Rants: In Point Form

Controversial opinions. Very mini-rants. Who knows, who cares. Maybe I shouldn't even state them, but that's tantamount to lying, and everybody knows that telling fibs is naughty. Besides which, if you really do end up with bundled underpants from reading some random cat on the internet's opinions that don't align with your own...babycakes, that's looking more like a you problem from my viewpoint.

There are some swear words on this page. Children should not be reading it, but then again, children should not be reading anything on this site. If you're the type of adult that thinks that's uncouth or immature or any of that other twaddle, I invite you not to go away, but to ...depart. >:3

whine whine whine!

Shall we categorise this? Of course we shall. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

writing is hell

• I don't give a damn about teens writing bad fanfic for funsies -- just don't expect me to read it for fun, that's all. There's no harm in them writing it, and no harm in my choosing not to read it unless I've been explicitly asked for concrit.
• That being said, I also don't give a damn about your OC or your self-insert if they're inserted into a fictional world that already exists. I just don't. When I go looking for fanfic, I'm looking for other people's views of and adventures with characters I already know and love, I want to see them through someone else's eyes. I cannot care less about Cecelia the purple-haired half-orc elven archer if she's presenting to me in a Lord of the Rings framework -- I'm here to read about Elrond and Galadriel, not a random nobody. Not sorry. I certainly don't think you should stop WRITING that kind of fic, and if you enjoy reading it, more power to you -- but I don't, and I'm not a bad person for not doing so, and you shouldn't expect OCs to be universally appealing. (If Cecelia the half-orc was presented to me in a D&D game, or in her own universe, I just may care about her, if she's not a Mary Sue. Which leads us to...)
• I do give a damn about Mary Sues in the classic sense -- overpowered, generally flawless characters (and overwhemingly often, badly disguised self-inserts) -- and I give a serious damn about this weird new self-obsessed thing where everybody's supposed to love all Mary Sues. Excuse me, exactly what? Am I supposed to like bad grammar and mispellings next? I don't know if people are conflating the term 'Mary Sue' with the term 'self-insert' (they are NOT the same thing; a self-insert can be a well-rounded, likeable, flawed character that adds value to the story -- a Mary Sue never can), but handwaving Mary Sues as a legitimate okay thing to write? As an adult or a serious writer? Be so for real, for five minutes. Sometimes the truth hurts: Mary Sues are bad writing. Nobody has to even like them, let alone love them. If you want people to be better writers, teach them to avoid Mary Sueing the place up.
• Almost all amateur rhyming poetry is just twee twaddle that I do not have the patience to pretend is enjoyable. Poetry does not have to rhyme to be 'real' poetry, ffs -- that's a European conceit, anyway, mostly French. Rhyming was never English's forte; it's far too ragtag a language.
• I cannot make myself like my fellow modern poets, for the most part. I don't mind being pretentious, obviously -- I mind people who think that hitting an enter button is effort. Art is subjective, but effort is not, so go do the obvious already. Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace have ruined a whole generation of creative minds. I don't give a flying dessert fork if their subject matter is trauma. Because...
• ...writing about trauma and other bleak subjects do not exclude you from criticism! Why does this even need to be stated.
• "Published" does not mean "good". Published means one thing: marketable. That's literally it. I mean, hello? "Fifty Shades of Grey" already. "After", ffs! "ALCHEMISED", GOD SPARE ME.

ew people

• Just because someone's made an uncountable amount of money does not necessarily mean they're a good person, OR that they worked hard to get it. Don't tell me a nepo baby or some public nuisance jackass on YouTube is owed my respect for having more money than me. Kiss my poverty-stricken backside and go touch some grass. Try not to poison it when you do.
• Babies are gross, and everyone's baby looks exactly like every other baby. The thought of "coffee and baby cuddles!" as a way to spend a morning sounds like hell to me.
• I'm not even asexual, but I'm bored to death of (mostly heterosexual) sex. It's become such an overused theme in everything that it's just headachingly dull. Dull to read about, dull to see on screen, dull dull dull dull.
• There is no male loneliness epidemic; just a human one. If the all the sigmabro lackwits are too stupid to believe that yes, women are lonely as hell too, then that's their problem; you can't cure stupid. Also, suppose the loneliness epidemic WAS a male thing -- why do you think it's up to women to fix it, you stupid chuds? Try hanging out with your bros more often and stop being a misogynistic asshole, the results may surprise you.
• My god I despise people who conflate Scottish culture/mythology with Irish culture/mythology. They are two separate things. Just because they have shared roots does not mean they're identical, remotely!
• I hate anyone who says that Scots is not a legitimate language, or is just "writing in an accent". Get tae fuck wi ye, glaikit gowk.
• Anyone who has to claim over and over that their mummy says they're a good person and their friends do, too...is not a good person. And you cannot use this as a legitimate get-out-of-abusing-someone-free card, either.
• People who handwave abuse as "bullying" in an attempt to look like honestly humble and penitent saints are absolute filth. Own your vicious shit or shut your mouth wholly on the topic. Your mummy and your besties think you're wonderful, don't they? Isn't that enough? Sit the hell down, abuser. You're vile.
• "But I'm autistic!" is not an excuse for being a cruel person. Says the mean autistic.
• If I can barely muster enough enthusiasm about my own gender to remember what it is (...girl? I think?), please don't expect me to give more than the requisite hoorah about yours -- yay, you have a gender. That's the best I can do. I'll accept whatever you say it is (literally, who would know better than you?) and use whatever pronouns you want, provided my brainfogged ass can remember all the weird ones outside he/she/they, but that's about as excited as I can get about it all. Sorry. I'm exhausted. Congrats on the gender, though? (Or lack thereof?)
• Sorry, I don't believe you're actually a wolf in a human's body/an elf princess in a past life, and that shouldn't matter to you. If you really, truly, wholeheartedly believe you are, that statement won't mean anything. If it makes you angry and you're desperate to change my mind, once again...that's a you thing, babes, not a me thing. If some random bitch not believing in otherkin makes you doubt your own identity...just how strong is your belief in it, really?
• System-hopping is not a thing. Stop saying it is. Nine out of ten times it's used as a manipulation tactic and it's vile. End of. Stop dragging a stupid fluffy spiritual belief into a scientifically proven disability that RUINS LIVES. Not remotely sorry. Grow up.

we live in a society

• The oil industry is a whole bag of irritating gnats on tens of thousands of levels, but I think Just Stop Oil are mostly in it for their own egos. I doubt they'd roll up their sleeves and do serious work if someone told them it would be more effective than showing off at a museum or ruining a musical, especially if it meant there'd be no clout involved.
• If you have enough money to buy a personalised rego plate, you have too much money.
• All meds should be free. The 1% could pay for this all by themselves and still be the 1%. Medication should be a human right, not a luxury.
• The medical industry's kneejerk response to the opioid epidemic becoming common knowledge of making painkillers a million times more difficult for people in genuine pain has destroyed lives and left as many dead bodies as the epidemic itself. Look, to put it very crassly...junkies gonna junk. That's what they do. They are sick and desperate and addiction is an illness; you aren't going to cure that illness by making NO changes except making the one thing that lets people in moderate to severe pain live somewhat decent lives harder to get your hands on. You aren't helping the addicts, either! Sure, opioids used irresponsibly can kill. You know what else kills? SEVERE CHRONIC PAIN.

I hate the internet

• Purposefully bad webdesign and obnoxiously bright colours make me roll my eyes. If I'm hit with a shitty moving gif on a splash page, I'm highly likely to click off immediately and just visit some other site. It's not retro, it's pathetic, and you're not being ironic, you're being dull. It was rubbish in '99 and it's rubbish now.
• Copying is not love, especially copying without credit, and that whole movement is dangerous and does not promote learning. Copying is lazy and just says all you see someone else's work as is something to benefit your slovenly ass. Learn HTML, it's not remotely hard -- hand on my heart, it really isn't. Hell, use a WYSIWIG program to help you do so (I will fight anyone who says you can't, btw). Just keep your lazy paws off my work.
• The Yesterweb was a cult. A ridiculous one, no less.
• If you claim to be anti-AI and spend the majority of your time blocking anyone who even mentions the words "AI", and yet can't be bothered to signal boost an actual issue that hurts creatives concerning generative AI, you're just a performative clout-chaser. You're not helping anything except your own ego.
• If you're a creative and you use generative AI, you are part of the problem, if not the worst part.
• The only thing generative AI should be used for is comedy. No AI will ever be able to create a non-horrific image, and no human will ever create anything as hilarious as "Harry Potter and the Portrait of What Looked Like a Large Pile of Ash".
• "HPTPWLLLPA" is better than all the drivel that J.K. Terfling spat out over her whole career. Jus' sayin'.

and finally, on that note

• I was right about all my criticisms of the TERF's IP when I was seventeen and already over the whole thing (ie, it was boring, derivative, problematic, the main character had no personality, the author herself skeeved me out, and The Worst Witch did it all long before and a thousand times better). Schadenfreude has never tasted so sweet.