B!tchfest: a healthy release for our non-roleplay annoyances.

[Mao Mao]

Well, I have officially lost faith in humanity. It is going to be a long time before the nation unites together once again.

[Vilageidiotx]

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

The Simpsons made their Trump episode after Trump already announced he was going to run. It wasn't a "wow the Simpsons predicted it" thing, though people tried to make that a meme.

But let's be honest here: Trump is famous for far more than his time on Celebrity Apprentice. He was practically the king of NYC in the last couple decades of the 20th century. He was invited to numerous talk shows to explain business, economics, and success. He was getting along with the common man long before he was ever running for President. He's been a household name since the 70's. The only people who see him as a punchline are people who don't know his history outside of the media narrative.

@j8cob

I am aware that he isn't simply his public persona, but the reality is that he was primarily known as his public persona. The "Guy from the Apprentice" narrative wasn't sewn from whole cloth in the last fifteen months by the media to smear a guy who had previously been seen as an Alan Greenspan type figure.

You go back six years ago when we didn't consider him a mostly political figure and you'd find people looking at him as that guy who builds flashy casinos with his name on it and yells at Gary Busey on television. Imma assume that most people haven't exactly read his book, for instance.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

What I meant regarding the collision of cultures was that people allowed for too much interconnection between races/ethnicities which resulted in a society where none of the participants can be truly happy.

While it may be true that culture itself changes, it should change naturally in an attempt to serve it's people. Culture is a representation of a certain racial/ethnic identity. As soon as the identity outpaces the culture or vice versa, there begins a stagnation and decline in society. You see this with the Roman Empire, where it eventually became flooded with individuals who were decidedly not Roman and did not conform to the practices of the Romans to such an extent where it preserved peace.

To say that a people and their values can be so malleable that they should not be preserved is a dangerous path to tread.

@Didgeridont

Well, first and foremost I think your reading of the situation between races isn't quite true. There are still racial divides in this country this is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I live in a pretty mixed working class area and, everyone here being part of the same regional class culture, we get along pretty damned naturally despite race. If I drive downtown into the ghetto, or conversely if a black neighbor or co-worker went to a small town in the hills, then yeh, there is problems. But speaking of the part of the city I live in, I have more in common with a black neighbor than I do with a white man from Beverly Hills.

And I agree, cultures should be allowed to change naturally. That's kind of what I am saying actually. What I have just described is my natural cultural condition, but your theory seems to assume it is invalid and that I and my neighbors need to be artificially segregated so that I experience my culture more in line with your idea with what it should be than what it actually is. Which is to say simply that I find your concept too bizarre and rigid to ever allow me or those around me to experience culture naturally. There would have to be a culture Gestapo around telling me what Didgeridont requires my culture to be. Historically some regimes have tried it, and historically it doesn't work. The Soviets tried to enforce a culture and the people rejected it a few generations later. Franco attempted the same thing in Spain and the people rejected it only a couple of generations later. Culture is a moving thing, and if you put it behind a dam it only cracks the dam and floods outward on it's own.

And the Roman Empire doesn't work as an example. In the Mediterranean, particularly the eastern half, they absorbed cultures that were decidedly unroman and allowed them to practice their culture, and even their religion, so long as they followed civic law and refrained from converting people to cults. These places Romanticized slowly through a natural process of cultural drift. They had divisive citizenship laws this is true, but as time went on citizenship laws, for your average person, mostly just affected where you sat on the tax base. It's in the decadence of the post-Severan collapse that they begin to hold Germanic tribes introduced into their borders at arms length instead of integrating them, dividing the Empire into increasingly competitive power bases in the last century until those power bases basically tear the thing apart. They couldn't have kept those barbarians out because... well, they tried, they simply couldn't afford to. But by holding them at arms length instead of integrating them, they created the conditions for the empire to fracture as those Germanic power bases became independent.

[Dion]

And it makes America the punchline of a very unfunny joke.

@Gowi

I'd agree if it weren't for the fact that this is the American people's own fault. It's not an unfunny joke, it's a reality that shows what happens when you have a failing election process but everyone is too busy talking about memes, libtards, alt-right Pepe hatespeech (like what even?) to be concerned with the one thing that might've changed shit.

[Volenvradica]

Job searching anxiety, seasonal depression, plus the aftermath of the election. Came out and told my sister that I was bisexual, but she called me "traitor to the LGBTQ" for wanting to take a more Libertarian approach on the subject of marriage equality. To top it off, I think I've lost another friend who is just so angry and bitter that she would sooner busy herself reaffirming her regressive leftist views on Facebook than to even acknowledge me.

I want to say that I am sadly depressed, but I laugh when I watch the violence being inflicted upon on both Trump supporters and those who opposed him. I want to say I am cynical, yet I long for a more unified America where everyone can find some common ground despite their differences. I want to say I love my country, but for fuck's sake I voted for Char Aznable.

I want to weep for hours when the most honest thing I can say is "I am dead inside."

[Didgeridont]

<Snipped quote by j8cob>

I am aware that he isn't simply his public persona, but the reality is that he was primarily known as his public persona. The "Guy from the Apprentice" narrative wasn't sewn from whole cloth in the last fifteen months by the media to smear a guy who had previously been seen as an Alan Greenspan type figure.

You go back six years ago when we didn't consider him a mostly political figure and you'd find people looking at him as that guy who builds flashy casinos with his name on it and yells at Gary Busey on television. Imma assume that most people haven't exactly read his book, for instance.

<Snipped quote by Didgeridont>

Well, first and foremost I think your reading of the situation between races isn't quite true. There are still racial divides in this country this is true, but it doesn't tell the whole story. I live in a pretty mixed working class area and, everyone here being part of the same regional class culture, we get along pretty damned naturally despite race. If I drive downtown into the ghetto, or conversely if a black neighbor or co-worker went to a small town in the hills, then yeh, there is problems. But speaking of the part of the city I live in, I have more in common with a black neighbor than I do with a white man from Beverly Hills.

And I agree, cultures should be allowed to change naturally. That's kind of what I am saying actually. What I have just described is my natural cultural condition, but your theory seems to assume it is invalid and that I and my neighbors need to be artificially segregated so that I experience my culture more in line with your idea with what it should be than what it actually is. Which is to say simply that I find your concept too bizarre and rigid to ever allow me or those around me to experience culture naturally. There would have to be a culture Gestapo around telling me what Didgeridont requires my culture to be. Historically some regimes have tried it, and historically it doesn't work. The Soviets tried to enforce a culture and the people rejected it a few generations later. Franco attempted the same thing in Spain and the people rejected it only a couple of generations later. Culture is a moving thing, and if you put it behind a dam it only cracks the dam and floods outward on it's own.

And the Roman Empire doesn't work as an example. In the Mediterranean, particularly the eastern half, they absorbed cultures that were decidedly unroman and allowed them to practice their culture, and even their religion, so long as they followed civic law and refrained from converting people to cults. These places Romanticized slowly through a natural process of cultural drift. They had divisive citizenship laws this is true, but as time went on citizenship laws, for your average person, mostly just affected where you sat on the tax base. It's in the decadence of the post-Severan collapse that they begin to hold Germanic tribes introduced into their borders at arms length instead of integrating them, dividing the Empire into increasingly competitive power bases in the last century until those power bases basically tear the thing apart. They couldn't have kept those barbarians out because... well, they tried, they simply couldn't afford to. But by holding them at arms length instead of integrating them, they created the conditions for the empire to fracture as those Germanic power bases became independent.

@Vilageidiotx

Perhaps you may indeed share some traits in your lifestyle with the people who live near you. I would rather chalk this up to the culturally chimeric nature of the West rather than any meaningful connection of true culture. You share little history with these people. You don't share a background in the food you like or the beliefs you hold. You wouldn't raise children in the same way as them and you weren't taught the same values as them. There may be some overlap in your social characteristics, but on the whole, you are unable to connect with these people in the same way you would connect with someone who looks and acts almost exactly like you. The common ground you find with them is not as ideal as the common ground you might find with a person of the same ethnic and cultural background as you. That is the root of human conflict - difference. Races are different, cultures are different, genders are different, individuals are different. As long as there is difference between us, there will be conflict, in some form, no matter how minute. A successful nation is built upon people who can find the most common ground between each other. Culture is spawned from that, and is meant to preserve the unity be encoding the ideological similarities of the people into a state where it becomes easy to absorb by people of that culture. You may share values with someone who looks and acts completely different to yourself, but the cultural connection between you is weak and will continue to be weak, mainly because you are too different.

Maybe the Roman Empire was too weak of an example. Perhaps a more modern example of the strife and discord that come from a drastic change in culture would be the rise of the Ayatollah in Iran. Granted, there was a political reason for the Iranian Revolution, with the overthrow of the Shah and all, but the strongest part of the movement was its focus on religious fundamentalism. Iran was becoming more and more Westernized as a result of the Shah and the influence of the U.S./Britain, and the rise of Islamic fundamentalism was a driving force in trying to destroy this Western influence. The culture within Iran was becoming too detached with the identity of many Iranian people. Naturally, they rebelled, and tried to reform their culture and society based on what they believed was more congruent with their national identity. We could argue about the degree of success this had, especially when you consider Iran today, however the one point you cannot argue is that the connection between a people and their defined culture is integral to social harmony.

[Spud]

Can the bitch tread be turned back into a bitch thread please? Make a Trump thread for this political bullshit or something.

Jesus people don't shit on about the Brexit half as much as Americans and their election.

Job searching anxiety, seasonal depression, plus the aftermath of the election. Came out and told my sister that I was bisexual, but she called me "traitor to the LGBTQ" for wanting to take a more Libertarian approach on the subject of marriage equality. To top it off, I think I've lost another friend who is just so angry and bitter that she would sooner busy herself reaffirming her regressive leftist views on Facebook than to even acknowledge me.

I want to say that I am sadly depressed, but I laugh when I watch the violence being inflicted upon on both Trump supporters and those who opposed him. I want to say I am cynical, yet I long for a more unified America where everyone can find some common ground despite their differences. I want to say I love my country, but for fuck's sake I voted for Char Aznable.

I want to weep for hours when the most honest thing I can say is "I am dead inside."

@Volenvradica

I'm sorry to hear that Volvenvradical. Friends can be incredibly fickle, focus on self-care, look after yourself because friends can let you down (or surprise you and be amazing, that happens too!) but you need to always keep yourself boosted up!!! Don't let yourself down because other people will and you shouldn't be your own worst enemy. Also, fuck your sisters opinion on your sexuality and approach to sexuality, its your opinion, you do what you like!!! Winter sucks, its dark and miserable and cold, but hey, chug down hotchocolate and sometimes it doesn't seem all that bad after all, seasonal positions for the christmas rush should be opening up soon so keep pushing out CV's, you're sure to get something till christmas if you keep searching, and if you're really really lucky, you'll stay on after the holiday period. YOU CAN DO IT!!!

[ScreenAcne]

@Volenvradica

Shit, brother. I'll be your motherfucking, online bandito and crispy dorrito. We can dust off the rust off and chill in PM or whatever if you got shade leaving left and right in the relationship circle. People get so caught up in invisible big ideas of politics that they don't see the grassy hills or the friends and families feels in their pursuit of what they only assume of what to be real.

I don't know if I want red rooms roaming the streets but I know unity is hard and people weren't really unified before more than they were tolerant and totting the boulder up the hill. America will be ok, buddy. I've seen some digit draggers on here from the Eagle Island and if people like that are trotting the towns, I'm sure they'll be able to talk it out and eat chicken nuggets together.

[pugbutter]

but for fuck's sake I voted for Char Aznable

@Volenvradica

Is this real?

I didn't come here to laugh at you but that's what I ended up doing anyway. Good job fam 😂👍

[j8cob]

Jesus people don't shit on about the Brexit half as much as Americans and their election.

@Spud

>implying the USA isn't objectively the most important country on Earth
>implying the race to decide the leader of the free world isn't more important than literally everything else happening

This is where I laugh.

[Dion]

@Volenvradica lol good luck with that

i've already decided that if by 30 my life isnt more impressive than what it is imma neck myself

and if that wasn't the greatest liberation i ever had i dont know what will be

[Vilageidiotx]

Can the bitch tread be turned back into a bitch thread please? Make a Trump thread for this political bullshit or something.

Jesus people don't shit on about the Brexit half as much as Americans and their election.

@Spud

Sure.

But really, wasn't Brexit all we talked about for a couple of weeks? It's only been four days since the election.

[Spud]

<Snipped quote by Spud>

Sure.

But really, wasn't Brexit all we talked about for a couple of weeks? It's only been four days since the election.

@Vilageidiotx

Beats me, these things really need their own threads though tbh. Pretty sure there was a Brexit thread a while back but there could have been shitposting in here as well.
This is turning into a debate thread about Trump, would that not be better suited to a debate thread rather than a vent thread?

But hey, I don't make the rules, I just get blind-drunk and angry at them x'D

[Dinh AaronMk]

That feel when someone approaches you for a commission, you give them the price, they say it's good, and you ask for half up-front so I know this is serious and I get the green light to go. I get the half half on completion and satisfaction.

Still haven't gotten paid. It's been several days, and we were at a clip of a message a day between the two of us. I just had to remind him I'm waiting.

[Ailyn Evensen]

@Dinh AaronMk
That really sucks :/
Not being paid is one of the reasons I'm afraid to take commissions. No matter the art, we pour our hearts and souls into our work, and then more often than not, the requestor bails. Now I'm not familiar with your medium, but as for myself with my knit and crochet work, it's easier on me to make something and then sell it. It's probably what I'll stick to. If I did a commission, I'd probably ask for 75-100% up front to check their seriousness.

I really hope your requestor gets back to you and pays you.

[Spud]

That feel when someone approaches you for a commission, you give them the price, they say it's good, and you ask for half up-front so I know this is serious and I get the green light to go. I get the half half on completion and satisfaction.

Still haven't gotten paid. It's been several days, and we were at a clip of a message a day between the two of us. I just had to remind him I'm waiting.

@Dinh AaronMk

@Dinh AaronMk
That really sucks :/
Not being paid is one of the reasons I'm afraid to take commissions. No matter the art, we pour our hearts and souls into our work, and then more often than not, the requestor bails. Now I'm not familiar with your medium, but as for myself with my knit and crochet work, it's easier on me to make something and then sell it. It's probably what I'll stick to. If I did a commission, I'd probably ask for 75-100% up front to check their seriousness.

I really hope your requestor gets back to you and pays you.

@Ailyn Evensen

If you are doing digital work (e.g. web design, digital painting), take a photo (not a screen shot!) or a video of the finished piece and send it to the customer to see if they are satisfied, tilt the camera at a bit of an angle so it can't be "screengrabbed" but they can still get a good look. Agree to send the finished digital file(s) once the full amount has been paid. (you can accept half upfrotn and half on completion, or wait to get the full sum at the end, always make sure you get paid before sending off the finished project).

As for hand drawn pieces or crafts, take a picture, don't send the finished "hard copy" until you're paid.

Its common sense really btu I've been duped before. When you're starting out its SUPER easy to get taken advantage of but you gotta tough it out and stick up for yourself!!

I hope you get what you're owedAaron, keep annoying the customer because you deserve it!!! I hate artists getting shafted but it happens all the time!!! I'm really nervous my screenplays will be stolen once I start pitching to studios and producers so I'm going to get an agent first, even though they take a portion of your pay-cheque, I'd rather that and get established than get shafted 2 or 3 times before finding someone honest and trustworthy!

Good luck!!!

[Dolerman]

When smug girls are like: sorry my taste in guys is a little more 'unique' then the average girl.

Roughly translates to I only date skinny, dorky white guys who play in mediocre to terrible bands with a healthy dose of passive aggression and fuck you money.

Working in the 'social scene' in London puts me in contact with these kinds of people almost on weekly basis.

[Dolerman]

<Snipped quote by Dynamo Frokane>

It wasn't a jab. Sometimes you gotta relax, friendo.

@Fabricant451

This is you IRL

[Fabricant451]

I don't use nearly that much profanity.

[Vilageidiotx]

I don't use nearly that much profanity.

@Fabricant451

You should use more. It's pretty cool.

[Dinh AaronMk]

That feel when someone approaches you for a commission, you give them the price, they say it's good, and you ask for half up-front so I know this is serious and I get the green light to go. I get the half half on completion and satisfaction.

Still haven't gotten paid. It's been several days, and we were at a clip of a message a day between the two of us. I just had to remind him I'm waiting.

@Dinh AaronMk

So he paid, so now I can begin.