#The course structure

[knifearo]

being aromantic is like. hey btw you're going to live a life that is the culmination of most of society's worst nightmares. sorry lol ✌️ but then you turn around and take a really good hard look at it and it turns out that living in that nightmare is fucking awesome and you get to wake up every day and take that fear that other people have and laugh and hold it close until it's a great joy for you instead. and being happy is a radical act that you define instead of someone else. and you're sexy as fuck that's just a fact of life i don't make the rules on that one

[arotechno]

found family is about radically redefining what family means and subverting established roles and structures within families. it's about allowing ourselves the freedom to build those relationships ourselves without the pressure of preexisting frameworks. it's NOT about "this one's the mom and this one's the dad" and recreating the nuclear family and to act like that's what it is and to then claim that found family as a media trope is reductive or normative is complete horseshit to me.

the terminology isn't always applicable and you can argue that it or some of its cliches are overused. and certainly you're welcome to have your own personal definition of what family is. but suddenly it's like the new tumblr zeitgeist is "found family is reductive and cringe" and it's baffling because what you MEAN is that forcing fictional characters into nuclear family roles is reductive. to suddenly decide that found family is "mom and dad and siblings :)" and thus normative and reductive and somehow bad is an insult to everyone who has nontraditional families without typical familial roles in real life. and i'm tired of pretending otherwise. that's all.

[katabay]

displays of devotion

okay! before I get into this scene, first some context for everyone who isn't fixated on spectacles and sports in the roman world:

We find it stated in the Annals, that when Felix, a charioteer of the Reds, was placed on the funeral pile, one of his admirers threw himself upon the pile; a very stupid way to behave. In case, however, that this event might not be attributed to the great excellence of the dead man in his art, and so add to his glory, the other parties all declared that he had been overpowered by the strength of the perfumes.

Pliny the Elder, Natural History 7.54

onward! this scene is an echo of that incident from the 70s BCE transposed to a different setting, the early 500s CE, amidst the escalating tensions leading up to the Nika riots

I actually was thinking of setting this scene during my "lost century" of the byzantine empire (aka the fake byzantine empire story I sometimes post about) but the immediate sewing together of what Pliny is recounting and the Nika riots is compelling to me….it could make an interesting self contained/standalone comic someday……much to think about………

[nerdyagere]

Strict, structured Caregiver who goes by the rules and sets a firm schedule x Regressor who grew up with no structure whatsoever (they are struggling but appreciate it so so much)

[mesetacadre]

Lessons from organizing the collection and shipping of aid to the areas affected by the flash floods in Valencia

Nationalism still plays a deciding role in the subjectivity of the student body and broader population. The outpouring of popular support and individual donations eclipsed in 4 days the combined amount of attention for Palestine in a year, despite the death toll being ~10,000 times greater, and destruction orders of magnitude greater.

Periods of flux and reflux have been very heavily contrasted. The aid which reached us decreased substantially every single day. If the collection began on a Tuesday with an overwhelming amount of material, by Friday, barely a few people stopped by. This very clearly demonstrates the reactivity of the working class when it comes to facing an issue.

This reactivity also manifests in the things themselves that people donated. Valencia very quickly received tons of clothing, and by the second day, people in the ground unanimously said to stop donating clothes, and the official collection points set up by the state stopped accepting clothes. Despite this, clothes continued to be donated en-masse. In my collection point, around a tenth of all products donated was non-protective clothing. I think this is the case because of two reasons. First, because instead of buying products explicitly to donate, people emptied out their closets. Given how much clothing is just thrown away per capita each year, I think it's a safe assumption to take. Second, because instead of stopping to research what Valencia needed at the time, most people wished to donate something immediately, perhaps to feel better about having helped out, to forget about it by next week. The sharp dropoff in donations supports this.

In the organizing side of things, people are still heavily conditioned by reactivity. The collection point was at first spearheaded by two inexperienced people who by the end of the first day were already drowning in pessimism and burnout, stating that it was impossible to organize the ~50-70 people who were in some way involved at our collection point at the time. These are people with a very admirable instinct, but who lacked any tools, experience or even ideas to properly organize as was needed. This was magnified by the virtually no help given from the university's institutions.

Of the people willing to continue organizing the aid, there are some groups who stand out because of their focus on agitation to place political blame. While this is very necessary and not at all contradictory, their enthusiasm for this blame was inversely proportional to their enthusiasm for the collection of money or aid. These groups have transparently outed themselves as opportunists, grifters, and hippies.

We have not stopped organizing to continue to deliver aid, pivoting to the collection of money in order to buy the more expensive tools that nobody donates, such as shovels, water pumps, and more. Even as this continues, more and more people have lost all interest in helping. Valencia's most affected areas, workers' neighborhoods, still need help, and a good portion of the food that was donated will perish sooner rather than later. There has even been another flash flood, less destructive but still serious, in Málaga, and this time no official support networks have been set up.

So what can be concluded from this?

Activism is useless for any kind of defined political or social goal. Most of nothing has ever been achieved by a handful of people deciding to show up at a place and burn out in a few weeks. As things stand, we can't rely on coasting on the comings and goings of mass outcries, conditioned by that day's news cycle, and by a desire to never stray too far from one's individual behavior.

Any kind of political organization with its own goals must learn to have constant work, to set its own rhythms in periods of social calm such that burnout is avoided, but experience can still be scraped off every street, classroom and workplace. And it must also be prepared to encompass the rapid acceleration of a mass's movements, it should be ready for the limits of the organization to exceed themselves, and temporarily encompass those people willing to do temporary work within the organization's structure. This is how a social base is slowly built, and how communists can begin to demonstrate the validity of their positions properly. Not by being the most extreme voices for its own sake, or by unduly inserting ourselves into spaces without much sense, but by making whoever is willing an active participant of our own structures, methods and analyses.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 199

“Where the fuck are my legs?” 

Danny wasn’t happy. It wasn’t funny! Usually he just had a ghost tail when flying really fast, like super speed, not all the time! It’s not funny Clockwork, you’re used to having a tail, he isn’t! 

What do you mean it’s permanent?! He needs his legs! Clockwork!! He wouldn’t have agreed to the adoption if he knew he’d lose his legs! 

…Okay, that was a lie, Clockwork was a great parent who encouraged his chaos and enjoyed screwing over assholes like the Observants. But still! He looks like some sort of snake person now! No he doesn’t want a nap, he’s not a baby! 

Clockwork, why are you being quiet? He’s not a baby! He’s not a baby, right? What do you mean all ghosts are babies until they’re a hundred years dead!? But he’s a halfa- what do you mean it takes longer for Ancients?! 

No he doesn’t want that nap, he’s having a midlife crisis here several years too early! 

[phoenixcatch7]

Something that always bugs me is that the way fanfic authors have it, there's absolutely nothing between 'beloved son treated and raised precisely the same as the two blood siblings in the blood based ruling lineage' and 'despised and excluded indentured servant psychologically manipulated into having no self worth cut off from any emotional support'. This is, historically, a very, VERY recent binary, as the fostering system outgrows things like orphanages and the idea of the nuclear family is cemented.

There is a whole range of different statuses that exist between those two extremes just in Western society, and more than that outside of what I already know. Wardship, for example. Fostering without adoption. Room and board apprenticeship.

Wwx is older than jc. Him being adopted and legitimised, despite not being jiang, would cause a succession crisis. By rights, as the eldest male (and prodigious and well liked besides) he would be first to inherit in some people's eyes. Being adopted formally in this way would cause those rumours of bastardry madame yu was always banging on about (though I'm never convinced those rumours were as prevalent as she believed). Jfm would lose reputation and status, yzy would take a tremendous hit to her reputation, jc's place as heir would suddenly be cast into uncertainty, coming under intense scrutiny as people suddenly feel as though they had a choice in who to support, and wwx would be forced into a role and potential future he has absolutely no desire for. And by putting him in a position where he could become head of jiang, there's the risk that he might assassinate jc to become the undisputed heir, something impossible if he isn't brought into the family officially. Would wwx ever dream of doing so? No! Not even slightly! But it is a valid fear of the time and culture, jgy just proves that worst case scenario.

Instead of being the child prodigy coming out of nowhere, the son of respected rogue cultivators so generously taken in the jiang and well trained, suddenly he'd be 'proof' of infidelity, both families involved would become scandals, even post-humeously. As jgy and mxy prove, being a bastard is a lower social status than the right hand man of the sect heir, head disciple of a major sect. Now wrapped in gossip and scandal, they would no longer be called the prides of yunmeng.

And then of course that kind of divisive succession would backfire horrendously when lotus pier is burned and jc tries to rebuild the clan while wwx goes demonic cultivator! It would be DISASTROUS for the jiang, jc having lost a lot of his legitimacy and political support, wwx's now filthy reputation being tied even tighter to the clan, reflecting on them so much more. Worst case gossip would be that the jiang as a whole are turning to demonic cultivation. People who wanted wwx for heir would be in a very dangerous position! People who disliked jc as heir would make it even harder for him! Not that the jiangs would/could have predicted the war and the burning of the sect but fr it would have made an already nigh impossible situation even harder and more volatile.

And it's not like wwx is treated purely like a servant! He isn't going round fetching tea and carrying jcs sword and keeping one step behind. He eats every meal with them, he gets pocket money from them, he is openly and pretty universally considered siblings with the other two, and nobody except yzy acts like it's weird, or he's acting above his station for it (though people like the wens and jin aren't above trying to use that 'son of a servant' thing when they're targeting him to get their own way).

Yes, yzy is deeply insecure and blames him, yes during their goodbyes jc gets hugs and wwx gets orders. They're far from perfect. That's the most affection jc ever got from either of them. Jyl got nothing, she wasn't there. Which is pretty representative of her treatment from her parents, ngl. But wwx had support from jc, had sorta paternal support and a safe authority figure in jfm, had maternal support and care from jyl (though she shouldn't have had to, but that's a different conversation). There are actual family servants (yzy's twins) who grew up with her and were trained for it and they act very differently to wwx. For all yzy throws her weight around and jfm is a bit of a doormat, wwx grew up well cared for and well loved.

The fact that the family as a whole was pretty messed up and his part in it made it worse? That's on the family members themselves. His never arriving would not have fixed that family. For wwx, genuinely, there really wasn't anywhere else he could really go once he was orphaned. If he hadn't died on the streets perhaps he could have made it as a civilian working for someone else, dabbling in cultivation because we know him.

The wen and jin would have eaten him alive. The lans? Don't make me laugh. I love a good 'wwx gets betrothed to lwj as teens and he moves to gusu and Fixes Everything' as much as the next person but let's not kid ourselves, canon wwx would have ended up whipped to death or expelled with the way he is. As a visiting disciple he got so many punishments and kicked out not even halfway through the year! Him living there with lwj as adults is due to him 'redeeming' himself through mystery solving and lwj being fully, openly ready to ditch the sect for him. Even then they're constantly on the road night hunting and lwj being the lightning rod of all of wwx's trouble making tendencies (and being 100% down to breaking the rules with him without enacting punishment). They might accept him now but it would not have happened without lwj doing it first (and the juniors all loving him lol).

The nie? Maybe, but that would have left NHS in pretty much the exact same position as jc: inferior second fiddle, unskilled, constantly compared to him. Wwx would be in the exact same position of being pressured to tone himself down and keep his dangerous ideas to himself, and NHS would have double the fear of inevitably losing both his brothers. And of course, the nie aren't exactly as patient and laid back as the jiang sect as a whole, with their hyper aggressive murder resentment swords. The first sign of wwx acting 'outside' of the clans best interests and getting risky and he's going straight down those stairs the same way as jgy.

Tldr: there's more options to raise a kid than full adoption or abused servitude, even today, and though officially adopting wwx would have made everything SO much worse, his other options would not have survived him. He deserved better with the jiangs but frankly so did the blood kids (and the mother and the father). All three were emotionally neglected and adoption would not have fixed that.

This is why I believe that if wwx had been even a day younger than jc everyone would have been so much happier.

[bookishjules]

almost across the board, it's jesper's relationships with the other characters in soc that hold the most weight for me, so really it's not surprising just how much wesper has taken over my heart.

they just complement each other so well. they look out for each other, they understand each other, they both see the world from unique angles, but at the intersection is this perfect place where they can look into the other's eyes and find someone who gets it. they're like puzzle pieces fr, their strengths and weaknesses evening out and clicking into place. i love the way they challenge each other, the way they each make the other better.

i think about the moment in the bakery when colm tells wylan that he'd be good for jesper and wylan thinks about being good enough for him, which is an entirely different measure. and what that says about how much he values jesper, but also how much he values himself. and you could say a similar thing about jesper. he may have always felt more too much than not enough, but when it comes to living up to people's expectations, there's always something missing, something wrong. and he holds wylan in such high esteem too that there's a do i deserve this aspect they share. and it tears at my heart. especially considering the other half of colm's sentiment, the bit about not knowing if jesper would be good for wylan.

i think there's something about the way they both get the chance to meet and understand the other's parents (or at least the living ones), when of any of the six, its the two of them whose stories and whose views of themselves and the world were most impacted by their parents. it's about seeing where the other is coming from yes, but it's also about support, it's about providing the love and understanding they didn't receive as kids.

there's this image in my head of a box and the way neither of them fit so wylan learned to exist without while jesper tried to trim himself down within but that left him shooting off like sunflares. and the box is love and acceptance. but once they meet each other, once they start getting to know each other, the box starts to deteriorate until jesper fills the space wylan didn't think he had access to and wylan meets jesper at his own natural edges.

like i said, puzzle pieces.

[johnnycrass]

One of the things I got from being homeschooled that I will never be able to overcome is the whole thing of giving eight hours of my day to some bullshit. When I got into public school for the first time that's what blew me away the most I just couldn't believe it it was eight hours of pretty much a bunch of bullshit that could've been done in like five if not less!!! so I've always been really bad at having a boss in the eight hour workday. dragging something that could be done in five hours out into eight hours, it's stupid. My next job will be a part-time.

so when I heard that thing about how school is just preparation for the eight hour workday which is basically the same as barracks which is pretty much the same as jail which is like school which is exactly like the factory workday, it made sense 

[raveledits]

[tennessoui]

also i passed literally all my midterms with flying colors (basically A+'s if grad school did A+'s) (or gold star stickers if grad school did gold star stickers)

(they should)

and all my midterms were just essays and all my professors who graded my essays said my essays were very well-written and well-structured and had high readability

and im like thank you thank you i've written like a million words of porn for the internet. i know my adjective noun verb placement very well

[radjerda]

A little late to the party, but (coincidentally) in honor of Half-Life 2's 20th anniversary, I present to you my recent attempts at figuring out how Barney's face works

[hoarding-stories]

I will never not be quietly obsessed with wtnv's "A Story About-" series (13, 45, 109, 130, 246, 269)

The framing and narrator shifts that allow for a broader perspective, the fun meta-ish poking at Cecil narrating everything, and especially because I'm a sucker for a good death allegory

[newlyy]

I’m so fucking sick of rent being so high. Why do we just accept that to rent a one bed, one bath apartment is almost 1k a month. Who decided that. And we pay other costs on top of that, like electric and internet. Where does the 1k go? To the garbage pickup once a week? To the once-every-three-months maintenance call to fix something? Because these generally aren’t nice apartments either. I saw one listed on Facebook marketplace that not only had a very high rent for the outdated, unpleasant aprtment, but wouldn’t rent to you unless your income was three times the price of rent per month. That’s ridiculous. Why do landlords think they’re god.