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frevandrest · 2 months

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There had been a number of questionable takes recently regarding the Frev in the past few days that came in succession . Do you reckon if works in the past decades or so that were published in France and were made available to English readers would it may have at least mitigated such thing to ever happen or is the black legend so ingrained that even with the idea of an era where works by Belissa et Al were in circulation in English to people outside France, the result would be the same?

Before I reply, I need to make a disclaimer that I am not the best person to answer this question. I arrive from a very different educational tradition (neither Anglo nor French), and I actually discovered embarrassingly late about the whole black legend and the fact that, among some, the French Revolution was considered a horrible event (that failed). I was taught it was an event that changed the world forever (and helped shape the world today, mostly in a positive sense) and that it has to be studied to understand our world. So I am not the best person to judge the effect of the black legend vs new historiography. If others have more informed takes, please tell us; I am super interested. Now, the bad (as in, incorrect) takes we get here. They happen periodically, and they tend to be very similar, often by people claiming (and I have no reason to doubt them) that they are taking history courses on frev, typically in the USA. So these takes tell me about the state of teaching frev in the USA (Anglo?) sphere. Which is not necessarily the same as "what experts publish in academic articles", because - not sure if people are aware of it, so I need to emphasize - you do not have to be an expert on a topic to teach it at the university level. You typically need a PhD in the discipline, but not necessarily on the topic of the course you teach. I can imagine that they won't give a frev course to someone with a PhD in, say, antiquity, but "early modern period" is good enough, even if you are not an expert on France or the revolution.

Sorry for this preamble; I swear it is related to your question. What I mean is that these specific takes we saw here seem to me (though I could be wrong) not necessarily a product of current English-language academia on frev, but what students are taught. So yes, it is a good question on what kind of books students are given on the mandatory readings list, and if those teaching are even aware of the most current English-language books on the topic (let alone French). I swear most of this stuff is so dated and proven to be incorrect over and over again. We had someone a few months ago saying they read Carlyle for their frev class. ?? This is really strange to me, especially in the North American academia, where even books that are considered new-ish elsewhere, are seen as old, so why teach something published in early 19c? Unless you want to demonstrate changed attitudes about frev and discuss historiography, propaganda, etc. which doesn't seem to be the case. Those assigning such readings are teaching what they feel is true. So I can only guess that they never bothered to read newer stuff. Look. I am all for authors not liking the French Revolution or specific things in it (I am critical of many frev stuff myself), but you have to use current sources that go through earlier misconceptions. We can't still be stuck at "dictator Robespierre who ruled France", a thing that was disproven so long ago and no credible historian believes in (even if they hate Robespierre).

Now, this is about teaching history at the university level and not about experts in academia, because I do think most incorrect takes we get here on tumblr are from students. Experts sticking to the black legend and "horrible horror of the revolution that failed anyway and didn't achieve anything" are a different group. Though I am not an expert on the current historiography to judge it in detail. So, if someone reading this knows more and can explain, please share!

#ask #anonymous #frev #french revolution

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viviennelamb · 1 month

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I won't publish your message like you asked, but I'm wary of everybody who has sex for that reason. It's just too risky to get involved with them. At first, it's just about getting an orgasm, but once they're unable to get orgasms, they move onto increasingly depraved scenarios.

It always eventually escalates into sodomy, pedophilia and animal abuse, which is the point Andrea Dworkin reached as documented in her books. Everybody who advocates for Dworkin is a pedophile and is at the point of Satan Consciousness, which I talk about in depth in OTE.

This website, as well as every other one, and the world is teeming with pedophiles. Don't listen to people who say “the internet isn't real life,” it is if the same people in real life are using the internet. I used to make excuses for people and say, “well this person seems okay,” you're wasting your time with them because they will always turn against you because they hate innocence and are envious of it.

This slippery slope is very subdued, so it's common for people to say they're anti-abuse in the midst of advocating for it. You cannot communicate with these individuals, they're zombies who are only capable of peddling sex doctrine. They try to prove that they're intelligent, but they can't see that there's not enough research and reading in the world they can do to reverse their destroyed minds.

Feminists have never said they were against pedophilia, rape and abuse, they are looking for equality with men. You could say they're wrong for that, but protecting innocence has never ever been their focus, and joining their movement to demand of such made you the intruder. Sorry you had to find out the hard way. They only want the same “rights,” money and orgasms as men because they're men as well. The baseline of every single form of activism that exists is to create better conditions to have better sex.

This is the typical list of feminist philosophy:

This is all they care about.

Everything they're pro and anti is to benefit their heterosexuality personally. They want to force xys into finding their grotesqueness attractive. And none of them care about girls being harmed enough to change in their personal lives. I remember listening to a live stream where women were talking about how men were abusing girls, and in the same stream they were referring to how they masturbate. Now imagine if males did that.

I've seen feminists say that pedophile rings aren't real, there is no abuse against children, and that this is Christian propaganda. There was a fake lesbian who came after me for whatever reason and she was into daddy dom/little girl role-play. I knew a het female who said a 5-year-old boy was hot, and she wanted to *do something* to him. I knew a lesbian who said that wanting to be with a child is normal because people are attracted to youth... All of them were open about having sex or masturbating.

When I say find a God-Realized Guru and remain loyal to them, I mean it. Keep your mind as clean as possible, and make it a habit to only think of God. You need to get your mind out of hell and recover so you're mentally equipped to deal with it. The mercy of God allows us to rest as much as we need to.

Anon, I highly advise you stay away from groups/communities unless they are male-free and prioritize purity. You got your lesson and don't turn back on yourself. Nothing good comes out of swathes of sex addicts. Hobbies don't hold people together either, it's a façade to get like-minded people together. Once they break the ice and get to know each other sexual preferences, that's what creates their unbreakable bonds, and that's how these sex abuse rings start. It's a club you'll never be a part of. You're not missing out on anything, regardless of how much they try to convince you that you are. Beauty is exceedingly rare these days, so you have to become it yourself to experience it. Now you know it's not outside of you anymore.

P.S. I'm not reading anything on social media outside my page as a result of what I've said here... there are just far too many advocates for sex abuse. I'm at the point where I just don't want to risk coming across it. I'm drastically limiting social media use as a result.

Not only that, but I don't want to fearmonger, but things are getting more dystopian than ever. The only good news is these individuals are suffering immensely, even if all the laws they create are in their favor. In the Art of War, males make themselves look strong, when they're weak. Don't forget that.

This isn't the time to be compassionate or sympathetic towards anybody who isn't on the right team. Be wary of anybody who advocates for compassion towards males and pedophiles as well as the individuals who claim to be their victims. If they got out, great, but let's see what they do with their lesson. God doesn't make mistakes.

#reply

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contemplatingoutlander · 11 months

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The former Republican David French does a good job of explaining what keeps MAGA folks continuing to support Trump. It's all about the "culture" of MAGA and the sense of "belonging," combined with years of propaganda that have painted anyone even slightly on the left as being "bad" and "out to get" conservatives and their families.

And if we don't understand that, we won't know how to combat it. Here are some excerpts:

I live in Tennessee outside Nashville, a very deep-red part of America. According to a New York Times tool that calculates the political composition of a community, only 15 percent of my neighbors are Democrats. I’ve been living here in the heart of MAGA country since Donald Trump came down the escalator. This is the world of my friends, my neighbors and many members of my family. That is perhaps why, when I’m asked what things are like now, eight years into the Trump era, I have a ready answer: Everything is normal until, suddenly, it’s not. And unless we can understand what’s normal and what’s not, we can’t truly understand why Trumpism endures. [...] It’s no coincidence that one of the most enduring cultural symbols of Trump’s 2020 campaign was the boat parade. To form battle lines behind Trump, the one man they believe can save America from total destruction, thousands of supporters in several states got in their MasterCrafts and had giant open-air water parties. Or take the Trump rally, the signature event of this political era. If you follow the rallies via Twitter or mainstream newscasts, you see the anger, but you miss the fun. When I was writing for The Dispatch, one of the best pieces we published was a report by Andrew Egger in 2020 about the “Front Row Joes,” the Trump superfans who follow Trump from rally to rally the way some people used to follow the Grateful Dead. Egger described the Trump rally perfectly: “For enthusiasts, Trump rallies aren’t just a way to see a favorite politician up close. They are major life events: festive opportunities to get together with like-minded folks and just go crazy about America and all the winning the Trump administration’s doing.”

[See more below the cut]

[...] Why do none of your arguments against Trump penetrate this mind-set? The Trumpists have an easy answer: You’re horrible, and no one should listen to horrible people. Why were Trumpists so vulnerable to insane stolen-election theories? Because they know that you’re horrible and that horrible people are capable of anything, including stealing an election. At the same time, their own joy and camaraderie insulates them against external critiques that focus on their anger and cruelty. Such charges ring hollow to Trump supporters, who can see firsthand the internal friendliness and good cheer that they experience when they get together with one another. They don’t feel angry — at least not most of the time. They are good, likable people who’ve just been provoked by a distant and alien “left” that many of them have never meaningfully encountered firsthand. Indeed, while countless gallons of ink have been spilled analyzing the MAGA movement’s rage, far too little has been spilled discussing its joy. Once you understand both dynamics, however, so much about the present moment makes clearer sense, including the dynamics of the Republican primary. Ron DeSantis, for example, channels all the rage of Trumpism and none of the joy. With relentless, grim determination he fights the left with every tool of government at his disposal. But can he lead stadiums full of people in an awkward dance to “Y.MC.A.” by the Village People? Will he be the subject of countless over-the-top memes and posters celebrating him as some kind of godlike, muscular superhero? [...] Trump’s fans, by contrast, don’t understand the effects of [the MAGA] fury because they mainly experience the joy. For them, the MAGA community is kind and welcoming. For them, supporting Trump is fun. Moreover, the MAGA movement is heavily clustered in the South, and Southerners see themselves as the nicest people in America. It feels false to them to be called “mean” or “cruel.” Cruel? No chance. In their minds, they’re the same people they’ve always been — it’s just that they finally understand how bad you are. And by “you,” again, they often mean the caricatures of people they’ve never met. In fact, they often don’t even know about the excesses of the Trump movement. Many of them will never know that their progressive neighbors have faced threats and intimidation. And even when they do see the movement at its worst, they can’t quite believe it. So Jan. 6 was a false flag. Or it was a “fedsurrection.” It couldn’t have really been a violent attempt to overthrow the elected government, because they know these people, or people like them, and they’re mostly good folks. It had to be a mistake, or an exaggeration, or a trick or a few bad apples. The real crime was the stolen election. It’s the combination of anger and joy that makes the MAGA enthusiasm so hard to break but also limits its breadth. [...] The battle and the booze cruise both give MAGA devotees a sense of belonging. They see a country that’s changing around them and they are uncertain about their place in it. But they know they have a place at a Trump rally, surrounded by others — overwhelmingly white, many evangelical — who feel the same way they do. [...] During the Trump years, I’ve received countless email messages from distraught readers that echo a similar theme: My father (or mother or uncle or cousin) is lost to MAGA. They can seem normal, but they’re not, at least not any longer. It’s hard for me to know what to say in response, but one thing is clear: You can’t replace something with nothing. And until we fully understand what that “something” is — and that it includes not only passionate anger but also very real joy and a deep sense of belonging — then our efforts to persuade are doomed to fail.

#maga america #rage and joy #understanding trump's appeal to his base #donald trump #gop #david french #the new york times

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rjalker · 2 months

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You cannot claim you want books to be more accessible to people and then get mad about the Internet Archive accepting book donations that people have fully bought and paid for and lending those donated books out to people completely for free with no hoops to jump through.

I don't know who needs to hear this but not everyone has access to public libraries.

Assuming you even have a library in your town, not everyone can physically get to them! The poorer and more disabled you are, the less likely you are to even own a car, let alone be able to drive it!

And in most US cities, walking from point A to B is either literally physically impossible or illegal, or so literally life-threateningly dangerous that you're better off not risking it!

And assuming you can get to the library -- guess what! There's no guarentee you can actually get a library card! Yes, despite how everyone always sings endless praises, libraries aren't perfect, and there are still very real obstacles between some of the most vulnerable people and being able to borrow from a library!

In many places, you can't get a library card unless you have a driver's liscence / state ID. And in some places, even that alone isn't enough -- you also have to provide proof that you live in the city!

Which means homeless people who've had their IDs literally stolen by the cops, who don't have a mailing address they can use as proof they live in the same city as the library can't get a library card unless they can somehow get to the DMV and miraculously have the money pay for a new ID. Which they can't do without other forms of ID. Which the cops probably also literally stole.

Even if you're not homeless, if someone steals your wallet, and you can't drive, you can't get a library card either now, because you have no ID, and no way to get a new one!

The Internet Archive's lending library is actually free and accessible to everyone who can connect to the internet, with no hoops to jump through. You just have to make an account and you can start reading.

Stop claiming you want people to be able to read books if you don't actually want the most vulnerable people to actually be able to read books. Which have already been paid for and helped the authors.

If you don't even understand the bare minimum basics of how the Internet Archive's lending library works, maybe don't go around proclaiming yourself the expert. And if you literally do not live in the USA, don't go around claiming our libraries are freely accessible to everyone when they're literally not!

The Internet Archive does not hurt authors. It does not hurt publishers. If you understand how it's perfectly fucking fine to buy a book and then lend it to your friends so they can all read it, you understand why the Internet Archive literally accepting fully paid for donations of books which they archive for all of humanity completely for free is also literally fine.

And if you pretend there's actually some evil difference between the two, you just need to admit you've swallowed the capitalist propaganda that publishing companies, who want to turn books into the next streaming service where you never actually own anything even when you buy it, and you're spreading blatant capitalist propaganda that actual authors hate.

It is literally a fact that if people can borrow a book from a library to read it for free, they are more likely to buy it and the rest of the series than they would if they never got the chance to read it without first forking over hard earned money that could be going towards groceries, for a book it might turn out they absolutely hate every second of.

You cannot claim to support libraries and support making books accessible to everyone and then shit on the Internet Archive. Unless you're also going to claim that lending books out to friends or Little Libraries are also immoral.

You people are really blatantly drinking the capitalist "turn everything into a subscription service possible so they never own anything and have to keep giving us money" koolaid and we can tell.

#anti intellectualism #anti-intellectualism #libraries #Internet Archive

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underratedandoverit · 9 months

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You Wanna Wish Away Your Sins (1/3)

After losing to Best Friends at Arcade Anarchy, Kip undergoes shoulder surgery. One person reaching out to him afterwards sends Kip spiraling, turning all the pain and suffering in him into… Flowers? Flowers growing in his lungs?

Kip Sabian/Chuck Taylor. Hanahaki disease. Angst. Hurt/comfort. Emotional hurt/comfort. One-sided attraction.

Marked Mature on AO3 for general content. Warnings for mentions of hospitals, surgery, medical stuff. Described feelings for choking and vomiting.

Other characters include Penelope Ford, Trent Beretta. Kris Statlander and Orange Cassidy are mentioned. Background ship of Penelope/Kris is heavily implied, but never specifically shown.

part 2 || part 3

On AO3

I reeeeally only wanted to start posting this after it was all done, but seeing how I'm two weeks behind on what I wanted the original publishing schedule to be, I need heavy motivation to actually finish this (its about halfway done as of posting this), so! Here's the effort to hopefully help with that! Cause I am planning on finishing this, I have full plans for all three chapters and the epilogue (that'll be tacked onto the final chapter), I just need the energy to realize that its worth finishing so.. I'm getting this up now. To maybe hopefully see its worth it and people want to see this through. Idk.

I have been thinking maybe this concept would have been better with another ship, but I started with this and its very fitting for them, and I need more of this propaganda in my life and seeing how I'm the only one making it… Yeah we're sticking to Kip and Chuck. Sorry not sorry. (also tag list might change a little as i post the rest, tho this should be it generally. i tried to keep it spoiler free for now)

@midnightpretenders0 @stormbornpirate @ss-trashboat

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

Beep.

Kip tried to ignore the heart monitor to the best of his ability, and yet his brows furrowed, irritated, at the sound. The soft groan was barely audible in the hospital room that was empty aside from him, as Kip came to witness as he forced his eyes open, returning back to the real world from the sleepless rest he had been attempting to get for the last few hours.

Some would have guessed that sleeping would have been easier when you lost feeling from one of your four limbs, especially from the one going through the extreme levels of pain. But what those same people didn’t understand, was that the medication they put him under with, was amplifying most of his other senses to the point where it was almost painful to just even listen to certain sounds.

Beep.

Kip glared at the monitor, watching the little line on it beep an extra time, almost as if it was mocking him and the hatred raising his heart rate. Kip leaned back on the bed, turning away, eyes landing on the window across the room. The soft rays of sunshine indicated early morning hours, which wouldn’t have surprised him a bit. After coming to from the surgery Kip had been in various states between high alert and sleeping like a log, dozing off whenever he felt like it. Not that it mattered, they didn’t let him go home yet anyway, so he was just taking advantage of sleeping away as much of the irritation and pain he could while he was alone.

Beep.

Slowly Kip’s eyes dragged away from the window, landing on the little drawer next to the bed. Some nice nurse, was his guess unless it really had been Penelope, had left his personal belongings on it on a little tray. Honestly Kip was slightly surprised they had been just left for him like that, out in the open. While sure, he wasn’t sharing the room with anyone else, anyone could just walk in at any time while he was out cold and grab his wallet, keys, and phone and just bail out.

Or even worse, he himself could have used the phone before he was fully aware of himself and his surroundings yet, being under the influence of the painkiller and/or anesthesia. Almost as bad as some of his younger days of drunk dialing.

Beep.

Kip closed his eyes, inhaling deeply as he tried not to get irritated at the sound piercing his ears every couple of moments. As he calmed himself down, he slowly opened his eyes again, landing them back on the phone on the tray. He observed it for a moment, trying to count in his head how long it had been since he was wheeled into the operating room, how long it had been since he had last checked anything.

Really all he could remember was the little kiss Penelope placed on the top of his head, whispering him good luck before he was wheeled away from her too.

Beep.

Kip’s hand slipped away from under the thin covers of the awfully medical feeling blanket thrown over him, reaching for the phone. It was easier said than done to be honest, having to navigate the world now mostly with his non-dominant hand and everything. Kip fumbled a little, almost letting the phone slip from his fingers, letting out a string of quiet curse words from under his breath as he barely caught it again before it managed to fall to the floor, where he most definitely wouldn’t have been able to grab it without getting some help first.

With a sigh he lowered the phone into his lap, brushing a hand through his hair. Everything was just so bothersome and irritating to him, he could barely do things by himself. And every single little bit that he required some kind of help with, Kip hated even more. He understood the situation he was in, absolutely, but that didn’t mean that he was going to enjoy being so dependent on others when he could just as easily do all of this, and more, by himself before.

Beep.

His eyes landed back on the phone now sitting on the bed in his lap, the fingers of his right hand carefully drumming against the dark screen. It felt cold to the touch, clearly not having been turned on for a while or being held in a hand using it. Kip had no idea if there would even be any messages for him to return to, sure there were people like his family, friends, and co-workers who knew he was going through the surgery, but most people he felt like had already been in touch the day before, wishing him luck. He vaguely remembered Penelope telling him she would send him reminders about things he needed to take care of after surgery, but that was all he was expecting.

And yet, there was some sort of odd feeling of hesitation in him as Kip’s fingers kept drawing circles on the screen, only mimicking opening apps and scrolling through them.

Beep.

It was almost as if the sound was mocking him at this point, screaming at him to do something. Kip glared at the monitor on his side, eyes slowly returning back to the phone. He carefully took it back into his hand, weighting it for a moment, his thumb navigating on top of the power button almost on instinct. Kip barely stopped himself from pressing it down, taking a moment to ask himself if it was worth it.

As far as he knew, nobody was going to need him while he was gone. He was going to have to turn it on later to get in touch with Penelope about getting out of the hospital as she had promised to pick him up, but apart from that… Kip didn’t really know what to expect. On the other hand though, this kind of silence gave him a good chance to catch up on other important things he might have missed, if there weren't people he needed to get back to.

What could go wrong?

Beep.

Kip held down the button, watching as the screen slowly lit up, greeting him with the familiar opening screens. His eyes narrowed a little at the sudden bright lighting hitting him, but soon enough he was booted in, allowing him to adjust the screen brightness to his liking. Kip was still trying to get used to being awake and feeling like himself in his own body, and coming off from heavy medication, even if it had been a day since then, it was like a dark cloud hanging over him. He didn’t enjoy it in the slightest, but Kip knew it was a necessary step if he wanted to get through all of this. Unfortunately.

As he got himself back into his phone, Kip absentmindedly scrolled through some of the messages that were popping up little by little all over the place. Mostly it was just few remaining co-workers and friends that hadn’t reached out earlier wishing him speedy recovery and hoping that the surgery goes well, the usual things you’d message to someone you didn’t talk to more than occasionally but who you knew was going to go through something heavy like this and you had their contact info at hand. Kip scrolled through the well-wishes, smiling occasionally a little more as he watched the different names and profile pictures he recognized, wondering how many of these people actually cared or if this was just a cleverly arranged mass ruse so he would maybe feel a bit better after being under the knife.

And then.

Kip’s eyes locked onto one of the messages, starting with a word he didn’t expect to see.

‘Sorry’.

He didn’t notice his grip on the phone getting tighter until holding it actually hurt his hand, but Kip pushed the thought aside. Unblinking eyes stared at the phone screen as it burned the images of the words on his retinas until they were hurting too, but he was too deep in his own head to look away, to stop reading the message he didn’t think he would be getting. Not now, not ever.

Not from Chuck.

‘Sorry about your shoulder. Heard from Kris you were getting surgery. I didn’t mean to hurt you that bad. Hope you heal well. If you need something, let me know.’

Kip’s mind was nothing but static. The phone light hurt his eyes, his grip hurt his hand, reading and processing the words in his head. The pain shooting through him was almost comparable to the jolts he experienced going through the structure Chuck had thrown them both down to from the stage, only this one was even worse somehow.

‘If you need something, let me know.’

He didn’t read that right. He couldn’t have read that right. There was no way Chuck Taylor out of all people would say something like this to him. Or even text these kinds of lines to him. To Kip.

To the man that had been looking at Chuck from a distance with a mixture of interest and admiration for so long without saying any words out loud, without making any moves, without taking any actions to realize the thoughts and feelings he had. There was no way Chuck was doing this, offering help to him if he needed it, without knowing that there was something going on in Kip’s mind that he wasn’t sure was going to be able to handle daylight.

‘I didn’t mean to hurt you that bad.’

Chuck didn’t know Kip was already on his way out when Arcade Anarchy was announced. He had already been told he would require surgery on the torn shoulder, but this match was approved even with the ending spot as it wasn’t going to make his condition any worse than it already was. Kip hadn’t dared to say anything to the Best Friends, in fear that it would hinder their performance; he wanted them at their best, not feeling sorry for him, not trying to be careful with him. Miro knew, but he kept his promise and didn’t say anything either.

For better or worse, Kip wasn’t sure anymore.

Beep. Beep.

He finally tore his eyes away from the phone screen, letting it drop from his hand. Kip curled the fingers a few times trying to ease the pain, eyes blinking as rather painful tears stung in the corners of his eyes. He wasn’t sure if it was a sign of emotional distress or just a side effect of staring at the screen, but it didn’t matter to him. Whichever it was, he didn’t want it, and it was making him feel awful.

Beep. Beep.

Kip slowly looked over at the heart rate monitor, watching the little line make extra jumps and letting out more irritating noises than necessary. His eyes trailed one of the cords leaving from it, watching it being attached to his chest with a little patch. Kip snorted at it, turning away.

Stupid. It was all so fucking stupid.

Beep.

His eyes landed back on the phone, hand reaching for his face as he wiped away a couple of tears. He wasn’t sure why he got so worked up over this, it wasn’t like this meant anything. Chuck was just worried, offering him his condolences and a little help if he needed it, just like everyone else did. That didn’t mean anything, no more, no less, than that he was being a good co-worker. Not even a friend.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Beep.

Maybe that’s why he took it so hard, to be honest. Kip inhaled deeply, almost frightened over how shaky his breathing sounded. He hadn’t expected this to hit him so hard, but something about seeing Chuck Taylor out of all the possible people reaching out to him after hearing about the surgery just sent him spiraling. Short circuited his brain. His thoughts were all gone. Kip’s mind blank, nothing but a newly debuted white canvas ready to be painted on.

And the only visual that appeared on it was Chuck, the moment he held onto Kip seconds before throwing them both off from the stage.

The words he whispered to Kip when the camera was pointing the other way.

“Are you sure?”

Beep. Beep. Beep.

In that moment he had been, only for the fact that he knew Chuck would prevent him from hurting further. At least, in the physical sense. Mentally at that point Kip was already so far down the rabbit hole that it didn’t matter. He would have said yes. Not only to that, but to anything that Chuck asked him.

Was Kip sure? Yes.

Was Kip going to be okay? Yes.

Did Kip want him?

…

Yes.

Yes he did.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

He looked back at the monitor, watching the line make extra jumps again. It apparently wasn’t a concerning enough feature, considering how long it had been going on and not a single nurse had gotten in to even check on him yet. Kip understood it though, in a hospital full of patients in worse conditions than what he was in, he was merely a second thought to anyone passing by his room. He didn’t make a sound, he wasn’t in pain, he didn’t exhibit extreme amounts of discomfort.

At least, not on the outside.

Beep. Beep.

Kip leaned his head back against the propped up bed, eyeing the monitor. If he wasn’t thinking about the phone that was still quietly buzzing in his lap, his heart rate slowly went back down. Of course he couldn’t keep this up forever, eventually he would probably have to reply to Chuck, and who knew what kind of fresh hell of wounds that would open on him. How awkward it would make everything if he dared to actually take on Chuck’s own offering and ask him for any help. Of course Kip didn’t need to do that, knowing that Chuck hadn’t actually caused any of this like he was thinking that he did, but…

Maybe it would be a way to get a step closer. To spend time with him. To figure out if Chuck could possibly feel the same way Kip did.

Beep.

Kip closed his eyes, trying to focus on his breathing. It would be all fine, he lied to himself. It wouldn’t matter if Chuck said no, it wouldn’t matter if they became just friends. Another lie. Kip could live with it if he could just tell Chuck how he felt, and whatever came out of that was just perfectly fine with him.

Kip was such a masterful liar sometimes.

Beep.

He hummed at himself a little, obviously satisfied with the way he made himself at least on some level believe everything was going to be okay. A small smirk tuck the corners of his lips, but Kip resisted it, thinking it was a step too far. He allowed himself to be proud of himself in this situation, but showing it outwards was a little too much.

Instead he yawned, followed by a cough as Kip could feel something scratching in his throat.

Beep.

He tried to gently cough it out, only making the scratching worse. Kip opened his eyes, glancing around him, trying to see if there was even a cup of water somewhere close by, but no such luck. Instead he coughed again, the burning in his throat just growing stronger and feeling grosser the more he tried to physically force whatever was stuck in his airways out of his body.

With a few more coughs the feeling was turning unbearable, Kip rather violently jerking forward as he coughed loudly, hand flying on to cover his mouth as he could feel something dislodging in his throat, attempting a forceful exit out of his mouth.

Beep. Beep.

Maybe he wasn’t as over the side effects of anesthesia as Kip thought, or nausea was a side effect of the painkillers. As the thoughts raced through his mind, Kip tried to keep his mouth covered by his hand, eyes shooting around his limited moving space, trying to find something he could safely vomit into. He could feel another scratch on his throat, knowing that he just had to take it and let it all out, Kip shoved the phone from his lap to the floor in a semi panic, barely hearing it landing with a loud thud before he allowed his insides to empty themselves into his lap.

Beep. Beep.

With his eyes closed to bear the pain, Kip could feel the burning in his lungs, but it all felt different than usual. It was an odd sensation, it felt more like something was scratching and crawling its way up his lungs rather than his throat, pushing painfully out of him rather than flowing in the liquid form like usual. It still burned, but in a softer, almost calming way compared to what Kip knew it should be.

Fearing the mess he had made, Kip slowly opened his eyes, thinking that he might have to call a nurse over to help him out, as much as he hated it. But instead he froze in place, eyes widening in shock as he tried to process the small pile of purple shaded rose petals sitting on his lap instead.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Kip carefully reached a hand towards the petals, shaking fingertips tracing along one. It felt soft, like it was freshly plucked from a flower, the kind of fresh petals you’d spread on a bed for a romantic surprise to a loved one. But the moment was nothing but romantic, it was surprising for sure, but it was more making Kip internally freak out than giving him any sentimental feelings over the sudden pile of petals in his lap.

They had come out from inside of him.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Kip had no idea why. No idea how. He could feel something crawling in his throat again, letting out a soft cough, watching a single petal flowing out of him, landing on top of the pile that had already formed.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Kip’s hands slowly grabbed a hold of the petals, squeezing them in his fists. He froze for a moment, feeling the soft petals against the palms of his hands, against his exposed skin, almost tearing wounds onto him despite their petite appearance.

Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.

Kip screamed.

#fic #aew fanfiction #wrestling fanfiction #character: kip sabian #character: chuck taylor #ship: chuckkip #fic: you wanna wish away your sins #setting: hanahaki

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authoralexharvey · 6 days

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INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @nanashi23

Who You Are:

Eon || They/them

I am an ancient hermit living in the suburban deserts of Colorado. Before becoming a hermit, I've did time in the publishing industry, but mostly greasing wheels, not the fun stuff.

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Action, adventure, comedy, contemporary, drama, fantasy, horror, paranormal, psychological, sci-fi, thriller, and tragedy. New adult and adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

Science and Speculative fiction. As a queer person in the ADHD propaganda generation, something needs to remind people there is still hope, anger and passion in the world and that experiences cannot be commodified.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

Mystery, because I just feel like I am not smart enough to make it mysterious. YA because I'm not sure how. Younger children's books because… I like to say fuck. : )

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

Lost, lonely, angry people who like space queers and the occasional jackass. Yes, I think people will get it, especially if they just walk in expecting a good time and not a world shaking adventure.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

Apparently hope? The more I read my own writing the more I realize I write about 9/11, culture wars, fighting against an enemy everyone thinks is dead because 'you won' some arbitrary battle. Tropes are hard for me because I am old. Disaster duos are my favorite one that I can say for sure.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

Very little turns me off - especially if done with taste.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

Second book of what might end up being a trilogy. Book is called Starrender, coupled to Silvermoon. I started writing it in 2021. Book 2 I started in May of 2022.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

Creativity is compulsory, is my understanding of it. "I just work here," is how I describe it to other writers. I wish I could explain, but for me it's… therapy, escape, fun, joy. What keeps me writing? Me.

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

This is a hard question because I have written as long as I can remember. What first drew me too it? See the above answer. Creativity feels compulsory. I have hyperfantasia, my day dreams are vivid, strong and indulgent.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

The easiest answer to this is dreams. My current set started as a dream and was fleshed out with my co-author. Something brand new, shiny. It's evolved a lot beyond that, especially since that dream was from 2013. Other inspiration comes from spite, I suppose? Did I write a trans wizard novel for obvious reasons? Yes. I still haven't made peace with that decision though, I wish I had spent that year working on something I loved more.

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

The one I'm publishing in March 2023 - Terms of Light. Above all other things, I feel like it's a love letter to myself and to my spouse. It took me so long to find what home should feel like and I think this really embodies that journey.

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

Yes - and yes. Self published Terms of Light (March 2023). I have been querying and trying to hook an agent since 2013 - no luck so far.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

Trad pub - A marketing team. Self pub - control Both - A physical book in my hands and the ability to hand a book to someone. It's a strange phenomena but when you tell people you have been published and aren't able to hand them a physical book, they get strange. They've done whole studies about it. The perception of something available as free is lesser, even if the content and quality is not. I truly don't care about the money, I care about accessibility to stories that might not make it because they're not "on brand." (Read in 2014, LGBTQ+)

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

Writing is appealing to me. I love it. I hate editing. I don't know why, but much like I dislike revisiting shows, books and other media I've visited before, editing has the same kind of yuck to it. Trying to get over that.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

Process is not something I think I would call what I have but… Since most start as a dream, I have a Dream Theater folder. Outline usually comes with the initial brain dump, and by outline I do me, high level, not too detailed vagaries about what's happening, cool things, and notes and thoughts. From there, I wait for a first line to hit me and… write until I'm out of steam. I can usually rock out the first 10 - 14 chapters of something in a month to two months depending on how hot the writing fever is… the middle slog does take it's toll on me. After Draft 1 is done, I force it on some poor alpha reader, and come back in a year when I'm potentially ready to edit it. Editing is it's own thing. I have no process for this, I don't know if I ever will.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

About a year. @winterandwords inspired me, I'm in a Discord server with her and she told me it was "better now."

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

@winterandwords - Because they are an absolute delight. They write everything I've always wanted too and it is a visual and emotional FEAST in my mind. @sergeantnarwhalwrites - That guy rocks, what an encouraging soul! With a great sense of humor. Delightful. No idea how I found them, but glad I did.

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

Interaction!! Even if it's light, it's nice to see some things get notes. I feel less alone, even though I am also able to control my experience a bit more so I'm not inundated with activity.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

This is a hard one because… short of having more time in everyone's day to read and respond, I don't think things can be improved with what we have.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I react, I reblog, I respond when I can. I follow writers that have the same vibe and try and lift them up when I see they may not be doing great. Can I do more? Sure. If I had the emotional energy and time.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

Writing. Publishing info.

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

Any kind. I'm not particular. I usually do snips, reblogs of fun things as well as writing things, and of course, a little bit of SJW nonsense - because it's Tumblr. Ya gotta.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

Anymore? No where. Twitter disappeared as soon as I started having privacy concerns. I'm building a website but… I'm a slacker ; ). TBC.

#iwaw #writeblr #writeblr celebration #writeblr event #writing community

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memecucker · 2 years

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When I have one of those “Guess I’ll listen to true crime stuff” moods a podcast I look at is Trace Evidence which focuses on unsolved disappearances or murders and usually trying to highlight lesser known cases and the episodes tend to be sorta ‘dry’ but I find that to be a good thing bc the guy that does it is kinda anti-sensationalism (eg; he doesn’t mention “theories” having to do with ritual sacrifice or getting kidnapped into international sex trafficking from an American suburb unless people close to the case made a point of it and when that happens it’s just to point out how those theories inevitably have no evidence) and will talk about police misconduct or coverups when that seems to be a possibility. Anyway another reason is that there’s less “copaganda” or “PROSECUTION GOOD DEFENSE BAD” stuff when it’s “unsolved”.

That said, while I know nothing of the person(s) behind the podcast or their background I do remember in one episode he made a passing mention of “my sources in Such-and-Such police department have said…” and it kinda ‘hit’ me how a police bias doesn’t have to be intentional at all in crime reporting. If you’re gonna be making stuff about real cases and want your information to be more in depth than just summarizing publicly published info you’re gonna need contacts in police departments or DA offices or else you’ll be fighting a constant uphill battle with FOIA requests which will inevitably antagonize the aforementioned. So even if someone truly makes a good faith effort to be as unbiased and factual as they can ultimately they will depend on biased sources and that’s an aspect of “critique” that I think a lot people miss in favor of focusing on explicit propaganda or “glorification of killers”

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grandhotelabyss · 8 months

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What's your opinion on MFA writing programs? Not a very favorable one, I suspect. I'm not living in the States now, but it seems to me the Iowa Writers' Workshop doesn't enjoy quite the same reputation it did when luminaries like Cheever and Salter taught there. Am I right?

The network it makes available is still the only way into the husk that remains of literary publishing. (Note how all the tributes and elegies to Louise Glück are from her former students or colleagues; I may be the only "common reader," and I am just a common reader when it comes to poetry, who has written anything about her.) But as literary publishing has lost prestige, so has the program. I didn't get an MFA, so I can't comment on the quality of the pedagogy. I'm sure everyone is trying their best. Obviously, however, the whole idea seems misconceived from the start, and not only because of the CIA seed money.

In reducing art either to craft or to psychology, the MFA has made fiction into a set of routinized procedures (show don't tell) and a form of group therapy (find your voice). You do have to learn techniques, but techniques alone cannot create great art, and the very greatest art has often been careless of technique. And individuation is part of the writerly vocation, but you're not finding your voice per se; you're finding a much larger, much more agonized and conflicted thing, which is the whole of your sensibility. If you want to write more than one book, this had better contain a veritable pandemonium of voices.

Such an education keeps you, almost as if it were calculated to do so, from the only true literary education: an encounter with the best literary works of the past, with the main line of the tradition. (There are non-literary educations that will also shape you as a writer, both in life and in school, everything from what you learn as a person in the world to what you learn as a student in physics class or history class, but those aren't my concern here.) The purpose of this encounter is not to make you slavishly worship literary tradition, but to enable you to transform it, even to escape it, intelligently; if you don't know your tradition, you are the one who will only be repeating it. But no, we have taken Hemingway's canny modernist streamlining of a vast corpus he had tenderly internalized—he did this for a good reason: a chivalric kitsch version of the canon had been used as propaganda to lead a whole generation of young men to their slaughter—and we have made an idol and a fetish of it, so that educated people today can no longer appreciate, perhaps can no longer even comprehend, a complex periodic sentence. I hold the MFA partly responsible for this decline in the general intelligence.

Meanwhile, the academic setting of the MFA turns the literary enterprise into a game of social oneupmanship, the pettiest form of competition. In the same way that runners and swimmers say you'll only make your best time if you race the clock rather than your competitors, you should be writing with and against Shakespeare, Austen, Woolf, and Faulkner, not some random matriculates on either side of you, themselves as stupid as you are, in a cramped and sweaty seminar room. Such environments—small groups full of young people either trying to be nice to one another or, more likely, trying to be cruel to one another in subliminal and deniable ways—also encourage the ideological herding we've seen in recent years. This helps to account for the vaguely "Soviet" feel of contemporary mainstream fiction: its endless promotion in book after book of the same collectivist ideological pieties, its implicit disparagement of strong imagination, unless this take the form of tediously allegorical fantasy.

In general, MFA fiction feels both overworked and underthought, the product of much tinkering but little experience (personal or mental), a filigreed little balsa wood figurine, and nowadays moreover inevitably carved into the shape of our age's political idols. To quote the old headline the malicious LRB editors slapped onto Elif Batuman's 13-year-old essay, whose arguments I have rehearsed above: "Get a real degree."

#creative writing

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most-tragic-character-tournament · 9 months

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this was always going to happen, but you have tommy fans in the notes of your post calling dream (content creator not character) a pedophile. seeing as you published propaganda that had a personal attack on the human, rather than the character, i guess you don't mind, but this is why polls don't allow dsmp, the "fans" cannot behave.

Firstly, I Cannot Control What Other People Say.

Secondly, I have no idea what you’re even talking about. Because you said this, I skimmed through the 13 propaganda entries again, and I don’t think any of them even referred to Dream by name, unless I missed it, and the comment that I assume you’re referring to did not clarify who they were calling a pedophile. You’re welcome to prove me wrong I guess, but I don’t care about fandom’s drama and I am trying not to bring it on to this blog. People can say whatever the hell they want in their own reblogs or comments, and I can’t change that, but I do control what gets said here.

You’ve got a character? Cool. Are they tragic? Yes? Well come on in. That’s all I care about.

#I am in the dsmp fandom i know perfectly well the shit that gets spun around every day #and I don’t want it disrupting my poll because no one ever learned to just ignore what you don’t like and live your own damn life #asks #c!tommyinnit

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urupotter · 9 months

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“A professional editor would cut this by half”

Ok? Editors exist to make their publishers money. They do that by changing books in ways they think will make them sell more, the edits they propose to a book are done with that in mind. Assuming your objective as an author is to earn money or for your books to be well known, that’s perfectly fine, but there’s no reason to let that be what defines what good art is.

If your primary objective when writing a novel is artistic then there’s no real reason an editor would improve it beyond stuff like spell checking or grammar (unless, that is, you happen to believe that aesthetic quality is generally aligned with public consumption demand, which I personally don’t, at all, but you do you).

More importantly, appeal to editors as authorities when judging a work only works for stuff where getting more people to read is one of the primary objectives in its own right (i.e. propaganda or education). Otherwise it’s meaningless. Develop your own aesthetic taste and judgement criteria, so you’ll know when you should or should not outsource aesthetic judgements.

#not hp #art

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joy-haver · 2 years

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On Science, Denialism, and Community

These content warnings apply to 1 specific section, which is marked.

Cw colonialism, white supremacy, ableism, racism, eugenics.

✨✨✨information and trust ✨✨✨

I keep seeing people, who all have otherwise very thought out belief systems, saying things like “trust science” and “we wouldn’t have all these problems if people had better critical thinking skills” and “people just need to listen to the research.”

If you agree with one of those statements, I want you to really think it through for a minute.

Do you make all of your decisions based on research? Do you get all of your information from peer reviewed journals? If so, what are your standards for what you consider good research? Do you rerun all the numbers to make sure they didn’t make any mistakes? Do you check all the citations that the article your reading relies on and make sure that each of those is up to your standards? What about the citations of those articles? How do you know that the numbers they have you are true? How do you know the peer reviewers weren’t paid by the same company, or the same industry? How do you know for sure that there aren’t 100 studies that say the exact opposite thing that never saw the light of day because no one would publish them?

And like, of course you don’t do those things. You can’t answer all those questions. It’s literally impossible to always act on the best information available and always check everything. At some point, you are relying on trust. It’s just a question of how much trust, and who you are trusting.

Science denialism is one thing that can happen when that trust is broken. And, as I’ll describe bellow, that trust will be broken for anyone whose paying attention

✨✨✨Science as an institution ✨✨✨

I think it’s important to remember that the vast majority of what this society has called “science” over the years had been little more than propaganda pieces to justify colonialism, eugenics, and white supremacy. Anyone whose ever worked with data can show you how to manipulate it. But you don’t even need to manipulate it on purpose to do bad science. Hell, for most of the research that happens in this country, the grant selection process manipulates the data on its own. You can make science justify almost anything. The scientific method is okay as a framework, but it is not perfect. And the institutions that exist around it are very good at using the imperfections of the method to create their own propaganda. And they have a nice little shield of science to hide it behind.

But really, take a look around you. The scientific method has brought us many good results, but the idea of science has also justified the worlds worst atrocities. All social harms that exist today exist, in part, becuase they were given scientific justifications. Because at the end of the day, science will tell you whatever you want it to. Information that pushes back may come into existence sometimes, but it will be ignored unless it can be used to someone’s advantage.

[content warnings start here]

Even so called “good science” that genuinely is an attempt at finding truth and understanding reality is not morally neutral. Every advancement has its uses. Advancements in plastics might mean more plastic is made. Advancements in mathematics means more bombs. Advancements in psychology are used to propagandize you. Advancements in medicine are used to create more effective eugenics. Sure, sometimes advancements may help you a little. But the always help power maintain itself more. And sure, sometime s good science that isn’t useful to the system slips thru the cracks, but they will find a way to reincorporate it into the matchine.

And if that’s what the good science does, what about the bad science?

The sterilization and murder of disabled people, of black people, of immigrants, of indigenous people STILL happens in the name of science, separating indigenous people from thier families was done in the name of science. All of the fatshaming that we’ve propagated around the globe has been done in the name of science, and that has a death toll too. Capitalism is justified in the name of science. Incarceration is justified in the name of science. State power is justified in the name of science. Colonizing countries, destroying indigenous food ways, forcing people into sweatshops is done in the name of science.

The murder machine that is the USA relies on science, The propaganda machine that keeps people believing in it relies on science.

[content warnings end here]

And if you’ve ever tried to talk someone out of a belief that’s based in bad science, even committed and nuanced researchers, even using good data, most of them won’t change their minds. How could they? Because what’s the alternative? Aren’t the only two options to be committed to science or to deny it entirely?

✨✨✨Denial ✨✨✨

I think the reason we see so much total science denialism is because people start down the right track. They start to realize that a lot of what they were taught in the name of science is bullshit, and they are correct. You see this a lot with disabled people. Someone will realize, thru personal experiences, that doctors don’t know shit and are making most of it up as they go, and that even the research they do have is usually misguided or flat out wrong. And then they’ll say fuck it, I guess everything they say is a lie. And that’s where you get science denialism.

The problem doesn’t start with the denialists. It starts with the institution. And the more you tell people to just “trust the institution”, the more they will understand that you have no idea what you are talking about. You will push them further into their belief, because you are denying the existence of the very real problems they are pointing out.

But you know who is willing to listen? You know who is willing to understand them, and to teach them even more things that are “wrong”? The climate change deniers. The antivaxers. The TERFs. They are willing to soothe the part of someone that feels hurt, and betrayed, and lied to. They are willing to take that anger and give it a direction. They are willing to say “your right, and I’m sorry. Here’s what we can do about it”.

The only reason I didn’t go down that same path of denial is because I have a lot of free time to find and read academic studies, and I have enough training to understand most of what I read, or at least to know how to find information to understand. And also because I have a lovely community around me. But most people can’t do the research I’ve done, and even if they could, they wouldn’t have the time, and even if they did, no one person can be fully informed on every topic. And they shouldn’t have to be. But we literally cannot trust a single one of these institutions. Science has just as much blood on its hands as the church, and it’s trying it’s best to outpace it. Science is made of lies and propaganda. Can you really fault people for overcorrecting and going full denialist?

As long as we treat it as tho the problem is the denialists, we’ll just be creating the circumstances for more denialism.

✨✨✨ Community ✨✨✨

Remember what I said about trust? About how, at some point, you have to trust someone. Well, here’s the good news. You can actively choose who that will be. This is called community building.

For this to work, you have to be committed to reality. You can’t believe that things just happen, you have to understand that everything is causal, and you have to understand the causes of everything. You must be committed to making your worldview as consistent as possible, and you must be willing to foster that in other people.

Now, it’s not easy. And to do a good job of it, you have to have already interrogated a lot of your beliefs. You have to have a strong system of values and standards that you hold yourself and others to.

But if you have that, you can start to build communities of people you trust. You can split up some of the labor of coming up with ideas and unlearning, and then you can share it with each other. Now, you still have to be critical, even (especially) of the people you trust. You still have to put in work. But doing it as a community means that you won’t have to do so much work. You can share the load of unlearning and relearning. And you can use some of the information science gave you, but you have to verify it, and really think it through.

And when someone comes to you and tells you something, listen to the truth of it. Even if they are lying to you, listen for how they got to the point where they feel that they need to. Even if they are factually wrong, listen for the truth of the experiences that made them believe that. And comfort that part of them. Affirm their pain, affirm their mistrust, and don’t be angry with them. Instead, point them down a path that’s more grounded in reality, and introduce them to community.

✨✨✨closing statement✨✨✨

So many anarchists and likeminded folks realize that we must destroy institutions of power, and that the only way to do that is through community building. Science, heck, even Knowledge itself, is an institution. And of all the institutions we need to destroy and remake, it’s one of the most important. Because the institutions that we can’t live without, the ones that provide the most important services, are the institutions we must replace first. Our systems for food, housing, socializing, conflict resolution, and of course, our systems for making meaning, all need to be replaced before the old ones can be destroyed.

Revolution is not the act of chopping down the Great Tree of Power. Revolution is the act of growing a forest around it, choking it to death by removing its access to light and nutrients, until it is nothing but rot to feed our soil.

[Edit: I want to say that i don’t think I did a perfect job writhing this, and I am very very thankful for any critiques. I think I make have expressed myself only about 65% of how I would like to. I appreciate any add-ins or critiques or thoughts about it]

#anti doctor #antipsychiatry #antipsychology #disabled #disability justice #physical disability #anarcho disability #anarchism #mutual aid #prefigurative politics #spoonie #cpunk #cripple punk #science #research #science denial #dual power #power

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