im not saying office jobs aren’t bad in some ways but its always very telling when people treat it like the WORST job at the bottom of the rung…because they have never had to face manual labor as a real option they would ever be forced to take.

its just like, idk, alienating coming from a family of manual laborers and factory workers without college degrees, to see theres this entire part of society that cannot relate to that life. that like, going to college and “”working in the rat race”” is the rock bottom (with benefits and holidays off and your work being so frivolous a whole part of the culture is just pretending to look busy so you don’t get more work). idk man. i hate it down here.

I can think of no better example of this attitude than when COVID first hit and the people with office jobs not only had the ability to work from home, but became pretty much the only ones acknowledged in mainstream consciousness.

So many people just being like, "Well now that we're all stuck indoors" as if "essential workers" didn't count, and virtually every commercial being like, "Welcome back!" after companies started making employees come back to the office, ignoring that some of us never "left" our work stations to begin with. Nowadays you see so many people say, "Remember when we were all indoors?" and I'm like...no, I don't actually, some of us never had that privilege.

Idk it's just incredibly demoralizing that non-office jobs are largely considered just so beneath consideration that we've even been (at least partially) erased from narratives surrounding COVID.

'what were you doing during quarantine?'

i was welding the railings on luxury boats for rich assholes while our ceo and management staff thanked us ever so nicely for risking our lives.... from safely behind their zoom screens.

that kind of anger doesn't go away. you just live with it burning a hole in your heart forever.

People like us, the "essential workers", the healthcare workers and manual laborers and janitors and "unskilled" laborers, were risking infection every day without any proper protection unless we fought for it, and even then it was only given begrudgingly.

It's the same as with all safety regulations and rights throughout history: written in our blood.

I know that realistically you can only fit so many movies into a list of approximately 100, but I cannot take that "How many of tumblr's favorite movies have you seen?" list that's been going around seriously because there are some truly egregious omissions.

Some of it is very clearly recency bias, which makes me wonder if the op truly wasn't on here in 2013 or so, but you're telling me you made a list of "tumblr's favorite movies" that doesn't include Pacific Rim or Mad Max: Fury Road? Because, like, I was there, Gandalf.

I'm a ridiculous human and genuinely couldn't sleep until I tried my hand at a better, more balanced list -- though of course, I have my own biases when it comes to what corners of this website I've lurked in over the years. For what it's worth, I did consult the last several Years In Review, while also drawing on the fact that I've been here for over a decade. But if there's anything that truly doesn't feel like it should have made the cut, blame my mutuals for putting it on my dash all the time.

(And apologies, but I couldn't seem to find Goncharov among the website's listings)

Rick Maserati or whoever

Does anyone wanna know abt my Riddlebat cowboy au 😞

Okay i just got online after a while and realized people ACTUALLY WANT THIS AU, i thought this finna get like 100 likes and buried in my account 😭

If you read the fic, leave the kudos. Leave a comment too, if possible. Just do it. It takes a few seconds of your time and it means the world to the writer.

Sincerely, me who just got told that my writing feels like watching a blockbuster movie. I don't care if they were sincere or not, I'll be thinking about that comment for the rest of my life and every time I feel bad about my art, I'll remember that someone once liked it.

Hey if you own a business I need you to repeat after me:

we need to have a way to post a pdf directly to tumblr. tumblr should have another post type called "pdf" so we can embed them easily. tumblr will never be the new pdf without this function.

who tf is saying no here, who are you and are you chronically offline

i have found out american news before americans find out about it

https://vm.tiktok.com/ZTdQuxw52/

I think I found my new favorite rabbit hole. This voice actor does Shakespeare scenes in a southern accent and I need to see the whole damn play. Absolutely beautiful

if you're not from the us american south, there's some amazing nuances to this you may have missed. i can't really describe all of them, because i've lived here my whole life and a lot of the body language is sort of a native tongue thing. the body language is its own language, and i am not so great at teaching language. i do know i instinctively sucked on my lower teeth at the same time as he did, and when he scratched the side of his face, i was ready to take up fucking arms with him.

but y'all. the way he said "brutus is an honourable man" - each and every time it changed just a little. it was the full condemnation Shakespeare wanted it to be. it started off slightly mock sincere. barely trying to cover the sarcasm. by the end...it wasn't a threat, it was a promise.

christ, he's good.

the eliding of “you all” to “y’all” while still maintaining 2 syllables is a deliberate and brilliant act of violence. “bear with me” said exactly like i’ve heard it at every funeral. the choices of breaking and re-establishing of eye contact. the balance of rehearsed and improvised tone. A+++ get this man a hollywood contract.

This gets better every time I watch it.

The bravest character of Grishaverse is the Darkling for putting one foot in front of another over and over even though the whole world does its best to destroy everything he set his mind to accomplish. For the unfaltering determination to face the impossible no matter the cost, no matter how long it will take. For operating on a time scale barely anyone can even imagine and not giving up until the end, then picking up where he left off as soon as he's dragged back again.

Dudes healthcare is so fake. My ADHD meds are $940 without insurance. But they gave me a website of "coupons" which straight up looks like a scam website, and I got it today for $60! Just a coupon from a random website and it was $900 cheaper. America, I am confusion!! America explain!!

For all my uninsured judys out there it's for Walgreens only: walgreens.rxsense.com

as a pharmacy technician i can share with you some websites that give you those "coupons" for your meds!

goodrx is the most well known one, but if i'm trying to find the cheapest price for a patient i compare it to scriptcycle, and use whichever is offering the best price. you just type in the medication (PLEASE make sure you're getting the right drug, dosage, and quantity) and your zip code and they will spit out some offers for you

some pharmacies may have their own discount card to compare to as well!

if you are getting a name brand medication, you can also look at the manufacturer's website to see if they offer any evouchers for you to use too

good luck out there 👍

How to Pay Hospital Bills When You’re Flat Broke

another one is singlecare.com, brought my duloxetine from $240 a month to $20

and there are coupons for hrt on there as well :) different options for different pharmacies

Also remember to talk with your doctors directly about your financial hardship! I was concerned about being shut off from a program that handled my meds for free, they put me on a generic med and set me up with a copay card. $1,700/mo down to $0. Fuck American healthcare, but do not let yourself get lost in the ‘first price’.

This Grocery Gal is particularly special to me. Like Old Bay and Natty Boh, if you grew up in Maryland and don’t like Utz Snacks, they revoke your state citizenship. I don’t make the rules, folks.

I see something deeply unsettling in the way some young people approach Aleksander. It’s not just that they dislike him, that's fair, everyone is entitled to their opinion. But the level of hatred they express is not only disproportionate to their understanding, it feels like a performance. It’s not rooted in genuine engagement or critique but in sheer emotional outbursts: shouting, mocking, name-calling, and vilifying him in ways that feel more like a show than anything else. What’s most troubling is how loud this condemnation is and how empty it is in terms of actual understanding. We’re living in a time when emotional intelligence, trauma awareness, and social consciousness are celebrated, so why is it so difficult for these young viewers to extend those same values to a character like Aleksander? The speed at which they abandon the very principles they claim to uphold the moment a character challenges their worldview is amazing. Aleksander isn’t some mindless villain or sadistic monster, no matter how often they says he is. His actions are born from years of pain, betrayal, loss, and an overwhelming need to protect his people from history repeating itself. Yet, instead of attempting to understand the deeper layers of his character, the response is pure disdain. These are the same people who claim to care about empathy for trauma survivors, who value moral ambiguity in characters, and yet Aleksander gets nothing but rejection. It’s not just that they don’t like him, it’s that they refuse to understand him. They throw around words like "manipulator", "villain", "monster", "groomer", without even considering whether they apply in his case. They strip away centuries of his personal suffering, the weight of his decisions, the heartbreak and loneliness he carries, and reduce him to nothing more than a one-dimensional bad guy. And here’s the thing: they don’t hate him because he’s evil. They hate him because he’s complex. Because he challenges their understanding of good and evil. He forces them to think and wrestle with moral grey areas. And instead of taking that challenge, they retreat into their comfort zones and shout louder.It’s a kind of intellectual cowardice, really. It’s easier to dismiss a character like Aleksander with a label than to sit with the discomfort of trying to understand his motivations. But here's the thing: Aleksander doesn’t need to be loved by them unconditionally. He doesn’t need to be idolized by them. But he does deserve to be understood. And it seems to me that too many of these young voices, who claim to appreciate complexity, are either unwilling or unable to do that. The more mature readers and viewers, those who’ve lived long enough to understand that life isn’t just black and white don’t shout or blindly condemn. They reflect. They see that Aleksander’s actions were shaped by survival, by war, by love, and by loss. They see the tragedy of a man who has lived for centuries in isolation, carrying the burden of all that pain. They understand that his greatest tragedy wasn’t his downfall, but the fact that no one ever really saw him. Not his mother and not his lover. And, tragically, not those who claim to be his critics. Younger generation claims to be champions of complexity and nuance, and yet, when faced with a character like Aleksander who is drenched in sorrow and burdened with trauma they shrink. They refuse to engage. They diminish him. They condemn him. And all the while, they shout, not to uncover the truth, but to silence it.

It’s frustrating, honestly. Because it’s not about blindly supporting Aleksander, it’s about having the maturity to look beyond the surface, to understand what makes him tick, and to ask yourself: Why does he do what he does? But sadly, the loudest voices seem too focused on proving their moral superiority to take the time to ask that question. And in doing so, they miss the real story. That's why I think that Aleksander would be perfect for a genre intended for an older audience, but more on that next time.

This fandom is filled with sheer idiocy and cheap moral posturing so much it feels like a knitting club for old bitter hags.

It's tragic how some fans don't even want to think for themselves, they swallow everything the author spoonfeeds them and are ready to defend the most asinine writing decisions just to pat themselves on the back for "correctly" understanding the books.

It's not only about Aleksander, it's about pretty much everything. Dithering between "she never wanted power" and "she was too power-hungry and should have been punished" while justifying Alina's atrocious ending, or desperately trying to explain that Zoya's Mary-Sueish powers are cool and natural, while Alina's were bad and corrupted. It's almost entertaining to see people being served an absolute hatchet job of a book and squirming trying to convince everyone it's a literary masterpiece.

taragreenfield I completely agree with you. The role of the reader is not to mindlessly accept everything the author presents as flawless or beyond criticism, but to critically and thoughtfully engage with the material. The idea that fans should just swallow whatever is served up to them, no matter how poorly it is executed or how illogical the story elements may be, is both mind-boggling and frustrating. It's important to question and analyze - to look beyond the surface and ask why things are the way they are and whether they make sense at all. This fandom, especially a certain part of it, tends to accept every absurdity served by LB. The topic of war, persecution, toxic relationship (Malina), Grisha system of small science - all this is neglected and at some point, the further into the story, the less logical it becomes, but the youngster treats it as sacred.

It’s easy to get carried away by the excitement of being part of a fandom and defend a story because it’s “popular” or because it’s connected to our emotional connection to the characters, but that doesn’t mean we should ignore the flaws, especially when they’re so glaring. When it comes to characters like Alina or Zoya, or decisions like Aleksander’s arc, the fandom shouldn’t just give in to whatever the author wants to serve up. It’s not a crime to question those choices or object to things that don’t hold up to scrutiny.

"intelectual cowardice"

Not to mention Genya and their acceptance -- nay, their blind insistence -- that she is and never was anything but a victim, rather than a woman with few choices and who, like Aleksander, was nothing but property, and then right after making a sensible choice proceeded to do one of the most baffling 180s I have ever seen outside of bad fanfiction.

Or the Apparat, who only appears when convenient and otherwise vanishes completely from the story because he has been forgotten until he's needed. Or the frankly cultlike upbringing Alina and Malfeasance had that was never brought up but has massive impacts on the story, only for the author to pretend it doesn't exist...

In the hands of a more competent author and in the context of a more mature story, what could we have gotten instead?

(Also I am once again asking readers of this series who haven't already to read some Russian literature)

i should be able to go to Costco and pick up a 500 count bottle of generic adderall xr and the fact that I cannot is frankly both ableist AND homophobic

moreover ICE must be destroyed

If they raise the price on the fucking 500 count generic adderall, I will kill them.