Hate it when TikTok farm cosplayers and cottagecore types say stuff like "I'm not going to use modern equipment because my grandmothers could make do without it." Ma'am, your great grandma had eleven children. She would have killed for a slow cooker and a stick blender.

I’ve noticed a sort of implicit belief that people used to do things the hard way in the past because they were tougher or something. In reality, labor-saving devices have historically been adopted by the populace as soon as they were economically feasible. No one stood in front of a smoky fire or a boiling pot of lye soap for hours because they were virtuous, they did it because it was the only way to survive.

Taking these screenshots from Facebook because they make you log in and won't let you copy and paste:

It can get a little confusing because of how many current modern devices are built for shit, pack full of bloatware or tech waste or other enshittfied features, or both, or worse, or both and worse. So there is a degree to which "the old version worked better," which is a completely detached conversation from "I do it how my Pure & Righteous Ancestors did it because of white supremacy if it worked for them it'll work for me." But the point of commonality, that some important and fairly significant modern mechanical equipment was better in an ealier iteration, the cottage core stuff snealily pulls in people whose general frustrations are down to corporate greed, which makes them vulnerable to "Reject Modernity, Embrace Traditional" style indoctrination.

There's also further complications in that a good deal of older durable equipment that was designed to last longer and be repairable has passed its completely sensible period of operarions, and also the period of time anyone could expect continuous manufacturing of parts. So you got this situation where even stuff that people remember as very durable, and which also enjoyed a brief period of being cheaply available used with considerable remaining lifespan + repairability, is also vanishing both through owners now retaining + repairing, or refurbishment now having a much higher cost than it had in recent memory - meaning those ancient, industructable washing machines are not as viable as cheap solutions to modern enshitification. Which also makes it easier for the cottage core bullshit because it's much more satisfying to be like "well I just beat the Modern Elitists With Their Expensive Houses by using a washboard" than trying to get any kind bare minimum organized action together, even stuff like pooling resources for shared costs of durable goods and shit. Which, admittedly, also modern corporate practices are bent on turning rent seek models into ways to further isolate organization. But the point is all that might make the idea of going off grid and to live off the land in isolation seem like a good solution when it's really more of a way to drive people away from organized action and also a shitload of the cottage core stuff is heavily loaded with white supremacist stuff and you might be like "what does that do" and the answer is "get people more comfortable with slavery again" which we still have it, but it got pretty concealed for awhile, but it's maybe something that's getting more attention (it never stopped getting attention if you were a minority but that's another conversation) anyway at a certain point it gets too spun up but the point is that the shitty smart TV playing advertisements in screen or the fridge that requires a voice command in total silence to open and has no other handles shouldn't drive you to the belief that your problems are all going to be solved if you just make your own laundry soap at home. Idk

People have real issues understanding why the absence of romance and sexual desire is such a big deal. "No one bothers you over your sexual orientation! You're basically a straight person!" No wrong. The older you get the more your life is considered a failure for failing to find a life partner and get your 2.5 kids in.

Like people make fun of middle aged women for not getting married or being divorced or "always the bridesmaid never the bride" and all like "oh she's desperate! No one wants her! Old maid!' but they become straight up hostile and upset when you tell them you never want to date.

Being unpartnered after your mid twenties is just like "oh what's wrong with you" and "don't worry you'll find your guy" "aren't you afraid of being alone" "who will take care of you" "you're running out of time to have kids" and no matter what you are or aren't people straight up don't understand that you don't want them.

i love the way zac ends interactions with NPCs

gotta say, as a queer woman i kind of hate that thing where there's a man in a relationship with a woman and you ship him with another man, so you say "oh, it's fine, don't worry about it, she's a lesbian."

if you're interested in her as a character, and you think she's queer, you'd write that story, you know? you'd write about her stuck in that marriage trying to breathe, and you'd write about her faltering weird intense friendships with other women, and you'd be interested in the woman she finally leaves her husband for. but that story doesn't exist. instead, you get a throwaway line or two in the story about her husband or her boyfriend or her best friend with romantic tension, who doesn't love her anymore.

so you gotta think: this is a story where the writer wanted to break up or desexualize or deromanticize this relationship between a man and a woman, but they're not a dick, so they don't want to character bash her, so instead of writing her being an evil bitch*, they go "it's okay, she's a lesbian," and then that gives them the out. like her being a lesbian is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the writer, who no longer has to worry about how she fits into the story—don't worry, fellas! she's a lesbian. she's out of the picture. case closed.

and that's also a way of defanging the flaws of the man in that relationship, you know? he's not an asshole for ignoring her or cheating on her or forgetting about her, it was all just a big misunderstanding. he's gay, she's gay, they can be Best Friends (who somehow never get much page time, and if they DO, it's all her absolving him of wrongdoing and encouraging him to go after his man.)

i do really hate the conversations they have where The Newly Out Lesbian tells the Man Who Now Suspects He Might Be Gay that he's just being so stupid and why doesn't he just talk to the other guy and if he weren't so oblivious he would have realized sooner that there's never really been anything between them. I hate it when she holds his hand like he's a little baby and then hits him gently on top of the head with a rolled up newspaper. don't worry, she's beyond his power to hurt! She's not a person who can be wounded by her partner falling out of love with her, she's a Lesbian, and Lesbians exist on a higher plane that is mysteriously beyond the story's power to really pay attention to. why are you flattening both of them out like that??? isn't it better to just acknowledge that he did something that hurt her, regardless of whatever their sexualities are??

anyway i'm much more interested in stories about infidelity where the cheated-on partner is actually getting their heart broken, you know?

i don't want to see this cheated-on woman smile beatifically and say "it's okay, it's better this way, I'm going off with my Companion who you've never heard me mention before and we'll live down the block and meet every day for coffee at Central Perk," I want her to throw a vase at his head and then still have to coparent with him afterward. I want her to get to be sad!! I want her to get to be angry!! I want him to have to deal with having hurt her!! I want him to deal with the consequences of having hidden the truth or made this discovery!!

I'm not interested in configuring events such that the guy cheating on his wife never did anything wrong, I'm way more interested in just letting him have done something wrong. You can hurt somebody and still be following your heart! You can hurt somebody and save your life at the same time! and that's juicy, that's interesting, that's messy and a problem and a story I want to read about.

and then if she turns out to be queer after all, I want to read the story about that. maybe he cheats on her and that's awful and in the disillusionment afterward she goes and cries on her best friend's shoulder and says something about how she's through with men, absolutely through, and her best friend kisses her temple and promises to kill him, if she wants, and later she goes to the bathroom and looks at the smudge of lip gloss on her forehead and it makes her stomach do a flip. maybe she starts having a crisis and then six months later she's supposed to be having a custody discussion with her cheating ex and instead they end up getting drunk together while she asks him how he did it, how did he figure it out, and he lifts his head up from the bartop, hopeful as a kicked dog and is like does this mean you're considering forgiving me, and she's like no! fuck you. buy me another drink. is it different, being with him versus being with me? and if it's different, how is it different?

do you see what i'm saying??

*of course there still are people who character bash and write her off as an evil bitch. fuck those people, but this isn't about them.

"transfem hypervisibility is a privilege" and yet ive only seen other transmisogynized people posting about the FBI threatening transfeminists

you're someone's hated tumblr

all of the tags for this post are just *chefs kiss*

i haaate when ppl are talking abt mammal colouration and they bring up mandrills but not vervet monkeys.... fake fans

put some respect on his name

So I follow N. D. Stevenson (comics writer and animator, most famous for Nimona and She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) and his husband Lee Ostertag (also a comics writer and animator) on Instagram. When I started following them, they were both publicly presenting as women, and then a few years ago N. D. came out as transmasc nonbinary, and then earlier this year Lee also came out as transmasc. Anyway this is all setup to say that Lee had the chance to make the funniest post of all time and he took it:

Absolutely iconic.

I want to throw in that part of the context behind this meme was N.D. talking about how he sometimes gets hatemail for marrying a man as a former lesbian, and how many people seem to think he divorced his wife.

I have not managed to find anyone who thinks that in the wild, but it is so damn funny.

me and @beemovieerotica

Got dialating eye drops at the doctor's office today so I can't read anything. Luckily I can still post because I remember where all the keys are with my powerful posting organ. And I never really read shit anyway so basically I'm more powerful than ever

"noooo you don't get it, if i tell you that you and your friends are a cult and you say no then that just proves that you're in a cult!"

"if you disagree with me that just proves i'm right" and other sentiments held by those with no capacity for introspection

There are actual tears in my eyes rn can you believe people are this stupid and walk among us all the time