Anything I feel like posting goes here

I post and reblog pretty much anything here. Original posts are mostly fandom stuff

[d0uble-0h-se7en]

Is it just me or do a lot of people in our/my generation use the whole... "the world is fucked, everythings terrible, nothing will ever get better, and we'll all burn alive in the climate crisis or die by nuclear bomb" mentality as, well, a cop-out to avoid thinking about their futures?

[d0uble-0h-se7en]

Girl you are not dying tragically young as a victim of societal collapse. Start taking your education seriously, make a long-term plan for how you want to achieve your personal, financial, and career goals with realistic expectations, and research different types of retirement funds 💀 "late-stage capitalism" is not going to kidnap you in the night and take away all your power over the scary things in life to turn you into a passive victim of circumstance any time soon

[d0uble-0h-se7en]

"But this time its different!" Its really not. The Cuban missile crisis almost had the world blow up, and it didn't. The cold war that set the stage for it existed in a constant state of the threat of nuclear annihilation.

Our world map today looks completely different from how it looked a thousand years ago. Nations and empires have risen and collapsed. Wars have been waged over petty bullshit that changed names and borders. Empires that were once thought invincible and perpetual crumbled to dust within a peasant's lifetime as they tilled their fields and worried about crop failure. The invention of flight, motion pictures, and the automobile chased the coattails of WWI and the great depression. Children played mischief games and elders complained about kids these days being too soft and sensitive during the fall of the Roman empire.

Our generational struggles are not uniquely terrible compared to any other generation's. Your life will not come to a dramatic and cinematic end to all of humanity and the world as we know it any time soon. The world will change and evolve as it always has throughout all of history and all of its constant perpetual bullshit, and you will continue to live on regardless of the outcome. Yes, even if you're queer. Yes, even if you're trans. Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. Yes, even if you're racialized. Set up your 401k and find ways to guard against becoming senile not if, but when you grow old.

[raginrayguns]

I think it’s not widely enough appreciated that Epicurus taught there was no afterlife and that when you die, you experience nothing after your death. And that there were plenty of ancient Roman Epicureans.

I think too many believe that the premodern worldview included immortal souls, and we’ve since discovered otherwise with science or reason or something. When in fact “what happens after you die” was the kind of thing reasonable people disagreed with each other about in ancient Rome. And the kind of thing they would have conversations about. Much as we do now.

And the reason that we can easily get the impression that in the past everyone believed in immortal souls was because one side of this conversation was illegal.

Do not forget this! Do not forget an act of oppression, and conclude that it’s just human nature to believe in immortal souls! There was a time before “the past”, the “consensus” of people in “the past” on the issue of life after death was created by killing heretics!

[raginrayguns]

#yes but like the atomists like epicurus were controversial#in their day#even if they were right#history

yes–whether they were right or wrong is besides the point, what has been erased is the controversy. Modern soul-believers claim that their view is the default one, and that materialism is some modern fad. See CS Lewis “What Christians Believe” for example.

The reason they’re able to get away with this at all is because alternative views were violently suppressed for hundreds of years, to the point that it’s easy to identify this stretch of time as “the past”, and forget the time before it when “what happens after you die” was an acceptable topic for discussion, and people argued for and against diverse points of view.

[boycritter]

thinking about anastasia trusova paintings again

[boycritter]

CAN ANYONE HEAR ME

[ravioliet]

"why can't they just be friends?" not in the homophobic sense, but in the "in your need to center romance in everything you are missing the whole point of the media in question" sense

[calvinists-and-hobbesians]

one of the most horrifying things for me to slowly realize was how many people (especially on here) are doing the right thing for the wrong reason.

Some people don't hate TERFs because they have a nuanced and informed understanding of the social construct of gender and gender essentialism, they just hate them because they're "too mean".

Some people on here don't hate pedophiles and radqueers because they have an informed understanding of consent and power dynamics, but because they're "icky". Some people forgive other people and stay in difficult relationships not because they understand that forgiveness is a tool that can be given to those who deserve it to move forward, and that they feel confident that they can get the relationship to a better state, but because their religion told them that they have to do it. These are largely good conclusions, and they seem distinguishable on the surface from people doing it for the right reason, but then they apply the same logic to other movements and commmunities that have good points. They reject atheists and vegans for being "too mean", they hate and feel disgust towards kink communities because they're "icky", and they support and further harmful ideas and mindsets just because their religion tells them to do it. If you continue thinking like this, you'll be the "close-minded conservative old people" in 40 years time or whenever society moves past the ideas you hold currently. Please make sure that the difference between you and the bigots isn't just that you were lucky enough to be raised in a better enviroment. Please don't resist progress and change so we have to continue this same cycle again with the next generation.

[razortouched]

This will probably be my most controversial post by far, but it needs to be said.

Gendered socialization is unequivocally real. Boys and girls are treated and socialized differently before they're even born.

Female babies are disappearing en masse, because male babies are more valued.

From an extremely early age, parents respond to their childrens' emotions differently based on gender. Mothers over-estimate the crawling abilities of their infant sons compared to infant daughters.

Mothers speak to their infant daughters more and talk them more about emotions than they do their sons.

By the age of 2, boys already show an avoidance to the color pink and other items traditionally seen as feminine, laying the ground work for early demonstrations of misogyny in childhood.

When children enter pre-school, there is no difference in math abilities between boys and girls. But such gaps begin to appear as children grow older.

The vast majority of girls report feeling unsafe going outside, and at least 2/3 of girls have reported experiencing sexual harassment at school by the time they 16.

Further on in education, women will understimate their scores, while men will overestimate their scores. Women will perform worse on tests when first told that women, on average, perform worse.

Researchers argue that the prevalence of sexual assault against women is so high specifically because of early gendered socialization. The men who commit sexual violence consistently demonstrate specific ideals about gender and perform hostile masculinity.

The patterns reach well into adulthood, influencing occupational choices.

I could literally go on and on and on. There are countless studies and entire fields of academia dedicated to researching this. The fact that children are socialized differently paced on assigned or percieved gender is really not debatable.

I am sympathetic to the fact that transphobes have warped the concept of socialization to insinuate that trans women are destined to be violent or predatory, or that trans men are destined to be submissive and helpless. However, people weaponizing these frameworks does not mean that the phenomenon does not exist.

Furthermore, individual people's nuanced experiences with gendered socialization does not mean that these patterns don't exist on a large scale. Any interaction with society will confer the influence of gender biases, especially upon children to are extremely vulnerable to both subtle and overt social cues.

Again - gendered socialization is real. This is a core aspect of feminist analysis. I am not going to pretend otherwise.

[queerplatonic-msr]

Socialization is the main concept that debunks gender essentialism. If gender has no innate traits, why are there clear patterns in the behavior of men vs women? The answer is socialization. The whole concept of gender liberation in the first place doesn't make sense without acknowledging socialization. We cannot replace "the concept of socialization has been weaponized" with "socialization isn't real" lmao; that's doing ourselves and our movement a disservice.

[helicalsymmetry]

i actually don't give a shit what 'human nature' is. i don't care what we're 'meant' to live like, and i'm not interested in projecting a vision of whatever validates my political/ideological beliefs onto the past. it's natural for humans to die of diseases and injuries. it's natural for humans to hit each other to death with objects. i don't care if my body is 'meant' to be a persistence predator in an (unrealistically) idyllic hunter-gatherer society because actually my body is 'meant' to lay down and die of nerve dysfunction. defy and overcome your fucking nature and do what you want without hallucinating the support of a thousand dead apes.

[hoping-for-novelty]

I think it's bad to accuse people of being "anti-intellectual" when they criticize a specific academic field, especially when they have specific, constrained criticisms. Yes, even when the criticisms are wrong

Academic fields can be wrong, often in ways that are pretty obvious to outsiders. Do not become the kind of idiot who defends Freud

[paradoxspaceheater]

the thing about misogyny is that femininity is both devalued AND forced on women (and those misgendered as women). if you fail to meet the arbitrary standard of Womanly Charm you're ugly and unwanted and hate yourself and if you succeed you're shallow and brainless and weak. if you don't try to conform you're lazy and if you do you're vain. it is not possible to beat this system. feminism needs both "feminine doesn't mean weak or less-than" AND "women don't have to be feminine to have value", and if you are fighting for one of these the people fighting for the other are not your enemies, nor are they privileged over you.

this post is inclusive of trans people, including but not limited to trans women and transfeminine people. exclusionary sentiment is not welcome.

[heywriters]

How to survive the phase of shitty writting? I know i can't skip it in order to grow, but realistically, how to not give up? I already tried to quite completly, but i still feel that call,nbut when i try to write it feels so pointless. How to keep going knowing everything i create is worthless for now and i don't even feel i'll ever progress? I’m trying to come back after quite long time of not writing, i was writing for years before but never got any good, so obviosly i wont come back to write a masterpiece right away, i never aimed for a mastepiece in fact, i just want to make it any readable and i know i need to practice but i’m worried it can never get better.

I get asks like this every now and then, and they always contain the problem.

Your writing is not shitty. It is not worthless.

Bloggers using these terms to describe early writing are often being either glib or depressing. Ignore their advice if it is making you feel bad.

Do you write for pleasure or for praise/accomplishment? If the latter, then you are simply in the practice stage. Practice is inherently worthwhile and no effort in this regard is a waste.

If you write for pleasure, then everything you create fulfills its purpose by being entertaining to create. A small child does not drop the crayon when it realizes its drawing will never be in the MoMA, does it? No, they don't care they just like drawing stuff. Adopt that mindset. Just write to get words on the page and ideas developed because you want to.

My advice for the insecure writer:

Stop re-reading your own work; you're a very biased critic right now and that in itself is holding you back.

All improvements are for later drafts. Trust me, you'll have whole new ideas by draft three so put off the nitpicking and focus.

Avoid outside opinions, writing advice, and blogs like mine for a while; we tend to inadvertently make you feel like you've done everything wrong and need to start over.

Stop starting over. Stop deleting your early drafts. Save all of it (this was the best advice I ever received).

Read and watch books and movies for motivation, and to analyze their strengths and weaknesses.

Do. Not. Compare. Yourself. To Other. Writers—your art is about you and what concerns you, other creators have nothing to do with it.

Remind yourself dumber people are doing it wrong confidently. Copy their confidence.

When you feel self-doubt creeping in again, tell it to take a hike, you've got a story to write.

Whatever you write, no matter the quality, take pride in being a writer at all. Lazy suckers just use AI.

There's nothing wrong with making a mess. How are you supposed to learn from constant perfection? Scratch out dumb sentences, leave afterthoughts in the margins, and side tangents in brackets. If the writing isn't going well, write ROUGH DRAFT in big letters at the top to remind yourself it's just a sketch of what you had in mind, not the finished product.

"...i’m worried it can never get better" I have great news for you! This fear will only be realized if you quit. Since you feel the pull to write there's clearly no point in quitting, your brain already knows writing is the answer. Ideas don't like to wait, and life will keep trying to interrupt you with bigger things, so there's really no time like the present. Go write!

—

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[audliminal]

It may also help you to stop looking at your writing as one homogeneous thing! A story, or even a single scene, involves many parts, many individual sentences. And even as a beginner, each of those sentences has the potential to be The Most Amazing Thing Ever. You are more likely to craft more Amazing Sentences as you gain in experience, but there are always going to be little nuggets of that potential, even when you're brand new at it.

[probuccalfat]

dead serious normalize having an average boring ass life where you have enough to meet your needs we do not need to be remarkable we just need to be alive

[kata4a]

Ye knowe eek, that in forme of speche is chaunge With-inne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho That hadden prys, now wonder nyce and straunge Us thinketh hem; and yet they spake hem so, And spedde as wel in love as men now do.

chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde c. 1380

[youzicha]

glossary: eek also and even tho at the time prys great value wonder a cause for astonishment nyce stupid spedde succeeded

You know the form of language, too, can change. Within a thousand years, even the words that were most precious then, seem strange and foolish to us; yet they spoke them so and did no worse in love than we now do.

[captainjonnitkessler]

When I was younger I really couldn't imagine being tied down to one place but now I'm daydreaming about where I would retire to if I could and it's like. Well. Probably somewhere within a twenty-mile radius of where I currently live. The fuck am I gonna do, I live here!! My nephew is here! All my friends are here and so is the gaming shop we like. I like the theaters and museums and parks here. What if I move someplace else and they don't have a Broadway league. What if their parks suck. I can't take that risk even if I do think living by the ocean would fix me

[captainjonnitkessler]

Me at age 18: I could live in the mountains! By the ocean! Next to a national park! In the desert! The possibilities are endless!

Me now: Anyplace more than 30 minutes away from a Wegmans is completely uninhabitable

[captainjonnitkessler]

And for what it's worth I really don't view this as "oh, once you become an adult you settle down and become boring". I still want to go to the mountains, and the desert, and the ocean! But I built a life for myself and I don't want to up and abandon it anymore like I used to. And that's a good thing! I like my life now so much more than I used to!

The great thing about being an adult is that I can still up and leave and go to all of those cool places. But not to get too sappy about it, now I can also see the appeal in coming back to my friends and family and all the familiar little places I've come to love.

[captainjonnitkessler]

Fun fact: There is nothing wrong with atheism, and atheists aren’t “missing out” on anything! Atheists can take just as much joy and comfort from their beliefs as any religious person can take from theirs!

[captainjonnitkessler]

Like, I see in a LOT of posts on here people implying - or just outright stating - that being spiritual/religious is an inherent part of humanity, that being secular means being greedy and materialistic, that they feel so bad for atheists who believe such depressing things, on and on.

And I’m here to say nope! I’m an atheist, I love being an atheist, I am living a joyous and fulfilled life and have never heard a religious person’s experience that made me think “wow I wish I had that”. Atheism is a big part of my identity - as anyone’s religious identity is - and I’m really happy with it! That’s all!

[flame-of-tar-valon]

This also applies to skepticism of folklore and the supernatural. Atheists are not “missing out” on a core aspect of humanity by not believing in a religion. We are also not “missing out” by not believing in ghosts or astrology or what-have-you. Even if you change it from language about religion to generic statements like “whimsy” and “imagination”, or if you talk about someone’s psyche instead of their spirituality, you’re still implying that skepticism is a bleakness that we need saving from.

Personally, I was a very whimsical, imaginative, creative child. I spent my summers making up intricate pretend worlds and adventures and the like all through elementary school. I also never believed in Santa Claus or any similar myths and fairy tales. My parents never lied about supernatural phenomena in the world out of a misguided belief that children need to believe in fictions in order to be fulfilled.

[tiktaalic]

LIFE HACK: if you call things beautiful then they become so . Immediately in front of your eyes

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

I am constantly seeing people trying to puzzle out what's "ruining books" and it makes me more and more tired. Read a different book. You have more choice in reading material than at any other point in all of history. No one thing can be ruining ALL of them.

[molabuddy]

3 hours of sleep = i hate people who laugh

0 ours of sleep = waouw 🌼🌼🌼🌼🐎