#to PAY MONEY FOR
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Oh…. Well, it’s over for Crunchyroll I guess
#Crunchyroll#piracy#funimation#money hungry ass streaming service#rambling#I’ve never paid for a streaming service in my life thank god#I appreciated using others accounts but I personally cannot see myself paying this much for a service if I had the funds 😭!#get back to pirating kings!!!#anime has always been one of the easiest forms of media to pirate anyway so y’all got this#CR is definitely not worth paying for though#CR is certainly not worth paying this much for even if it’s a yearly one time fee#capitalism#the fact that CR has always had pretty bad quality as a streaming service anyway#it buffers every time you pause or rewind anything
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I made a little zine!
You can download and print it yourself for free here
#zine#mini zine#my art#traditional art#original art#i need to clarify the download is for free!!#i enjoy the extra money but you don't have to pay to download it!!!
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i went to get my t-shot yesterday and it took me an hour and a half to get to the clinic and as soon as i got on the bed the nurse dropped my t-shot and it broke and now they're trying to make me pay for the replacement. i think the fuck not lmao
#why should i have to pay money because SOMEONE ELSE dropped my medication!!! make it make sense#also they kept referring to 'the medicine that got broken' please drop that youtuber apology line and lose the passive voice#it did not 'get broken' YOU BROKE IT#madness. utter madness.
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i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".
it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.
do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.
but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.
do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).
you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.
walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.
no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.
do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."
you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.
there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.
i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.
he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."
#spilled ink#warm up#“why did u tag it warm up” bc i wrote it off the cuff while drinkin coffee lol#btw the 30 dollar buy in for the dog walking is bc they pay the organizer a small pittance so she can#run fb ads and stuff and like she does put in a lot of work i don't mind paying her#but that's exactly what im fucking talking about like.#ppl can't afford to volunteer their time anymore and we all understand it!!! everything costs money for everyone!#like we didn't have to use to say ''do you mind paying me back for the stuff we ate''#we used to be able to afford to feed our friends once in a while!!!
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My brother had lost the right to mock my deeply unwise vending machine purchase because he's spending his weekend driving to Iowa to buy a 1954 Cadillac limousine.
He doesn't have an explanation for this other than the fact that it's cool. And honestly, that's a pretty compelling argument
#it's in surprisingly good shape and he's paying for it with money from fixing and selling a different car#bc what i am to weird seconhand items my brother is to cars
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Bruce owes Danny money. He does Not want to pay up.
So! Danny had to run away from Amity Park when his parents discovered his Powers. But every time he tried to stay in a single place in America, they somehow managed to find him.
Turns out, they were working with the GIW to track him using the GIW's resources and the Fenton's Genius to find him everywhere he ran to. Eventually, Danny figured he had had enough and ran to Europe where the GIW had no Jurisdiction.
After wandering for a while, Danny was found and recruited by the League of Assasins. He was powerful, skilled, and connected to the Lazarus Pits, so they approached him with a job offer.
They would hide him from the Fentons, who had began to search for him in Europe independently, and in return he would work for them as an Assasin.
Considering his situation, Danny agreed.
He began training to be an Assasin, supplementing his Ghost Abilities with the abilities of an Assasin to become even more Stealthy.
While training under the League, Danny met another recruit simply known as Bruce. They trained together for years, even going on a few missions together gathering intel, and using disguises to hid in plain sight.
On one of these missions, Danny lent Bruce some money with the promise to get paid back when they returned to the League. That same night, Bruce left the League of Assasins and never came back.
...
Bruce was sitting in the Batcave going over a case with Tim, Jason was off to the side cleaning his Guns, and Dick and Cass were holding an acrobatics competition in their Obstacle Course, with Damien, Steph, and Duke cheering them on.
Suddenly an Eldritch Emerald Light sprang to life in the center of the Batcave, and everybody dropped what they were doing and sprang to action.
Slowly, a glowing green figure emerged from the Light. He appeared Eldritch in Nature, as if he existed in multiple layers of reality at once and looking at him gave them minor headaches. Then, the figure spoke up.
"BRUCE. ITS BEEN 15 YEARS. YOU STILL OWE ME 16 DOLLARS."
Recognizing Danny, Bruce took a moment to compose himself before responding.
"Fuck Off."
#Dpxdc#Dp x dc#Dcxdp#Dc x dp#Danny Phantom#Dc#Dcu#Danny is in the League of Assasins#He was friend with Bruce#He mostly works on Infiltration and Intel Gathering but still assassinated on occasion#He's a Ghost so death doesn't mean much to him#Danny is a little shit#Yes I made this entire post for that joke#This is not the first time Danny has done this#Its just the most public one#That's why Bruce is so unfazed at Danny#He has been refusing to pay Danny back for 15 Years#Its the entire reason he left the League when he did#At this point it's a matter of Principal#He will Never give Danny his money.#Never
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Please someone redraw this with Dr. Ratio and Aventurine because this is the exact vibe they have in my head post-Penacony.
#ratiorine#aventio#aventurine#dr. ratio#honkai star rail#hsr#not exactly#2.1 spoilers#but the vibe isn't present until then#this is canon I'm Hoyo#just trust me#I think my favorite thing about this ship#is that I went in expecting slap slap kiss#but came out of 2.1 convinced that these two could#in fact#get their shit together faster than virtually any other Hoyoverse pair#they're gonna be two years into their relationship before Seele manages to ask Bronya on a date#they're gonna be married before Renheng get their next ship tease#I just think they deserve to be those two guys who show up together#in the background of every promotion and event#and Hoyo never confirms anything#but you never see the one without the other#so everybody just KNOWS#LISTEN HOYO#I'm available for hire#you can pay me to print the money for you
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if i see a single one of you pissed that your faves canceled an event or a con appearance because they're striking for fair wages then imma come for you in your sleep 🔪🔪🔪
(direct that fury where it belongs: AMPTP and the execs)
#sag aftra#sagaftra#sag aftra strong#sag aftra strike#union strong#wga strike#PAY THE FUCKING ACTORS AND WRITERS#i hope the execs lose EVERYTHING#sag strike#sag-aftra#(BY THE WAY I'VE MADE A MINOR EDIT ON THE ORIGINAL POST)#in case you're confused: BE PISSED OFF. BUT DIRECT IT AT AMPTP AND THE EXECS.#if you don't get to see your fave at an event or a con? IT IS NOT THE UNION'S FAULT. IT IS THE FAULT OF THE EXECS#AMPTP AND THE EXECS ARE REFUSINGS TO NEGOTIATE IN GOOD FAITH AND ARE REFUSING TO PAY ACTORS AND WRITERS FAIRLY#SUPPORT THE WGA AND SAG STRIKE#if that means you can't see them at a con? then take the money you were gonna spend on that con and donate it#to the entertainment community fund#DIRECT YOUR ANGER WHERE IT BELONGS#WHICH IS AT AMPTP AND THE GREEDY PIECE OF SHIT EXECS#another edit: i forgot to add alt text which is my bad. I HAVE CORRECTED THAT.
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Well, well, well. They followed the money, and look what they found! 👇
$50,000,000 in unaudited US taxpayer money in one month alone went to a pro-terrorist group disguised as a climate change organization. 🤔
#pay attention#educate yourselves#educate yourself#knowledge is power#reeducate yourself#reeducate yourselves#think about it#think for yourselves#think for yourself#do your homework#do your research#do your own research#do some research#ask yourself questions#question everything#follow the money#government corruption#lies exposed
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Ya she won that 😘
#class of 09#jecka class of 09#nicole class of 09#co09#jeckole#nicole x jecka#co09 jecka#nicole co09#jecka x nicole#Lawsuit money paying the bills!!
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Paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States
The vast majority of America's debt collection targets $500-2,000 credit card debts. It is a filthy business, operated by lawless firms who hire unskilled workers drawn from the same economic background as their targets, who routinely and grotesquely flout the law, but only when it comes to the people with the least ability to pay.
America has fairly robust laws to protect debtors from sleazy debt-collection practices, notably the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act (FDCPA), which has been on the books since 1978. The FDCPA puts strict limits on the conduct of debt collectors, and offers real remedies to debtors when they are abused.
But for FDPCA provisions to be honored, they must be understood. The people who collect these debts are almost entirely untrained. The people they collected the debts from are likewise in the dark. The only specialized expertise debt-collection firms concern themselves with are a series of gotcha tricks and semi-automated legal shenanigans that let them take money they don't deserve from people who can't afford to pay it.
There's no better person to explain this dynamic than Patrick McKenzie, a finance and technology expert whose Bits About Money newsletter is absolutely essential reading. No one breaks down the internal operations of the finance sector like McKenzie. His latest edition, "Credit card debt collection," is a fantastic read:
https://www.bitsaboutmoney.com/archive/the-waste-stream-of-consumer-finance/
McKenzie describes how a debt collector who mistook him for a different PJ McKenzie and tried to shake him down for a couple hundred bucks, and how this launched him into a life as a volunteer advocate for debtors who were less equipped to defend themselves from collectors than he was.
McKenzie's conclusion is that "paying consumer debts is basically optional in the United States." If you stand on your rights (which requires that you know your rights), then you will quickly discover that debt collectors don't have – and can't get – the documentation needed to collect on whatever debts they think you owe (even if you really owe them).
The credit card companies are fully aware of this, and bank (literally) on the fact that "the vast majority of consumers, including those with the socioeconomic wherewithal to walk away from their debts, feel themselves morally bound and pay as agreed."
If you find yourself on the business end of a debt collector's harassment campaign, you can generally make it end simply by "carefully sending a series of letters invoking [your] rights under the FDCPA." The debt collector who receives these letters will have bought your debt at five cents on the dollar, and will simply write it off.
By contrast, the mere act of paying anything marks you out as substantially more likely to pay than nearly everyone else on their hit-list. Paying anything doesn't trigger forbearance, it invites a flood of harassing calls and letters, because you've demonstrated that you can be coerced into paying.
But while learning FDCPA rules isn't overly difficult, it's also beyond the wherewithal of the most distressed debtors (and people falsely accused of being debtors). McKenzie recounts that many of the people he helped were living under chaotic circumstances that put seemingly simple things "like writing letters and counting to 30 days" beyond their needs.
This means that the people best able to defend themselves against illegal shakedowns are less likely to be targeted. Instead, debt collectors husband their resources so they can use them "to do abusive and frequently illegal shakedowns of the people the legislation was meant to benefit."
Here's how this debt market works. If you become delinquent in meeting your credit card payments ("delinquent" has a flexible meaning that varies with each issuer), then your debt will be sold to a collector. It is packaged in part of a large spreadsheet – a CSV file – and likely sold to one of 10 large firms that control 75% of the industry.
The "mom and pops" who have the other quarter of the industry might also get your debt, but it's more likely that they'll buy it as a kind of tailings from one of the big guys, who package up the debts they couldn't collect on and sell them at even deeper discounts.
The people who make the calls are often barely better off than the people they're calling. They're minimally trained and required to work at a breakneck pace. Employee turnover is 75-100% annually: imagine the worst call center job in the world, and then make it worse, and make "success" into a moral injury, and you've got the debt-collector rank-and-file.
To improve the yield on this awful process, debt collection companies start by purging these spreadsheets of likely duds: dead people, people with very low credit-scores, and people who appear on a list of debtors who know their rights and are likely to stand on them (that's right, merely insisting on your rights can ensure that the entire debt-collection industry leaves you alone, forever).
The FDPCA gives you rights: for example, you have the right to verify the debt and see the contract you signed when you took it on. The debt collector who calls you almost certainly does not have that contract and can't get it. Your original lender might, but they stopped caring about your debt the minute they sold it to a debt-collector. Their own IT systems are baling-wire-and-spit Rube Goldberg machines that glue together the wheezing computers of all the companies they've bought over the last 25 years. Retrieving your paperwork is a nontrivial task, and the lender doesn't have any reason to perform it.
Debt collectors are bottom feeders. They are buying delinquent debts at 5 cents on the dollar and hoping to recover 8 percent of them; at 7 percent, they're losing money. They aren't "large, nationally scaled, hypercompetent operators" – they're shoestring operations that can only be viable if they hire unskilled workers and fail to train them.
They are subject to automatic damages for illegal behavior, but they still break the law all the time. As McKenzie writes, a debt collector will "commit three federal torts in a few minutes of talking to a debtor then follow up with a confirmation of the same in writing." A statement like "if you don’t pay me I will sue you and then Immigration will take notice of that and yank your green card" makes the requisite three violations: a false threat of legal action, a false statement of affiliation with a federal agency, and "a false alleged consequence for debt nonpayment not provided for in law."
If you know this, you can likely end the process right there. If you don't, buckle in. The one area that debt collectors invest heavily in is the automation that allows them to engage in high-intensity harassment. They use "predictive dialers" to make multiple calls at once, only connecting the collector to the calls that pick up. They will call you repeatedly. They'll call your family, something they're legally prohibited from doing except to get your contact info, but they'll do it anyway, betting that you'll scrape up $250 to keep them from harassing your mother.
These dialing systems are far better organized than any of the company's record keeping about what you owe. A company may sell your debt on and fail to keep track of it, with the effect that multiple collectors will call you about the same debt, and even paying off one of them will not stop the other.
Talking to these people is a bad idea, because the one area where collectors get sophisticated training is in emptying your bank account. If you consent to a "payment plan," they will use your account and routing info to start whacking your bank account, and your bank will let them do it, because the one part of your conversation they reliably record is this payment plan rigamarole. Sending a check won't help – they'll use the account info on the front of your check to undertake "demand debits" from your account, and backstop it with that recorded call.
Any agreement on your part to get on a payment plan transforms the old, low-value debt you incurred with your credit card into a brand new, high value debt that you owe to the bill collector. There's a good chance they'll sell this debt to another collector and take the lump sum – and then the new collector will commence a fresh round of harassment.
McKenzie says you should never talk to a debt collector. Make them put everything in writing. They are almost certain to lie to you and violate your rights, and a written record will help you prove it later. What's more, debt collection agencies just don't have the capacity or competence to engage in written correspondence. Tell them to put it in writing and there's a good chance they'll just give up and move on, hunting softer targets.
One other thing debt collectors due is robo-sue their targets, bulk-filing boilerplate suits against debtors, real and imaginary. If you don't show up for court (which is what usually happens), they'll get a default judgment, and with it, the legal right to raid your bank account and your paycheck. That, in turn, is an asset that, once again, the debt collector can sell to an even scummier bottom-feeder, pocketing a lump sum.
McKenzie doesn't know what will fix this. But Michael Hudson, a renowned scholar of the debt practices of antiquity, has some ideas. Hudson has written eloquently and persuasively about the longstanding practice of jubilee, in which all debts were periodically wiped clean (say, whenever a new king took the throne, or once per generation):
https://pluralistic.net/2020/03/24/grandparents-optional-party/#jubilee
Hudson's core maxim is that "debt's that can't be paid won't be paid." The productive economy will have need for credit to secure the inputs to their processes. Farmers need to borrow every year for labor, seed and fertilizer. If all goes according to plan, the producer pays off the lender after the production is done and the goods are sold.
But even the most competent producer will eventually find themselves unable to pay. The best-prepared farmer can't save every harvest from blight, hailstorms or fire. When the producer can't pay the creditor, they go a little deeper into debt. That debt accumulates, getting worse with interest and with each bad beat.
Run this process long enough and the entire productive economy will be captive to lenders, who will be able to direct production for follies and fripperies. Farmers stop producing the food the people need so they can devote their land to ornamental flowers for creditors' tables. Left to themselves, credit markets produce hereditary castes of lenders and debtors, with lenders exercising ever-more power over debtors.
This is socially destabilizing; you can feel it in McKenzie's eloquent, barely controlled rage at the hopeless structural knot that produces the abusive and predatory debt industry. Hudson's claim is that the rulers of antiquity knew this – and that we forgot it. Jubilee was key to producing long term political stability. Take away Jubilee and civilizations collapse:
https://pluralistic.net/2022/07/08/jubilant/#construire-des-passerelles
Debts that can't be paid won't be paid. Debt collectors know this. It's irrefutable. The point of debt markets isn't to ensure that debts are discharged – it's to ensure that every penny the hereditary debtor class has is transferred to the creditor class, at the hands of their fellow debtors.
In her 2021 Paris Review article "America's Dead Souls," Molly McGhee gives a haunting, wrenching account of the debts her parents incurred and the harassment they endured:
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/05/17/americas-dead-souls/
After I published on it, many readers wrote in disbelief, insisting that the debt collection practices McGhee described were illegal:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/19/zombie-debt/#damnation
And they are illegal. But debt collection is a trade founded on lawlessness, and its core competence is to identify and target people who can't invoke the law in their own defense.
Going to Defcon this weekend? I’m giving a keynote, “An Audacious Plan to Halt the Internet’s Enshittification and Throw it Into Reverse,” today (Aug 12) at 12:30pm, followed by a book signing at the No Starch Press booth at 2:30pm!
https://info.defcon.org/event/?id=50826
I’m kickstarting the audiobook for “The Internet Con: How To Seize the Means of Computation,” a Big Tech disassembly manual to disenshittify the web and bring back the old, good internet. It’s a DRM-free book, which means Audible won’t carry it, so this crowdfunder is essential. Back now to get the audio, Verso hardcover and ebook:
http://seizethemeansofcomputation.org
If you’d like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here’s a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/12/do-not-pay/#fair-debt-collection-practices-act
#pluralistic#jubilee#debts that cant be paid wont be paid#Patrick McKenzie#patio11#bits about money#debt#debt collection#do not pay#bottom feeders#Fair Debt Collection Practices Act#fdcpa#finance#armbreakers
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#nah bc tell me HOW people are still willing to engage with#to PAY MONEY FOR#new harry potter content in the year of our lord twenty twenty three#actually sickening#first of all sickening that hbo is developing new stuff#but even worse that people watch it#corporations are gonna be fucked up and harmful and unethical#but to have people#and poeple who call themselves trans allies! who disagree with what shes said#prioritize nostalgia for a childhood book series over the mental well being#over the LIVES#of trans kids? how can you do that#where are the dots not connecting that supporting this signals to her and to any trans people who know youre engaging with the content that#you agree with her views#this actually makes me so mad#like i know what its like to love the books i practically had them memorized#and i know what its like to hyperfixate on media and on hp#trust me when i say remus lupin got me through a good portion of middle school#but like it hurts my friends so terribly when they see what she says and how people still support her#and that matters more to me than any blorbo#ive gotten better lately at finding charity for people im upset at#this particular issue is still rather trying though#hard time convincing myself i owe them forgiveness when on paper i would say everyone deserves forgiveness#damn hard when they maintain the upsetting behavior though#week 4 no computer science teacher and im already losing commitment to this act more charitably thing#gonna need to find a motivation for that outside of him i guess#sure wish i could believe in god! but alas faith doesnt come easily to me#or come at all to me it seems#if i just keep chugging away at right action though maybe right thought will come of it#i hope
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the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
#writeblr#warm up#this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru#but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist#ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school.#like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it.#was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes.#but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create''#when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work#part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just#like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent.#speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r#ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week#this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice.#''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism#imagine if we said that about literally any other profession.#''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt?#u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky''#we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY#''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''
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Woke up to being puked on because they changed the prescription food of the dog I sit, and I get that cleaned up, to find that my check is ~$375 short of what I expected because they didn't add my training hours. Submitted a request with my higher up and got a response email that he's out of office rn.
#im sofucking done with everything in life rn#i dont even get paid for dogsitting i just dont pay money to the guy that owns the land my house is on and i take care of the dog in return#this sucks
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Simon and Price are the kind of guys that insist on paying for everything on a vacation. They're paying for the hotel, the rental car, food, any stupid knickknacks you want. If you even pull out your wallet, they're going to be all huffy. John will politely tell you not to worry about, he's got you covered. On the hand, Simon's taking your wallet from you, telling you that you don't need to spend your money, you've got him for that.
Johnny and Kyle don't mind splitting things with you. You pay for the hotel, he'll pay for the flights, dividing out the expenses so you've both got money for the actual trip. Johnny gets all lovey-dovey when you buy him things, jokes that you're spoiling him. But don't fret, he'll get you back later. Gaz gets all warm and fuzzy when you pay for dinner, staring at you with a lovestruck expression. He thinks it's so sweet, and it's just one more push towards finally pulling the ring out of his pocket.
#simon ghost riley#john soap mactavish#kyle gaz garrick#john price#call of duty#simon ghost riley x reader#john soap mactavish x reader#john price x reader#kyle gaz garrick x reader#my writing#just some quick little thing while I've got downtime on my vacation#also inspired by my husband who split the cost of everything but is also insisting on paying for everything while we're here#sir pls i have my own money 😔 but also yes spoil me 😌
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closed species are so funny like what if i just make a design . will you fucking stop me? ooooOOoooo ill make a primagen oooOOoO THE PENCIL IS ON MY PAAAAPER OOOOoooOoOOo
#was going on a whole rant abt them cuz its like. at its core . its scummy imo . idc how colorful ur dog dragon with antlers is#i dont want to pay $100 just to make one . and i dont wanna pay $50 more just to add shit to it#JUST MAKE ADOOOOOOOOPTS IF YOU WANNA SELL DESIGNS AND MAKE MONEY#WE SHOULDNT BE PAYWALLING WHOLE SPECIES BRAH . IDC !#IDC IDC!!!!!! UR MAKING THE EQUIVALENT OF RICH GOLFING CLUBS BUT FOR FURRIES STOP THAT#its like being a furry already is like an expensive fucking hobby (dont get me started on suits) AND I DONT HAVE MONEY#sorry for NOT being the suspiciously wealthy furry its NOT my fault LMAO
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