“No Teeth Guy”

She’s like Sonic

I feel sorry for children because they never had the experience of playing games or watching things for free. It's why I think a lot of them don't hate ads as much as people older then them do, they just accepted them as a necessary part of their reality and deal with it because the ads have always been there for them.

When I was 14 and started using wattpad it was still a shitty little fanficiton app and everything on that app was free. E v e r y t h i n g.

You only needed an account and you could download countless books and read them offline whenever you wanted. You could write offline and publish and edit whatever and whenever you wanted. There were no ads, no premium no money involved what so ever. It was the reason why I used it, I used to download (well save to my library) 200 fanfics before my summer vacation because I knew I wouldn't have internet and I wanted to entertain myself, I wrote 7 books and published them for fun because I could write and save while offline and then publish them later if I wanted.

When I opened wattpad after a few years I was first met with "upgrade to premium to download and read unlimited books" and then I was met with an ad in between chapters. I didn't continue I deleted my account and haven't even wanted to download it again.

What capitalism and consumerism did in the last few years has had an affect on everything in such a way that cannot be explained unless you've seen the before. Because now you have these platforms crying and begging you not to use an ad blocker, but that means nothing to me because I know they can function without ads, because I've seen and experienced it. Which is why I do not understand people who pay for these things, but if I grew up in an environment where all of these things were already this obsessed with getting money maybe I wouldn't complain either.

Tldr. children do not have spaces anymore where they're not bombarded with ads and it's sad because they were born into this.

the reason "robot racism" is often a really stupid metaphor is the same reason that like. discrimination against demons or vampires or whatever doesn't work, is because there's often a pretty justified reasons humans are scared of vampires or robots or whatever, in a way that doesn't apply to real life minorities, like a fantasy author will be like "the reason vampires are discriminated against is because most of them and kill and eat people for fun and pleasure, and so humans respond by trying to kill them, isn't that so sad" and like no that's a perfectly fine reason to not trust vampires i think.

sci-fi writers will be like "every robot on earth randomly decided to kill all humans for no real reason, and now people don't trust robots, and this is a metaphor for racism" and like no you just wrote a metaphor for white people actually.

it wasn't ever normal that you guys were getting coffee for cheaper than people in Brazil and Colombia (the producers) do though, I hope you know that

having year round mangoes in Wisconsin isn't normal either btw there's a whole century that explains it actually

btw brazilians and colombians get significantly lower quality coffee for a way higher price than in the european nations to which it gets exported. over 80% of brazilian coffee leaves the nation, and the price of coffee in brazil has recently skyrocketed, despite the fact that it is responsible for 38% of the world's yearly coffee production.

theres some 500 years of history on why that is, which you should read, but it is somewhat sufficient to keep in mind that the first world requires the exploitation of the third to maintain its luxuries.

mentally taking a drag of my mental cigarette because I don’t smoke but life has been very smokable lately

@shit-hdb-would-say

Harry du Bois would say this.

When the health food store unionized, something wild happened that I thought was just a goofy one-off, but makes more sense now.

There was a big push to eliminate "degrading jobs" but the strategy was to eliminate the position, then create a new position outside of the bargaining unit to do the work. So like, we wouldn't have dishwashers, but we'd have people who washed dishes that weren't eligible to be in the union.

I was like A) what the actual fuck? Dish washing isn't "degrading", it's fucking vital. B) What the actual fuck? You want to create a union just to exploit different people?

There were enough of us to be like "Absolutely the fuck not," and put a stop to it, but I was absolutely flummoxed that people involved in a union would say that out loud. Working with more leftists now, it makes sense.

I think it was coming from a background that viewed labor as necessary to accomplish anything, but advocated for the equitable distribution of the gains made by labor... and then being thrown in with people who just thought labor was icky.

The first time someone told me that busing tables was "degrading", I was like "Oh, uhh, yeah, like it's very necessary work but under compensated for how vital it is?" and they responded "No, touching plates that other people have eaten off of is disgusting."

But I want to eat off of clean plates. So somebody is going to have to touch/clean those plates. And I respect that person and want them to be able to afford to live.

Those people sound like a guy I'd make up to be mad at.

I mean, that job definitely had a Truman Show vibe. If they hadn't been in-person interactions, I'd think I was getting trolled.

Just to put a bow on it:

In bargaining, someone on the Union side suggested that we eliminate all the cashiers and exclusively use self-checkouts (they were a cashier and didn't like it). The organizer told them that the union wasn't in the habit of eliminating bargaining unit positions. (This is the same person I've talked about how said that "as a prison abolitionist" we just needed to execute most criminals.)

When I explained holiday scheduling (time off requests granted in order of seniority, shifts assigned in reverse order of seniority). Someone was angry and said that time off requests potentially being denied "wasn't in the spirit of the union". When I pointed out that our departments made like 30% of our annual revenue between Thanksgiving and New Years and that required production staff to be working, they said that we just needed to create a class of positions ineligible for the bargaining unit that wouldn't be able to request time off. (Which again, most of us figured we'd just rotate holidays or something, but assumed that some holiday production was mandatory.)

I was on leftie tiktok (as a creator) for a bit and I saw this attitude there as well. I specifically remember one argument around cleaners where someone said that employing a cleaner was, like, ethically bad, and that "after the revolution" we wouldn't have cleaners.

It got me thinking, along with Ann Russell talking about how to treat cleaners (being a cleaner herself), about how we conceptualise domestic service as particularly degrading in all its forms, when, really, why is that? Why is paying someone to do something intrinsically bad?

Like, even in a moneyless, gift economy society, there would still be people whose primary contribution to their communities would be cleaning. Some people like to clean, and are really rather good at it.

I've talked ad nauseam in the past about how British attitudes towards cleaners and other service based positions today are the descendants of Victorian attitudes. That is, both the attitudes of conservatives and many progressives of that time. The trade union movement was particularly exclusionary towards service workers.

I think people on the left thinking about forms of labour can sometimes be worse than people on the right. People who have taken these positions generally just conceptualise them as something you need to do to get by, and there are particular employers where these positions are degrading but in general the jobs themselves aren't.

Yeah, that really sums it up. There's stuff that needs to get done, so I'll never be of the opinion that it's degrading work. I worked in kitchens for a long time, and every other position is reliant on having clean dishes, so nobody can really be "above" washing dishes. The shitty thing about washing dishes or busing tables is how people treat the people doing it. The work itself is vital.

And some of those jobs are like, sure, you can throw almost any warm body at it and get it done adequately, but you still run into people where you're like "Holy shit, you're good at this."

People doing a job most people don't want to do should be paid MORE in order to get people to do it. That's how it would work if we weren't mired in a schema assuming that less-frequently-desired jobs are the province of people who "can't do better" and "deserve" poverty because they have less value as people.

I've already said that my number one piece of writing advice is to read.

But my number two piece of advice is this: be deliberate.

Honestly this would fix so many pieces of bad writing advice. Don't forbid people from doing something, tell them to be conscious and deliberate about it. This could help stop people from falling into common mistakes without limiting their creativity. Black and white imperatives may stop a few annoying beginner habits, but ultimately they will restrict artistic expression.

Instead of "don't use epithets": "Know the effect epithets have and be deliberate about using them." Because yes, beginners often misuse them, but they can be useful when a character's name isn't known or when you want to reduce them to a particular trait they have.

Instead of "don't use 'said'" or "just use 'said'": "Be deliberate about your use of dialogue tags." Because sometimes you'll want "said" which fades into the background nicely, but sometimes you will need a more descriptive alternative to convey what a character is doing.

Instead of "don't use passive voice": "Be deliberate about when you use passive voice." Because using it when it's not needed can detract from your writing, but sometimes it can be useful to change the emphasis of a sentence or to portray a particular state of mind.

Instead of blindly following or ignorantly neglecting the rules of writing, familiarize yourself with them and their consequences so you can choose when and if breaking them would serve what you're trying to get across.

Your writing is yours. Take control of it.

It probably sounds like I'm preaching to the choir here because most of my mutuals are already great writers. But I'm hoping this will make it to the right people.

it's fucking me up how tv shows, movies, and even video games can't be "niche" content anymore

like nothing can be underrated anymore. it HAS to be a success. cartoons have to either be spongebob level successes with immediate marketing or they're shelved a season or two in.

Movies have such inflated budgets that they NEED to break a billion in the box office just to make back what they cost. Anything less than a blockbuster smash is turned into a tax write-off.

a single triple A video game can destroy an entire studio if it doesn't meet expectations, which are already lofty enough as it is.

and everything has to appeal to the widest demographic possible, which can mean sterilizing anything creative about the work so it becomes as palatable as possible.

idk im just sad about this

you can’t kill yourself, the music is about to switch from 4/4 to 6/8. the clarinets are just about to come in bro you can’t miss that

i've been on this site for 10 fucking years and the fact that black people and trans women are systematically chased out and have been chased out one by one from this website is really fucking gross. I hate this website. Racist fucking website.

there used to be so many more black bloggers here prior to the "nsfw" ban, this is not a space marginalized people can use to talk about their issues, terfiest place on the internet tbh.

Even before that. I remember that for about 3 years there was an annual black out. Then when the purge of "Russian Bots" happened damn near 2/3 of all the popular black bloggers I knew disappeared from the site. And people were profoundly disinterested in questioning the validity of Tumblr's claim that the accounts were Russian agents. Didn't matter that I knew some of them IRL it fit their world view and that was that. Hardly ever see significant black blogs on here anymore.

Since it's watermelon season!

My grandfather used to grow watermelons, among other things, and he told me about most of this, especially the orange spot. Those are the absolute best!

My most popular post ever is getting likes again, so that means it's getting close to watermelon season!!

do you ever not write for so long that you’re almost afraid to? like what if I’m dumb now

You just gotta unclog the pipe. Are you dumb now? No. The water was sitting stagnant because you were busy doing other things (100% fine btw). If any 'dumb' got in the water then it will quickly leave once you let the water start flowing again. Go get all the stupid out into a doc that doesn't matter. Even several of them. It might take a good while, especially if you're returning to writing after years or after a period of intense burnout, or both (waves). But you're just rusty, and letting that stop you will only ensure you stay stuck! Go forth and write some nonsense!

this applies to art as well btw

Hey did you know that you can’t escape fatphobia even after death? The article talks about how these donated bodies are used for first year anatomy students to study the body, and how the 'perfect' body for that should be 170-180 pounds.

“The storage is one issue, but when you are obese, there’s a lot of tissue everywhere. The students don’t get as good a learning opportunity.”

"That program limits donors to between 170 pounds and 180 pounds, though an exceptionally tall donor might be allowed at 190.

“It’s the maximum our equipment will handle,” Powers said.

Sounds like they just need newer and better equipment?

"Obese bodies are more difficult, time-consuming and unpleasant to study, said Wade, who also heads his state’s anatomy board."

Ah yes, we've arrived at the real reason..

Quick question, if fat bodies are not accepted as potential cadavers for medical students to study on then what are the consequences for that?

Fat people are dismissed medically and are told to lose weight before even getting a chance to be examined. While alive. Then are rejected for further study after death. How many people died and will die because medical professionals are missing potential problems that could be diagnosed?