#mudship series

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

QIM Model | Dekoship Series | Phadship Series | Seroship Series

*As per uze, you dont have to read anything beneath the infographic itself, but I’m gonna try to add some theory to explain why this one excites me the most in the model*

So some significant people in my life and I have been discussing Anarchist theory lately with all of the uprisings and discussions of abolishing police. And while blogs like @queeranarchism​ and @hater-of-terfs​ are so much better read and have better takes on anarchism, direct action, current events, and politics in general, than I could hope to provide, its by those blogs and others that I’m inspired in the ways I am.

Mudships are just affinity groups you built to do some direct action. What is direct action? The link is to CrimethInc’s work Recipes For Disaster, and its intro is a good primer on it. To paraphrase it (who doesn’t like blockquotes?): 

Practicing direct action means acting directly to meet needs, rather than relying on representatives or choosing from prescribed options ... it most properly describes actions that cut out the middleman entirely to solve problems without mediation. 

Need some examples? You can give money to a charity organization, or you can start your own chapter of Food Not Bombs and feed yourself and other hungry people at once. You can write an angry letter to the editor of a magazine that doesn't provide good 72 coverage of the subjects you consider important, or you can start your own magazine. You can vote for a mayor who promises to start a new program to help the homeless, or you can squat unused buildings and open them up as free housing for anyone in need.

...

The opposite of direct action is representation. 

While things can get intense the more confident you get practicing direct action, my purposes here are in regards to relationship building and mutual aid. In the ABC’s of Anarchism, Berkman has this beautiful little quote (you ready for another one?):

If your object is to secure liberty, you must learn to do without authority and compulsion. If you intend to live in peace and harmony with your fellow-men, you and they should cultivate brotherhood and respect for each other. If you want to work together with them for your mutual benefit, you must practice coöperation. 

The social revolution means much more than the reorganization of conditions only: it means the establishment of new human values and social relationships, a changed attitude of man to man, as of one free and independent to his equal; it means a different spirit in individual and collective life, and that spirit cannot be born overnight. It is a spirit to be cultivated, to be nurtured and reared, as the most delicate flower is, for indeed it is the flower of a new and beautiful existence.

So when I talk about monogamy and capitalism, it isn’t to shit on people who do monogamy, its discuss how the cultural institution of monogamy is a social relationship. It’s to discuss not that practicing monogamy is the problem (although you’re not gonna catch me doing it), its to discuss how our culture perceives doing monogamy correctly and how that makes it worth critiquing if we were to imagine building a different society and attempt to make any meaningful steps toward it.

If doing monogamy ‘correctly’ is ‘investing’ time, money, emotional intimacy and sexual attention into one person, its obvious that it leaves so many people out of our lives that could add depth, joy, fulfillment, challenge, and transformative growth and change for us. Margaret Thatcher has a terrible quote: “There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families.” I bring up this trashcan quote by this woman with dumpster politics to critique the idea of Family as well. Monogamy leads to nuclear families, not all of the time, but enough of the time for most of us to have that experience.

But what is Family? Blood ties to people and access to their material resources? That’s how inheritance works, which has torn a part families by fighting over the resources by who gets what. Familiy also has colloquially meant familiarity with certain human beings thats developed or long periods of connection and time. How many of us have found people in our lives who have loved us deeper than our parents and siblings (if you still have, or ever had those)? My father passed a few years ago, and I’m virtually estranged with my mother and younger sister. Family in my life has been the partners and friends through the years who’ve had the patience, grace, and concern for my joy & well-being, it is them who has shared their time, energy, labor, money, food with me when circumstance would steal the ground beneath my feet. To discuss monogamy and family from the lens I’ve constructed is to talk directly about which social relationships become culturally validated and socially encouraged, and with it who gets access to what materials and why we watch others refuse to share it.

I talk about mudships as being relationships built around Mutual Aid and Solidarity, that whatever little circles we’ve built around ourselves don’t interrupt the ability to be charitable and generous with people outside of it. The individualism that’s reinforced by capitalism affects us by separating people from their communities, by leveraging human need against human values, by turning the world outside of our homes into a place ‘full of people who will take advantage of your naivete or good heart.’ This isn’t just some ideological or abstract concept, this word encapsulates why I have the current over my head that I do. It every much discusses how I’ve been able to keep an old roommate afloat after he was laid off of his job and couldn’t claim unemployment; and that was before COVID and its Lockdowns & Quarantines erased a huge chunk of the economy.

I don’t just say this to just encourage sharing. I say this as part of a larger conversation about how we’ve been encultured & propagandized to believe that some people don’t deserve access to healthcare, addiction therapy, housing, food, clean water, this list goes on. I want to start a conversation about building the social relationships that allow us to trust the people we’re sharing money, material resources, and labor with, in our own lives and to inspire the desire to get excited about helping those you may know are in need. 

We have so much need and so many stoked, yet unfulfilled desires that capitalism fuels and feeds off of, but does that mean we can do nothing about it? Does that mean we have to hope another Bernie Sanders shows up? I don’t want the quality of my time on this earth to be suffering in ways I can actively resolve or prevent. But I can’t do that alone, trying to do so is impossible. It isn’t a moral failing to not be powerful in a world separates you from the source of connection, inspiration, and depth, all of which exists in the hearts and potential of others.

Don’t let yourself forget that we always better connected than alienated. 

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

Honestly mudship goals tbh

It’s called mutual aid. Big grocery chains are withholding necessary goods for profit.

[thezolblade]

Ship Meme! Tagged by @the-cryptographer​ ~

1) Ultimate Otps:

Which of them have ‘ultimate’ qualities...? GS Isaac/Alex would be kind of an ‘ultimate power’ ship, if they got a plot with twists and turns and character development and reasons to cooperate. I’d expect that more from fic than canon - so many other canons have lots of epic slow burn adventure fics for hero/villain-or-antivillain ships. But so far in GS, for those two, I’ve mostly found (good) crackfic, or non-shippy ‘they fight to the death and Isaac wins and marries Mia’  stuff that doesn’t treat them with even as much nuance as the canon.

Not that I mind mudshipping - my ultimate GS polyship would be something like Isaac/Mia/Felix/Alex(/Veriti/The Ice Queen), with interesting dynamics between every two characters in that set of four (and Mia/Veriti), even with some of the bonds possibly being platonic. Though when I’ve written long plotfic it’s very easily gotten platonic/ambivalent/angsty bc it tends so much towards drama, and conflict may drive plots (hence its abundance in plotbunnies), but I find it hard to headcanon characters getting past hurts and grudges very easily; I want to see them make the effort, but it feels like they’d need a lot of time and personal growth to get there, and I might not even figure how well they do until I’m almost 100K words in. And in some very angsty verses there’s no chance. I want to read other people’s adventure fic too, with fun ideas that manage heel-face turns or antihero plots in a slightly lighter way...

PMMM Madoka/Homura is another ‘ultimate power’ ship, if they can get to a point where Godoka and Homucifer can deal with each other as equals again, both with full knowledge of everything that’s happened and the resolve to truly save themselves, each other, and the rest of the universe. :o

Utena/Anthy is quite an ‘ultimate reality’ ship, when they find their revolution.

2) A ship you’ll always 💜??

The Harvest Moon fan in me is going ‘purple heart? that’s not a very high level of affection??’ ...but taking it as an emoji for ‘love’... without repeating anything above, pokemon Green/Red is always nostalgic (gameverse Ash/Gary, the names get a little confusing as there are localisation differences and I like the old manga and anime too but haven’t watched/read anything recent in those canons).

GS Imilshipping, too, in fic verses where they had a close bond. FE Lucia/Ilyana, I wish they had epilogue content after their support, still mean to write out a plotbunny for them sometime. Soren/Ike, of course, and Tibarn/Reyson.

ToS Lloyd/Colette/Sheena/Zelos, again with strong bonds between all of the pairs in that foursome. They did so much to help each other find hope by striving to save and trust each other, creating a new kind of salvation together.

Skies of Arcadia Fina/Aika/Vyse, Vyse/Ramirez, and Ramirez/Galcian. Never found much fanstuff for it, but it caught the imagination.

3) Current obsessions??

Lots of MadoHomu vibes after getting a oneshot written for them. Confident!Madoka makes both of them happy when they’re not dying; it’s a shame she doesn’t get much screentime as her confident and cheerful self, since so much of her time as a magical girl passes offscreen. Even while she was more unsure during the series, she demonstrated her desire to protect her friends, and Homura commented time and time again on her kindness - she loves her for it, and when she discourages it anyway, it’s because she’s come to believe that it’ll be the death of her. If they were truly safe, they could support each other so well - it could be a world away from the desperation that marked the end of Rebellion, when neither of them are at all okay. :s

Also getting quite into darkfic plotbunnies, and I know ‘darkship’ is a term in some cases for character dynamics fulfilling their worst potential, descending into violence and destruction that at least one character Does Not Want, but in the verses of those plotbunnies I guess they still fit the label of antiships better than ships.

4) A ship you never thought you’d like??

Uh, a lot of the stuff on the gs kink meme caught me by surprise, when rarepairs got suggested and the fills or plotbunnies got interesting - Alex/Ivan, Eoleo/Rief, Alex/Amiti (in a BAD IDEA way). And on lj/tumblr, Mia/Sheba was pleasant surprise too. Not that I ever had any preconceptions about disliking ships, they just hadn’t occurred to me.

In FF7, I don’t think I expected to see compelling Cloud/Seph or Zack/Seph at first, all those years ago, but I quickly found that there are a lot of good AUs and darkfic. Especially when they’re alongside other good ships like Cloud/Zack, Aerith/Zack, Aerith/Cloud, Aerith/Tifa, Tifa/Cloud etc.

5) A ship you used to like but don’t anymore:

Uh idk exactly. I used to read a lot of Buffy fic by ship to find characters whose dynamics were interesting in the show, but iirc I ended up skimming any content that was really ‘shippy’ to get to the plot and jokes and emotional bonding over real stuff, not random physical attraction, and nowadays I don’t think I’d bother skimming so much stuff just bc I hoped it’d be interesting and wanted to keep giving it a chance.

6) A ship that should be canon??

Well some that are very strongly implied but not explicitly stated feel like ‘yep that’s canon’ but could maybe use some more in-universe and author confirmation when not everyone seems to agree - Ike/Soren, Utena/Anthy in some versions of canon, etc.

7) A canon ship you hate???

I like to hate the way darkships go sometimes, but that’s what makes them an interesting story, going ‘noo’ about characters’ bad decisions, though that usually only works if they had better potential that they’re falling short of, not necessarily in a romantic sense... Can’t think of many cases where that happens in canon. Uh I think most explicitly canon relationships are either one option among many routes (and I get tired of support grinding), or I’m a bit indifferent, or if I dislike how it’s done I’d still start playing devil’s advocate and wondering how it could have been done differently if I spend any time considering it.

Oh in FE Awakening I kinda hated how Virion’s flirting in the main plot cutscenes was creepy and painted him as a bad joke, but his supports are much better and some of them are great - how do you explain liking his ships when he has such a bad start (and such bad English voice acting)? I also hated the way the player character’s support options didn’t all show up until endgame, so I missed them the first time and had to replay and wait until then to support grind, and then it all got repetitive grinding the same dlc maps so many times over just for such short supports, and the endgame marriage candidates that were most interesting (bc how the hell could the game make that work, with a head of state or a former enemy??) ended up with really rushed and unconvincing relationship development, and the child recruitment maps were hellishly difficult at that point in the endgame, and all in all it got a bit un-fun and not worth the effort. :/

8) A ship you shipped for years??

Most of the above. Also stuff like Saiyuki Sanzo/Goku, GS Alex/Felix or /Saturos, Jenna/Sheba, Karis/Sveta, Pokemon Misty/Erika, FE Florina/Lyndis, and, uh, probably stuff that I’m forgetting right now.

9) A ship everyone 😍 but you don’t care for?

...Was there anything? Some of the cliche stuff bugs me, but I’d usually think ‘what about writing the dynamic this way and maybe adding poly?’

10) Favorite rare pair???

Mm what's rare? Any gs Alex!ships at this point...

Edit: I forgot to tag anyone, so. If meme time sounds like fun, @sazandorable, @meganekkomeguca, @droory, or anyone who feels like it?

[returnerofthesky]

everything-narrative replied to your post: Suddenly remembered that series of videos...

Golden Sun was THE SHIT

I feel you, it’s been a really long time since I’ve touched any of the games but it was my first taste of proper RPG action; everything else I’d play up til then was mostly Zelda or Pokemon, and going from Pokemon Crystal to Golden Sun was kind of a mindblowing leap in nearly every regard

In a lot of ways you could argue it was kind of my first experience with “fandom” too, or at least something like that (this was almost seventeen years ago, ye olde halcyon days)... like, I scoured a lot of the old geocities and angelfire fansites seeing everyone writing goofy character interactions while answering mail and the like, I even found a site detailing how to manipulate the RNG to guarantee a Kikuichimoji and I thought it was the coolest thing ever

(it was also my first shipping thing - Sonic and Sally might have been the first official pair I paired, but Mudshipping was the first shipping I ever felt out on my own terms, eheh)

Good memories, really good memories all around

[linopolitan]

i apologize for the anon that sent me that top 5 games ask so i’m just redoing it here again (i accidentally deleted the entire thing on mobile after it got fucked up)

Soul Series | definitely my og video game here, I literally grew up with this series ever since it was a rather mediocre 3d fighter on the ps1 with like...ten characters to choose from LMAO. I really hope for the day they announce a sequel for next gen consoles because I really do love the series and how it’s evolved, even if it always did contain somewhat of a niche in the fighting game scene (that is pretty much filled by Tekken, anyway), but above all: don’t fuck with my Sophitia/Pyrrha. (rip talim and yunseong, though)

Pokémon | I actually started this series in 3rd grade when one of my bus friends gave me their Ruby version for the GBA, and GOD WHAT THE FUCK WAS I MISSING OUT ON?! I was absolutely OBSESSED with Pokemon Ruby, and while I had to skip out on the Sinnoh games because I didn’t own a DS at the time and had no means of acquiring one, but after Gen V was announced, and I definitely went straight for that and the rest is history.

Persona | Like Pokemon, I wasn’t part of that group of people that actually braved the “dark ages” of the series and started all the way at the beginning (or at least Persona 2), but I didn’t actually begin with the more recent ones like P3 and P4, either. My friend who’s a big SMT nut recommended that I check out Persona (since it’s basically SMT Lite), so I watched a playthrough of P3P and was immediately hooked. I ended up buying P3FES on PS3, then P3P and P4G on the PS Vita, and today I mourn the constant delays of P5 (of which I have the deluxe edition preordered)

Golden Sun | can you say king of underrated jrpgs???? I honestly don’t know why people have been sleeping on the game for so long because have you even seen the gameplay and the graphics? this is on a fucking gba and mind you, i was absolutely blown away as a child when my cousin lent me these games. not to mention the colorful cast of characters, the lore and the plot are all amazing for what it was. it’s truly a shame that the DS sequel tanked because I would have loved to see it transition onto the 3DS (and also that my favorite ship isn’t canon, rip mudshipping).

Tales Series | let’s get the message out of the way; i wasn’t any of the ones that began early in the series, and I have never played Symphonia (and probably never will). I actually started with Legendia (l m f a o) and, contrary to what many people thought, I actually loved it and it definitely served as a nice stepping stone for me to get into the Tales series. I played Graces f (great combat, but Asbel is horrid lmao), Xillia (I love, love, love Jude), Hearts R (probably my absolute favorite combat system in the entire series, I can grind off of monsters in the ex dungeon for hours and barely get tired), Abyss (my favorite storyline, and I have such a soft spot for Luke), and Zestiria (it honestly turned me off with many aspects but the characters are so likable), and now I’m patiently waiting to see if Berseria will continue to wow me like the others.

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

Honestly, this is a Mudship. It’s entirely based on this concept. Like, almost verbatim from Anarchism.

* Join a group * - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1M9Y46lhZSVIRyE1Qh74Tj5uu91VKs5nhFCUudnFOqOg/

/ * Start a group * - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ca-sz4DRNvUg8ezcrfd6awH-ahxBDJwnbdzxm4_qDVs/

(Spanish version)

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

I’ll be dropping the last infographic tonight. I keep thinking about to do it best and how to link all these resources, but I realize I’m letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

This last one, I like to consider the final piece of this puzzle. Because this model is deeply anti-capitalist, I’m wanting to crystallize sentiments that are pro-community building, that center mutual aid as the way to fight back feelings of alienation and the despair of individualism.

And while the neighbors of the houses next to mine aren’t who I’m imagining doing mudships with, that doesn’t stop me from dropping cash in some Venmo’s once my own bills are paid. It doesn’t stop me from building online relationships with people who are willing to engage in the struggle of unlearning the shit our culture raises us in.

Obviously, I can be a bit more optimistic than the current state of the world looks. But it’s exactly in that space that I want to inspire and challenge myself and others to really believe we can change the world toward a better direction.

Hearing about the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone the other day was the best news I’ve gotten in a while. I’ve got a best friend with his first kid on the way, and trying to help him build up some savings. Another friend of mine is needing refuge from his family and wants to grow food with my housemates in the backyard, so we can give it to Food, not Bombs.

The parts of Anarchy that sing to me are the ones that say Humanity is capable of things greater than history has shown us. That believing you can a make a difference is just a sentiment for gift cards. That believing and taking up the tasks for building a better world is something I can do in my own backyard; that I can build trust in a world that tries to paint everyone as demon or an opportunist; that the simple act of taking my own feelings seriously and moving without permission can be revolutionary the longer I do it.

I want to bake that into this model, that’s a mudship. The people you link up with and say, ‘I hate this part of reality, let’s do something about it.’ In CrimethInk’s Recipes for Disaster, their first section past the intro is about what they call ‘Affinity Groups.’ Emma Goldman pops off about how all great achievements of the modern era were done by small groups of intelligent and compassionate people who wanted to see the world become something better.

That’s what I want to inspire, that’s what I want to build.

[buildingrelationshipsinanarchy]

QIM Model | Dekoship Series | Phadship Series | Seroship Series | Mudship Series |

So today I had a trip and it was illuminating in so many ways. While in the depths of it, my housemate asked me a question that stirred something real deep.

In my model, what is Love?

That’s a huge question just out the gate, but I want to slowly answer that question. I can’t do it all in this post, but I wanna start to think through it. So I’d love comments and responses, done in good faith, to contribute to this unfolding conversation.

I think this answer is simple, but it’s implications are huge.

Love is connection, first and foremost. To love another is to understand we are already in connection with humanity as a whole, and therefore, one another. That the neat categories of self and other is false and flimsy, even though still useful and important to discuss where our boundaries will be placed.

I admit I don’t like this answer. I don’t like the idea that I can’t disconnect from another if I decide I want to, or even need to. That even cutting ties with another for the right reasons leaves us with things to unpack, forcing us to touch the scars and memories we’d want to resolve, or forget. That processing my pain, or learning how to move beyond it, is engaging with the last parts of you I can remember, whether I love or hate what arises in my memories; that I am trying to learn and be a self after having been in connection with you.

I know I’ve opened this conversation with rawness and weight, with heaviness and some grief. I do this to tap into the depth and gravity of knowing and being connected to others. I don’t want to shy away from that. That I am who I am by who has engaged with and known me, and that my experiences aren’t seperate, isolated events but parts of a tapestry that make up my life and self. How can you not be shaped, touched, changed by those you love or love you? If love is connection, then the neat little box of you call ‘yourself’ or your ‘identity’ must be open to dissolving and reforming. It sounds frightening a bit doesn’t it?

It is not always as intense as it sounds. I emphasize the extreme or intense, so that I may talk about the small and the subtle. Remember the last time you had a really good conversation. It may have moved you. Probably helped you name or understand something in your life that has bothered or evaded you for awhile. Maybe it was a relieving phone call, hearing that your family or comrades are safe. Maybe it was intense, but left you feeling inspired or even just warm. That’s being connected, that’s what it means to daekkon.

I’ll say it again, if love is connection, I built my model to discuss doing that. The acts we engage in together are what we give our attention and thought to; I want discuss the interior of what it means to be in connection, rather than simply relying on words to talk about the outside of it. If you feel difficulty reducing the people you connect with to one word to describe them in my model, good. That’s what I wanted. We are not reducible to our interactions, in fact, we are expanded by them.

If love is connection, then that means you always have the ability to engage in conversation. Communication here shouldn’t be the dry transmission of information it’s become in the world under capitalism, where it’s disconnected from anything meaningful or embodied. Here, in our intimate spaces, discussion already becomes daekkoning. Communication and discussions about real needs, real desires, real feelings, and real pain are what puts us directly in connection. I cannot love if I am not connected to myself, my desires and my needs. I cannot give love to another that isn’t connected to themselves either. Significant people in my life have watched me refuse their offerings and gifts, their affection and support, but because I wasn’t present and engaged I could not receive it; a disconnection, as it were.

For those of us who want a smooth connection or simple love, this is the path. Please don’t make the mistake of thinking simple means easy and quick. Connection isn’t cheap, disposable, or inherently convenient. But with dialogue, patience, and respect, you pave the way toward the simplicity and ease that happy connections seem to pull off so effortlessly.

This allows me to reiterate myself. If love is connection, I’m now inviting real discussions about my joy. In fact, relationships, whether dekoships, phadships, etc, get to become collaborations on how we can experience joy together. I need my body touched. Not everyone I connect with will be open to doing that, no matter how comfortable or close we get. No problem there, but sometimes my joy, (which joy itself is it’s own human need), requires I get that phadronic connection. I can conspire with another with this model now to negotiate getting that joy-need met.

If love is connection, my joy is directly linked to another’s joy. I’m happy that that isn’t simply a metaphor. That in real time, my existence brings joy to others, and that others existence brings joy into mine.

I make it sound so simple, like it’s almost that easy. But It wasn’t easy to get here, to see this way, to understand what eventually became this model. I don’t want to talk like it’s so easy to do this, it’s not. But it is simple, and that is what I find valuable in discussing relationship in these ways.

If love is connection, self-love isn’t isolation (not to be confused with solitude), self-love becomes building support networks with others. It means daekonning some, phading with others, getting some serotic fun in, and most importantly mudshipping and mudshopping with those you can. Sometimes it means taking a break from being as intently connected, for however long you need. If love is connection, I shouldn’t hesitate on what my joy, patience, and respect can build with another, so long as they are reciprocating these back.