Useful Emptiness

Call me Emily. 25. PDX. Queer. She/her. Header by: @lovely-oasis.

[loveridden1999]

problematic sudoku solving skills gap

[featuringmarkhoppus]

[youfriendlyneighborhooddisaster]

whoever decided to give this man long hair has my eternal gratitude

[dajo42]

need a polite way to say "im not engaging in a discussion on this topic with you because the conclusions you have reached are based on so many interwoven layers of misconceptions it would be easier to just like, hard reset your whole brain, just start over as a baby and try again"

[aoya]

Kitty from @sirspamzalot

Thanks for the ref!

[heavensenthale]

you know what? fuck it *reads the fanfic I spent hours writing for my own enjoyment*

[wynnyfryd]

if you’re not rereading your own 3yo one-shots every once in a while so you can shake your head at the ao3 tab and mutter god i’m fucking funny then what are we even doing all this work for?

[screechfoxes]

CRITICAL ROLE 4.26 Council of Heroes

[libraford]

Are YOU gonna let THE GOVERNMENT tell YOU what YOUR GENDER is? That doesn't sound like Life Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness to me! PROTECT your individual FREEDOMS and call your senator: we want the GOVERNMENT to stay OUT OF OUR PANTS! GENDER FREEDOM NOW!

[libraford]

Two men in your neighborhood are married... to EACH OTHER? Congratulate them for exercising their AMERICAN RIGHT to follow the footsteps of our FOUNDING FATHERS! They've got a fully AMERICAN spirit of FREEDOM and REBELLION! GOD BLESS THE USA.

[libraford]

Your coworker has a different RELIGION from yours? Well, that's just INTERESTING and you should talk about it on your UNION-APPROVED LUNCH BREAK. The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA was FOUNDED on Freedom of Religion and ANYONE should be allowed to seek the AMERICAN DREAM!

[libraford]

You think someone might be in this GREAT country ILLEGALLY? NO YOU DON'T! No one is in this country illegally! The minute anyone steps on our SOVEREIGN SOIL they're your FELLOW AMERICAN and where they come from is NO ONES BUSINESS.

[rosslynpaladin]

it's funny yeah, but guys this is actually how you reach the people who prefer these terms to frame all things Good and Correct.

[rosszulorzott]

[renthony]

I was 12 when the first of my siblings was born, so I have very vivid memories of the way my mother was excluded from a lot of spaces because people find children annoying.

If you think "children should not be allowed in this space," you HAVE TO reckon with the fact that you are now excluding parents (and very often women specifically) who don't have access to childcare. You are isolating people who are poor, or rural, or single parents, or any number of other factors that might prevent someone from having on-demand childcare. You are cutting them off from being able to exist in public. You are denying parents and children the ability to fully participate in society.

My mom spent several years only leaving the house to buy groceries or take me to school, and even then, people would still come up to her to complain TO HER FACE about how she shouldn't bring a crying toddler to Walmart. Entitled strangers would literally try and demand that my mom leave and come back without the kids.

"Why can't your husband watch them?" Because he was at work, usually working extreme amounts of overtime so we didn't get evicted, because landlords don't like it when you stop paying rent.

"Why can't you send them to daycare?" Because that costs money.

"Why can't your teenager stay home with them and babysit?" Because I also deserved to be able to leave the house for something other than school, and taking me to the grocery store was how my mom taught me to manage a household budget, shop sales, and meal plan.

"Don't bring your kid in public if you can't CONTROL them and make them stop crying!" Kids cry when they're upset, and being dragged around a store is upsetting! Don't be an asshole! Children are human beings who are still learning how the world works, and they don't have a lot of agency. You'd cry, too.

"Spank them until they learn to stop crying!" That's just straight-up child abuse, Jesus Christ.

What the fuck was our family supposed to do? Never go to the grocery store? Starve because strangers couldn't handle a toddler existing in public?

[renthony]

I am incredibly fucking disturbed at the way this post has brought people out of the woodwork who really want to tell me all about how hitting kids isn't actually abuse, how they think babies are the spawn of Satan, and how being confined to the home is an acceptable punishment for women who dare to have children. People have told me all about how they think children should be banned from airplanes, that I'm being inconsiderate to childfree people, that allowing crying babies in public is ableist against people with sensory issues (I have those, too, and so do many children, which is often WHY THEY ARE CRYING, jackass), and that people who have children are "irresponsible" and "selfish."

I have blocked multiple people who went on tirades about how I'm a "horrible breeder" who is "contributing to overpopulation" and how I and my "spawn" deserve to be trapped at home. (I am infertile and my foster kid is an adult now, so I don't know what breeding and spawn they think they're talking about.)

One person asked if I was posting ragebait for fun because "this isn't a real issue." Several have asked if this "really happens" and told me that my "experience isn't universal." (There are multiple parents in the comments who have agreed with me and talked about how hard it is to navigate the world with their kids.)

Children are an oppressed class who are treated like absolute vermin. Parents are given absolutely no support in caring for them. Good parents are set at a disadvantage even when they have all the best intentions, struggling parents aren't given resources to improve their situation or get community assistance, and blatantly abusive parents don't get caught because hitting and screaming and controlling are considered perfectly normal ways to treat a child. Communities would rather shut kids away where they can be ignored and forgotten and mistreated, all for the sin of "being annoying in public."

Youth liberation is vital, regardless of whether you, personally, like kids. You cannot ban children from public. You cannot shut children away in isolation and expect them to grow into happy, healthy, well-adjusted adults who can function in our society. You do not get to demand children be removed from every corner of public life all for your personal comfort.

Children are people.

[feldfrog]

If a fantasy world has an ancient tree of wisdom, that means it must also have young trees that are dumb as shit. Just giving terrible advice like, "the evil wizard is kinda hot"'

[majestictortoise]

sometimes reading fanfic is like enjoying a gourmet tasting menu from a team of expert chefs who all have different styles and approaches to a favorite cuisine

and sometimes reading fanfic is like standing in front of the open fridge at three in the morning shoving handfuls of shredded cheese into your mouth

[bestiolin]

sarah evans

[melongifts]

Hey anyone notice how google translate is being pretty liberal with their translations as of late? Takin some real liberties to infer tone.

[melongifts]

ask and ye shall receive: When I write in Japanese I usually also throw it in google translate to double check that I'm not using the wrong kanji by mistake, and two years ago it gave me very dry and literal translations.

I was doing it today and noticed it had a pretty strong voice added to the output

For reference, to give a dry translation I would put: Lately I'm into in Hanafuda. Nobody seems to know anything about it here, so they probably wouldn't understand my brilliant jokes. I guess you guys will never be able to understand "Mister November and the Scary Cave".

I have a fluent friend who is able to check my work for me and give me tips on hitting the correct tone (I was going for a comically casual feeling), so I'm confident that I'm expressing the feeling I'm intending. While Google is also hitting the same emotion, I really don't like knowing that it's assigning tone in the first place.

To check if it was editorializing based on informal grammatical choices, I formal'd up the writing to be more polite and remove any non-standard vocabulary.

I'm just like... what is anyone who is translating what I'm thinking into their own language going to think when a translation app decides that it knows my intended tone? When online communication is already so complicated and nuanced? I'm a non-native so I'm spending ages agonizing over 117 characters, but when I'm chatting in English I'm not being so deliberate. How likely is it that tools that 'naturalize' are going to make choices that don't reflect reality and lead to insulting misunderstandings? I spoke with an English learner just yesterday who thought they were being bullied (they were not, the commenter in question was just excitedly infodumping about sociology) because something was lost in translation, and I wonder if it's because of tools making choices like this. I'm just a luddite I don't trust stuff like this. stinks of ai asking me if it can rerwrite my email in a more quirky style.

[melongifts]

What do you mean I'm just using the browser versi-

I AM SO SICK OF DEFAULT AI!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[listentothelittlebird]

ok you know what? Im moving my tags out of the tags. Hi op! If you want to check if specific words are correct then I think this app might be useful for you! It’s called takoboto:

I started using it after a friend showed it to me and it’s useful for checking words or phrases!

I’m still learning very basic japanese so I’ve been typing in random words or phrases that I hear :D I can’t really say how accurate it is, but it works for me thus far!

[andreauxminyard]

you really do turn thirty and everything is different and sometimes better. if you're in line for thirty stay in line bro

[fael-draws]

Getting caught up on CR and I must ask - what's gayer:

gay people

whatever body-horror, homo-erotic situation Halandir and Bolaire have going on

???

[tyrannosaurus-rex]

Seeing people drive big lifted and totally pristine giant pickup trucks as just a car to get to and from work on fully paved roads is like watching a high energy working breed dog be forced to live in a 1 bedroom apartment and only go out for poop walks.

If you cant provide them the home they need its abuse. That truck should be hauling bricks, it needs to be maxing out its suspension hitting ridges at 65 mph. It should be dirty and dented because they love it. Theres no enrichment in your 1/4 mile drive to the gas station. Youre torturing it, youre killing that truck.

[tired-fandom-ndn]

I am whatever the opposite of a speed runner is. I am a game meanderer. I have to look at literally everything. I am overly cautious in every way. I forget to pause and wander away from the game. I take a minimum 7 hours to get through any given level. If you give me a timer I will cry.

[json-derulo]

[moveslikekeithrichards]

working with little kids is so dangerous. you get one kid who has a unique way of speaking & then spend the rest of your life with an internal monologue like “me’s go bathroom?”

[moveslikekeithrichards]

other thrilling destructions of my vocabulary:

the kid who replaced his hard G sounds with soft ones, leaving me incapable of thinking of glasses as anything other than jlasses

kid who would holler "DID" any time she finished her work no matter how many times we told her to just raise her hand

kid who began her scary stories with "once a time" and her friend who began his with "paw time"

middle schooler i had during student teaching who pronounced magritte as "mah-gritty"

the kid who said "i got boogies comin out my nose" while sobbing and the kid who said "theres his puddle of cry" while describing a drawing, both of whom i think of when im crying

kid who said that if he was 80 he would get big and turn grandpa

kid who, for no reason in particular, would just say "like a little feet" as a standalone phrase in relation to nothing

edit how could i forget. the kid who got sneezed on and angrily said "whyd you blessyou on me"

[hollowedskin]

My niece who asks people with dogs "are him big or him little?"

And every person without fail answers "uh.. him big"

[draconym]

Years later my vocabulary is still influenced by:

kid who called snakes "nakes"

kid who called calculators "cockulators"

my little cousin who referred to anything he didn't have an immediate answer to as "vewy mystewious"

"I don't yike heem"