It all makes him feel accomplished as a hard worker but also took a rather huge toll on his health.

Additional Minions

While they've only made very brief appearances in the comic and I wished i could do more with them, the smaller jellyfish sister works for Fawful (originally was written in as a hooniversity student) and "Chester" the Oho Jee is the one that stuck out to Fawful the most from the others. He sometimes hangs out with the surfer jees, but what stood out the most was that he hangs around people a lot as if trying to socialize/communicate.

It was implied in the research tapes that beanish who had violent confrontations with oho jees and elements have themselves turned into Oho Jees and there's a chance Chester could have been the one of the final researchers to fall into a terrible fate before the research was then abandoned until Fawful took over.

Why Lima called him "Chester" just felt like an absolute random decision on her end, but Fawful wasn't really surprised since she's normal for her random outbursts of things. it came together when he inherited some of Cackletta's memories and "Chester" turned out to be a more familiar name than she nor Lima would ever speak verbally.

The Royal Babysitters Club

Way long ago (not really, more like right before Bowser and Peach born), Kamek, Lima, and Toadsworth had adventures. Kamek and Lima were a pair that dated and broke up long ago and been petty about it since. When Lima was with Toadsworth, Kamek would kidnap Toadsworth knowing Lima would come for him, and Lima made a wish on Star Road for youth and strength to rival Kamek's (Koopas retain their youth for much longer and has the energy of a 40yr old human despite being over 100). On the other hand, Lima wanted her elderly appearance retained so it wouldn't raise any questions at her own castle. That was when Geno came down to grant said wishes and also assess the situation.

It can be said that the the whole thing happened because she wished it to be and that wish brought her to see her rival/ex partner again. Kamek was just newly assigned to look after the egg that Lord Bowser would soon hatch out of, so he didn't appreciate being pulled out of that for a spontaneous mission to mess with the Mushroom Kingdom.

Kamek made a counter wish (which technically wasn't intended for evil so it passed) to not be involved in Lima's wishes again. Bowser was born, and those adventures stopped.

Toadsworth is still friends with Lima to this day and is on pretty okay terms with Kamek since he knows Princess Peach won't be harmed under his watch.

Spite Club

A trio acquaintanceship between Lima, Kamek, and Geno as a result of the abovementioned wish-manipulated adventures. Geno was specifically appointed by Star Road to look after these two old people, as he was the one who granted their wishes which resulted in their needs to create more wishes to spite each other even as the two lived apart in different countries.

It can be said that Geno involved Toadsworth in the first adventure so Lima could meet him (which also promoted good affairs between the Mushroom and Bean kingdoms) and to move on from Kamek. 3 can play at the manipulation game!

Technically, none of them made evil wishes. They knew how to work the system for small, petty wishes everytime they came across a shooting star and Geno at this point had nothing to do but to play along and watch each others' wishes backfire in some small way because "be careful what you wish for", right?

The wishing drama didn't end there either. Lima and Geno know somethng about Fawful's origins, but that in its own is under a wish to never be spoken about, and that can only be broken if Fawful himself makes a wish to know about it. It was under the intent that he's safer not knowing, so of course, that wish passed- under the condition that Fawful himself could break it if he wanted to.

He seems to have other priorities, though.

As sorcerers that worked with Fawful pretty closely (and Cackletta possessing him), Cackletta and Kamek have an idea of what the deal is, but again, they can't speak of it.

And this is how wishes can backfire. Both Fawful and Naval inherited some of Cackletta's memories, and those memories contain her realizations about his sorcery (especially since possessing him) that she cannot verbally speak of. It's all communicated mentally.

It answers a lot of his questions about the next group I'm gonna talk about, but as of Chapter 7, he's realized some things:

this kid can do transformation hocus pocus like a koopa.

And Cacky wants it

Spite Club Neo

The next generation, but we remove Geno from this group and add Fawful. The strange orphan child with an obsession over tech who was tossed around like a hot potato between who knows where, Popple, Cackletta, and Lima.

Fawful's successes with the hooniversity and oho islands were completely accidental, as his original intent was to exploit the facility and make a minion army out of oho jees for the secret cackletta revival project. He's smart enough to not use wishes to hide secrets! Anyway, as all of this was brewing up, Lima began hovering over him and try to influence him into being a good guy, but as a manipulative old bag herself, she's not good at it. Some of the flashback pages between Fawful and Lima intentionally make no sense. They don't even get along half the time!

Then Kamek returns to Beanbean unwillingly a few years later. He's leery that Lima's continuously babysits Fawful and Lima is leery that Fawful chose Kamek- THIS MAGIKOOPA of all koopa wizards to work for him. Fawful simply researched who was the best for his cause and he remembered this big mouth egotistical wizard he passed by a couple of times as a kid, so why not?

Did Fawful back then know anything about Lima or why these two old people were bickering over tea? Absolutely not! The old people at this time had no idea who HE was, either! He was just some rando with a rocket that Cackletta had snatched.

But the 2-3 years that progressed until present day, Lima would involve herself at some of the boys' public shinnanigans. Is she keeping an eye on things? Does she miss chaos? Is she supporting Prince Peasley when he drops in to pick a fight? Did Queen Bean instruct her to keep an eye on both Fawful and the Prince?

Public statement is that she stole Fawful from Cackletta in order to spite her dead body but she wonders if Kamek sticks around fawful and coaches his struggling sorcery in order to spite Lima herself? Kamek is also wondering if Cackletta, now just a ghost in a jar, is working Fawful to the bone, to rise from the dead in a new body in order to spite Lima. It goes around in circles, but Fawful is simply just trying to get a job done and needs a break from these weirdos.

In any case, Lima and Kamek's rivalry has downgraded to a rather salty friendship since around his hypnotist days in Fungitown.

Kamek and Cackletta's connection will be discussed at a later group point.

At this point, i need to cut this off and reblog for part 2. that may come in a few hours or next day.

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thesandwichenthusiast · 3 years ago

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The Kosher Nosh / Glen Rock, NJ

Hello, fellow enthusiasts.

It’s been a while. Three years, in fact. My last post was about the Stage Door Deli in the Financial District waaay back in those halcyon days of 2019. I did get a hot pastrami sandwich for Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day in January 2020, but if I’m being honest with you, it wasn’t very good! And I’d rather miss a year of HPSD than post something I wasn’t actually enthusiastic about, so I didn’t post it. Trust me, you didn’t miss much.

Since then… well, you’ve been on Planet Earth, I don’t need to tell you what’s happened. It was (understandably) a touch hard to get a table anywhere in January 2021, so we went without a post a second year in a row. The 24 months following that subpar hot pastrami sandwich in 2020 have been… a lot! There’s really no other way to say it—these last two years have been the most intense of my life. On top of the pandemic, I’ve had health scares, terrible losses, and made life-changing financial and medical decisions. I released a book, transitioned to a new stage of my career, and have a new baby on the way. (I know! I can’t believe it either.)

Through managing all of it, I feel a bit like I lost touch with a part of myself. Don’t worry, I’m not kicking myself over it; there were an abundance of justifiable reasons to put that part of myself on the backburner. Looking back on the past two years now, in a period of my life that at least feels like I’m coming out of it, one thing I’m struck with is how gradually it happened. At no point did I say, “OK, today’s the day I stop grilling all the time, or hosting parties, or organizing online game nights.” It just happened.

I lost touch with my enthusiasm.

So what does this have to do with Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day? Well first off, permit an Elder Millennial to wax on his outdated blogging platform, please. But secondly, I can’t think of a better way to tap back into that part of myself than consuming an inhuman pile of warm, tenderly-brined meat slathered with hot brown mustard and lovingly heaved upon a slice of rye, with another atop it. In my mind, there’s nothing that comes as close to approximating a hug in sandwich form as a hot pastrami sandwich, and there’s no better way to get back in touch with yourself than diving back into an old tradition—even one you made up and don’t do for anyone but yourself.

So friends, with all that said, I’d like to formally welcome you to Hot Pastrami Sandwich Day 2022.

Where are we? We went west, young man, all the way across the Hudson to the Kosher Nosh in Glen Rock, NJ. Since 1976, this everything-you-need-nothing-you-don’t Jewish deli has been serving up kosher classics to local folks. Light on the fanfare, heavy on the tastiness.

What are we getting? Hot pastrami sandwiches, of course. This year, I kept it simple with pastrami on rye and a bit of mustard, with coleslaw, a pickle, and potato chips on the side.

How was it? See for yourself:

It was exceptional. Finely cut, tender, moist, and just the right amount of saltiness. While Katz’s ridiculously thick-cut pastrami remains my favorite (I like it thick, what can I say), this has easily catapulted itself into second place. Truly just a wonderful sandwich.

Should we go back? Definitely, especially if you’re in the area and want to get lunch with me. Great vibe and old-school ambience:

All in all, The Kosher Nosh is a top-flight kosher deli. The pastrami was tasty, the service prompt, the dining room kind and welcoming. Can’t ask for anything more on a cold day in January.

#pastrami #hot pastrami sandwich day

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starsailorstories · 2 years ago

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Thonks for the tag @peachpulpeuse!!

Favourite colour: off-pinks...hard to choose between the different off-pinks that exist. big fan of dusty rose, henna, coral, all of those. very millennial of me i know but i think we should celebrate the accomplishments of a color that can be soothing and warm at the same time

Currently reading: SPQR by Mary Beard finally, and rereading some old faves (Madness Rack & Honey by Mary Ruefle and The Conquest of Bread bc every now and then you just gotta). Just finished The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk bc it won the nobel and i was curious and i gotta say that while i feel like the author did such a colossal amount of research she forgot she wasn’t actually writing a biography in places, it slapped as a matter of fact

Last song: “Keep on Pushin’” by the Impressions i am a grandmother

Last series: idk if it’s last started or last finished but started watching the dark crystal netflix series w/ friends last week and i’m very charmed although disappointed by the amount of non-practical effects (the right amount of cgi for a jim henson thing is none.)

Last movie: ...idk if i’ve sat through a full feature-length movie since i went to go see Everything Everywhere All At Once when it came to the dollar theater which is absurd

Sweet/spicy/savoury: hmmm most of my favorite foods are what people would think of as spicy foods but i also hate things that are “just” spicy like you get more heat than flavor. also where is salty, the one flavor that is good with everything from bell peppers to chocolate? i don’t understand

Currently working on: +sighs heavily+ my hell second draft of my novel for the third year in a row. that makes it sound like a more depressing process than it has been, i’ve been enjoying it, but it’s also very scary and i have to sneak up on it or i run away into procrastination

tagging: @prodigaldaughteralice @defender-of-wilderness @fatalcookies @delunesnumberonefan and anyone else who wants to do it!

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siriuslythatbitch · 3 years ago

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WIP Challenge

Not sure if I should thank or lowkey be salty @krethes for tagging me in this (I love you dearly. Don't worry ) WIP Challenge 😁❤🧡💛💚💙💜🤎🖤🤍❤😁🤩🤩 Rules: tell us the titles of all the WIPs you are currently working on right now and a little about them. Then tag five other writers. Every Word That I've Heard Spoken: This is my only publish WIP at the moment, although my bad influences for plunnies could make that change in the very near future. This piece is a reimagining of the marauders and their time at Hogwarts, specifically from Sirius' POV. It's a Soulmate and no war AU. It will follow them through their years up until graduation. Maybe further I have no clue or control. This is their life and I'm just writing in it. It's good pureblood adhering Sirius and a bit of cousin relationships. It will get dark especially later on, but don't worry, we only do happy endings under this roof. Oh and of course, Wolfstar endgame. I do have two ideas, unnamed at this point, but I would love to hear what you all think about them, or which you'd be most interested in seeing first. The first will be a Band!AU: The Marauders had been one of the most successful boybands of the early 2000's. After a messy breakup Sirius Black went on to a shining solo career, leaving the rest of the band to return to their hometown building what passed for normal lives. But what happens ten years later when they are called for a reunion tour? Can a rift a decade old ever be mended? Based Loosely on the song good 4 u by Olivia Rodrigo https://open.spotify.com/track/4ZtFanR9U6ndgddUvNcjcG?si=a78f14d418b44c34 The second is a Coffee Shop!AU: Sirius Black spent the entirety of his late teens and early twenties being something of a playboy. It wasn't that he enjoyed going on date after date, but he'd never found a man that managed to understand him or keep his attention for longer than a month. When his best mate makes a bet he can't find and keep a boyfriend until Christmas he resorts to drastic measures in finding a suitable man. If that man so happened to be a fit barista, Remus Lupin, who was he to question it? Inspired by the song Paper Rings by Taylor Swift https://open.spotify.com/track/4y5bvROuBDPr5fuwXbIBZR?si=836b949459674e69

Let me know what you think! Sorry if you've already been tagged, but remember I love you, @neondomino @elder-millennial-trash @ardentlychaotic @fuckboyregulus @screamingfae

#wip #send help #hp marauders #wolfstar fanfiction #hp fanfcition #band!au #coffee shop!au

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nico-drives-badly · 4 years ago

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Dumb Headcanon #73526: The Sparda Bois and Technology

✧･ﾟ:*Dante*:･ﾟ✧

Before he met Nero, Dante had absolutely no concept of what social media was, and literally the most hi-tech thing he owned was his old Sony Walkman from the 90’s that he had stuffed in a closet somewhere.

Thankfully, Nero has worked tirelessly to bring his boomer uncle into the 21st century over the last five years, and now Dante can proudly say that he owns one (1) desktop computer and can (sort of) browse the internet all on his own. Nero just has to run antivirus scans on it every time he visits because Dante is constantly trying to look up porn.

Dante’s go-to social media is Facebook (duh) and Tinder, on which he tries and consistently fails to get matched. Also, he genuinely thinks that LinkedIn is a form of social media, and he uses it for literally anything BUT its intended purpose.

✧･ﾟ:*Vergil*:･ﾟ✧

Vergil has no concept of modern technology, and because Nero has yet to catch him up to speed, he still thinks that going to the library and cross-referencing everything he finds is the most efficient way of gathering information. If he’s motivated enough, he *might* be able to figure out how to use a printer or copy machine on his own without breaking stabbing in frustration anything.

Vergil’s idea of “social media” is literally just typing out a note on his typewriter and taping it to someone’s front door. The concept of email is completely foreign to him, and he is entirely convinced that using the internet is a “foolish human hobby” that’s beneath him.

✧･ﾟ:*Nero*:･ﾟ✧

Nero is literally the only one in this family with any sort of tech skills whatsoever. Being a standard millennial, Nero has created multiple social media accounts over the years, but nowadays he only frequents one or two websites while constantly burying everything else out of sheer embarrassment. He was definitely That Kid who posted cringey song lyrics on Facebook and used way too much HTML/CSS on his MySpace page. And don’t even think about mentioning his old DeviantART account; he will literally slit your throat with his Bringer Claws the moment you bring up one of his “emo phase” poems from back in the day.

Nero’s social media currently consists of Twitter, Tumblr, Discord, and occasionally Reddit. His username is “notdeadweightsparda” on all of them because he’s still salty af over that.

✧･ﾟ:*V*:･ﾟ✧

V is pretty much in the exact same boat as Vergil, but instead of turning his nose up at modern technology in a vague attempt to conceal his lack of knowledge, V just straight-up doesn’t understand any of it. He’s like that grandma who just bought her first iPhone and then immediately complains that it’s “broken” because she doesn’t know how to close the app. V’s definitely that kind of person who uses emojis in the completely wrong context and replies to posts about sick or dying loved ones with “LOL” because he thinks it stands for “Lots of Love.” Nero lives in constant fear of the day V discovers GIFs; NO ONE will be able to handle him when he gains that much power.

Surprisingly, V has a decent amount of social media accounts (likely thanks to Nero setting them up for him), but, like Dante, he doesn’t use any of them properly. That’s why Nero made all of his usernames “veryconfusedgoth” and added a “sorry my brother is new to the internet and is also an idiot” disclaimer to all of his profile pages.

#devil may cry #shitpost #dmc dante #dmc vergil #dmc nero #dmc v #dmc vitale #dumb headcanons series

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galactichoneybee92 · 4 years ago

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The Importance of Separating Authors From Their Work (AKA Nobuhiro Watsuki is Pedo Trash but Rurouni Kenshin is a Masterpiece)

So I was scrolling aimlessly through TikTok (As you do) and I came across a post from a very opinionated tiktoker about how many new anime fans are getting into Rurouni Kenshin andthey don’t blame you if you didn’t know before but that the author has been charged with quite a lot of child pornography and is essentially a pedophile. They said that if you “absolutely must” watch the show, or read the manga, you should pirate it so as not to financially support a terrible person. And I so agree with that. Pedophiles are some of the worst people on the planet and I will say it to their fucking face...BUT... you know what was not needed? The goddamn condescension.

It kind of works to exemplify some of the very black or white, all or nothing thinking that I have seen on social media these days. This person was acting like, sure, pirate it if you have to watch it. If you simply must with the implication being that they would be abstaining because the creator is vile and that they low-key, high-key thought that everyone else should too. And I agree, the creator is vile. But the series itself is old enough that you can easily find it pirated or even just purchase the books used from secondhand sellers, and it’s good enough that I actually still think you should. And here is the kicker: You’re not a bad person if you still want to read the series, and absolutely nothing bad will happen if you do.

I can think the creator is a terrible person while still really enjoying the series he created because the series doesn’t feel like an extension of him. I will admit that it’s been a while since I’ve read it, but I adore the series and I don’t remember there being any creepy undertones or hints of pedophilia in it at all. If there were, it certainly wasn’t glorified. And I will say that I don’t think that new anime/manga fans should avoid it because the series itself is excellent.

If you’re really bothered by the fact that the creator isn’t a good guy than you absolutely don’t HAVE to read it, and I don’t want to make anyone feel like they do. But I also want to stress that it is absolutely still fine if you DO want to. And it doesn’t matter if you started reading it before you learned about the author or after, and it doesn’t matter if you continued to read/watch it after knowing. It’s okay if you haven’t started it yet and still want to even after learning about how gross Nobuhiro is because authors aren’t their work.

It’s kind of like how a lot of people on social media are trying to cancel classic works of literature because they found out that the author was racist or homophobic. It just feels like performative activism because whether or not you enjoy the works of H.P Lovecraft has absolutely no bearing on who you are as a person. And you aren’t a better person for not reading Lovecraft. In that same vein, whether or not you read Rurouni Kenshin also has no bearing on who you are as a person.

The biggest difference in my analogy is that Lovecraft is no longer profiting off of his books as he is quite dead (I’m not sure where the money is going at this point, tbh) and Nobuhiro is still very much alive, but as we have discussed it’s so SO easy to get ahold of this series without putting a single dime in his pocket. I honestly don’t even know if you CAN purchase new English editions anymore (is it even still printing?)

Basically my entire point is this: You can boycott his series if you want but it is literally depriving yourself of an excellent manga for absolutely nothing. Whether or not you BUY it matters, because that actually has a quantifiable effect on the world. But whether or not you simply read it? or watch it? That has absolutely no effect at all, aside from maybe garnering some very niche social media clout for being able to flex that you didn’t do this thing.

And I’m well aware that I sound like a salty elder Millennial on here, and I would like to reiterate that there isn’t anything wrong with choosing not to read it if it is just something that doesn’t interest you, or if you’re truly not able to separate the author from his work and it really disturbs you. I feel like if anything, my tone is stemming from the condescension I felt from the creator of that Tiktok, but who knows maybe they didn’t mean to come off that way either. But I really just wanted to get my point of view on the situation out there. Frankly, I never cared who the fuck the author of the series was because when I’m reading something I’m thinking about the plot and the characters and not at all about whoever wrote it. And at this point, with these recent revelations, I now care enough not to recommend financially supporting him.

But if you like to think of it this way, pirating his work is like stealing from a pedophile. Enjoy his series for free.

#rurouni kenshin #kenshin #anime #manga #performative activism

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chemicallywrit · 4 years ago

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Hey I read watership down when I was 6 because that was the age my dad read it and I didn’t really understand it because I didn’t know what things like construction were but I still have nightmares about being skinned and also became convinced that I could see the future so here I am asking you about watership down.

Wow Fiver i’m so honored to meet you, thank you for the ask~

I read Watership Down in fifth grade and what I loved about it was the mythology and language, because like most nerdy fifth graders I was obsessed with mythology and code languages. I was just starting to get into Redwall at the time too, so did I start to write some anthropomorphic animal adventures? of COURSE I did, but there was something complex I couldn’t quite nail, because I didn’t quite understand it--

I read Watership Down in high school when I was in AP Government, when I was old enough to get salty about my teacher spouting political opinions to her students like she was talking to her friends in the group chat, and this time the line that stuck out to me was in a footnote: “In the Sandleford warren at this time, the Owsla was rather military in character (though, as will be seen later, not as military as some).”

And while that selfsame teacher was trying to get us to debate complex issues like the needs of the few over the rights of many without simplifying issues down to useless platitudes, I realized that if leaders aren’t willing to adapt and change, then they will eventually be killed. I was voted president of the honors society next year, even though I was an unpopular nerd that everyone thought was Mormon, and I had to assess leadership and politics in a way I never had before, despite my gov teacher’s best efforts--

I read Watership Down during a summer internship in Georgia, where the nearest person I knew was three states away and the only friendship I experienced was from a tiny church group that practiced prophecy and faith healing, and had my parents warning me about signs that you’ve joined a cult, and I was lonesome as Fiver under the willow tree in the rain, and Fiver told me that “a thing can be true and still be desperate folly.” And I held my new friends at a distance and watched them as they poured forth sermons without substance, and I longed for home, I longed to go uphill to someplace high and away--

I read Watership Down in grad school after the church I loved began to tear itself to pieces, an absolute joke of pride and misogyny and selfishness, when the pastor who hadn’t even been very present in the church to begin with started traveling to his other ministry more and more, and the guest speakers started teaching numerology from the pulpit, and I told my brother, sitting next to me, I can’t go to the potluck. I can’t stand it. I can’t pretend that everything is fine anymore. And I left my church. Zorn, zorn, all zorn.

But my friends stayed with me. The Bible study I’d been co-leading drifted into an inter-church outreach, and some other members left the church too, but we stayed together, and no one stopped us because no one cared much about the millennials and zoomers anyway. And I felt like Bigwig, blunt and bothered and never one to hold my tongue, being told by someone much wiser that they were glad to have me along--

I read Watership Down after I left my first job after graduation. I still didn’t know anyone after being out of state for eight years. I hated that job, but the limbo afterward, in which I was unsure, once again, if I could pay my rent, if I could afford my student loans, if my credit card was going to penalize me again, if I was going to be overdrawn again, if there was anything I was going to be able to eat besides raman...My heart was in the frost. But I wasn’t quite alone. Not far now, Hlao-roo, not far now.

My copy got stolen out of my car, along with my scientific calculator, which I was actually more upset about. Those things are expensive. When I was free from the frost again, I bought another copy.

I’m going to read Watership Down again. I read it whenever I need something familiar and comforting and encouraging.

Watership Down is a story about nature and rabbits. Watership Down is a story about leadership and politics. But ultimately, Watership Down is the story of a group of people who decide that what they’ve been promised by their god and their hero is true, that there is a place for them in this world, and that place is worth fighting for, even if all you can do is tell stories to keep people calm, even if all you can do is dig a little deeper and settle in, even if all you can do is run.

All the world will be your enemy, and when they catch you, they will kill you. But first they must catch you, Digger, Listener, Runner. Be cunning and full of tricks, and your people will never be destroyed.

#thank you anon #i cried writing this #i just love this book so dang much #watership down #yakkety-yak y'all talk back #Anonymous

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mappingthemoon · 1 year ago

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When I was a smoker (2007-2018) it really seemed like I was in the minority and I constantly felt like a giant loser for having gotten myself addicted despite having known for my entire life that smoking is terrible and that cigarette corporations are straight-up Evil. I really thought Millennials could be the last generation of serious smokers because it was like literally everyone already knew that it is bad for you. And it seemed like everyone I knew who was a smoker also hated being a smoker and wanted to quit. So it’s been a huge bummer to have witnessed the rise of vaping in younger generations, and (being an old salty anticapitalist punkass) i'm very angerey abt how effective the marketing has been in convincing young people to pay corporations to slowly kill them. Below the cut is a brick of text abt my personal smoking/quitting story, sorry I neglected to use paragraphs.

I grew up in a smoker household, both parents having smoked since they were teenagers. When I was about 12 or 13, I was curious and swiped one of their cigarettes to try, but I thought it was disgusting – they smoked Kools – and threw it in the toilet after one puff. (I then proceeded to flush every cigarette in the pack, because I somehow reasoned they’d be less likely to notice a whole pack missing than a single cigarette out of a pack?) Many of my friends smoked throughout high school but I was never interested as a teenager and into the beginning of my 20s. I didn’t have my first full cigarette until I was 23 (wayyy back in 2007), and it was a hand-rolled American Spirit that a friend offered because I was stressed out over a weird argument with my sorta-boyfriend at the time. I loved how light-headed it made me feel, and I got hooked pretty quickly, though of course I didn’t think I was addicted because of all these made-up rules I told myself: I didn’t smoke a lot, I didn’t smoke in the daytime, I only smoked socially, I only smoked when I was drinking, I didn’t have cravings, I didn’t wake up and need a cigarette first thing in the morning, etc., etc. Eventually I’d broken all those rules and was smoking a pack or more a day. I switched from American Spirit rollies to Camel Lights to Pall Mall (lights or regular), the increase in smoking frequency necessitating a decline in quality because I couldn’t afford the “better” brands anymore. I was hella broke and lived in a punk house for most of my 20s and was not above literally smoking half-finished cigarettes I found on the sidewalk. I wasn’t proud of my habit, but I assumed I’d be able to quit easily “when I was ready” because I had started relatively “late” in life (LOL this is so naïve and wrong). I made up a lot of excuses for why I couldn’t quit at a given moment: I would quit when I solved my relationship problems (the “sorta-boyfriend” mentioned earlier soon became a live-in partner who was alcoholic and abusive to me for the next 5 years). I would quit when I finished my (fourth attempt at) undergrad degree. I would quit when I got out of service industry work. All of these things passed and I failed to quit, though I made many valiant attempts – my only experience with vaping was trying e-cigarettes back in like 2011-2012 when they were marketed as a smoking cessation aid. I also tried using quitting apps, nicotine patches, toothpicks, gum. Sometimes I succeeded in quitting for several months, but would always backslide because I’d make up another dumb rule: “I’ll only smoke if I’m drinking at a bar” or “I won’t buy my own cigarettes anymore” or “I am so fucking stressed out rn I’ll just have ONE.” I did not quit for real until July 17, 2018, when I was 34 years old. Over a decade of smoking. I did it cold turkey, and I fucking hated every second of withdrawals so bad, I was so angry all the time I thought my eyeballs were going to explode out of my skull or something. I have since read that it’s pretty common to try and fail at many different methods before finally, I guess, getting so frustrated with oneself that white-knuckling it through a cold-turkey quit actually works! Anyway, it was definitely fucking worth it. Man, the feeling of your senses coming back to you once the nicotine is flushed out… I had FORGOTTEN how GOOD food could taste! I had NO IDEA how much my sense of smell had been dampened by cigarettes! (Amazingly my partner had quit four years before me and continued to patiently tolerate the cloud of gross-ass odors that I was unaware surrounded me at all times forever.) I even began to feel feelings more deeply without the influence of nicotine. Like, I knew I was very obviously using smoking as an emotional crutch, but holy crap it was like the floodgates opened after I quit! If anyone has read through all this and is on the fence about quitting: YOU CAN DO IT! I BELIEVE IN YOU! Nicotine withdrawal is The Worst but it truly only lasts for a few days and you CAN get through it. You will become SO STRONG when you quit YESSSSSS.

share if you'd like to spread my curiosity! Also feel free to add how old you were, the rough year, and what type of nicotine you first consumed

#smoking #cigarettes #quitting smoking #smoking cessation #personal #polls

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amxwolf · 3 years ago

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Here is why conventional healthful-thinking is not working on Millennials.

Have you ever had that terrifying dream where you are stuck in a dark forest or sketchy alley, frantically running for your life from some kind of feral monster or mad man? Most of us can personally recall at least once being roused from sleep in a cold sweat because their brain had spent the last few hours perfecting the latent image of a made-to-order nightmare. While that experience is certainly not exclusive to Millennials (rather quite the opposite), the waking reaction or at least how it is processed later by this roughly categorized group of mislabeled people is unique to say the least.

For years now, people in marketing have been fervently dissecting and attempting to recreate what has been loosely categorized as "Millennial Humor". And in all of their efforts to connect with this flock of black sheep, the grand majority of them seem to be missing a key factor in the psychology at work here. For all the unwarrantable bilge that modern advertising haphazardly cobbles together, only a small percentage of the nonsense is seasoned perfectly with the secret ingredient. What is this singular spice? Well, while indulgent to profess and speculative, from someone "sitting in millennial class”, it's obvious: A touch of salt.

Never will I sit here and cry to the general public about how unhappy I am that the modern advertising industry is just not scratching my itch for the wares it’s peddling, but I think it's important for us now to look at how this systemic lack of understanding is reaching beyond the world of subliminal profiteering. Society has other significant quality-of-life effecting systems that are also missing the mark when trying to aim and reach out to help this specific group of people. Puns aside, "a touch of salt" as I quipped, is flavoring the lives of a lot of people in their mid to late 20's and early 40's. And the most frustrating and difficult to reconcile attempts that I personally have made to better myself, have been those that were guided by people who just cannot seem to put their brain into that salty head space.

For example, trying to focus on and internalize a well-organized medical presentation about the encompassing negative effects of stress or insomnia and its seemly simple solution of just "changing your thinking", is about as easily digestible as a two-decade-year-old fruitcake for someone who is imprisoned daily by the symptoms of chronic stress. While I may sit there and give listening (ironically) "the old college try", the sound quickly turns to fuzzy white noise the deeper the lecture dives into positive thinking.

You see, Millennials are not generally fluent in positive thinking. More and more of them seem to be speaking a very distinctive dialect of realism, which incorporates a robustly cultivated sense of sarcasm and a somewhat grim shade of hopelessness. A lot of millennials grew up with a laughably poetic twist on "Growing Up" and "Being Successful", which in turn has colored their day-to-day interactions and created this defeatism-culture. Millennials will openly joke about their death as a needed release, their eulogy as a retirement card, or emotionally decompile themselves over something simple like saying "you too" in a situation that doesn't warrant it.

A good percentage of Millennials were old enough to understand the destructive consequences of the most recent housing market disaster on a very personal level; At an impressionable age, watching their own parents, who may have worked excruciatingly hard at the expense of any number of personal or family goals, lose just about everything resonated in a way that cannot be unheard. Then add the borderline criminal and unscrupulous "sheep-shearing" that became common place when the generation was herded off to college, trade school, or other form of career-building education. Not to mention the fact that upon completing said programs, a proverbial "step-in-the-right direction", a substantial number of these "hopeless wanderers" were faced with yet another barbed-wire hurdle when the job market in countless fields were oversaturated with potential employees. Many positions had not been vacated as they normally would have been with the age of retirement being stretched further and further down the road due to increased cost of living and financial demands; the finish line or lap marker was just not getting any closer. To add insult to injury, Millennials, sometimes unbelievably hardworking, are frequently being listed as perpetuators of the clashing reality we have today. This being what the modern media is calling "The Great Resignation"; a dubious combination of a labor shortage amidst an unemployment spike fueled by uncompetitive wages left unchecked, the government's inability to reel in the situation, and a general devaluing of laborers overall.

Oh. And also, we were killing the diamond industry at the same time. Or was it simultaneously the marriage and divorce industry? Wait! I think it was cinema? Or no....maybe it was fabric softener. For a complete dissertation of all the things Millennials brutally murdered over the last two decades, perhaps I'll include a link below if for no other reason to drive my point home.

You have this group of people who are conditioned to endlessly swimming upstream, against the current, with nothing but chastising and bitterness to listen to. So, when it comes to something universal like learning to "sleep better" or "problem solving", the indifferent but somehow time-honored approach of saying "it's as easy as just taking control" is over time if not immediately rejected as dissonant information.

These people don't feel like they have control; some of them feel like they never had any to begin with.

Why is this a problem?

Our society is not developing a taste for "salt" at a pace in which it can prepare social-sustenance for its population. We're not getting any younger, and neither are the generations in front of us.

Millennials are already, by some definitions the mass-population of workers, voters, and other titles that we've yet to embrace. And our lack of interest is not because we do not have a passion for positive change (even on a global scale). Millennials have voiced over time that they feel they are the silent majority amidst a group of people who will not give them breathing room and don't respect the validity of their opinions and ambitions. And it is by no means restricted to one region or country on this planet. This is a global phenomenon.

I could spin a vast yarn about the political ramifications of continuing to exclude the Millennials from the metaphoric Counsel of Elders, but I'm more concerned about the neglect that is spreading elsewhere. We need our leaders in the medical and social fields to really respect and dig deep into how to incorporate "Millennial Thinking" into their treatment and development plans. A large amount of the global population is going to need carefully tailored treatment for things as old as depression, bi-polar tendencies, or schizophrenia as well as newly discovered mental encumbrances like imposter-syndrome.

While “positive-thinking” may have been easily cultivated in the past, we may need to start from a more negative approach and build from there to educate and treat a group of down-on-their-luck millions. Pumping drugs into a populace is not going to permanently patch the leak either, so there truly is precedence for a rehashing of how we should prioritize mental health in modern society.

Stop spending so much time and energy assigning blame to modern technologies and social norms. Are these going away? No? In that case, those things are much like our other daily stresses that are unavoidable. Yes, you can change your nightly routine to de-stress the same way that you can change a job or a daily commute, but there needs to be a fundamental shift in accountability divvied to circumstances out of a person's control rather than scolding them for not being able to manage it.

Do I have all the answers? No.

But this was less about offering a solid a solution and more about opening a dialogue. A starting point.

So yeah. I've had that dream of being chased through the woods by a life-leeching alien. It felt very similar to being sucked dry of my pitiful wages for an education that was at the time, barely panning out. Even now, as a 32-year-old, slightly more successful version of the starving student I've become, I still feel as though my rat race will end when my heart gives out; and all I can hope for is enough money when I drop to cover the ambulance ride to the over-crowded emergency room and a large pit to rot in. But I just hope that the generation behind me has the benefit of a system that understands how to create and sustain “Millennial Inspired” social structures that will allow them to flourish in what little we can leave behind for them.

Also, could you pass the salt?

#rant #millenials #heavy thoughts #random thoughts #seriously though modern mental medicine is a joke

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