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#but i think ill keep ot
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ROUND 3: SHADOW THE HEDGEGOD (sonic the hedgehog) VS ELLEN RIPLEY (alien)
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layzorr · 4 hours
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Mm
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opens-up-4-nobody · 7 months
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...
#what does one do when their perception cannot b trusted? im so physically and emotionally exhausted#and i can go from feeling hopelessly terminally bad to completely normal for no apparent reason. and on occasion i can go from normal to i#think i can stay up all night. i never have to sleep again. look how great i can focus. i could kill god.#and i have no emotional object permanence so it feels so stupid when im normal. i cant sympathize with myself in altered states of mind#and it doesnt matter but it makes me crazy the idea that i might not b bip0lar but i just push myself so far that under pressure my mind#splits into the catastrophically positive or negative. but i feel like this is how i have to live. i have to b perfect or pay a blood debt#and thats just how it is. and thats how its been. so at this point ive spend thr last idk 15 years of my life being d#some measure of miserable for no reason. i dont kno y i do this to myself and im 26 now and idk how to stop bc even pushing myself as hard#as i can im so far behind. how am i supposed to do less and not#and not just quit. im compulsive for a reason. there's a fundamental barrier between myself and understanding language but if i do more and#more and more then i can at least try to keep up with everyone else. idk im so tired. and im 26 and im afraid im stuck like this#and i cant even... its like ive split my head in 2 to cope. ive created distance within myself so that i cant fully feel how terrible i make#things for myself. half my brain is always like lol suffer idiot. it throws off my therapists bc i cant take my own pain seriously. ill#laugh and smile while im like yea i feel horrible like most of the time and i dont kno what to do lol. idk so it goes. i think im gonna stop#with the birth control tho. as it doesnt seem to help with my sadness levels. idk if ite making ot worse or not. guess well find out#itll b easier once i dont have to b trained on things. then i wont have to ask a question and burst into tears on my lab mate 🙄#unrelated
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cherryozyi · 4 months
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I PROMISE I'LL FINISH THE SQUISH MINI COMIC BEFORE NEW YEARS
Anyways sneak peek with the background!!
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sotogalmo · 8 months
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6:20
On my train of songs for DRDT cast! Hehe. (<- insanity is inside of me)
Been listening to a YYTD song for Rio Ranger, and tbh. Such David vibes, but also others.. dunno who tho. Rose? Nico???? Actually feels very Nico and David for some odd reason, now that I think abit more on Nico. Maybe Arei as well??
(the song is called “re:ARRANGEMENT”.)
Nah .... Feels moreso David, or maybe that's because he's the one living in my goddamn brain. He sucks balls, yet he's having the time of his life in my head (not rlly).
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suncaptor · 1 year
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dxsertrot · 1 month
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Actually everything has been too complicated and now that the sun is out I've decided that everything is actually easier than I thought and nothing has to hurt me unless I let it
#drinking coffee and smoking in the sun after a decent day of work#i got to work ot this weekend and do a tough job and the day after i hiked w my mom and ran along the beach w the dog#the longer i keep myself away from the narrative the more further removed and at peace i feel#although sometimes its somewhat distrupted when i see them but i reel it back in real quick#it just feels good to know that i dont have to let anyone in and that i have my people and thats all i need#im goung to carry myself the rest of the way through like i always have#and i dont need anyone elses validation#things will come to me when im ready and its right#if i dont want someone to hurt me then i simply dont have to allow them to hurt me#and if i hurt them then oh well. i need to protect my peace and my self esteem#i have things that i would like to work out but i need to accept that everything i want to have happen i cant make happen#ive been through too much and worked too hard and loved too hard and learned too much to let things like this touch me anymore#my self perception cannot hinge on anyone anymore because only i know what ive done and seen and felt and thought in every momemt of my lif#and how i look is not a solid descripter of all the aspects of me#it is not the bulk of my humanity it is hardly a grain of sand#im not angry or sad im just indifferent and ready for something better and healthier and more secure#and the things and people that i can have by relying on my looks do not hold much value anyways#besides. i am pretty. and im healthy and im good w my money and i laugh w my belly and i know a fuck of a lot more than i ever thought#and ive done more than i ever anticipated#i have a lot of things to be so okay with that i shouldnt even have to think about it#and the fact that i ever do is a luxary not given to the bulk of humanity#ive had the privledge to love many times and learn the lessons that accompany losing#and the privilege to make my own decisions and have my own priorities#i have the time and money to worry about frivolous things just like ive had the same to experience some really cool things#i am full of energy and opportunity and love and i get to decide when and where i want to direct that#if i direct it in a place that leave me feeling sad and empty and confused i can put my focus elsewhere unless i deem it worthy enough to#work at#and when ive poured too much in and got too little back ill know to reframe things#its not that complicated and its not that messy#it just is whatever i make it out to be and im tired of making everything out to be more and allow it to define me
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waywardsalt · 4 months
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deciding to write bellum in a context beyond and different from what he's shown in in ph is kinda. something. because there's not a whole lot to him and there seems to be an intense focus on having things be 'in character' so it creates the interesting dilemma of. what even is 'in character' for bellum in the first place and are the conclusions i draw about him based off the little bit we get in game things that can be considered 'in character' or w/e, or is (almost) anything fair game since i'm working off of a list of concepts and actions rather than an actual written character
#does this make sense? i have different hangups abt the different characters i write fanfic abt#salty talks#like im personally not too concerned with things being 'in character' bc like. ive enjoyed stuff being out of character#the biggest line i refuse ot cross is like. personal stuff and also when things are like. VERY not smth thye would do or go against arcs#like for me one of my (many lol) linebeck characterization pet peeves is when ppl write post-ph linebeck without considering his arc#like when they just write him post-ph acting the exact same way as he did we you meet him and like he has the same. idk. values?#thats a whole can of worms and i no longer care as much when i write linebeck bc i see him a specific way and so idc im having fun#bellum is just interesting bc unlike. most characters? there isnt a ton there but theres a lot to piece together and draw conclusions from#cuz ill think of fic stuff with bellum abd ill be like 'would he act like that?' and come agaisnt a wall#bc theres very little to compare and contrast with. at this point when i write bellum im kinda just writing an oc and its weird#cuz like ig my personal philosophy with like. keeping my aus as loz aus and not original things is that teh canon versions of these#characters and concepts and w/e are imporant to be considered and like. serve as backdrops? idk how to explain it#so like i dont just want to. write a bellum oc im tyring to write bellum and write from the little seed we get in canon idk what the#difference is but i feel like there is one. like with post ph stuff i dont try to break canon in big ways (or often) so ig with bellum#im trying to keep it so that (with post ph and ph centric writing specifically) it can slot in decently with the established stuff#like. ignoring tone rating all that. idk where im going with this im thinkin abt how i might write bellum and how weird it is
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strawbebyjam · 5 months
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i think i’ve reached my breaking point
#i think maybe i already passed it and was just in. a lot of denial#i know how badly i need help. i know how badly i’m doing. i know i’m not getting things done. i know i’m keeping everyone out. i know i’m#giving up. but it is. so hard to get help HDJDHDH there is way too much shame and effort and energy it requires#and i just don’t. have any of it left. and i’m so tired. and i hate myself so much. and i can’t even think of a single redeemable feature#inside ot out or anywhere and i’m just. i don’t know what i can do or should do but everything is so hard. all the time. and i’m not even#draggung through anymore i am entirely stuck. i keep failing courses and graduation keeps getting delayed. and i can’t fo anything. and i’m#so scared but i’m also closer to tryly and genuinely giving up than i ever have veen before#and before i use d yo feel like there were two lose lose routes i coudl take but therr was partial joy in both. but now im at a pointwhere#have failed enough and failed repeatedly enough that i cant even. get to yhose situations. and theres just#more than anything there’s so much shame. i don’t know what yo do with muself anymore. im luinh all the time to everyone and i hatemhysemf#so mych. im so so so disgustedwith myself and i dknt know what to do#like i always kbew i was the weak type but seeing it in action is just. i dontknow who i am anymore#neg#mano.mindtalk#i feelbad that i come on gete and say shit i should ve telling a therapist but i cannot affordthat shit and i refuseto spew this. seeage of#a brain onto my friends#alsolike. i know fullwell i am. so secerely mentally ill lmfoajim a fucking psychollgu major i know my braib is fucked but i cant do shitabo#ut it and its so. frustrating. but i also have no excuseto be the way i am everyone caressos much everyone is so careful butwhenever i tryyo#get help it doestn work nothing changes and its so. frustratingand tiring like im really just so tired
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sodrippy · 8 months
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wanna ask why my shot got reassigned but too scared to face the inevitable "bc u suck" answer
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Ypu know whwn you uh are in a weird panicky state (acute stress apparently) and you alternate vetween that and dissociating and you lose track of reality and overcompensate and undercompensate and want to fucking throe a grenade at your head
#and you were fine then youre hyperventilating then youre chilling then yojre crying then youre like#why am i here i have been through this at home and lived then you think of being home rn and want to violently hurl and kys#setting be lkke#and then he doesnt respojd and you feel like youve been super annoying and weak and emotional lately#i am frustrated in n my inability to communicate my actual thoughts#sometimes its bc theyre unwordifiable#sometimes ots bc i start w a half baked sentencw ik is wrong but th en i have to run w it and change it as i go or ill cone across a fool#but i come axross a fool anyway bc i just lose traxk of the#fucking fuck fuck fuck fuvk fyck#im going to ban myself from my phone tomorrow i cant keep typunf retard ed rants bc it makes me feel more insanw and angry at myself#for aforemebtioned reason of#i cant put my brain into words and i cant comprehend it in my head#but maybe itll be easier to if i try to not write it out and just think#but i like organising things and um thinking too hard in too much depth always ends w me crying or pissed off so#will have to acceot thst and just ball#in the lesst ick way it is nice? veing here bc like i said setting tgere is nonway incould (easily( kms so im less stressed#and i literally get to sit here in a plain room with 100 percebt cotton blankets which r my favourite thig right now and be Alone#nobody can reach me here#i fuvking detest everyone#i miss * so much#i miss *#i wanna cut but the plastic knife i finessed from dinner sint do much#smuggled in m stig this time w
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tinyorangepotato · 2 years
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#tiny talking#so im going to sleep right after this psot. i was just getting rid of my notifications before hand#but so the stitches on the left side of ym mouth came out#idk of the whole side has but for sure the ones that were directly behind my mokars#which i mean i gues sit has been like 5 days but i kinda thought they would dissolve?#and i very lightly felt there and like the cut ia still very obviously there. like theres 2 sides and a valley#whixh i mean makea sense seeing as someone cut open my gums but idk#and i keep messing with the stiches on bith side. where i woudl (with freshly clean hands im not that dumb)#feel them and make sure theres nothing on them and everything becauae i cant see whats going on#so i gotta feel ehays going on. or ill use my tongue and idk if i fucked it#or if it was meant to come out but im not bleeding so thays good. and i went to lights feel todya and felt it was beey loose then i#got home from work and felt the lefr side again and it just came out#and it was proabbyl only like half of them on that side but i would guess the rest are under my molars like it is on my right side#but i dont wanna feel under under the nolar too much because ot doesnt get in the way and i dont wanna strech my cheek and then strech the#cut and mes sit up yknow#but yeah. idk whay this post was about either. just putting down that i was thinking about rn i guess#but im still sticking with soft food or at leats only eating with my fornt teeth because even if the stiches are meant tk be coning out rn#and the cut is proabbly healing. i woudl rather not take the chance to hurt it or hell even get soemthing in there. which is proabbly#past the time frame that would happen and get it infected but im not a docotor and i woudk rather just play it safe#anywyas#goof night
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gekkonidae · 2 years
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Idk man. My parents are so unbelievably obsessed with me going to uni and taking a course that they won't shut the fuck up and keep pestering me every. Single. Fucking. Day. Nonstop saying I have a time limit and that im wasting my life and fuck!! For everything I could POSSIBLY take in uni or college I find a million different cons and requirements that I dont have and cannot take in time. What I was most interested in and was planning to take in September was a dental assistance course because I'm interested in dentistry only to find out that there's a 3 year waitlist?? They couldn't be bothered to put that on the site page?? They said there was a waitlist for OTHER medical courses but I guess dental assistance wasn't important enough for fhat?? Crushed my hopes fr
What even am I good at? What do I find interesting enough that its worth the effort to take? I dont want art as a career. I'm not passionate about anything. They keep suggesting graphic design but I dont know shit about graphic design and its a competitive field. I dont know shit about computers, or cooking, the only hobby I've ever invested time in has been art, idk what to do lol. I'm stuck and it stresses me out every day
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sugar-omi · 9 months
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Alright all your Cove and Baxter anguish has me FUCKED UP and I need some adorable Cove fluff to recover. How about a little about Cove and M/C as newlyweds coming home after the honeymoon?
at first i didnt know what to write but then i start thinking n.... pls i love this sm i hope it heals your broken heart <3333
tags : Fluff, cove loves you sm, sharing money (cove shares his money/bank acc w you), he's just in love w you theres nothing else to say
synopsis : how cove acts after your come back from your honeymoon
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he's bringing you flowers everyday
at first he brings you a couple bouquets but you've run out of places for them so he just brings you one and add them to your collection.
none of them are the same either
so you have sunflowers, lilies, roses, tulips, peonies, orchids, and many many flowers all in one vase
is it a little ugly? probably. definitely. the colors and sizes n shapes all clash but it's the thought that counts
if you don't like flowers, are allergic, or you get tired of him bring so many...
he brings you food <3
I think one of cove's love languages is food
he brings home sweets like cheese cake or marbled cake
or fudge, or chocolates
or if you aren't into sweets like that, then he'll bring lunch/dinner instead
he's a decent cook, and even if you're bad at cooking he wants you to help him
lots of kissing n half burnt food (he takes whatever portion is burnt so you don't have to eat it)
and he tries to always bring u lunch
if he can't bring you lunch for whatever reason, he either packs one for you or sends you money for lunch
COVE: hi bby, have you eaten yet YOU: im ordering food rn COVE: i sent u 50 is that enough YOU: ?!*!&!(!? YOU: that's too much 😭😭 cove pls YOU: ill send the rest back COVE: keep ot COVE: it* COVE: my money is your money
he does this all the time now, in fact he'll even had you his card
which he's always done before your marriage, but now ge even gets you a card connected to his bank account too
he doesn't even care if you share your money w him too, he just wants to give you everything he has
like if you asked for his shirt in the middle of the store I think he'd ask why n then just give it to you
as if he was gonna say no in the first place 🙄💀💀
he just becomes so much more obsessed w you after you're married
always cuddling or touching u
if you're around your mom's they're always cracking jokes....
especially if you want kids they're all "we're gonna be grandparents soon at this rate lol" (even if u want to adopt or dont wanna birth/can't have kids bc you're amab or infertile or smth)
they just think they're so hilarious 🙄🙄🙄
does he blush bright enough there's steam coming off him? maybe
does he stop? nope!!!
loves you so much, he just needs to be close to you
HAS A PICTURE OF U IN HIS WALLET
omg....
prbly has 2 actually
one is of the two of you bc sometimes he can't believe you're married n he just needs to make sure life is real
n one is of just you in your wedding attire
will talk abt you to anyone who asks or makes a comment
this mf would prbly get a shirt that says "y/n's husband" on the front
even tho it's in small print on the front it's embarrassing.... like pls we get it you're in LOVE
he'd get you both jewelry w your wedding date on it
will hold you up at the door if you try to leave without kissing him
you've always gave him a peck before leaving but now it's WORSE
once he even stopped you in the driveway before you pulled off...
man's ran out of the fucking house in socks and unicorn print sweatpants
you roll down the window "what? what's wrong?!" cove, leaning thru the window and pouting. "kiss."
you look at him in shock n disbelief before you just laugh and kiss him
he taxes you two extra kisses for the trouble, he got his socks wet from running out here!!!
you have to push him off otherwise you're gonna be late to work bc you were too busy making out in your driveway
your single/divorced neighbors hate you
the teens idolize what yall have n their standards got so fucking high after yall moved in
n the old ppl laugh bc they've been there when they married and/or they find it amazing how obsessed cove is w you
if it wasn't such a bad omen or if you didn't disapprove, he'd get your wedding date or your initials tatted on his ankle.
maybe it seems extreme all of this bc I think cove just realizes how amazing you are sometimes n all his love overflows in this way <3333
no matter how old you get he's always gonna run out in the rain, snow, or sunshine n get a kiss if you forget
pfx by the time he's 80 he can't move as fast but he's hustling down the path before you can escape
if you do get away before he can get a kiss though, he is pouting when you come back
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st-armand · 8 months
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Plug!Hobie x Fem!Reader Part 1
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( Reposted from @armands-sanctum ) Authors Note: All fanfictions I make for Hobie are in the worldbuilding of him living in New London, a re-colonized NYC by British V.E.N.O.M. operatives. This is more like a vomit of words then a headcanon but all of my headcanons are like that. Might make the move to AO3 if I keep getting banned
CW: Weed smoking, suggestive imagery, detailed descriptions of a specific body types, fem!reader, terrible black british slang, not beta read
Word Count: 1.5k
Masterlist • Part 2
Plug!Hobie who you meet on a particularly sweltering day, relaxing with a group of alternatives smoking outside—your sweet perfumes and oils blending in with the droplets sweat that bead on your skin.You’re frustrated with work/school/life and all you need is a quick high, a joint, especially after going about your day smelling other people smoke, now you’re craving it bad, so bad in fact you lose all inhibitions towards going up to strangers and asking them to sell you drugs.
He's done up in dreadfully low waisted, tight black jeans—ripped and littered with patches, that compliment his long-limbed body, intricate belts that you know have to be a pain in the ass to take off when peeing, and a cropped band tee ‘Black Liver’— on summer days like this Hobie would exclaim, “ T’ hot to be all done up” opting for the easiest outfits, like a Nike tech-wear, or a pair of adidas sweats that you gifted him, since you despise the look of Nike clothing, he chided on you about buying from corporative fast fashion, you retort, “Hobie you KNOW I only thrift things, please don’t start that now.”
Upon that first conversation, or even the moment his eyes caught onto your figure, he’d fallen, well…into lust, head first, dead upon impact.Hobie is attractive, interacts with other hot people, but he can’t help but be particularly fascinated with your figure—from your equally as low waisted and tight jeans, so tight they fit like a second skin on your legs, a sliver of your midriff exposed from the cut of your top giving him unlimited access to the slopes of your stomach, and the natural arch in your back begging to be gripped, or the way your bra makes your shirt look exceptionally tight around your breasts, every step in your stride causes a ripple to glide through the supple flesh, and the best for last his favorite part of you, your ass, so large it’s almost disproportionate to your body shape, but your thighs constricted by the denim makes it fathomable you have an ass that large.
But your face makes your body look like a present wrapped in luxurious foils, with an intricate bow on top.
Now it’s uncomfortable for him to wear those skinny jeans.
Hobie watches you intently as you saunter your way through other pedestrians, fixated on a single goal, he thinks youre coming up to chat them up maybe giving him the chance to get your contacts, until he follows your line of sight—oh youre looking at his joint…
“Bro! You got any to spare? I need a joint so fucking bad, I have cash so I’ll happily buy some off you.”
He’s slightly put off by your ice breaker, “Why? You a pig?”
Now you’re fucking pissed, after a long arduous day, when you want the most is to smoke a flat blunt, and this beanstalk, bastard is calling you an opp.
“Get your head out of your ass, or ill do it for you.” You bite backThe group tenses, waiting for Hobie to speak—who cooly replies,
“ leng ting ‘ot a mouth on her,”
he LAUGHS boisterously in fact—his chest heaves and he slinks into himself with just how fucking hilarious he thinks this situation must be, you want weed and you want to go home.
“Got a lot t’ spare, actually, but I ‘otta go back t’ my flat.” Hobie drawls his replies, languidly letting the words slip through his tongue, slurred from the high, lean frame against the stoop of the store their loitering about, he gazes down at you to gauge your reaction.
“I ain’t going to back to your ‘flat’, so let’s compromise. How much can I get for $120, and a few containers of food?”
Hobie quirks a single pierced eyebrow, the sterling metals on his face reflecting the light, even under the shade making it hard to even focus on his face for too long—that and how attractive he is, it breaks your own mask of intimidation (He’ll break it more once you start developing a relationship with each other).
“ ‘pends on how good the food is luv.”
Hobie’s had a few people offer food in exchange for weed, so you’ve already gotten him with your proposition, even if you rejected the insinuation that he wanted you to come with him back to his place.Other people love to use favors of other kinds which he rejects, he’s finds it completely unnecessary, but he is still kind, a community-oriented person he doesn’t mind giving people weed for free.
But he DOES enjoy getting gifts from his peers for weed; trinkets, porcelain dolls, customized instruments, accessories, and clothing that they tailor for him—forcing him into their studios to get to measurements right, and letting Hobie customizing the clothing to the way he desires, with no interjections or complaints even. All these things are decorated precisely around his place, he might not clean the mess in his apartment but he will ALWAYS make sure these things are safe, and dust-free.
“It’s pretty damn good! Alright lemme get your number, I’ll tell you where we meet.” During the conversation you contemplated the best course of action, do you go to his apartment—no. Let him drop off at your place? You’d rather eat glass then let a strange man have your address. But you want weed so meeting around the corner can’t be the worst choice.
Hobie wastes no time whipping his phone out of his back pocket, you exchange contact information, and with nothing but a curt nod, walking away from the draining social interaction, before a firm, slightly sweaty, ringed hand on your shoulder, whipping your body around, you watch a slow impish smirk grace his facial features.
“See ya’ later ‘orgeous.”
You retained a deadpanned expression, but your mind races and it isn’t from the secondhand high your getting from being around them. Weak kneed but you don’t falter in your perfectly constructed veneer, this is why you stay 10 feet away from attractive men.
The conversation is over now, at least to you, you give him a thumbs up, but Hobie persists even knowing he will be seeing you later, and he has patrol immediately afterwards.
“Want a joint for the road? ‘s on me luv”
Now this perks you up exponentially, and you invade his space like a cat yearning for its meal early in the morning.He’s reeling from the closeness—inebriated from the sweet smell of your body oil, and the crisp red rose perfume you wear, even the smell of the sweat gathering on your skin has him shaky
(I also headcanon him as a huge pervert, im talking panty thief levels. If yall vote on it will be graciously provided.)
Try his bet to focus on letting his lithe fingers play the edges of the paper like he would his guitar, meticulously stuffing the herb into the folded valley of the parchment, before joining the ends together with quick reels.
Hobie places the semi wrapped joint in front of your lips, glancing down at you with an expectant look, your brows furrow, not entirely too sure what he’s gesturing you to do.
“Mind sealin’ it f’ me? Your joint after all”
You wordlessly comply, letting your tongue tease the laminated edge of the parchment activating the adhesive, your eyes wander to his for approval an ‘Is this good enough?’ kind.
But for Hobie the vision of your tinted eyes, and the moist muscled appendage carefully coating the sealant edge has his cock twitching in his jeans.
He tightened it into a cone-like shape, before twisting the end closed, lightly shaking the tip to stuff the herb down farther, then passing it into your hands.
With that you exit, giving a coy wave in their direction and a mischievous “See ya later.”
Comments, Concerns?? Im still looking for beta readers so message me if you're interested. Pushing this out for traction since my other blog got shadow-banned.
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fatehbaz · 10 months
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Thank you. Glad that it’s enjoyable.
Simultaneous rage and compassion. Solemnity and silliness. Somber yet playful. Grieving and joyous. Fire and whimsy.
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The juxtaposition is very deliberate, from me. The contrast between deathly seriousness and silliness. How to live a rich and full life in the shadow, in the grips of unending violence imposed from above, without being solely defined by the trauma.
This was a tag, from just this week, that someone added on a post of mine.
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Average tags from an average post. These were also from within a few days of each other, which people added to merely one single post of mine:
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I guess, the two realms must coexist if I am to survive and also somehow find, make, experience joy. 
To go about your day, witnessing a thousand “small” cruelties and tragedies merely in the first waking hours of the day during the morning bus ride to work. Watch the city from the window. Gentrification, homelessness, chronic illness, institutional disavowal.
Relentless violence. Without pity.
Sometimes I half-seriously joke about the “ethical imperative to be whimsical.” It hurts! We’re being killed! Things are dire! But we won’t concede joy!
How to make a life when you’re being neglected, forsaken, hunted, actively harmed.
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In a piece from 2023, in Kohl’s special issue on “Anticolonial Feminist Imaginaries,” Katie Natanel recently described a similar challenge:
‘I think what is sitting in my heart at this moment is how to hold this together: a will to do things otherwise and build things elsewhere, in ways that keep sight of power – and yet refuse it as totalising. [...] [N]ot an abstract theoretical musing [...]. Rather, it is something to be done -- a practice that we envision and embody because we must.’
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Avery Gordon, who writes often of institutional abandonment and “hauntings,” described our predicament as if we are trapped in hell:
‘[C]oncentration of global wealth and the “extension of hopeless poverties”; […] the intensification of state repression and the growth of police states; the stratification of peoples […]; and the production of surplus populations, such as the landless, the homeless, and the imprisoned, who are treated as social “waste.” […] To be unable to transcend […] the horror […] of such a world order is what hell means […]. Without a glimpse of an elsewhere or otherwise, we’re living in hell. [...] [P]eople are rejecting prison as the ideal model of social order. […] Embedded in this resistance, sometimes explicitly and sometimes implicitly, is both a deep longing for and the articulation of, the existence of a life lived otherwise and elsewhere than in hell. […] Cultivating an instinctual basis for freedom is about identifying the longings that already exist – however muted or marginal […]. The utopian is not only or merely a “fantasy of” and for “the future collectivity”. It is not simply fantasmatic or otherworldly in the conventional temporal sense. The utopian is a way of conceiving and living in the here and now [...]. But there are no guarantees. No guarantees that the time is right […]; no guarantees that just a little more misery and suffering will bring the whole mess down [...]. There are no guarantees of coming millenniums [...], only our complicated selves together and a […] principle in which the history and presence of the instinct for freedom, however fugitive or extreme, is the evidence of the […] possibility because we’ve already begun to realize it. Begun to realize it in those scandalous moments when the present wavers […]. The point is to expose the illusion of supremacy and unassailability dominating institutions and groups routinely generate to mask their fragility and their contingency. The point is […] to encourage […] us […] to be a little less frightened of and more  enthusiastic about our most scandalous utopian desires and actions [...].” [Text from: Avery Gordon. “Some thoughts on the Utopian.” 2016. Bold emphasis added by me.]
Elsewhere, Gordon also says this:
‘In this context of enhanced militarism and securitisation, [...] [there is] more widespread social abandonment and more entrenched inequalities [...]. At the same time, there is widespread, daily, active and open political opposition to all this, at the scale at which people can contest it [...]. And there are also so many people, more and more [...], looking for ways to think and live on different – better terms – and doing it in small ways [...]. What will happen we don’t know, of course. But as more people become unable to participate in the existing economic and governing systems, they must find another way. [...] [A] standpoint and a mindset for living on better terms than we’re offered; for living as if you had the necessity and the freedom to do so; for living in the acknowledgement, that despite the overwhelming power of all the systems of domination which are trying to kill us, they never quite become us. [...] ‘Can a past that the present has not yet caught up with be summoned to haunt the present as an alternative?’ What would happen if we understood that what haunts from the past are precisely all those aspirations and actions – small and large, individual and collective – that oppose racial capitalism and empire and live actively other than on those terms of order. [...] Julius Scott called it ‘the common wind.’’ [Text from: Avery Gordon. As interviewed by Brenna Bhandar and Rafeef Ziadah. “Revolutionary Feminisms: Avery F. Gordon.” Transcribed and published at the blog of Verso Books, 2 September 2020.]
Gordon adds that “the struggle to transform the world takes place immanently today now.”
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In a similar style, AM Kanngieser says:
‘The no of refusal is a mode of survival: an impenetrable boundary, silent or shouted. It is a refusal to be killed or to succumb [...]. Vast ecosystems flattened for plantations and fields, raw minerals pulled from the ground and sea for the building of nation-states [...]. Being-with requires a pause from which to imagine this otherwise, in all of its vastness and uncertainty. [...] To be-with [...] needs a disposition of attentiveness, listening, curiosity and noticing, [...]. The immensity of the loss of people and ecologies to capitalist brutalities exceeds what we can comprehend. But [...] so do the myriad, and insuppressible flourishings and alliances, the joyfulness and love, the lives lived otherways.’ [Text from: AM Kanngieser. “To undo nature; on refusal as return.” transmediale. 2021.]
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What kind of “flourishings and alliances”?
In an interview from 2021, Robyn Maynard describes the importance of care, love in “fighting back”:
‘Every day I wake up and rehearse the person I would like to be. […] To use the words of the late, great, C.L.R. James, “every cook can govern.” Organizing, whether formal or informal, whether geared toward a short term goal or a massive, transformative shift: this is what happens when people consciously decide to come together and “shape change,” to think with Octavia Butler. And to move through the world with the intention of making it a better place for living creatures to inhabit. […] And most importantly, it’s an invitation to join in. And it is a reminder that liberation is not a destination but an ongoing process, a praxis. Every day, groups of parents, librarians, nurses, temp workers, ordinary people, tired of the horrors of the present, come together to decide what kind of world they want to inhabit. […] In a historic time of mutual aid, newly created support networks, and old and new freedom strategies, we bear witness to rehearsal, study, experimentation in form, a multiplicity of formations of struggle being waged, often most strongly by people for whom freedom has been most denied. I’m thinking here of Claude McKay’s words from “If We Must Die”: “Pressed to the wall, dying, but fighting back!” [...] [F]or so many people, whether abandoned by the state [...] or abandoned by society in a carceral site, fighting back, by virtue of necessity as well as of ethics, is building, always building. This is the freedom work, and the love work, and the care work, of rehearsal.’ [Text from: Robyn Maynard. “Every Day We Must Get Up and Relearn the World: An Interview with Robyn Maynard and Leanne Betasamosake Simpson.” Intefere: Journal for Critical Thought and Radical Politics.” 19 November 2021.]
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As for whimsy as an antidote.
I like what Dixa Ramirez D’Oleo says:
‘Opacity, multiplicity, and refraction unsettle many […]. Here I must reveal myself as someone who loves deviance and mischief. […] The word furtive delights me. A quick [online] search for synonyms yields other poetically inspiring words: secretive, surreptitious, clandestine, covert, conspiratorial, oblique, and shifty. […] We must fold these small acts of love and creativity and play (and laughter and irreverence and whimsy) into other resistant projects against white supremacy […]. In various trans-American imaginaries, the boonies are raced as nonproductive land inhabited by people who are not fully part of the Western episteme. [...] Caribbean(ist) people are familiar with el monte, the hills, or les mornes. El monte is always just around the corner, encroaching, sprouting persistently like fungi amid the rubble of hurricane disasters or abandoned plantation and industrial sites. [...] The hills, like much of our hemisphere, are sites of damage containing the residual energy of violence, [...] the “places of irresolution.” [...] I turn over rocks and push thorny vines to the side to find wet dirt, small creatures, and, perhaps, delightful hidden treasures [...]. I open my hands so that these and other surprises “jump into [them] with all the pleasures of the unasked for and the unexpected” [...]. Remaining open to these gifts of the nonhuman natural world [...]. What can we make possible when we make room for the unexpected in the midst of ruin. […] How much ruddier might we be against the multiheaded hydra of white supremacy as “a world of mutually-flourishing companions” [...]?’ [Text from: Dixa Ramirez D’Oleo. “Mushrooms and Mischief: On Questions of Blackness.” Small Axe. July 2019.]
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