Month: March 2017
I drew Kisumi this time.
White collar office workers looking down on minimum wage fast food workers…
You go into your job, you piddle around getting coffee and getting “set up” every morning when you’re on the clock, you spend an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon on Facebook, you mess around on the internet in between that, and you have a custodial staff cleaning up after you.
You don’t have to do the cleaning yourself. You don’t have bosses telling you “If you’ve got time to lean, you’ve got time to clean.” You have time to lean. You lean on your desk during the mid-afternoon slump and no one says anything except to remark on how many hours you have to go. You lean on your friend’s cubicle wall while you talk about the big game or your guild raid or who said what about whom on TV last night. Sure, if you do that too often or too obviously, someone will say something, but the mere fact that conversation happens isn’t automatically taken as a red flag that someone is stealing time from The Company.
You might have to kiss up to the boss or a touring client from time to time, but mostly, you don’t have to provide service with a smile or anything like that. You don’t have to smile and speak cheerfully and politely to customers who are making your job difficult by their apathy, entitlement, and disrespect. You can sit there and grimace and sneer and roll your eyes at the computer monitor, muttering under your breath (or speaking out loud to your neighbors) about what a live one you’re dealing with as you type out your considered and professional reply. Whatever your job is, you’re just expected to do it, not do it and perform the emotional labor of a continuous mask of unflappable perkiness.
Your schedule is not a weekly guessing game. It’s not set by someone playing chicken with the part-time/full-time boundary. You aren’t expected to come in before your shift to get everything set up or stay after you’ve clocked out in order to clean everything up for tomorrow. You don’t live in a state of constant tension between the fact that you don’t make enough money even with the hours they deign to give you and the fact that they give you hours designed to ensure you can’t have any life or commitments outside the job.
White collar workers are paid with the expectation that they will have done their jobs within the time that they spend in the office, not that they will have worked a solid 8 or 10 hours the entire time they were on the clock.
Minimum wage workers are treated like if they aren’t performing two or three jobs the entire time they’re on the clocks, they’re stealing their wages.
Source: I have worked white collar office jobs, and listened to my friends who have worked minimum wage service jobs. I could probably still do the former, if I hadn’t transitioned and if transportation weren’t an issue. I know for a fact I could not do the latter.
I have worked both types of jobs and this is very accurate.
even the micromanaged white collar jobs are still less intensely policed than minimum wage jobs.
To every fucking Desk Jockey calling fast food workers “Burger Flippers”
I’ve done both this summer and it was super odd to have my “career path” job being something I could read every single new York Times op-ed over the course of while I had to be on basically constantly for my 9 an hour fake job
When IT works well, you have a lot of time to fuck around. If you’re good at your job, you have a lot of time to fuck around.
I came home from my fast food job FUCKING EXHAUSTED every fucking night. There was no standing around. There was no posting on LJ. I had more free time in the office IN THE MARINES than I did working fast food.
People who call fast food workers “lazy burger flippers” around me get an earful, because that is some bulllllllshit.
I’ve done food and retail, currently working white collar.
Yeah. Food workers are NOT lazy.
Aggressive Retsuko-san Episode 10 (subtitled)
I feel this episode on a deep spiritual level
(Source: http://popcornfrommars.tumblr.com/)
more yoi because idk
technology related sensory memories from my childhood
- sliding the metal cover on floppy disks
- the slight resistance of inserting cassette and video tapes
- ripping off the strips of holed paper off of dot matrix printer paper
- rolling the wheel on a disposable camera to take another photo
The heaviness and rubber texture of the roller ball in a computer mouse, and the little ring of lint
Unkinking the curly cord of a telephone while you talked
The -peww sound and slowly fading image of a crt monitor turning off, and then running your finger through the static on the dusty glass
The crunch of opening or closing a plastic Disney vhs cover
The sound effects in kidpix
Extending and collapsing metal antennas and using them as magic wands
…God, it is so weird these things aren’t around any more. Cause it’s true, the sensations are so distinct. It’s bizarre to think about missing these tiny relics.
I just read this super sad post about this girl who’s asexual and married and everyone is basically telling her that she doesn’t deserve her husband/she’s just a prude/she should just do it anyway.
So I want to tell you all right now that if people tell you this, or if they tell you you’ll never have a relationship, it is BULLSHIT.
My husband is asexual and I’m not. He’s sex repulsed, we don’t have sex, we never have.
And it doesn’t matter to me. You know what does? He does. His mental health and wellbeing matter to me. Because he is my best friend and he’s one of the smartest, kindest, funniest people I’ve ever met. And he’s had people tel him that he’s broken and it makes me SO ANGRY because they are WRONG.
Being different doesnt mean you’re broken.
If you don’t like sex/don’t want it/etc. Do not let anyone tell you that you’re inferior because you’re not.
Do not let anyone convice you that you’ll never have a relationship because they’re wrong(if you want one).
You are not broken, and it will be okay.This made me feel really good. Remember this, for all my ace spectrum friends out there
#it’s really reassuring to hear from the partner #the one who’s not ace #but is totally cool with having no sex #loves her husband anyway #is in a stable and happy relationship #it’s such a relief when you discover that asexuality is a thing #that you’re okay #but then you start to wonder if it means your only chance at not ending up alone is finding someone else who’s also ace #but no #turns out it’s not #that’s really good to hear #so #thanks #so ace #so space
I hope you don’t mind me reblogging your tags but these are my feelings EXACTLY
I’m always a little nervous that I’m not “good enough” for a “real relationship” because sex isn’t on the table. So yeah, these stories are reassuring
The amount of pressure from society to have sex is incredible. We’re told it’s linked to relationship health and if you’re not willing to do every damn thing you’re labeled a prude. It’s incredibly disheartening, especially considering how one’s libido can change over the years even if you’re not ace. Nice to see a supportive piece from a partner.
OK, kids, buckle up it’s story time.
When I got married, I hadn’t had sex yet. Waiting until marriage was important to me, so that’s what I did. My wedding night was the first time I had sex.
It sucked.
I figured, ok, this is new for both of us, it’s probably going to take some practice.
A year later? It still sucked We tried a lot of different stuff. A lot of different stuff.
It sucked so bad, we even bought a copy of “Sex for Dummies”.
(it didn’t help)
I started working late so I didn’t go to bed at the same time as my husband. Every time he would travel for work, I’d be grateful that I didn’t have to go through the awkwardness of avoiding his advances when I went to bed.
He didn’t think it was healthy for a newlywed couple to have sex less than once a week. So we scheduled it. Repeat, scheduled intimacy. I thought I was putting on a brave face and doing what I needed to do to maintain a good relationship.
Because I had no idea that asexuality was a thing.
I talked to my husband, told him I didn’t like sex. He didn’t understand. I lost track of how many times I said: “It’s not that I don’t want to have sex with you. I don’t want to have sex with anyone.”
So it was established, Amber doesn’t like sex.
But we still did it. Because I wanted my husband to be happy. Sometimes halfway through, I’d start crying.
And he’d always be supportive, and apologize.
After he finished.
So when I found out about asexuality, and told him how I felt, he suggested I go to a doctor. Because obviously there was something wrong with me.
So I went to a doctor.
(surprise, surprise, I’m perfectly healthy)
Then I told my mom. When she suggested meds to improve my sex drive, I broke down in tears. I told her there was nothing wrong with me. And my mom has been 100% supportive of my orientation ever since. When people ask if I’m a lesbian, she teaches them about asexuality.
But anyway back to my journey of self-discovery
So I tell my husband, I’m asexual, I don’t want to have sex. You are not asexual, you do want to have sex. One of us is going to be miserable in this relationship, and I’m tired of it being me. I love you too much to make you miserable for the rest of your life, but I love myself too much to be miserable for the rest of my life. We might have to face the fact that we’re not right for each other.
So his immediate response is “no, I can change, I’ll do anything, divorce is not an option, etc”
But I can’t exactly ask him to stop wanting to have sex. Because that’s not how allosexual people work. And he can’t seduce me into wanting to have sex, because that’s not how asexual people work.
Anyway. He cries, I cry, we decide on marriage counseling to help our comunication.
Because we’d been married for almost 6 years by this point, and had been together for 3 years before that, and we still can’t really talk about what we want (or don’t want) in regards to sex.
So we go to counselling for 6 weeks. The first 3 sessions individually, and the last 3 together. During the together sessions, the therapist would prompt us with a question, and we’d talk to each other, being completely honest about things.
During (what turned out to be) our last session, I’d finally had enough. I’d had enough of being embarrassed about what anyone else would think. Enough of the gender roles I was being forced into. Enough of paying someone to watch me talk to my husband. Enough of pretending to salvage a relationship that I had been increasingly avoiding over the past 2 years, and I said:
“Josh, I love you. We have communication problems, but we’ve been together almost ten years and I’m willing to work through those if you think we can make it work. But I am never having sex with you again.”
(At this point, the therapist who’d been trying to get us to communicate put down her notebook and said, ok I think we’re done.)
Then and only then, did he agree to file for divorce.
—————–
I say all that to say this:
Don’t you dare fucking tell me that asexual representation doesn’t matter. I would have six years of my life back if I had known.
And if you’re in a relationship, talk to each other oh my God. About everything. What dream you had last night. That song from scout camp that randomly gets stuck in your head. The reason you don’t like sweet potato. That embarrassing thing you did in third grade that still makes you mad when you think about it. If you and your partner can share these tiny, intimate details, talking about sex is no big deal. And it takes practice, so practice.
————–
On a happy note, now, 3 years after the divorce, I am in a happy, stable relationship with another ace. And if you happen to ask my mom how I’m doing, she’ll tell you “I’ve never seen my baby girl happier.”
It gets better. But it’s up to you to make it that way.
@theonetheonlyjordanelizabeth please read this ❤️ I may be sex repulsed but I know that I love you and thats what matters ✨
I know this is already really long and really informative, but I also wanted to add a partner’s perspective. I too, have an ace fiancee. I knew about it before our relationship. I didn’t know it was a thing until I met her, and that was huge to me because I learned something new and also came to understand an old friend a little better.
I, on the other hand, am not ace. I am at the complete opposite end of the spectrum. I am pansexual, and she has a hard time I think coming to terms with the fact that I don’t want to make her have sex.
Like, ‘Really?’ you might ask me. Like really is my only reply. I have loved her for a long time now, and being we met over Tumblr and we knew one another before the relationship, sex isn’t a big deal in our relationship. and I can think of at least ten of my friends who would feel the same way right now.
ASEXUALITY IS A REAL THING, LOVING, SWEET ACE RELATIONSHIPS ARE REAL! Just because your partner wants sex doesn’t make you broken. Just because you don’t want sex doesn’t mean you should have to force yourself to do so.
Just be honest with one another, love one another. If a relationship can’t survive a healthy, honest conversation, then it wasn’t a very strong relationship to begin with.
TL;DR People who can’t see past sex as a ‘core’ in a relationship with someone ace/sex repulsed is an asshole.
I’d be really really interested omg what are the tricks to ao3
could probably write a mini analysis on reading and uploading patterns of the yoi ao3 tag fml that’s how much i’ve been observing it
unfortunately sunday and saturday are when people are most likely to to be reading fanfiction since its the weekend; you just have to come to terms with the fact that your fic may be smack all the way to page three in a few hours and lost in 11 pages by the end of the day. its a gamble
under readmore bc this is a little long
Here is a version with just Viktor and Yuuri, in case that was of interest. I really like that dress. ;A;
Girls love each other like animals. There is something ferocious and unself-conscious about it. We don’t guard ourselves like we do with boys. No one trains us to shield our hearts from each other. With girls, it’s total vulnerability from the beginning. Our skin is bare and soft. We love with claws and teeth and the blood is just proof of how much. It’s feral.
And it’s relentless.
Leah Raeder, Black Iris. (via empiregrotesk)