i got rickrolled today but it didn't work because i have adblocker installed, so youtube just told me i violated the terms of service. yesterday i was trying to edit a picture as a joke for my girlfriend, and google made me check a box to prove i'm human because i wasn't "searching normally".
it isn't just that capitalism is killing fun and whimsy, it is that any element of entertainment or joy is being fed upon by this mosquito body, one that will suck you dry at any vulnerability.
do you want to meet new friends in your city? download this app, visit our website, sign up for our email list. pay for this class on making a terrarium, on candlemaking, on cooking. it will be 90 dollars a session. you can go to group fitness, but only under our specific gym membership. solve the puzzle, sign up for our puzzle-of-the-month-club. what is a club if not just a paid opportunity - you are all paying for the same thing, which makes you a community.
but you're like me, i know it - you're careful, you try the library meetings and the stuff at the local school and all of that. the problem is that you kind of want really specific opportunities that used to exist. you are so grateful for libraries and the publicly-funded things: they are, however, an exception - and everything they have, they've fought tooth-and-nail to protect. you read a headline about how in many other states, libraries have virtually nothing left.
do you want to meet up with your friends afterwards? gift your friends the discord app. you can choose to go to a cafe (buy a coffee, at least), a bar (money, alcohol) or you can all stay in and catch a movie (streaming) or you can all stay in bed (rent. don't get me started) and scream (noise complaint. ticket at least).
you want to read a new book, but the book has to have 124 buzzwords from tiktok readers that are, like, weirdly horny. you can purchase this audiobook on audible! your podcast isn't on spotify, it's on its own server, pay for a different site. fuck, at least you're supporting artists you like. the art museum just raised their ticket price. once, they had a temporary exhibit that acknowledged that ~85% of their permanent art galleries were from cis white men, and that they had thousands of works by women (even famous women, like frida! georgia o'keefe!) just rotting in their basement. that exhibit lasted for 3 months and then they put everything away again.
walmart proudly supports this strip of land by the street! here are some flowers with wilting leaves. its employees have to pay out-of-pocket for their uniforms. my friend once got fined by the city because she organized a community pick-up of the riverfront, which was technically private property.
no, you cannot afford to take that dance class, neither can i. by the way - i'm a teacher. i'm absolutely not saying "educators shouldn't be paid fairly." i'm saying that when i taught classes, renting a studio went from 20 bucks an hour to 180 in the span of 6 months. no significant changes to the studio were made, except they now list the place as updated and friendly. the heat still doesn't work in the building. i have literally never seen the landlord who ignores my emails. recently they've been renting it out at night as an "unusual nightclub; a once-in-a-lifetime close-knit party." they spent some of those 180 dollars on LEDs and called it renovating. the high heels they invite in have been ruining the marley.
do you want to experience the old internet? do you want to play flash games or get back the temporary joy of club penguin? you can, you just need to pay for it. i have a weird, neurodivergent obsession with occasionally checking in to watch the downfall and NFT-ification of neopets. if i'm honest with you all - i never got into webkins, my family didn't have the money to buy me a pointless elephant. people forget that "being poor" can mean literally "if i buy you that toy, i can't afford rent."
you and i don't have time to make good food, and we don't have the budget for it. we are not gonna be able to host dinner parties, we're not made of money, kid. do you want some kind of 3rd space? a space that isn't home or work or school? you could try being online, but - what places actually exist for you? tiktok counts as social media because you see other people on it, not because they actually talk to you.
there was a local winter tradition of sledding down the hill at my school. kids would use pizza boxes and jackets and whatever worked, howling and laughing. back in september, they made a big announcement that this time, rules were changing, and everyone must pay 10 dollars to participate. when im not scared shitless, i kind of appreciate the environmental irony - it hasn't gone below 40. so much for snow & joyriding.
i saw a bulletin for a local dogwalking group and, nervous about making a good first impression, showed up early. the first guy there grimaced at me. "sorry," he said. "there's a 30-dollar buy-in fee." i thought he was joking. wait. for what? the group doesn't offer anything except friendship and people with whom to walk around the city.
he didn't know the answer. just shrugged at me. "you know," he said. "these days, everything costs money."
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🏃♀️Hi hi I'm reopening my commission again since I am in the middle of my final year project and I needed funds to support my art project _(:'3」∠)_
*also if you see my previous commission post minutes ago, please disregard that I put the wrong info there ;w; Also appreciate if you guys delete my previous post too if you reblogged it 🥲
Please take note that since I am in the middle of my final year and I also have 3 pending commissions to go right now, I only be able to fully commit to this slot around the end of July!
SLOTS TAKEN: 2/5
*Taken slots will be updated from time to time!
‼️PLEASE READ MY TOS AND RULES BEFORE YOU DECIDE TO COMMISSION ME!!‼️
🔷️My TOS, art samples and additional rules/info can be read on my carrd here.
🔷️No rush orders will be accepted as I am currently in the middle of my final. If you need an estimate for commission turnarounds please refer to my Trello! I date stamp all of my progress from start to finish! Please commission me only if you don't mind waiting for me!!
I'm also posting my art samples (personal art) undercut!
And as always, reblogs are highly appreciated 🥰💕💕
🔷️Please DM me if you're interested or have any inquiries regarding my commission!
🔷️There’s no pressure at all if you don’t want to reblog/share but I greatly appreciate it very much if you do
🥺👉👈Reblogs are definitely very much appreciated 🥰💕💕
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I'm debating starting a youtube. One of the things I love about learning how to do stuff is sharing the process and skills involved with people and that seems to be the preferred platform for that kind of thing; I find that with a lot of what I'm making it's so niche or weird that there's not easily findable tutorials on how to do what I want to do, so maybe it would help if I made them? Tiktok is okay as a quick and easy way to slap process videos together but I kind of hate it and I also don't like how unsearchable and short-lived content is there.
Youtube would be a lot of work, and I'm not convinced it would be worth the effort, but on the other hand, if I could get some traction there, it would be nice to have passive ad revenue to offset project costs without having to directly sell the random crap I'm making.
I dunno, guys. This site has been home for my art for a long time, and I don't see that changing, but it would be nice to have resources to put into some of the larger projects that aren't directly sellable.
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you have to go to work so you can pay for your doctor, who is not taking your insurance right now, and if you say i can't afford the doctor's you are told - get a better job. it is very sad that you are unwell, yes, but maybe you should have thought about that before not having a better job.
(where is the better job? who is giving out these better jobs? you are sick, you are hurting - how the hell are you supposed to be well enough for this better job?)
but you go to the doctor because you had the nerve to be hurt or sick or whatever else. and they tell you that it is because you have anxiety. you try your best. you are a self-advocate. you've done the reading (which sometimes pisses them off worse, honestly). you say it is actually adding to my anxiety, it is effecting my quality of life. so they say that you are fat. they say that all young people have this happen to them, isn't it a medical marvel! they say that you should eat more vegetables. they say that you probably just need to lose a little more weight, and that you are faking it for attention.
(what attention could this doctor possibly give? what validation? that's their fucking job, isn't it?)
there is always a hypochondriac, right. someone always tells you about a hypochondriac. or someone who is unnecessarily aggressive during the worst days of their life. or someone looking "for a quick fix". or some idiot who wasn't educated about how to properly care for themselves who just abandons their treatment. and again, the hypochondriac, the overly-cautious hysteric. these people don't deserve to be treated like humans (right), and since you might be one of these people, you also don't get treated like a human. because those people can really fuck with the system, you now have to pay for it. and besides. you're actually probably faking it.
(more often than not, you find a 2:1 ratio of these stories. for every "hypochondriac", there are 2 people who knew something was wrong, and yet nobody could fucking find it. the story often ends with pointless suffering. the story often ends with and now it's too late, and it's going to kill me.)
you are actually just making excuses. someone else got that procedure or that diagnosis and he's fine, you should be fine too. someone else said they watched a documentary about other inspirational people with your exact same condition, maybe you should be inspirational, too. you're just too morbid. your pain and your experience is probably just not statistically concerning. it is all self-reported anyway, and you're just being a baby.
(once, while sitting down in the middle of making coffee, you had the sudden, horrible thought - i could kill myself to make the pain stop. you had to call your best friend after that. had to pet your dog. had to cry about it in the shower. you won't, but that moment - god, fuck. the pain just goes on and on.)
you know someone who went in for routine surgery and said i still feel everything. they told her to just relax. it took her kicking and screaming before they figured out she wasn't lying - the anesthetic drip hadn't been working. you know someone who went in for severe migraines who was told drink water and lose weight. you know someone who was actively bleeding out and throwing up in the ER and was told you're just having a bad period.
in the ER there are always these little posters saying things like "don't wait! get checked today!" and you think about how often you do wait. how often the days spool out. you once waited a full week before seeing the doctor for what you thought was a sprained wrist. it had actually been broken - they had to rebreak it to set it.
but you go into the doctor. the problem you're having is immediate. the person behind the counter frowns and says we're not taking your insurance. you will be paying for this out-of-pocket.
they send you home with tylenol and a little health packet about weight loss or anxiety or attention deficit. on the front it has your birthday and diagnosis. you think about crying, and the words swim. it might as well say go fuck yourself. it might as well say you're a fucking idiot. it might as well say light your money on fire and lie down in it. and the entire fucking time - the problem persists.
it's okay. it's okay, it's just another thing, you think. it's just another thing i have to learn to live with.
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i see a lot of wesker content is about domestic fluff like making meals for one another!
but post-arklay... just imagine... he has the prototype t-virus now. wesker's caloric needs are vastly different. the man could run a mukbang channel without any unhealthy eating tactics with the amount he must now consume to maintain his weight and appearance and prevent the virus from turning him grey and sullen.
something that has changed about him, most intriguingly, is his taste. his desire for exceedingly fresh cuts of meat prepared blue, an uptick in umami and savory taste receptor activity. he's even had to wipe his face before a meal once, salivating gratuitously to the point of drooling and falling deathly silent in equal parts exasperation and embarrassment, so different from the composed, gentle menthol of a quiet man you'd come to know.
you buy a lot of fruits now, purposefully picking out the granny smiths, plantains and pineberries, anything a little less on the sweet side for his shifting palate. you even begin to grow cucumbers to pickle for him. your kitchen, once full of small, lively rack-pot plants like oregano and sweet basil now sports fast-growing savories like chives, fennel and dill.
cooking with a crock pot becomes ideal. a batch to you is a meal to him, so you can set it up in the morning for the evening.
you make a tray of cookies and he eats them all! he'll be hungry again in thirty minutes. he would prefer a bit more salt next time. maybe you could experiment with higher protein concentration? he does not elaborate, but he is polite.
wesker, of course, affords you the same small details when he cooks for you. he doesn't push to encroach on your own dietary choices, even if they're far different from his newfound primary carnivory. he consciously portions things (though sometimes he heaves a bit too much for you), leaves the salt until the end so that he can salt just his own half, and ensures every raw item reaches a satisfactory internal temperature for the time you need.
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