#I think some of you really need to learn about parasocial relationships and reflect on it

[measuringbliss]

People are acting so weird and possessive of Markiplier for the whole OnlyFans situation. He's an adult. He's an adult who's been a celebrity for years. He knows people thirst on him. That's why he had this idea in the first place. He's not some naive kid you must protect. He's not some innocent soul that the evil sluts of Tumblr and Twitter will corrupt. He knows the Internet, he knows his fans and he knows his job.

He's an adult and he can make his own choices.

[captainbobbin]

Ask game, TerraIsa or XemSai/XemIsa?

Thats a tough question. 

(long answer under the readmore :p)

The way I see it, they're both very similar - its a venn diagram of sorts, not just because Isa/Saix is in the centre. And I don't think I can pick just one over the other, because they're kind of rooted into one another.

For me, if you're doing moonrocks (Terra x Isa) stuff and doing it with some attachment to canon (as in, it isn't an au that's really out there) realistically there should be some element of XemSai in there somewhere. For Terra and Isa to connect in a (semi)canon way, I think there's gotta be some form of acknowledgement of 'oh yeah, Terra and Xemnas overlap one another in some ways, and Saix was connected to one and now potentially the other'.

I've shipped XemSai since KH2 came out;;; I was always super super into it. But then DDD happened, and there was the big Xehanort/possession reveal, and it kind of made me look at the whole relationship like 'Oh, this is for sure onesided. Like there is a powerplay going on here that is way deeper than a simple boss/employee' kind of thing.

I still love XemSai - as I hope you can all tell by the things I draw and write ahahah but I see it as a pairing as something kind of indulgent, physical and ultimately somewhat unhealthy. Neither of them are people, neither of them canonically get an eventual happy ending with the other, neither of them have real emotions. So as a relationship it's kind of parasocial - there's a sense of use, of gain, of just getting by and having the other near as a means of temporary comfort. Sure, in time they could have grown hearts and learned to love, but a large aspect of both characters is tragedy. Saix has been screwed over time and time again and is continuously at a loss, always letting aspects of himself go to waste and be ruined by others. Xemnas wants to be many things, wants to understand the heart, wants to figure things out and remember what love is like - but he can't. The two of them together don't make a whole - its all just a temporary fix that helps them forget the worst of it. Thats not even getting into the fact that Saix was actively trying to take the Org down from within.

I'm currently writing a piece which kind of looks at the relationship under the lens of 'what is real and what is fake anymore? How much of this is an act, and at what point did I just begin to go along with things? Why does it not bother me that my plans have changed, and now I see myself reluctant to let this person go?' and I think that is something I really like about XemSai. The basis of it all is just. Surviving. Doing what you have to. Seeking out what you can when you have (and are) nothing. It isn't something that starts off nor ends nicely, in a way. Neither of them are people. Neither of them are good.

(In general, I just love writing XemSai stuff where there is an undertone of ‘oh this will not end well, but they just can’t help themselves. They are all they've got.’)

Terra and Isa, meanwhile, have room to grow. After so long of being separated into parts of themselves they're people again, able to reflect on mistakes and learn, form bonds that are actually real. They have flaws and may slip up from time to time, may need to reassess who they are as people, but now it is something genuine and without a sense of dread and distrust hanging over them. They both share a lot of attributes and can see themselves in the other - and the bond they have can be one that is realistic, organic, and healthy. Not just healthy - but healing. They can lean on one another without fear, face aspects of themselves they were unsure about, look at internal self-issues knowing that there is someone nearby that gets it. Amongst all the pain and darkness and past cruelty and possession between them, there is more of a sense of innocence to it all - they're both picking up pieces of themselves and trying to find how it all fits together, working out how to go forward, figuring out how their hearts have brushed against each other in the past.

That, and its post 3 - after reconsiling, after moving on a little, after having others nearby. They have people around them that want the best for them. The situation has changed and so have they. All around, things have improved and now they can improve themselves. Together, hopefully.

I think moonrocks has a more sweet sentimentality and an aspect of continuous improvement and gentleness where XemSai's flavor is darker, richer, and laced with an undertone of regret. I've joked before that Moonrocks is just XemSai with extra steps but there is far more to it than that. Terra is such a wonderful character that has so much more to him than is on the surface, and the separation of Saix and Isa is something I really enjoy delving into.

I love both and am gonna be continuing to make content about both :)

lmao sorry for the essay. tl;dr - both very very good for similar but different reasons and my life revolves around them both hahahha

(Obligatory link to my written work where I channel these kind of vibes teehee :p)

[ihavenothingtodo10220]

hey, common sense anon here, hope you are doing well!

i wanted your thoughts on why you think in modern society is obsessed with who has an audience and who doesnt? like why do mainly those who have an audience or following get the utmost attention both good and bad, yet someone like ourselves whos quite ordinary wouldnt be paid any attention unless we have to prove ourselves (as thats what it still feels like from school throughout adulthood) that we are having to either constantly chase someone for their attention or its people trying to garner the attention they want and i think itd got way out of hand to the point where society has lost track of themselves.

we can spend hours and days weeks or months oggling at the lives of others whilst feeling miserable that our life is not like theirs. im concerned that we are not progressing as people should be. so much is wasted babbling on whatever it might be that usually doesnt even concern the babbler themselves. why cant we separate our life from others and learn to be satisfied with where we are? its honestly so hard rn to not feel down in the dumps or behind or lost or stuck. yet someone else is always trying to outdo another being for what cause though? its just a separate lifestyle so why people got to make their own channels and put a character on? makes no sense to me.

its also not just rich and wealthy that rely on needing an audience or cult like fan base either. every other person snd their granny has to have some type of recognition and if we dont have such a thing why do we feel left out or behind in life bc theres always going to be someone younger than us, therell always be someone better than us st something or other so why does it matter at all in society how popular or how many cliques and internet groups where people have to belong somewhere or theyll be too much of an individual. if this makes any sense then please include your opinion!!

i think its such an issue nowadays with how many folk seek an audience and often at times i have caught myself feeling so inadequate or feeling miserable that im not receving much attention outside of relatives. its sad in a way that the world revolves around the way someone appears to be. and in my opinion even those who dont have a following wont amount to much bc in order to succeed nowadays people need some type of following be it online or elsewhere.

for ex the way society goes through trends faster than tissues or how people would only really be drawn to thode who are popular. if celeb dies its a big deal but if its ordinary person it gets overlooked or theyre life wasnt as significant :/

sorry for my rant again just been doing some thinking (again) thanks again in advance if you reply!

Honestly, this is a human thing rather than a nowadays thing I’ve found. We always want the things we see others having, and compare them to what we ourselves have at the moment. It’s like if you have siblings, how if you sibling got something nice you wanted something nice in turn. How people are always trying to be acknowledged and praised for everything they do. Though nowadays, with social media, this is definitely amplified by social media because we can now see all these things others are doing and want those things too. So it’s constantly people seeing others rising higher and higher and wanting to rise themselves. And frankly, we’re not evolved yet to deal with those things quite right. It’s like how 99% of people hate the way they look/are insecure. It’s because we’re not evolved to be used to seeing ourselves, as that ability is fairly new. Sure there were reflections in things like ice and water, but those aren’t clear and horribly skewed.

With celebs dying and things, it is sad that ordinary people get overlooked but also understandable. With celebs, you know at least of them, and have built a sort of parasocial relationship. With ordinary people it’s kind of like when you read history books about people who’ve been dead for hundreds of years. It’s very detached. Unless it’s truly brutal and gruesome, it just doesn’t feel the same as it would for a celebrity or someone in your life.

And again, the trends thing is very much something that’s a constant as well. Our sense of beauty is dependent on what you see the most. Trends change because you see one thing too much, and therefore you want the exact opposite. That, and it also reflects a culture’s values, predicament, etc. etc. trends changing reflect how we as a people are changing. Trends have always been rather fleeting in nature.

[monstermaster13]

TftW: A Hero For Weirdos Everywhere.

NOTE:

This is an origin story to Dan the Were-Aykroyd and how he became who he is, this story uses a horror anthology aspect to it to help get in the right mood. Featuring Dan Aykroyd as the title character and as himself.

Man lives in the sunlit world of what he believes to be reality, but there is unseen by most an underworld, a place that is just as real but not as brightly lit…a dark side. And with this dark side come morals we have to learn and we are about to learn that for ourselves, meet Daniel…or Dan, Dan was obsessed with horror movies and monsters, especially ones that could transform people, his dream was to be able to transform and he loved werecreature lore in particular, he often believed his co-workers had powers as well.

He worked at the Mystic Museum in Burbank, specifically as a character actor playing the part of a video store clerk, he had experience as a character actor because he had worked at Universal prior and was a big hit with the parkgoers for his upbeat personality, he was viewed as somewhat strange and unusual because of his interest and some even viewed him as crazy for believing monsters were real. But he knew for sure they were real, every night when he slept he heard voices speaking to him in his mind, one voice being that of his idol Dan Aykroyd. He loved Dan for embracing his weird side and he approved of it, he spent a great deal of time writing a screenplay for a project he was working on.

One evening he was sorting out the videos including the slasher movies when someone came up to him. 'Is it true you really did hear Aykroyd's voice in your head?' 'Yes, yes I do…' 'How?' 'I just do, I think it's telepathy.' Thomas Sheppard smirked and laughed at him…'You're telling me you believe in this stuff?' 'Oh yes, I do. Got a problem with that?' 'Why yes, you're a freak.' 'Being a freak is not something that should be condemnable.' 'To me it is.' 'Thomas, you are going to get it one of these days.'

"Really? Are you going to go all Carrie on me?"

"You are going to wish you never came here."

Thomas thought nothing of this…he lived to put people who were different down, but Dan looked over at him for a bit, he reached for him and grabbed by the shoulder…and suddenly as if he had been given super-strength, he threw Thomas onto the ground. 'Okay okay i'm sorry, hey…wait a minute, you weren't super strong before.' 'I don't know how I did it but…I did it, oh well…let this be a lesson to you.'

The overly confident athlete ran off, exiting the attraction and leaving him alone. 'How did you do that? Was that one of your special effects?' 'I don't think so, I don't believe getting superhuman strength was part of the sfx package.' He shrugged before going for a bit of a walk, and he then adjusted his uniform's badge in the mirror, and as he did something unusual happened.

His reflection shapeshifted in appearance, taking on the appearance of Dan Aykroyd himself only with long hair and an outfit resembling a cosplay of Bob from Twin Peaks. 'We sure taught Thomas a lesson, you should have seen him.' 'Hang on a minute, is my reflection talking to me?' 'I sure am, anyway…hi, i'm your inner Aykroyd. I know it may be hard to believe, but I am going to be your personal spirit guide. And to do this I am going to tell you that you are going to be one with me.'

"So are these what my powers are for?"

"Oh yes, you are going to be the hero this city needs."

'Me? A hero? Well the weirdos in this world need someone to protect them and that person will be mine.' 'That's what I like to hear.' Dan's inner 'Aykroyd' that served as his reflection, reached out for him and gave him some more of his attributes and powers, which of course resulted in his DNA altering, giving him paranormal attributes. 'You've heard of a parasocial relationship with your idol, how about a para-NORMAL relationship?'

A couple of hours later he started having visions, visions of turning into Dan Aykroyd in numerous ways, visions that included homages to David Lynch and David Cronenberg, and one such dream even had him looking in the mirror and seeing he had the same eyes as Aykroyd's character from Neighbors only as a Thriller homage too. He never understood why some people were afraid of the video when it came out, he also chuckled since he remembered being partially afraid of that video but now he loved it.

He remembered people having the same reaction to the Lou Reed music video 'No Money Down' in which a statue of Lou peeled its skin off to reveal a robot underneath, he understood that the reason Lou made this choice was because Lou didn't like music videos or having to be in one. He remembered how the song 'The Worms Crawl In' was creepy since it was essentially about what happens to your body when you die, or specifically if you choose to get buried, yet it was often labeled as a 'kids song'. 'Oh well, there's no wrong age to get into horror I suppose.'

An hour later he noticed something unusual when he looked in the mirror, he saw what appeared to be brown hairs growing on his arms, and he opened his shirt up a bit to reveal the same hairs growing on there as well, he noticed his arms and hands were broadening with a few crunching sounds which was always a bit disconcerting, his stomach also broadened a little as and he noticed that he was growing a bit taller, specifically to 6'1. He had a dream about this prior and he did understand how that went.

Dreams seldom make sense and there is a reason for it, sometimes…those dreams are real, he remembered reading a bunch of transformation tales and being upset by the loss of identity part of it, he thought it didn't make sense. He felt his rear for a little and blushed..he knew there were some people that had a thing for plus sized characters and he could use this to his advantage as his back broadened and his feet shifted in size, also two of the toes fused on each foot on the knuckle making him look like had webbed toes, an unique feature for sure.

His shoulders broadened a little bit as his hair darkened and his eyebrows thickened, his eyes widened, one turning from brown to green as the other remained brown and his features contorted taking on an Aykroydian appearance, his nose broadening as a cleft materialized in the middle of it, his voice shifted a bit…giving him a deeper voice and also eventually giving him Aykroyd’s voice and that is when he decided that if anyone is going to keep the strange and weird people of the world from being targeted it would be him.

When his transformation was completed, he was his new self…and he dubbed himself, Dan…the Were-Aykroyd, also known as the Aykroydian Knight, defender of the strange and unusual. He saw Thomas walking down the street and decided to get his own back on him by taking on a spectral form and entering his house before possessing him by going down his throat and turning him into a Were-Aykroyd like him.

After that he decided to leave Thomas’s body but Thomas remained as a were-aykroyd after that, but our hero’s work was not yet done. ‘You must find someone to share a body with and to protect.’ ‘I know who my choice is.’ Ae looked through the virtual database until he found someone named Monstermaster13 who was a Dan Aykroyd fan. ‘Perfect, he’s the one.’

And so with that, he used his powers to teleport himself over to where Nathan lived and used some of his abilities to communicate with him through telepathy and also through dreams and visions, these dreams and visions would lead to Nathan getting hooked on Dan Aykroyd and getting into the idea of wanting to do tfs into him, and the rest is history.

[etherrreal]

“the things you do for charity”

Pairing: kenma x gn!reader Genre: fluff Summary: kenma's always been a private person, but it was getting increasingly harder to keep his partner off his streams while you live together; so, he decided to join his two loves together for a 24-hour charity stream extravaganza. Word Count: 3,408 Warnings: some swearing, i suppose there are some spoilers from the manga about adult kenma's job? A/N: i'd give my left tit to play some minecraft or mario kart with kenma tbh -Luna

Kenma's career as a popular streamer was one of the many facets of him that shocked you when you’d started dating two years ago. The two of you had first met in an Animal Crossing discord for your city meant for trading and making friends.

After you had gone over to his island to adopt Raymond from him, he let you keep all of your Nook Mile Tickets with the stipulation that you kept in contact with him to "give him updates" about how the cat villager was doing in his new home. His dorky way of trying to flirt with you was what made you pursue him in the first place, and somehow it had led to a very fulfilling relationship.

It was revealed early on that he was a streamer, but he never expanded on it regarding the actual numbers. Curiosity got the best of you one night, and you decided to google him. Besides also learning that he was a YouTuber, you found yourself in awe at the numbers he managed to accumulate across all of his social media.

And if that wasn’t enough, he was also apparently the CEO of his own business.

Once you moved in together around the one-year mark of your relationship, you got to properly witness the amount of work put into streaming and maintaining a social media presence. This also meant that you got to read the wild comments that were left on all of his platforms–and see the occasional surprise nude picture whenever he opened up his DMs around you.

Because of this, Kenma sat you down to have a conversation about your potential appearance on his social media. You both decided by the end of it that his audience would get to know that he was in a committed relationship, but you agreed it would be best to not show your face or reveal any identifying information of yours.

It had been a year since having that conversation, and you’d both stuck to the agreement closely. The most his audience had ever seen of you was your hand whenever you refilled his water bottle for him.

Of course, it was hard sometimes, especially when you had to remain extra quiet around the house and refrain from yelling out a 'baaaabe' whenever you needed something from him, but since he had his own soundproof office, it lessened the room for any accidental error.

Overall, you were content with never showing your face to his audience for the rest of his career. You knew how nasty the internet could get because of their parasocial relationships with influencers and streamers alike, especially when they discovered those influencers and streamers had a partner who wasn't them, even if they knew they never had a chance. You weren't sure your skin was thick enough to deal with rabid angry stans.

Which is why it was so shocking when Kenma decided one day to nix the agreement.

You were in your shared bedroom answering some emails when he came in. He was dressed in a baggy hoodie, sweats, and tied-up hair; his typical look for a stream.

After some time, you noticed that he was still standing in the doorway, not saying anything. When you glanced up at him, you found him awkwardly toying with the strands of hair that had fallen out of his bun, looking down at the ground like he was just waiting for you to notice him.

"Is there something you need, baby?" you asked. "You're just standing there all adorably shy."

"Yeah, so, um, I'm going to be doing a 24-hour stream this weekend to raise money for charity."

"Oh, really? Cool! I guess that means I'll be going to bed alone that night," you joked.

"Yeah, I guess. Um..." He started before scrunching up his face like he was uncomfortable with what he planned to say next.

"What is it? Do you need me to stock up on snacks and energy drinks? Just send me a list. I can pick  them up tomorrow."

"No, that's not it. I was thinking of making a stretch goal be you coming on stream so we can play Minecraft or Mario Kart or something...I mean, I totally understand if you don't feel comfortable. I could always replace it with something else. I know they've been wanting to see me dye my hair a bright color and dress up like an e-boy, so--"

"Really!?" you nearly yelled.

"What? That they want me to dress like an e-boy? Yeah, Kuroo said it would–"

"No, I mean..." You tried to fight the confused expression that was growing on your face, but your squinted eyes gave you away. "You really want me on your stream? Like face and all?"

"....Yeah, I really want to be able to share this with you. But don't feel like you have to do it just to make me happy."

It was a large ask when looking at the full picture. Kenma had his fair share of fans and "stans" who lacked boundaries, as seen from a select few who visited your home several times this year, or the handful that found you on social media already just from seeing a glimpse of your college ring on the hand wrapped around Kenma's water bottle.

There could be a chance you could receive direct hate on your social media just because you were a person who dated a popular streamer. You would then be in the public eye with little privacy and have a magnifying glass on all of your actions and words. Anything you did would then reflect on Kenma.

What if you messed something up and then Kenma lost viewers? Would they try to cancel you or him for it?

You backed away from all the negative thoughts before you could spiral and looked at the metaphorical 'pro' column.

If you agreed to appear on his stream, you would no longer have to sneak around your house in fear of being heard or showing up in his face cam. You both wouldn't have to feel guilty playing games off-camera with each other because you knew Kenma could be streaming it instead.

And who knew? Maybe his fans would like you. You had to admit, it would be a nice ego boost knowing that you were accepted by so many people.

And, most importantly: you could physically ask him in person what he wanted for dinner instead of texting him and waiting an hour for a break so he could respond, while you sat in the next room, starving, stuck in an endless cycle of wondering whether you should make a snack or if you should just hold off for dinner.

Maybe this was a good idea.

"Okay,” you decided, “I'll do it."

"Oh... alright. Cool." Kenma was trying his hardest not to show how excited he was that you agreed. When he saw the contemplative look on your face, he was sure you would decide that it'd just be too much work and say no. But hearing you agree made him giddier than he would ever admit to.

Despite the cool and collected façade he thought he was putting on, you saw the smile that threatened to break through and the red tips of his ears. You wondered if he felt the same weight being lifted off his shoulders as you did, knowing that, after this weekend, you'd both be finally out as an official couple to the world.

And, of course, the nausea of having to do all of it live in front of thousands of people. No biggie.

Saturday afternoon came and at 12pm sharp, Kenma began his grueling 24-hour charity stream. The bar had an overall goal of $150,000, and it began filling up at a constant pace right from the start. Donations ranging from $5 to $500 were flowing in rapidly, and you were trying your best not to feel nervous.

You both agreed that if he reached $50,000 within 5 hours, you would join him for an hour or two of Minecraft later that night. Part of you hoped that the donations would slow down and plateau for a bit, but when you saw Kuroo had donated $1000, specifically with the message that he hoped to see you on stream soon, you realized that it was a pipe dream.

So, you had to be your own hype person for now, to get prepared to show your face to thousands of people and not disappoint Kenma.

Whether it was the promise of your face reveal or the people who genuinely adored charity, it took only four hours for Kenma to break $50,000.

When he saw the number update live on stream, the viewers witnessed the most amount of expression Kenma had ever shown: eyes wide as saucers, mouth slightly agape, body frozen. You could see the gears struggling inside his head struggling to turn and comprehend what they all managed to do so early on in the stream.

"Thanks so much, everyone, for being so generous today... I guess this means we'll be having my partner on later tonight," he announced. You watched his chat explode with excitement, his special emotes flying in the chat.

You picked up your phone to shoot Kenma a quick text.

[you]:: hope you're ready to put our minecraft beds together in front of thousands of people 😏

Unsurprisingly, he left you on read. But dating him for this long meant you weren't even a little bit afraid of double or triple texting.

[you]:: maybe we can kiss under the light of an exploding creeper 😫

[you]:: or have a romantic walk through our rainbow sheep while a phantom looms overhead 🥰

It was after the third text when you finally saw him pick up his phone to text you back. You eagerly awaited his response, only to cackle when you read it.

[my sugar daddy]:: im going to replace you with hinata as my partner if you dont stop

Instead of annoying him any further, you set your phone to charge on your nightstand and went into the bathroom to get ready for the stream later.

Once you emerged, you picked up your phone to check the percentage and noticed a text from Kenma stating that he'd have you on at 8pm. You decided to spend the time until then cooking up some dinner for the both of you.

It seemed like time flew by because by the time you were done eating your food, it was 7:45pm. Only fifteen more minutes before you were live in front of all of Kenma's supporters. You refilled your water bottle and sat on the couch, staring at the blank T.V. as you practically dissociated from reality until Kenma came out of his office to retrieve you.

You noticed that he looked just as nervous as you did, despite his face not showing it the way yours did. His shoulders were up to his ears with tension, and his hoodie drawstring was pulled almost all the way through due to him fiddling with it.

He turned briefly to you after he brought you into his office, gesturing to make sure you knew to wait until he gave you the cue. He sat down, unmuted himself, and took down the 'away' screen he had for his audience.

This was it. Everything was going to change in literally ten seconds.

"Well, everyone...please welcome my partner, (Y/N)."

You walked cautiously around his large gaming chair and sat next to him in your modest desk chair that he had rolled into the room for the occasion.

Okay, you thought to yourself, now don't fuck this up.

"Hi, everyone."

Nailed it.

There was a painful moment of silence before the stream finally caught up, and you both heaved a sigh of relief when you saw nothing but declarations of excitement. Amongst the 'AHHHs' and spam of emotes were sweet comments about your appearance and how cute you two looked as a couple. You peeked over at Kenma and saw the ghost of a smile on his lips, elated to know that he was just as relieved as you were.

"Okay, let's start with the gameplay while we answer some questions," he said.

The questions and gameplay started out mild; when did you both start dating, how did you meet, who asked the other out first. They even asked a few simple questions about you specifically, like your favorite anime and your star sign. And while you did see a few bans in the chat after some inappropriate questions –no, you will not tell them the color of your underwear– most were easy and simple enough to answer.

Then they started to get a bit spicier.

"Bokutoslefttit donated $69.69 and asked, 'what is your main pet peeve with Kenma?'" he read, muttering a 'wow' under his breath at the username.

"Ooh, how can I be polite when exposing you?" you pondered while beating a cow to death with your sword. "It's probably how loud he gets whenever he's playing games with his good headphones on."

"I don't get loud," he defended.

"Oh yeah, you do. I've had to come in here several times to tell you to shut up like I'm your mother. I did it literally two days ago when you were playing with Lev."

"... Next question."

You rolled your eyes at his lack of comment but glanced over at the chat to pull up a new question. You stifled a laugh when you read, "Girlboss420 asked 'who has a fatter ass, Kuroo or (Y/N)?'"

"I'm not answering that."

"Come oooon, this is a Q&A. Can't have the Q’s without the A’s."

"Nope."

You were about to start reprimanding him for implying that Kuroo's ass was fatter than yours when you noticed he ran past you with a group of pillagers following closely behind. You turned to head into the house but when you opened the door, you noticed it was blocked off by obsidian.

"You are the absolute worst!" you exclaimed.

You made a break for it, sprinting past the shooting pillagers and around to the front of the house. You made it inside with only 2 hearts to spare. You turned, in real life, to Kenma to see him tight-lipped to avoid smiling about his betrayal.

"I'm moving my bed downstairs for the rest of the stream."

You both carried on with the stream without another incident, turning to the chat every now and again to answer some questions. Kenma even apologized to you by bringing home a horse that was named "I'm sorry."

It was about an hour and a half after you sat down when Kenma decided that he needed a bathroom break. Your heart fell to your ass when you realized that you'd be all alone to entertain his chat. You considered saying that you needed to pee as well, if it meant not having the spotlight on you.

Instead, when he got up to pee, you smiled and asked him to bring you back a snack and a refill. Oh, how the turns have tabled.

In the meantime, you decided to scroll through the chat and some of the donations to pick out another question to answer since Kenma was gone. You were initially looking for a funny or vulgar comment when you saw one that had a completely different vibe.

"Kermithateblog donated $25.00 and asked, 'what's your favorite part about being with Kenma?' Wow, that's a really sweet question. Let me think for a moment."

You paused to reflect on your relationship with Kenma over the two years you’d been together. You'd had your fair share of highs and lows like any other couple, but, in the end, you both learned how to work things out so you were both equally as happy in the relationship.

"So, as you guys know, he's a busy boy with streaming, creating content for YouTube, and also being a CEO of his own company, which all takes up the majority of his time," you began. "But when he finally can shut off his screens and crawls into bed late at night, I know that he's 100% there with me at that moment. He is able to give me his undivided attention and make me feel like his love for me comes above his love for gaming."

You gave a pause, trying not to get too emotional. You rarely got the chance to gush about Kenma because you knew how much he hated having attention on him, so if this was going to be your only opportunity to do so for a while, then you were going to take it.

"What y'all don't know is that he is the biggest baby when it comes to cuddling," you laughed. "He is absolutely the little spoon most of the time, and he loves when I stroke his hair and love on him all night. In a weird way, it makes me feel special and loved knowing that he trusts me enough to be vulnerable with me. I cherish the amount of time we have together because of that."

What you didn't know was that he had come back from refilling your water bottle rather quickly and stood outside the doorway to hear your speech. His heart almost burst when he heard your tender words describing how he made you feel. He knew that you rarely got to hear how much those quiet moments at night meant to him because he was guarded with his feelings.

Which is why he started into the room on a mission.

You smiled as soon as you saw him. "Welcome back, babe, we were just talking about--"

He approached you swiftly and leaned down to press a gentle kiss on your forehead. You hardly even got to bask in the moment before he was pulling away, setting down your water bottle as he sat back down with his controller in hand like he didn't just expose to his audience how much of a softy he really was.

It was in that moment when you realized how glad you were that you’d decided to appear on stream because you'd be able to look back at that clip over and over again to relive the intimate moment.

Noon on Sunday came at last. Kenma would finally be free from the prison of his office. Not to mention he could finally get off his ass and stretch.

Between your official appearance on stream and the sign-off, you popped in a few more times to say hello to the chat when you brought him some snacks and drinks. You stayed up through most of the night, although you accidentally napped for a few hours during the dead of night which gave you a little boost in energy.

In the end, the stream was a monumental success. Kenma had even managed to blow past his goal of $150k and make it to over $200k, which meant that he'd be getting the full e-body makeover for his next week of streams.

By the time Kenma came into your bedroom after freshening up and having a small snack, you were already dead asleep with your laptop propped open to show his now offline stream.

He tip-toed around the bed quietly, closed your laptop, pulled the covers up and over your curled-up body, and slipped in himself. As he settled, he felt you shift and grab at his worn t-shirt, opening your eyes slightly just to confirm that it's him.

He pulled you against his chest tightly, his body finally able to relax. He was sure it wouldn't be too long before he completely fell out.

"That was more fun than I thought it'd be," he heard you utter quietly.

"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself." His fingers gently danced across your shoulder blades as you mushed your face into his clean shirt. "I can't believe we raised so much today so quickly."

"I'm so proud of you, baby. You worked so hard on this."

"I also donated $2000 anonymously to speed up the process," he mumbled sheepishly, pressing a gentle kiss on the crown of your head in hopes to lessen the blow of his secret.

It was quiet for a moment, and he wondered if he’d genuinely pissed you off before he felt the vibrations from your laugh against his chest.

"...I can't wait to ruin your hair, e-boy."

Written by: Luna

[arcticdementor]

There are three kinds of dissidents: (a) anons, (b) pundits who still care what people think, and (c) outsiders who DGAF. All these groups are great; real greatness can be achieved in any of them; and good friends I have in each. But each has its problems.

…

The problem with (b) is that you are always policing yourself. Not only do your readers never really know what you really believe—you never really know yourself. In practice, it is much easier to police your own thoughts than your own words. When choosing between two ideas, the temptation to prefer the safer one is almost irresistible. This is a source of cognitive distortion which the anons and outsiders do not experience. (Though anons do suffer something of the opposite, a reflex to provoke.)

As a pundit, you sense this stress in every bone of your body; you can never show it to your readers. This creates a deep dishonesty in the parasocial relationship between writer and reader—like a marriage that can never escape some foolish first-date fib. The falsity, like the blue in blue cheese, flows through and flavors every particle of your content. Neither you nor your readers can ever be sure whether you are speaking the truth, lying to them, or lying to yourself—but you are constantly doing all three. You may still be very entertaining—enlightening, even. All your work is ephemeral, and once you die only your relatives will remember you. And it’s not even your fault.

…

From my perspective, both the anonymous and official dissidents exhibit a kind of unserious frivolity, but a very different kind. The frivolity of the anon is imaginative, surreal and playful at best, merely puerile at worst. The frivolity of the pundit has no upside; in every paragraph he is breaking Koestler’s rule, and he knows it; the best he can do is to shut up selectively about the things he cannot write about.

And his mens rea, too, is awful. He is selling hope. He is selling answers. Pity the man whose life has brought him to the position of selling answers in which he does not believe, or which he is forced to believe, or which he must force himself to believe. However sophisticated and erudite he may be, he is just a high-end grifter. His little magazine is a Macedonian troll-farm with a PhD. He is lucky if his eloquent essays about the common good don’t appear above a popup bar peddling penis pills—and in fact, I know more than one brilliant scholar in precisely this bathetic position. The frame defines the picture; the context sets the price of the text. Sad!

Worst still must be the reality that bad punditry is worse than useless—since useless strategies for escaping from a real problem are traps. When you lead your readers toward an attractive but ineffective solution, you lead them away from the opposite.

You got into this business to change the world for the better. You cannot avoid the realization that you are changing it for the worse—because your objective function is that of Chaim Rumkowski, the Lodz Ghetto’s “King of the Jews.”

You exist to convince your own followers that they neither can nor should do anything effective. The easiest way to do this is to convince them that ineffective strategies are effective. And this, as we’ll see, is exactly what you cannot avoid doing, dear pundit.

Moreover, from our present position of profound unreality, where the official narrative shared and studied by all normal intelligent people and all prestigious institutions can only be described as a state of venomous delirium, the opportunities to play Judas goat are almost unlimited. Cows, remember: there does not have to be only one Judas goat.

…

A particular favorite of the pundit is the error that AI philosophers call the “first-step fallacy.” It turns out that the first monkey to climb to the top of a tree was taking the first step toward landing on the moon:

First-step thinking has the idea of a successful last step built in. Limited early success, however, is not a valid basis for predicting the ultimate success of one’s project. Climbing a hill should not give one any assurance that if he keeps going he will reach the sky.

When a vendor sells you the moon and ships you a rope-ladder, you’ve been defrauded. Time for that one-star review.

…

Today we’ll chart the edges of the legitimate possible by looking at three recent pundit essays which have done a fine job of exploring those edges, and maybe even expanding them: Richard Hanania’s “Why is Everything Liberal?”, Scott Alexander’s “The New Sultan”, and Tanner Greer’s “The Problem of the New Right.”

…

After reading Hanania’s essay, a fourth pundit (who is out as a radical conservative) asked me: why does the right always lose? “Narcissistic delusions,” I replied.

Which was far from what he expected to hear, or what most readers will take from the essay. All three of these essays are good and true; but their inability to go far enough leaves them pointing their audience in precisely the wrong direction.

Most readers will emerge feeling that conservatives need more and better narcissistic delusions. Indeed, both pundit and politician are right there with just such a product. This meretricious frivolity, posing as seriousness, is too egregious to leave unmocked; yet the right reason to mock it is to challenge it to assume its final, truly-serious form.

Richard Hanania and the loser right

Hanania’s true point—backed up with a ream of unnecessary, PhD-worthy evidence—is that the libs always win because they just care more:

…

Since the rebirth of conservatism after the revolutionary monoculture of World War II, all conservative punditry has consisted of attempts to create more excitement around policies and values which effectively resist the power of the prestigious institutions—giving “normal people” as much to care about as their fanatical, aristocratic enemies.

Sensibly, this tends to involve raising “issues” which actually seem to affect their lives, but which also run counter to aristocratic power. Over decades, the substance of these issues changes and even reverses; the opposite stance becomes the useful stance; and “conservative values” have no choice but to change to reflect this. (If this seems like a liberal way to rag on conservatives—the cons learned it from the libs.)

…

“New Right” is not Greer’s term, but as a label I can barely imagine a worse self-own. It promises something ephemeral and irrelevant. So far as I can tell, this same cursed label has been used in every generation of conservatism to mean something different. When it inevitably fails and dies, people forget about it, and the next generation, stuck in the eternal present of a Korsakoff-syndrome movement, can reinvent it.

Who reads the conservative pundits of the ‘80s? Even those who remember them have to throw them under the bus. Every generation of National Review twinks, solemnly intoning what they conceive to be the immortal philosophy of our hallowed founders, is horrified by its predecessor, and horrifies its successor—a truly bathetic spectacle. And of course, each such generation would utterly horrify the actual founders.

…

Greer then goes deep into David Hackett Fischer territory to explain the obvious, yet important, fact that this “New Right” consists of upper-class intellectuals (inherently the heirs of the Puritans, since America’s upper-class tradition is the Puritan tradition) trying to lead middle-class yokels (the heirs of the Scotch-Irish crackers, and (though Greer does not mention this) Irish, Slavs, and other post-Albionic “white ethnic” trash, today even including many Hispanics. He even gives us a clever historical bon mot:

Pity the Whig who wishes to lead the Jackson masses!

Uh, yeah, dude, that would be called “Abraham Lincoln.”

But the point stands. Not just the “New Right” with its new statist ideology, but the whole postwar American Right, is a weird army with a general staff of philosophers and a fighting infantry of ignorant yokels. How can this stay together? How can the philosophers bring forth a mythology that creates passionate intensity in the yokels?

…

There is wisdom in this madness, of course—the problem is caused by aristocrats whose minds are wholly given over to narcissistic delusions. Doesn’t it take fire to fight fire? Doesn’t it take passionate intensity? Isn’t passionate intensity generated only by myths, dreams, poems and religions, not autistic formulas for tax policy? So the answer is clear: we need more and better narcissistic delusions. Ie, shams.

After all, any “founding mythology” is a narcissistic delusion. The flintlock farmers and mechanic mobs of the 1770s, and the Plymouth Puritans of the 1620s, have one thing in common: none of these people even remotely resembles the megachurch grill-and-minivan conservative of the 2020s. None of them even remotely resembles you.

They did live in the same places, and speak sort of the same language. Otherwise you probably have more in common with the average Indonesian housewife—at least she watches the same superhero movies.

To Narcissus, everything is a mirror; in everything and everyone, he sees himself. No field is riper for narcissism than history, since the dead past cannot even laugh at the present’s appropriations of a human reality it could not even start to comprehend.

And fighting fire with fire is one thing, but fighting the shark in the water is another. For the aristocrat, transcending reality is a core competence. The essence of leftism—always and everywhere an aristocratic trope, however vast its ignorant serf-armies—is James Spader in Pretty in Pink: “If I cared about money, would I treat my father’s house this way?” Mere peasants can never develop this kind of wild energy: that’s the point.

Yet Hanania remains right about the amount of energy that a rational, Kantian agenda for productive collective action motivated by collective self-interest, or even collective self-defense, can generate. The grill-American suburbicon is like Maistre’s Frenchman under the late Jacobins: he has defined deviancy down to rock-bottom. “He feels that he is well-governed, so long as he himself is not being killed.”

O, what to do? When you are solving an engineering problem and see the answer at last, it hits you like a thunderbolt. The conservatives, the normal people, the grill-Americans, must accept their own low energy. They must cease their futile reaching for passionate intensity, whether achieved through Kantian collective realism or Jaffaite founding mythology. They must fight the shark on land.

Conservatives don’t care—at least not enough. Yet they want to matter. Yet they live in a political system where mattering is a function of caring—not just voting. Therefore, there are two potential solutions: (a) make them care more; (b) make systems that let them matter more, without caring more.

Conservatives have low energy. They want high impact—at this point, they need high impact. After all, once you yourself are being killed, it’s kind of too late. Any engineer would tell you that there are two paths to high impact: more energy, or more efficiency.

Conservatives vote but don’t care. If we don’t have a viable way to make conservatives care more—meaning orders of magnitude more—effective strategies and structures must generate power by voting, not caring. They must maximize power per vote.

…

Interference means voters who are on the same team are working against each other. Impedance means voters resist delegating their complete consent to the team.

Interference is like a bunch of ants pulling the breadcrumb in different directions. To eliminate interference, point all your votes at one structurally cohesive entity which never works against itself.

Impedance is like getting married for a limited trial period, so long as your wife stays hot and keeps liking the stuff you like. As Burke pointed out in his famous speech to the electors of Bristol, the fundamental nature of electoral consent is unconditional:

To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of Constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a Representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider.

But authoritative Instructions; Mandates issued, which the Member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgement and conscience; these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental Mistake of the whole order and tenor of our Constitution.

The cause of electoral impedance in the modern world is the conventional concept of “agendas” or “platforms” or “issues.” When you vote not for a cohesive entity, but for a list of instructions you are giving to that entity, you are not voting your full power. You are voting for Burke’s opponent, who felt “his Will ought to be subservient to yours.” In effect, you are voting for yourself. Narcissism once again rears its ugly head.

When you vote an agenda, you are granting limited consent to your representative. You say: I vote for you, for a limited time, so long as you stay fit and cook tasty dinners. I am actually not voting for you! I am voting for “reforms for conservatives” (Hanania). I am voting for “a broad set of shared attitudes and policy prescriptions” (Greer). Dear, I am not marrying you. I am marrying hot sex, regular cleaning and delicious meals—till ten extra pounds, or maybe at most fifteen, do us part.

You implicitly withhold your consent for anything not on your jejune list of bullet points. Then, you wonder why your representatives have no power and are constantly mocked, disobeyed, tricked and destroyed by people who are legally their employees. This is not political sex. This is political masturbation. You voted for yourself. And instead of a baby, all you got was a wad of tissues. Nice way to “drain the swamp.”

Your vote does not work because you are not voting, delegating, or granting consent. You are like an archer with one arrow who, afraid of losing it, refuses to let go of it. Without releasing his dart, all he can do is run up to the enemy and try to stab.

So if conservatives want to maximize the impact of their votes, all they have to do is the opposite of what they’re doing. Instead of voting for the okonomi a-la-carte stupid little political menus of hundreds of unconnected candidates and their staffs, they can all vote for the omakase prix-fixe chef’s-choice of a single cohesive governing entity.

Such a power, elected, has the voters’ mandate not just to “govern,” but to rule. When no other private or public force enjoys any such consent, no other force can resist. We are certainly well beyond “rule of law” at this point! On the inaugural podium, the new President announces a state of emergency. He declares himself the Living Constitution. In six months no one will even remember “the swamp.”

Wow! What a simple, clear idea! The engineer, when he comes across so compelling and obvious a design, knows there’s a catch: he won’t get the patent. Someone else must have invented it before. People may be stupid—but they’re not that stupid.

Indeed we have just reasoned our way to reinventing the oldest, most common, and most successful form of government: monarchy. And we are setting it against the second most common form, the institutional rule of power-obsessed elites: oligarchy. And to install our monarchy, we are using the collective action of a large number of people who each perform one small act: democracy.

The alliance of monarchy and democracy (king and people) against oligarchy (church and/or nobles) is the oldest political strategy in the book. The suburban conservative, who just wants to grill, either has no idea this ancient and trivial solution exists, or regards it as the worst thing in the world—even worse, possibly, than his sixth-grader’s mandatory sex change.

And why? Ask your friendly local Judas goat, the pundit. Even the “new right” pundit—who only differs in his policies and issues. Which are, true, slightly less useless. As the top of the tree is slightly closer to the moon.

The 20th century even came up with a handy pejorative for a newborn monarchy. We call it fascism. No word on whether Cromwell, Caesar, or Charlemagne, let alone Louis XIV, Frederick II and Elizabeth I, were fascists.

But, to borrow Scott Alexander’s charming term, also not his own invention, they were certainly strongmen. TLDR: if you want to be strong, elect one strongman. If you prefer to be weak, elect a whole bunch of weakmen. Do you prefer to be weak? “If the rule you followed brought you to this place—of what use was the rule?”

The pundit reassures you that you don’t need a strongman to be strong—you’ll do fine with weakmen—so long as those weakmen have the right “shared attitudes and policy prescriptions.” By the way, here are some attitudes I’m happy to share with you. Click now to accept cookies. Did I mention that I have policy prescriptions, too? Skip ad in 5 seconds. Congratulations, you’ve been automatically subscribed! Check the box to opt out of most emails—void where prohibited by law—terms and conditions may apply…

…

An odd sort of pundit, who remains only nominally anonymous but has always very much GAF, Scott Alexander does not have Hanania’s cagey diplomatic noncommittal. As a “rationalist,” he is deeply committed to his own class status, and to oligarchy itself—which, like most, he misidentifies as “democracy.”

While the whole raison d’etre of the rationalist is the irrationality of our oligarchy, as displayed in genius moves like refusing to cancel regularly-scheduled airline flights to stop a Holocaust-tier pandemic, the rationalist’s dream is a rational oligarchy—using Bayes’ rule, which given infinite computing power will become infinitely intelligent—in Carlyle’s immortal phrase, “a government carried out by steam.”

Obviously, this is not just logical—it immunizes the rationalists from the scurrilous charge of “fascism,” or worse. And they were right about stopping the flights. So was my 9-year-old. Sadly, in a world of universal delusional delirium, rationality can get quite pleased with itself by clearing quite a low bar.

My view is that no government can be or ever has been carried out by steam—only by human beings—a species the same today as in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, if possibly a little dumber on average—and this will remain the case until some computational or genetic singularity occurs. For neither of which events will I hold my breath. This is why I find it easy to picture 21st-century America under the phronetic monarchy of an experienced and capable President-CEO, and almost hilariously impossible to picture it under a Bayesian bureaucracy of polyamorous smart-contracts.

Alexander disagrees. Here is his analysis—the same text that Hanania quotes. Let’s go through it thought by thought, and see if we can’t turn it into some delicious carnitas.

…

Let’s get back to those “elites.” Alexander conflates three quite orthogonal concepts in his use of the word “elite”: biology, institutions, and culture.

Elite biology is high IQ, which is genetic. Elite institutions are any centers of organized collective power—Harvard, the Komsomol, the Mafia, etc. Elite culture is whatever ideas flourish within elite institutions.

Destroying biology is genocide—specifically, aristocide. Destroying institutions is… paperwork. Who hasn’t worked for a company that went out of business? Same deal. And if the culture is the consequence of the institutions, different institutions (with the same human biology) will inevitably nurture different ideas.

The SS was anything but a low-IQ institution, yet it propagated a very different culture than Harvard. 21st-century Germany is anything but a low-IQ country, but the ideas of Kurt Eggers do not flourish in it. It seems that high-IQ institutions can be destroyed—and the new “elite culture” will be the culture of the institutions that replace them.

So the only target is the institutions. There is nothing “nasty” about closing an office. In the worst possible scenario, the police need to clear the building, lock the doors, and impound the servers. Such tasks are well within their core competence, and can be performed with calm professionalism. They will probably not even need their zip-ties.

…

For democracy to be effective in such a situation, it must know its own limitations. It can seize the reins—but only to hand them to some effective power. This power must have one of three forms: an existing oligarchy, a new monarchy, or a foreign power.

Also, there are three classes in an advanced society, not just two: nobles, commoners, and clients. Since clients support their patrons by definition, once nobles plus clients outnumber commoners, the commoners have permanently lost the numbers game. This is why importing client voters is a recipe for either civil war or eternal tyranny—if not both.

…

Yes. This is what happened in denazification, except with monarchy and oligarchy reversed. For example, all German media firms today are descendants of institutions created, or at least certified, by AMGOT. Nothing “organic” about it.

The essential problem with Alexander’s picture of this process is that, since like most smart people today he inhabits Cicero’s great quote about history and children, he simply cannot imagine replacing one kind of elite institution with another. Nor can he imagine high-IQ elites—human beings as smart as him—which are as loyal to a new sane monarchy as today’s elites are loyal, slavishly loyal, to our old insane oligarchy. Does he think that Elizabeth’s London had no elites? Caesar’s Rome?

If Alexander was analyzing the Soviet Union in the same way, he would conclude that elites are inherently devoted to building socialism for the workers and peasants. Since the present world he lives in is all of history for him, he cannot see the general theory which predicts this special case: elites like to get ahead. To genuinely change the world, change what it takes for elites to get ahead.

If the elites are poets and their only way to get ahead is to write interminable reams of “race opera,” as my late wife liked to put it, the floodgates of race opera will open. If the elites are poets and their only way to get ahead is to write interminable reams of Stalin hagiography, Stalin will be praised to the skies in beautiful and clever rhymes.

…

There are two big strawmen here. Let’s turn them into steelmen.

First, “the populace uses the government” is non-Burkean. The populace (not all of it, just the middle class) installs the government. Then it goes back to grilling. So long as the commoners have to be in charge of the regime, and the commoners are weak, the regime will be weak. They need to “fire and forget.” Otherwise, they just lose.

Second, Alexander has clearly never heard of the atelier movement. No, this is not the same thing as your grandma in front of the TV copying Bob Ross.

What happens is this: every (oligarchic) art school and art critic no longer exists. Not that they are killed, of course. Just that their employers are liquidated (not with a bullet in the neck, just with a letter from the bank). They exist physically, not professionally. They were already bureaucrats—they had careers, not passions. Who gets fired, but keeps doing his job just for fun? Certainly not a bureaucrat.

And every (oligarchic) artist no longer exists—not that they are killed, of course. Just that the rich socialites who used to buy their stuff got letters from the bank, too. Libs sometimes talk about a wealth tax—a one-time wealth cap, perhaps at a modest level like $20 mil, will concentrate the rich man’s mind wonderfully on actual necessities.

Elites like to get ahead. The people who got ahead in the oligarchic art scene can no longer get ahead by doing shitty, bureaucratic, 20th-century conceptual art. Because there were so many of them, and because the demand for this product has dropped by at least one order of magnitude if not two, elite ambition is replaced by elite revulsion.

The enormous supply-and-demand imbalance for both art and artists in 20th-century styles leaves these styles about as fashionable as disco in 1996. “Paintings” that used to sell for eight figures will be stacked next to the dumpster. “Artists” once celebrated in the Times will be teaching kindergarten, tying trout flies, or cooking delicious dinners.

Inevitably, some of these people have real artistic talent. (The first modern artists had real talent—Picasso was an excellent draftsman.) They can go to an atelier and learn to draw. They will—because now, acquiring real artistic skill is a way to get ahead in art. And again, elites like to get ahead.

…

There is nothing “normal” or “natural” or “organic” about oligarchy. Does Alexander think “uncured” bacon is “organic” because, instead of evil chemical nitrates, it uses healthy, natural celery powder? He sure is easy to fool. But who isn’t?

Culture and academia is already yoked to the will of government in a “heavy-handed manner”—yoked not by the positive pressure of power, but the negative attraction of power. When the formal government defers to institutions that are formally outside the government, it leaks power into them and makes them de facto state agencies.

Power leakage, like a pig lagoon spilling into an alpine lake, poisons the marketplace of ideas with delicious nutrients. Ideas that make the institutions more powerful grow wildly. Eventually these ideas evolve carnivory and learn to positively repress their competitors, which is how our free press and our independent universities have turned our regime into Czechoslovakia in 1971, and our conversation into a Hutu Power after-school special. PS: Black lives matter.

The paradox of “authoritarianism” is that a regime strong enough to implement Frederick the Great’s idea of “free speech”—“they say what they want, I do what I want”—can actually create a free and unbiased marketplace of ideas, which neither represses seditious ideas nor rewards carnivorous ideas. But it takes a lot of power to reach this level of strength—and it requires liquidating all competing powers.

I have never been able to explain this simple idea to anyone, even rationalists with 150+ IQs who can grok quantum computing before breakfast, who didn’t want to understand it. Ultimately it reduces to the painful realization that sovereignty is conserved—that the power of man over man is a human universal. (Also, we all die.)

No surprise that nerds who think of power as Chad shoving them into a locker can’t handle the truth. PS: I went to a public high school as a 12-year-old sophomore, was bullied every day for three years, and graduated college as a virgin. Whoever you are, dear reader, you are not beyond hope. You can handle the truth.

…

And yet: Alexander’s post is about Erdoğan—and his description of Erdoğan is spot on. It also is a perfect description of Orban in Hungary; it applies to Putin in Russia and Xi in China; and it is even pretty accurate for Hitler, Mussolini and friends.

What all these “strongmen” have in common is that they are provincial. Turkey is not exactly the center of the world. Even 20th-century Germany was nowhere near the center of the world, though it could at least imagine becoming that center. If Turkey just disappeared tomorrow, no one would have any reason to care except the Turks. Who needs Turkey for anything? What would collapse—the dried-apricot market?

Erdoğan’s problem is that he cannot vaporize the oligarchy, because the institutions that matter are not in Turkey. The provincial strongman has no choice but to follow the “populist” playbook that Alexander describes so well.

Orban can kick Soros’s university out of Hungary; he cannot do anything at all to Soros, let alone to the global institutions of which Soros is only a small part. He is indeed “arrayed against” these institutions, to which his Hungarian elites (who speak nearly-perfect English) will always be loyal. The contest is unequal and has only one possible winner, though it can last indefinitely long. Even Xi, whose country can quite easily imagine becoming the economic center of the world, is a provincial strongman—in fact, he sent his daughter to Harvard. Sad!

In a global century, the only way for these provincial strongmen to develop genuine local sovereignty is to go full juche. This is simply not possible for Hungary or Turkey, both of which are firmly attached to the cultural, economic, and military teat of the Global American Empire. Indeed it is barely possible for North Korea, a marsupial nation still in China’s pouch. So Alexander is right: these “strongmen” cannot win. Their regimes will all go the way of Franco’s. It’s impressive that they even survive.

Erdoğan simply has no way to attach his best citizens to his own regime. They are citizens of the world. Elites always like to get ahead. If you’re a world-class talent in anything, why would you try to get ahead in Istanbul? Suppose you want to make a name as the world’s greatest Turkish writer. Succeed in New York, then come home. Turkey is a province; provinces are provincial.

Yet I am not a Turk or a Hungarian, and neither is Scott Alexander. The greater any empire, the more essential that its fall begin at the center. The Soviet empire did not fall from the outside in; it was not brought down from Budapest or Prague; it fell from Moscow out.

And the American empire will fall from Washington out—though that may not happen in the lives of those now living. And although nature abhors a vacuum and no empire can be replaced by nothing—and oligarchy, in the modern world, can only be replaced by monarchy—the “strongman” of this monarchy will not look anything like these mere provincial dictators.

…

The result of Alexander’s perceptive calculations, which are only wrong because their only input data is the present, is simply that our present incompetent tyranny is and must be permanent. Of course, every sovereign regime defines itself as permanent. Yet when we look at the past and not just the present, we see that no empire is forever.

Some grim things are happening in America today. These grim things have a silver lining: they expose the gleaming steel jaws of the traps that the aristocracy sets for its commoners. They remind the cattle that a goat is not a cow and a baa is not a moo.

Every pundit is a Cicero. And amidst all the greatness of his rhetoric, Cicero could not imagine a world that had no use for Ciceros—a world governed by competence, not rhetoric. By the time Caesar crossed the Rubicon, nothing had failed more completely than the whole Roman idea of governance by rhetoric—an idea many centuries old, an idea whose execution had beaten all competitors to capture the whole civilized world, but an idea that was past its sell-by date. Rome herself was no longer suited to it. The republican aristocracy of Rome no longer meant Regulus and Scipio and Cincinnatus; it meant Milo and Clodius and Catiline. Its factional conflict was the choice between Hutu Power and Das Schwarze Korps. Caesar was not a disaster; Caesar was a miracle.

In the death of the American republic, every detail is different. The story is the same. The contrast in capacity between SpaceX and the Pentagon, Moderna and the CDC, Apple and Minneapolis—between our monarchical corporations, and our oligarchical institutions—is a dead ringer for the contrast between the legions and the Senate.

The sooner we stop pretending that this isn’t happening to us, the better results we can get. Wouldn’t it be nice to get to Caesar, Augustus and Marcus Aurelius, without passing through Sulla and Marius, Crassus and Spartacus? Alas, from here and now it seems unlikely. But I can’t see why every serious person wouldn’t want to try.

[caden]

bluring out OPs name bc i genuinely dont wanna start drama or make it seem like im trying to get into an argument (if I did i would just reblog from them). what i’m about to say is maybe less a direct response to this post and more a response to the type of media criticism this post is promoting. 

First off, no, the movie absolutely does NOT depict him as a good father. He views his kid as a prize to be won in the divorce, not an individual with their own wants and needs. Escaping that toxic mindset is, like, the essential core of his character’s arc. His character is portrayed as a selfish, aggressive, borderline manipulative asshole who made (and continues to make) a series of bad decisions. And this isn’t in a charming way, it’s clearly portrayed as a harmful facet of his masculinity that he MUST OVERCOME. 

Honestly, this must be a fucking exhausting way to consume media. like when people on here say to start critically analyzing the movies and television you watch, they don’t mean “research the details of the creator’s life so that you can then cast harsher judgement on their work”. They mean look WITHIN the work and try to discern its messaging. Try to actually think about what it’s saying. In the case of “Marriage Story”, the messaging could be pretty uncontroversially interpreted as:  “All couples do and say horrible things to one another, which is bad but also to some extent unavoidable in a serious relationship. However, men tend to have unique powers and privileges in a marriage, so their toxic tendencies can have more tangible consequences: they can strip away their partner’s agency and sense of identity. During the process of divorce, their partners often reclaim their power to make decisions and take control of their own lives in a dramatic way, which leaves the men confused and hurt. But male self-pity won’t do anything to improve the situation. You must learn to empathize with your partner in divorce and start treating them like a human being, even if you couldn’t while married. If a child is involved, you need to also treat that child like a human being, not a bargaining chip. Basically, men, stop feeling sorry for yourself and start just having empathy, and your relationships will all get much much better.”

It manages to do this without making either of the main characters look like horrible irredeemable monsters, because... if it did that... the movie would be unpleasant to watch, and the core message would be hugely undercut. I literally really really struggle to understand how you could watch this movie and have your take-away be “this was probably just some gross, cynical attempt by the director to make in-fiction excuses for his real life bad behavior”. But even if it was, honestly, who cares? If that was his goal, he failed. And it doesn’t really matter that he failed, because he succeeded at unintentionally delivering a much more profound and positive message. 

Artists will create work that reflects their real life experiences. That is a necessary ingredient in telling compelling stories. However, that doesn’t mean that we, as the audience, need to treat those experiences as if they’re the essential nugget of truth within the story.  If we want to abolish the toxic elements of celebrity worship, the toxic nature of parasocial relationships, etc, we HAVE to start viewing art as more than just a window into the lives of its creators. This approach to media criticism will not only keep you from being able to possibly enjoy any work of art you consume, but also from being able to critically engage with any work in the first place. 

I know that the post isn’t that deep, and I’m also NOT saying that an artist being a shitty person can NEVER have an effect on the work. It can have profound effects on their work, and on an individual basis I can also understand boycotting a creator specifically because they’re gross or problematic. But it especially bothers me in this instance because the condemnation of the AUTHOR comes off as a cynical attempt to condemn the work-- when, in reality, the thing that we’re condemning ABOUT the author is also DIRECTLY condemned by the work itself. 

I really don’t think this is TOO much of a crazy big-brain take. I’m not arguing for total death of the artist, just... not... total death of the art, either. 

[afriendtokilltime]

Okay, fine. Let’s talk about parasocial relationships.

The term “parasocial” has been making the rounds as a very very smart sounding thing to say. It not only establishes that you know an unusual and complex word, but also that you are too smart to fall for marketing tactics, and that you are much too cool to show enthusiasm for anything!

So, what’s a parasocial relationship? It’s a one-sided relationship with a celebrity or fictional character--the entire relationship takes place in your head. You’re reading this on tumblr, which means you have lots of parasocial relationships. You’re very parasocially popular! Maybe you even have one with me. (Probably not, I stopped posting for a long time, so we probably don’t parasocially know one another at all.)

I first encountered this term being used as an inherently bad thing, something to avoid, as though the term referred to the negative version of itself. What I saw was not people explaining why it can be harmful, but speaking as if we all know it is (the way you’d use “alcoholism”).

I see people carefully watching themselves to make sure they aren’t engaging in a “parasocial relationship,” or referring to a behavior they don’t like as “borderline parasocial relationship behavior.” But, there is no such thing as “relationship behavior” other than closing the psychological distance between yourself and another person. “Parasocial relationship behavior” is doing this, but it’s one-sided. You get closer, and they do not. That’s it. That’s the only thing. Does that mean building a shrine to Kristen Stewart? Does it mean crying with joy at Hbomberguy’s Mermaids/Donkey Kong stream? Does it mean writing a 100k fanfiction about Hermione Granger, Vampire Slayer? Does it mean buying a David Bowie CD? Does it mean begging the show writers to finally make that queerbaity relationship canon? Does it mean killing the president? You decide! 

Becoming psychologically closer to people and characters is not inherently unhealthy, whether they know who you are or not. How you treat them and respond to that closeness, and how they choose to cultivate closeness, can of course be unhealthy...but so can reciprocal relationships.

What’s weird to me is that we generally seem to be aware that there are bad and good (healthy and unhealthy) relationships. I have a good relationship with @randomshoes because we support each other, are interested in each others’ success, spend quality time together, and communicate well. If I was to stalk her or kill a president for her, or if she was to abuse my trust and take all my money while falsely assuring me she loved me, our relationship would be somewhat less healthy. 

So, what’s so bad about parasocial relationships?

They don’t actually care about you and they are taking your money.

If a marketing team/a celebrity uses these relationships to prey on vulnerable people, that might be an abusive relationship...in the other direction. If I manipulate a friend I know out of her money, I’m the bad guy, right? But if I’m famous, and she’s 16, and I knowingly manipulate her out of her money, then she’s the bad guy, because teenage girls are dumb and they should feel bad for ever liking anything, forming identities, feeling attraction, or basically being uncool and childish in any way.

It is definitely a good idea to remember that transactions are a part of how art is usually consumed, and not to express your affection or deep identification with an art/artist by spending lots of money on tee shirts that depict them. However, even this type of interaction can be encouraged in a healthy, positive way.  Patreon seems to really make people mad, but it’s not the worst system for artists who Live in A Society and don’t happen to have any lembas laying around. “I’ll pretend to love you so you can make me a millionaire” seems kinda gross but “I appreciate that your support helps me continue making the art you love” kinda sorta does not.

Some people go too far and commit heinous crimes because they expect their parasocial affections to be reciprocated.

Those crimes would be heinous even in an already reciprocal relationship. (I  already mentioned this, but if I committed terrorism for my very real girlfriend who knows exactly who I am, that would probably make me no better or worse than Hinkley.)

You’re an isolated loser and need real friends.

Okay. Anybody pouring all their energy into one relationship is probably not doing life correctly, regardless of how parasocial that relationship is. But this is a point on which I simply do not agree. People engage in these behaviors regardless of how wide their friend circle is. If not with celebrities, then with fictional characters, or even historical or political figures (think more “little father” than “senator” though what you do with that Bernie Sanders picture in your room is between you and God). Oh speaking of God, relationships with religious figures might arguably have some similarities and speak to the same human tendency, but there is of course the difference that Justin Bieber doesn’t know who TF you are, but God does.

Uh, sorry, you didn’t address my point. Forming parasocial relationships stops you developing real relationships.

I actually think it encourages reciprocal socialization. I didn’t have many friends growing up. When I met two other kids who were obsessed with Harry Potter, we bonded over that, making up our own characters (next generation type of BS...still better than the book 7 epilogue), and this formed the basis of a friendship that lasted basically my entire pubescence. These parasocial relationships are generally part of a broader interest, and interests and hobbies help you meet people, break the ice, and uhm...form real relationships.

It’s not just interests, though. I was hardcore into dinosaurs as a kid. Literally every child likes dinosaurs, but that didn’t help me form any new friendships. The other reason I think parasocial relationships lead to better real relationships is...practice. You are engaging in social behaviors, whether or not you’re any good at them, whether or not you succeed. This is what’s required to learn any new skill, but it’s generally discouraged.

You don’t just learn about how to socialize, you also learn about yourself. You develop a sense of identity and learn what you like and dislike by associating yourself with favorite characters.

Children and teens often imitate their behaviors, and though that can be a bit annoying (why yes I do have the Spanish Inquisition sketch memorized but thanks for repeating it to make sure I got it), it also helps them figure out what kind of people they want to be (maybe you want to be funny, so you over time learn that what made Monty Python so funny was surprise, surprise and fear, and you develop comedic timing). Knowing what kind of person you want to be is important.

Right, but it’s selfish. You keep calling it “one sided” which it literally is. There’s no checks on your behavior.

Right. I think that’s good, though? I think it’s good for people to sometimes do selfish things. I think it’s good to cultivate parasocial relationships because they are a way to self-soothe, and get your own needs met, without burdening others. We are social creatures, and we absolutely need relationships, but nobody owes you a relationship. Nobody owes you affection or love. Having a way to cultivate that for yourself is actually incredibly valuable.

It’s worth commenting here that I think my strongest parasocial relationships are probably with characters I’ve made up myself. They are “a part of me” in that they are always there in my life, but unlike some writers, I do not base characters on myself or see them as reflecting specific parts of me. I relate to them in the same way I relate to Harry Potter, except that I was the one who made them up initially, and books I write about them can be published and I can make money off them. (On some theoretical plane of existence.) It’s pretty clear that I am the one doing all the work on both sides of this particular parasocial relationship, but it doesn’t feel super different to me than the fact I very intensely relate to certain characters not made up by me. I don’t conceive myself dating one of them, like I don’t have a Dorothy L. Sayers thing going on, but I don’t really think it would be wrong if I did.

What do you mean not being a burden on others? What about toxic fans putting pressure on creators?

Yeah...that’ll be in the “unhealthy relationship” category. But, okay, I guess where I am ending up here is I do think it’s good to recognize parasocial relationships exist and talk about them, because it reminds you that even if a relationship is not reciprocal, you do have responsibilities. If the other person is real, that means they are only human, and even if you have no choice but to stan, you should give them some breathing space. The Shinji Ikari ContraPoints in my head can be my super close friend, but if I expect the real Natalie Wynn to give me any more energy than she already does to her entire audience by making the awesome videos I enjoy so much, I’d be really rude, demanding, and honestly not worthy of her friendship if it was “real.”

Parasocial relationships are relationships which means, just like with reciprocal ones, you have to not be a dick. You have to respect the other person and recognize they are a human being separate from you. Even with characters, Harry Potter can’t be hurt by anything weird and demanding you do, but Rowling could, and so could other HP fans, so respect is still important. If it’s not already clear, I strongly disagree with people who suggest fanfiction is disrespectful, so.

If you understand that your relationship is abstracted, and that you do not deserve any kind of reward for all the energy and love that you pour into it...then enjoy your parasocial relationship, because it is absolutely normative, human, and can bring great joy and meaning into your life. In fact, almost all of what I just said applies to reciprocal relationships, too.

[energyanon]

(Kinda long post ahead sorry)

Really hoping next year will be a better year for Henry, im tired of this non-personal-cold interaction he has going on. Yeah he fucked up and made a whole mess of a lot of things, but idk. Drama like this happens every time he gets a gf so this obv wont be the last time.

I wish the fans would stop setting themselves up for disappointment every freaking time he gets a new gf. Like cmon, most of u r grown women, yall should not be making hate pages on instagram about his gfs and making him the victim every time and perhaps use ur brains and start questioning his actions and intentions instead. (@ the fandom not u)

It makes us look like one of those obnoxious kpop fandoms that get wild over the smallest rumors. I wouldnt even be surprised if Henry thinks his fandom is a joke given that hes barely posted anything personal this year (dont blame him but still?, just shows the drama and everything has affected him mentally) and that his co-stars and ppl he knows irl probably thinks his fandom is immature too

All i ever want from him is more nerdy laid back stuff or just sharing his hobbies in general (though i think his only hobby is gaming & working out?, but like thats enough for me (i love gaming too). Fans would eat that shit up! No matter if they dont even like his hobbies, theyll take anything! Deadass

Hes shown he can do it with the PC build that caught a lot of attention. Man literally went viral. He should just relax and be himself more, but i feel like there is something stopping him, maybe not a person, but his mental state.

(Btw i enjoy ur acc, ur seem rly nice, tho i was kinda OOF by the aries post bc im an aries too 😂)

The HC fandom certainly has a trend from what i've seen of just straight up not liking his GF's, and that can be said for all of them, not even the problematic ones. It's just going to be the case from here on out, I don't think things will really change for the people that are apart of the continued cycle (and that isn't EVERYONE before people bite my face off, it's certain people who have a trend of hating every single one and still slagging them off, like on certain forum sites etc) but even if he dates mother theresa, there is going to be an issue cause it seems that with HC people create a more intense parasocial relationship probably because he does date relatively normal women and therefore is attainable? Idk, but I don't think it will change. Once again, that's not the entire fandom, but you can't deny there is a trend with quite alot of people within the HC fandom. I also would love to see more of his interests cause he was actually kinda fun and goofy when he was more himself. Even when he's near Sam Claflin he is really enjoying himself when he's usually just a bit dry tbh. I wonder why he has decided to stray from that. I know the MT thing is DG's influence, but that doesn't mean you need to hide the rest of yourself.. Also, Sorry Babe, My whole inbox is full of "an Aries has PERSONALLY ATTACKED ME" so maybe it's just the sun sign of some firey people heheh, but, I do have to say the rest of the aries that have contacted me have had methods of self reflection and seem like pretty good people, so I think that it's more that we're bringing afflicted aries' into our life in order to learn something. I read somewhere that we tend to draw certain signs into our life at times that we need to learn something that those signs specialise in, and I am currently in my Aries' phase of people. They're both the exact same people two and it's causing me alot of strife where one I finally broke off with and now the second is alot harder cause they're just always there and no matter how much I ignore they always will be, so I'm trying to find out what it is about them that I need to learn through the pain if that makes sense. So all signs are a blessing. That being said - also someone I thought was a Taurus (they're just on the cusp, and very much more Taurus traited than they are Aries) turns out that they actually are Aries, and although she does have some :\ traits, she is also Super loyal, and super fierce, and loving and giving. So there are good Aries out there for sure, I think it may just be a sign where, if you're drawing from the dark part of it, you're gonna burn the people around you, and if you're drawing from the good part of it, you're gonna be probably the best friend anyone has ever had. Which is where you can draw comfort from Anon cause you sound like you got the good parts :) That can be said for the rest of the signs btw. But it seems like hell hath no fury like an Aries scorned 😈

[mysticdragon3md3]

Ruminating on how I let antis trick me into "thought policing" myself. ;_;

Ever since I learned what "antis" were, I've felt both relieved that I no longer have to police how I feel about my guilty pleasure fandoms, but also I worry about what I wrote/journalled/posted during that interval when I saw antis posting about "wrong ways to fandom" and genuinely felt bad that I had been "doing it wrong".  I keep wanting to look back through my Tumlbr posts and either write addendums about how I shouldn't have let the antis make me think I was wrong to fandom the way I was fandom'ing or shipping the way I as shipping.  I wonder about all the times I policed my own thoughts, because without knowing that antis were bad, I thought that if so many people had a problem with the secondary implications of some of my favorite OTPs or tropes, then maybe _I_ was the problem.  Maybe I was fandom'ing wrong.  ;_;  

I worry if I said anything in old posts, during that interval, that acted like antis.  ;o;  Thankfully, I never went into other people's posts to tell them they were fandom'ing incorrectly.  

But just the fact that I was tricked into policing my own thoughts...!  The last time that happened was grade school when that overly-Christian elementary school I went to tricked me into feeling guilty for loving Halloween and drawing drawgons with crystal balls, because "crystal balls were demonic".  They got me to abstain from Halloween out of fear of "doing bad things and thus being a bad person", while my siblings went out and trick-or-treat'ed.  When I finally got away from that school, I realized how violating it was to have my own values and thoughts hijacked, and guilted into policing myself, like some kind of dystopian novel about "thought police".  I really never wanted something like that to happen to me again.  But then antis.  ;o;  

They really just slither into your brain too!  Because the first half of their arguments were things I agree with!  "Fiction is signifiant!  Fiction can be impactful!"  I grew up back when geeky things and fandoms (outside of sports and celebrities) were dismissed as childish and stupid.  I had to argue for so long about how fiction an participating in fandom was meaninful,  fulfilling, and could be cherished parts of life.  I mostly argued that by researching media studies, parasocial relationships, public pedagogy,...  Fiction's abilty to change public opinion to empathize more with other people's experiences in society...The invaluable mental exercise/practice of "thought experiments"...How actively analyzing one's own fandom patterns could help people become more aware of their developing values/ideals...How such guided introspection could help a person in their individuation...How second-hand experiences through books were still experiences with real emotions...How we weren't all stupid for loving fiction.  

But hinging the proof of that worth all on how fiction positively influences people in real life, went too extreme.  I didn't even realize such an extreme could be so hazardous; it was a real blind spot.  Still, any extreme, once again proves to always be detremental.  When everything in the fiction you like supposedly reflects what you're aiming for in real life (whether in your personality or relationships in society), suddenly, we cut out the value of all the "dark" stories/characters.  Suddenly, liking horror, violence, toxic relationships, etc. in fiction supposedly reflects what you like in real life, and that makes you a horrible person.  I don't know why I didn't immediately see how wrong that was.  (Maybe it was easier to assume that my instincts are wrong, with my low self-esteem.  Especially when posts by antis had so many agreeing comments, while I'm being weird alone.  How could I not think I was the problem?)  

So suddenly, just because I like Hetalia's USUK ship then I must advocate incest and be insensitive to real life incest survivors.  Suddenly, just because I was really into serial killer movies as a preteen, then I must be a horrible person who adores serial killers like a celebrity with fangirls. Suddenly, just because I like violence in my fiction, then I must not understand how wrong it is to hurt other people in real life.  Etc.  Nevermind that USUK's "incest" interpretation completely flew over my head at the time.  Nevermind that I was a depressed preteen, so afraid of hurting other people with my anger in real life, that my well of repressed anger was excessive and desperate for any outlet, so much that it needed serial killer fiction and fictional violence for vicarious expression.  Basically, I realized how much this anti mentality was taking too much of ALL fiction too literally, and tricking me into hating myself for having "guilty pleasures".  

I'm so glad that I ran into that Folding Ideas video that reminded me how it is okay and maybe even sometimes healthy to explore "dark" themes and situations in fiction.  And that I didn’t need to feel guilty about it.   “A Lukewarm Defence of Fifty Shades of Grey” by Folding Ideas, at 8:47/1:05:32 (https://youtu.be/qzk9N7dJBec):  "Most of our fiction involves scenarios that we would never want to actually experience.  Whether that be caught in a gun fight, or caught in a cabin in the woods with a killer…  Fiction is a means for people to explore ideas and scenarios in ways that are safe or at least safer…  Similarly, fiction provides us a way to explore ideas and scenarios that would be hazardous, traumatizing, or both, in real life.  Fiction is a way to practice intense emotional states…“

Enjoying “dark” fiction didn't make me what I was in real life.  It didn't always reflect what I wanted to be in real life, nor what values/ideals I believed in.  Sometimes you just want to consider horrifying things.  Even things "horrifying" by your own standards.  Sometimes there are good parts of those "horrifying" things, that can only be parsed out in fiction, but not real life, so why not experience it in fiction?  Like the Tweet which got me writing today mentioned:  fictional toxic relationships can be kinda exciting in some aspects, but that doesn't mean you actually want a full, real life, toxic relationship in the real world.  

[ink-in-water]

reflections!!

Hello.

This CB period or just the outbreak of corona virus has been rather intimidating. It has made me aware of more things and also question more things.

I think this has made me realised that it is important to have something you really believe in. Or rather a set of things that you really ascribe to and can anchor yourself with. Because at the end of the day you are your only constant. Then also, it is important to build a home environment/ homebase that you really feel comfortable and confident of!! Also, know who are people you want in your life and you want to pace your life with.

I guess most people would say not to compare but I think that’s rubbish. We have to choose who we influence and are influenced by. Like both social and parasocial relationships (esp w social media now) are very important as indicators for our lives. I mean it in a way that it is important to have people who will challenge what you think, who will support and appreciate what you do. To have people who will continue to allow you to learn because they afford that safety, that mentality and also that voice you need. I think a lot of things we do in life should have synergy but not dependency. And that also makes for more fluid and non-hierarchical approach in the way we think. Because we see everything as gears in a system, then we turn different gears on different occasions, but they are all crucial to the operating of the machine.

I want to break out of thinking in ways that closes off a lot of possibilities. Also because these ways of thinking lets me hide behind excuses like, “oh I can’t do this if I want that” or like “I can’t do anything about this because I am this”. But more importantly I think I am at a stage now where I am comfortable enough to know that I don’t know many things and I am confident enough to want to explore and be different(?) from what is the tried and tested methods.

Like I always felt like I wanted to have three kids and a nice house and like a retirement plan. This means that I also have to whole a full-time job that is stable and pays for the middle-class lifestyle. But tbh, I don’t think that is what I want? Because I want to have the freedom of floating to and fro projects, I want that dynamic career. Also I want to see the world here and there, unplug from the “real” world now and then also. And I think JS kinda wants to too? Like the passion we have for being alive is not one that sits perfectly aligned with the middle-class nuclear family narrative. And that’s fine.

I think I still want to have kids, or rather, I want to have my own baby and then have a baby with JS too. And it doesn’t have to be ASAP just cos that is more convenient and that is what we are used to seeing. If we don’t end up having a human baby, I think that’s fine too. But I really want to nurture something with him that will go on to have a life of its own, beyond ours. I want to springboard things that have independence I guess, because I don’t like dependency haha.

Also, I think it’s fine to take longer to get to places. I keep struggling with this especially because famous people are getting younger lmao. But I think it is fine, because if I am already at the top at such a young age, where else do I go? What else do I do? I think it is better to just take chances more and see where we end up and how life goes too.

So I really want to find something I can spend a few years working on and sharing with others. I think I need to do things that benefit more than myself. Because the more I do things for myself (like with my own interest as the utmost priority rather than my growth and the impact of my actions), the more ennui I feel. And I think that is to be expected. If I continue to scream in vacuum, obviously I am not gonna get anything back. But if I start conversations in the market, then it’s different. 

I was listening to Ivan Heng’s talk just now and he said some good stuff. He said young artists like to say that their art was carthatic and that is wrong; that got me very defensive. He said you can use life for art but not art for life. Then I kinda get what he means. We use our life as fodder for the art we make, we don’t use art as an escapist avenue for what we don’t like or refuse to deal with in life. If art cannot service people, why do we expect to be funded for it? Why do we expect audiences if it is for ourselves? If my art doesn’t comfort someone, if  it doesn’t ask the right questions, if it doesn’t give someone something to think about or hope for... Why will they need to see it? What do I have to offer to others in exchange for their time and understanding?

I want to make works that will change others a little too. But I don’t know how yet but I want to try.

I want to live in a way that is more open. A way that will make me more receptive of differences, to be more fluid in the way I think. To be more flexible in the way I act and treat people, systems and objects. I want to figure this out with JS because I think both of us love life this way!!!!!

art is long, life is short!