#zillenial struggles

[miscealignment]

I've been sick for the past four days.

And it just makes me so angry, the realisation of how much of my day and my energy I spend in a job I do not care about and in a college I don't see a future in.

I have a single day of rest in the week and I work irregular hours. I'm tired.

All the things I enjoy doing, they're in my home, not outside of it. And maintaining my job to a bearable degree of acceptance is equally as tiring.

I hate having to wake up at the crack of dawn in order to eat something slightly healthy and in order to take the bus every day and hope not to get late. And if I sleep even 10 minutes more I either can't eat or can't make it there in time.

I hate having to cook batches of food to freeze so I can eat later in the week some semblance of a healthy food.

I hate that everyone in my job is unhappy all the time because the management in inept and the owner doesn't know what they're doing. The atmosphere sucks and I already go to work dreading all the problems and complicated situations I'll have to deal with and fix because half the team is incompetent.

I hate the entitled, dishonest, ill mannered customers that come to yell at me over things that are neither my responsibility nor within my control to change.

I am tired of being away from my house.

I want to work from home, but I don't have any skills that affords me that. I don't have a fancy degree I can wave around and say that it actually earns me anything. Heck, the college I'm doing right now is for graphic design, and I'm terrible at it!!!

I just wanted something, anything, to do from home. But I don't even know where to start to look. I don't know anything about this world or how to take advantage of it, because the people that were in charge of teaching me simply didn't. They just hoped I'd figure it out as I went along. Well I'm not that smart! So I fucking didn't!

All I have is a second language that everyone else has, no skills, no degree, an unstable mental health and a world of frustration.

And I'm just so tired.

[niconiconwo]

Just btw, the reason I got out of IOP early is because all the losers being babies about the pandemic hit me like that screencap from 4chan where the guy was bewildered out of being fucked up.

[autisticlancemcclain]

fic rec friday 37

hello and welcome to fic rec friday! where, on friday, i rec five of my favourite fics.

1. Fade to Black by @yokohogawa

Things between Keith and Lance are changing but Keith is restless, especially with Shiro still weak, and ends up taking a bad decision: he leaves Lance alone in the Castle with a Lion he cannot pilot. Unable to form Voltron without the newly appointed Red Paladin, the four Paladins left struggle against the sudden attack of a Galra ship and later on take damage from the explosion of a star in close proximity. Lance, on the other end, is left to defend the Castle by himself and has little time to succeed: without energy, the Lions have only 6 hours of breathable air. Beyond that point, his friends will be dead.

okay yes technically this series is unfinished. HOWEVER the first two works ARE finished, and they are amazing showstopping incredible etc. tbh im not much of a black paladin lance fan, i genuinely think solo leadership is not what he is suited for, but this fic made me way more open to it. the way he handled severe crises was as fear stricken as it was awe inspiring highly recommend

2. once again i am a child by @lilaclavenders

“You’re not a spare tyre,” Adam interjects.  “I know that,” Lance says, too unsure to sound completely defensive.   “That almost sounded like a question.” “No... it didn’t,” Lance says.

Lance and Adam talk.

i have always been a fan of lance and adam even tho its the most evidence lacking fanon thing in this fandom. its truly just so interesting. and to have lance as a young cadet getting slammed so badly just in so many different directions being given at least one grownup in his corner...its a good read.

3. Lance the language man by @irish-vampire-blog

Lance didn't really try to learn a language. He just, kind of, picks up the basics and then works from there. Its usually unintentional. Ish.

He isn't stupid though. He isn't an idiot. He just isn't the same kind of smart as his friends are.

this kind of smart for lance is so REAL bc no he cannot do like quantum physics or whatever probably but the way he seems to have a pretty innate ability to successfully do many things that he tries. he just can u know?? thats the autism with the gay audacity i would imagine but i love seeing fics like this

4. my boyfriend's back (and you're gonna get in trouble) by teacupfulofbrains

hey la, hey la, my boyfriend's back

Keith Kogane has never heard of Vine. Lance McClain takes personal offense to this, and makes it his personal mission to teach his boyfriend to meme. Keith is confused, mostly.

(OR: several instances of Keith not getting the meme™ and two times he did)

I LOVE THIS FIC SO BAD I CANT BELIEVE I HAVENT RECCED IT BEFORE. yes i am a cringe zillenial who still finds vine funny and quotes it on the internet but truly idc idc. this fic is funny. this fic is cute. established klance my love and light. also keith comparing lances eyes to the star of bombay is some of the gayest shit ever and also the only time i will entertain blue eyed lance

5. The Most Dangerous Thing is to Love by running_downn

Last time something like this happened to Lance, Keith wasn’t there. He’d thought he would have been able to do something if he had been there, or at least if he was, the guilt wouldn’t be so heavy on his chest. But this time he was there. He was right fucking there and he decided that it was infinitly worse.

~

Basically there's a new threat after the Galra and it almost kills Lance. Desperate making out ensues, but it's okay to recognize when it's not the right time for it. Keith cries a lot cause he's older and grizzled and therefore not as emotionally stunted.

green sock reality? team still out fighting as adults and lance isn’t a fucking farmer while the rest of the team isn’t? keith’s abandonment issues treated with respect and dignity and also the acknowledgement that he’s older and therefore mature enough to handle those issues in a way that doesn’t risk a relationship that is important to him? lance understanding all this and using the supportive nature he is known for??? yes yes yes. stellar fic that should have way more hits than it does

that’s it for today!! i’ll see y’all back next friday for the next fic rec post!!!

[mysticalsadgirl]

I always want to make fic playlists but then I remember that I'm an uncultured zillenial when it comes to music and I struggle to listen to anything from earlier than the 90s that's not disco music

[chubbyfeedeefemboi]

So what's your fat story? WHat made you want to get fat and sexy?

So basically when I was younger I was forced onto meds I didn't need and they like permafucked up my metabolism and how I put on weight. I struggled a lot off and on with my body image and feeling good about myself for like a bunch of reasons yno general zillenial era constant pressure to be skinny sort of stuff. Fast forward to me being like 2 years into transition and healing a bit and having a much clearer and better sense of self I was like this constantly managing my food and not doing things I wanna do sucks and isn't making me as happy as I could be and like mused on what I actually wanted to be and eventually thought back to my best friend who was this really cute adorable fat enbie who had incredible vibes and just were who they were 100% and I was like I always thought they were super fucking cute and their body and style and energy was like goals.

So I basically just full stop started trying to just eat whenever I wanted to eat and whatever I want(even if that meant me eating cinnamon rolls for lunch everyday for a few weeks cause it just sounded good to me) and just being who I was without trying to make myself feel bad about it.

Turns out I just love being a cute as hec piggy housepet who doesn't do much and just plays games and snuggles faer plushies and snacks alot and is just a generally saccharine critter and thats p rad of me an led me here 🥰🥰

[joe-moi]

Man i really dont feel like i belong to gen z

Im a zillenial for sure

zillenials definitely will side more with one then the other I’ve found. I’m a very young millennial, but I am a millennial and I struggle to find similarities to gen z: they amaze and confuse me

[phnxpcky]

So I recently watched Stephanie Soo's (Missmangobutt) "Baking a Crime" video about the movie "In time" (I know the video is a year old but anyhow) and I watched this movie forever ago when it first came out but at the time I was too young to have any thoughts about it other than "huh that was an interesting and exciting movie". I've basically forgotten about the movie since then but then I watched Stephanie's video and she of course commented on how the movie is, in a way, an interesting portrayal and critique of our current society.

If you haven't watched the movie before, it's basically about a futuristic version of society where everyone stops aging at the age of 25 but also at the age of 25 the rest of the time in your life basically becomes currency. So you will never grow physically another day older after the age of 25 but starting at 25, you start paying for and get paid in the amount of time you have left to life (e.g. You might pay a convenience store 5 minutes of your life for a bottle of water or 500 hours of your life for each month of rent, someone might pay you 6 hours of their life to fix their roof, and you might put down 10 hours of your life for a round of poker in hopes you'll win 20 hours back). Your bank account is literally the amount of time you have left to live and it's constantly going down (talk about your no/low interest bank account actually losing value with each passing moment....) until the moment it hits 0 when you'll just drop dead. This means the poor are literally struggling to stay alive from day to day while the rich basically life forever.

That's the general context of the movie, there is obviously a statement being made about income inequality and the 1% vs 99% when you have the super poor literally struggling to stay alive juxtaposed against the super rich basically living forever but I won't go into details because as a Zillenial in 2023, I've a few other interesting thoughts about the movie now.

Basically, I don't think that kind of society would have lasted very long. I'm basing this on several things including the lie flat and let rot movements by the Millenials and Gen Z in China, the quiet quitting trend in at least the US, North Korea literally making suicide illegal because they started having a suicide problem, and just the overall terrible state of mental health across the world. It's all just not a great recipe for a society where if you're not crazy wealthy and you don't work like a slave you'll simply drop dead. To be quite frank, there are currently many significantly worse ways to go than to just drop dead. I don't know the details on how people die in the movie but if it's a split second thing like it's shown to be, it can't be more painful than the current way most poor people die (slowly from starvation/illness/physical injuries). I can see Millenials and Gen Z getting dropped in the world of "In Time" and everyone basically goes "soooo lifetime of miserably slaving away or nonstop partying for about a month before just dropping dead? Guess it'll be the craziest party of the century". The society basically built in an easy and possibly painless if not as least minimally painful way out. The movie literally starts with a man who is over 100 years old giving away the 100 years he still has because he's tired of living. What's to say the people that're grinding everyday for an extra 12 hours won't get tired and just be like "you know what just going in my sleep sounds not bad actually". Once all the poor start dying out the rich will realize that suddenly there aren't anybody left to help them uphold their lavish lifestyles. Sure they may have an eternity to live but there won't be very many people, if anybody, around to build their mansions and farm the food for their 3 star Michelin meals. It'd all fall apart pretty quickly. What do you think?

[waffliesinyoface]

sometimes im very curious about like. school culture, immediately before and after my time.

there’s a reason i refer to myself and people my specific age as “zillenials”, because while generation gaps are largely stupid, mid-late 2000s to early-mid 2010s are VERY MUCH entirely different beasts, and going through school in that timeframe?? 

classes went from “we’re using the overhead projector today” to “we replaced the chalkboards with whiteboards so you need to buy expo markers” to “SMART boards are new and fancy and kids really wanted to be the one who got to calibrate it” to “the SMART board is old and outdated, we’re going to use it as a projector while you log in to this website using the school laptops to take the test” to “okay everyone get out your smartphones and go to this link”. 

and like. that’s not even getting into all the different types of teaching fads, “no child left behind” shit, different types of standardized tests*, funding changes, teachers who were also struggling with the rapid changes, etc. 

*(literally, i had to take a freshman english test in senior year because it was a requirement to graduate, despite the fact it had not existed in my freshman year. it was then. discontinued. like a year later.)

you know how like. a lot of shows set in high school back then had an episode where the students were given a sack of flour and had to pretend to be married and pretend it was their baby. My brother is 5 years older than me, and it was an Actual Thing He Was Expected To Do, as part of home ec. When I went to the exact same high school, home ec class no longer existed.

Back in october last year when i was learning to sew, i asked my mom some questions that she thought were very funny because they were the most basic of basics. When i said a sewing pattern was confusing, she said that even beginner patterns assumed that the person attempting it had taken a sewing class in school. This is the level of disconnect I’m talking about. Things just. stopped? existing?? We saw this in real time with cursive. Like. in elementary school there were several years where it was expected that we learn it, and later years you would get docked points if they weren’t written in cursive with blue or black ink. Cut forward a few years and everything needs to be in print. People at work 3 years my junior cannot even read it, let alone write it. It went from Mandatory & Important to Outdated to We’re Not Teaching That Anymore.

Also back on the topic of sewing, that segues nicely into The Gays.

Im not entirely sure what the culture was like before my time, because of the few older gays i know, they’re either not american or didn’t figure it out until at least college. But like. I know it wasn’t good. I also know that it was a lot more hidden? According to my dad, forever ago the polite way of calling someone gay was “they’re not the marrying type”. 

Nowadays from what little i’ve gleaned from social media and occasional screenshots of tiktok, it. Seems better? On the surface? Teens are less prone to giving a shit about other students?? I dont know. 

Meanwhile, my experience was like. Gays dont exist. Gays are the Enemy of The American People. Gays are the wacky friend character on TV. Gays exist solely in fiction. Gay people will cause the downfall of society. The very specific type of fujoshi who constantly shipped male characters together but also thought if people were gay in public they deserved to burn in hell. Girls who played sports needed to dress in a very specific way to avoid being labeled as a dyke. Girls cant be gay what are you talking about. There is a school club dedicated to being An Ally™ of Gay People. 

IS THERE ANY WONDER. THAT QUEER PEOPLE MY AGE. ARE ALL INSANE. FUCK. not enough of an Other to be stoned to death (unless you were in the deep south, in which case, good fucking luck), but also no longer had the slight protection being invisible offered, and also everyone subtly hates you, and also there were assemblies on how hating you was frowned upon, and also Here Is A Mandatory School Event Where You Must Present As Heterosexual And Within Gender Roles : ), and a AAaaAAAAAAA

it was good because queer shit was showing up more often in more mainstream things and we could point to it and go “now hold on just a minute, why does this appeal to me” but it was bad because if you were too interested or interested in the wrong way, it painted a goddamn target on you. I intentionally attempted to give myself a multiple personality disorder early on in high school because I knew i was trans, but i also knew (from experience) that letting any of that show was inviting people to beat me bloody. (also, i knew enough about trans stuff to know it existed, but not enough to know about HRT. and when i had learned about it it was in the context of “MAYBE you’ll get it if you present passingly as female for a year or two without it : )” horror stories.)

*cough*

anyways. the 2006-2016 or so era was a complete fucking hell and apparently i needed to yell about it a little bit?? I imagine school culture before my time and nowadays have their own unique hells too, but i cannot fathom them because mine was so unlike either.

[idkymihere]

the struggle of finding the right emojis is not talked about enough

[mionakt]

are there also alot of zoomers struggling in nz

I think so, definitely with Zillenials, a lot of people move to Australia because they pay better/overall have a better quality of life and I know I want to move overseas so I think there definitely is with the cost of living crisis

[turnways]

Dnt rb

I hate being a zillenial and watching people struggle with the idea that “youre brainwashed by the patriarchy to view your body as only worthy if its sexually appealing to cishet men” and “youre brainwashed by the patriarchy to be ashamed of your sexuality and desires” arent concepts with unrelated roots

[bottaslicious]

Weeping about ur tags about younger drivers being super hard on themselves and obsessively asking for forgiveness. Ur so right! Thank u for perspective 😭

I feel like this is a very controversial thing to say - it is certainly an extremely multifaceted topic - but I really think there’s a risk for the “social media” generation of drivers just burning themselves out because they’re so self-punishing. Like it’s not uncommon for zillenials and zoomers to struggle with finding the boundaries on social media and overshare. Add extreme fame to this, massive audiences and live feeds that can show your worst moments. I think many of them have a compulsive need to address themselves and attempt to curate their image in a way that’s very...... misplaced. Even if they express it in a mature, appropriate fashion, I always get this “oh no everyone will always remember what an idiot i was so i have to get in the gag and minimise it” feel and like. It’s a very normal thought pattern that everyone gets, and in some form more true with their situation - everything is recorded, everything is seen, everything gets memed - but they fail to grasp the bigger image and realise that if it’s not colossal or continuous, it probably isn’t going to ruin them. (Obviously there’s a lot of overlap with image control and other things, as I said, this is massively complicated and there’s not one right aspect to evaluate this from.)

[patchdotexe]

actually the “english is my first language” thing feels so weird for me to say bc like.. it IS true... and im not fluent in any other languages... but it also just feels like The Tiniest Bit Incorrect. i guess its bc of like, me learning english thru Books:tm: and that mostly happening while i was in a country where only a few ppl i knew spoke english? so i didnt really have anybody, like, Properly Teaching Me or w/e’s supposed to happen there

then again i feel like that with a Lot of stuff bc my education is all kinds of fucked up. like, both in actual schooling and in Pop Culture whatever bc i was completely Away from america from when i was 6 to when i was 10 (and missed out on like, 2nd and 3rd grade asides from vague homeschooling) so a lot of ~90s Kids~, or i guess ~Zillenial Kids~ stuff goes right over my head and i feel weird about it

cause like. i struggle with words, i barely know anything abt history, i dont remember a lot of cartoons or books or popular toys or anything, im just... in a very weird place with like. all that.

anyway im still mad about salmon being said w/o an L

[sinweichen]

Also while I'm on the topic, in regards to Zillenials, Xillenials, and other micro-generations and cusp generations

Growing up with neopets vs club penguin vs tamagotchi vs pog vs high school musical doesn't change your life experience hugely. In the end, it's not a generational difference as it is a access to goods and media.

It seems to be, as technology rapidly evolves, "generations" are getting shorter and shorter (20 years at the beginning of the century down to 5 - 10 years between a Millennial and a Zillenial). We are getting ridiculously close to arranging social definitions around technologies instead of shared cohort experiences. We seem to be expecting more and more people to "not get" what it means to be in our generation, and to use that as a way to dismiss dialogue where we could be fostering solidarity.

We are more than our technologies. We are not the Vinyl generation, Cassette generation, CD generation, MP3 generation, Streaming generation. We can learn from those who came before us, but also learn from those who came after. We need to de-heirarchalise age, assuming that you can only learn from up the chain.

Our teenagers, our children have more information available to them now than ever before. We are raising geniuses, and compassionate powerhouses. It's time we stopped dividing by generation, and started accepting that learning, growth, and maturity are non-linear.

Even if they don't know the struggles of GaiaOnline

[abirdsfreedom]

When I was in high school, we had hybrid classes, which means partially online and partially in person, our school had iPad 2s (?) Issused to us and the first hybrid class I had was Personal Finance. I failed that class because I didnt know how to work the simulator app, I would take all the tests and paper assignments but the simulation was half of our grade. I failed because I neede help but I didn't know how to ask someone for it. The classmates I talked to were considered to be the smart kids who get great grades, could pay attention, and are technologically savvy, they always seemed busy with school work or eachother as friends, and I was left behind. I could get good grades, I love learning, but I didn't get good grades because I struggled with paying attention/ focus in school, being bad at online schooling, and mental health problems... I failed a hybrid whole class, as a zillenial, because I didnt have anyone who could or would explain to me how a stupid app worked. So, I just read when I didnt have hard copies to fill out. And now that I'm trying to look for a job, I have no idea how to. I am more comfortable doing that in person, because I dont know how to online, but I'm also terrified because I am not good at being social in person, I dont know what questions to ask or how to behave. I need a low- socializing job but I dont know how to do that. Also, I'll need to be trained a certain way, more than a NT person because my memory sucks and if theres too many things to learn too fast, I'm going to fail. I know the world won't accommodate me but, that's really what I need. I need an employer that would be willing to work with me on my strengths. But busy work jobs and simple ones are being cut because they're replacing humans with computers and robots, or the job is not needed anymore. I'm stressed to hell.