#but how the fuck do people manage to afford it i don't understand
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while we're here let me just say seeing how many cis women have gotten access to top surgery before literal trans people is going to be my villain origin story
#i am talking about fully fledged self-proclaimed CISGENDER WOMEN.#gender is complicated and this is not a critique on cis women who want to get top surgery#but how the fuck do people manage to afford it i don't understand#i've been waiting and waiting and waiting and i will probably have to wait and wait and wait some more because i'm broke as fuck#and it seems like no one accepts my insurance and even if they did i'm still on my parents insurance#so i'd have to actually talk about it with them and i don't want to do that because they always get pissy#i'm just fucking mad bro that's all#it's frustrating to watch other people get these procedures when i've waited so long and i know i'm no where near getting them#and seeing them post about it all over tiktok about their process and such i just get mad! i'm sorry!#i know they're not trying to rub it in my face obviously that's not their goal#but i still always feel shit about it anyway#words words words let me shut up sorry
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socials as karasu’s gf
-`♡´- liked by 666666, megsbachira and 1.3k others
karasu: luv waking up to you <3
tagged: yn
eggod: jst thinking abt how they set up the camera, checked if they were in frame, and posed to get this “candid”
↳ yn: you are just sad and lonely
↳ eggod: ok but can you be fr for a second??? like we all know that's what you did 😭
↳ yn: there is absolutely no reason for it tho ???? let people enjoy things 😞
↳ eggod: not on my watch no !
hioryy: how many more of these posts must we endure
↳ karasu: killing yourself would make the process a lot faster
(this comment has been removed due to it going against community guidelines)
↳ hioryy: HIS BITCHASS GOT RESTRICTED!!! UGLY ASS MANWHORE!!!!
(this comment has been removed due to it going against community guidelines)
↳ karasu: KYS
(this comment has been removed due to it going against community guidelines)
↳ karasu: whoever keeps reporting me, i'm gonna punt you
(this comment has been removed due to it going against community guidelines)
↳ hioryy: damn i reached my daily repoting limit...
↳ karasu: FUCK YOU???
-`♡ ´- liked by chigiri, isagi_11 and 1.6k others
yn: do you think it is normal to be sending me stuff like this first thing in the morning?? it’s absolutely not!!
tagged: karasu
karasu: sorry so when am i supposed to send it exactly? 🤨
↳ yn: you know exactly what you're doing...
↳ karasu: yeah i do 😏
666666: bro should've done a few pushups first he looks mad ailing
↳ eggod: WHAT ???!!! 😭😭
↳ 666666: motherfucker open a thesaurus !
↳ eggod: stop saying random dinosaur names you don't sound as smart as you think you do 🤒
↳ 666666: god...
↳ yn: otoya pls stop skipping ur primary school classes :(
↳ eggod: dot dot dot
-`♡´- liked by itoshi_rin, mikage and 987 others
yn: Uberを1台お願いします。
tagged: karasu, uberjapan
uberjapan: we love love 😍
↳ isagi_11: this is such a random partnership lmfao ????
↳ isagi_11: ngl respect get that bag !
↳ yn: nobody says this anymore...
eggod: that poor underpaid taxi driver...
↳ uberjapan: we assure you that our uber drivers are paid more than enough to afford basic necessities and in addition are provided with multiple discounts and benefits, we as a company value employe wellbeing and safety as a no.1 priority.
↳ eggod: erm...
666666: imagine basically living in your car and then having to deal with obnoxious couples like you i would kms
↳ yn: nagi pls you tell people you have a fake virus while coughing on them 😭😭😭😭😭😭😭😭
↳ 666666: yeah but when i do it it's funny as hell
-`♡´- liked by megsbachira, eggod and 2.4k others
karasu: <3
tagged: yn
eggod: another one!
↳ karasu: what
↳ eggod: another one of your fake "candids" i win 50£ under 3, nagi if its over
↳ karasu: get a life pls
↳ 666666: this is exclusively how i've been making money this past month
↳ karasu: how are you not broke?
↳ mikage: you really think he's using his own money...????
yn: ilysm <3
↳ karasu: ilyt
itoshirin: deadass looks like her hair's on fire
↳ yn: IT REALLY DOESNT WHY WOULD YOU SAU THAT 😭😭😭
↳ 666666: it really does tho
-`♡ ´- liked by 666666, isagi_11 and 1k others
karasu: she's so pretty like a princess
tagged: yn
eggod: karasu in his free-time...
↳ karasu: what else am i supposed to do?? 🙄
yn: WHEN DID YOU TAKE THIS PIC?
↳ karasu: on our facetime last week you looked like a literal angel 🩷
↳ yn: shut up ur so cute 😣
↳ karasu: i assure you, you're much cuter
↳ itoshirin: i don't understand why instagram is still showing me this shit i swear i blocked y'all
↳ yn: rin you really need to take your anger-management meds
↳ itoshirin: jump
↳ yn: ????????????
#man#men ☕️#karasu x reader#karasu tabito#karasu x you#bllk#blue lock#blue lock rin#blue lock nagi#blue lock x reader#blue lock x you#bllk x you#bllk x reader#bllk x y/n#bllk smau#blue lock smau#bllk scenarios#bllk fluff#blue lock manga#blue lock fluff#karasu smau#tabito karasu#tabito smau
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Your ferrets are so cuuute! My girlfriend and I were desperate to get ferrets (I've always wanted them) but then we heard they get sick a lot. Is that true? We could afford the vets bills but I'd just hate to see them suffering a lot.
yall fucked up asking me about ferrets. this is my tip of the iceberg thing i love. no one knows how actually crazy i am about ferrets i'm--
Soooo, yes. Pretty much all ferrets you find in north america are Marshall ferrets. They are mill ferrets and can be recognized by their dot tattoos in their ears. Over bred in facilities and sent out to either labs as test animals or petstores as pets.
So they tend to come prone to illness.
On top of that a lot of people feed them poor food-- stuff that has indigestible grains/veg/fruit and also don't understand their internal clock and natural light schedules that affect their body's hormones. They can't be in a lit room 24/7, they have to have light thats controlled to simulate day and night hours or covered enclosures during night hours.
My partner and I have had a total of 4 Marshall ferrets in the last 13 years. They have all lived past the usual expectancy of 4-6 years. Lemon for example is going on 8 and JUST this year got diagnosed with the common Marshall disease; adrenal disease. Our 2 that passed away years ago lived to 7 but succumbed to cancer and adrenal disease. I do really think that we managed to have healthy lives for them for so long due to our daylight scheduling and raw meat diets for them.
Because of that we decided to get ferrets from Europe as they are as far from the Marshal lines as you can get lmao. But on the Eastcoast of the US there are a lot of good ferret breeders with connections to European breeders. So they have healthy ferrets for just a tad more the $$ you'd get from petstores. We learned a lot from them and European breeders on best ways to care for them.
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There are so many arguments against AO3 that I know are coming from people who haven't seen a huge fanfic purge in their fandom lifetime. I say this because they're all pearl clutching hysteria that has and still is being used to censor and suppress LGBT people and content.
I'm not kidding. These arguments historically were used both on fanfiction.net and on livejournal to purge LGBT fanfic. Saying it is the pedophilia website? Hey, did you know that's been used against gay men as long as I've been alive, is still being used against the same demographic, and has added trans people to that? Did you know if you manage to get that taken off of AO3, these homophobes and transphobes will do what they've done in the past and lobby for all LGBT content to be removed? This isn't a slippery slope. This has happened. This has worked. And it's currently working. This argument against the LGBT community is working on this hellsite. People just talking about being trans are getting the mature warning slapped on their posts.
Incest? Oh boy same argument. And have you seen the ships called incestuous? How many of them have characters nowhere near being family? I saw the breakout pairing of this, Sheith, getting this. Shiro was a mentor and a friend. They were nowhere near being siblings. And I'm old enough to have seen it used against real life gay people. Gay people have been told it's only because they were molested as a child, even if they had a good childhood, and that they'll do the same if they have children.
None of this is a slippery slope.
This has happened.
This is CURRENTLY HAPPENING.
This will continue to happen.
Stop pressuring AO3 to bow to this.
And the argument they don't need to do a donation drive? They have enough money? I understand even what we call middle class now has to live paycheck to paycheck. I understand having money put aside in case something goes wrong is not something the people saying this have been able to do. AO3, because people always donate even after the goal is met, have this rainy day fund in case they suddenly need to spend a lot of money on the site. They wouldn't need to do an emergency donation drive to afford this. I understand a lot of you aren't used to having money you can just hold on to in case you get a sudden massive bill. But don't say anyone who can manage that should stop getting money. That money is not meant to be used just to keep the site up.
AO3 also doesn't have advertisers harvesting your data and selling it. That's why the donation drives. They don't want to do this. For the "use Firefox it is safe and doesn't sell your data" website you're very insistent to make AO3 sell your data to stay afloat.
Stop attacking AO3. If it's really something you can't abide by, make your own. That's what we did. That's the "of our own" part of AO3. We made our own because we weren't welcome on ff.net and on livejournal. You can do the same. You can make an archive of your own.
And stop using arguments that have historically and are currently being used to censor all LGBT content. For fuck's sake.
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seventeen and instruments in a youth orchestra
seventeen as different people in my symphony orchestra lmao. inspired by @hannyoontify 's svt as diff band instruments :>
(warnings for curse words)
masterlist
seungcheol
concertmaster. the first chair of first violin. honestly he wasn't going to be anything else, not with his charismatic nature and his power and his leader qualities. the entire orchestra is in awe of him actually, and it's due to his ability to read and play music to an incredible degree (even if he's sight reading it and the notes have far too many ledger lines) that the music actually manages to flow as he drags the orchestra along by playing the violin melody.
jeonghan
harpist. our harps only come to rehearsal some-odd weeks before the actual performance because they're a) a difficult instrument to bring in and b) their parts are often simply melody decoration or emphasis of melody and we can afford to practise without them. harpists are a little like celebrities when they come in bc they only have to come to half of the rehearsals and also bc they play such pretty-sounding instruments. all in all the harpists are just vv jeonghan coded.
joshua
first chair of the second violins. literally he is exactly like the first chair 2nd violinist back when i first joined one of my orchestras: the utter sweetest, literally so accommodating and understanding of the new violinists and willing to teach them concert basics etc. but also he just, like. doesn't show up to half of the rehearsals. like seriously the front desk of second violins only has one person for most of the months until it's the day of the concert and boom he's back smiling in his seat like he never left
junhui
french horn. french horn players are the prettiest people ever actually. also there's never a mean word on the conductor's tongue for them. half of the time he's staring out of the window because let's face it, the french horn doesn't exactly have a bunch of stuff to play. but then when they do, it's the richest, warmest, most golden sound ever and it's so beautiful and fills out the melody wonderfully. and then he empties his horn in the middle of the piece for no apparent reason other than he wanted to get the spit out immediately.
hoshi
trombone. he's that one trombone who plays super super loudly and is, most of the time, very good but when he makes a mistake it's a loud mistake and has the conductor stopping the orchestra just to sigh at him disappointedly. grins innocently like he didn't just make a mistake. even if you don't talk to the trombones that much, you'll know exactly who he is because of how noisy and hyper he is. messes around with the percussion instruments during rehearsal break, has woozi threatening to destroy his trombone in retaliation
wonwoo
clarinet. but not just the clarinet, he's the bass clarinet too. clarinets are so funky and honestly they keep to themselves in their little clarinet group most of the time, but they're super nice people and actually really really funny once you get to know them. also the clarinet just gives so much wonwoo vibes?? i think it's the supporting vibes, the fact that they're not as center-stage as the squeaky flutes but still play similar melodies, with their warmer, smoother sound that is so wonwoo
woozi
percussion. the timpani, the snare drum, the bass drum, the glock, those huge-ass chimes, they're all managed by him. he is the entire percussion section. crazily good at his job too (which is why he's even capable of handling all those instruments) and because of this he's often seen as intimidating and terrifying. snarky, lowkey doesn't give a shit about the conductor especially when he starts badmouthing the perc performance in front of the entire orchestra bc he's just one person doing everything okay give him a break
minghao
viola. gets pissed at everyone who calls the viola "just a bigger violin" because fuck you actually the viola is a real instrument and has its own name. also is just stressed 24/7 for no apparent reason. apparently has loads of other extra commitments like how he's in a jazz band and he's learning the saxophone but he's also an art student with an artist research study due in like two days that he hasn't even picked an artist for yet. even if he's dead on his feet he'll still punch you for calling the viola a fake instrument tho
mingyu
double bass. everyone thinks he's like, the coolest person ever (he plays the double bass!!!) but in reality he's actually just a total loser who giggles whenever someone says they loved his playing. is still a really really good double bass tho. it's hard to tell when it's playing correctly bc it's such a low instrument, but the moment the double bass is out of time the effects can be felt throughout the entire orchestra. he's proud to announce that when he can't play something, instead of playing and messing up he just sits there and doesn't play they part.
dokyeom
oboe. he has wind instrument fingers okay, but also he's definitely slaying those yearning oboe solos in those gentle waltzy movements. he plays his solo and the entire audience just falls silent, stunned by the beauty of his playing. also he's really fucking loud just like the oboe. i would have put him in flute but there is something more awe-inspiring and powerful about the oboe compared to the prissy flutes who lowk don't know how to sight read properly bc there are so many of them
seungkwan
first violin. he gives the sassy and performance-like vibes of firsts, and is very very passionate about telling everyone just how important the first violin is in the orchestra. does lightly throw shade on the second violins (because wtf No One is able to hear what they're playing) too, like every first violin ever. but he's so so hardworking, and honestly the only reason that first violins aren't scolded during rehearsals is because of how hard we practise, and seungkwan? seungkwan would practise until he could perform it blindfolded.
vernon
percussion apprentice. he's actually a second violin but apparently handling like 5 different instruments is actually a little difficult for woozi??? so he's offered to learn how to play perc too. ends up being in charge of the snare drum and all the little additional instruments they sometimes have for specific pieces. enjoys it a lot actually and even tho it's not his main instrument he thinks he could get pretty good at playing percussion. his presence is sorely missed in the seconds tho bc one of their actually playing players is gone and there first chair is still MIA
chan
cello. first chair cello, specifically, because he has such a similar personality to my first chair cello who's just so bright and lovely and outgoing. actually the coolest person ever, everyone loves him. makes an effort to know everyone's names in the orchestra, particularly the little 13 year olds who have only just joined. lets people play is cello during break, tries to teach them and laughs when they make squeaky noises on it. despises the tenor clef with a passion.
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#fairyhaos.works#seventeen#svt#seventeen fic#seventeen drabble#seventeen headcanons#seventeen imagines#seventeen scenarios#svt fluff#kpop writing#scoups#seungcheol#jeonghan#joshua#hong jisoo#junhui#hoshi#soonyoung#wonwoo#woozi#jihoon#minghao#the8#mingyu#dokyeom#seokmin#seungkwan#hansol#vernon#chan
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i know you've talked about this before but i just saw someone say obama had 59 senate seats and a 78 house seat majority and he "could've done anything" and i can't. when did peoples' collective memory get so shit? i was in middle school for most of his presidency and even i knew back then how hostile the republicans were to him. what is this revisionist history people are insistent on engaging in like i just don't get it. it's so easy to look back from where we are now and act like people back then didn't try hard enough and it's infuriating
"Obama could have done anything." Sure, when he came into office in the middle of a global economic meltdown and somewhat understandably, put that first, even when the Republicans had already declared their firm intention, in the middle of said financial emergency, not to work with him ever on anything and to make him a one-term president. And yet, still got the $787 billion stimulus through (which at the time was just an Absurd level of Government Spending Oh Noes!!!) and in fact managed to stop things from getting even worse.
"Obama could have done anything." Sure, for the first half of his first term where he had full control of Congress (4 months with 60 seats) and aside from said minor economic problem, was also trying to get the Affordable Care Act done. After 2010 he lost the House; after 2014 he lost the Senate. There are plenty of critiques to be made with the benefit of hindsight about how the Democrats did or did not push to change the procedural rules (something they still can't do now with a much smaller majority and Joe Fucking Manchin reliably on hand to torpedo it), or how they did or did not campaign on the ACA, or how they got punished for it, or how Obama's political inexperience and knowledge that the Republicans were going to crucify him but he still tried to work with them did or did not play into it. The point is, to act like he had those whopping majorities for his entire two terms (and that they automatically just did whatever he said, thanks to his magic mind-control powers) is nonsense.
"Obama could have done anything." As the first African-American president who faced ungodly levels of hate, racism, paranoia, personal attacks, personal attacks on his family, attempts to prove he "wasn't American," Tea Party conspiracies, and Christ knows what else, all while he had to not put a single foot wrong in any scandal, no matter how minor, for eight years. (Which he did!) If only Obama had KNOWN that he could have just done anything and this would totally happen and be fine and never be subject to legal challenges or anything! The Republicans haven't spent a decade since trying to destroy the ACA or anything like that, not ever. Why didn't he use his psychic powers to peer into the future and realize that Roe, universally regarded as settled law, was going to be overturned thanks to an orange maniac and a dark-money federalist judiciary effort! Why didn't he predict that American white fragility was going to backlash in the form of Trump and just never run for president at all? HIS FAULT! THANKS, OBAMA!
"Obama could have done anything." Because he was a wizard, because the Democratic Party and the country was exactly the same 15 years ago, because 2008 was completely identical to 2023 in its social priorities, political issues, cultural beliefs, and other material, and because we can happily act as if Trump never existed, his effect on the American social, political, and racial zeitgeist never existed, because everything is Obama/the Democrats' fault somehow for Not Doing Enough, and nothing to do with anything else, ever. Clearly nothing to do with these fuckwits and their chucklefuck revisionist purity ideology and deliberate refusal to learn or accept anything that contradicts that, i.e. basic reality and history. Nosirreebob.
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Chapter 4: The Midnight of Lifetime
Oy what a mess. Alan fully enters the story in this ep and we start to understand exactly what the hell is going on there. Newsflash: it's as heartbreaking as everything else in this show. We're at the halfway mark now, all the pins have been set up and it's time to start knocking them down one by one, because now we're invested.
We still don't know the inciting incident for the cold war between Wen and Alan, nor why they're still sharing a life despite being very clearly over, but we can guess at some of it. Wen's talked about living paycheque to paycheque, so it's very likely when the relationship ended he couldn't afford to move out. Alan is still trying to save the relationship, so he probably hoped that by letting Wen stay, proximity would breed forgiveness for whatever transgression he committed. It seems like partly for the sake of appearances, and partly in the hope that Wen will relent, he's asked Wen to conceal their breakup as part of the deal. Wen meeting somebody new is the destruction of all of Alan's hopes of reconciliation. Of course he would freak the fuck out. The whole thing's rotten, as resentment is heaped atop resentment, misery atop misery.
Meeting Jim was clearly a catalysing event for Wen. It's like he was sleepwalking and that night with Jim was a bucket of cold water dashed into his face. And every day since, every day he watches Jim live his life trying to do the best he can by the people he loves, he craves more and more to be one of those people. A situation that was unpleasant yet manageable has now become untenable, because he's seen how things could be. I appreciate that he didn't want to bring his mess to Jim's door, especially because 'complicated' is his line in the sand, but by not telling him anything he let him get blindsided instead. Wen's dad and Gong both warned him not to cross the streams, but he couldn't stay away from Jim until he could get away from Alan, he just couldn't.
To be fair to Wen though, he's not the only one who complicated things. Jim did that when he hired Wen, when he brought him into his little family even as he knew how Wen felt about him. Jim's a bit unfair, he clearly wants Wen around, he wants him in his life, but only on his terms, where he never has to risk his own feelings. He's clearly traumatised by what happened with Beam, to the point that he can't even contemplate a relationship that is both familial and romantic with Wen. In his mind, he gets to have one or the other but never both. Alan showing up shatters the illusion of a neat and uncomplicated divide between Uncle Jim and Jim the man. Because he shouldn't care right, there isn't anything between him and Wen. But he does care, very much.
That divide between Uncle Jim and Jim the man is also at the crux of his ongoing battle with Li Ming. I wonder how long Li Ming has been living with Jim, and why he's there and not with his mom. Jim named him, and he would've been about twenty when he was born, old enough to have some hand in his early raising. It's clear Li Ming sees him as a father figure; as much as they fight and argue, when Jim lays down the law Li Ming is immediately contrite. He respects Jim, he knows Jim cares, he knows Jim is trying. But he also sees the ways in which Jim has given up on himself and it makes him angry, especially at the idea that Jim did that for him. Nobody wants to be thought of as someone's burden to bear. And Jim's so focused on Li Ming's future he's lost sight of the present, of what both he and Li Ming need now. I don't dream he told Wen, you think Li Ming can't see that? That he's given up Jim the man to be Uncle Jim? Think he doesn't internalise it, feel it, blame himself for it? Li Ming doesn't want to be the reason Jim works himself to death in that diner, living hand to mouth.
Li Ming's frustration with his uncle is in such clear contrast to the patience, the unending patience he has with Heart. In a way I suppose it's easier, because Heart doesn't ask anything of him, unlike the mountain of expectations from Jim. Them waking up together was so darling, the way they were just soft and silly with each other, how they're not too worried about defining what's happening between them, just understanding that they care deeply for each other and they're attracted to each other and they want to see each other happy. Heart pulling Li Ming out of his funk was so beautiful, because it reiterates that this isn't one-sided, Heart can do things for Li Ming too. I know Li Ming starting to sneak Heart out of the house is going to come back and bite them hard, but it made me cry that he took this risk to give Heart community, to give him people to talk to who could understand him. Because Li Ming gets that Heart needs more than just him. As much as he cares he can't translate the world for him. Heart needs to be able to be independent to be free, and Li Ming doesn't know anything about it, so he goes to people who do. And then he also asks what he needs to do for Heart as well as seeing what Heart needs to do for himself and...these two are breaking me, I'm telling you.
Side Dishes
I appreciate Gong being a Gym Gay, we don't get enough of those in BL.
I really like the energy and chemistry between Earth and Papang whenever we flash back to Jim and Beam's relationship.
The passage of time in this show is neatly marked by the holidays, and it is proceeding apace. This ep spans from the morning after Loy Krathong to Christmas Eve, almost 2 months!
Please don't let Saleng have pawned Praew's dowry...
Oh no it seems like Ms. Hong is sick...what is Gaipa going to do it if he loses his mom?
Has Li Ming asked Heart to go abroad with him? Is that why Heart has the flyer?
Next week it looks like all the bubbles everybody's been living in are going to start popping one by one. I have a knot in my stomach just thinking of the fallout from that motorcycle accident.
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Omfg your retarded! It’s obvious if you stepped outside. Minimum wage hasn’t been raised in years. Rent never stops increasing. Student loans are a death sentence. I just want to be able to afford to fucking live and not question being alive everyday of my life
I see where you're coming from and I understand why those conditions and challenges would make you feel the way you do. All of those in aggregate surely would feel like an impossible barrier to ever overcome.
You are absolutely correct that minimum wage has not been raised in years in most parts of the country and for most individuals, changes in legislation appear to be the only path to a higher income, but you underestimate how much control you truly have in obtaining a higher income. I do not know your journey thus far in life, but what I have observed in a lot of struggling individuals that express similar sentiments that you are mentioning is that they view success as an all-or-nothing pursuit. Now what I mean by this is that a lot of people have a vision of what they want their life to be and they are chasing the it as their next step in life, but instead they should be figuring out what are all the steps to get to their goal of success and viewing each step as an incremental win or success in itself.
e.g. If your goal is $100k and you're at $20k, then you don't need to feel stuck trying to go straight to $100k. You can make it a multi-step journey of progression from $20k -> $30k -> $40k ... $100k
Once gain you are absolutely correct about rent, but the key is that you consistently allow your income to increase too and yes, this is absolutely easier said than done, but you have potential to do it!
Now student loans can definitely be dangerous and relative to your current income, it seems astronomical to manage, but this is because it's meant to be relative to college graduate incomes and to be paid off over a decade. To put this into perspective, the median student loan balance for graduates is close to $35k, which is a little bit more than a new car and usually at a significant lower interest rate (~4.66%), which would equate to $365 monthly payment or $4380 per year. Meanwhile, median starting salary of college graduates upon graduating is the average starting salary for the graduating class of 2022 is $55,260. Even if you ignore raises, that still puts them at ~$51k (after paying student loans), so they generally have being standards of living than those with no student loans earning a significantly lower income.
Regardless of all that information and even if you want to ignore it, at the very least please don't ever question being alive!
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U.S. Americans: Vote Locally. Do it.
There seems to be a common misconception that the presidential election is the most important one not just for the USA, but for the world - WRONG!
Let me be clear: You should vote in the Presidential election.
Historically, young people don't vote. Even though young voter turnout has increased drastically since Trump, local voting is still largely being determined by conservative older generations.
Importantly, you should be voting locally in part because this is the largest influence over who gets nominated in the Primary and how your opinion is vocalized on a national scale. Also:
voter restriction/suppression
climate change efforts/issues (such as pipelines getting built)
policing, law enforcement and mass incarceration
availability of affordable housing, public transport, disability relief
education - as in, whether or not PragerU gets taught in schools
If you are worried about "being selfish" for focusing smaller local issues instead of global ones (such as the current genocide), I understand. However, this is a more effective way to pressure the current President - local legislators have more voice than we do. This is also setting up a less racist, genocidal future for global politics because Presidential nominees are almost always picked from State level positions.
The Presidential election helps people to feel good/bad about an "immediate" measurable result from a single action. But the truth is that the Bidens of the US will keep being the only rival to "I want to be a dictator" Trumps if we don't start investing our votes from the ground up.
Here is a guide (mostly from this website https://tminstituteldf.org/local-elections/ ):
CITY GOVERNMENT
School Boards:
Have the power to set policy and budgets for local schools, such as whether or not you can protest without losing your job or getting expelled.
Sherrifs:
Generally speaking, Sherrifs are fucked up. It's too much for me to go into here. They have way too much unilateral power with no oversight at all.
youtube
Prosecutors:
The largest contributor to mass incarceration
They set the terms on whether someone is charged with a misdemeanor or felony and being convicted of a felony will strip your right to vote in many states - some permanently.
City Council:
City Council approve things like city budgets and implement criminal and civil laws and regulations
Also the voice of their City at a State and Federal level. Generally, these are some of the people you should be shouting at to bring your voice higher up the food chain.
This includes the Mayor who often decides where budgets go (like schools or cops), and they also determine the level of enforcement of local laws.
County Board of Supervisors (County Commissioners):
Represent county issues in front of state and federal legislative bodies. Counties are also responsible for registering voters and administrating elections. i.e., another group of people who have a stronger voice against the elected Democrat when it comes to larger issues.
Planning and Zoning Commission:
Determines how and where affordable housing is zoned in your area. Has a huge effect on housing segregation.
Comptroller:
The City's accountant and budget manager - this is the person who audits the City Council and makes sure they aren't basically stealing money. They also approve city contracts such as those for affordable public transportation and shelters.
STATE GOVERNMENT
Judges:
This one is crucial. Your state judges act as the Supreme Court of your given state. The cases that they weigh on when it comes to state laws (such as abortion, medical autonomy, immigration, right to protest/free speech, etc.) these are binding and final.
Superintendent of Education:
This is the person who decides if PragerU gets to teach classes on why Zionism and Evangelical teachings are "ok and good, actually".
Secretary of State:
The person who certifies elections in your state - for the Presidency, but also for all of these other positions mentioned. It is so, so important that this person cannot be bought or pressured.
Attorney General:
Has influence over law enforcement agencies and represents the state in legal disputes - such as those where someone is disputing their rights are being infringed by the state. (abortion, medical autonomy, immigration, right to protest/free speech, etc.)
Governor:
Is basically the president of your state. They sign in laws, have veto power and oversee all of the other departments. They also can appoint Justices and State Senate seats if they are empty.
Not only does this person have a lot of state power, they also have a ton of influence over the broader federal climate and are one of the positions that fast-tracks to Presidency (see: Ron Desantis).
State Comptroller (or Controller):
Same as City Comptroller except extremely importantly they manage disaster relief/preparation funding - which is especially important amidst climate change.
Also oversee fraud investigations.
Public Service Commissioner:
Determines rates for things like energy, water, internet in your state.
Also deals with the gas and oil industry in your state, often being in charge of approval/rejection of the building of oil pipelines.
They can be appointed by the Governor.
State Senators:
Has just about the most authority in a state, with the ability to impeach Governors and deny someone the Governor tries to appoint
Another position that fast-tracks to Presidency
Draft and introduce/pass state laws and amend the state constitution
State House of Reps:
Can call for the removal of another legislator
Draft and introduce/pass state laws
All Right. I'm running out of steam on this post. Please, please, please, PLEASE register to vote *right now* and look over the website when you do to see if it can set up email alerts when an election is coming up.
Buy a calendar and mark voting days and stick it to your wall TODAY. Set aside an hour of your time, TODAY, to make a plan for voting.
Go to this website, enter your state. It will tell you exactly what to do. Register.
Lastly, if you don't like Biden and it makes you feel like shit to vote for him (understandably), then YOU NEED TO VOTE IN THE PRIMARY.
#us politics#politics#voting#us voting#I am sure I missed some shit here but I am tired and I don't usually make long posts like this#this took HOURS ok#listen I get it if you don't like biden I really truly do he is complicit in a genocide I GET IT#but if you think that trump winning is going to send some kind of message buddy you're just plain wrong#I am not saying vote blue cause I think democrats are good or because I'm a floppy liberal or whatever#you can do more than one thing at a time and imo voting blue for president is the bare minimum WHILE you protest & do public outreach#long post#Youtube
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Cluster B personality disorders are manageable, actually
it's always really awkward trying to explain to people how i manage antisocial + narcissistic personality disorder well. people have a really hard time wrapping their head around the concept that We Are People and like any disorder, we can manage it with help. there's this belief that if you're a narcissist or a psychopath you're unworthy of love and a lost cause, which is what made me a monster in the first place. other people kept telling me to just be empathetic, to stop being a dick, etc; i didn't know what that meant, and so i decided other people were the problem because they did nothing but explode at me for what i thought was no reason because no one helped me understand the reason. I was meant to just "know".
i was diagnosed retroactively at 20-fucking-7, when i'd started to work out how to live like a normal person (very patient and loving friends were to blame for that). when i was thirty years old, a psychiatrist said to me: "you obviously have feelings, what do they look like for you? how do they feel?" - i didn't know how to answer him. other people had convinced me i didn't have feelings for most of my life. which is part of why i was a callous bastard - it did not help then (but it does now for the most part) that i'm really good at compartmentalization. it took me a good number of years to know how to answer his question.
i have feelings, yes; we all do. we'd be dead otherwise. they're what drive us to act on things, and the neurotransmitters that work on emotions work on physical functions as well. this assumption about a person is not an excuse to abuse them. it's no excuse to treat them like a catharsis piñata. you could be a monster, too, under the same circumstances as i or anyone who has these disorders far worse than i do.
but it's really hard for me to read myself. it takes a lot more of a feeling for it to break the surface than is normal, and i was never taught to identify what a feeling is catered to my own uniqueness (something everyone should be afforded).
and i have a disconnect between physical and emotional reactions - i didn't think i felt disgust, because i don't get a visceral response to gross things. a lot of my emotions are just different shades of anger. if something disgusts me i get an angry "get the fuck away from me" feeling, i don't gag or whatever. it does set off my diagnosed OCD in some instances, which adds anxiety to the mix.
so i'd do things like be mega stressed and not feel it, then explode outwards like a neurotic control freak because i had no idea what my limits were. or how to solve the problem i was presently facing. i had to train myself to notice the signs in my thought patterns, rather than my body.
it turns out emotional empathy is based on context; how am i supposed to react "normally" to people when i don't know what "normal" is? i used to do some awful things to people when they were experiencing fear because i didn't understand it. i thought it was quaint. in the words of a friend, i was "sciencing the shit out of the situation." i didn't get answers or understand how people worked the healthy way, so i resorted to my own measures (which, of course, did not give me the answers i sought either.)
i have a hard time telling positive and negative emotions apart, which is good in some ways - i just let myself feel things. but the feelings last not very long. and are usually delayed. i'm unable to consent to things as a 34 year old adult normally, because when presented with something i don't care, which does not mean i want it. and because i don't care, i don't know it's a "maybe" at the time. when something bad happens to me it takes me a long time to even realize, and i can't purge it. this is my burden to bear - other people cannot read my mind. but a mental breakdown would be cathartic.
to deal with this botched brain of mine, i recognize it has strengths too. i raised a very well behaved cat, because i am more uncompromising than she is. and she is not afraid when i take her to the vet, because i am a source of emotional stability for her; i'm not reactive, so it calms her. i am able to Persist doing things that are unpleasant like trimming her ass hair, and she's allowed to vent - scratch, yell, bite - and i stay Null and it's over and she doesn't hide or run away because a) she was allowed to express the discomfort b) it was over quickly, which it wouldn't be if i let her carrying on make me stop the ordeal.
i am able to spot an anxious person from across the room. i was exploited a lot when i was young, and so it felt natural to exploit other people in vulnerable positions - something i mistakenly thought i was incapable of. i was always so good at spotting them with this predator brain of mine.
but i started to instead ask those people if they are okay. at first it felt insincere and bad and stupid because i wasn't Allowed to show care for other people, because psychopaths don't do that, because it's always mean spirited or fake when they do. but it became a habit. and it became normal. and it became a strength of mine. i do it because it's the right thing to do - i don't personally have to feel emotional about it for that to be real.
i am able to admit mistakes and apologize because i know when i need to, since my brain cycles through a narcissism spiral, and it's like -- bitch if you're reacting that severely you know you're wrong. it was another thing that sucked and felt insincere to begin with, but with practice it got easier. and with practice it caused me less discomfort. when my brain says arrogant things i respond with citation needed. my neuroscience education certainly helps with my perspective reorientation too.
i'm heavily medicated for these disorders + ADHD + OCD, which helps curb the anger and impulsiveness. i am really good at working with people now - these things being managed and my clinical nonplussed nature makes communication easy. i am able to de-escalate situations well, too.
i've had people apologize for crying, but i was so focused on listening to them i didn't notice - so they didn't have to feel bad about it. because i don't care that they're crying. i care about them. an intellectual sense of care is something everyone carries; it's what makes us choose to be patient, to listen, to mitigate the damage emotional reactivity can cause.
i have high cognitive empathy; i might not react to the emotional state of another person, but i know that my read on the situation will be inaccurate. so i simply ask them what they need, without assumption. this is something i wish more people were able to do. i get very uncomfortable with platitudes, personally - because i just can't relate to them at all and i feel pressured to Perform emotionally. that's just one example of different needs.
there's a lot more i could write about here - and i'm not really sure why i decided to write this now. i guess because the world is very painful lately, and these disorders get used as insults, as armchair diagnoses of people we don't like. there's a myriad of ways to be an asshole. maybe don't contribute to the problem of neglect that creates monsters like the one i could have become.
i am no longer 'a psychopath' because i no longer score on the checklist. but i carry these disorders with me, and i will forever, and i'm grateful that there were people in my life despite it all that loved me anyway.
a disclaimer:
i'd hazard against self-diagnosing these things; you might be on the autism spectrum (most of my close friends are, because we compliment eachother quite well in how our brains work), or have psycopathy-like traits during manic episodes, or have a lack of empathy because of apathy. you might have alexithymia from other causes. etc. i was assessed by both a psychiatrist with a criminology degree and one specializing in personality disorders.
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Only I push you against that wall. Again, again, and again.
It’s 1987, baby, and the club’s lights flash in a splatter pattern from left to right, right to left, and exploding in the middle. It's fourth of July and these big city people celebrate as roaringly private as well as can be.
The crash and crescendo sparking early in the music subverts usual expectations; fittingly as the dancers break out while the first drag show of the night starts at midnight. It's far from Hawkin's two drinking holes as Steve, Robin and Eddie can manage.
Not so far out for Eddie who'd visited back in the day for a weekend or so when he could afford the gas. Hard hands and insistent lips a highlight of his trips away.
But fuck him so very much to learn that, yeah, Robin is a passionate fan of Dorothy, let alone her beautiful, sun-kissed soulmate who is just as bent as the freak of Forrest Hills.
Said soulmate has Eddie's eyeliner ringing wide, hazel eyes. Making them look bigger, wetter, and more than Eddie can comfortably look at for more than a few seconds at a time. Currently, those ebony framed features are trained beyond Eddie's sight, sitting far above Robin's cropped shirt that rides, what feels, scandalously high. The edges almost above Stevie's tits, bare to Eddie's covetous gaze.
The older of the two leans his arms against the bar, deliberate and casual while watching that patterned crop top tauntingly sway and caress against caramel tanned skin. Against scarred grooves that Steve has apparently forgot, but Eddie can't look away from. Those streaks of white against warm, smooth swathes that seem etched and drawn for the greedy eye to lock onto. To look, to touch, to feel, to taste with a warm tongue wide against a salted body that surely tastes as sweet as it looks.
It's not the first time that Eddie's watched another person trail their fingertips against the ribbed tissue of Steve's battle scars. Men. Women. Steve is pretty to many. Especially in the dark corner of a city club. And it’s definitely not the first time that Eddie has darkly coveted this beautiful man.
His friend.
His unrequited lust.
His love?
Eddie shakes the thought out. Trying to slip away. Away from how consumed he is. Easily obsessed with those large, blunt hands that touch the long-haired, slim-hipped beauty against Steve’s beautiful body.
He swallows thickly. The beer Eddie holds loosely warm and stale and a memory on the back of his tongue. He can't look away. From the peacock daring to glom closer to his Steve. Watching him stretch lips and push forward hips, cornering Steve against a hard wall. A wall that should be Eddie's to own.
It's hours. Minutes. An age later and Steve has shaken off the diverting embrace of the other man. Eddie doesn't understand, he never does. Steve dances, he kisses, but he never leaves with any of the others that he touches in these dark spaces. Always returning to Robin (if she hasn't left with her own reward) and always, always Eddie.
It's not that Eddie is ever alone. It's not that he doesn't have enough men approaching him, looking him up and down from across the room. Eye-fucking him with promise of actual fucking if he just gave a goddamn inch. But no. Steve doesn't do more than kiss. Eddie never leaves the bar. Neither one speaks about it, but the rule is as hard and implacable as the bare red bricks of the original walls.
Steve is by Eddie's side again, leaning over to accept a chilled drink from the bartender. Eddie shakes his stiff fingers from his own stale beer bottle. The bubbling that has built days, months, not yet quite a year, but he doesn't know if he's strong enough to weather more time than he's spent watching Steve be loved and adored by everyone but himself.
"You don't want him?" Eddie leans into the side of his mouth, kicking into a smirk that feels as inauthentic as watching Steve walk away from him. Every, single time towards that fucking dance floor.
"No," Steve's eyes are level, warm yet a hint of stern that riles something deep in Eddie's gut. "No, I learnt my lesson a couple of years ago. Never want someone who doesn't want me."
Eddie's throat clicks with how sharply he swallows. Steve's not talking about some random twink. Some random potential love interest. Eddie has denied his own attraction for the sake of protecting his sanity, but his sanity is only as pristine as the idea that Steve could never love him. But this… what this could be…
Eddie would be lying if he said he could see the dark motes in Steve's eyes, the ring around his pupil or any other physical indicator of a lie or excitement, but he can. He can see it shining in Steve's eyes, waiting for Eddie to understand.
"I learnt my lesson, Eddie. A while back. I won't love someone who doesn't want me, do you want me?” Steve pauses, a hint of uncertainty colouring his words. “Eds?"
The earth shudders. It quakes and breaks open the soft meat that is now and forever for the boy and man that is the whole of his heart and home. It's the only reason for Eddie's hand to tremble as it does while reaching for the man who has held his heart for as long as he kept him sane in an insane, underworld quest. As he fell in love with a sweet and strong man that took in lonely lambs and their lonely shepherd.
Eddie calms that shaking hand to the man he thought was unobtainable, to suddenly and confidently fist at the back of soft, silky locks and pull those plush, candy-sweet lips to his own.
Steve never visits that hard brick wall again. Not unless Eddie is there, pushing him hotly against it, once again. Again, again, and again.
#confident steve harrington#sweet and gets there Eddie Munson#steddie#stranger things#steve harrington#eddie munson#fanfic#paperbackribs writing
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time for a crunchy post about one of my top pet peeves of all time: disability and how it relates to age and "age gap discourse"
disabled people are extremely disproportionately labeled as sexual predators for forming friendships, flirting, and dating outside of our societally prescribed age-segregated groups. there's a lot of disabled-person-as-predatory and tainting-the-abled-body frameworks going into this, ofc, but also there's just like. the fact that disabled people form friendships and date outside of the age-segregated peer group norm at a much higher frequency than abled people. and then we are punished for this instead of looking at why.
a lot of people understand that there is a power dynamic related to age, but there isn't a lot of, like, analytical understanding of what that power dynamic is materially and what factors cause it to begin with. and like... it's independence and social role. that's just... fundamentally what it is. minors have no legal autonomy or independence, abled young adults have some legal autonomy but extremely limited independence and usually little-to-no financial power, and abled established older adults tend to have full legal autonomy, social independence, and financial power. it isn't tied to the physical existence of age itself; it's about social and legal privileges that tend to be afforded to people based on age.
tend to.
the fact is, an abled 25-year-old has an insane amount of power and privilege over a disabled 25-year-old who's trapped in a conservatorship, the same amount of power they would over an abled 17-year-old. a 25-year-old who is legally prohibited from having their own money, has no legal right to make their own medical decisions, and has to ask their parents before they shower or leave the house or make a sandwich or stay up past their bedtime, is just... in the exact same social and legal situation as a minor.
it's fucking scary for a significant amount of disabled people to attempt to form relationships with their age-peers, for the exact same reason it's fucking terrifying for teens to attempt to form relationships with abled adults in their mid-20s and over. you're looking at these people with vast amounts of social and legal power over you, who can fuck you over and manipulate you in ways you have no real way to protect yourself from, and who broadly don't even want to be friends with you anyway because they see you as a child because your legal guardian controls every aspect of your life. and disabled people are usually very intentionally, because of how disability services and schooling are set up, segregated from forming community with other disabled people!
i made the note about conservatorships because that's the most extreme end of this, but it's notable that there are many ways this occurs outside of outright conservatorships. i, personally, was in high school at 20. because i was in high school, my family maintained extremely high control over me despite the fact that i was, legally speaking, an adult. i still didn't actually have the right to come and go as i pleased, nor did i have the right to my own SSI benefits (they were deposited in my mother's bank account and i was not allowed to access them even on request), or the right to make my own money through work. my movements were tracked 24/7. i was also nonconsensually enrolled in full-time in-home behavioral therapy, and my therapist was personal friends with my mother, which prevented me from independence in ways too numerous to list here.
when i was 20, most of my friends were between 15 and 18, because we were all in high school together, and there weren't other 20-year-olds in high school (most disabled people in my area don't have as much privilege to socialize freely as i did from 19-20; i managed to make friends by convincing my school to let me do an internship at the library for school credit, which let me talk to other high schoolers since my mother wasn't present). i did not socialize with people between 19 and 25, for the most part, because they saw me as a high schooler. which i was! and a person who had extremely limited life experience and would feel inappropriate to hang out with because i had to answer to my mother 24/7 like a typical 14-year-old. which i did!
the thing is, the only people who talk about this, in my experience, are ableists who use it as evidence that disabled people are ontologically, biologically "children in adult bodies." which is fucking ridiculous! this is a socially-enforced problem. disabled people are not able to socialize with the "age appropriate" peer groups because we are socially forced into the legal and social position associated with someone younger, not because there's some kind of fundamental trait about our brains that makes us "mentally younger." if we weren't prevented from having legal independence, if every system in the world wasn't set up to strip as much power and independence from us as possible, this trend wouldn't exist.
like it's cruel as fuck to force disabled people into a position where we don't have equal social or legal privilege to people the same age as us, and then either call us predatory for socializing with people who are in the same life situations we are, or tell us that this socialization is proof that this social position is justified and you need to keep maintaining absolute control over our lives for our own good. either way, the problem is always centered on us to fix. to either "grow up" and "be more mature" ("maturity" in this case just meaning "more abled, so you can prove you deserve autonomy"), or to subject ourselves to humiliation and manipulation and predation from people with vast amounts of power over us, who look down on us and see us as children anyway. it's never talked about as a societal problem enforced on us.
~btw if you're disabled and independent, i'm going to need you to NOT say some stupid shit on this thread about how you have never had a problem with having similar levels of autonomy and independence to your peers and we should just try harder to work and become independent, or anything about how this is "excusing disabled people being predators." some people are more profoundly disabled than you and always will be, and the latter tells me that you did not actually read the post at all.
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Hi again.
People at home are treating COVID like it's just a flu and they are not taking the proper precautions (my mother has it and refuses to close her door or wear a mask while she's in her room with the door wide open because "she's distancing herself", and her roommate has been coughing for a month and refuses to see a doctor or get tested because she doesn't believe in medicine and "it's not that bad anyway")
I am a T1 diabetic with several other conditions, and I cannot afford to stay here anymore. Living here is making our OCD worse, and it's just constant stress about the people I live with not understanding how bad it can be for me to get this bug.
I need to move out ASAP, even to a temporary place where they let me take my dog with me (my mom mistreats the dog and I don't even want to know what would happen if I left him behind).
Sadly, I was recently let go of my job and frankly overspent, which has left me without money enough to get out of here and afford medicine and other things if I make this move soon.
I am job hunting, but right now I'm scared.
If anyone can afford to help, even if it's just a little, it would be greatly appreciated.
I'm getting tested for COVID-19 and influenza tomorrow at a nearby lab, and I need money for the new COVID vaccine, as well as any other thing you could help with if I DO manage to move out.
Blue app is Fae Wren.
I'm truly sorry to be doing this so fucking soon, but I honestly was not expecting my mother of all people to not give a fuck about giving me COVID.
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i genuinely don’t understand the actual anger that international fans have over twitter posts (or lack there of). i manage bands and i do ALL of the promotional content and posts, the artists don’t do anything more than repost it to their individual stories/feeds. management should be doing more to promote the tours, fans being legitimately angry over social media posts is absurd. and the merch thing- it’s to push more tickets bc they booked bigger venues than they can realistically fill. that’s why is US only. also to that point, i feel like people on twitter think waterparks is a much bigger band than they actually are. sure they aren’t “small” anymore but they aren’t big. they’re a medium sized band with a decent cult following on twitter who can’t always afford bigger things internationally. the constant twitter rants and anger at awsten is just driving me crazy lol
ok i don't know if you've noticed this but awsten is a control freak and willingly manages parx's social media presence and has at least some control over their marketing hence the anger. awsten is a terminally online musician who makes sure to repost the same post to his story multiple times just so you can see it. and you're right this should be management's job but also mddn fucking sucks and their glassdoor reviews are pretty damning to show how poorly their own employees are trained to put up with their bosses and artists' shit.
and you are definitely right on calling them a mid sized band with a cult following (because let's be real people who don't have a scope of a local scene vs a mainstream one can't tell the difference between big and small bands), but they have shown that they can sell stuff from uk only stores in the past before so i think it's mostly just disappoint that they can't do at least some things internationally sometimes too - iz
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im so fucking mad about capitalism's devaluation of manual labor (especially financial, hi raise the fucking wages) and expectation to outsource labor, leading to dire exploitation (everyone is exploited, but manual workers especially AND don't get compensated for the toll on their body AND get looked down on unlike white collar workers, all that because making intellectual products is worth 10 times more money i fucking guess). The average person used to have so many more practicak skills and we used to know how make so much more stuff, having people cook, clean, take care of your children and sew for you was the height of luxury for a wealthy woman, depending so much on buying to substain your lifestyle was reserved to the extremely wealthy. People were expected to hold more basic skills outside of a hyperspecific field of their career like today and were allowed to spend time on broad and practical knowledge, and today schools do not even out the playing field because it's still mostly theoric regurgitation (which great, but give all the youngsters a cooking, crafting and sewing class and teach them accounting im begging) making people into highly specific tools relying on buying most of what they don't even think they can make, because disempowered. (this is linked to capitalist shaming of perceived failure and beginners and imperfection but that's a whole other can of worms)
Like for example it was just a given painters made their own paint (or started by making it for their mentor, any way they were taught how), it was considered a necessary first step, a way to understand your medium, and a way no to depend on anyone else or a corporation, and i think a lot of artists are missing that step of having to spend effort on the medium itself. I don't know how my graphic tablet works and i can't make acrylic paint and that's a shame
Like it was always normal for the already rich to leave all physical work to exploited workers but today it's everyone else's case too (at least in the economic north), making your own stuff is a counterculture thing, and even poverty or being an exploited worker eats so much of time that it makes it so buying is necessary and stuff made with exploited labor the only affordable option, fucking vicious cycle
there were deep inequalities with how the teaching of those skills were segregated, which was for which gender and social class, im not saying it was universally good, and women were expected to accumulate way more skills just to do all the managing of a household AND get that labor devalued, just, urgh, it was considered important to know at least i guess
also the birth of packaging and the rise of single use plastic+ worldwide transport of goods is heavily linked to this and a consequence of a global economic boom but it's still a fucking disaster-
anyways buy a s little new shit in as little packaging as you can and fuck corporations
#this post is not about disabed people being unable to do physical work. they need that outsourced labor. i am talking about people who can#but have straight up forgotten making it was an option (thanks advertising bombardement)#that's what i mean when i say craft and diy and zero waste communities need to be taking an anticapitalist approach#dependance to other people's labor is not inherently bad (no human can do everything anyways) but that level of dependance in every area of#life used to be something expectional and isn't realyy possible to extend to all human population without exploitation#and not the rule. nor was making things discouraged#im getting into paint and inkmaking hi#hope i make sense#anticapitalism#reflecting on the past is so interesting they got a LOT wrong but some parts were damn better#like yeah fuck that 90s when sweets are baked not bought post (hello the 90s were consumerist as fuck#but also the culture of making your own stuff being the norm ? kinda right#fuck trads and their romantization of the bigoted parts of the past return to tradition is bad but returning to more self reliance yeah goo#i don't know if i make sense
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Thess vs Annual Salaries
So, like ... I get the whole "fiduciary duty to shareholders" thing. At least partially because that's the whole deal my mother always talks about when I mention the absurdity of the whole ... you know... *gestures vagely at late stage capitalism*. I mean, at least she flags up things like how many people's pensions are tied up in the whole shares thing. I still think they take it way too far in terms of fiduciary duty to shareholders, but I understand it. Sort of. Ish. Intellectually. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.
But there's one thing you're never going to convince me is okay, and that is the fact that the CEOs of these companies - you know, the ones who lay off hundreds of people to make the profit margins look bigger because fiduciary duty to shareholders - take home seven- or eight-figure salaries. For all the bullshit people talk about how most of these people's worth is on paper rather than liquid, we're talking annual salary here. This particular fact? All it leaves me with is questions. Like:
We're talking 7-8 figures annually, so what the fuck are you doing to spend tens of millions of dollars per year?!? How do you spend that much money? What could you possibly spend that much money on that you need more tens of millions the following year? How is that possible?
What exactly do they do to earn that much money? If the worker is worth the hire, what exactly are they doing that's worth tens of millions annually? Now, you could say "ensuring their fiduciary duty to shareholders is met", but they're not even the ones who are figuring out the best ways to reduce the fiduciary duty to shareholders; they have middle management to do most of the figuring out, and those guys only (heh; 'only') make six figures annually, while the CEO makes tens of millions by ... picking one. They're giving themselves that much money per year for the equivalent of ordering at the McDonalds drive-through.
I swear to the gods, it's like the money really is nothing more than a way of keeping score. The profits thing is sickening, but understandable if you grit your teeth and accept, for now, that companies are legally required to screw over employees and customers alike in the name of "fiduciary duty to shareholders", or else they are literally seen as stealing from the shareholders. But ... the annual salaries. I mean. Come on. Tens of millions per year. And by the Vimes "Boots" Theory of Socio-Economic Unfairness, they shouldn't have to spend that much. They can afford a house, and probably have one (hell, they probably have several at this point), so no rent. Then can afford the good insurance, so no being financially wiped out in the event of illness or injury. Hell, they can afford the healthy food that so many people can't, and to heat their homes properly, and so probably aren't getting as sick in the first place. They have probably never really met a financially crippling car repair bill, either because they can afford to replace stuff before it falls apart completely or because they just replace the whole damn car whenever they feel like. They're not beholden on "fast fashion" (read - stuff put together in sweatshops in countries with few to no labour laws and sold for a halfway affordable price at Target or Primark or wherever), so their clothes and shoes aren't falling apart after a couple of months of wear. And none of that - none of the things that so many of us feel fortunate if we happen to have it, and so few of us actually do - even makes a dent in their yearly take-home pay.
They're fucking dragons. That's all there is to it. So many of us love the idea of dragons on hoards other than money, but we have dragons, and they're ... just ... asshole humans with way too much fucking money.
So I know why they don't take a salary cut instead of tanking the lives of hundreds of people by laying them off (and making the lives of the remaining people worse as they're forced to pick up the slack or join their friends in the unemployment queue). But it fucking disgusts me, all the same. Money exists to be used, not to be sat on by rich assholes. I mean, so many people work their asses off and barely earn enough to stay alive in this economy, and these guys get paid more than anyone could reasonably spend sitting on their asses, harrassing and abusing their workers, and listening to advice on who to fire to make their profit numbers look better.
I know there are some lovely things about the world, and some lovely people in it. But dear gods, the rot is so very visible.
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