#interdependence is the fucking point

[1101200905]

reparenting Can't be the solution to parentalization. like. i had to parent myself so the only solution is??? i have to parent myself again????????

no offense but I'm actually fucking tired of doing that?

(i also get pissed at the idea that the correct response to loneliness is learning to be alone. that's in direct opposition to how Human Beings Work).

[sophie-frm-mars]

As someone who is poly, what is your perspective on emotional affairs? How do you navigate managing different relationships?

I think that the management of different relationships simultaneously is a lifelong practice that nobody will ever be perfect at and everyone will always need to learn new things. this requires patience, communication, patience, communication, patience and some more communication, and then probably a bit more patience and of course communication. As Catherine Angel observes in Tomorrow Sex Will Be Good Again, communicating our needs, desires and boundaries first requires that we understand what each of them are, and that's actually pretty fucking daunting. As Clementine Morrigan has pointed out, polyamorous people have to learn things about their attachment styles and the challenges of them just as much as monogamous people, and you don't get better at secure attachment without practice, so if you're poly you're probably going to spend some amount of time being insecurely attached to multiple people, probably in different ways. bell hooks says in All About Love that love is "the extension of ones self for the spiritual growth of yourself or someone else", and to that end love will always be as completely unique as human beings can be, and can't be perfectly analysed in terms and rules. Patience and communication.

You have to use some amount of trial and error to gain self knowledge in order to communicate to others what works for you and know when what someone else needs doesn't. I can't do long distance relationships, for instance, and I'm glad I know that about myself but finding out was a painful process.

Personally, having been poly for over a decade and found my own capacity for different things through trial and error, I personally approach relationships descriptively instead of prescriptively. I don't like saying that I'm using this or that model for being poly, "primary partner polyamory" or "relationship anarchy" or "solo poly" (as an aside, I think everyone should prioritise their relationship with themselves first and foremost and don't find this a useful distinction for people "doing solo poly", but when I think of it to myself as "needing more space for my relationship with myself" it works better). What I mean by descriptive rather than prescriptive is that if I am in a relationship and it is clear to me and another person that it is working in a way that is going to be long term, I like to have a conversation about what the relationship has become rather than name it some way and try to start acting differently according to that.

As for emotional affairs - I had to take some time to understand what you're asking so I'm going to try to define it here to be on the same page. You're asking about when someone becomes close to another person in a way that doesn't necessarily involve sex, but feels like a sharing of oneself with that person in a way that crosses the boundaries of their partner. All cases where someone shares something of themselves with another person in a way that crosses the boundaries of their partner have to do with the interdependency of their relationship and the conditional boundaries of their partner. What I mean by that is, Sue might agree to be in a relationship with Jen on the condition that they only have sex with each other, and therefore it would be crossing Sue's boundaries for Jen to have sex with Alex. Someone who takes a more anti-monogamy stance might say this is an unreasonable boundary to have as your boundaries should be your boundaries and shouldn't limit the freedoms of other people. However, if Sue and Jen have built a life together and depend on one another emotionally, financially, and for the logistics of their regular schedules, then Jen spending more time with Alex whether or not they have sex may feel threatening to Sue because she feels like the ways that she depends on Jen are at risk. However, here it is only useful for Sue to look at her relationship with Jen. If they are just as close as ever, spending the same amount of time together and so on, then Jen's time with Alex isn't actually doing anything to Sue: she is just experiencing jealousy, which is a tricky feeling for many people because it isn't often discussed and rarely discussed kindly, but a feeling like any other that we have to move through. If Sue looks at her relationship with Jen and realises what she needs is more time together, more intimacy, or whatever, she has to communicate that to Jen

[genreawareness]

no yeah that was insane. HOWEVER. assuming standard ghost rules (ghost is the essence of a dead person), the clothes, despite being initially a separate object when alive, are now part of the ghost body. the ghost body is an imprint of the moment they died. there is no point to a distinction unless they can take the glothes off. if you CAN take the glothes off obviously it’s not part of the body.

one of my least favorite genres of humor is people getting faux-mad at each other over incredibly slight cultural differences in terminology and/or experience (e.g. slightly modified food or slightly modified chain restaurants or similar) that could be easily clarified by like 2 sentences tops. get faux-mad at each other over something more interesting please. like whether or not the clothes on a ghost are considered to be part of its body

[librarycards]

Hello! Sorry if you’ve posted about this somewhere already/if it’s redundant, but I thought your coinage of “transMad” was very cool and I’m wondering what that term means to you? I’m really happy to see other people talking about madness being intertwined w their gender/transness and looking forward to checking out your reading lists :))

thank you so much for asking about one of my favorite things to infodump about!! rather than rehash a bunch of stuff, if it's okay, I'm going to borrow a few quotes from past!me that i've published in different places // offer you some things of mine to read.

broadly, though, i use transMadness as a way to explore the identificatory, epistemological, methodological, and theoretical implications of an orientation (to use Sara Ahmed's term) toward bodymind noncompliance and self/selves-determination. this orientation refuses to delineate diagnostically between Maddened / transed experiences of the world/our many worlds, and instead takes this shared/overlapping ground as a jumping off point for solidarity and speculation - that is, something that allows us to imagine otherwise worlds / make them manifest through creativity and collaboration.

(Ha, and I claimed i wouldn't talk too much...famous autistic last words)

ANYWAY. here are some clips that might help explain more dimensions of transMadness. note that, in my dissertation-in-progress, i'm focusing on xeno/neogender and/as self-diagnostic cultures among queercrip and transMad internet users. i'm interested in the anti-psych liberatory potential of this digital community work, especially as it centers forms of knowledge and scholarship devalued within Academia Proper, especially because so much of it is made by and for disabled, Mad, queer, trans people, esp. youth. Onward to quotes!

On transMad epistemologies: citation/power/knowledge:

I’ll spend most of this piece looking not at what transMad is, but what it does. First and foremost, transMad cites. Even its name alludes to other portmanteaus: neuroqueer and queercrip being the best-known among them. Many people have offered many different (ever-“working”!) definitions of these terms; today, I offer co-coiner Nick Walker’s (2021) definition of neuroqueer: a verb and an adjective “encompass[ing] the queering of neurocognitive norms as well as gender norms” (p. 196). In terms of queercrip, I also return to its coiner, Carrie Sandahl (2003), who for whom the queercrip (as person and as method/movement) confuses the diagnostic gaze, bears sociopolitical witness, and performs glitchful[4], incongruous, confusing in(ter)ventions into possible community. At base, “queer” and “crip” appear as analogous, reclaimed slurs signifying marginalized transgression. When combined, they describe a loop, perhaps a Möbius strip: crip (ani)mates queer, queer tells-on crip. The specter of crip haunts queer—and even more explicitly, as we will see, trans—and the crip(ped) bodymind holds, moves, and fucks queerly. Who knows where “queer” stops and “crip” and “neuro” begin? Likewise, transMad, whose citational style leaves little room for diagnostic clarity amidst a pastiche of noncompliant text.

On transMad epistemologies: multiplicity (h/t @materialisnt):

They encourage us to remove others’ names from our bodies, to reign in unruly citations, to set “boundaries” which violate Mad, crip ethics of care (see Fletcher, 2019). In truth, any framing of individual authorship in which the body text is “mine” and the citations gesture “elsewhere” belie the inherent interdependence of all intellectual life, and particularly of transMad intellectual life. transMad plural scholar mix. alan moss (2022) argues in relation to the pathologization of multiple systems: “all people, indeed all that exists, is a system that itself is constantly enmeshed in several overlapping and interconnected systems.” In short, I am full of Is, and will continue as many more. Just as disability justice helps us understand all life as interdependent and deserving of access, a transMad approach sees our selves as numerous and fuzzy. We have permission to dispense with the need for tidy texts, with our interlocutors, edits, and iterations either obfuscated entirely or exclusively relegated to a bibliography. transMad citation may thus be considered akin to visible mending[6], creating flamboyantly messy, multiplicitous work that does not seek to pass as objective or discrete.

On the value of (crip) failure and/as "virtuality":

Don’t get me wrong: Zoom PhD work is a failing enterprise. That is to say, it is a queercrip, transMad enterprise, which is to say, it is a beautiful, beautiful project. Mitchell, Snyder, and Ware describe such “fortunate failures” in the context of “curricular cripistemologies.”5 Coined by Merri Lisa Johnson, the term “cripistemologies,” refers to “embodied ways of knowing in relation, knowing-with, knowing-alongside, knowing-across-difference, and unknowing,” ways which frequently exist outside the purview of mainstream academia.6 Curricular cripistemologies, then, refer to an intentional, queercrip deviation from normative pedagogical approaches which trades the corrective impulse of “special ed” and other rehabilitative programs, and offers instead a generative noncompliance.7 That is, rather than trying to identify, isolate, and ameliorate difference, curricular cripistemologies lean into difference as it is experienced by disabled students ourselves, querying how atmospheres of in/accessibility shape normative approaches to education and how the embrace of “failure,” not as a last-resort but as a first choice, poses potentially transformative possibilities.

On transMadness and fat liberation: (for @trans-axolotl's Psych Survivor Zine)

A transMad, fat approach to disorderly eating requires making connections with humility and understanding, and, as I discussed above, engaging in compassionate, critical interrogation of our own anti-fatness.

[...]

A transMad, fat, abolitionist politic is one that makes room. We imagine beyond the cage, even if the details of that imagining are not yet clear. Just as we have carved micro-sites of support within violent digital and in-person contexts, just as we have learned to think about our lifeworlds beyond the paradigm of “recovery or death,” we can also reconceptualize fatness not as the enemy, but as another form of bodymind noncompliance in alliance and/or entanglement with disorderly eating practices. For thin disorderly eaters, this requires us to fundamentally challenge the way we view food and embodiment, even while maintaining a Mad respect for alternative ways of approaching reality.

On xenogenders, virtuality, and self-determination:

It is this very “irrationality” –– the “unrealness,” the “you’ve-got-to-be-kiddinghood,” that is most frequently weaponized against xenogenders, as well as their newly-coined sets of xenopronouns. The perceived and actual virtuality of xenogenders is often placed against the notion of “actuality,” in this case, of “real” (or “practical”) genders and pronouns to be used in one’s “real life.” Disabled activists have rightly resisted the distinction between online and (presumed-offline) “real life,” given that this categorically excludes homebound bodyminds, as well as those without IRL social and support circles. That said, I believe the virtual –– as almost, not-quite, proximite, making-do –– is incredibly useful in thinking about xenoidentities as transMad tools –– particularly, as transMad tools of underground collaboration / co-liberation.

[...]

What if gender was a project we wanted to fail? That is, what if trans- was a process not of getting better, not of moving-toward a bodymind more sane, more straight, and more cisheteropatriarchially desirable, but rather a line of flight on a longer trail to illegibility? Indeed, what if we replaced pathology’s narrow “path” with a trail lighted by the language of our comrades, whose linguistic interventions make and break gender in ways heretofore unimaginable? Xenoidentities, both individually and as a trans-gressive M.O., are fundamental to a broader transMad project of crafted, collective illegibility; intersubjective citation (imagine what it feels like for someone to be the gender that you coined!); and collective care that refuses a politics of cure. Crucially both virtual and digital, xenoidentities are furthermore a manifestation of the power of trans, predominantly disabled digital counterpublics, who overturn the hierarchy which places the IRL-real above the digital-unreal, making unruly, Mad space in which (with apologies to Donna Haraway) a hundred xenoselves might bloom.

On Maddening queer "diagnosis":

In her indictment of all “Kwik-Fix Drugs,” Gray further indicates the practice of forced treatment as in and of itself as a project of violent normalization, regardless of specific target or reason. The intentional ambiguity between her narrative of Madness and her narrative of asexuality disrupt mounting demands for a healthy (sanitized, neoliberal, and consumable) queerness. A Mad ace approach identifies these demands as, indeed, comparable with cis heteronormative notions of sexual maturity and responsibility – the idea that participation in culturally-normative sexual practices is a prerequisite for health (Kim, 2011, 481) and thus, personal autonomy (Meerai, Abdillahi, and Poole 2016, 21). By fusing the “lack of sexual appetite” attributed to her medications for bipolar disorder with her asexuality, Gray destabilizes the binary between healthy-sexual-diversity and unhealthy-psychopathology. She is once again disrupting contemporary queer impulses to dissociate from ongoing histories of pathologization. Here, Mad and queer/asexual activism are as inseparable in text as they are in Gray. Gray and her comrades collectively refuse both sexuality-as-“rehabilitation” (See Kim 2011, 486) and asexual acceptance predicated upon normative “health” (Kim 2010, 158) – that is, they Madden asexuality. Twoey, in her own voice, remixes the sources of her own pathologization, staggering the supposedly-divine pronouncement of the DSM across pages and bookending its extracts with her own writing and art. In this undermining of the DSM’s epistemological polish, Gray disrupts the domination of written prose over poetry and visual art, while also critiquing the role of the DSM in commercialized health “care.” Her zine opens with the lines “sex sells and sex is sold / sex was being sold and i didn’t buy” (Gray 2018, n.p.). Gray indicates a pathology perceived not only in a refusal to practice sex, but also in a refusal to buy (into) it. After all, a refusal to buy into existing sexual paradigms is for her also a refusal to buy into a feminized reproductive mandate.

[belit0]

What if Madara and Izuna (can u add itachi and shisui if you can! If not that's okay! :)) both ended up having the same soulmate?😳

The reader is beautiful, people literally worship the ground she walks on, also strong and independent (such a strong person and has good strength too, her strength like tsunade.) she even has her own clan, so strong, people would drop to their knees and bow down cause of the fear, and also she wouldn't go for any guy, so how would they react to being HER soulmate?😯

I love this request because I feel you described Indra's female version🤣💕

Madara and Izuna

- Madara is totally intimidated, even if he doesn't say so, but Izuna sees it as a challenge. Both are happy to have the same soul mate, having built an intrinsically interdependent relationship after losing their siblings. As a survival method, they built a safe place between the two, divine ground, where they know everything is fine.

- When the Uchiha leader finds out, feels that divine calling, the signs that his soul bond is awakening, the last thing he expects is to share it with (Y/N). Of course not because of anything bad, but because we are talking about the strongest woman in the whole fucking village, imagine saying something that annoys her and getting punched in the face? No thanks.

- What he doesn't expect is that Izuna feels it too, with exactly the same person, and comes with a huge smile to tell him about it. Once they both define being linked by fate, they have to agree on what to do.

- Izuna, the complete opposite, wants to rush out to find her, win her over, seduce her, ignoring the fact of probably ending up sunk in the ground with a few broken teeth. They can't just propose to (Y/N) like that, and she probably felt the call too, so Madara convinces him to wait.

- When a week passes and there is no news, Madara is equal parts calm and frustrated. He wants to have her, of course he does, she's the most beautiful woman he's ever seen, a privilege to be bound for life to her, but it's terrifying to have to go in search of her love.

- Izuna, getting ruled by annoyance, insists on going himself in person, but the Uchiha leader prefers to send a letter first. Of course, they receive no reply, and his younger brother sneaks out in the middle of the night to woo her with his incredible seductive skills.

- Needless to say, Izuna returns with a bruised face and some broken teeth, as Madara anticipated, but this only excites him even more. He loves rough girls.

Shisui and Itachi

- Similar to the previous couple, Itachi and Shisui share a bond that escapes any kind of rational analysis, essential to each other, necessary to exist. Sharing is something they do every day, always together.

- Itachi is prudent in the face of the divine bond, knowing the reputation and glory (Y/N) maintains, with no desire to earn a capture request from her clan. First, he talks it over with his best friend, out of habit, as he always does with absolutely everything that happens to him, and then they both realize to be in the same situation with the same person.

- Shisui, a bit more mindless and adventurous, suggests they both go to visit her with a bouquet of flowers and declare themselves to her. Nothing better than some good old-fashioned seduction.

- Itachi fails to persuade him of his foolishness, but in fact, his ability to sweeten (Y/N) ears is so good he gets them both an interview with her, explaining a bit of the whole situation. The trick was not to try to flatter her for her wonderful beauty or the power of her raw strength, but to give nice words for all her effort with the clan, for the respect people have for her, for the quality of warrior she is.

- Shisui, unlike Izuna, uses politically correct words and a fine and sober speech, avoiding mentioning the obvious and looking for the stilted points she will enjoy. His wit allows them to sit down for tea with their soul mate.

- (Y/N) allows herself to be courted, but with delicacy and class, no crude attempts to get into her bed or become distasteful because of her beauty. She proposes to both Uchiha that they earn her people's respect, build a positively popular image among her folk, and should they do so, she will accept them both.

[cleromancy]

oracle year one born of hope from batman chronicles #5 (published 1996) is hands down the best defridging story ive ever read for a lot of reasons--the first being just that its such a damn good comic in the first place. but every time i read it im so struck by the way it reframes the casual *incidental* violence done to barbara in TKJ, where she's just an obstacle in the joker's way to get to jim (to get to batman) and it's not *about* her. on the very second page of OYO we have this:

the entire page (...minus bruce in the bg up there) is drawn from barbaras point of view while she recounts the incident from her hospital bed. literally recentering her and her perspective, her experience and her feelings. where TKJ sensationalizes and sexualizes the violence done to her we see an illustration of her choice--love for her father, "don't get up"--then the shock and pain of the injury, then the operating room.

and she opened the story with "i cant believe i was such an idiot," berating herself for not looking through the peephole or using the chain on the door before she opened it, emphasizing that she knew better, and its a very human response to being the victim of something like this--almost fixating on a small mistake you made. inside the story its about the grief and the sense of control bargaining gives you--"if only i had--!" and then on the meta level its actually addressing the "well why DIDNT barbara look through the peephole???" (<- the answer being that TKJ never considered whether or not she would have, bc that was less important to the story than hurting her.)

and the next page. god. its masterful:

the balance of OYO being a response to TKJ on a meta level and the genuine story-level exploration of barbaras feelings just in the first 3 pages alone... chefs kiss. the way it addresses the previous bullshit storytelling choices--but builds something new off of them, because that shouldn't be the end of barbaras story.

and its so fantastic bc it doesn't shy away from barbaras ugly feelings...

she's so angry and she's allowed to be. and thats also what makes it such a good defridging--that its a resonant portrayal of becoming disabled. anger, grief, humiliation, shame, fear, the absolute *slog* that is recovery, the realization that your independence has been compromised... it really reckons with what this means for her in that moment and moving forward.

just posting this one bc i love her...

and the crux of the story is barbara taking control back over her life, barbara not feeling helpless anymore. its a superhero origin story to its core and its fantastic at what it does.

and i mean... i do always feel iffy about this part:

the juxtaposition of her wanting to do this without batmans help with her, well, unknowingly accepting bruces help. makes seesaw motion with hand. i always feel like its a bit of a weak spot... i like elements of it, particularly *because* this work is addressing so much of TKJs bullshit; this is making bruce actually care about barbaras injury because fuck you he *should* care, he *should* do something. and barbaras need for independence and her struggles to accept help are pretty central to her character and in a story about disability... i mean interdependence is a core tenant of disability rights activism, no man is an island and all that. but btwn it being bruce who finds richard dragon for her to train with, and richard dragon both being yknow a man and not a wheelchair user himself, it falls flat. which is really something you notice bc the rest of the story is so damn good... its hard for me to put my finger on exactly what i think they should've done instead, bc they only had 18 pages for this story and like. it's incredibly tight, not a panel wasted, so it *was* important that barbaras teacher be someone we the reader already know, and there was no *time* to establish some other way for barbara to find someone of richard fucking dragons caliber on her own without bruces connections.

but that i guess does bring me to. the other thing i find frustrating re: OYO which is just that it's. 18 pages collected with two other stories, neither of which is memorable... i mean how many other year ones of a heavy hitter like barbara freakin gordon can you think of with less than a single full issue? and batgirl year one had 9 issues (9 mediocre, mediocre issues). i dont think OYO needed that much time (but hey neither did fucking bgyo)... but come on. come on!!!!!!

anyway whatever. oracle sweep

[justallihere]

How did you even come up with your ff idea? What scene / trope from FW or IF made you think “what if”?

It was a combination of a few different things! Xaden pulled his “lol I’m lowkey royalty let me eat you out on my throne” bullshit and my brain went “wait a fucking second”

At that point I started thinking about if Tyrrendor had been successful in the rebellion and Xaden was king, what would it look like for him to be bonded to a rider from the country he’d just seceded from? And in addition to that, in FW we see Xaden and Violet get to know each other a decent amount before they’re stuck together and their lives become interdependent, and I thought it would be interesting to see how they’d react if they were suddenly stuck in that situation with a complete stranger—and one they were supposed to hate at that. Then it sparked the whole thing of if Xaden never goes to Basgiath, how does he get weapons? How does Violet find out about venin? It has been a giant butterfly effect of canon events based on that one thing

There’s quite a few other “fix it” things thrown in sitq, namely their god-awful communication and Liam and Brennan, but the above was the main driving factor for it!

[xiexiecaptain]

I’m fucking begging people to please read about the Characteristics of White Supremacy Culture 

It is a collectively, intersectionally articulated analytical tool to describe and help dismantle cultural aspects that prop up and propagate white supremacy. 

Contributed to by many many amazing community activists, scholars, teachers, and regular people but spearheaded in this format by Tema Okun.

WHAT:  WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE COMES AFTER ALL OF US

“We are all swimming in the waters of white supremacy culture. We are all navigating this culture, regardless of our racial identity. We are not all affected in the same ways – some of us are encouraged to join and collude without awareness that an invitation has been extended, some are invited to participate at the cost of separating ourselves from our communities and families, some are shamed because we can never fully join no matter how hard we try, some are denied any invitation in order to be targeted or exploited or violated. Because white supremacy culture is the water we swim in, we inevitably internalize the messages about what this culture believes, values, and considers normal. We absorb these messages as individuals and as a collective. As a result, white supremacy culture shapes how we think and act, how we make decisions and behave. As a result, white supremacy culture reminds us over and over again, sometimes out loud, sometimes in a whisper, that white is right and that there is a right kind of white”

https://www.whitesupremacyculture.info/what-is-it.html

PLEASE AVOID WEAPONIZING THIS TOOL:  

“I want to offer a cautionary plea here about weaponizing this list. This website, the article, the information offered here is a tool, an analytical tool designed to help us better understand white supremacy culture. The intention is to help us understand the water in which we are all swimming so that we can collaboratively work together to build and sustain cultures that help us thrive as communities and individuals. Cultures that are not based on abuse of power and accumulation of profit. Cultures that are based on interdependence, justice, and respect for each other and the earth and wind and sun and stars. Cultures that embody the belief that we all do better when we all do better.

This does not mean we can't hold each other accountable (another word for supporting each other to be our best selves), set boundaries when people have not learned yet to take responsibility for themselves, apologize and take responsibility ourselves when we cause harm, and continue to grow and learn how to be with each other even when we are getting on each other's last nerve. I will say that white supremacy wants us to attack each other as the problem. As we fight with and among each other, we fail to identify the actual problem. An instruction we might hold to is to attack the problem, not the people, not each other (thank you Cal Allen). Of course, sometimes our behavior is a problem, our conditioning is a problem, and then we can, when we are able, help each other through. And if we cannot, we look to others who have the capacity to help or be in relationship as they look to us when they are out of capacity and we are able to show up.

***THE PILLARS OF WHITE SUPREMACY CULTURE***

>>FEAR:  

 White supremacy culture's number one strategy is to make us afraid. When we are afraid, we lose touch with our power and become more easily manipulated by the promise of an illusory safety.

White supremacy culture cultivates our fear of not belonging, of not being enough. Living in fear that we are not enough, white supremacy culture teaches us to fear others (or hate others) in an attempt, sometimes overt, sometimes unspoken, to prove to ourselves that we are ok. An easy way to prove we are ok is to point the finger at all those who are not. An easy way to belong to each other is to hate and fear all the others who do not (thank you Cristina Rivera Chapman).

READ MORE ON “FEAR” HERE

>>URGENCY:

The cultural habit of applying a sense of urgency to our every-day lives in ways that perpetuate power imbalance while disconnecting us from our need to breathe and pause and reflect.

The point here is to both acknowledge actual urgency without creating an undue and superficial sense of urgency. People need food, housing, health care, attention right now; often there is no time to wait. The damage starts when we transfer a sense of urgency to everything we do, refuse to make time to rest (even and particularly in the midst of truly urgent situations), and begin to feel that taking a pause is a betrayal of our commitment.

The irony is that this imposed sense of urgency serves to erase the actual urgency of tackling racial and social injustice.

>Reinforces existing power hierarchies that use the sense of urgency to control decision-making in the name of expediency

>Privileges those who process information quickly (or think they do)

>Sacrifices and erases the potential of other modes of knowing and wisdom that require more time (embodied, intuitive, spiritual)

>Encourages shame, guilt, and self-righteousness to manipulate decision-making

>Reinforces the idea that we are ruled by time, deadlines, and needing to do things in a "timely" way often based on arbitrary schedules that have little to do with the actual realities of how long things take, particularly when those "things" are relationships with others

READ MORE ON “URGENCY” HERE

>>ONE RIGHT WAY:

(Intertwined with Perfectionism, Objectivity, & Paternalism)

The cultural belief there is one right way to do things and once people are introduced to the right way, they will see the light and adopt it. This belief is connected to the belief that the right way is the "perfect" way and therefore perfection is both attainable and desirable.

When a person or group does not adapt or change to "fit" the one right way, then those defining or upholding the one right way assume something is wrong with the other, those not changing, not with.

Similar to a missionary who sees only value in their beliefs about what is good rather than acknowledging value in the culture of the communities they are determined to "convert" to the right way of thinking and/or the right way of living

READ MORE ON “ONE RIGHT WAY,” “PATERNALISM/QUALIFIED,”  “PERFECTIONISM,” & “OBJECTIVITY” HERE

>>PATERNALISM/QUALIFIED:

(Intertwined with Perfectionism, Objectivity & One Right Way)

>Those holding power control decision-making and define things (standards, perfection, one right way)

>Those holding power assume they are qualified to (and entitled to) define standards and the one right way as well as make decisions for and in the interests of those without power

>Those holding power often don’t think it is important or necessary to understand the viewpoint or experience of those for whom they are making decisions, often labeling those for whom they are making decisions as unqualified intellectually, emotionally, spiritually, or physically

READ MORE ON “ONE RIGHT WAY,” “PATERNALISM/QUALIFIED,”  “PERFECTIONISM,” & “OBJECTIVITY” HERE

>>PERFECTIONISM:

(Intertwined with Paternalism, Objectivity, & One Right Way)

Perfectionism is the conditioned belief and attitude that we can be perfect based on a standard or set of rules that we did not create and that we are led to believe will prove our value. Perfectionism is the conditioned belief and attitude that we can determine whether others are showing up as perfect and demand or expect that they do so. White supremacy culture uses perfectionism to preserve power and the status quo. As long as we are striving to be perfect according to someone else's rules, we have less energy and attention to question those rules and to remember what is truly important. We can be perfectionist in our social justice circles when we assume or believe there is a perfect way to do something and we know what it is. When we look more closely at our own perfectionism, we see that the perfectionist tendency is always in service of our own power or the current power structure. We might be fighting power out in the world but when we are perfectionist about how we do that, we preserve a toxic power structure internally.

>Mistakes are seen as personal, i.e. they reflect badly on the person making them as opposed to being seen for what they are – mistakes; making a mistake is confused with being a mistake, doing wrong with being wrong

>Little time, energy, or money is put into reflection or identifying lessons learned that can improve practice, in other words there is little or no learning from mistakes, and/or little investigation of what is considered a mistake and why.

>A tendency to identify what’s wrong; little ability to identify, name, define, and appreciate what’s right

>Often internally felt, in other words the perfectionist fails to appreciate their own good work, more often pointing out their faults or ‘failures,’ focusing on ​inadequacies and mistakes rather than learning from them; the person works with a harsh and constant inner critic that has internalized the standards set by someone else

READ MORE ON “ONE RIGHT WAY,” “PATERNALISM/QUALIFIED,”  “PERFECTIONISM,” & “OBJECTIVITY” HERE

>>OBJECTIVITY:

(Intertwined with Paternalism, Perfectionism, & One Right Way)

The belief that there is such a thing as being objective or ‘neutral.’ The belief that emotions are inherently destructive, irrational, and should not play a role in decision-making or group process

>Assigning value to the "rational" while invalidating and/or shaming the "emotional" when often if not always the "rational" is emotion wrapped up in fancy logic and language

>Requiring people to think in a linear (logical) fashion and ignoring or invalidating/shaming those who think in other ways

>Impatience with any thinking that does not appear ‘logical’ or 'rational' in ways that reinforce existing power structures; in other words, those in power can be illogical, angry, emotional without being disregarded while those without power must always present from a 'rational' position

>Refusal to acknowledge the ways in which 'logical' thinking and/or decision-making is often a cover for personal emotions and/or agendas often based in fear of losing power, face, or comfort

READ MORE ON “ONE RIGHT WAY,” “PATERNALISM/QUALIFIED,”  “PERFECTIONISM,” & “OBJECTIVITY” HERE

>>EITHER/OR & THE BINARY:

(Propped Up By Perfectionism & Urgency)

Cultural assumption that we can and should reduce the complexity of life and the nuances of our relationships with each other and all living things into either/or, yes or no, right or wrong in ways that reinforce toxic power.

>Positioning or presenting options or issues as either/or — good/bad, right/wrong, with us/against us.

>Little or no sense of the possibilities of both/and.

>Trying to simplify complex things, for example believing that poverty is simply the result of lack of education.

>A strategy used by those with a clear agenda or goal to push those who are still thinking or reflecting to make a choice between ‘a’ or ‘b’ without acknowledging a need for time and creativity to come up with more options.

>A strategy used to pit oppressions against each other rather than to recognize the ways in which racism and classism intersect, the ways in which both intersect with heterosexism and agism and other categories of oppression.

​READ MORE ON “EITHER/OR & THE BINARY” HERE

>>DENIAL:

(Intertwined with Defensiveness, Propped Up By Individualism)

White supremacy culture encourages a habit of silence about things that matter

>Claiming the right to define what is and what is not racism.

>Insisting that white supremacy and racism require intent. Attempting to separate intent from impact in order to claim that if racism is not intended, then it is not happening.

>Refusing to consider or acknowledge the historical legacy of white supremacy and racism and the structural nature of racial disparities. Rewriting, reframing, or omitting histories to erase or downplay racism.

>Insisting that individually or collectively, a person or group is free from racialized conditioning, leading to statements like “I don’t see color,” and “we’re all the same.”

>Erasing intersectionality - generalizing about a whole group without recognizing the ways in which class, gender, sexuality, religion, age, dis/ability, and other identities inform our individual and collective experiences.

>Denying what another person is saying about the ways in which white supremacy and/or racism are showing up in an interaction or space.

>A pattern that often has a white person with different levels of power denying what a Black, Indigenous or Person of Color or a whole community is saying about their experience of racism.

READ MORE ABOUT “DENIAL” & “DEFENSIVENESS” HERE

>>DEFENSIVENESS:

(Intertwined with Denial, Propped Up By Individualism & Either/Or & Binary)

>People respond to new or challenging ideas with objections or criticism, making it very difficult to raise these ideas.

>People in the organization, particularly those with power, spend a lot of energy trying to make sure that their feelings aren’t getting hurt, forcing others to work around their defensiveness rather than addressing them head-on. At its worst, they have convinced others to do this work for them.

>Because of either/or and binary thinking, those in power view and/or experience criticism as threatening and inappropriate (or rude).

>White people targeted by other oppressions express resentment because they experience the naming of racism as erasing their experience; closely linked to either/or/binary thinking.

>White people spend energy defending against charges of racism instead of examining how racism might actually be happening.

>An oppressive culture where people are afraid to speak their truth.

READ MORE ABOUT “DENIAL” & “DEFENSIVENESS” HERE

>>RIGHT TO COMFORT:

(Intertwined with Fear of Conflict)

Our cultural assumption that I or we (or the ones in formal and informal power) have a right to comfort, which means we cannot tolerate conflict, particularly open conflict. This assumption supports the tendency to blame the person or group causing discomfort or conflict rather than addressing the issues being named.

>Scapegoating those who cause discomfort, for example, targeting and isolating those who name racism rather than addressing the actual racism that is being named

>Demanding, requiring, expecting apologies or other forms of "I didn't mean it" when faced with accusations of colluding with racism

>Feeling entitled to name what is and isn't racism

>White people (or those with dominant identities) equating individual acts of unfairness with systemic racism (or other forms of oppression).

READ MORE ABOUT “RIGHT TO COMFORT” & “FEAR OF CONFLICT” HERE

>>FEAR OF (OPEN) CONFLICT:

(Intertwined with Right to Comfort)

Our cultural assumption that I or we (or the ones in formal and informal power) have a right to comfort, which means we cannot tolerate conflict, particularly open conflict. This assumption supports the tendency to blame the person or group causing discomfort or conflict rather than addressing the issues being named.

>Emphasis or insistence on being polite; setting the rules for how ideas or information or differences of opinion need to be shared in order to be heard (in other words, requiring that people "calm down" if they are angry when anger often contains deep wisdom about where the underlying hurt and harm lies)

>Equating the raising of difficult issues with being impolite, rude, or out of line; punishing people either overtly or subtly for speaking out about their truth and/or experience;

>When someone raises an issue that causes discomfort, the response is to blame the person for raising the issue rather than to look at the issue which is actually causing the problem

>Pretending or insisting that our point of view is grounded in the "rational" or the intellectual when we are in fact masking our emotions with what appear to be rational or intellectual arguments.

>Labeling emotion as "irrational" or anti-intellectual or inferior, which means failing to recognize the importance of emotional intelligence;

READ MORE ABOUT “RIGHT TO COMFORT” & “FEAR OF CONFLICT” HERE

>>INDIVIDUALISM:  

(Intertwined with Perfectionism, Qualified, One Right Way, Defensiveness, & Denial) 

Our cultural story that we make it on our own, without help, while pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps, is a toxic denial of our essential interdependence and the reality that we are all in this, literally, together.

>Failure to acknowledge any of the ways dominant identities - gender, class, sexuality, religion, able-bodiedness, age, education to name a few - are informed by belonging to a dominant group that shapes cultural norms and behavior

>Valuing competition more highly than cooperation; or where collaboration is valued, little time or resources are devoted to developing skills in how to collaborate and cooperate

>For white people: a culturally supported focus on determining whether an individual is racist or not while ignoring cultural, institutional, and systemic racism; the strongly felt need by many if not most white people to claim they are "not racist" while their conditioning into racism is relentless and unavoidable

>Desire for individual recognition and credit with failure to acknowledge how what we know is informed by so many others

>Isolation and loneliness

>For white people: seeing yourselves and/or demanding to be seen as an individual and not as part of the white group;

>For BIPOC people: individualism forces the classic double bind when BIPOC people are accused of not being "team players" - in other words, punishment or repercussions for acting as an individual if and when doing so "threatens" the team

>Little experience or comfort working as part of a team, which includes both failure to acknowledge the genius or creativity of others on the team and a willingness to sacrifice democratic and collaborative process in favor of efficiency; see double bind for BIPOC people above

​I'm the Only One (or he/she/they are):

>An aspect of individualism, the belief that if something is going to get done "right," ‘I’ have to do it

>Connected to the characteristic of "one right way," the belief that "I" can determine the right way, am entitled and/or qualified to do so, in isolation from and without accountability to those most impacted by how I define the right way

>Little or no ability to delegate work to others, micro-management

>Based in deep fear of loss of control, which requires an illusion of control​

>Putting charismatic leaders on pedestals (or positioning yourself as a charismatic leader on a pedestal); romanticizing a leader (or yourself) as the center of a movement, idea, issue, campaign

>Hiding or covering up the flaws of a leader (or your flaws) in fear that the organization, movement, effort cannot survive

>Defining leadership as those most in front and most vocal (thank you Cristina Rivera-Chapman for these last four bullets)

READ MORE ABOUT “INDIVIDUALISM” HERE

>>PROGRESS IS MORE:

(Intertwined with Quantity over Quality)

The cultural assumption that the goal is always to be/do/get more and be/do/get bigger. This leads to an emphasis on what we can "objectively" measure - how well we are doing at being/doing/getting more - as more valuable than the quality of our relationships to all living beings.

>Assumption that the goal is to grow - add staff, add projects, or ​serve more people regardless of how well they can serve them; raise more money, or gain more influence and power for its own sake - all without regard to the organization's mission or especially the people and/or living beings that the organization is in relationship with

>Valuing those who have "progressed" over those who "have not" - where progress is measured in degrees, grades, money, power, status, material belongings - in ways that erase lived experience and wisdom/knowledge that is invisibilized - tending, cleaning, feeding, nurturing, caring for, raising up, supporting (thank you Bevelyn Ukah)​

>A narrow focus on numbers (financial, people, geography, power) without an ability to value processes (relationships), including cost to the human and natural environment

>Gives no value, not even negative value, to its cost; for example, increased accountability to funders as the budget grows in ways that leave those served exploited, excluded, or underserved as we focus on how many we are serving instead of quality of service or values created by the ways in which we serve

>Little or no ability to consider the cost of growth in social, emotional, psychic, embodied, spiritual, and financial realms

>Focus on getting bigger (in size, transactional power, numbers) leading to little or no ability to consider the cost of getting big in social, emotional, psychic, embodied, spiritual, and financial realms (thank you Bevelyn Ukah)

READ MORE ABOUT” QUANTITY OVER QUALITY” & “PROGRESS IS MORE” HERE

>>QUANTITY OVER QUALITY:

(Intertwined with Progress Is More)

The cultural assumption that the goal is always to be/do/get more and be/do/get bigger. This leads to an emphasis on what we can "objectively" measure - how well we are doing at being/doing/getting more - as more valuable than the quality of our relationships to all living beings.

>Most or all resources directed toward producing quantitatively measurable goal

>Things that can be counted are more highly valued than things that cannot, for example numbers of people attending a meeting, newsletter circulation, money raised and spent are valued more than quality of relationships, democratic decision-making, ability to constructively deal with conflict, morale and mutual support

>Little or no value attached to process in the internalized belief that if it can’t be measured, it has no value

>discomfort with emotion and feelings

>little or no understanding that when there is a conflict between content (the agenda of the meeting) and process (people’s need to be heard or engaged), process will prevail (for example, you may get through the agenda, but if you haven’t paid attention to people’s need to be heard, the decisions made at the meeting are undermined and/or disregarded)

READ MORE ABOUT” QUANTITY OVER QUALITY” & “PROGRESS IS MORE” HERE

>>WORSHIP OF THE WRITTEN WORD:

The cultural habit of honoring only what is written and only what is written to a narrow standard, even when what is written is full of misinformation and lies. Worship of the written word includes erasure of the wide range of ways we communicate with each other and all living things.

>Those with strong documentation and writing skills are more highly valued, even in organizations where ability to relate to others is key to the mission

>Those who write things down get recognized for ideas that are collectively and generationally informed in a context where systemic racism privileges the writing and wisdom of people in the white group

>Claiming "ownership" of (written) knowledge to meet ego needs rather than understanding the importance of offering what you write and know to grow and expand the community's knowing

>If it’s not in a memo, it doesn’t exist / if it's not grammatically "correct," it has no value / if it's not properly cited according to academic rules that many people don't know or have access to, it's not legitimate

>Academic standards require "original" work when our knowledge and knowing almost always builds on the knowledge and knowing of others, of each other

READ MORE ABOUT “WORSHIP OF THE WRITTEN WORD” HERE

**

AGAIN THE WEBSITE CAN BE FOUND HERE AND I HIGHLY ENCOURAGE YOU TO READ THE WHOLE THING! THIS IS A BRIEF OVERVIEW! 

And all of this was copied from the website (aside from some formatting for the post.) I am just trying to spread this info/tool to people who could use it to help them dismantle white supremacist cultural aspects in their own lives/communities/organizations. I’ve found if very very helpful myself in always working toward anti-racism in my own actions. Hopefully others do too.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The Lost Cause prologue, Part V

I'm coming to Minneapolis! Oct 15: Presenting The Internet Con at Moon Palace Books. Oct 16: Keynoting the 26th ACM Conference On Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing.

In my upcoming solarpunk novel The Lost Cause (Nov 14), we get an epic struggle between the people doing the repair and care work needed to save our planet and species, and the reactionary wreckers who want to kill the Green New Deal and watch the world burn:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250865847/red-team-blues

Amazon refuses to carry my audiobooks, which means that I make my own indie editions and pre-sell them on Kickstarter, along with ebooks and hardcovers. I narrated this one! It came out great! You can back it here:

http://lost-cause.org

This week, I've been serializing the prologue to give you a taste of what you can expect from the book, which Bill McKibben calls "politically perceptive, scientifically sound, and extraordinarily hopeful."

Here's part one:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/06/green-new-deal-fic/#the-first-generation-in-a-century-not-to-fear-the-future

And part two:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/07/met-cute-ugly/#part-ii

And part three:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/09/working-the-refs/#lost-cause-prologue

And part four:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/10/weaponized-interdependence/#super-soaker-full-of-hydrochloric-acid

And now, part five:

Look, I had weeks to go until graduation. I had a life to live. I had stuff to do.

Gramps and his friends would stew and shout. Idiots on the internet would make dank memes out of Mike Kennedy and deepfake him into a million videos, turn him into a main character whose image would be around long after he left the world.

I just had to keep my head down, collect my diploma, and get the hell out of Burbank. I’d already been provisionally accepted for a Blue Helmets AmeriCorps spot down in San Juan Capistrano, helping to rebuild the city’s lower half a mile inland, up in the hills. I was going to do a year of that and then go to college: I had applications in to UCLA, Portland State (they had a really good refugee tech undergrad program), and the University of Waterloo, where my mom did her undergrad in environmental science. They’d let me declare my major in my second year, so I could take a wide variety of courses before settling on something, and if anything, Canada’s free college was even more generous than the UC system or Portland’s, with a subsidy for dorms and meals.

To tell the truth, I’d be glad to go. My senior year hadn’t been anything like I’d anticipated. Gramps’s health had gotten a lot worse the previous summer and his shitty sexist and racist remarks chased away any home help worker Burbank sent over within a week or two, so I’d been trying to keep my grades up while picking up after Gramps, getting him to take his meds, washing his sheets and cleaning his toilet—­not to mention making sure he made his doctor’s appointments and even bringing him into the office a couple of times a month for the kind of exams you couldn’t do by telemedicine.

I wasn’t sure what Gramps would do without me to take care of him, but at that point, I was running out of fucks to give. Let his asshole Maga Club buddies look after him, or maybe Gramps could figure out how not to offend everyone that came over to wipe his ass and do his laundry. He was—­as he was fond of pointing out to me—­a grown-­ass adult, and this was his house, and he was in charge. So let him be in charge.

I put myself to bed stewing about all of this, thinking of San Juan Capistrano. Some of my older friends had graduated the previous years and had gone down there and I’d followed their relocation of the old mission on their feeds. It looked like hot, sweaty, rewarding work, the kind of thing where you could really measure your progress.

For the second night in a row, I was woken up at 2 a.m. This time, it wasn’t my screen, it was Gramps, who’d stumped into my room with his cane, flipped my lights to full on, and started shaking me and calling out, “Get up, kid, get up!”

“I’m up,” I said, getting up on my elbows and squinting at him.

He was shaking, and he reeked—­of both booze and BO, and I felt a flash of guilt for not getting him in the bath that day.

“God dammit,” he said, and staggered a bit. I leapt out of bed, pulling the sheets off with me, and steadied him at the elbow.

“Calm down, okay? What’s going on? Are you all right?”

“No, I’m not all right. No one is all right. Fuck all right and fuck you.” I’d had Gramps tested for early dementia the previous year, by showing his doctor videos of moments like these. The doc had run a battery of tests before pronouncing, “Your grandfather isn’t senile, he’s just ornery.” Which was undeniable, and also pissed me the hell off. “Ornery” was a polite word for “asshole.” What the doc was telling me was that Gramps didn’t have to be cruel. He was cruel by choice.

I untangled myself from the sheets and piled them on the bed.

“What is it?”

“It’s Mike Kennedy, that asshole. Someone shot him.”

“What?”

He shoved his giant screen into my hands. I tapped the video window. It was from the POV of a car cam, that weird fish-­eye view of a self-­driving car, split-­screen with the passenger in the front seat, and it was Mike Kennedy, looking even worse than Gramps, bloodshot and trembling, with that under-­chin camera angle that makes everyone look like they’re half dead.

I tried to watch both halves. There was Kennedy, whispering something to him. There was the cul-­de-­sac he was parked in, false-­lit with IR from the cameras. The timestamp was 1:17. Less than an hour before.

Then the external image flickered for a second and resolved itself into a man, who phased in and out. He was wearing a ghillie suit like the one Kennedy had worn on the roof, covered in telltale CV dazzle stripes, designed to exploit defects in the computer vision system. You had to wear a different specific pattern for every algorithm, but if you got the right matchup, the computer would simply not see you. The man was flickering into existence when his posture crumpled up the ghillie suit and made the pattern stop working, then out again when he straightened up.

He straightened and disappeared and Mike Kennedy’s eyes widened as he noticed the man for the first time—­computer dazzle worked on computers, not humans—­and he started to say something and then a round hole appeared in his forehead, his head snapping back against the headrest, then careening forward. The flickering phantom appeared again as the man in the ghillie suit turned and disappeared.

I dropped the tablet to my bed.

“Jesus Christ, Gramps, I didn’t need to see that snuff movie—­”

He tried to smack me then. I was ready for it. I was faster. I stepped out of his reach. I was shaking too.

“You don’t get to hit me anymore old man. Never again, you hear me?”

He was purpling now, and a decade’s worth of fleeing and defusing his rages rose in me, made me want to apologize. After all, I rationalized, he’d just seen a friend murdered.

But I’d seen that friend murdered too, videobombed with a snuff flick at 2 a.m. without warning or consent. It was a traumatizing, selfish, asshole move. I’d be watching that movie on the backs of my eyelids for years to come. And the friend who’d died? He’d been ready to kill me. Gramps had no right. He was a grown-­ass adult. He had no right.

“Listen to me, you little shit, you think you can live under my roof, take my charity, and talk to me like that? Now? With all the shit that I’m going through? No sir. No. Get out, you little bastard, get out now. Get out before I kick your goddamned teeth in.” He was vibrating with rage now, literally, actually shaking so hard his wispy hair swished back and forth across his forehead.

I didn’t say another word. I picked up some jeans and a jacket, put a pair of socks in a jacket pocket, and jammed my feet into a pair of sneakers without bothering to unlace them. I shouldered past him—­still vibrating, stinking even worse—­and banged out the back door and stomped through the nighttime streets.

My feet automatically took me up to Verdugo, and then across the empty road. I turned toward school—­as I did every morning—­and autopiloted in that direction. By the time I reached the Verdugo Aquatic Facility I had calmed down enough to realize that there was no reason to go to school at two thirty in the morning, so I stopped and headed for the playground in the park behind the pool. I sat down on a bench and kicked my shoes off and shook out the playground sand, pulled out my socks and put them on, then put my shoes back on properly. I was still furious, but now I could think straight and my hands weren’t shaking. Gramps and I hadn’t had a blowup like that in years, mostly—­ okay, entirely—­because I’d backed down every time we’d been headed in that direction. I wasn’t in any mood to back down. Not ever, to be fully honest.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/11/equal-opportunity-class-war/#part-v

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

[halimpark7]

I wanted to write sexy poetry to you. I wanted to lay naked, touch my body and imagine it was your hands caressing me. Your hands strong, gentle, and still. Quietly asking, desire from your palms, asking me to come to bed.

I want to be all of me, when I feel you. I want to be so present with you. Hear your every word, listen to your breath. I want so badly to be on top of you, my face in your neck, your gray beard next to my cheek. I want everything with you. I want nothing too. I think that's what love is. Everything and nothing at the same time.

Desire, necessity, desperation, freedom. Codependence interdependence. Your personal happiness, your vision. My importance in your life. I only want to see you happy.

My truth is you. Saying I'm sorry. Desiring to be between your legs. Listening to your life story. You're all I want. I was always looking for you.

I only want you to fuck me. I think you know what I mean.

I love you, I want you so badly. I want you to hurt me, I want to punish you. But I only want everything with you. That's how women are. They want a lot of things. But everything from one person.

It's not extreme. It's honest. It's the brutal truth.

Ecstasy, tantra, love, lifetimes of pain/connection/betrayal/desire.

I only want everything with you. I need you. Everyday is a struggle without you. Searching for God in all places that would rather be a distraction than a pointed desire for purpose, personal growth, for their specific truth, and destiny. Aimless, pushing for faith, stubborn in finding meaning. Optimism, in a dead place. Everyday.

I'm sure many struggle like me. I don't have a choice. But I know no one loves you like I do. I know in your heart you settle.

But to someone who's been abused. Settling feels like death. And being with the wrong person eventually leads to death. You hate the sound of their voice, them chewing nourishing themselves, being next to them feels like war. You just want them to die, no matter how good of a person they are.

I know too well what that's like. I don't ever want to do it again.

We're getting old.

So know, even though I'm not blowing up your phone. You're all I think about and my favorite whore I've ever known.

❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

Send me money, ideas, positive energy.

idk what to do today 💁🏻‍♀️

[bookish-bogwitch]

Trope Grading Game aka Grope Trading Game

Thanks for the tags @artsyunderstudy, @you-remind-me-of-the-babe, and @aristocratic-otter! This seems like a lot of fun.

@ileadacharmedlife @moodandmist @facewithoutheart @skee3000 @ivelovedhimthroughworse @cutestkilla @thewholelemon @raenestee, and everyone whose fic is mentioned below and everyone reading this, consider yourself tagged if you haven't gone!

Rules: How much do these tropes affect your decision to click on a fic?

-10 -> very dissuaded

0 - don’t care either way

+10 -> very enticed

nope -> if it’s a hard no and you’d never click on a fic with that tag or or you even have the tag blocked or you’d insta click out of the fic if it wasn’t tagged

Bonus points for explaining the rating and whether it’s conditional.

Age gap: -2

Not into it at all for younger characters, but I don't mind for older ones. I haven't read a lot of couples with bigger age gaps but I wouldn't rule out enjoying it in the right context--though I can't see being into it for the sake of the trope itself. (I love you for you, Malcolm Grimm.) Codependency: Interdependency: +7

The template asks about codependency but I finally looked up what codependency means and it's about an uneven relationship where a partner, friend, or family member subsumes their own needs in the course of accommodating / enabling another person's destructive behavior. Is that anyone's jam? There's a reason Rainbow skipped the 12 months between the CO epilogue and the start of WS...

But if we're talking interdependency, then I'm super into it. Octavia Butler was right: "dependency is sexy if it's chosen and not coercive. Symbiosis is a kind of dependency. A dependency of equals is best." Snowbaz symbolizes this with the whole hot/cold body temp thing, which is #sharingabedgoals, and there's lots of great fic in this fandom exploring it, my all-time fave being @fatalfangirl's stunning Bound and Determined.

Obsession/Possessiveness, jealousy: +2

Obsession, sure, sign me up. What is Simon at all those football practices if not obsession?

And I can get behind jealousy as a device for revealing the depth of otherwise hidden or even denied feelings. But active, power-and-control-wheel possessiveness? Gross.

Opposites (grumpy/sunshine etc): +5

Yeah! I love watching the grump's walls come down. But with the caveat that the sunshine can't be a one-dimensional, manic pixie dream character, because the that's just boring and I don't care about them.

Enemies to lovers, Enemies with benefits: +5

What snowbaz fan isn't into this? But a key element for me is that there has to be some reason behind the initial enemies dynamic besides one or both of them just being an asshole. Maybe they think that's what's up at first and then learn otherwise, but if their enemy status is based on something real, like they genuinely hate each other based on accurate knowledge about each other, I find it implausible and probably also difficult to like one or both of them.

That's part of why Snowbaz works for me: Baz and Simon's enemy status was imposed on them by a fucked up political system and abusive caretakers. Left to their own devices they'd probably never have been enemies. The reason for their animosity is not the core of who they are.

Friends with benefits: +2

Ehhh is it benefits to full on love? I don't really connect with allo perspectives on sexual relationships, like I get them intellectually but I don't jive with them on an emotional level, so there has to be that emotional draw for me, that underlying romance. I mean tho, @fatalfangirl stacy is writing an excellent fic on this premise right now that I absolutely love because there are clearly feelings involved. But it also might fall more into the realm of the next trope on this list ... which is ...

What Ashton said 😂 also props to fandom for teaching me that I am demisexual, and that this is not a default mode of existence.

Sex to feelings: +100000000

It's the fucking BEST. You get to read all the smut and then the climax ISN'T "and then we did it," it's "and then we were emotionally intimate." You get to be horny and a sap.

I also think this trope inherently pushes writers' creativity because the relationship's progression can't follow standard mainstream romance beats. And the sex scenes usually have narrative significance by showing how the relationship is changing, which produces great writing.

Fake dating/relationship: +5

Yes, especially if there's lots of pining along the way! @captain-aralias's Unintended is a great example.

Friends to lovers: +3

I wouldn't say I seek this out specifically but there are so many great fics with this tag. Here are a few (but not all) of my favorites: I'd Gladly Eat You for Breakfast by @whogaveyoupermission What Remains After the Storm by @hushed-chorus Sixty Seconds by @artsyunderstudy Petrichor by @martsonmars And again Unintended by @captain-aralias

Found Family: +1

It's fine? I love moving proofs of love and affection outside of romance, but whether it's in something that fits the label "found family" or not is important to me.

Hurt/Comfort: +10

PUT IT DIRECTLY. INTO MY MOUTH. I am a fucking sap for hurt/comfort. It gives me the swoops. There is fucking nothing I like better than lovers (or almost lovers) comforting each other and taking care of each other, emotionally, physically, spiritually, whatever. It's sexy to me. It affects me deeply.

#WhatAshtonSaid. I literally have a WIP going where someone says "who did this to you??" just because I love it so much. I'm pretty sure Nightmares and Excuses was the first fic that made me cry. (It's not hard to do.)

Love Triangle: -8

Not my thing if there's genuine heartbreak / unrequited love floating around. That just bums me out. I get a kick out of the Agatha-Simon-Baz's confusion in CO, but only Penny thinks that's actually a love triangle. I think the only book I've ever loved with a "real" love triangle is Emma and even [SPOILER FOR 208-YEAR-OLD-BOOK] Harriet's not actually in love with Mr. Knightley, she just thinks she is.

Poly, open relationships: -4

Only if it's porn without plot and even then it's pretty rare that I'm into it. I'm not usually interested in sex scenes without a romantic/love element (even if that element is deeply repressed) and am personally very monogamous and have a hard time connecting with poly relationship themes. Which obviously does not mean that poly =/= emotional or romantic connection, not at all, it's just a tough one to wrap my head around.

@skee3000 nailed this for me in Minos, by having Simon and Baz connect with each other even as they have three-way with Mr. Minos, but now I'm conflating a threesome with poly/open relationships. Go read it anyway.

Mistaken/hidden identity: +2

Not sure I can think of a Snowbaz fic that focuses on this, although I'm sure there are some. I do like it when characters meet for the first time and are drawn to each other, only to learn that each other's larger identities make that complicated. And the trust issues that brings up. There are a couple of KJ Charles novels that deal with this really beautifully.

Monsterfucking: +5

I really love when monsterfucking is used as a way to celebrate difference and work through a character's feelings about their own body or its changes. This fandom does a great job with that. Otherwise I'm not drawn to any particular monsters for their monstery sake (but see: Minos's horns).

Pregnancy: -2

+8 for mpreg, -10 for other pregnancy.

I stalled out for two weeks on this post, wondering how to explain this without getting darker and more personal than I'd like. And then realized I don't have to explain 😃.

Second Chance: +7

Love it! I don't always have the heart to read the actual breakup, or falling out, or lost opportunity etc., but I love fics where that has already happened and we're seeing them put themselves back together. Some examples, that may or may not have this tag but definitely have this theme:

What's Left by @cutestkilla This Will All Go Down in Flames by @facewithoutheart There's Be Peace When You Are Done by somekindofpath Once More, with Feeling by fox_pitch

And probably countless others I'm forgetting.

Slowburn: +10

Yeah! I know I said I love sex before feelings but I love this too. (And I think they can be successfully combined into slow-feelings-burn.) There's nothing like a satisfying, well-earned payoff. I also admire well-executed slowburns because whenever I write a get-together fic I have to actively resist mashing their faces together in the first 100 words.

Soulmates: -1

In theory I don't love these. The red string, etc. It can just feel played out, and also the emotional logic of it is kind of alienating. I have a hard time putting my head into a world where people have these predestined connections and are trying to find each other because it's just so not how I see relationships. BUT when an author critically and playfully messes with the trope, it can be lots of fun. All This Soulmate Shit by half_witch mashes up a dozen different soulmate tropes to make something that's brilliant, funny, sexy, and feels like they are actively choosing each other rather than obeying destiny. I also adore Bound and Determined by @fatalfangirl for how it plays with the idea of free will and consent, which feel like soulmate-related theme. But it's probably not a coincidence that this fic doesn't have the "soulmates" tag.

That's a lot of me me me and what I think. What do YOU think, friends?

[floof-writes]

Officially Declaring War On The Canon V Fanon Debate in DC (it's fundamentally flawed, they are interdependent)

"Actually in canon" "fanon always gets this wrong" "Dick's the golden child" "Jason's the golden child" "In canon Alfred's an enabler" "Actually Bruce is abusive" "Hate when people pretend Tim cared about Jason as a kid"

Look, if being in the DC fandom has taught me anything, it's that canon has so many retcons and reboots that they made up an in-universe mechanic for when the world resets. Why are we pretending that Fanon is anything less than another branch of this world? Golden Age, Silver Age, Pre-New 52, Fanon. Who are we to say that if Superboy Prime punched reality hard enough or Flash fucked up enough, we wouldn't end up here anyway? Comics as a medium are messy and worked on by hundreds of people across the decades.

DC comics is almost a century old. The Justice League wasn't always called that and Batman wasn't always part of it, there's a Batman rogue named 'Condiment King' and one of his most recent appearances was in a fucking LEGO movie, Dick is named Dick. These characters and their stories are living artifacts- time capsules of decades long gone, but also undergoing constant and soul-deep change.

Moral of the story: If DC canon is your golden standard then you're measuring against a piece of cooked spaghetti.

And we expect canon to evolve, to be inconsistent. When they made Dick they didn't know about Jason, when they made Jason they didn't know there would be a Tim, and when they made Tim they didn't know Jason would come back. These characters are inherently fluid because they weren't created with each other in mind, so when the Batfam is all together today, their characterizations are adjusted to make them a more interesting group for the given storyline and genre. Canon has always just been an attempt at expanding on and experimenting with what has already been built, and it has always been influenced by the fans of the time. The most famous example being the phone in vote on Jason Todd's death that literally defines canon today. Characters are killed and resurrected and given comic runs based entirely on popular demand. Fans and fanon have power- and rightly so.

DC canon is simply the constant interpretation and reinvention of the work of hundreds of artists and writers over the years, all compiled into this conglomeration of Stuff- and guess what? That's exactly what fanon is.

"Fanon loses their mind when they see actual complexity" Guess what? Storytelling is based on archetypes. Fanon isn't a 'dumb it down' machine- it's a purifier. It boils things down to their essence. It takes the contradictory, awful, beautiful mess that is canon and turns it into something usable. Fanon characters tend to be an approximate average of all the different interpretations, and they separate the characters into the parts that people find the most compelling. It identifies the pieces of a character that define it to the audience and gives canon something reliable to work off of the next time they decide to rewrite the universe.

And yes, often times Fanon doesn't make it out without a heavy dose of optimism. The erasure of certain abuses, the resolution of certain arguments. Because let's face it: moral grayness is Uncomfy. And people engage in fandom largely for comfort- that is one of the main functions of all entertainment. In other forms of media, problems are given finality. Complexity is given a rest with an ending, happy or not- but comic books don't do that, and in the next run with the next writer they may just ignore it happened at all. Fanon's rose tinted glasses aren't always rose, sometimes they're a sickly green- it's just that to write the next story with nuance you have to have a solid starting point.

I'm not denying the power of working within the restraints of a predefined timeline, nor the power of something being officially canon. Returning to the source material can inspire new nuance, new details, new opportunities- but using the source material to disqualify nuance made by fanon is counterproductive and frankly dumb. We're all building off of eachother- why are you retconning something that existed only as an experiment? It's important to acknowledge that an audience is half the art, and once something is published, there's no way to take it back and make it definitionally pure again. It is the property of all those who consume it.

TL;DR- 1. Canon is absolutely fucked anyway. 2. Fanon and canon have always been and will always be intertwined and interdependent.

[chipped-chimera]

So since the fates decided not to give me a idk ... big gay aunt to guide me along with my sexuality realisation, I'm kind of at a loss of what to do. I'm 30 and I went off the dating market back when meeting someone online to date was considered 'novel'. Idk how the fuck to use dating apps.

So I guess I'll throw this cry for help to you, people who follow my blog apparently, in the case you have some insight? More deets below the cut oh god help me

Okay so basically - I think I am (somewhat hesitantly) ready to start looking at dating apps. I've kind of hit a point in my self-work where I think I could actually handle rejection - which was the entire reason I was holding off in the first place. Because I know I have a lot of potential "deal breakers" to contend with, getting to this point was my bare minimum.

So aside from the obvious I-have-never-used-a-dating-app-in-my-life problem, I guess my other problems are the following:

Do I disclose I am disabled on my profile? My disability is technically 'invisible' and while I absolutely could go hang out with someone at a bar or whatever it WILL knock me out for like ... two days. Especially right now where I haven't really done any big social-ey shit in a while. Idk how else I can explain that I will absolutely still want to do things with someone, I just have the energy habits of a house cat (sure I don't say nap every day anymore but sometimes I really just gotta lie in the dark ... Yeah :C )

Disability also kind of explains all the other deal breaker shit. I won't go into that. Aside from the obvious 'money ain't great' and I cannot avoid interdependence. Like I am still recovering and hoping for the best but I don't know what the end of this shit looks like. I know there is going to be permanent damage. But I also am not gonna bench myself until I'm 'well' (also because I'm touch starved and THIRTY).

Ugh, photos. Due to disability reasons (see I told you it explains everything) my irl social circle died years ago because I could just not keep up and I've had the photographic record of a cryptid for the past ten years. So now I have to basically go TAKE photos and it feels very forced. But I'm also aware apps are really visual, so idk - ideas? Tips?

Is there some obvious Lesbian space I'm missing? Am I missing the lesbian bat signal? I've joined Facebook groups for my city but they're quiet and tend to be populated by much older people (did I mention I hate Facebook?) Also apparently queer scene is kinda sucky in my city at the moment because one of our two gay bars changed ownership and it may as well just be a regular bar now. For the moment I've just been hanging out on Reddits to feel somewhat connected but it doesn't really help my irl situation and lack of social anything.

Yeah I am not selling myself here but I'd rather be honest early on and make sure anyone who isn't cut out for it or emotionally mature enough to handle that I have baggage (well treated baggage!) Is filtered out. But I also feel like putting disability right on my profile could result in a knee jerk reaction which would prevent them from even trying to get to know me. Like I do feel I have some really appealing things about me that I'm happy about, and I do think offset the bad - I've just had a rough time of it.

Augh idk. I'm lonely. And very confused. Anyways any kind of advice or insight would be highly appreciated 🥺

[imustbenuts]

Is it possible that dragon degradation is a form of corruption by kegare? From a cultural perspective. Do you think that's basically what's happening? It feels like a lot of the ones who end up degenerating are... Almost stagnant? Basically the spiritual equivalent of letting the dishes pile up until the mold overtakes the proverbial sink.

From a culture + religion informed perspective I think... Yes, at least for the earlier FE games. There's a clear line here somewhere I'll try to explain in a bit.

It helps to think of kegare as decay, rot, a force of nature. In normal amounts it functions normally, but in excess it wreaks havoc on creatures and the environment. Kinda like excess pollution of methane or carbon dioxide etc. You are completely right in thinking of it as stagnation, which is a milder form of decay in taoism's yin yang thing.

I think in the earlier FEs, the dragons came into an environment that had higher than normal kegare baseline and refused to pass on, thereby causing an excess accumulation of kegare. Add on some wars and antags doing antag stuff and it just got worse. So yes, a form of degradation.

You can also find a small buddhist aspect here where the refusal to let go causes more suffering.

But, somewhere along the way, I think with possibly radiant dawn, this changed.

See, the shitty implications about kegare and a chunk of Shinto is that it's actually rooted in old japanese fascist ideology. Revere the emperor, expel the barbarians.　尊王攘夷. Like with many, many fascist ideologies, it used Shinto to propel the idea whilst splitting and suppressing Buddhism (bc its extremely difficult to be used in that way for their case). And so unwanted, undesirable, ugly things are kegare'd, and only clean, desirable aspects can be allowed to remain in a society. If a person is born wrong, they are kegare'd and should be avoided like the plague. Oh, undertakers, they deal with the dead so avoid. Foreigners, kegare'd.

When applied to FE though, we can end up on a slippery slope writing of, all who have degraded are unwanted and should immediately be eliminated. A step further with possible sickness imagery of degraded dragons, gods, religion, people, even nations aaaand uh.... Yeah. We don't want that. You really don't want this in Fire Emblem. Nonono NO.

Anyway, at some point the kegare subtext became more of something that's a tool, a magic force which isn't inherently bad, per se. It moved on from being a corruptible force to. Just a force. The writing slowly stops treating war as a generator of kegare, but more as a shitty thing that happens because of idiots being idiots and causes more pain. (I will note that Blazing Blade treats war as a kegare generator for what it's worth still btw.)

Radiant series seems to say fuck this and went full geopolitics first. Even the big bad here isn't a degraded dragon but a broken logic'd god. This is why I think this entry is the biggest turning point. Though I'll admit I'm really not super into FE so the games I fully understand are awakening onwards, again sorry for this incomplete sounding analysis.

In Awakening, I remember some joke zombies/risen written to be actually friendly in a side dlc content. In Fates, they kinda went back to the kegare thing but are really leaning in on the Buddhism aspect as a crutch (see Anankos and his attachment to Cadros.).

Engage even just said "nuts to that, old series", and confirmed Fell Dragons aren't so much corrupted degraded dragons as just, more depressed creatures who needs a helping hand. Buddhism here is on full blast with the interdependence theming now.

This is why there isn't dragon depredation in the same way the old FEs were handling it. It's more live too long and without rest or letting go and it's bad for the mental health now.

So uh yeah hope that answers more than what u asked lmao

[brapgf]

i got a psychic reading with my partner last night at some event we were at and it was fucking hilarious.

this girl definitely did not read us as a couple and couldn’t have been more fucking wrong about either of us.

she told me to cover my ears while my partner got their reading but i only covered them a bit so i heard everything she was saying to my partner about them being “unsatisfied with this guy you’re seeing and this is your sign to leave him and go be independent”

now, for context: my partner and i are looking into engagement rings for each other and we’re very interdependent. i also don’t identify as a guy and i look like a queer so i don’t think she could’ve been talking about me. the entire reading was like 15 minutes of stumbling over her words just telling my partner to dump their boyfriend

my reading was just as funny. telling me that i’m a “runner” when it comes to relationships, despite having absolutely no intent to bail from my relationship (see, engagement rings).

i asked for career advice cuz i wanted to see what she’d come up with for me and she asked if i was artistic and i was just like “kinda sorta” at this point bullshitting her cuz it’s funny, nevermind my last piece of art was a drawing of Chris Chan that i put on the breakroom wall at work. she told me i needed to sell my art cuz it’s “weird but good” so i went “i just feel like there isn’t an audience for my stuff….” all downtrodden and she was like “oh but there is!!”

so maybe neither my partner nor i were very in tune with our spirits or this chick is running a real good scam on white mormon women but can’t clock a fag to save her life.

she also had all these tarot cards but didn’t even use them so i think she doesn’t know how to read tarot

[unalloyeddivinity]

Regarding Outer Gods

{{I don't take the interpretation common in the fandom that Miquella hates all the Outer Gods, even if he can ward some of their influences somehow. (Though I think it's more like 'He wards them away via the influence of another Outer God' because of the cosmic scale power issue.)

NGL, I low-key hate how a lot of stuff (not just Elden Ring's fandom) fundamentally misunderstands the concept of Outer Gods.

Ultimately, that characterization feels more fitting for Ranni, for one thing. Her whole thing is that she did everything she did because of her own personal gain (to be independent, period), and nothing else, without regard to the impact on others. The ramifications of her ending aren't great, even with the issue surrounding the translation accounted for, IMO.

Even then, Ranni still seems to follow one tied to the moon/the dark moon, so this isn't wholly the case for her, either. She isn't plucking all the cosmic gods away because she simply doesn't have that power, even with the Elden Ring.

Something I find annoying is a common problem with interpretation of cosmic gods in stories. It's something common in most post-Lovecraft Mythos and adjacent works, and something that's notably absent in Bloodborne (which is why Bloodborne is one of the best post-Lovecraft stories in that vein).

They take beings which are supposed to be ancient weird alien gods, and turn them into Discount Satan With Tentacles (tm). Now, Lovecraft himself sometimes did this (The Dreams in the Witch House and The Haunter in the Dark springs to mind), and those are his weaker Mythos works. A lot of his antagonistic forces are individual people who got insane power and got drunk off of what they could do with it. While you could say those people are evil, the deities are actually neutral and seem to just let whoever can access power be able to. And there are more neutral factions, too, such as how the story in The Whisperer in Darkness has an obvious alternate reading with the Mi-Go.

So, my interpretation of Elden Ring's story leans more into that aspect. Ultimately, the larger scale beings aren't innately malevolent. They have their own focuses and are aligned through their aspects. They're also tied to the underlying reality of existence, with a sort of interdependence between mortals and them in a polytheistic sense. So the power of given gods waxes and wanes based on mortals' actions, much like how the Greater Will holds power through the Elden Beast as vassal, then through Marika and how this pushed out various other gods.

The Frenzied Flame and the Greater Will might be easiest to argue as being outright evil, but this isn't quite right, either. One could instead argue that the Flame is more like an unacknowledged, unhealed raw agony that pushes people to desperate lashing out to stop the pain. (This is also why I don't think the Frenzied Flame ending can actually do anything but burn the Erdtree and Leyndell down. It's ultimately self-defeating.) The Greater Will is functionally the neutral concept of Order. But because Marika's Golden Order was based around genocide and imperialism and the rejection of so much of what exists, the Order being reinforced is awful.

And you can't exactly remove a whole aspect of reality to begin with. Because Outer Gods in a setting are fundamentally an aspect of reality. And, like, the whole point of the game is that the removal of Death (which is also tied to an Outer God) actively fucked up the world.

And, given all the weird shit going on in the background with Miquella and blood, the idea I'm playing with is that he would already have been tied to the Formless Mother, even without Mohg's blood rituals. Much like how Malenia is already tied to the Scarlet Rot.}}