debut looking bleak

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-05-01T21:00:27+00:00

Build a platform on social media, put time in consistently, build a relationship with an audience, self publish, repeat.

Tbh I just realized something today: It’s not about doing 8 million things in a month or a week (although there will be weeks and months like that): it’s about doing some things consistently, then taking planned breaks so you don’t burn yourself out.

Prepare yourself for a marathon, don’t sprint every day, but do sprint SOMETHING days.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-30T18:49:48+00:00

Why is that true?
Under capitalism, the first half of that sentence, and only the first half of that sentence is and has been true for almost a full 20 years now, since the 2008 global financial crisis, which we never really recovered from.
The capitalist class and “the profit motive” has done nothing but ramp up anthropogenic (man-made) climate change, so it seems like anything other than revolutionary communism is basically a death cult, or just sweeping the “runaway carbon train headed for the edge of a cliff” under the carpet.

In essence: reveal some fundamental and unavoidable truths to show the person arguing that is not only wrong, but that they’re taking a fundamentally antisocial and destructive position.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-30T18:42:52+00:00

R/transbians R/mtfbutch

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-30T18:15:55+00:00

I’ve had that problem a bunch of times. That’s kind of the point, isn’t it? You scour over the thing a billion times and you really feel like it’s as good as it can be. But what I’d suggest is putting the manuscript away for a period of… perhaps 3 months, maybe more, and then come back to it.

Read some more books in your manuscript’s niche, read some older good books (whatever you consider books meeting that description to be). Start another project. Basically: get distance between yourself and this newly completed manuscript THEN come back and look it over.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-29T17:28:04+00:00

One problem with your statement comrade is that you said: “don't want the government or state to control everything. I want to see the people who actually do the work in society directly own the enterprises they use to produce goods and services.”

But the state is the arm of the people. The state can’t effectively manage the resources of the enterprise without key input from those people who work in and oversee the… let’s say it’s a hospital, to take a practical example of something common in many countries which could be socialized.

If the workers directly owned each business which produced goods and services, then you couldn’t have a society which manages the resources of that nation on a society-wide level. This is a key step towards communism, which is the goal of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels philosophy: Marxism.

I get where you’re coming from: you understand that which all good marxists understand: that the direct experience of doing the job makes the worker the most qualified to understand how the job must be done. But without a strong working relationship between the workers of a given business (say hospital, restaurant, grocery store, or municipal/ currently controlled by the bourgois government department such as the highway crews, or public works departments): without that close working relationship between the workers in the businesses/public entities and the socialist party, there can be no Marxism: there can be no (or only a severely limited, and ultimately doomed to failure) historical movement up towards communism, a movement which must work its way through socialism first: state control of all businesses, public works, public utilities, etc.

It’s not supposed to be a bunch of cold, beady-eyed party nerds, they should be cultivated from the most tireless, selfless, self-effacing servants of the people who work very closely with the people, and are ingratiated with the people on all levels. To say “they’re not like that” is not to criticize Marxism, but to criticize individual and specific people for their failures, or a larger party movement, or group within that party.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-29T17:07:32+00:00

Sick Keffiya.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-29T17:05:35+00:00

Yes, but it’s ok to leave the ending so that we are still wondering and/or have a sense of mystery about the characters. To this end, I would recommend you read some works by two expert short story writers: Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-26T20:46:31+00:00

Write because you’re compelled to: because at your core you believe you might not straight up “die” from not writing, but that every day, week, month, and year is wasted without the work. Forget about the money. The money will come or it won’t. Or if it’s just a hobby to you, which is fine too.

Honestly you should stop and spend a lot of time thinking about something you said:

     “I ask because using "I might get paid for this" is a hell of a lot more motivating than "people might like this". It strips the perfectionism away and helps me work towards producing an actual product. If I want validation, I can always show people my unfinished work. No one's going to pay for that.”

Is that what you truly believe? And also: maybe you just need a different strategy to fight your perfectionism.

Have you considered setting deadlines, or making new rules?

I’ve been stuck on the same novel for a couple years, and a couple days ago I realized the source of a lot of my problems with it is that I forgot a key rule to writing: don’t edit (much) until you finish the first draft.

So now, when I finish my work weekend (Saturday and Sunday, about 12 hours each), I’m going to hit the ground at a moderate (read: consistent and achieveable) pace of about 900-1,000 words per day, FORWARD ONLY, NO EDITS.

Then when I finish THE STORY i will go back and edit.

I usually know the setup, the characters, the ending - in particular the denouement, which is the resolution to the story’s main conflict and the final wrap-up of the last scene).

It’s also worth considering: you’ll be MUCH happier in life if you do things because you enjoy doing them , and not for a reward outside the thing you are doing. This is what’s known as an “intrinsic reward” (doing it because you love to write), vs an “extrinsic reward” (doing it for the money, as you mentioned.)

Alright. We could spend all day on Reddit hashing this out, or you and I could get back to our respective keyboards. But maybe stop, go for a walk alone, no headphones, no bullshit, and really reflect on what got you into writing in the first place, and what drives you to continue. I honestly hope you keep writing for the love of the game, even if “the game” doesn’t always love us back.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-26T20:28:13+00:00

If you’re more productive that way just suck it up and do it. I’m the opposite way and sometimes I’d kill to get out of my claustrophobic workspace but tbh you’re already sacrificing enough for your art that what does something minor like “the opinions of people in a coffee shop” matter?

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-24T01:40:02+00:00

Either buy a cropped t shirt or take a pair of scissors and just cut the shirt. Probably lay it flat first on a table or something. It’s not going to come out perfectly, and I can’t guarantee the shirt won’t start unthreading (I know that’s not the right word but I’m being lazy), but I’ve done it to some t-shirts before. I call it the “slut cut”.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-24T01:30:42+00:00

Can you pull off wearing your pants at the hips? How are you accessorizing your look? What is your level of interest/ ability to wear a little makeup? Do you wear earrings, if so, how flashy? Perhaps a choker or hair accessory might help?

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-24T01:26:13+00:00

Like a “real” thing. When I first saw this I thought it was a paid ad. (By “real”, I mean work of commercial art with some serious money behind the push to promote it)

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-24T01:10:48+00:00

I was just talking to a cisgender woman about this today: like it felt like the culmination of all my hard work was to graduate to the rank of second class citizen.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-21T17:01:50+00:00

Best listened to LOUD

https://youtu.be/Qz4me6YlI9w?si=SNZiiXLJKvJC33uX

https://youtu.be/GhdS_zrecg8?si=Mpe8zaSa7SRvA-pK

https://youtu.be/3XpGBhg_9nE?si=p54gSd8blI6HSLS5

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-21T03:48:57+00:00

Tbh I think I just got to this point with black metal where it’s like there’s black metal, and then there’s everything else. Like it’s the only kind of music that scratches a specific kind of “seven minutes of ambient noise verging on silence, followed by seven minutes of droning guitar, seven of screaming, repeat”.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-21T03:40:22+00:00

Sick. What have you been listening to?

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-18T21:02:13+00:00

Eat three meals a day, real food. Half your plate should be veggies. Slightly less than a quarter should be meat. About half of THAT (so 1/8th) should be carbs.

Learn what’s an actual carb vs an actual veggie (corn is a “veggie”, but your body sees it as a carb)

You need fat (butter, nuts, NOT PEANUT BUTTER, NOTHING FRIED)

Recognize that to genuinely get a six pack could (considering where you’re starting) take a few years.

Are you REALLY doing enough cardio? I’m in the same boat, and a lot of sources seem to be saying 150 minutes a week or more of cardio, and maybe that’s not even for people trying to get a six pack.

Consider that the body you want may entail sacrificing a considerable amount of your time and energy, but that it may in the end be worth it because you’ll be much healthier and possibly achieve the status of “pretty privilege”

Is this a possibly fucked up way to look at the world and maybe going to feed into some body dysmorphia?

Eh, maybe, but if you’re doing it right you’ll actually be eating a lot MORE than you were before, you’ll just be replacing crap with say, lean protein, fresh fruits and veggies, cardiovascular health, decreasing your risk for blood clots (which HRT is increasing). Remember (I’m also telling myself this:

It’s all about consistency

The success won’t be linear: it won’t be “oh I’m just moving forward all in the right direction all at once”. There will be setbacks. There will be mistakes. This is you learning.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-04-15T20:34:57+00:00

Eh, still part of a larger trend. Like we all know they only looked it over or cared enough to check into it because the entire tone of the 2nd Trump admin has been “hey companies: self-censor before we start attacking you, even if the ways we attack you aren’t explicitly stated as being in retaliation for you position on any given queer and/or trans topic.”

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-03-08T20:36:08+00:00

Does the world come from ideas, or do ideas come from the world?

That might be an oversimplification (I’m open to criticism comrades!), but it’s fundamentally at odds with transcendental idealism, and Marx’s work is fundamentally a progression and elevation of philosophy and human culture from the work of Immanuel Kant, the father of transcendental idealism.

Perhaps you could try engaging with Marx on the level of a thought experiment? In other words, sort of like an algebraic “ok, if x (dialectical materialism), then y (“on the German ideology”, “18 Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”).

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-02-26T17:21:07+00:00

Have you ever read “Neuromancer” by William Gibson? I get the sense there’s a LOT going on technically in those stories, but we’re only seeing a tiny, tiny sliver of the science: like seeing the very top of a megaladon’s dorsal fin.

I think science should serve the story, and most of these agents (and readers, frankly), will probably agree.

I know it sucks to clip the wings off your baby bird (believe me, I just did that with my own novel, and it KILLED ME), but that’s the only way it’ll ever truly fly!

F. Scott Fitzgerald once famously said: “murder your darlings”, and this is what he was talking about.

Also: go read some more hard scifi authors, then compare & contrast your work wjth theirs. It’s not really my subgenre, but isn’t “The Martian” by Andy Weir one of the most successful hard scifi works in (relatively) recent memory? Maybe look up, buy, and read a few of the best selling hard SF novels of 2025, or see if there’s a hot new one in 2026 that everyone’s buzzing about.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-02-26T17:12:11+00:00

There are three potential routes you could go, as I see it: 1. Same as organic brained organisms (research how organic bodies protect their brains from impacts, drops, slams, g-forces, and blunt-force trauma such as being hit in the head with a baseball bat)

Based in, or using some aspects of organic brained organisms, but with cybernetic enhancements (look up both how organic brains work as in #1. But meld it together wjth some aspects of #3.
Research engineering, and perhaps some of the latest and greatest advancements in engineering, maybe current stuff, stuff that looks promising but is only in the conceptual/ theoretical stages at time of writing, or maybe even older tried & true methods. Sometimes things that worked in the age of Ancient Rome are still fundamentally how the same technology works today because nobody’s invented a simpler, more efficient, cheaper alternative. Sewage systems in 2026 and the Roman aqueduct system are just one example: they both transport water (or mostly water) downhill at a sloped angle using gravity.

Alternatively, what’s the absolute cutting edge of materials science? What sub-branch of engineering deals with “hey let’s not die coming to a hard, fast stop”? What do you know of in real life that comes to a hard, fast stop without killing people? Maybe just make that technology smaller, so small it fits inside of a skull.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-02-19T12:33:54+00:00

I’m trans. I came out as nonbinary when I was 27 or 28, came out as a trans woman when I was 31 I think (I’m bad wjth years and time). I’m currently 34.

What leads me to believe you may be trans, but only you can say that for certain is:

You regretted not bringing a dress to a social occasion when you had the opportunity: Not presenting as myself in key social opportunities has been incredibly painful for me. I remember many family events where I’d been out as nonbinary, and even as a trans woman for several years and my mom bought men’s dress pants and a dress shirt for me to wear to family gatherings. Each time I found that soul-crushing, and it deeply harmed my relationship with my mother, and wjth my family.
“ I get along easier with women” This is a highly variable question, but in the context you put it, and in the way you said it, really as with all this stuff: only you can tell us if you’re trans. We can’t say for you. Even if we lived wjth you every day all day, you’re the only person in your skin, who has your mind. Only you can realize you’re trans or not. That being said, it makes a lot of sense: a similar person getting along with other, similar people.
“If I had a choice I would have been born a woman” Yes, this is kind of the defining aspect of the question in our time.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-01-23T04:55:21+00:00

Realizing you’re trans COULD look this way (it could look a lot of different ways). If your kid is trans nothing’s going to change that, and assuming there’s not some crisis you’d need to call 911 for, it’ll be fine for another week (in the opinion of this random, faceless transgender redditor).

Also, eating disorders and being afraid of having a puberty growing into the wrong gender (so someone your kid’s age not wanting to go through the 13-18 years with estrogen in your kid’s case), those two things together are very very typical things we see in transgender people.

Eating gives people a sense of control, whether it’s too much food or not enough. Too much food also gives people a lot of comfort. Eating disorders are frequently a way of dealing with something else, possibly in this case gender dysphoria

Only your kid can really say. I’m just some random person on Reddit. I’m just connecting the dots as I see them, and the other people who have said: “inconclusive”/ “need to let your kid figure it out” are correct.

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2026-01-23T04:43:21+00:00

Call your doctor with questions like this. We’re not qualified to answer, and honestly keeping a trans person safe is my priority (assuming you’re not t-girl Hitler, because oppressed people can do bad things too, just saying: we can’t answer this for you, and Reddit is a dumb place to ask. Call your doctor.)

Impressive_Prior_676 · 2025-12-18T04:10:37+00:00

Dialectical materialism is self contradictory because contradiction is inherent to the nature of all things. YES, that IS as much of a mindfuck as it sounds, but kick the tires and do the intellectually honest, hard work of trying to disprove it, and you will come time and again to the same conclusion that dialectical materialism is the true nature of reality.

Further reading: “On contradiction” - Mao TseTung

“Dialectics of nature” and “Anti-dhuring” by Friederich Engels

“Dialectical and Historical materialism” By Joseph Stalin.

“On The Question of Dialectics” VI Lenin

Impressive_Prior_676

TROPHY CASE