#Time for change

[sher-ee]

Perfect.

[kingrosalani]

I havent physically played guitar in YEARS but i had to put some music to these words i wrote. My heart is heavy for my state. I’m tired of seeing this devastation happen across the country.

[victusinveritas]

[coffeexxcigarettes]

Green Beans and Little Brothers

(5/17/2024)

-

How many more times must I cross this road?

To assume the emptiness is common occurrence,

Nothing fighting from beneath the surface-

Avoiding conversations as if they may be the death of me.

Like I don't spend every day

Mixing concoctions of various types,

Coughing up blood and seeing stars,

Swallowing down memories,

And the bitter truth-

The truth,

That I have locked myself in this tower to die.

How pathetic of me,

To swallow the key with such vigor.

To only feel it crawling its way back up,

When tears prick my eyes,

At the most unexpected of times.

As if anybody could hurt me;

As if anybody could torture me

Nearly as much as I torture myself.

You crawl to salvation,

Desperate for water,

Drinking willingly from any glass-

Only to learn you never escaped in the first place.

When did I start swallowing

Everything?

It started with what made me happiest,

To subdue the relentless need to escape.

When did I start to stomach any emotion,

Before it even showed its face?

The complexities of life are not lost on me.

However,

Whenever I think I've found the road home,

I've only ever found myself more lost.

x

[atrocioushellsite]

Hello! The time is now my friends.

This is a call to action. I'm asking everyone to go out and find big patches of grass. Those long stretches between/around the highways. The area between the sidewalk and the street. Those huuuuuge lawns behind retail box stores.

Find all these big patches of grass doing nothing but getting mowed. And plant some vegetables. Plant some potatoes, squash, beets, tomatoes, take this dead land that's been squandered away and "sold" and "bought," and bring it back to life.

If "this land was made for you and me," let's give it some love so it can sustain us as it's meant to. This is the first step to change. We must break the chains that make us dependent on the government, and the only way to do that is through community. Let's start by making a nation-wide community garden. I'm gonna start planting. I hope others will follow suit.

It's time to stop giving them our tax dollars to fund an ethnic cleanse. Let's prepare by making sure they can't starve us out like their little brother out east is doing.

Happy gardening 🌿🍅🌽

[nube55]

Felíz solsticio de invierno a lxs amigxs del sur global! 🌬🌨🌜

Happy summer solstice to the northerner folks! 🌦⛱️🌞

[justatasteofyourpoison]

“THIS IS WHO I AM! Without all this, I'm just nothing…”

How I feel everyday of my fucking life. Man it’s tiring…

[opiatemasses]

Is fandom bigger than football?

Football fandom has its highs and lows. Conversely, excessive fandom can tarnish the sport. This issue came to the fore recently at a European fixture at Villa Park.

30th November 2023, Aston Villa versus Legia Warsaw - a night of history building for the ‘Villans’. Yet the immoral behaviours of a select group of opposing fans, dimmed the light on proceedings. Pre-game planned and targeted Violence struck fear and uncertainty to the safety of those involved.

This season alone, there has been similar issues seen at the Newcastle versus PSG fixture as well as AC Milan in their home Champions League game. This pattern of behaviour is cause for concern in the running of European competitions.

In this intense environment, I’ve learnt to appreciate that acting critically as a fan is the idyllic way to express emotions. A critical fan is one who exercises their loyalty to a team or individual, it can involve ‘attempting to change your team or fellow fans for the better.’

Some fans act critically in a space of passion and unity, binding individuals together. However, not all as seen with the examples above. This raises the question – where is the change in their behaviours going to come from?

A catalyst for resulting actions

Current unruly behaviour in sports stadia is a catalyst for so many contemporary issues within football such as hooliganism, misogyny and violence. This, I believe, is why the microscope should be targeted towards addressing excessive spectatorship in the hope resulting issues can be tempered.

Integrity: a guide to follow

Individual integrity is a fundamental cog in a progressive society. Yet the actions we saw at Villa Park suggest there’s a negligence by some to act morally in a shared space. This shared space or  Imagined community of horizontal unity, is a great way to depict how actions in a public setting should take into consideration of those around.

Can fandom exist without getting out of control? It is in my contention that until there’s widespread awareness of the issues outlined, there won’t be any significant change.

A deep-rooted matter

We know that examples of unrestrained fandom are not just of present times. The impact of traditions and role models has only seemed to expose and encourage younger generations to express negative behaviours. This is why I call for change and action to limit the future impact of unethical behaviour within football.

Spectatorship is intense due to its embedded interest. However, the Villa Park example fails to accept that affiliation and devotion is an acceptable reason to act un-morally.

It seems as the stage grows, as the stakes increase, the acts of loyalty by fans are in danger of taking over the sporting event itself. Without digesting into more examples, I take you back to the England Euros Final where the actions of individuals eclipsed this event.  I ask, will excessive fandom always have a damning societal effect?

Sportswashing

Football is commonly characterised as being about passion, togetherness and community. These are the values that should be upheld and celebrated, rather than the unruly behaviours that shine a negative light onto the game.

Minimising and normalising unjust fans' actions turns the shoulder on fronting this current issue within football. This ‘glossing’ over of repetitive negative actions, begs the question – can there ever be a complete control of unmoral behaviours within the sport?

A fan’s perspective

Camaraderie. inclusion. Escape. Passion. These words encapsulate what it means to be a supporter. Spectatorship brings a sense of belonging, it’s a form of escapism.

However, this escapism has its dangers - the excessive loyalties manifest at Villa Park, resulted in violence and the re-emergence of the negative fan stereotypes that exist within football, such as: misogyny, aggression and abuse. How would you feel knowing your safety is uncertain when attending these matches, especially European ones?

Why now and where next?

The recent examples of excessive fandom re-iterates the notion that this is a current and ongoing issue that needs widespread attention. By increasing awareness of this issue, my hope is that we can help put the focus on what it means to be a critical fan. By doing this I believe there can be a greater emphasis on enjoying the game and appreciating those around us to bind fandom and football in a more progressive society.

Do you agree that tackling excessive fandom, could stimulate a positive response for other current issues within football such as sexism, racism, and violence?

N0981409

[amphtaminedreams]

Thoughts No.2

every time I see 50+ year olds mocking young people for feeling hopeless about the world and the state of their lives, it just honestly strikes me how little empathy they have

it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why gen-z/millennials struggle to be optimistic; many of us spend our time in education in a state of constant stress, because we took it at face value when adults told us “if you work hard, you can do anything”

WELL cut to 18, 19, 20, however many years later when you’ve burnt yourself out trying to make perfect grades at GCSEs, A-levels, then university, masters etc. and you come to find out:

1). the top, well-paying jobs (or basically ALL jobs in creative industries) in your field of interest usually recruit on the basis of either "experience" (time spent working unpaid/below living wage internships, completely unfeasible to someone from an average working/middle class family whose parents can’t fund their lifestyle during that period), “connections” or referrals

2). the accessible jobs will make you go through round after round of interviews and have you grovelling in cover letters about how much you just fucking LOVEEE the company when you literally just want money to live on, only for 90% of them to not even bother telling you that you didn’t get the job

3). EVEN ONCE YOU GET A JOB YOU’RE LIKELY GOING TO HAVE TO WORK THAT JOB FOR OVER A DECADE, PROBABLY MORE, TO EVEN HAVE A HOPE OF OWNING A HOUSE OR ANYTHING OF YOUR OWN FOR THAT MATTER

we are simultaneously watching as businesses established centuries before we were born destroy the planet to the point that many places will have become inhabitable by the time we have enough money to settle down somewhere

houses will be even MORE expensive, many of us will be forced to move miles away from our families and loved ones just to take what we can get, and in the meantime, we’re watching as a tiny percentage of people and their greed normalise living in poverty for an increasing number of people with no sign of this changing

it seems like this tiny percentage have such a stronghold over the political & legal system, mass media, and big business, that it feels we have no real power or platform to do something about it

the situation in Palestine has just emphasised the fact that to the wealthy, the innate value of human life is meaningless; it shouldn’t HAVE to be that you put yourselves in these innocent people’s shoes for Israel and its allies’ actions to horrify you, but if nothing else, it’s shown that it could be anyone, and that should be fucking terrifying

so like I said: it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to understand why young people would feel hopeless when the concepts of moral decency and meritocracy, which our parents and their parents told us were the most important things ensuring us a meaningful, happy and fulfilling future, are increasingly being exposed as a crock of shite

the only conclusion I can come to is that there is something overriding their ability to empathise with the circumstances we find ourselves in and I’m thinking that, as is typically the case, it comes down to ego: they get defensive and shut down because this is the world they made, and they are the ones that lied to us about it-not only that, but they’ve lied to themselves for all this time too

[thoughtlessarse]

Vice President Kamala Harris’s sudden ascension to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket has not only transformed the 2024 election. It has also provided the biggest opportunity in months to get Democrats to change their cruel and discredited approach to the war in Gaza. In light of such an unprecedented moment, with the war still raging and the prospects of regional escalation in the Middle East as high as they’ve ever been, the need for a comprehensive reset on the Democratic Party’s policy toward the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and freedom is paramount. It is clear what anyone who cares about this issue must demand right now: that Harris tells the American public and the world that Israel can no longer occupy Palestinian land and impose apartheid on millions while enjoying US support and protection from accountability. But we must be equally clear that Harris will not do any of these things without sustained, relentless political pressure from the movement for Palestine. […] The Biden administration’s approach to Palestine, from his first day in office to the beginning of this war, has sadly been quite similar to that of Trump’s. Taken in by the ridiculous belief that the Palestinians and their national aspirations could be indefinitely brushed to the side, Biden chose to affirm the bad logic of Trump’s Abraham Accords and pursued a normalization deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia. Instead of restoring policy that adhered to international standards, Biden instead backed Trump’s decision to recognize all of Jerusalem and the Golan Heights as Israeli territory. As of this writing, Biden still has not overturned  the Trump administration’s policy of labeling products from Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank as “made in Israel.” While the State Department routinely offered rhetorical support for a two-state solution, the president has used his veto power at the UN to block Palestinian bids for representation. These are conservative positions that have been upheld by a Democratic president, and it is imperative that whoever succeeds Biden takes up a different approach. […] In a post-Biden Democratic Party, those who organize for Palestinian liberation must take up a cautiously optimistic but nonetheless realistic view of the terrain ahead of us. Harris does not appear to be nearly as ideologically committed to Zionism and defending Israel as her boss, who is 22 years older than her and was raised in an environment where Palestinians were hardly perceived, let alone viewed as having legitimate grievances or demands. It has been reported that Harris was one of the leading figures in the White House urging the president to give a higher priority to Palestinian concerns. At the same time, her team has been quick to tamp down any suggestion that she meaningfully disagrees with Biden’s approach. (“The difference is not in substance but probably in tone,” a Harris adviser told The Nation’s Joan Walsh in a recent profile.) Therefore, while Harris could be less resistant to pressure on Gaza than Biden, she will still, as she might put it, be operating in the context of what came before her. It is up to us, the organizers and activists, to make it so that the future Harris administration not only can but must hold Israel to account—not just with words but with real action.

read complete article

[alexithemiyatic]

My shoulders feel heavy with unfulfillment

My hands have been soaked in disappointments

My feet are tied up with the weight of my expectations

My head has been forced to bow down to my failures

Yet in my eyes still lies that fire

My eyes will shine even if my face is dirty

The fire of my ambition will not be absorbed by the hell fire of the world

[sher-ee]

[howifeltabouthim]

'If we follow the path we're on, what we have always done, we lose. We only prolong the inevitable.'

Jenn Lyons, from The Ruin of Kings

[antaresgalaeth]

I need your help to decide 🤔

HI! It's been a while since I don't upload new content of HL. I still like it of course, that would never change but, you know, obsessions change XD So I want to keep uploading things but, knowing my random nature, I was wondering 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻 (please see the poll)

I appreciate your opinions 💕💕💕 I always find it difficult to choose an option 😅

[kurokotori]

I'M CHANGING MY NAME

Or my alias rather. So I've been thinking about this on and off for a while now, a year even. The username KodiakKino has stuck with me for around 10 years, and since then, I've changed as a person and grown as an artist, and I wanna reflect that through a new name. The name 'Kino' has been such a huge part in my life that it's bled out into irl, friends outside the internet and even family had started calling me that, so it's become something personal and super meaningful to me. I totally don't mind if people still call me Kino, in fact, it's 100% welcomed, but the entire username 'KodiakKino' is a chapter that's come to an end. I'm gonna be going by "Kuro Kotori", a name I've grown to love....like A LOT, plus it's super fun to say lmfao. And so with that, I'll be re-watermarking my art, and putting a new name on future pieces. I wanted to make this post so everyone is aware of this big change, and to avoid any confusion. Thank you to everybody who's supported me so far, seriously ;;

[h2gm08-blog]

Hello everyone. 🥰 it’s been a decade or two. Doing some housecleaning since several people are migrating from twitter.

I’ve always been fascinated on the idea of blogging, but never really put much time into it. With recent events, I may just be moving here. I appreciate your patience.