#i think the problem here is mainly capitalism

[ellecdc]

Mother, serious question mainly for my own self-esteem 😮‍💨😅

How do you think the boys (any of them really) would view a partner with like all sorts of facial piercings and like rat tails in their hair and funky colors(truly best describes as a queer little gremlin lol). Cause I know Marlene and Sirius have an alt rock aesthetic (I don't think I spelled that right) but as much as I love these characters I never feel like I would have fit in with them if I was really there ya know?

Idk it's kinda stupid but just curious on you're thoughts on this. They're just so cool and I would hope they would like me enough to at least be my friend if they were real 😮‍💨😖

okay first of all, love the title queer little gremlin; let's all capitalize those letters and add them to surveys when they ask you how you identify plsss??

Here's my take:

James:

I love (and follow religiously) the headcanon that James is pansexual but I believe that expands beyond just gender identity, if that makes sense?

It doesn't matter if you're male or female or anywhere in between or beyond or both or all

and I feel like it doesn't really matter what you look like to him

I feel like he loves people for their hearts, their minds, their interests, etc

I feel like he'd maybe be worried because....those had to hurt??? you do that on purpose? doesn't it hurt terribly? his poor sweet angel????

I also see him as the type of bf who would be like "oh! are we changing colours? which one's? can I help?" and will dutifully like, adorn gloves and sit in the bathroom breathing in dye fumes and chatting away with you while the two of you talk about everything and nothing - I think he'd love spending that time with you and it would be special bonding time

(also, have you seen the James fan art with him with a nose ring??? fuck me sideways)

Sirius:

you're so right re: alt-rock aesthetic etc

I think he'd find the facial piercings awesome tbh, you might even have inspired him to get one or more of his own

I think he'd make it almost a competition of who can dress the most grunge that day hahaha - but the two of you would make quite the couple

also? you look like the kind of person his posh, prissy, stuck up parents would hate seeing him with - that's totally a bonus

I see this guy as someone who loves hair care and would be horrified at how much/often you change your hair colour and would insist on helping you/buying the more expensive products/ensure you're doing it right to save your hair from too much damage

that's the only 'problem' I see him having

Remus:

idk, I kind of see him a little bit like James tbh; looks would be a little less important to him? like he doesn't care how you express yourself in terms of style and clothes

what would be important to him is that you're kind and patient, that you're openminded and considerate of others

I mean...he's littered with scars, is he not? He doesn't exactly look "normal" (derogatory) and would probably feel very similar to what you've described; like he doesn't feel he particularly 'fits in' with his friends

I see him having like, not long hair but like a decent head of curls, and he'd totally love if you braided a few little pieces of his hair like your 'rat tails'

I think he'd find the hair fun; you'd show up one day with new colours and I could see his face lighting up like 😃 "that looks great love; so fun"

Regulus:

he's tricky because he's so posh and stuck up lmfao

BUT

people also ship bartylus and I see so much Barty fan-art somewhat similar to how you've described yourself and if Reg likes Barty - he'd certainly like you too

Barty:

as mentioned above, I could totally see him having like a green streak in his hair or something

perhaps some piercings (I think he'd get piercings down below.....), tongue piercing, nose piercing, eyebrow piercing - I feel like he'd be down for it all himself, so he wouldn't mind it on you at all either

and again, as a guy with daddy issues, he'd be a lot like Sirius and think the better chance he has at dating someone who would sooooo piss of his dad - the better!

thanks for your ask babes <3

#ask elle #marauders era #marauders au #marauders fanfiction #reader insert #self insert #sirius black #remus lupin #james potter #regulus black #barty crouch jr #remus lupin x reader #remus lupin x you #sirius black x reader #sirius black x you #james potter x reader #james potter x you #regulus black x reader #regulus black x you #barty crouch jr x reader #barty crouch jr x you #ellecdc fics

[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

[transmutationisms]

from a non-academic, i find parts of comphet to be useful (heterosexuality becomes compulsory when you’re raised in a heterosexual society) but the foundations . suck. what do we do with theories like this, that have touched on a truth but also carry a lot of garbage? can we separate the truth from the founder?

i have to be slightly pedantic and say that i don't think rich's essay is an example of this phenomenon. my central issue with her formulation is its bioessentialist assumptions about human sex and therefore also sexuality. if i say "capitalism includes economic mechanisms that enforce heterosexual behaviour and exclude other possibilities", then what i mean by "heterosexual" is plainly not the same as what rich means—and for this reason i would seldom formulate the statement this way, without clarifying that i am talking about the enforcement of heterosexuality as a part of the creation and defence of sex/gender categories themselves. so rich and i do not actually agree on the very fundamental premises of this paper! rich was not the first or only person to point out that economic mechanisms as well as resultant social norms enforce heterosexual pairings; i actually don't even think the essay does a very clear job of interrogating the relationship between labour, economy, and the creation of sex/gender; she means something different and essentialist to what i mean by sex and sexuality; and i think her proposed responses to the phenomenon she identifies as 'compulsory heterosexuality' are uninteresting because they mainly propose psychological answers to a problem arising from conditions of political economy. so, in regards to this specific paper, i am actually totally comfortable just saying that it's not a useful formulation, and i don't feel a need to rescue elements of it.

in general, i do know what you're talking about, and i think there's a false dichotomy here: as though we must either discard an idea entirely if it has elements we dislike, or we accept it on the condition that we can plausibly claim these elements and their author are irrelevant. these are not comprehensive options. instead, i would posit that every theory, hypothesis, or idea is laden with context, including values held and assumptions made by their progenitors. the point is not to find a mythical 'objective' truth unburdened by human bias or mistakes; this is impossible. instead, i think we need to take seriously the elements of an idea that we object to. why are they there? what sorts of assumptions or arguments motivate them, and are those actually separable from whatever we like in the idea? if so, can we be clear about which aspects of the theory are still useful or applicable, and where it is that the objectionable elements arise? and if we can identify these points, then what might we propose instead? this is all much more useful, imo, than either waiting for a perfect morally unimpeachable theory or trying to 'accept' a theory without grappling with its origins (political, social, intellectual).

a recent example that you might find interesting as a kind of case study is j lorand matory's book the fetish revisited, which argues that the 'fetish' concept in freud's and marx's work drew from their respective understandings of afro-atlantic gods. in other words, when marx said capitalists "fetishise" commodities or freud spoke about sexual "fetishism", they were each claiming that viewing an object as agentive, meaning-laden in itself (ie, devoid of the context of human meaning-making as a social and political activity) was comparable to 'primitive' and delusory religious practices.

matory's point here isn't that we should reject marx's entire contribution to political economy because he was racist, nor is it that we can somehow accept parts of what marx said by just excising any racist bits. rather, matory asks us to grapple seriously with the role that marx's anthropologically inflected racism plays in his ideas, and what limitations it imposes on them. why is it that marx could identify the commodity as being discursively abstracted and 'fetishised', but did not apply this understanding to other ideas and objects in a consistent way? and how is his understanding of this process of 'fetishisation' shaped by his beliefs about afro-atlantic peoples, and their 'intelligence' or civilisational achievements in comparison to northwestern europeans'? by this critique matory is able to nuance the fetish concept, and to argue that marx's formulation of it was both reductive and inconsistently applied (analogously to how freud viewed only some sexuality as 'fetishistic'). it is true in some sense that capital and the commodity are reified and abstracted in a manner comparable to the creation of a metaphysical entity, but what we get from matory is both a better, more nuanced understanding of this process of meaning-making (incl. a challenge to the racist idea of afro-atlantic gods as simply a result of inferior intelligence or cultural development), and the critical point that if this is fetishism, then we must understand a lot more human discourse and activity as hinging on fetishisation.

the answer of what we do with the shitty or poorly formulated parts of a theory won't always be the same, obviously; this is a dialogue we probably need to have (and then have again) every time we evaluate an idea or theory. but i hope this gives you some jumping-off points to consider, and an idea of what it might look like to grapple with ideas as things inherently shaped by people—and our biases and assumptions and failings—without assuming that means we can or should just discard them any time those failings show through. the point is not to waste time trying to find something objective, but to understand the subjective in its context and with its strengths and limitations, and then to decide from there what use we can or should make of it.

#marx #adrienne rich

[star-trek-fandom-confessions]

Regarding #465: No, there shouldn’t be more fat people shown in star trek/starfleet. Showing fat ppl in the future isn’t body positivity. Currently, the food industry is screwing us and we are fat due to that mainly. Fat ppl exist only in rich capitalist countries with the social fabric in tatters. We are massively struggling with anxiety and stress and using screen n food addiction as a coping mechanism, making us more fat. In the future, we would have overcome all these problems. Truly nutritious food isn’t addictive and it’s impossible to grow fat on it. Ppl would be healthy, happy and have a ‘range’ of body types sure, but fatness is not a body type.

I am so upset about this that I ended up blocking yesterday's queue cold-turkey.

People should have a range of body types just as long as it's not fat? This is not future body positivity, this is plain and simple fatphobia and I don't need any of your transparent disgust of fat people in my blog, implying that all fat people are, either or in combination, poor, miserable, mentally struggling, etc.

It's also rather telling that you couldn't conceive that some people love being fat, and don't want to lose weight even if they could.

If in the future we will have good food and no capitalism and good enough medicine to eradicate obesity-related issues like bad cholesterol and such (crew forgive my ignorance on the matter), fat people would prosper because doctors and fatphobes would lose the ace card you played here that they love so much: that fatness is in itself a threatening medical condition and, depending on which is more convenient, the root cause or the consequence of countless medical problems that at long turn out to be not really related to body weight at all.

Also, who the fuck cares what really happens in the 23rd century? We won't be here to see what the ideal body type will be by that point. We are speaking representation in the now, not what if scenarios. Fat people don't owe people like you anything because they never let us have anything. They certainly don't owe you the comfort of living in your eugenic-flavored fantasy where nobody has a body shape that upsets you. There are more overweight, fat, and downright obese people than there are thin in this world, and the film industry should fucking grow a spine for once and actually reflect that. Yes, we shouldn't encourage bad eating habits, but that's not what the original confession was talking about. It was about how it's great to see a beautiful, healthy woman whose body weight doesn't take anything from that beauty and that healthiness, and that it would be even greater to see more of those type of characters. You having an issue with that speaks a lot about yourself, and the absolutely disgusting levels of fatphobia in the world.

Fat people deserve and belong in the camera, and in the future. Accept us or turn your screen off.

Footnote that the absolute clown levels it take to say that healthy food cannot make you fat, newsflash asshole, the healthiest, most organic food you can think of will make you fat if you eat it too much too often.

#sigh sorry about this crew #hope i didn't make a fool out of myself #tw fatphobia #trigger warnings #response to confession #confession 465 #i went through all 5 expressions in the gif

[alexiethymia]

Hi, love your blog ❤️ especially your analysis on Jinshi and MaoMao. I have read LN till around volume 9 plus manga and I don't have any problem with spoilers.

Can you list all Jinshi X MaoMao moments? Like from volume 10 to whichever volumes you have finished...?

You see, as much as I love other characters, I'm mainly reading it to see my favourite ship sail, i.e. JinshiXMaoMao ✨ so if there are any great shipping moments in future chapters please list them, I'll give it a go. Thank you so much, really loved your char analysis ✨. This gem of a story is not discussed enough!

I can’t recall everything entirely, and the web novel I’m sure will differ from the light novel. But here are a few.

Some of the moments which I loved where when Jinshi asked to hold Maomao’s hands interlacing like in a lover’s hold. From what I read, he sort of marked her middle finger. Maomao later gets embarrassed after the fact. I’m not sure if it’s because she thinks everyone else saw them or because of the mark.

The moment I mentioned in my post was I think the end of LN 12? And also the end of WN 10 if I’m not mistaken. Maomao goes to Jinshi on her own. They end up hugging on the floor and she ends up falling asleep on him. He brings her to his bed (like the time she saved him during the ritual), and kisses her forehead for replenishment.

The recent WN arcs are quite interesting since Maomao has accepted his feelings and in her words, they’re now in a relationship (though of course as characteristic of Maomao she’s still cool towards him). There’s one interesting chapter about a night visit (haha) though nothing happens. In other words Jinshi is restraining himself. But surprisingly! It’s Maomao who’s being a bit forward now. At the end of the recent chapter in the recent arc, Jinshi is stopping himself from touching Maomao because he’ll want to hug her tight (and bite and lick her too, gosh does this man not get embarrassed at all??) and Maomao ends up tracing her finger down the back of his wrist up until his middle finger (maybe as payback to what he did in the Western Capital?) and I don’t know about you but it reads to me as her teasing him, though I might warn her from provoking him too much haha. (But then again maybe Maomao does want something to happen).

It’s also sweet to hear her inner thoughts after the night visit that she was both relieved and disappointed nothing happened and that she wants to both see him and not see him. It’s interesting to see her maybe unsure, and perhaps also a bit restless when Jinshi doesn’t call on her. Because this time she’s the one who asks Chue to call Jinshi to contact her. And finally the piece de resistance, when she wants help with something involving her Joka nee-chan, she thinks about someone she can trust, and the only face that comes to her mind is Jinshi. Arghh my heart. For this wary cat to realize how much she really trusts Jinshi. And perhaps her taking this step in accepting his feelings is her way of showing belief in his words that he will make it so she doesn’t regret them being together.

And oh! I loved the mother and daughter-in-law talk. For Aduo to finally reveal the truth to Maomao since she sees how serious the both of them are getting, for Aduo to compare herself to Maomao, for Aduo to offer her a chance to escape even if it would make her son unhappy (Chue actually interjects here! Because Aduo ordered her to make his son happy and Chue can’t accomplish that mission with Maomao gone, gah my heart. Chue the captain of the Jinshi x Maomao ship), and despite that chance and learning the truth, for Maomao to gain the resolve to stay (with Jinshi) anyway. They really have come so far.

#kusuriya no hitorigoto #knh #the apothecary diaries #knh spoilers #jinmao #maomao x jinshi #asks

[joyful-soul-collector]

ooh what's lockwood and co about should i watch it?

WAS WAITING FOR SOMEONE TO ASK THIS HERE WE FUCKIN GO BROS

So Lockwood & Co is a netflix series based on a book series of the same name. Essentially it's about ghosts and ghost hunters, but with a twist: It's set in our time, but not our time as we know it.

Basically, around the 1970s, ghosts just like. Appeared. For no reason we've been able to figure out. People would die, and their malevolent ghost would come back, especially if they died in a particularly traumatic way. They called this The Problem. The thing about these ghosts, is that if they touch you, you die, and if you make eye contact with one for too long, you become Ghost-Locked, which basically send you into a coma. We're not sure what Ghost-Locked victims see in this coma but they always look horrified so we can assume it's not great. There seem to be 3 types of ghosts: Type Ones are what you normally picture for a ghost, Type Twos can make illusions and are more powerful, and Type Threes are incredibly rare and they can talk and communicate with certain people.

Then there are the ghost hunters. Now ghost hunters are always children, usually teens, because as you grow older you lose your Talent, your ability to sense ghosts/death. There are 3 types of Talents: Seeing, Hearing, Touching.

Another thing about this world is that there's no Internet. You can see in the theme song piles of old broken computers, and I'm not sure it's explained yet WHY the internet was never invented, but we assume it's because of The Problem somehow. But this means that the newspaper and news on tv is mainly how information gets around, and any research done has to come from a library and books.

So basically in this world there are companies that pay teens to hunt for ghosts and get rid of them. The companies are usually run by adults though, so it's fraught with awful shit, they often treat these kids like they're just tools and not like they're actual people. Often the kids don't actually get paid themselves, because their parents can control where their money gets paid to, so parents will send of their kids to ghost war and rake in the money safe at home. Capitalism god ahold of The Problem and figured out how to make hella money of of it, so a lot of these companies that are supposed to help people are actually super corrupt and awful to their employees.

Unless of course, you're Lockwood & Co

These dorks look at em

50 years after the start of The Problem, Anthony Lockwood, the guy on the right, is an orphaned teenager who decided he wanted to start his own ghost hunting company, and the "Co" part of the name includes the two on the left, George Karim and Lucy Carlyle. They run their own 3 person company free from exploitation from adults, which other companies (run by adults) really really hate. Lockwood has a Seeing Talent, Lucy has a Hearing Talent, and George has a Touching Talent.

Basically, these 3 kids are hired for a job getting rid of a ghost, only they find out that this ghost is one of a woman who was murdered, and not of a guy who fell down the stairs like they thought. They look deeper and deeper into this murder mystery and keep uncovering shit that other ghost companies do NOT want them to be uncovering. Things that go beyond exploitation of kids, more murders, weird artifacts, things that might even explain the origins of The Problem itself. So Lockwood & Co decide they want to figure it all out, or die trying.

This show is heartwarming, it's funny, its mysterious, it's got ALL THE FOUND FAMILY VIBES and I think it's a real hidden gem in the piles of TV shows on Netflix. It's been in the top 10 shows on netflix for a bit, but I've never really heard anyone talk about it, I just stumbled upon it when looking for something to watch one day. All in all, yes, you should definitely watch it please please please do it, I swear to god of Netflix cancels this show I'm going to riot

#marko answers #Anonymous #lockwood & co #lockwood and co #anthony lockwood #lucy carlyle #george karim #netflix #tv shows #tv recommendations #show recommendations #tv show recommendations

[xenon-demon]

I fucking love pretty much every version of the “celebrity x Just Some Guy™” trope that there is for Steddie, but in honor of having a totally reasonable amount of wine I’m going to tell you about the version I’m currently thinking about all the time, one of my dumbest yet also funniest AU concepts: modern!AU with streamers Steve & Robin and Hardcore Fan™ Eddie who writes reader-insert fic about Steve.

Steve and Robin, aka EvenStevens and BirdBox_ on Twitch (“My name is spelled with a P-H, Robin, that’s such a stupid name.” “No, it’s actually even better this way! You don’t want to just use your real government name for something like this, and you would just make your username ‘SteveHarrington01′ or something equally uninspired-”) frequently stream together and have a shared YouTube channel. They got popular doing reaction videos that quickly devolve into the pair of them bickering on camera, and since the internet just loves the ‘snarky woman and her emotional support himbo’ dynamic, they got very big, very quick. Plus, it certainly doesn’t hurt that they had the combined might of Dustin and Erica to help them bend the algorithm to their whims.

While most people recognize their platonic-with-a-capital-P soulmatism, there are still some that are convinced they’re secretly dating - they can’t decide if it’s hilarious or absolutely maddening that every time they try to disprove the rumors, they somehow get stronger. Robin doesn’t feel comfortable coming out to the internet yet, and without that trump card some people just can’t understand why they’re not dating.

...there are other sections of their fandom, however, that absolutely do believe they’re not dating. Mainly because they’d rather be dating Steve or Robin (or both!) themselves, and write all the reader-insert fanfiction you could ever possibly need about it. Robin is largely ambivalent to the concept of fanfiction being written about herself as long as they’re not writing smut, since at least that way they’re not insisting she’s dating Steve.

Steve on the other hand finds it absolutely hilarious how despite how much he’s changed, he’s back to being the heartthrob he used to be in high school - and, he’ll be honest, he thrives on the attention. He’s given everyone the green light to write whatever they want - dared them to make it raunchier, even - to the point where it’s a running joke that Steve will read your reader-insert fanfiction about him unless you tag it with some form of ‘Steve don’t look’. He even used the prevalence of fic about himself to come out on stream.

(Steve’s in the middle of re-organizing his flower field in Animal Crossing when he’s interrupted by a donation. “Hey Steve, really sorry to tell you this but people are writing porn about you... and they’re making it gay. Like writing about you getting fucked by a dude. Just wanted you to know so you can say something about it.”

Steve stops dead, his screen freezing on his open inventory. “Hey, uh, why the fuck would I have a problem about a fictional version of me bottoming? Or- wait, do I seriously give off homophobic vibes? I’m literally bisexual. Hey Dustin, can you ban that guy please? Christ, the nerve of some people. If that’s how you feel about people being gay, or about people writing things that I’ve already said I have no problem with, you can leave this stream right now because I don’t want you here.“)

Many people lost their minds after that stream, one of them being popular tumblr blog whorefireclub.

Eddie didn’t plan on starting a tumblr blog for self-insert fanfiction about a twitch streamer. Really he didn’t, and every time he thinks about it in terms that plain he kind of dies a little on the inside. It’s really all Gareth’s fault, for getting fed up with Eddie’s dumb parasocial crush on a streamer and daring him to just “get it out of his system already”. So, using a bare-bones anonymous tumblr and many, many beers as his cover story, Eddie posted some of the most quickly written and unedited pieces of writing he’s ever produced in his life.

Except he wrote it with an AMAB reader character - and for those of you unfamiliar with the reader-insert sphere, that’s like fucking hen’s teeth. People are pretty good at making things gender neutral at least in their descriptions, and sometimes the anatomy is vague enough that it’s ambiguous, but the majority is written with AFAB genitalia for the reader character.

Eddie’s little drunken post blows up, and at first, he’s never regretted a life choice more.

After thinking about it, and seeing just how many people left comments with their reblogs or came into his askbox directly to thank him for giving them the representation they wanted, he starts to feel a bit better about the whole thing. In fact, it kind of tickles his “protector of the outcasts” instincts; there are people who can’t enjoy the content they want to because it doesn’t gel with their anatomy or gender identity. Eddie could, hypothetically, if he wanted to be absolutely insane about this one hot streamer guy, help fix that problem somewhat.

A couple of months later and he’s become “the guy who writes inclusive reader-insert fic”. While a fair amount of his work is gender-ambiguous, both in anatomy and in avoiding gendered language, more than half is written for anyone who finds themselves underrepresented in the usual reader-insert scene; anyone AMAB, AFAB people who can’t do female language, he’s even written a few oneshots with intersex reader characters. He did research for it and everything. It’s certainly not how he planned for this to work out, but it’s actually kind of... nice. He’d written a lot of fanfiction in his youth, mainly about Lord of the Rings and Star Trek, and while this isn’t how he’d imagined returning to the hobby it’s actually really fun. (It’s making his celebrity crush on Steve a million times worse, of course, but he’s in denial about that so it’s totally fine.)

He’s a little shit, so his blog header has - underneath his personal details - a PSA that reads “Steve, don’t look at this unless you have the balls to shout me out on stream ;)”. Eddie thinks he’s absolutely hilarious.

Right up until he wakes up to find his following has exploded overnight, and upon checking his DMs from his mutuals realizes that - oh shit - that bastard actually did it and talked about his blog on stream.

And Steve said he liked it. Steve likes the porn that Eddie wrote about him. Jesus H. Christ, Eddie is so unfathomably fucked.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

if this were to exist as a fic it would be told through social media posts/DMs. one of those fics that uses unconventional (i.e. non-prose) formatting, you know the ones. the concept actually came from the fact I fucking LOVE fics like that, I’m a slut for any of that House of Leaves-type shit. one time I read a fic that consisted of 8 short stories and each one had a HTML puzzle you had to solve to be able to read it, e.g. one you had to highlight because the text was in white, another you needed to hover your mouse over to make it scroll through the text - I can’t remember the rest but it was SO COOL.

(or, to put this another way, I read homestuck at a formative age and it forever changed how I feel about formatting stories.)

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #robin buckley #steddie au #stranger things #charlie writes things #streamer au #streamer!steve harrington #writer!eddie munson #this is such a dumb au but i think it's so funny #eddie and steve flirting with each other via reader-insert fic that gets less and less subtle #steve has a secret fan account btw because of course he does #and he's always reblogging eddie's stuff and saying how hot it is/how much he likes it #also the pinned post on eddie's blog is him yelling at an anon for coming to him and asking why he doesn't ship stobin #HEY MAYBE WE WON'T DO SOMETHING THE CREATORS HAVE REPEATEDLY SAID THEY DON'T LIKE? AND MAKES THEM UNCOMFORTABLE? HOW ABOUT THAT? #<-- is what eddie's response boiled down to

[thesorcerersapprentice]

04.03.2024

BI-WEEKLY (ISH...) ACHIEVEMENTS:

Hello everyone! Apologies for the delay. My offline life has gotten quite hectic lately, which has made it hard to keep on schedule. Hopefully, things will smooth over soon!

Worldbuilding & Solar/Cyberpunk Considerations: As I mentioned in the last couple of updates, I've been working on a post on the geography, flora & fauna of The Sorcerer's Apprentice universe, which I meant to publish last week (and the week before that, lol). I've completed the three sections that correspond to the (as of yet unnamed) second empire's territory (second because the book focuses on neo-colonialism, the successor of old-world colonialism), all of which are based on the natural world of Colombia at 2600 meters above sea level and beyond. Because the plot of The Sorcerer's Apprentice mainly transpires in a city within this region, while writing the aforementioned sections, I was also trying to figure out what a city that incorporates the novel's themes (the link between colonialism, environmental catastrophe, and capitalism) would look like within this context. Given that one of the main themes is capitalism, my first impulse was to make the primary plot location in the novel a cyberpunk-inspired city. After all, what screams capitalism gone mad more than cyberpunk? To this end, I read quite a few articles on the subject (Rethinking the End of Modernity: Empire, Hyper-Capitalism, and Cyberpunk Dystopias by Jeffrey Paris, Elements of a Poetics of Cybperunk by Brian McHale, Neoliberalism and Cyberpunk Science Fiction: Living on the Edge of Burnout by Caroline Alphin, Recycled Dystopias: Cyberpunk and the End of History by Elana Gomel, The Cyberpunk Dystopia as a Reflection on Late Capitalism by Marius Florea, and more). The problem with this idea was that when I looked around me at Bogotá, the city I live in, I just couldn't see it. Bogotá is a green city. There is green everywhere you look. Furthermore, traditional-looking cyberpunk flattens any culturally specific elements it incorporates, the same way big-chain supermarkets worldwide completely obliterate the slightest whiff of uniqueness from their premises. No matter where you are, they all look the same. As I mentioned in a previous update, one of my aims with The Sorcerer's Apprentice is to celebrate the culture of my region of the world. Cyberpunk, at least as it has been traditionally conceived, works against that objective. Again, this fits with what capitalism does irl, but I really really really don't want to write yet another NYC-inspired urban hellscape. In fact, I can't think of anything worse than having my main character admire a cyberpunk city... My search for a more suitable alternative led me to the antithesis of cyberpunk, its eco-friendly adversary, solarpunk. For information on this genre, I relied mainly on @alpaca-clouds post on the History of Solarpunk and @solarpunks's informative response, which includes several very helpful links (check out both posts here!). At first glance, solarpunk seemed to fit The Sorcerer's Apprentice much better than cyberpunk had; it allowed me to envision a city that elevated rather than obscured (or flattened) present-day Colombian culture. Basically, with solarpunk I could keep the city green, as cities in this region of the world tend to be; I could retain the push for sustainable innovations that play such a vital role in our mainstream policy; and I could keep the regional architecture, as well as site-specific building materials like guadua, a hardy local species of bamboo. Most importantly, with solarapunk I could genuinely describe the city with respect and admiration. The only remaining issue was to figure out how to incorporate the novel's themes into this genre. After all, although Solarpunk is utopic, The Sorcerer's Apprentice is not. How do I illuminate and criticize the link between capitalism, colonialism and environmental decay within a fantastical city that walks and talks like a utopia?

Cont. My solution is to create a hybrid proposal somewhere between cyberpunk and solarpunk; a city that presents like solarpunk, but that has achieved this green, sustainable self-expression without renouncing its colonial and capitalist exploitation of vulnerable peoples and environments elsewhere. Essentially, this would make the city the large-scale equivalent of one of those high-end clothing brands that have "recycled" symbols on their tags, but that have their product made in deplorable overseas sweatshops. The message of the novel would, thus, be amplified to include the idea that there can be no environmental justice without social justice. Does it work? We'll see. That's what I've got so far.

Researched the Link between Colonialism, Environmental Catastrophe and Capitalism: To educate myself on the main themes of the novel and how these can be better incorporated into the setting, I picked up Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change by Jean-Baptiste Fressoz & Fabien Locher, and translated by Gregory Elliott. And let me tell you, I was not expecting to learn what I learned!!! This book is honestly fire. I had no idea climate science was so deeply rooted in colonialism!! Honestly, more than any other book I've read so far, Chaos in the Heavens articulates the link between the three main themes I've been trying to work with so, so clearly. Now I understand why people say we're lazy because we get too much sun. Or why all the native trees got cut down and replaced with pines. Eye-Opening!!! 100000% recommend.

REMINDERS:

Answer pending asks, and publish that promised worldbuilding post on the geography, flora & fauna of The Sorcerer’s Apprentice universe, you know the drill lol

Research Transhumanism.

Research Designs for Sustainable Cities and New Green Technologies.

TAG LIST: (ask to be + or - ) @the-finch-address @fearofahumanplanet @winterninja-fr  @avrablake @outpost51 @d3mon-ology @hippiewrites @threeking @lexiklecksi @achilleanmafia @blind-the-winds

© 2024 The Sorcerer’s Apprentice. All rights reserved.

#writeblr #writeblr community #writblr #writers of tumblr #writers on tumblr #original fiction #wip #writing community #writblr community #writing #progress update #biweekly progress update #colonialism #solarpunk #cyberpunk #fiction #sci fi and fantasy #am writing #book writing #my writing #novel writing #creative writing #writers on writing

[kastelpls]

steam visual novel fest sale recs

i like visual novels and there's a vn fest going on, so here's a thread on titles i like:

ELIZA

https://store.steampowered.com/app/716500/Eliza

i recently finished this title and while the topic is certainly relevant, what drew me more was how it depicted the traumas of tech startup culture. whether intentional or not, the dreams and aspirations of tech workers to solve problems become tainted by capital and hubris.

the protagonist is jaded as fuck because she's seen her creation take over the world. but she's not as melodramatic as dr frankenstein; she is still gauging how things are going. her alienated view on the world around is intoxicating and i really found the pov very charming.

the experience of playing this game made me feel like i've returned to my unpaid internship days for better or for worse. it's a story that will forever remain relevant until silicon valley and the tech industry as we know it are over. wonderful title.

SeaBed

https://store.steampowered.com/app/583090/SeaBed/

i have personal stakes in seabed since i'm one of the two non-translators credited to bringing this yuri vn overseas. my bias aside, i think this is one of the most unique video games of all time.

you follow a bunch of adults aimlessly wandering around as the world around them reflects their mental states. things just happen, but everyone takes it in the most matter-of-fact fashion. the writing is intentionally tedious at times because it is in love with the mundane. it's a story all about grief, but it is also about how to approach the ebb and flow of life.

as a friend once said, "it's a mystery where the characters don't realize they're in one." or as i like to put it, "a mystery in search of a mystery".

Christmas Tina

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1049100/_/

set in the notorious bubble era of japan, this may look like a romantic encounter between a chinese dude and a japanese girl at first glance. however, it drops that premise by having them squabble forever and not learn each other's languages.

the game is instead about minorities struggling to survive. the chinese guy left china for various reasons and wanted to make a name for himself while the japanese girl got into a car accident with a person engaged in the sex trade because she was looking for money to pay for her sister's surgery. later on, you'll read about different chinese members, a woman raised by a chinese-japanese couple, and other interesting people that make up japan today.

if there is a game i like to credit for inspiring my interest into connecting with my traumatic chinese history again in my own writing, it's this title. there's a section that surprised me because it was, after all, a title mainly developed in china and it's still very recent history. but i'm glad the developers took the risk and it's an impressive episode.

i'd seriously recommend this game if you haven't tried it. it's seriously a sleeper hit.

Chuusotsu

https://store.steampowered.com/app/630870/Chuusotsu_1st_Graduation_Time_After_Time/

the first of an ongoing series, chuusotsu 1st is about a bunch of middle school graduates who can't graduate into high school for various reasons. stories about their traumas are interlinked with the chaos of japanese social media.

likewise, it's also about trying things that they are scared to try. the protagonist is an anxious girl who wants to do art, but she keeps failing at socializing. she's cute.

The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1158850/The_Great_Ace_Attorney_Chronicles/

since this was featured in the festival, i might as well give it a shout. this is more an adventure game in the Ace Attorney series, but i consider it to be the best game and everyone should play it.

it explores a historical period dear to my heart: the era of meiji japan and victorian england. here are two imperialist nationstates, but the latter is stronger than the former and is secretly dictating how japan should behave.

not only does the game explore this colonial dynamic but it also looks into how racism functions in the british justice system. any pretense of democracy and fairness is ultimately failed when the british jury sees the protagonist and calls him an ape.

i credit the final chapter for changing my dissertation thesis when i was still doing my masters. if i ever do a phd, i'm going to continue studying the history of international students and what it reflects about us as a humanity.

Return to Shironagasu Island

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1156990/Return_to_Shironagasu_Island/

a surprise doujin hit in japan, this visual novel written by an ex-mystery writer is very old-school to a fault. you are exploring one of those MURDER ISLANDS and there's orthodox mystery tricks, but it's well-executed.

the main star is neneko who's a little cringe beast. she's cute.

games i've heard are good but haven't played yet

Bustafellows

Taisho x Alice

The Flowers series

Symphonic Rain

Tangle Tower

Fatal Twelve

Furikake Spacy

A Year of Springs

Narcissu 10th Anniversary Project

2064: Read Only Memories

Analogue: A Hate Story

if you are looking for more recommendations on steam, i have a curation page.

#visual novel #steam visual novel fest #game recommendations

[estellardreams]

A Proper Summary on WHO'S THE MOST DANGEROUS TRAUMA SIBLING BECAUSE THE POLL IS GETTING THE QUESTION WRONG.

I hhave a feeling that people are messing up what the question is... When I said "Who's the Most Dangerous Trauma Sibling™?" I meant in their current forms, not if they snapped out of their states on who would be the most vengeful... That answer would've gone to Damien, anyway.

No, I'm going to fix this predicament... By telling EVERYONE who's actually the most dangerous. Starting with the least.

Nikolai Peterson

Do I even need to explain? The small, anxiety riddled hedgehog who can't fend for himself and has too many problems in his mind? You think HE'S the most dangerous? Really?

He can't run, so definitely not Sonic. Agoraphobia literally shows his recovery process, and it did take a while for him to revert close to normal but those traits still remained.

And his anxiety is PROBLEMATIC. That boy can't fight for anything and Starline constantly capitalizes on his weakness. It's... Rather pathetic, really.

There's a lot more to go into but... He's not strong. At all.

"You are not Sonic the Hedgehog. You have never been Sonic the Hedgehog"

Niko is normal. That's the point. He doesn't believe he's Sonic. He's the complete opposite to him in every capacity, too.

Kyle Molina

Kyle is... A unique case. He's a completely blank slate.

I am not exaggerating.

He kept resisting Starline so much that the platypus had to resort to drugging him so much that he couldn't think straight and his memories were buried underneath the fog.

A very thick and deep fog, to be specific.

To summarize who he is now... He is very calm and collected, but still holds an imaginative mindset underneath that silent and stoic exterior.

Kyle is also not the type to get mad. That's very clear. He's more likely to show fear than anger or sadness in general.

He's like... The type who doesn't emote very often. He's generally calm, collected, and keeps his thoughts in order. Starline couldn't wipe his intelligence, but he did wipe his memories, leaving a very intelligent child on his own with no idea why he's even like this in the first place.

"You cannot fly. You do not have two tails."

Kyle was made to believe he was a normal fox. What sets him away from Camellia is that his memories are all gone.

A blank slate can't do anything if it knows nothing was there at all.

Damien Bridges

This one is... Obvious. Damien is borderline insane, and that's been a continuous fact with him. He is just as smart as Kyle, but due to his more unstable mind he's a lot more... Unhinged, so to speak.

Damien is practically the definition of "dying inside" and I am not joking. He's been smiling so much, his pupils have shrunken down, and he's constantly on the verge of a mental breakdown every single day.

Insane laughter is there too. And it can get bad to the point he spirals.

But where this differs is... How Starline handled him versus Amy. We'll get into her next.

Damien has mental restrictions on him, so he'll not snap and be forced to rely on Starline. It's mainly the case of repeated fake flashbacks that Starline helps him through so Damien must rely on him for help and safety from these recurring traumatic experiences.

And if people TRY to take Nox from Agoraphobia into account for the fact that Damien is the most dangerous, KEEP IN MIND he became the major antagonist when he went off his meds and essentially "broke out" of his programming. He doesn't count.

"You are not Shadow the Hedgehog. You are not the Ultimate Lifeform."

Damien is similar to Niko in his treatment in a lot of ways, but his trauma response is completely different in correlation with his new personality. As such, he's on the edge of being erratic, insane, and hard to deal with. The only thing that keeps him in line are his mental restraints.

Camellia Rivera

I had this discussion with Sky so I'll rephrase what I said here: She's the closest to her OG counterpart, and as such the most likely to fight back and grow aggressive towards others. Damien has the disadvantage of mental restraints, Camellia doesn't.

Camellia, in Heliophobia, is the only character who's run away from her family. In other circumstances, like Pragmatophobia, she is the first person to realize she's been manipulated by Starline. The first one to discover the truth. And even her efforts in both Pragmatophobia and Athazagoraphobia don't go unnoticed. She makes an effort to help save others also stuck in this trap (whether it works or not, no idea).

Camellia is also very strong-willed. That energetic, bubbly personality presents her as being a lot more confident and open about herself and her ideals. She might slip into anxious territory occasionally, but she's been very strong entirely through her existence.

"You are not magical. You are normal."

And what happens when you remove the idea of someone being magical but leave their personality untouched? You get Camellia.

And Camellia is absolutely someone you shouldn't get into a fight with.

I rest my case. Thank you for reading. :)

#sonic #sonic au #text post #tachophobia expanded universe #tachophobia au #pragmatophobia au #athazagoraphobia au #heliophobia au #agoraphobia au #trauma siblings #nikolai peterson #camellia rivera #kyle molina #damien bridges

[neonknightjaey]

Sburb:Final Test Build! (Prologue)

*A website opens up showing a chatlog between four individuals. A website called Troll-A-Chum. This was the last normal conversation before the session started.*

dynamicProtagonist: thAtcher, where the hell are you?! is your thinkpan, sorry…”Brain” still Culminating on the newest set of excuses to holD Everyone back from Fully levelinG up for the better?!

thinkpanObliterator: Come now Adroxi, it izn’t all that zerious. He could juzt be running a bit behind iz all.

zanyKnight: Sorry! I’m super late! Had another run in with “You know who.” He was guarding my copy of SBURB along with THE DONUTS.

DP: are tHese “donuts” really that Important you had to needlessly capitalize them?

ZK: …they had chocolate frosting…

grimmestDarkpony: did somebody say chocolate?!?! :D

TO: Ahh, Emmi. You’re here. I take it your copy is in your handz?

GP: yeah! got it in the mail today from my parents!

TO: Parentz, zuch a human conztruct anyway. Zounds like it would be better than…hmmm, no. What we have iz much better. Anywayz insert the game in already or elze the cluckbeazt will find you~!

DP: kasill…stop…

ZK: Can we play now?

DP: thatcher, pay attention and insert the disc!

*As soon as they insert the disc…things go dark…for the audience. For now. Lets get the plot of this story out of the way, then we’ll do roll call.*

The real title of this tale…

Homestuck: Connection Lost

The plot is similar to the main series. Four varying aged individuals decide to play a game together, however after entering the medium, the connection to their server is lost and as such, their world is deleted. However, the four end up in another session. One already in progress with a boy, his friends, and eight trolls negging them as well…yeah they’ve wound up in the beta timeline and must work with them to at least save this world.

Unoriginal plot is now out of the way. Now, lets get on with the role call!

Up first, the self proclaimed “leader” of this group.

Adroxi Repits

Adroxi is a teal Blooded troll who has a passion for justiCe and as such works on his figure to grow himself physically. he is heavily inspireD by jrpgs and oftEn thinks oF himself as the protaGonist. wHIle he can come across as rude and…very rude, deep down he has a bond with most of his friends that will be pushed to their limits while on this Journey. He’s also the one who made the Troll-A-Chum servers for his friends to talk on.

Age: 8.5 Sweeps (18.5. 23 by the credits)

Weapons: His fists, SwordBats

Typing quirks: AlphaBetiCal capitalization.

Chumhandle: dynamicProtagonist

Next is.

Kasill Vaveil

Kasill is a Jade blooded troll who can handle the Alternian sun like most do but something is off about her. Instead of embracing the nurturing and caregiving side most of them have, she fears that if she does this, she’ll cause problems and will lead others to their deaths. To remedy this she hides behind a “kooky” and wacky persona so that nobody suspects she’s hiding anything. She lets it slip with her friends though at times…mainly Thatcher and Adroxi.

Age: 7 Sweeps (15. 20 by the credits)

Weapons: Barbed Wire, Chains

Typing quirks: Replaces all S’s with Z’s

Chumhandle: thinkpanObliterator

Next we have

Jaey Thatcher

Jaey is a normal everyday human who’s sleep deprived and lives with a guy who dresses in knight armor and trains him in “the way of the knight.” Which mainly includes random attacks and being left on the ground after getting his ass kicked. Due to living on edge he’s never had time to figure out how to act or who he wants to act like. What he does know is that he LOVES pissing off “Crusader” often by using alternate weapons, shifting interests, finding more interests in samurai movies instead of knight movies, and giving up swords for fountain pens.

Age: 14.5 (20 by the credits)

Weapons: Fountain Pens, Broadswords

Typing quirks: Normal text but CAPITALIZES important items and titles.

Chumhandle: zanyKnight

Finally on our list is

Emmi Jollie

Emmi is the youngest of the quartet and yet so mature she was allowed to name herself two years early! She gets pouty at her parents for telling her no all the time and being responsible so she turns to her online friends who agreed they’ll help her grow up. She is the glue holding them together and without her they wouldn’t be friends. She loves normal girly stuff like the color pink, horses, and the twisted and macabre stuff like horror terrors and, thanks to “mister white text man” she’s really interesting in “Grimdarks.” She hopes that someday her friends can see that she can grow up without them and she’ll be okay on her own one day.

Age: 11 at the start. (12 when they enter the other world. 17 by the credits)

Weapons: Pop guns, revolvers, wiffle ball bats

Typing quirks: all lowercase. Lots of exclamation marks and smiles when excited.

Chumhandle: grimmestDarkpony

And with that, the roll call is done and I hope this weird what if has interested you…now a note from the author.

Author Talk: Hey guys…so this is my weird little HSAU series I’ve been planning for months. Still ironing some things out but I can answer any questions you may have.

1, Why are YOU in this?

A: It was originally an rp series that fell through but over time I developed it more and as such am keeping him here as his own separate character. Shipping stuff, if any, will only be for after the credits esq pics where everyone in the story is established to be 18 and older…not with Emmi though. She’s too young. Speaking of.

2, Why the varying ages?

A: Well…having everyone be multiple ages is something I don’t see too often in these stories so I wanted to try it for myself and see if I could make it work.

3, Will this ever be on MSPFA or have pictures to go with it?

A: Not unless a team of deranged folks wanna go along with this somehow for free cuz I’m both broke and artistically bankrupt. Hell I made these guys in the character maker for HS.

4, Is this just cringy fanfiction?

A: Hell yeah baby. But fuck it, we ball.

With this all being said. I hope you enjoyed reading…this in all its….glory?

#homestuck #oc talk #au idea #fantroll #fantrolls #homestuck fantroll #homestuck fankid #homestuck fankids #homestuck what if #homestuck fandom

[beblessed]

He Loves You Still (Part 1)

Based on Hosea Chapter 1 -2 (Mostly 2)

The book of Hosea opens up with God speaking to Israel through his servant Hosea. He commands Hosea to go and marry Gomer, a prostitute. Wild, yea I know, but it gets better. Go then tells Hosea that some of her children will be conceived in prostitution. This was to illustrate how Israel was acting like a prostitute and worshipping other gods, mainly baal (not capitalized on purpose).

Hosea marries Gomer and they have three children. Gomer is still promiscuous during this time. All the names of their children were given to Hosea directly from God. This speaks to the true love and heart of God that when he names something, he gives it identity and purpose. That purpose may take time to manifest but it will come to pass. God says to call the first son “Jezreel,” because God was going to punish the house of Jehu for the massacre at Jezreel and “put an end to the kingdom of Israel.” Let me just say that, this name appears to have nothing to do with the baby. Hosea and Gomer conceive again and give birth to a daughter and the Lord told Hosea to “Call her Lo-Ruhamah (which means “not loved”).” God said that he would no longer show love to the people of Israel or forgive them. I need to know Hosea’s reactions to these names and their meanings. However, I’m assuming he had no problems or issues with the names otherwise it would’ve been recorded. Hosea and Gomer have a second son who the Lord said to call “Lo-Ammi (not my people), for Israel is not my people and I am not their God.” 🙃😮 At the end of chapter one God tells Hosea that Judah and Israel will reunite and He will restore Himself to His people. This was an interesting time for God to make a promise.

Chapter 2 is where it goes down. Seriously, stop right now and go read Hosea 2:1-8, this will help as you keep reading this post. COME BACK after you finish! God starts likening the people of Israel to an unfaithful wife. Hosea can understand and relate to these words from God because he is literally a living example. God begins to admonish the people of Israel for turning their back on Him and turning to other gods. Here we see the true love and faithfulness of God, even when His people don’t reciprocate that love. He continued to bless them. Israel was consumed by the “good” they thought they were getting while in their sin. They couldn’t even see that the pleasure from their sin was void and empty. This is how sin keeps us in a never ending cycle. We get full of our sin for a moment and then we’re left feeling empty and we run right back to that sin. The cycle continues until God in His faithful and unfailing love steps in.

As I’m reading, I’m asking myself “where is the love in this?” Then I get to verse 6, where God says He will block their path with with a wall of thorn bushes. Isn’t it amazing how God can love us so much when we aren’t even thinking about Him. He loves us so much that he would put thorn bushes on the side of our path to keep us on the right path and deter us from getting on the wrong one. When we steer off the path towards God and encounter those thorn bushes they hurt and the enemy will try distract us and get us to blame God for trying to hurt us. When actually, it’s God’s love trying to get our attention and let us know we are going the wrong way. Not following God comes with scars, the good thing about scars is that they do heal. Praise God for the thorn bushes in our lives!

God continues on in his infinite wisdom and love about not allowing her (Israel) to catch the lovers (other gods) she runs after or searches for. Israel will then realize that “I might as well return to my first husband (God), for I was better off with Him than I am now.” God will eventually expose the emptiness and weakness of the things we put before Him. This was symbolic of Israel returning to God after understanding the blessing they thought was coming from baal, was actually from God all along. The whole time Israel was praising baal and giving sacrifices and gifts to it. God is so unselfish, kind and loving that He STILL provided for His people though they wanted nothing to do with Him. How many times do we take what God has blessed us with and give it to the god or thing we put before Him? How often do we disrespect our Heavenly Father by giving someone or something else the praise and glory for the provision He made? God’s love for us is truly unconditional. God used Hosea’s relationship with Gomer to mirror His love toward us.

When we misuse the gifts from God, He will sometimes take them away. Not to punish us for the sin we are in but He wants us to expose that sin or situation that we are putting before Him for what it really is, fake and deprived. He puts us in a “wilderness” so we can see that the source of the problem is where we are putting our focus and energy and that it was Him sustaining us all along, when we didn’t deserve it. I don’t know about you but this is where I start getting angry and upset with God. “Why did you leave me?” “God it’s your fault I’m in this mess because you left me here?” The problem isn’t that God left, the problem is that I made decisions and put other things before Him and He let me see how much I can actually trust them.

————

Think about the things in our daily lives we put before God? What might happen if God were to expose those things by removing His favor or blessings?

Ask God to help you identify those things we have in His place. Be ready for some changes in your life when you pray this prayer. It’s going to get real uncomfortable.

Stay Tuned for part 2…

Be Blessed

#Hosea #God #Trust #Blessings #Unconditional Love #Bible

[saltylandland]

Killing A Vamp: Chapter 2

Summary: after betraying your brothers for the chance to get your humanity back, you realise who was pulling the strings the whole time.

✨✨Platonic! Gn! Reader/You x Lost Boys✨✨

I'm on a roll here, so another one!

Word count: 1.1k

Series masterlist

The bout of silence that followed almost made you feel embarrassed, happy that the store was empty besides them and the knocked out parents a couple metres away. But soon enough the brothers jump into action, wheeling out the comic displays in the front, locking up the shop, and turning the open sign to ‘closed’.

Escorting you hurriedly into the back, they set you down at a table and flick the light above you three on. It almost feels like an interrogation.

They talk over each other, “we’ve seen you on the boardwalk more than once with those shady punks, you’re talking about them right?”

“I knew you’d come to your senses, finally ditched those leeches huh?”

“Damn I knew they were vampires!- wait did you say you need to kill vampires or vampire?”

You rub your forehead tiredly, those couple hours you slept had been for naught as these boys stamped out all of your energy. “No, listen, I need you to take out the head vampire- you know what that is?” You know damn well that they know what that is but you ask anyway.

The boys nod their heads like aggressive bobble heads, that almost makes you laugh. “Yeah, I know who he is and he needs to die as soon as possible” the boys look at you, then they look at each other, then back at you. “You’re a half bloodsucker, aren’t you?” And before you can say anything else, the short one jumps up and pulls down the blinds. You unintentionally flinch, cursing yourself over, ‘you’re too fucking tired for this shit’

The short frog drops the blinds but goes for a steak, honestly what the fuck is wrong with these guys?!

Smacking it out of his hand, you take hold of the band on his head and smack it as lightly as you could on the table. You were getting fed up and that is not good.

“Dude what is your damage?! I came here to get healed, not steaked! Will you just listen to me?!” The short one clears his throat, trying to shake off the hit he just took and the other looks at you in slight awe.

“But if you’re a half, then those punks you hangout with are vampires too!” At this you bristle up, but you decide to lean in with a little bit of truth, you were a shit liar anyway. “Yes, but they’re not the problem here-“ the taller frog interrupts “not a problem?! They’re the reason that Santa Carla is the murder capital of the world!”

You sigh again, this is going to become a habit isn’t it? “First of all, just because a build board has it spray painted on the back doesn’t mean it’s true. Do you think the supernatural only exists here? Why is the rest of the world’s violence downplayed by five vampires- don’t write that down!”

The frogs look sheepishly as they lower their notes. “That nickname, is what attracts shitheads to Santa Carla, to the boardwalk. It’s crowded and filled with tourists and wanderers, perfect pickings for people with bad intentions. Monsters don’t stop at the supernatural, much less vampires”

You admit you’re exaggerating a bit now as you talk about your brothers now. “Those punks only eat people with bad intentions” “but what about the missing kid posters huh? Is skipping bedtime a death sentence Missus Claus?”

You look at them weirdly, “hold on, what’s with your voice? You sound constipated. Secondly, they have nothing to do with those kids, once again, shitty people exist. Hell, I’ve seen some of my brothers give the kids joy rides on their bikes.”

That was surprisingly true, although rare, some wanderers have kids that can’t go home, whether their homeless or their parents need to work and they can’t afford babysitters, the boys will keep an eye out for those kids wandering around the boardwalk, even giving them pocket change for some rides, food, or carnival games. Mainly the three others sans David, who mainly takes up the guard dog position.

All of a sudden you feel a prickling at the back of your neck, you could tell that the sun had already started to set. Have you really been spending all your time just defending your brothers? You’re really running out of time here.

“As much as I would like to debate the ethics and morals of supernatural creatures here, I’m running out of time here, are you in or out?”

They look at eachother, then back at you. “The vampires aren’t on board with the sire killing?”

You shake your head “they don’t even know I’m here, or the fact that I know who the sire is. If they did they wouldn’t be able to hide that away from him. I am only half so I’m in a safety net of sorts, he barely knows or cares that I exist and he cannot command me just yet.”

The frogs nod along “him. Pronouns. Got it.” Ah, fuck me.

“But I know they don’t like his command, and I don’t want to be a vampire, I just don’t have it in me.”

“Then why did you do it?”

You pause for a moment, furrowing your eyebrows “I don’t know.”

“So… when do we start?” Your look at them confused, “what?” The short one makes a stabbing motion. “Killing the head vamp?”

Oh! “Well, it can’t be here, the boys must be freaking out about where I am and why I suddenly am taking interest in comics… why don’t you join my dnd club?”

At this point you three walk out of the break room into the store front area. The boys look at you bizarrely. “Dnd? Isn’t that satanic?”

Now it was your turn to look at them weirdly, “you guys are geeks and you don’t play dnd? And no it’s not satanic!” You stop near the cash register where you had first started. “Look, it’s the perfect guise here ok? My club is looking for new members and we’re starting up a new campaign. If they see me here I can tell them that the club put me up to this to convince you guys to play with us. Plus we can work out strategies there.”

The door rattled violently as David walked through the store towards you three. Wait, wasn’t that door locked?

Turning to the boys you say a bit louder than necessary “great! So we’ll meet on Friday ok?”

Turning around you walk up to David who was only a couple metres away now. You walk out of the store with him, not until he stares down the frog brothers for a bit before turning back around with you.

Thanks for reading!

#the lost boys #tlb dwayne #the lost boys 1987 #tlb 1987 #tlb fanfic #michael tlb #tlb star #tlb imagine #sam tlb #tlb frog brothers #tlb edgar #tlb allen #the lost boys x reader #platonic the lost boys #tlb david #tlb paul #tlb marko

[evilsanlang]

again on the topic of the image of "diverse thus progressive" foreigners seem to have about Brazil, this quote by Ângela Figueiredo about being black here comes to mind:

"Almost all of us are born 'whitened', as there is a predominance of aspects from the white culture - if we can call it such - in our society, and only 'darken' or turn black over the years those who choose to include in their lives aspects related to the 'black culture' and become curious enough to learn about their past."

worth noting again that unlike the US, with its segregation laws and the one drop rule, Brazil went through what we call the "Whitening" - an ideology backed by social darwinism and race science imported from Europe that promoted miscegenation between white and black people as a solution to "the black problem". this was the driving force behind the policies that openly invited european (white) immigrants to Brazil in the early 20th century. the idea was to completely eliminate the physical aspect of blackness (rather than blood composition) through miscegenation, which gives you a better idea of why, in Brazil, your race is largely determined by how you look, and why concepts like "white-passing" are ill-fitted here. it is in our white and wealthy's best interests that the rest of the world see our diversity as a victory over racism, when it's merely a byproduct of it. and that's not even going into the amount of black women that were raped or sterilized in this effort to Whiten the population.

anyway, now for some personal anecdotes: I'm parda (a general term for 'mixed'; in my case, mixed black) lightskin, and thinking back to my childhood, Ângela Figueiredo really hit the mark with that quote. I was born and raised in a mixed/black community, and within my own family I was often pressured to clip my nose to make my nostrils thinner, to straighten my hair, was made fun of my lips, etc. at school, although most of us were mixed black, every time a white kid transferred in they'd be the talk of the month. I was surrounded by kids that looked just like me, and yet this reverence that my white peers received made it clear who we should be looking up to.

on the TV it was even worse - I don't watch TV anymore so I can't tell you how it is nowadays, but throughout my childhood there was barely any representation of what our population actually looks like. when there was, it was a black maid to a white family or some romanticized take on slavery. we had to watch american shows if we wanted to see black people - The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Everybody Hates Chris, My Wife and Kids, Brandy's Rodgers & Hammerstein's Cinderella, and so on. and although I don't keep up with TV these days, I can tell by the ads I'm bombarded with that at the very least brazilian corporations have realized that they can capitalize on diversity. nothing too risqué, of course. those black girls in box braids and those black dudes with afros have to look just neat enough to be acceptable, not at all like those favelados. (and on the topic of favelas - impoverished areas inhabited mainly of black people - , it's no surprise that brazilian funk, a music genre originated in favelas, garners a type of exterior criticism that, rather than address issues like the sexualization of young girls as a direct result of racism, simply turns its nose at something it deems inherently inferior.)

there's this vicious cycle within mixed/black communities where we're encouraged to shed our blackness in order to escape racism since we're very young, not realizing that in doing so we're perpetuating it. it was only really after I graduated high school that I stopped shying away from my blackness, stopped trying to disguise my nostrils, stopped killing my body trying to look like my white peers. recently my mother told me that my cousin, who'd straightened her 4b hair her entire life, finally stopped and is walking around with a head full of curls. I was elated to hear that.

I'm not too sure what the point of this post is besides giving you some insight into how racism works in Brazil, but one thing I'd like to emphasize is: watch out for brazilians - and latines in general - who claim "we're all mixed", especially when using that as an excuse for their racism. not only is that false, even if we were all mixed, that's only a testament to how hard this country tried to erase the "stain" of blackness.

#ok to rb and encouraged even #br

[fierceawakening]

I was wondering if a radfem might brave that post to tell us what we got right. Hi there @capybarad , I appreciate your stopping by and being civil. I disagree with you on a lot of things most likely, but I appreciate your civility.

So I’m going to reply, but just so you know, I’m non-binary and many of my friends are trans. I don’t know if you’re trans exclusionary or not, but if you put trans people down, I’m no longer going to engage, as I care more about them feeling safe here as they’re my friends than I do about this discussion.

I cant speak for others but the reason why I personally don’t post about things like fgm but do post about things like US conservative traditionalists who are misogynistic and gross and such is just that… I’m not sure what circulating posts about fgm actually does. Where if I’m commenting on something going on in my own culture, I might very well have a chance to sway someone who’s tempted by that rhetoric. I pick my battles now because trying to pick them all in years past just made me exhausted and too drained to fight well for anything.

I appreciate you mentioning that pornography and the harms you see in it are the biggest issue for you, and I can see why you’d want more mainstream feminisms to ally with you there since it’s important to you. The problem is… again, I can’t speak for other people as well as for myself, but what I read of radical feminist theory on pornography as research for the I’ll fated dissertation just… was unconvincing to me.

First there’s my personal experience. Male partners who liked porn were non abusive; the lesbian I met and got together with in feminist circles was. One person’s experience proves very little; there’s surely someone else out there (maybe even you yourself) who’s had the opposite experience.

What would adjudicate this would be clear data. What percentage of people who watch porn go on to pressure or abuse their partners? Is the correlation solely with porn watching, or is it porn watching AND something else (so maybe someone who is low on authoritarian values and watches porn has no problem relating to a partner, but someone who is highly authoritarian sees it as a justification of sexual cruelty and does)? While radfems would claim to have data, it always seemed that it was old, or funded by odd organizations, or not shown to have been repeated consistently. Consequently I doubt that most people who watch porn coerce their partners.

Similarly, it’s clear that exploitation exists in the industry, but the claim seems to be that all participants are exploited more so than any other job under capitalism and that we don’t need actual data to show this. ThT theory alone can tell us that sex work is uniquely and inherently degrading, even if people who do it say this is not so. I’m unconvinced that theory alone can tell me what other people are experiencing, so again, I want data. How much of the industry is exploitative? What are we defining as exploitative, also? What trends are there in’s h in workplaces are better than others?

Relying mainly on theory here just seems as wrongheaded as “I have a theory that most feminists are traumatized, so you can’t possibly care about Women’s issues for rational reasons.” It just doesn’t make sense. Where if there is a fact of the matter, careful research will bring it to light.

Then there’s the theory itself. It may have changed some since I was studying this, I’ve kind of avoided radfems since. But I do have Pornography Embodied on my bookshelf (if it didn’t get spring cleaninged into the trash), and the theory in that was that orgasm is uniquely good at training humans into behavior patterns in ways that other pleasurable experiences aren’t.

Again though, it seemed to me like this was presented as theory, not as something with evidence to back it. And without that evidence I’m not convinced.

(Again, anecdotes are not data, but I can’t think of any time in my life that I laser focused on one particular fantasy over all others, and I have purchased and looked at porn made by lesbian creators. There are some fantasies that I really enjoy and go back to many times, but I don’t experience that as needing x over and over, much less as needing increasingly intense versions of it. That doesn’t mean it’s not a thing people do, but again… which people? What percentage of humans? How do we know when this is happening?)

So if you’re aiming to sway me personally, the best projects would probably be ones where you discover that a particular performer or studio is violating the ethics standards of the industry itself. In cases like that I’d be glad to call for someone’s firing or maybe even for a particular studio to close down.

But opposition of the whole industry based on theoretical principles? No, I’m highly unlikely to be convinced that way.

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

Anarchist Book Club Presents:

David Graeber's Debt: The First 5000 Years

Introduction

What follows are a series of brief reflections (part of a much broader work in progress) on debt, credit, and virtual money: topics that are, obviously, of rather pressing concern for many at the current time.

There seems little doubt that history, widely rumored to have come to an end a few years ago, has gone into overdrive of late, and is in the process of spitting us into a new political and economic landscape whose contours no one understands. Everyone agrees something has just ended but no one is quite sure what. Neoliberalism? Postmodernism? American hegemony? The rule of finance capital? Capitalism itself (unlikely for the time being)? It’s even more difficult to predict what’s about to be thrown at us, let alone what shape the forces of resistance to it are likely to take. Some new form of green capitalism? Knowledge Keynesianism? Chinese-style industrial authoritarianism? ‘Progressive’ imperialism?

At moments of transformation, one of the few things one can say for certain is that we don’t really know how much our own actions can affect the outcome, but we would be very foolish to assume that they cannot.

Historical action tends to be narrative in form. In order to be able to make an intervention in history (arguably, in order to act decisively in any circumstances), one has to be able to cast oneself in some sort of story — though, speaking as someone who has actually had the opportunity to be in the middle of one or two world historical events, I can also attest that one in that situation is almost never quite certain what sort of drama it really is, since there are usually several alternatives battling it out, and that the question is not entirely resolved until everything is over (and never completely resolved even then). But I think there’s something that comes before even that. When one is first trying to assess a historical situation, having no real idea where one stands, trying to place oneself in a much larger stream of history so as to be able to start to think about what the problem even is, then usually it’s less a matter of placing oneself in a story than of figuring out the larger rhythmic structure, the ebb and flow of historical movements. Is what is happening around me the result of a generational political realignment, a movement of capitalism’s boom or bust cycle, the beginning or result of a new wave of struggles, the inevitable unfolding of a Kondratieff B curve? Or is it all these things? How do all these rhythms weave in and out of each other? Is there one core rhythm pushing the others along? How do they sit inside one another, syncopate, concatenate, harmonise, clash?

Let me briefly lay out what might be at stake here. I’ll focus here on cycles of capitalism, secondarily on war. This is because I don’t like capitalism and think that it’s rapidly destroying the planet, and that if we are going to survive as a species, we’re really going to have to come up with something else. I also don’t like war, both for all the obvious reasons, but also, because it strikes me as one of the main ways capitalism has managed to perpetuate itself. So in picking through possible theories of historical cycles, this is what I have had primarily in mind. Even here there are any number of possibilities. Here are a few:

Are we seeing an alternation between periods of peace and massive global warfare? In the late 19th century, for example, war between major industrial powers seemed to be a thing of the past, and this was accompanied by vast growth of both trade, and revolutionary internationalism (of broadly anarchist inspiration). 1914 marked a kind of reaction, a shift to 70 years mainly concerned with fighting, or planning for, world wars. The moment the Cold War ended, the pattern of the 1890s seemed to be repeating itself, and the reaction was predictable.

Or could one look at brief cycles — sub-cycles perhaps? This is particularly clear in the US, where one can see a continual alternation, since WWII, between periods of relative peace and democratic mobilisation immediately followed by a ratcheting up of international conflict: the civil rights movement followed by Vietnam, for example; the anti-nuclear movement of the ’70s followed by Reagan’s proxy wars and abandonment of détente; the global justice movement followed by the War on Terror.

Or should we be looking at financialisation? Are we dealing with Fernand Braudel or Giovanni Arrighi’s alternation between hegemonic powers (Genoa/ Venice, Holland, England, USA), which start as centers for commercial and industrial capital, later turn into centers of finance capital, and then collapse?

If so, then the question is of shifting hegemonies to East Asia, and whether (as Wallerstein for instance has recently been predicting) the US will gradually shift into the role of military enforcer for East Asian capital, provoking a realignment between Russia and the EU. Or, in fact, if all bets are off because the whole system is about to shift since, as Wallerstein also suggests, we are entering into an even more profound, 500-year cycle shift in the nature of the world-system itself?

Are we dealing with a global movement, as some autonomists (for example, the Midnight Notes collective) propose, of waves of popular struggle, as capitalism reaches a point of saturation and collapse — a crisis of inclusion as it were?

According to this version, the period from 1945 to perhaps 1975 was marked by a tacit deal with elements of the North Atlantic male working class, who were offered guaranteed good jobs and social security in exchange for political loyalty. The problem for capital was that more and more people demanded in on the deal: people in the Third World, excluded minorities in the North, and, finally, women. At this point the system broke, the oil shock and recession of the ’70s became a way of declaring that all deals were off: such groups could have political rights but these would no longer have any economic consequences.

Then, the argument goes, a new cycle began in which workers tried — or were encouraged — to buy into capitalism itself, whether in the form of micro-credit, stock options, mortgage refinancing, or 401ks. It’s this movement that seems to have hit its limit now, since, contrary to much heady rhetoric, capitalism is not and can never be a democratic system that provides equal opportunities to everyone, and the moment there’s a serious attempt to include the bulk of the population even in one country (the US) into the deal, the whole thing collapses into energy crisis and global recession all over again.

None of these are necessarily mutually exclusive but they have very different strategic implications. Much rests on which factor one happens to decide is the driving force: the internal dynamics of capitalism, the rise and fall of empires, the challenge of popular resistance? But when it comes to reading the rhythms in this way, the current moment still throws up unusual difficulties. There is a widespread sense that we are heading towards some kind of fundamental rupture, that old rhythms can no longer be counted on to repeat themselves, that we might be entering a new sort of time. Wallerstein says so much explicitly: if everything were going the way it generally has tended to go, for the last 500 years, East Asia would emerge as the new center of capitalist dominance. Problem is we may be coming to the end of a 500 year cycle and moving into a world that works on entirely different principles (subtext: capitalism itself may be coming to an end). In which case, who knows? Similarly, cycles of militarism cannot continue in the same form in a world where major military powers are capable of extinguishing all life on earth, with all-out war between them therefore impossible. Then there’s the factor of imminent ecological catastrophe.

One could make the argument, of course, that history is such that we always feel we’re at the edge of something. It’s always a crisis, there’s no particular reason to assume that this time it’s true. Historically, it has been a peculiar feature of capitalism that it seems to feel the need to constantly throw up spectres of its own demise. For most of the 19th century, and well into the 20th, most capitalists operated under the very strong suspicion that they might shortly end up hanging from trees — or, if they weren’t going to be strung up in an apocalyptic Socialist Revolution, witness some similar apocalyptic collapse into degenerate barbarism. One of the most disturbing features of capitalism, in fact, is not just that it constantly generates apocalyptic fantasies, but that it actually produces the physical means to make apocalyptic fantasies come true. For example, in the ’50s, once the destruction of capitalism from within could no longer be plausibly imagined, along came the spectre of nuclear war. In this case, the bombs were quite real. And once the prospect of anyone using those bombs (at least in such numbers as to destroy the planet) became increasingly implausible, with the end of the Cold War, we were suddenly greeted by the prospect of global warming.

It would be interesting to reflect at length on capitalism and its time horizons: what is it about this economic system that it seems to want to wipe out the prospect of its own eternity? On the one hand, capitalism being based on a logic of perpetual growth, one might argue that it is, by definition, not eternal, and can only recognise itself as such. But at other times those who embrace capitalism seem to want to think of it as having been around forever, or at least 5 thousand years, and stubbornly insist it will continue to exist 5 thousand years into the future. At yet other times it seems like a historical blip, an insanely powerful engine of accumulation that exploded around 1500, or maybe 1750, which couldn’t possibly be maintained without some sort of apocalyptic collapse. Perhaps the apparent tangle of contradictions is the result of a need to balance the short term perspectives needed by short term profit-seekers, managers, and CEOs, with the broader strategic perspectives of those actually running the system, which are of necessity more political. The result is a clash of narratives. Or maybe it’s the fact that whenever capitalism does see itself as eternal, it tends to lead to a spiraling of debt. Actually, the relations between debt bubbles and apocalypse are complicated and would be difficult (though fascinating) to disentangle, but I would suggest this much. The financialisation of capital has lead to a situation where something like 97 to 98 percent of the money in the total ‘economy’ of wealthy countries like the US or UK is debt. That is to say, it is money whose value rests not on something that actually exists in the present (bauxite, sculptures, peaches, software), but something that might exist at some point in the future. ‘Abstract’ money is not an idea, it’s a promise — a promise of something concrete that will exist at some time in the future, future profits extracted from future resources, future labour of miners, artists, fruit-pickers, web designers, not yet born. At the point where the imaginary future economy is 50 to 100 times larger than the current ‘real’ one, something has got to give. But the bursting of bubbles often leaves no future to imagine at all, except of catastrophe, because the creation of bubbles is made possible by the destruction of any ability to imagine alternative futures. It’s only once one cannot imagine that we are moving towards any sort of new future society, that the world will never be fundamentally different, that there’s nothing left to imagine but more and more future money.

It might be interesting, as I say, to try to disentangle the shifting historical relations between war, the development of ‘security’ apparatuses designed above all to strangle dreams of alternative futures, speculative bubbles, class struggle, and history of the capitalist Future, which seems to veer back and forth between utopia and cataclysm. These are not, however, precisely the questions that I’m asking here. I want, rather, to look at questions of debt from a different, and much longer term, historical perspective. Doing so provides a picture much less bleak and depressing than one might think, since the history of debt is not only a history of slavery, oppression, and bitter social struggles — which, of course, it certainly is, since debt is surely the most effective means ever created for taking relations that are founded on violence and oppression and making them seem right and moral to all concerned — but also of credit, honour, trust, and mutual commitment. Debt has been for the last 5 thousand years the fulcrum not only of forms of oppression but of popular struggle. Debt crises are periodic and become the stuff of uprisings, mobilisations and revolutions, but also, as a result, reflections on what human beings actually do owe each other, on the moral basis of human society, and on the nature of time, labour, value, creativity and violence.

https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-debt-the-first-five-thousand-years

#literature #book club #anarchist #david graeber #debt: the first 5000 years