Latest Posts by literature-and-screaming-blog - Page 5
people seem to have trouble understanding why i’m an anti-capitalist, so i’m going to try and put it into simple, real-life terms.
i work at a restaurant. i make $12 an hour, plus tips. minimum wage where i live is relatively high for my country - the national minimum wage is $7.25/hr, and has not been raised since 2009. before taxes, working full time, my yearly income is about $22,000 a year. ($25,000 if you count tips)
at my job, we sell various dishes, with an average price of about $10-$15. we get printouts every week detailing how much money we made that week; in one week, our restaurant makes about $30,000. (one of our other locations actually makes this much on a daily basis!)
i’m not going to go into details, but after the costs of production (payroll for employees, rent for the building, maintenance, and wholesale food purchasing) are accounted for, the restaurant makes an estimated profit of $20,000 per week.
this profit goes directly to the owner, who does not work at this location. the owner of my restaurant has actually been on vacation for a few months, but still profits from the restaurant, because they own it. i have met the owner exactly twice in my year of working here.
to put this into perspective, the owner of this restaurant earns in 2 days what they pay me in one year. and that’s just from this single location - the owner has several other restaurants, all of which make more money than the one i work at. this ends up resulting in the owner having an estimated net worth of tens of millions of dollars, even after accounting for the payroll for every single worker in their employ.
now, i have to ask you: does the owner of my restaurant deserve this income? did they earn it? did their labor result in this value being created?
the naive answer would be “yes”; the owner purchased the location and arranged for the raw ingredients to be delivered, did they not?
the actual answer is “no”. the owner may have used their initial capital to start the location, but the profit is a result of my labor, and the labor of my co-workers.
the owner purchases rice at a very low bulk price of about 25 cents a pound. i cook the rice, and within a few minutes, that pound of rice is suddenly worth about $30. the owner did not create this value, i did. the owner simply provided the initial capital investment required to start the process.
what needs to be understood here is that capitalists do not create value. they use the labor of their employees to create value, and then take the excess profit and keep it.
what needs to be understood is that capitalists accrue income by already HAVING money. the owner of my restaurant was only able to get this far because they started off, from the very beginning, with enough money to purchase a building, purchase food in bulk, and hire hundreds of employees.
that is to say: the rich get richer, and they do so by exploiting the labor of the poor.
the owner of my restaurant could afford to triple the income of every single person in their employee if they felt like it, but this would mean that they were generating less profit for themselves, so they do not.
the owner of my restaurant pays me the current minimum wage of my area, because to them, i am not a person. i am an investment. i am an asset. i am a means to create more money.
when you are paid minimum wage, the message your boss is sending you is this: “legally, if i could pay you less, i would.”
every capitalist on the planet exploits their workers for their own gain. every capitalist, even the small business owners, forces people to stay in poverty so that the capitalist can profit.
what, have you never seen a boy with a vagina before? i turn dramatically away from you, further aggravating the large stab wound in my abdomen
If King Charles dies on or before March 25th, 2024, he will technically be the shortest-reigning king in English history.
Anyway, like to charge, reblog to cast.
I love Skizzleman
reblog if you love the Skizzleman
this post is not gonna be well put together but i am having feelings
mean girls is trending right now because the musical movie just came out and i feel insane. idk why i do, it was stupid of me to think that most people Got It, no one ever gets it, it was always about the memes and the aesthetic.
the first mean girls movie was based on a nonfiction book called queen bees and wannabes. it interviewed and discussed the social caste system in teen girl friendships. how they hold each other to these insane standards of heternormative femininity out of sheer terror that they won't meet those standards themselves. the way they leverage their relationships for some small degree of power in a world designed to strip them of it, even if it drags other girls down.
the "you can only wear your hair in a ponytail once a week and on wednesdays we wear pink" speech was not an original creation for the script. it's a QUOTE from a real teenage girl. those were REAL RULES.
then the musical came, and it was one step removed from the intended messaging of the film. OG mean girls was not perfect (and was extremely racist), but it said what needed said. the musical leaned on the comedy more, but still left a heartfelt undertone, and still critiqued the systems in place. of course no piece of media is going to be perfect, but it was about the conversation.
then this new movie comes out and it is washed over in the veneer of white hollywood feminism so thick you can't see anymore. the problematic aspects of the original movie are taken out to avoid "offending" when the offense was the point. it becomes toothless, it becomes some other thing entirely. they changed karen's line "i expect to run the world in shoes i cannot walk in" to "watch me as i run the world in shoes i cannot walk in." because choice feminism is in vogue, suddenly this character whose entire point is that she doesn't think deeply about WHY she does anything is suddenly hip to the fact that the world is against her.
i think of sokka losing his misogyny arc in the new atla. i think of the Heathers remake casting the bitchy, identical heathers as queer and hollywood-fat outcasts. as if the story, the meaning, the allegory is hidden in the sets and the jokes and the music. it's a whole new thing now, and it's a thing that means nothing in particular.
the plastics should not wear jeans. they should not have curves. their queerness should be suppressed, painful. their sexuality is not a slay, it's the only thing they think they have of value. the santa dance isn't sexy, it's shocking, it's mortifying - they are children.
they're not mean because "we are all mean." they are mean because they are girls in a world that brutalizes them and crushes them into a standardized shape. they are mean because the world is mean to them. they are mean because it gives them some power back. they are mean because it's the only weapon they have.
the landscape of femininity today has shifted to camera-ready makeup at the age of 10, stringent performative hygiene standards, and avoiding being caught on film while having a genuine emotion. the consumerism, the fatphobia, the racism, the classism, the homophobia remain. We could have had a conversation about that.
Coraline, but I did not process it as a horror at all
coming out as trans on other platforms: carefully worded statement, thoughtful reflection on my responsibilities as a public figure
coming out as trans on tumblr: SKIDDLE SKIDADDIDALE MY NAME IS ABIGAIL
from river to the sea
“kill them with kindness” WRONG. GET RECLAIMED BY THE EARTH🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🍄🌿🌳🍀🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🍄🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🪻🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🎍🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🍀🪻🌾🌿🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🍄🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🪻🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌺🌿🍀🍄🍀🍂🍃🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🍄🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🍃🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🍄🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍄🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌲🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🎍🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🪻🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🍄🌳🍀🌱🌺🌷🌹🌲☘️🍃🌼🌳🌱🍀🌿🌷🌹🌳🌲🌿🍀🌺🌿🌲🌿☘️🌱🌸🌼🌲☘️🌻🌿🌳🍀🌱🌻🌳🍄🌳🌿🌱🍄🌺🌸🌹🌳🌻🌲🌿🪻
reblog to be eaten by this thing
With twins!
you're laughing. the hermitcraft server is pregnant and you're laughing
The showrunners of game of thrones, when asked by a director if there were any themes that they wanted to have appear in the episode he was directing, responded 'themes are for eighth grade book reports' and that's why I'm never going to trust any media they create from here on out
"A story doesn't need a theme in order to be good" I'm only saying this once but a theme isn't some secret coded message an author weaves into a piece so that your English teacher can talk about Death or Family. A theme is a summary of an idea in the work. If the story is "Susan went grocery shopping and saw a weird bird" then it might have themes like 'birds don't belong in grocery stores' or 'nature is interesting and worth paying attention to' or 'small things can be worth hearing about.' Those could be the themes of the work. It doesn't matter if the author intended them or not, because reading is collaborative and the text gets its meaning from the reader (this is what "death of the author" means).
Every work has themes in it, and not just the ones your teachers made you read in high school. Stories that are bad or clearly not intended to have deep messages still have themes. It is inherent in being a story. All stories have themes, even if those themes are shallow, because stories are sentences connected together for the purpose of expressing ideas, and ideas are all that themes are.
Dan Hays Colorado Snow Effect 4 (with detail) 2007, oil on canvas
heart - shaped scallion found In pho . reblog for good luck & yummy soup 500000 forwver
I had to help you spell aesthetic but you get titty wrong? Can't believe you
I wish, I scream, I jibber, I beg for more diversity in body types for the sisters. Like I love most of their design but they're all sticks who don't look like they could crush a single hertics head. For a universe as over the top as warhammer it makes no sense.
Also pls no more tatty armor
I still love their aesthetic though
God I fucking hate Olaf the snowman so fucking much holy shit. Holy shit, every frame he's in, every scene, every gif, every jpeg, he's got this painfully vacant, stupid as shit, fuckass look on his stupid lumpy face. Absolutely no part of his ugly as sin piece of shit character design is endearing. His stupid fucking legs? Who the hell makes a snowman with legs. His dumb flaily fucking twig arms? His shitty, lumpy bastard head? The three thousand percent unnecessary dumbass shitass fucking SNOW BUCK TOOTH that no snowman has EVER FUCKING HAD IN tHE HISTORY OF GOD'S GREEN FUCKING EARTH? God, I hate him. I hate him so much. So FUCKING much. Every time I see a stuffed toy Olaf or an Olaf gif or a shitty goddamn commercial, it ignites my primal rage response and I'm overcome by the need to punt this shitty little homunculus into the fucking sun. "Bhurr blur, I'm Olaf the fuckshit snow fucker, I like warm hugs". Fuck you. Fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you fuck you. You look like Tow Mater summoned a patronus. Your dumb fucking twig hair makes your whole shitty head look like a hairy skin tag. I hate your dumb fucking lumpy carrot nose and your stupid, empty googly eyes and your over-the-top goofy ass upbeat asshole personality. Any scene he's sad it invokes all the wrath and fury of a spoiled child having a meltdown over a chocolate bar in a w*lmart checkout line. And I know its irrational. That's the worst part. I know he's just a shitty fucking side character in a stupid fucking children's movie, I know it doesn't matter, I know I shouldn't care. But that's part of the problem. The part where no matter the might and fury of my hatred, the locus of my homicidal intent is alltogether inconsequential. I find myself laying awake in the dark in the early hours of the morning consumed by the spirit of Wrath itself, all the force and might of a flaming hurricane directed at a bottle of piss in a ditch by the highway. The absurdity of it all burns me to my core. What better things could this energy be directed towards? And yet my disdain for this stupid, useless, insubstantial failure of endearing character design utterly eclipses the intrigue of all other pursuits. I hate him. I hate him on a level of my mind reserved for the worst of the world's array of sinners, and I can't even begin to justify it. Shitstick the snow dick is, for all intents and purposes, the animated corpse of all of humanity's saccharine pretenses- every condescending, passive-aggressive statement of meaningless upper middle class suburban drama distilled into a single, hateable form. The fucking. Fuck. I have no words. There is no cuss or epithet in any language that can encapsulate the height of the emotions I am experiencing. God, I hate him so much. I hate him so, so fucking much. I want to light his ugly little dumpster body on fire. I want to graphically beat him to death with his own stupid fucking nose. I want to punch him to death. You know that weird feeling you get, when you see a picture of something so cute you find yourself overcome with the bizarre, inexplicable urge to squeeze it? It's EXACTLY like that, except instead of cuteness it's disgust. The wordless knowledge that his existence as a fictional work is evidence of all the failures of mankind. I find myself possessed by the will of a Holy Angel gone rogue with the belief that God has made a mistake, and I alone must correct it. This is the trial by which Samael himself fell from grace. This wild, meaningless rage. A thousand blades of shining steel cast with inhuman force in the direction of a plastic grocery bag floating on a breeze. What horrors must I have committed in a past life to be plagued by this torment now? I must Unmake this fictional snowman
Thank you fish :) needed this
I'm kinda full of joy? idk. I'm jovial, having a good time and whatnot.
here have some
Technology really is magic. I know that’s said a lot but like I’m sitting here looking at one of those chargers that you put your phone on top to wirelessly charge. And today is the first time I’ve really looked at it and gone “truly how the fuck does this work”
Maybe we stress about fantasy worldbuilding too much. We’re like “oh we gotta know the rules of the magic system,” no you don’t. I don’t know the rules of our magic system. If Aragorn, son of Arathorn got hit by a truck that orcs and goblins were driving flintstone style, and he transmigrated into my living room, I would not be able to explain any of the technology around me. I have no idea how I’m making this post. Imagine the first caveman who was like “oh shit the wheel” and I’m nodding along with that cave man. I understand how the wheel can roll. This next sentence was supposed to be about how I can sort of grasp how landline telephones work, but then I thought about it and no I don’t. I am surrounded everyday by mystical forces.
Anyway I have to use this particular charger because this miracle machine’s charging port is fuckin broken again
bastille has done more for the queer community by just making all of their love songs about "you" instead of specifying a gender than taylor swift has in all of her discography. thanks for coming to my ted talk.
You are microwave safe. You are dishwasher safe. You will not turn orange after one use. You will not deform under boiling water.
ROUND TWO OF LIKES CHARGE REBLOGS CAST ✨
I have a deep reverence for deep nuts jokes. I worship at their alter and carve them into my skin.
Every time Sean Astin makes a statement on whether or not Sam and Frodo were indeed gay for each other in lord of the rings he’s always like “well we have to acknowledge that attitudes around sexuality have changed dramatically over the past several decades and since authorial intent is only up to speculation, the story is open to multiple readings, some of which might have different significances for different groups of people also they kiss on the lips because I said so”
Ideal Gravity Falls reboot for me would be if they just released a movie, takes place ten+ years in the future, Dipper and Mabel are adults now going back to gf for the summer and you know there’s a lot of like serious tonal shifts from the original work in that it actually plays a bit more in the horror and drama space that Disney might not have let it originally and one of those dramatic notes could be that when they get to the shack the grunkles aren’t there to greet them and no one really mentions it but they’re talking about stan in the past tense and maybe Dipper gets really defensive every time he’s brought up and this goes on for two hours and we’ve reached the climax and at the last moment it’s revealed that stan and ford aren’t dead or anything they just got pulled over for speeding and Stan got arrested for punching a cop
Fiat Lingua Top 10 for 2023
It's time for the annual Fiat Lingua rewind!
Background: I created Fiat Lingua over ten years ago with the idea that it could be something like the Rutgers Optimality Archive: A place where conlangers could post work that they wanted to showcase, or work that was in progress. We've had tons of contributions over the years, and some standout work I'm really proud of.
Using our fancy statistics program (you know, the free version) we're able to determine the top 10 visited posts for this year (though, note, the numbers for the current year's December post will always be down a little bit, since it didn't have a full month. If you'd like to take a look at it, Carsten Becker did a version of "Silent Night" in his conlang Ayeri!). Here they are!
NUMBER 10
"Road Trip Conlanging with Kids" (August, 2023) by Mia DeSanzo: Fiat Lingua is supposed to be an archive of long, detailed conlang articles, and also short, breezy conlang ideas, and this is one of the latter! It's less than a page long, but a fun idea, and it was quite well-received!
NUMBER 9
"Art & Anxiety: Conlanging through impostor syndrome" (February, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): This is a personal reflection by @quothalinguist on how she has dealt with impostor syndrome, and how it's impacted her conlanging.
NUMBER 8
"Taadži Linguistics" (March, 2023) by Lauren Kuffler: This is a wonderful introduction to the Taadži language, which features a writing system reminiscent of Mayan epigraphs.
NUMBER 7
"Tone for Conlangers: A Basic Introduction" (April, 2018) by Aidan Aannestad: Making a second consecutive appearance in the top ten, Aidan Aannestad's introduction to tone has been an invaluable resource for conlangers producing tonal conlangs for just over five years now!
NUMBER 6
"Afrihili: An African Interlanguage" (April, 2014) by William S. Annis: Afrihili is an a posteriori auxlang from the late 60s that uses Bantu languages as its source, and it is fascinating! One of my all-time favorite auxlangs, and William provides a wonderful introduction. Of interest, this article was number 6 in the top ten last year, as well!
NUMBER 5
"Names Aren’t Neutral: David J. Peterson on Creating a Fantasy Language" (March, 2019) by David J. Peterson: Up four spots from last year, this is my article on best practices when coming up with names in a fantasy setting—even when no conlang is present.
NUMBER 4
"Grambank & Language Documentation: Zhwadi and Its Features" (June, 2023) by Jessie Sams (now Jessie Peterson): The first of the game-changing mega-resources for conlanging Jessie created in 2023, this is a short description of how to use Grambank in conlanging with a link to a fillable Google spreadsheet any conlanger can copy and use to introduce their conlang to others.
NUMBER 3
"Patterns of Allophony" (April, 2015) by William S. Annis: Definitely one of the most popular papers on Fiat Lingua, William illustrates graphically a number of very common sound changes. This article once again occupies the third spot of our top ten!
NUMBER 2
"A Conlanger's Thesaurus" (September, 2014) by William S. Annis: We have a new number 1 for this year! This has, historically, been the most accessed article on Fiat Lingua, and it's obvious to see why. The article is relatively short, compared to the information and use you can get out of it. William Annis details ways in which languages relate words to other similar words. For conlangers who struggle either with coming up with words that are different from English in meaning, or who struggle with coming up with words at all, this reference article should prove very useful. Using the word maps in this article, you might be able to come up with words you never dreamt of before, but words which could exist in some language. A great resource for conlangers who are desperately trying to break out of the influence of their L1 or L2!
And now for the top viewed article for 2023 on Fiat Lingua...
NUMBER 1
"A Surreal Conlang" (January, 2023) by David J. Peterson: Quite the surprise! Late 2022 I wrote an article about how one might go about creating a surreal conlang—neither naturalistic nor regular and artificial like an auxlang or engelang—and it went up on Fiat Lingua on January 1st. I think (or hope) it served as a useful jumping off point for conlangers who are looking to try something really different from what they've seen done elsewhere.
* * * * *
And that's it for 2023! I'm looking forward to posting more conlang articles next year. If you are a conlanger, a conlang-researcher, or conlang fan who has something to say in .pdf format about a specific conlang or conlanging in general, please consider submitting something to Fiat Lingua! We take any and all articles related to conlanging in whatever form you have them. I'm also happy to help you think up ideas, or refine those ideas you have. There is no strong review like in a fancy journal: I just want to get what you have up. I'm especially in interested in hosting personal conlang stories—stories about how or why you started to create a language, or your experience creating your own language—personal stories that are often lost, but are so vital, as there is an absolute dearth of literature about conlangers! If you think you have even the seed of an idea, please get a hold of me! I want to share as many stories and ideas as I can.
I read the article, these are all such cool concepts!
I must. I must say @dedalvs got my absolute and utmost attention. I will read this in detail tomorrow morn.
https://fiatlingua.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/fl-000088-00.pdf
Once or twice every few weeks they'll just switch. People get used to it
i think if jessie and james teamrocket transitioned theyd just switch their names and call it a day. or this already happened. this is my one true belief
yes i know i'm in the new hbomb video and i was plagiarized by james somerton. if you want to read the article i wrote that he plagiarized, here it is:
if you enjoyed this essay, please check out aftermath.site, my beautiful baby worker owned website! we are 100% subscriber supported and don't run any ads, and also we don't do any plagiarism. thanks!