manichoneybee

[manichoneybee]

One thing about fandom culture is that it sort of trains you to interact with and analyze media in a very specific way. Not a BAD way, just a SPECIFIC way.

And the kind of media that attracts fandoms lends itself well (normally) to those kinds of analysis. Mainly, you're supposed to LIKE and AGREE with the main characters. Themes are built around agreeing with the protagonists and condemning the antagonists, and taking the protagonists at their word.

Which is fine if you're looking at, like, 99% of popular anime and YA fiction and Marvel movies.

But it can completely fall apart with certain kinds of media. If someone who has only ever analyzed media this way is all of a sudden handed Lolita or 1984 or Gatsby, which deal in shitty unreliable narrators; or even books like Beloved or Catcher in the Rye (VERY different books) that have narrators dealing with and reacting to challenging situations- well... that's how you get some hilariously bad literary analysis.

I dont know what my point here is, really, except...like...I find it very funny when people are like "ugh. I hate Gatsby and Catcher because all the characters are shitty" which like....isnt....the point. Lololol you arent supposed to kin Gatsby.

[manichoneybee]

having the ability to stop, slow down, and think "wait, is there any physical reasons I feel bad actually?" is probably one of the most important skills one can have as a mentally ill/neurodivergent person or really just as a human being existing in the world in general

[manichoneybee]

What if they reprinted really gory and dark novels with those bland Canva clip-art covers you see on every Wattpad-sourced romcom these days

[manichoneybee]

As a person who literally today graduated from college, I just want to say that university is not built for disabled people. It actively pushes us away and continuously fails to accommodate us, and if you've never been able to do higher education or had to drop out, it's not a personal failing. Your worth is not tied to the ability to pass a class or stick it out.

[manichoneybee]

If the Internet Archive wins this lawsuit, it could be an absolute game-changer for libraries.

Applying the first sale doctrine to digital content could enable libraries to simply buy e-books and lend them on a 1:1 basis rather than having to constantly renew their expensive contracts with vendors. Most public libraries use a huge chunk of their increasingly-limited funds on these licensing agreements, and if some of those funds are freed up they can go towards local communities. This isn’t just about keeping the Wayback Machine. This is about open access to information. This is about ending the artificial scarcity that tech monopolies have created.

Please make an account on Internet Archive, and consider donating.

Please use your local library and check out the FREE events and services they offer.

Please put pressure on the publishing houses involved in this lawsuit.

[manichoneybee]

sometimes I see people saying stuff like “how can you feel bad for [x character]! they brought this on themselves!” and my feeling is always sort of… “yes, and that makes it worse?”

while sure it’s sad when a character is suffering from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune through no fault of their own but simply because the world they live in is cruel and unfair or whatever, it hits me much harder when a character is suffering because their own actions have come back around to cause them pain. then you have the dual layer of the suffering on top of the knowledge, acknowledged or unacknowledged internal to the narrative but present for the reader, that it’s…not even their fault, necessarily, I’m not really interested in language of fault, but that something they did or choices they made had unexpected and unwanted consequences.

it’s like…I sort of hate the concept of “got what they deserved” as a sentiment, broadly speaking, and I feel like that’s sometimes where people go with this, but for me it’s just much more resonant and much hurtier to look at the ways in which someone, intentionally or unintentionally, ends up causing themselves pain - and what they do with that.

not sure this is making any sense, but “I feel like the juiciest angst is the angst that comes from the destructive impact of your own actions” probably kinda gets at it.

this is probably about me being generally a tragedy enjoyer, isn’t it.

[manichoneybee]

I think one of the worst things this site has normalized is the idea that sorting out disagreements privately in DMs is bad or creepy.

[manichoneybee]

happy PRIDE i’m here i’m queer and i believe the land should be given back to the proper indigenous stewards.

[manichoneybee]

if you want to actually start to end homelessness, you need to give homeless people unconditional homes, including when we use them to do drugs or sit around drinking. either housing is unconditional or it isn’t

someone sitting at home alone, an active alcoholic, squandering your charity, drinking all day is better situation than a street homeless alcoholic. someone using drugs in your charity house is better than them doing the same w no shelter

most of you would not like most street homeless people, I definitely don’t and didn’t when I was street homeless. for every one person who uses unconditional shelter to turn themselves around, someone else will do jack shit and very slowly, if ever, work through the issues that made them homeless, will maybe never be able to live independently. still better than street homelessness, still worth doing. ultimately either you believe that shelter should be universal or you don’t

homeless people actually can’t be rehabilitated if you want to end homelessness. we either affirm the right to shelter for the worst drunken, lying, filthy, cheating, self destructive homeless people that exist, genuinely irredeemable wankers, or we concede that shelter is not a right

[manichoneybee]

Sometimes I think about how many people I met in food service who smoke. I think about growing up in an upper-middle class neighborhood, and how it was drilled into me that smoking is addictive and bad for your health. I think most people, in America at least, are well aware of that. Whenever I would decline a cigarette, on the rare occasion it was offered, saying I dont smoke the reply is always "good, don't start."

I think about the long shifts, working on your feet all day, with breaks scheduled down to the minute. Every second of your day controlled by the clock, regardless of how tired you might be. However, in food service, there is one exception. The smoke break. Most managers respect the smoke break. The old school ones do, at least. The newer crop less so. Food service is fast paced, highly stressful work, and nicotine, in addition to all of its addictive and damaging properties, is a relaxant. If a burger flipper or barista says they need to step outside for a smoke, you let them do it, and you dont begrudge them for it.

It's such a strange bit of kindness. One that we know is terribly harmful in many respects, but performed anyway. I think about all of the interconnected systems, of health, of education, of exploitation, that leads a person to knowingly trade in years of their life for five minutes of peace. I wonder how many people in my upper middle class neighborhood would propose simply banning the smoke breaks. I wonder how many people I know would just break.

[manichoneybee]

i’ve said it before and i’ll say it again. fanfiction is not an inherently subversive practice that is going to elevate art and save it. fanfiction is also not the scourge of all literature that is going to destroy art and debase it. fanfiction is literally just another lightly popular medium of writing and is capable of being good or bad. it’s not inherently uniquely good and it’s not inherently uniquely bad, it’s just a way you can write a story

[manichoneybee]

if you’re not paying attention to trees and how they sway in the wind then what are you even doing

[manichoneybee]

as a European, garbage disposals are so scary. you guys just have a beast with knives for teeth living in your sink and act like its nothing

[manichoneybee]

From the bottom of my heart: im not sorry for anything i put on yalls dash, i am my own target audience and i find my taste immaculate but thank u for witnessing 💕

[manichoneybee]

idk if it’s the mental illness but sharing literally any information feels like oversharing. i’ll be like “i skipped breakfast this morning” and immediately im like “i might as well have told them where i buried the money”

[manichoneybee]

I hate the nordics I really do

[manichoneybee]

i wish all affluent people who are in college and make nonstop jokes about being poor a very understand that poverty is not a temporary condition