#@capitalism i'm not interested

[doberbutts]

Recently Youtube's algorithm really wants me to watch Schindler's List and I never had so the other night I sat down and actually watched it.

Having a lot of thoughts about it but a major one I keep coming back to is how even an immensely and deeply flawed human being can go against "just following orders" and instead put in the work to actually help.

It may never be fully enough. It may never save as many as you'd hoped. But when you have a choice to either follow orders or save your fellow humans in front of you, I hope you choose the latter.

Schindler died in poverty. He was not a renown war hero nor was he at all famous or widely beloved. But he saw that he could help, even in some small way, and so he helped.

He was a Nazi who saw what the Nazis were doing to Jews and said no more. Enough. If I can even spare those under my charge, maybe a few extras, then at least I will have tried to do something about this.

I think a lot of people do not fancy this type of activism. It is messy, dangerous, and often completely thankless. Schindler survived as long as he did after the war due to those he saved helping him with donations. He was not popular in his hometown due to his association with Nazis, he was not popular in Germany, he was not popular in Argentina. His businesses all failed. His wife left him. A movie about his deeds was released several years after his death, where he would receive none of the benefits. He went to prison multiple times for simply refusing to hate Jews.

I think a lot of people like to think they're activists, but are sorely unprepared for doing this type of work, and then in truth become activists in name only. This is hard work. But without him, another thousand or so people would be on that death toll.

He took his position of extreme power- a Nazi owning a factory almost entirely operated by Jews, making oodles of money off that cheap slave labor- and said you know what? No. I'm not doing that. I can't save everyone, but as long as they are within my factory, you will not kill my workers. As long as I'm here you aren't harming one hair on the head of any Jew under my care. You're not sending or keeping them in Auschwitz. You're not randomly executing them for entertainment. They're people. You're not murdering them.

"Just following orders" they say. But they didn't have to. They could have helped. They could have did what he did, look around and say "what the fuck am I doing here", and stop. He did. They could have. They didn't.

#I think it's also intereating that he did not do it out of compassion at first #he did it because it was smart capitalism #jewish labor was super cheap and they were desperate to be considered fit to work because otherwise execution was waiting for them #only after the cleansing of the ghetto did he say whoa okay holy shit yeah no I'm not doing this anymore #that's also true of the real man the movie is about #I also think it's interesting that not everyone he saved thinks he was a good person #but even still despite his flaws they respect and admire what he did for them #his motives were not always pure #but the fact of the matter is that when he saw what was happening he chose to act against it #he did not shrug and saw welp orders are orders #nor did he succumb to hopelessness when it became difficult to keep up what he was doing

[pyrrhiccomedy]

here on the eve of me playing in a star wars trpg we are remembering the time I mentioned fascism in passing in a comedic post about star wars and got bombarded with furious messages accusing me of overanalyzing star wars, including one that described bringing fascism into a conversation about star wars as ‘a verbal tic,’ as though fascism and the fight against fascism is not overtly what star wars is about

like it’s not subtle it’s not even interesting you’re just stupid

#I don't even care about star wars I don't think star wars even has anything interesting to say about fascism #but saying that star wars isn't about fascism is like saying idk bioshock isn't about capitalism #like you're just stone dumb dogg I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you

[uncanny-tranny]

I just find it very interesting that all the labour classed as lesser (most often seen as "women's labour") becomes indispensable in moments of crisis. It's just interesting to see how quickly people turn to that labour and then discard it in moments of peace or prosperity, devaluing it until another crisis hits.

#politics #feminism #yes this is me reflecting upon the knitting and war video #it's interesting how a 'feminine' craft like knitting became recognized only in tangent to the violence of war #my feelings about this are complex but i think textile craft is a good example of what i mean #because textiles are revolutionary to humanity - just like the discovery of fire. and yet it is so often devalued #especially when it comes to profit over human welfare #look the textile artist to even stauncher hater of capitalism pipeline is real and i'm barreling down it faster than the speed of light #complex feelings on this but this is my general thesis i guess #(context: i was watching a video about knitting and how it supported war efforts in wwi and wwii) #(and while i did know a lot about the topic in that it was a huge part of war support propaganda it was still interesting) #i feel like that video encapsulated a lot of angst i have about crafting labour especially #and also by 'interesting' i actually mean infuriating and stupid

[gideonisms]

I become 300% more of both a lover and a hater when I'm on my period. just a time of the month when I have strong opinions I would say

#i want to kiss a butch for 3 hours. also i'm the only one in the world with correct opinions about everything #me the main character of life #anyway i saw this post complaining about sanitized mass marketable queer art #where the person described themselves based on the interests i guess they thought were most stereotypical and then were like #isn't there something rawer or more real than this #to which i would say there is! but you went to the queer market day #idk it is a frustration of mine too i do get it #but i think some people could stand to just get weirder and like the things they like #idk i buy cute little queer stickers all the time but i regularly stand out as a strange person in both queer and straight communities #get a friend who worked the same shit job who will sell you abstract alien art they made while they were high it's not hard #go to goodwill more. you'll find some raw expressions of humanity. #if you just want your interests to be more genuine to you it's simple #you just have to accept that maybe 2 other people will be able to rec you music or foods you enjoy #being more specific isn't everything it's cracked up to be sometimes #i think the problem here is mainly capitalism

[utilitycaster]

As a frequent "ugh, fanon," person it's not that I don't like non-canonical character designs or interpretations as a concept. I love unique and creative ideas about fictional characters that are informed by canon but diverge from it in interesting ways that build upon the original vision! I almost never see this in fanon.

#this is about a bunch of things but rn i'm thinking about halfling tails...uninteresting repetitive pointless and in conflict with canon #more generally i get that fanworks are derivative by nature and that's the point but there's similar and there's The Same. #like. my beef with fanon is not ultimately one of HOW DARE YOU DEVIATE FROM THE HOLY WRIT #it's that it's often dull and poorly executed by people who are gathering around a single kind of stupid headcanon #there are many great individual headcanons out there but they almost never make it to fanon status #bc fanon is not a garden of many new interesting ideas. it's a single dirty pink flamingo haphazardly stabbed into the lawn. #99% of the time canon was better bc it wasn't passed through a committee that stripped it of anything interesting and made it reproducible #anyway follow for more musing on how i believe that while capitalism has DEFINITELY made art worse social media also has #most of my favorite creators end up being the ones who are either very offline or at least have very hard boundaries #and most of my favorite fan creators are involved in fandom but are also fanon (derogatory) people

[bookwyrminspiration]

I hate how whenever there's someone on the internet who's found their niche of something they're good at, you open the comments and so many are asking them to start a business around it. you make good looking food? when are you opening a restaurant/making a cookbook? you're a talented seamstress/crocheter/knitter? when are you making patterns/opening a shop/etc. those are very different skill sets and levels of effort! can't people have skills and hobbies in peace instead of trying to monetize them it's so exhausting

#shitpost #i think I see it most often on food videos and every time I'm like ??? #making themselves a nice quesadilla in NO way equals the skills needed to run a restaurant #nor do those interests inherently align??? #sure. some people do have that passion #but if we're just talking some random person sharing a meal they made #it's so...I don't even know how to describe it #and I know these comments are meant well #but it's like. can you not think of a way to say that and express this person's worth in a way that isn't tied to profit/money? #that isn't about capitalism? #idk. just something that bugs me

[fenkko]

cant believe i reached 30 tags in prev post rambling about homestuck i didnt even know there was a limit

#i usually save word diarrhea for twitter but hope someone enjoys the huge dump i took here for once #anyways tldr homestuck orv and taz are all special stories to me in kind of similar ways #that i would elaborate on if i thought i could piece together my words that would entice people rather than scare them off lmao #so i'll just say IT's COOL.. I SWEAR #and also genshin which is an outlier i suppose bc its the only capital P Popular thing #but i'd also put genshin w those first three stories in terms of how interesting i find their storytelling methods and narrative themes #i love the pockets of genshin fandom that are ppl obsessing over fragments of lore and making big conspiracy boards #i dont really interact w main genshin fandom but i like peeking at the other pockets haha. like the people investigating khaenri'ah lore.. #very cool.. and people invested in sumeru gang. the sumeru characters are so interesting #whole city of eccentrics you can bash together and examine #i'm scara and childe fan forever idk what they did to my brain but i think they were a psyop #made specifically in ways they knew would target me and the things i like damn ‼️ #someone at genshin HQ put crack in these guys and i cant stop drawing them and coming up w ideas to draw my beautiful muses that ruined me

[existennialmemes]

The mythos of "work ethic" is just a Boomer Death Cult that worships the pyre on which they sacrifice the working class.

#rant #ancom #eat the rich #anti work #anti capitalism #I'm much more interested in their Pay Ethic and their Working Conditions Ethic than of anybody's “work ethic”

[scholar-of-yemdresh]

Will anybody be interested if I made a list of adult transmasc and Nonbinary/transneutral main/major characters in adult fantasy and Science Books.

Because I'm legit sick of the infantilisation both within and outside the community. Why is so much of the NB and transmasc rep children 😭.

Even outside of the miniscule rep Even less of it are grown adult main characters. None of that side character's love interest is a trans dude business, or a they/them appears for one page and is never seen again.

Anyway I've got a handful of characters in books I've read/on my TBR and I want to share them with others looking for this kind of rep.

#adult fantasy #adult science fiction #adult sci-fi #lgbtq #queer representation #trans #transmasc #nonbinary #transneutral #also I'm not interested in romance so a NB mc in a capital R fantasy romance i don't give. shit about that guff lol #And why are so many grown ass trans(or queer in general) adults so invested in YA #Like Gawd damn all the rep shouldn't regulated to kids books. #by adult the characters need to be 20s and above #because if i used the 18/19 year old legal adult excuse way too much YA BS will clog the list lol #adult sff #books

[aro-culture-is]

Aro culture is going to spencers and seeing only ace pride merch and no aro pride merch

.

#piperrose #aro culture is #aro #aromantic #actually aro #actually aromantic #ask #mod phoenix #i mean. #to be entirely fair: 1) spencer's known to steal art designs from fan artists and such online via predatory sites #2) online art tends to forget us :/ #3) to be totally honest a lot of places go like 'oh these are demographically the Major Identities so let's have 5 options total' #or smth like that #and that's like. middle manager capitalists with zero care about real ppl types placing those limits #i'm honestly surprised they even got around to including ace folks tbh #usually those sorts of high-predatory mall-goth types of stores (hot topic / spencers / lunchbox) are uh. very very very focused on like. #maximizing profits at the expense of absolutely zero fucks given about real ppl along the way #knowing that the edgy teen demographics most interested in them *tend* to not have a lot of money + want to be ~counter culture~ #they find the cheapest way to make a buck on marginalized folks in a very rainbow capitalism way #also for the lucky 10k: those stores have all been implicated in the last 2 decades of repeatedly and constantly stealing art from poor #online artists via various sites like deviantArt #via little secret TOS conditions around those sites being able to sell your work by proxy without exception #unsure if that's still common knowledge but a decade ago it was like. every tenth post on my dashboard once a year when someone a little #bit bigger than average on social media had their art stolen yet again by these corps

[hazellvsq]

yeahhhh this is a copout and i would actually like to know the answer. what happens when they disagree on something. if hazel fucks up does frank have to make her run laps or some shit. if frank fucks up does hazel have to oust him. would this relationship not cause a massive conflict of interest.

#the real reason praetors often date each other is because they are BANNED from dating anyone else in the camp its ILLEGAL #seriously though i know camp jupiter worldbuilding is a clusterfuck and should not be thought about too hard #but its funny how rick wants the romans to be hardasses and pays lip service to their harsh punishments or conquests #but also he wants the roman pov characters to be lovable even though they run the place so we don't see them DO any of these things #like was reyna carrying out the capital punishments she references with her own hands? what gives? #we also never have to see any non-reyna characters grapple with tough choices under leadership bc the the series was so quest-focused #so questions like this will never get answered #anyway i'm not against the frazel chain of command conflict i am actually pro-anything that makes their relationship at all interesting #yknow conflict intrigue all that #also lmao at me saying copout like this isn't the blood of olympus #hazel levesque #frank zhang

[sunlit-haruka]

Ocgrams are so !!! so !! cool !!!!! I hope more people make more of them !!!!

#milgram #milgram project #pretty sure I made this post a month ago but I don't care lmao #Like it was probably obvious from the fact that the other thing I talk about on here is a danganronpa fan series #But I am a capital b BITCH for when people make their own original stories using the setting of the original media and their OCs #I go fucking ballistic !!! It inspires me so much !!! #So seeing people make their own Milgram stories with trials and everything with their OCs #And seeing other people in the fandom invested in them and engaged in them??? I'm so fucking insane actually #Fucking !!! I know I already said this but !!! I want to make an OCgram one day !!! It would be so cool !!! #I don't think many people would be interested though considering I'm not *that* well known in this fandom #Plus I know myself enough to know that there's a 80% chance I'll ever finish something so #We'll see what the future holds I suppose !!

[newkiqx]

Saw Bob Vylan live last thursday. Near the end of the show, they sent cis men to the back of the venue, explicitly inviting ladies, enbies, and trans folks to the front to have a mosh pit free of cis men.

And this song was next. Incredible, 10/10

#other highlights were 'THE ONLY GOOD COP IS A?' and the crowd correctly responding #And raging against an epidemic of 'pacifist punks' #go see them if they're in the area. they're great #One of their hit lyrics includes 'I'm spongebob at the bank. put the money in the bag' #bob vylan #music #feminism #most of their songs are about systemic injustice like racism. capitalism. this one is obviously about the patriarchy. they dont miss #they also dont have anyone on live guitar or bass which is interesting for a punk/hiphop hybrid but boy do they make it work #Youtube

[webcomic-character-tournament]

Genuine question. Why are comics from online only publishers discouraged? What is the goal behind discouraging paid webcomics?

sorry for taking so long to answer this!

i got really excited about answering this but also am not very good at communicating things clearly, i often get lost in the details in my passion about stuff like this, so i hope this is still interesting to read and intelligible lol!

i dont think there is any one thing that inherently defines what is and isn't a webcomic, it's an amorphous category that i enjoy the ambiguity of. but for me, what first led to my wonder for them as an 11 year old, and what has been a major factor in my passion for them even as an adult, was their low barrier to entry in both making them and accessing them. if you have internet access and time, almost anyone can make a webcomic if they want to! of course, without editors (or often even full story plans) or sensitivity readers or more people on a team to collaborate and contribute to the comic's vision, and the huge effort that it takes to do all the tasks of writing, inks, coloring, lettering, etc. all on ones own often without professional resources to facilitate that, that means that a lot of webcomics are really rough in some way or another. but a lot of people have interesting ideas they want to work with, but don't have the technical skill, desire or ability to market themselves or be beholden to external work deadlines, or connections in some way or another to be able to share those ideas through traditional publishing. regardless of skill or ability, a lot of marginalized people are barred from having their stories accepted by publishers due to bigotry and expectations about what kind of story is profitable.

as a disabled lgbt kid, i definitely read a lot of really bad webcomics i wish i hadn't, but also some of the media i was exposed to that most represented me back then was in the form of webcomics from people a lot like me. and i could read so much of it easily and for free without having to risk much to access it behind my parents' backs!

obviously that isn't the case for every webcomic, but for me and my history with them, them being easily accessible to both publish and read has been really important.

there are absolutely a lot of good points to be made about how publishing free to read webcomics isn't always the most accessible thing for a lot of people, especially for poor and disabled people. making webcomics takes a huge amount of time and effort, and sometimes even if people are passionate about making a comic, they just can't afford to find the time for that around all the other responsibilities of their day to day lives unless it can be a consistent income source. thats why even if paid online comics arent my platonic ideal of webcomics, i absolutely would never exclude them. i want small creators making stories i want to read to get the money they need to survive and keep telling stories without burning out!

it could be argued that online publishers who specifically focus on webcomics don't always present the same barriers to entry as traditional publishers, and many don't restrict the scope of marginalized creators' stories at all or to the same extent as people have struggled in other more mainstream avenues. and from my outside understanding of publishers like hiveworks, i'd absolutely agree with that! i love a lot of hiveworks comics and think its an awesome thing! (of course literally my icon is from a hiveworks comic, tiger tiger!) nonetheless however, part of my goals with this tournament is to highlight lesser known comics, and as publishers like hiveworks help advertise and promote their comics, even if i still want everyone to read all my favorite comics published by them, and certainly there are limits to those advertising resources, they still don't need as much help as other comics without that support. so its not as much 'try not to submit these' and more 'as you submit stuff like this, try to submit stuff with less advertising resources and popularity too!'

going into this tournament i also had a similar sentiment for stuff like webtoons originals. there was an added element to me in how i feel like i know a lot of people nowadays who read webtoons but don't have much awareness of other forms of webcomic, but even if in my love for webcomics i want people to come to appreciate all the breadth of ways they can exist in, thats obviously not something to make a huge priority. it's incredible the amount of forms comics can take (sidenote but reading scott mccloud's "understanding comics" a couple years ago was really formative for me in cementing how much i appreciate that, i'd highly recommend it!!!), and the way infinite scroll comics like webtoon style comics more fully make use of their digital medium, using time scrolling to pace things in place of traditional gutters and panelling, is really really cool. of course they're becoming more popular in a world where more people have smartphones, where webtoon style comics are a lot easier to read than many other forms. i love a lot of webtoons, and id feel regressive to discourage stuff like line webtoon original comics any more than stuff like hiveworks comics, just to go against current trends in what comics people seem to prefer. they have a similar low barrier to entry (through contests) as other online publishers, and it's cool to see creators get the opportunity to get paid for their work and get help from professional editors and stuff

but in the past couple weeks of running this tournament, i ended up reading a lot more about the behind the scenes of what its like to be a line webtoon original creator. line webtoon's expectations for their creators are incredibly unrealistic and exploitative, with grueling deadlines leading to a lot of creators to get repetitive strain injuries, all while working for well below industry standards. obviously a lot of webcomic creators make an inconsistent poverty level income out of it as independent creators, and that shouldn't happen either, but it's absolutely inexcusable for a company to profit off this labor and then manufacture these same conditions. without any organized labor movement surrounding that issue, that of course isn't an argument against reading or promoting these comics on its own, creators are more likely to get more income if their comics get more popular, and despite the promise of popularity by becoming an official comic, they absolutely still aren't all promoted equally. what has made me want to slightly more discourage (but still absolutely not disallow!) stuff like line webtoon official comics has been the combination of that along with learning that much of the editing of webtoons originals carries less of the benefits of having experienced creatives collaborating with creators to elevate their stories to new levels, and very often instead ends up taking the form of 'simplify this plotline and make this character look more attractive and fit this archetype more fully so we can market this better and have readers easily consume each update while they're scrolling their phone without having to think about it too much'. while obviously there are a lot of amazing webtoon official comics in spite of what i've heard anectdotally, hearing that just really went against so much of what i've most valued about my experience with webcomics!

i want creators to be able to tell stories no matter how weird and unmarketable, where they'll never have to worry about pushback for making stories with characters and themes that resonate for them as a member of any oppressed group, and where there's as little pressure as possible pushing them to work harder or faster than they healthily can or want to! so for me, even if i still love a lot of online published comics and want them to be celebrated and want their creators to be able to make a comfortable living out of them, i still just want to highlight stories that had that level of freedom that has created some of my favorite experiences with webcomics just a little bit more.

#sorry this is so long lol i am simultaneously so bad at expressing things and so so passionate about talking about things #also sidenote i feel like i unintentionally sound like i'm making an individualist sort of point of 'individual creator vs people who want #to change their work' here but thats absolutely not my intention. its just coincidentally undre capitalism oftentimes its hard for a lot of #people to have get together and have the resources to make something together without being paid for it #which leads to most more collaborative forms of storytelling being more profit motivated (like movies for example) #but im so incredibly interested in alternate forms of collaboration and cooperative models for storytelling and making art. i get why #its rarer in our current society but i love love love when i've seen webcomics doing that. often the best of both with being able to tell #stories that really need telling that people are passionate about #and with the refinement and texture of all the input and skills of everyone involved #such a tangent though lol. but yeah would love recs for stuff like that! #wctrelated #notwctpoll #anonymous #asks #long post

[elitehoe]

I love Keith and Swerve but I think we've long since moved past that story

#they should've capitalized on that a very long time ago I'm not interested now #keith lee #swerve strickland #aew #aew lb

[dayurno]

i just saw a post about andrew and his meds and how he was probably misdiagnosed for depression but he’s actually bipolar which made him manic all the time bc of his meds and!!!! yes to me andrew has always been bipolar. anyways i just had to share this with someone what are you thoughts on bipolar andrew? i know this isn’t kevin related and for that i’m sorry

"i know this isn’t kevin related and for that i’m sorry" HRGJLDHFGDFJG KDFJG FUNNY....!!!! i do answer non-kevin related asks sometimes but the flesh and the spirit must be willing... i'd say it's occasional like an expert briefly commenting on another expert's field

i thought bipolar andrew was canon? isn't it? i've never really had any extensive thoughts about it; to me it was just a fact of the world like the foxes are orange and kevin is beautiful..... well. regardless. i think it's a good hc if that's what it is :) i'm not all that interested in diagnosing aftg characters with personality disorders and i think a diagnosis of something is not always a concrete reality of life and more so a guideline to follow to deal with a specific cluster of symptoms, but as far as they go, andrew being bipolar makes a lot of sense!

i have a friend who went through the foster system when they were younger and a few years ago i do remember we were talking about andrew and they said a lot of how he was written was taken textbook from a 'how to foster troubled children' manual, which i think is most of what i think about re: andrew's mental health. to me it is more interesting (fiction wise!) to think about the material conditions that caused him to develop the symptoms he did, and less so about the ultimate conclusion of them. does this make sense?

tl;dr: i thought andrew being bipolar was already canon, if it's a hc then it's cool :=)

#asks #andrew #ive never really been much interested about personality disorders or really psychology as a broader term #not because i've never needed therapy or meds (pah! can you imagine!) #but because i think just as a base line that the human experience is very plural and complicated #and the state of modern psychiatry / psychology eludes a lot of that complexity #to ultimately serve the purpose of rehabilitating patients not as human beings but as 'functioning' workers and potential consumers #please note that i am not saying i am anti psychology&psychiatry #i'm just recognizing it as an apparatus of capitalism like every industry is #and especially caregiving industries #sorry this is such a tangent. i need to read up more theory on this after all #but yes. andrew!