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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to any americans who feel "paralyzed" and "dont know what to do" to help with gaza:
reading a fucking book. i beg of you.
in a time of knowledge suppression is it your duty to arm yourself with knowledge.
read about americas occupations in the middle east.
read about 9/11 from outside of america and see how they inflicted senseless harm and violence to countless amounts of people and have been suppressing your rights for the past 2 fucking decades.
read about any of the countless wars from the past 30 years. especially from a civilian's. and the victims and survivors' perspective. listen to the horror stories and do not plug your fucking ears as to what your country is doing.
and read about fucking gaza and palestine and keep up with what is happening no matter how "sad" or "uncountable" you might get.
dont look away from this.
you dont have the right to be comfortable during countless active genocides.
if you're knowledgeable, you're powerful, and our current state doesnt fucking want that.
you have the power to change things if you open your eyes and scream to the world.
wake the fuck up.
Edit: please check the reblogs there are readings and ways to help
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Really fucked up that, when they’re young, Patrick and Art are SO tactile with each other, so comfortable sharing the same space. Art lets Patrick touch him and move him and physically overwhelm him and easily acquiesces to it, if not outright enjoys it.
Then in the present, they’ve been so far out of each other’s orbit for so long, held such animosity that when they have their moment alone in the sauna, Art physically recoils from Patrick’s close proximity! It’s so painful to watch because even as Patrick’s goading him, it’s so obvious he wants to be able to get back into Art’s space. But Art has erected all these walls around himself, he refuses to give Patrick an inch or even admit to missing how close they used to be!
AND THEN we see Art and Tashi later and he wants her to hold him, to be gentle with him, and just TOUCH him. Like, he does miss that kind of close physical contact! He either doesn’t know how to ask for it or is uncomfortable being that openly vulnerable. Worth noting that he pretty much always defers to Tashi in regard to initiating physical intimacy (with their first kiss, though he does state his desire, SHE has to be the one to make the first move). And it seems pretty obvious that Tashi herself isn’t comfortable providing that intimacy, whereas Patrick actively seeks to provide it (the hug/forehead kiss after their win together in the early years, dragging the stool closer to him).
Art has tried very hard to act like he doesn’t need physical affection and even though his discipline and devotion to Tashi has made him a stronger tennis player, it’s made him a hollow person, which, in turn, has kept him from becoming a GREAT tennis player.
All of this, of course, is why the ending hits so damn hard.
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IT'S DONE! HAPPY BIRTHDAY KIRBY!!!
If you've been following me the last month, you've seen me posting invitations to join Kirby Birthday Collab. Well, as today is 27th, I'm proud to present the result of this collab!!
This collab ended up even bigger than the last year's one. When last year we mainly had only Dream Friends (with some special guests like Morpho, Galacta and Elfilin), this year we've got characters from many more groups, including villains! We've almost left no one behind lol
The image above might be a bit scuffed (anti-AI protection, and all that), but no worries! You can click on it to see full, uncompressed image and see everyone's work that's been put into this!
A HUGE thank you to everyone who participated, and to everyone who wanted but either learned about it too late or didn't manage - don't worry! Looks like this thing might be annual from now on (or until i run out of steam lmao), so you'll get plenty of chances to join next year! Just keep your eyes peeled around March-April :3
And now, everyone who participated in this collab:
@squeak-art - Daroach, Dark Nebula and Squeakers + two bonus polaroids (the one with Nebula and the one with Squeak Squad)
@sacrificecage - Hyness and Shadow Kirby
@aseuki - Sectonia (absolute madlad)
@giantchasm - Elfilin, Fecto Forgo + possessed Awoofy and Rick
@taranzas-biggest-fan - Taranza and President Haltmann + bonus polaroid with Wave 3 trio and Kirby
@sourghostsoda - Dark Meta Knight and Galacta Knight
@spidersandtomatos - Zan Partizanne + bonus polaroid with their OC and Zan
@kachikirby - Samus Aran and Francisca + bonus polaroid with Samus
@eleart - Meta Knight
@azumetapraline - Magolor
@tinybandee - Sailor Dee and UFO
@a-stardusted-sky - Landia
@mementomarx - Morpho Knight
@xxmooncheetosxx - Ribbon
@rosakikoza - DMS and Zero
@hascaple - Chuchu
@deafeninggardenerpanda - Void and Arthur (also special thanks for allowing me to organize it on his server that i've been advertising all this month lol)
@pixbit - Prince Fluff
@eryth-arts - Susie and Flamberge
@deefighter2739 - Bandee
@skitty-kirby - Sword and Blade Knights
@hoshi-no-mahoroa - Coo
@diroxide - Fecto Elfilis
@starrveria - Tiff
@nausylemmyj - Adeline
@thecreatorlynne (on Instagram) - Miracle Matter + bonus polaroid with all the Matters
@thundermarisol - Pitch, Pick, Mine, Shiro, Nyupun and Pitch Mama
@michirikapchiyyy - Falspar and Dragato
@galapathy - Nonsurat and Nightmare
@wybienova - Clawroline + bonus polaroid with Clawroline
@mistilteinn-magolor - Gooey
@superskullz64 - Spinni, Doc and Storo
@starrysorry - Tuff, Fololo and Falala
@tazmilygray - Elline and Keeby
@icy-dark-star - Leongar
@yokyoaaa - Nago and the Meta-Knights (Axe, Trident, Mace and Javelin Knights)
@itsquakey/@chickenhoops - Marx
@chibihuey - Drawcia, Claycia and Kine (and colored Nightmare) + bonus polaroid with four Kirbies
and yours truly was the one who combined all of this in a single piece + drew Dedede and main birthday boy himself, Kirby!
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Prompt 204
Danny is on a bit of a roadtrip. An accidental roadtrip and might be getting chased by some sort of assassins or whatever they were. Look, it’s not his fault, he was injured and out of it! How was he supposed to know that the Pits or whatever the people were yelling about were important. Or sapient.
Actually, he should like… “How do you even know how to drive if you’re like, thousands of years old??” That was not what he was going to ask his current roadtrip buddy, but maybe he had a concussion.
Ectoplasm-green eyes turned towards him from the road, framed by a mixture of black and white hair that shifted like his own. “You most likely don’t want to know the answer to that, actually.” Okay, but what if he did, huh?
“Okay, but where are we going, because I don’t think this is my dimension…”
They shrugged, their clothing shifting with the motion. Ha, ninja clothing for a sapient pool of ecto, or whatever it had been. “I am, not exactly familiar to things that were not known to those thrown into my blood, so we’re, I believe the saying is going in blind?”
“Oh. Okay. Y’know you’re kind of nice for an ecto-death pit thing.”
“... I am going to pretend I didn’t hear that, child.”
“Okay. I’m going to go to sleep because my head hurts.”
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