nudibranchiethoughts - Tumblr blog

[nudibranchiethoughts]

I made a yandere drawing for cringetober and I'm being told its wrong because it gives a bad rep for people with bpd, though I don't see a problem with it because I'm not saying or comparing the character with real issues of bpd. I may be wrong but what do you think???

probably more "wrong" because yandev is officially confirmed for being a nonce, creep, and all around dickhead.

eta: lmao reply mentioned u might just mean A Yandere, thts my mistake 🤡🤡 the only post on here abt yanderes is in relation to that Fucking Game. but tl;dr - yandere as a general Thing isn't inherently linked to BPD or BPD experiences, but they've been tied together a lot online. there's definitely potential for sanism within yanderes/that entire realm so it rly depends how you handled that.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

As a closing statement, I believe Alex is not going to finish this game. I really would like to be optimistic, but I just don’t see it happening. Even if I don’t know what’s happening in 5 years, I’m pretty sure if the game isn’t done by the 11 years in development mark, it’s not going to be finished. I am also aware a lot of my critiques are general and do not pick through all of Yandere Simulator’s characters or plot lines - I simply do not have the will to live usually and I’m pretty sure watching Alex’s videos would end up lessening that significantly. My critiques are generalised since this game is NOT being kept private. It is being put out into a wider world during its development and made for public consumption. Critics of more fame than I have ever had will be looking at it and its wider social context for their reviews. There is still some vague potential for it to exist as an independent game, which is why I am taking issues with the misogyny, the ableism and the attitude of its creator. Full google doc with sources: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1r54v7sTlLmolu-9HBQ-7PUmD6xML3kKK3AM2OwzuWl8/edit?usp=sharing

Disclaimer: this is 90% of a ramble I wrote in response to a thread on my main blog :-) im not editing yet b/c I've topic jumped to celtic languages vs anglocentrism. Also I found out tumblr posts have a limit so I'm gonna continue the thread in reblogs LOL

Addressing a common theme in the original discourse thread, especially with regard to using LGBTQ people as tools or weapons: I am very literally an LGBTQ person in the flesh, I associate with almost exclusively LGBTQ people (just the way the mop flopped). Unless I am somehow weaponizing myself - I’m interested to see the reasoning. I’m self-IDing on this post for reference - I’m queer, bisexual non-binary. I actively participate offline in queer direct action/mutual aid + post covid, hopefully organising some things in my local area.

Canon in works of fiction is a fun guideline (though it is important for works of fiction to be finished before their canon is presented) for artists and otherwise creative people to work with. I don’t actually care enough to view content on Alex’s YouTube channel and when reading the “official” wiki for character backgrounds there was no mention of sexuality. This leads into a secondary point, the word of Alex in non-canon media is not the word of god. Unless there is direct, real LGBTQ rep in the finalised product it can only be taken as lip service - show in game that there are LGBTQ characters, not in related and non-canon media like YouTube videos. It’s the same kind of slapdash representation used by JK Rowling pre-TERF days to make her works seem more progressive than they are. To clarify: I’m not making a direct comparison - Alex is not JK Rowling. It is the nearest example that’s easy to search and verify. To condense this: If it is not on the ‘official wiki’ with a source in game, or in the game with no room for confusion that the characters are LGBTQ, it is lip service at best.

The majority of my issues lay outside of the development process and involve what I perceive to be really unfair treatment of the fanbase (people are giving him money and he has only JUST implemented Osana. It has been 6 years. Sole developer or not, that’s an incredibly long time when she probably should have been added in at the beginning to fix balancing issues and time schedule conflicts - it would have been easier) as well as issues with wider anime content that have directly influenced his game development and attitudes towards women.

Yandere Simulator is misogynistic and I would venture to say Alex is too. This is pretty easily summed up in the first regard with the panty shot mechanic + the reduction of women into being either rivals or NPCs with no personality or emotion. I would be interested to see if the final product passes the Bechdel Test or not. I genuinely think I would have had less of an issue with this first point if he had just openly stated that Yandere Simulator would be a fanservice ecchi game with a yandere character - at least it would have been open about the intentions. Instead it’s being gussied up as a social sim + assassination game.

Tackling the misogyny in plainer terms: the objectification of women in Yandere Sim both continues to push stereotypes of women only being objects to gain or exploit as well as the sexualisation of school uniforms and youth. Even if there is a disclaimer that they are all 18, the sexualisation of school uniforms and “schoolgirls” contributes to the idea of younger girls being more sexually desirable. There are multiple published studies regarding the impacts of sexualisation of younger women and its impacts on both their mental health and their safety - I’m going to cite my sources at the end of this if you do want to read up as well as pulling the relevant information from the articles if needed. This is of course not limited to Yandere Sim and is more than prevalent in wider anime/manga content as well as a lot of content outside of that. I am not touching on the fact the games mechanics include torturing and murdering school girls, I think that’s pretty self explanatory. No media exists in a vacuum - it should, will be + can be critiqued in its wider social context. Yandere Simulator is absolutely not exempt from this.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

The Yandere Trope and BPD are unfortunately linked through negative views of people with BPD as abusive, controlling, obsessive, etc without taking into account that BPD does not automatically make someone abusive, and there are plenty of abusive people without BPD. BPD already suffers from a very dim view both in the wider public and from some psychologists and therapists. There are plenty of personal testimonies online which I am choosing not to link as they are not mine to tell and unaware site users shouldn’t be pulled into things like this.

!!CW - Personal experiences of mental health incl. Psychosis, EUPD and Hospitalisation!!

I can talk from my own experience however, and being young on the internet with a head full of trauma from abusive home life and the burgeoning symptoms of both EUPD and early onset psychosis is a nightmare enough as it is. I, unawarely, was consuming yandere content assuming this is it and that it means I am fundamentally unfixable and doomed to be violent. This ended up reinforcing negative self belief, which informed delusional thinking and prevented me from seeking help I needed - what would be the point if I am doomed to be a monster. I am not, of course, I am a person with agency and the luxury of living in a country with the NHS (for now, tories are trying very hard to stop that). Since this thinking I have very thankfully received treatment through both involuntary hospitalisation, medication and voluntary therapy. This is probably not as unique as I would hope - it is not a pleasant experience. This does inform my points, of course, and my upset and anger with the continued proliferation of inaccurate and unfair condemnation of mental illness through things like the Yandere Trope and Yandere Simulator.

!!End CW -Personal experiences of mental health incl. Psychosis, EUPD and Hospitalisation!!

Again, to tie this further with Yandere Simulator, Ayano’s “illness”/”affliction” is another example of a complete bungling of mental illness. To someone that has experienced similar symptoms like myself, those being very reminiscent of the negative symptoms involved in psychosis, it’s really disappointing to see these tropes furthered and continuing to promote inaccurate mental health portrayals. There was an opportunity for Alex to explore these concepts in a dignified way, but that would involve learning things outside of his experience which I do not believe he is very good at - see recent controversy with one of his mods having DID. If he wants to make a game involving symptoms of mental illness through the yandere trope, he should be aware of the conversation surrounding them and the context they WILL be viewed in. As the yandere trope is a wildly exaggerated portrayal of “movie psychosis” - violence, stalking, obsession and rage - it also ventures into being abusive. I would like to make myself clear and state here that neither psychosis spectrum OR BPD/EUPD are abusive or can make someone abusive. This is simply a different branch of viewing the yandere trope and its place in Yandere simulator. The yandere trope is abusive. There’s no way around it. It’s abusive and glorifies abuse in the game. Controlling another person through violence or removing people in their life they may be interested in in abuse. This is true even in a game, it is a portrayal. If i need to go into further detail about this I can.

Disclaimer: this is 90% of a ramble I wrote in response to a thread on my main blog :-) im not editing yet b/c I've topic jumped to celtic languages vs anglocentrism. Also I found out tumblr posts have a limit so I'm gonna continue the thread in reblogs LOL

Addressing a common theme in the original discourse thread, especially with regard to using LGBTQ people as tools or weapons: I am very literally an LGBTQ person in the flesh, I associate with almost exclusively LGBTQ people (just the way the mop flopped). Unless I am somehow weaponizing myself - I’m interested to see the reasoning. I’m self-IDing on this post for reference - I’m queer, bisexual non-binary. I actively participate offline in queer direct action/mutual aid + post covid, hopefully organising some things in my local area.

Canon in works of fiction is a fun guideline (though it is important for works of fiction to be finished before their canon is presented) for artists and otherwise creative people to work with. I don’t actually care enough to view content on Alex’s YouTube channel and when reading the “official” wiki for character backgrounds there was no mention of sexuality. This leads into a secondary point, the word of Alex in non-canon media is not the word of god. Unless there is direct, real LGBTQ rep in the finalised product it can only be taken as lip service - show in game that there are LGBTQ characters, not in related and non-canon media like YouTube videos. It’s the same kind of slapdash representation used by JK Rowling pre-TERF days to make her works seem more progressive than they are. To clarify: I’m not making a direct comparison - Alex is not JK Rowling. It is the nearest example that’s easy to search and verify. To condense this: If it is not on the ‘official wiki’ with a source in game, or in the game with no room for confusion that the characters are LGBTQ, it is lip service at best.

The majority of my issues lay outside of the development process and involve what I perceive to be really unfair treatment of the fanbase (people are giving him money and he has only JUST implemented Osana. It has been 6 years. Sole developer or not, that’s an incredibly long time when she probably should have been added in at the beginning to fix balancing issues and time schedule conflicts - it would have been easier) as well as issues with wider anime content that have directly influenced his game development and attitudes towards women.

Yandere Simulator is misogynistic and I would venture to say Alex is too. This is pretty easily summed up in the first regard with the panty shot mechanic + the reduction of women into being either rivals or NPCs with no personality or emotion. I would be interested to see if the final product passes the Bechdel Test or not. I genuinely think I would have had less of an issue with this first point if he had just openly stated that Yandere Simulator would be a fanservice ecchi game with a yandere character - at least it would have been open about the intentions. Instead it’s being gussied up as a social sim + assassination game.

Tackling the misogyny in plainer terms: the objectification of women in Yandere Sim both continues to push stereotypes of women only being objects to gain or exploit as well as the sexualisation of school uniforms and youth. Even if there is a disclaimer that they are all 18, the sexualisation of school uniforms and “schoolgirls” contributes to the idea of younger girls being more sexually desirable. There are multiple published studies regarding the impacts of sexualisation of younger women and its impacts on both their mental health and their safety - I’m going to cite my sources at the end of this if you do want to read up as well as pulling the relevant information from the articles if needed. This is of course not limited to Yandere Sim and is more than prevalent in wider anime/manga content as well as a lot of content outside of that. I am not touching on the fact the games mechanics include torturing and murdering school girls, I think that’s pretty self explanatory. No media exists in a vacuum - it should, will be + can be critiqued in its wider social context. Yandere Simulator is absolutely not exempt from this.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

To circle back around to the point of Alex being misogynistic - he previously held ‘incel views’, as shown in the infamous Gaia Online post, and has formerly run a twitter account called “video game babes” that further provided examples of both misogyny and the worrying implicatons of pedophilia. There have also been posts under his previous handle of EvaXephon involving how sexually active women are sluts. I would love to believe this has changed and he has grown as a person considering the length of time he has been active on the internet, but continuing to objectify women through idealised anime portrayals doesn’t give me the most confidence in this. Of course this is a personal viewpoint but I do not think it is a rare one. This would obviously inform his game design choices, which i have touched on above.

A continued note on Alex - some of the defending of him taking place in the wider internet involves the fact he’s struggling with depression and the target of online ridicule. It is genuinely not a bad thing to pause development for his mental health, and to seek professional treatment if rival games are causing him to want to commit sucide. It is also not the responsibility of people to coddle a game that has plenty of issues in both development, performance and subject matter. He wants this to be an edgy, controversial and “lewd” game - he should expect criticism and pushback regardless of how it is packaged.

Moving onto the Yandere trope being both ableist and abusive, this has elements of my own personal testimony - I will include relevant content warnings before sensitive subjects.

The Yandere trope has moved from a trope to a wildly inaccurate and harmful portrayal of mental illness. This has served to stigmatise individuals with BPD/EUPB (it serves as a caricature of the unhealthy traits) as well as to continue to misuse loaded words such as psychotic and further the ideas that both of these conditions are harmful, inherently broken and unfixable. This can also feed back into negative self beliefs of people with this condition and further stop them from seeking help. This has been something I have directly experienced as an individual with BPD/EUPD (EUPD is the same, just a newer name and the one used in the UK where I am based) and I experience the negative repercussions of the misuse of the word psychotic. To lay out the latter part - being the misuse of the word psychotic, I need to again acknowledge this phenomena is a wider issue outside of Yandere simulator but again as it plays on the trope, it must be criticised and examined with this in mind. Psychotic has come to mean dangerous, disturbed, violent, etc and has served to milign psychotic disorders - one of which I am unfortunately also diagnosed with. Psychosis does not mean any of the negative connotations beyond being scary for the experiencer and occasionally unsettling for apsychotic people to witness. Tying this back to the yandere trope and Yandere Simulator - the continued pushing of both as subjects servers to further the misuse of the word and stigmatise the disorder. I obviously have a major issue with this, being it is something deeply personal to my experience in life and has caused issues with me seeking help.

Disclaimer: this is 90% of a ramble I wrote in response to a thread on my main blog :-) im not editing yet b/c I've topic jumped to celtic languages vs anglocentrism. Also I found out tumblr posts have a limit so I'm gonna continue the thread in reblogs LOL

Addressing a common theme in the original discourse thread, especially with regard to using LGBTQ people as tools or weapons: I am very literally an LGBTQ person in the flesh, I associate with almost exclusively LGBTQ people (just the way the mop flopped). Unless I am somehow weaponizing myself - I’m interested to see the reasoning. I’m self-IDing on this post for reference - I’m queer, bisexual non-binary. I actively participate offline in queer direct action/mutual aid + post covid, hopefully organising some things in my local area.

Canon in works of fiction is a fun guideline (though it is important for works of fiction to be finished before their canon is presented) for artists and otherwise creative people to work with. I don’t actually care enough to view content on Alex’s YouTube channel and when reading the “official” wiki for character backgrounds there was no mention of sexuality. This leads into a secondary point, the word of Alex in non-canon media is not the word of god. Unless there is direct, real LGBTQ rep in the finalised product it can only be taken as lip service - show in game that there are LGBTQ characters, not in related and non-canon media like YouTube videos. It’s the same kind of slapdash representation used by JK Rowling pre-TERF days to make her works seem more progressive than they are. To clarify: I’m not making a direct comparison - Alex is not JK Rowling. It is the nearest example that’s easy to search and verify. To condense this: If it is not on the ‘official wiki’ with a source in game, or in the game with no room for confusion that the characters are LGBTQ, it is lip service at best.

The majority of my issues lay outside of the development process and involve what I perceive to be really unfair treatment of the fanbase (people are giving him money and he has only JUST implemented Osana. It has been 6 years. Sole developer or not, that’s an incredibly long time when she probably should have been added in at the beginning to fix balancing issues and time schedule conflicts - it would have been easier) as well as issues with wider anime content that have directly influenced his game development and attitudes towards women.

Yandere Simulator is misogynistic and I would venture to say Alex is too. This is pretty easily summed up in the first regard with the panty shot mechanic + the reduction of women into being either rivals or NPCs with no personality or emotion. I would be interested to see if the final product passes the Bechdel Test or not. I genuinely think I would have had less of an issue with this first point if he had just openly stated that Yandere Simulator would be a fanservice ecchi game with a yandere character - at least it would have been open about the intentions. Instead it’s being gussied up as a social sim + assassination game.

Tackling the misogyny in plainer terms: the objectification of women in Yandere Sim both continues to push stereotypes of women only being objects to gain or exploit as well as the sexualisation of school uniforms and youth. Even if there is a disclaimer that they are all 18, the sexualisation of school uniforms and “schoolgirls” contributes to the idea of younger girls being more sexually desirable. There are multiple published studies regarding the impacts of sexualisation of younger women and its impacts on both their mental health and their safety - I’m going to cite my sources at the end of this if you do want to read up as well as pulling the relevant information from the articles if needed. This is of course not limited to Yandere Sim and is more than prevalent in wider anime/manga content as well as a lot of content outside of that. I am not touching on the fact the games mechanics include torturing and murdering school girls, I think that’s pretty self explanatory. No media exists in a vacuum - it should, will be + can be critiqued in its wider social context. Yandere Simulator is absolutely not exempt from this.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

Disclaimer: this is 90% of a ramble I wrote in response to a thread on my main blog :-) im not editing yet b/c I've topic jumped to celtic languages vs anglocentrism. Also I found out tumblr posts have a limit so I'm gonna continue the thread in reblogs LOL

Addressing a common theme in the original discourse thread, especially with regard to using LGBTQ people as tools or weapons: I am very literally an LGBTQ person in the flesh, I associate with almost exclusively LGBTQ people (just the way the mop flopped). Unless I am somehow weaponizing myself - I’m interested to see the reasoning. I’m self-IDing on this post for reference - I’m queer, bisexual non-binary. I actively participate offline in queer direct action/mutual aid + post covid, hopefully organising some things in my local area.

Canon in works of fiction is a fun guideline (though it is important for works of fiction to be finished before their canon is presented) for artists and otherwise creative people to work with. I don’t actually care enough to view content on Alex’s YouTube channel and when reading the “official” wiki for character backgrounds there was no mention of sexuality. This leads into a secondary point, the word of Alex in non-canon media is not the word of god. Unless there is direct, real LGBTQ rep in the finalised product it can only be taken as lip service - show in game that there are LGBTQ characters, not in related and non-canon media like YouTube videos. It’s the same kind of slapdash representation used by JK Rowling pre-TERF days to make her works seem more progressive than they are. To clarify: I’m not making a direct comparison - Alex is not JK Rowling. It is the nearest example that’s easy to search and verify. To condense this: If it is not on the ‘official wiki’ with a source in game, or in the game with no room for confusion that the characters are LGBTQ, it is lip service at best.

The majority of my issues lay outside of the development process and involve what I perceive to be really unfair treatment of the fanbase (people are giving him money and he has only JUST implemented Osana. It has been 6 years. Sole developer or not, that’s an incredibly long time when she probably should have been added in at the beginning to fix balancing issues and time schedule conflicts - it would have been easier) as well as issues with wider anime content that have directly influenced his game development and attitudes towards women.

Yandere Simulator is misogynistic and I would venture to say Alex is too. This is pretty easily summed up in the first regard with the panty shot mechanic + the reduction of women into being either rivals or NPCs with no personality or emotion. I would be interested to see if the final product passes the Bechdel Test or not. I genuinely think I would have had less of an issue with this first point if he had just openly stated that Yandere Simulator would be a fanservice ecchi game with a yandere character - at least it would have been open about the intentions. Instead it’s being gussied up as a social sim + assassination game.

Tackling the misogyny in plainer terms: the objectification of women in Yandere Sim both continues to push stereotypes of women only being objects to gain or exploit as well as the sexualisation of school uniforms and youth. Even if there is a disclaimer that they are all 18, the sexualisation of school uniforms and “schoolgirls” contributes to the idea of younger girls being more sexually desirable. There are multiple published studies regarding the impacts of sexualisation of younger women and its impacts on both their mental health and their safety - I’m going to cite my sources at the end of this if you do want to read up as well as pulling the relevant information from the articles if needed. This is of course not limited to Yandere Sim and is more than prevalent in wider anime/manga content as well as a lot of content outside of that. I am not touching on the fact the games mechanics include torturing and murdering school girls, I think that’s pretty self explanatory. No media exists in a vacuum - it should, will be + can be critiqued in its wider social context. Yandere Simulator is absolutely not exempt from this.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

[nudibranchiethoughts]

"One of the most prevalent obstacles in our ability to heal and self-actualise is when our productivity is tied to our worthiness."

I think the studyblr community especially needs to hear this. You don't have to be productive all the time, you need rest. Recovering from internalised capitalism means unpicking all the messages from family, friends, school and workplace that have reinforced the idea that you are a commodity, and that your worth is based on what you do. Your worth is inherent.

Source: therapywithlee

[nudibranchiethoughts]

When was the last time you asked permission to go to the bathroom? Would you panic over running two minutes late? Is it normal to be constantly monitored at work, to have everything you do timed to the second? When was the last time you sold something to pay a bill? Do you have to wait to be searched for stolen goods after you work? Have you ever considered DIY dental surgery? Have you gone to work sick because you can’t afford to take unpaid time off? Have you had to supply a doctors note to prove you deserve that unpaid time off? Have you recently overdrawn your checking account, or had all your credit cards declined, or put exactly ten bucks of gas in your car?

Nearly everyone with influence in this country, regardless of political affiliation, is incredibly insulated from how miserable and dehumanizing the daily experience of work has gotten over the past decade or two. Many never had a service job. If I were to give my “in the weeds” poll to everyone with political clout — I’d bet everything I own that only a few would know the waitress definition.

(…) To people with education and influence, “in the weeds” is something academic, about small, unimportant details. It’s the footnotes. It’s something you observe from the outside. To everybody else, “in the weeds” is something you experience. It’s something you feel. It’s your life.”

—Emily Guendelsberger, On The Clock: What Low-Wage Work Did to Me and How It Drives America Insane

[nudibranchiethoughts]

how are we all doing w anarchist library being shut down?

[nudibranchiethoughts]

i don't want people to "listen to me" because of who i am. my identity is only relevant insofar as it explains my interest in matters of oppression and my accumulated knowledge, informs my experiences and opinions, and illuminates the stakes i have in a conversation. it does not inherently grant me comprehension of a situation or phenomenon, and it does not automatically mean i'm right, even on topics that concern me. i don't want to be taken at face value; i want people to consider my argument and agree with it if it makes sense, not because of any type of innate authority. "you only listen to the people of color you agree with" is a very funny sentence, when you think about it. because that is, indeed, how opinions and beliefs work: people ingest information, analyze it, then decide if they agree with it. if they don't, they discard it. and there are good and bad reasons to discard someone else's position, obviously; but the point remains that this is how conclusions are drawn. liberal "identity politics" discourse (which is really representation politics, but this is a whole other topic) refuses to acknowledge that last point, but it has to: its logic crumbles when confronted with two people who share an identity but hold diverging political stances.

we are all epistemologically deficient when it comes to understanding how others experience structural barriers. women, for example, possess knowledge of simple facts relevant to their life as women that men unarguably cannot experience. this does not mean that men cannot access any knowledge about women's experiences or draw correct conclusions re:sexism. it simply means that they are methodologically limited in accessing one kind of knowledge: experiential knowledge, or what is colloquially referred to as "lived experience".

but the use of lived experience as the only analytical point of reference in political matters individualizes and essentializes the reality of oppression, which should instead be understood as systemic. what identity politics should do is give us epistemic access to otherwise private and personal experiences that are necessary in order to shape one's positions - people's lived experiences can contain invaluable and illuminating insight into particular manifestations of systemic inequality and axes of power. but, while lived experience can give one unique epistemic access in certain domains, it doesn't necessarily dictate the terms of structural oppression or make anyone of any oppressed group morally infallible.

the abuse of identity politics is harmful first and foremost to marginalized people: it puts them on a moral pedestal and expects them to be irreproachable while acting like only "privileged" individuals can hurt other people. our analysis should draw on marginalized voices to explain why some people are systematically subject to violence and economic subordination, but lived experience alone doesn't give us information on the character of every individual marginalized person, the morality of their actions, or the validity of their claims. creating a virtuous/vicious category to parallel oppressed/oppressor is profoundly condescending and dehumanizing. it also obscures the dynamics of power that also exists within and between oppressed communities.

recognizing the humanity in another human being (recognizing them as an equal!) includes acknowledging their capacity to act cruelly or immorally, and their potential to be wrong and make mistakes and draw incorrect conclusions.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

Choose your accomplices wisely. Liberals who read land acknowledgments often have too much invested in this system to actually see it change. Communists envision a system without a capitalist Canada, but they still want a communist state. One that will inevitably need to control land and exploit it. Find common heart with those who want to see the state destroyed, to have autonomous communities take its place, and to restore balance between humans and all our relations. Choose those who listen more than they talk, but not those who will do whatever you say and not think for themselves. They are motivated by guilt. Find those who have a fire burning in them for a more wild and just world. Most of them will be anarchists, but not all, and not all anarchists will come with a good mind.

- Reconciliation Is Dead: A Strategic Proposal

[nudibranchiethoughts]

Ⓐ WE WANT EVERYTHING! Ⓐ

We want all of the Earth to be free and no longer held captive by the specter of Capital that is currently destroying it. We want to reform our agricultural systems completely into something that is equitable and efficient, able to feed all; one that is sustainable and treats the Earth with respect and dignity; and one that treats livestock and animals we eat with respect and dignity, rather than leaving them to live horrible lives before they are slaughtered.

We want all nations to be free of the noose of imperialism that empires like the United States have spent decades or centuries tightening around their necks. We want indigenous lands to be returned to the hands of the indigenous peoples who lived on them and managed them successfully for thousands of years.

We want all industries to be placed in the hand of the workers, to decide how to run and what to produce democratically and equitably. We want to reform industry and factories to no longer pollute the Earth for profit, and no longer grind the laborers into dust with their unnecessary drudgery and indignity.

We want accommodations for disabilities of all varieties to be the social norm.  We want all mobility aids, medication, and medical treatment to be provided to those who need it free of charge. We want all people who cannot labor for their survival to be kept alive, comfortable, and with their dignity intact, knowing that they are valued for their humanity and not for what they can produce.

We want all prisoners freed, all the cages emptied, all prisons and police forces abolished, and to begin building alternatives to the Injustice System focused on rehabilitation and restorative justice for antisocial behavior, not focused on brutal punishment for punishment’s own sake.

We want all People of Color to be fully emancipated, to receive reparations, to rest easy at night knowing that white people have no power over them and will not be able to keep them from living their lives as they please. We, white anarchists and other leftists, want to learn to destroy racist social structures and cure ourselves of the disease of white supremacy, so that we will not brutalize or disrespect others in racist ways even on accident ever again. We want to decolonize our minds and our society, so that young people of color don’t have to grow up too fast to cope with the way the world treats people like them, so that they are not Othered and are not prevented from engaging in their cultures and presenting themselves and their bodies to the world in whatever way they so please.

We want all women to be fully emancipated from capitalist Patriarchy, to be full citizens of the world on equal ground with all other genders, to no longer be reduced to their reproductive capabilities or to sex objects, to no longer receive societal scorn and violence at the hands of men. We want to reclaim motherhood as a blessing for those who wish it and not a martyrdom for all who can give birth. We want to erase racism and transphobia from the Earth and from our minds so that our sisters will not have to suffer transmisogyny, misogynoir or any other racialized sexualization. We want to emancipate men from the poison of patriarchal conditioning and toxic masculinity, so that they can fully feel their emotions and connect as equals with their brothers and sisters in this life.

We want trans people, LGBT+ people, and queer people of all stripes to be fully free to be themselves and live their lives, looking and presenting however the hell we want, without fearing becoming the victims of violence and discrimination. We want to queer the culture to the point that straight/gay, trans/cis are no longer seen as strict binaries, so that all can be free to express their desires and their self-image however they want. We want HRT to be safely and freely available to all who need it. We want everyone to be able to marry whoever they please, and to adopt children if they please, regardless of their gender or sexuality. We want cops and corporations out of Pride. We want queer liberation for each and every one of us on the Earth.

WE. WANT. EVERYTHING!

And we’re not ashamed of that!

Each of these things will require a herculean effort on the part of unknowable multitudes of people to acquire. Each of them is something you may fight tooth and nail for your entire lifetime, and only see society progress in baby steps toward, if at all. Each of them is a demand that a liberal may tell you is noble but misguided, because obviously these things are too radical to be possible, and isn’t it better to keep an eye on optics and only demand things that are “reasonable” according to modern centrist liberals? A world where all these demands are met is so alien to ours that imagining it is virtually impossible. There are so many things that could go wrong between now and then, and when the forces of capital, the state, and low prejudice seem to hold such a monopoly on our entire lives, it’s easy to think that these things are impossible.

People thought the same about the divine right of kings. Just because it sounds excessive or impossible doesn’t mean it is, and when we surrender ground to only demanding “reasonable” things, we forget that we are in a struggle for the liberation of all humankind, not only a struggle for the next liberal reform -although some liberal reforms may be a goal worth pursuing in the short term, never take your eyes off that long-term goal! Once we achieve one short term goal on the path to fulfilling one of our demands, we celebrate the victory and then jump back into the struggle, because there is still work to be done, prisoners to be freed, chains to be broken, an Earth to save from climate disaster, a world to reclaim for us and for everyone who has suffered more than we have!

We have taken on a project of generations, passed to us from Marx and the first socialists, to stand in solidarity with the freedom fighters and revolutionaries who have been fighting to oppose the imperialist pigs taking their countries from them in our (white American, in my case) names. We contribute to this project not because the downfall of capitalism is a realistic 5-year plan, but because we believe a better world is possible, and because our consciences compel us to fight for that better world, even when the darkness of the current world seems overwhelming.

Don’t stop at demanding $2000. Don’t stop at demanding rent be frozen. Demand everything, and fight like hell to give it to your friends and your descendants.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

“I hope you live without the need to dominate, and without the need to be dominated. I hope you are never victims, but I hope you have no power over other people. And when you fail, and are defeated, and in pain, and in the dark, then I hope you will remember that darkness is your country, where you live, where no wars are fought and no wars are won, but where the future is. Our roots are in the dark; the earth is our country. Why did we look up for blessing — instead of around, and down? What hope we have lies there. Not in the sky full of orbiting spy-eyes and weaponry, but in the earth we have looked down upon. Not from above, but from below. Not in the light that blinds, but in the dark that nourishes, where human beings grow human souls.”

—

Ursula K. Le Guin, “A Left-Handed Commencement Address” (Mills College, 1983)

this passage planted itself in my consciousness when i was 24, and 10 years later, it informs so much of my approach to living, thinking, creating.

(via nostalgicfuturity)

[nudibranchiethoughts]

Nobody should have the power to institutionalize suicidal people against their will, even if the trade-off is potentially them committing suicide.

[nudibranchiethoughts]

The realm of mental health & recovery narratives is overwhelmingly controlled by assimilationist politics and capitalist-based needs. 

This controls and enforces the idea that anyone unable to preform normally or hide “unwanted”/”undesirable” symptoms should have their agency removed or be relentlessly and aggressively “fixed”.

This is persued without concern for the individuals desires or wants - removing, ignoring or questioning key aspects or experiences unrelated to their mental health. (E.G - “Can psychotic people be sure of the fact they’re transgender?”*).

There is no room within this kind of system for simply existing as someone with mental illness. It can only be talked about or thought of in tandem with fixing, hiding or controlling it, to benefit a capitalist machine that requires workers. 

*drawn from personal experience