#leftist vibes I guess?

[doolallymagpie]

another BattleTech vs The Expanse poll (and this time the other one isn't even over! go vote here if you haven't), this time:

[hideawaysis]

i have a friend who i will leave unnamed so neither of us get sent anon hate but they used to be very popular in a certain community until one day they did something the both of us can admit was pretty shitty and Not a good thing to do and were basically ousted from that community for doing such a thing and. they still get shit for it to this day. which i understand wanting to hold somebody accountable but. it's been six years since that happened last time i checked. everything was sorted out between said friend and the person they hurt. if i recall the person they hurt has stated that they're sick to death of people talking about what happened. friend has improved a lot as a person and now knows not to do That Thing among other stuff. and people still act like they'd gladly do it again when. holy shit. no. of course not. so much time has passed since this happened. this friend has become a way better person despite not being perfect and i can guarantee you they would not do it again. they don't even use the same fursona anymore. What The Hell

[wild-at-mind]

'They’re like the drunk guy at the bar who can’t use the right words but is a better ally then the liberal college educated scum bag.' No one loves making fun of the 'liberal college educated scumbag' like a right winger so I guess this is where the right and this kind of leftist finally agree. A happy day. :')

[drdemonprince]

all the recent talk about not voting has me a bit worried, for lack of a better word.

on one hand, yes so much yes, stop throwing all your time and energy in the insatiable maw of electoral politics, 5/5, no notes.

but on the other hand, where does that time and energy go then? despite lots of talk about mutual aid it doesn't seem to progress much beyond the abstract (at least in the various leftist groups/communities/etc. in my neck of the woods). it's held up as an ideal and great big important thing, but when there's shit that needs doing, it's *crickets*.

maybe it's because so much mutual aid is care work and thus, and i very much disagree with even though i care not for the label, not real activism i guess? like, a while ago a disabled comrade had ran into housing issues because of their illness, so we rustled up some folks to help clean and unfuck their home. which, yet again, were the same (also disabled) people that always show for those things.

coming of four years and counting of pandemic, that's been a consistent pattern. at a time where mutual aid was so needed, such a vacuum left by a state that didn't and/or wanted to do shit, it still fell on the shoulders of disabled people to do all the actual work while the rest just talked about abstract shit. or, to name another thing, diy hrt initiative where it's just a bunch of poor ass trans people scrounging up money to pay for supplies for trans people who have fuck all access, while the rest debates in the abstract about a more better system or whether it's even something they need to concern themselves about.

and like, yes, not pissing away your energy pleading with assholes who don't give a fuck about you is good, but it should only be the start. it sometimes feels like the big plan is: 1) not vote, 2) ???, 3) glorious anarchism/communism/mutual-aidism. i'm not arguing that they need to have it all worked out, but with so much shit that needs doing in the here and now i get a little worried. because that's going to take real work, not talk, and they're not putting in any of it.

I mean, most people won't do (what gets viewed as) "real activism" either. They don't go to protests, smash windows, call jails to check on the status of incarcerated people, cut supply lines, or anything else. And they don't vote either.

We live in a highly individualistic, atomized society filled with people who have been conditioned into an abiding self-interested apathy, and everyone is overworked and broke as shit and juggling a bunch of disabilities while not having any experience with building genuine community and lacking most of the infrastructural and social tools to do so. The number of people who are avowed leftists is vanishingly small, and among them the people who actually walk the talk or have the education and community ties to even be able to is even smaller. Not disagreeing with your read of the situations you're dealing with here, just putting them within the broader context of many very similar problems that I see touch every single aspect of organizing today. even like the most tepid liberal get out the vote kind of organizing is plagued by this, and of course that is by design.

What gives me hope in the present moment is just how many people are completely fucking done with the prevailing system, and how many are refusing to play along with its rules. A lot of the people who aren't voting are not leftists. At least not yet. Just like many of the people who are quiet quitting and half-assing it at work or just vibing on unemployment for as long as they can are not communists. But they do know that the system is bunk and is failing them, and they are refusing to be compliant within it any longer. I believe that a lot of people's better natures do get inspired during a moment of collapse. I also think there is a profound rot at the heart of settler-colonial states that fills them with people who do not recognize themselves as having any responsibility to others. That's all the more reason for such an empire to fall.

I think you're right to worry for the future, though I don't think the reason to be worried is as simple as people not people caring about disabled folks, or any other group. I always wonder who the mythical abled people are who are abnegating their duty in such an understanding of the world. I sure haven't met any of them. I only meet people who are also disabled and don't realize it.

[qqueenofhades]

Once you get offline, Biden’s doing ok with everyone but Republicans and racists. Unfortunately, that’s a pretty big voting bloc, but it should be manageable. More unfortunately, Harris is. Not popular. With anyone. Like, we’re talking Dan “To not have a mind is being very wasteful” Quayle levels of dissing. You can blame some of it on sexism and racism, but enough women and people of color have jumped on the “Kamala’s letting The Team down” bandwagon that there’s got to be more to it than this. Any thoughts?

Yeah, uh, I don't think that's fair OR accurate, and deserves quite a bit more reflection and pushback than is implied here (since your question frames it as thinking there MUST be something wrong with her and invites me to expand on it). First off, I am not comfortable comparing the first female vice president (AND female VP of color) to empty suit Dan Quayle, and especially when there's such a disparity in their background, social perception, and accomplishments, not to mention their role in the administration. So:

"You can blame some of it on sexism and racism, but -- " Okay, but how much? Are we actually assigning a weight to that and taking it into consideration, or hand-waving it aside in search of the "real" cause? Online Leftists are already disposed to irrationally dislike Kamala because of the "she's a cop!!!" business that went around during the primaries, which was likewise inaccurate and misleading, but showed how women, especially women of color, are often treated in white leftist spaces (including by leftist-identifying women). That very much WAS down to sexism, racism, and perceiving her as "shrill" or "there's just something I don't like about her." Okay, what is that? WHAT is the thing you don't like about her? Would you notice it in a male politician? Would you critique it in a male politician? If the answer is any part unclear, this needs more work and is in fact reflective of that dynamic, whether or not anyone is aware of it or thinks that's the reason why.

No, seriously. If someone professes that they "just don't like" Kamala or "there's something about her that rubs me the wrong way" or whatever else, my immediate next question would be "Why? What don't you like about her?" And keep drilling down through whatever excuses about "unlikeability" or "personality" or whatever else is offered. If this can be persuasively articulated in a way that a) exposes a substantive policy reason, b) can be differentiated from what any male vice president or other person in her position would do or what should be expected of them, and c) isn't just about "offputting vibes," then sure, we can have a discussion about that. Otherwise, yeah. That's not convincing me that it's anything other than the constant, long-running, ever-present discomfort with seeing a powerful and accomplished woman of color, who started her career prosecuting sex criminals, was the first Black woman in the Senate, and is now the first female vice president, actually state her issues and own her role.

"Enough women and people of color have jumped on the 'Kamala Is Letting the Team Down' bandwagon that there must be -- " Really? Must there? First of all, it's damn near impossible to find any Online Leftist who's willing to give Biden accurate credit for his accomplishments -- see the "Biden is bad and uninspiring and anti-trans but we should I guess vote for him anyway" rhetoric which is the closest they can possibly get to acknowledging it. (None of which is actually true!) When that's the case with the top of the ticket, it's orders of magnitude easier to project that irrational dislike and distortion onto "shrill" or "dislikable" Kamala. So who are these "women and people of color" who don't like Kamala? Are they in the room with us right now? Do they actually care about/vote for the Democrats, support their policy accomplishments, and realistically understand the progress that's been made and what remains to be done, or do they want to use Kamala as yet another convenient stick to beat the Democrats (since they won't give them accurate credit to start with?)

Even if this was true, sexism and racism somehow magically wasn't a factor (which uh, it is not) and Kamala had some terrible personality defect that was unique to her and her alone and not any of the far worse vice presidents there have been in the last 20 years alone: what is this kind of question intended to accomplish? Are we supposed to fear that by voting for Biden, we might vote for Kamala as well? Well, she was on the ticket last time too, and they won the election. Don't know what else to tell you.

[wrongcaitlyn]

do you have any jegulus fic recs??

YES ABSOLUTELY

it's been a bit since i've read jegulus fics bc the solangelo hyperfixation has been so strong but i still have plenty bookmarked!! i'm just going to share my favs of my favs, but i have even more (21 total) bookmarked on my ao3 :)

(also, just gonna put this right here, that i 100% would rec crimson rivers, best friend's brother, and just lovers by bizarrestars, and art heist baby! by otrtbs but i feel like everyone in the jegulus fandom has already read those bc they're pretty much classics, so just know!! i love those fics!! but i'm gonna try and rec some other possibly less known fics here :))

ALSO ALSO - all of these authors have incredible other fics and i highly recommend you check out their entire dashboard!!! for literally every single author on this list. i'm subscribed to all of themjkdf

You Signed Up For This by Solmussa

James and Regulus have a summer fling that they promised their friends they wouldn’t have. Remus and Sirius discover their mutual hatred is just pent-up sexual tension. Dorcas and Marlene are always winning, even when they’re not. It’s a cruel summer for all. first of all i'm extremely attached to this fic bc it introduced me to maisie peters, which led to one of the best concert experiences of my life!! but other than that, this is just so beautifully written, so detailed, and an all-around incredible fic. everything by this author is incredible too!! it's got the perfect balance of angst vs fluff and just summer vibes, which is prob the perfect thing to read right now - anyway, DEF read if you haven't already!!

Mastermind by pieceofchocolate

Regulus Black is the mastermind behind the Liberal party. Unfortunately, he’s never been very good at the more outgoing parts of politics – on a more fortunate note, he has his brother to act as a front figure. Sirius Black has always been the sweetheart of British politics, charming the voters with his wit and charisma. That was until James Potter came around, becoming party leader of his own party, the Leftists. Sirius would probably hate him, if they weren't such good friends. Regulus does not share this problem. Remus Lupin literally just needed a job, and got thrown into the mess of secrets, games and an upcoming parliamentary crisis. With an election around the corner, things are bound to go awry. MCD WARNING but so worth it. like genuinely. it's a painful fic but there's also a good dose of fluff and i enjoyed every single second of reading despite it being politics and.. well, i'm from america so you can probably guess that it was very strange to actually be attached to these characters while they were politicians😭 this one's also so well written and - there are fics where you can just tell that the person cares so deeply about the topic they're writing about, and this is one of them!!! i love finding fanfics where authors are just incredibly passionate about the subject/au OH and it has a taylor swift title. so like. yk it's already gonna be good. (this is also actually one of my favorite songs ever so i was soo excited to read)

blue and yellow skies by alarainai

Quidditch Rivals turned Quidditch Lovers. That's what the world sees them as, at least. Too bad Regulus hates James Potter's guts, and James? Well, it doesn't matter what he feels about their definitely fake, definitely emotionless relationship. c'mon. there had to be one fame au on this list. and i KNOW that this one's sports, but it's so so so fucking good - and i'm gonna be honest, i've read so many of the band au's (there are quite a lot in this fandom, even i've written one) but for some reason i didn't have any of them bookmarked - which tbf, i'm very selective with what i bookmark lmfao but!!! this one is just SO good the plot, the social media aspect, the background wolfstar, just 10/10 fic!!

these violent delights (have violent ends) by damagecontrol

titanic au prepare for pain. MCD warning. but like, the pain is written so well, and it's so heartbreaking, and i literally remember staring at the ceiling after reading this (finishing at like 2 in the morning) and just not being able to think of anything but that ending, and like, you KNOW that you're going to be in pain bc it's a titanic au, but like, GOD it's so good. i genuinely don't even have the words i'm still depressed bc of it (but in a good way)

The Mystery of the Pears by sonwar

In the cave, Regulus doesn’t beg for it to stop. He begs not be left behind, alone. Perhaps this is why, when Kreacher gives one last look over his shoulder and sees terrible, pale hands reaching for his master, he appears in a flash at Regulus’ side, clutches him by the elbow, and Apparates them both out of the cave, directly disobeying his master’s last order. canonverse fic!! and such a lovely au. the romance between them is just so natural, and yet there's still the war going on - but really, it's just so well written, despite all the angst of the war, imo it's just such a feel-good fic. love this one so much.

Only the Brave by Solmussa

A fic about two idiots falling in love (x2 because there's wolfstar, too) during a war, and the sacrifices they'll have to make to survive it. andddd this one's the big one. this one's the one i choose to accept as canon. like. GUYS. THIS ONE'S SO FUCKING GOOD if you haven't already and you're a jegulus fan, you just HAVE to read it like genuinely. the plot is so well-thought out, all of the interludes give these other characters their own stories too, and the angst!!! but also the badassery!!! i can't even explain it but if you want a canonverse war au where jegulus survives and they all win, then, like, this is the one. it's so perfect. prob my fav jegulus fic of all time.

and those r my recs!! hope that you enjoy them, and i have several others in my bookmarks!! i've also written some if you haven't checked those out, but!! happy reading :) thank you for the ask!

[jewish-vents]

My entire life, I've yearned for the kind of community the Jewish community and Judaism have provided me. I found out I had Jewish ancestry when I was a kid, I looked into it more later and realized my most recent Jewish ancestor (like three-ish generations back) was almost certainly forcibly converted out, and decided to convert to like. Make amends for that I guess and also because I really vibed with the holidays and how we turn up everywhere in history bc we keep doing cool stuff despite consistently shitty circumstances.

But I digress.

I have waited my WHOLE LIFE trying to experience the joy becoming Jewish has shown me, and that gets shit on constantly.

My sister has started making a truly obscene number of Jew jokes. My mom scoffs at all the 'nonsense rules' and has said repeatedly that she thinks choosing a 'restrictive' religion is dumb and I've made a mistake. She even said it's an insult to HER parenting skills that I would seek out religion after she tried to teach me to know better.

My dad is dead but I never ever in a million years would have told him even if he were alive, and my sister thinks it's funny to threaten to 'out' me as Jewish to his relatives even though they're basically KKK-adjacent so she actually enjoys threatening mg safety at this point. (Yay family right?)

My friends have turned everything into an Israel/Palestine discussion lately and I know damn well what they're doing when they start saying truly horrible shit about Israelis and looking at me. They get mad if I try to temper their extremism so I've given up. I barely talk to them anymore and I spend more and more time with other Jews from temple and I don't want to like. Isolate myself from all non-Jews I guess bc I've always felt like that leads to weirdness and perpetuates shit about Jews being unfriendly I guess idk?

Anyway I digress again. My point is I'm really sick of constantly being expected to tolerate it when people think I shouldn't be Jewish.

Other queer people think I'm somehow compromising my queer identity by being Jewish, leftists think I hunt Palestinian children for sport now apparently, right-wingers think I traffic good Christian babies for organ harvesting or some shit idfk, my friends think that if I'm not being more vitriolic in my hatred of Israel than they already are I'm some kind of secret rabid Netanyahu fan, my family think I've been recruited into a cult apparently and the only other people who show me even an ounce of compassion or regard are other Jews and Gd knows there's like ten of us and that number is unlikely to increase.

Just. Fuck. I've put blood, sweat, tears and money into this, I invested more time and emotional commitment into this than I have into going to college or choosing a career, I love it more than anything and have only loved it more the more I learned about it, and all I get when I express this or even just let slip that I am Jewish and chose to be, I get nothing but hatred. I will never understand how a religion that has spent all 5000 years of our existence minding our business and arguing about the same book over and over can possibly have offended this many people with our existence.

Dmn anon, that is a lot you're dealing with right now. I'm so sorry you're surrounded by people who clearly don't respect you. Because yes this is a lack of basic respect, and it is antisemitic. Now I don't know how old you are and how safe you are, but if you can safely do so, set very hard boundaries. Do not tolerate this amount of disrespect towards who you are. It is hard, and many of us have had to go through similar situations, as you can read all over this blog. But I think having to spend your life surrounded by people who make you feel unsafe and disrespected is worse. I know sometimes there are situations in which people cannot safely set these boundaries, I hope it's not your case, but if it is feel free to come here to vent again.

I know you don't want to isolate yourself from goyim. Many Jewish people don't want to. Sadly, when people disrespect us like this, they're the ones isolating us. It's not your fault. Seek people who love and accept you. Sadly, a good chunk of goyim won't - I'm not saying everyone, obviously, but a portion. Having a good Jewish support network seems to be more and more important, whether it's irl or online.

I hope you can soon be in an environment that's safer and more accepting

- 🐺

[sarcasticbeanie]

tenzing tharkay for the ask game!!

First impression this guy slammed the door in. gently nudged the person blocking him to the side. has an eagle on his hand. then coolly and mockingly snubbed a room full of rich white folk. Is there anything more to say? Love at first sight. I didn't even think he was an important character I just enjoyed his character introduction so much. I was like: man this dude is really cool. he's cynical and mocking but patient with his explanations when talking to Temeraire. the book summary says there's going to be a betrayal but I hope it's not him. hope he survives, too, 'cause the survival rates of side characters have Not been high so far.

Impression now He's hypercompetant. he's a leftist. he can throw chairs "coolly". He's noticeably not a pathetic meow meow but he is my babygirl. But what made me really like him is that - he's so lonely. It's something that has seeped into his bones and he doesn't need or want anything else - or at least that's what he tells himself. Then William Laurence offered a hand, wishing for them to be equals, exchanging his own loyalty - and Tharkay went. fuck. now I have to actually like this guy. Then Temeraire objected when Tharkay volunteered himself for a dangerous mission - and Tharkay went. huh. ok I guess they do care for me. then after doing one (1) mission with Laurence and Co., he went. yeah. guess I have to follow this idiot anywhere now. I love seeing lonely characters realize that they have a place,, that they can still care for others, and be loved and cared for in return. Tharkay is just my specialest guy. he's so important to me. To me. I start kicking my feet and giggling whenever he comes on page. that's my little guy... (40 yr old man)

Favorite moment Clenches fists there're so many of them. but if I had to choose it might just be his entrance? like in my answer to question one. love at first sight and all that. aside from that... any of his rescues if either Laurence or Tem were all so fun. his sections are just a whole lot of competency and I enjoy that a lot. but I also really appreciated him getting rescued by Laurence in book 8,, listen. i love putting characters in bad situations sometimes. and I thrive on hurt/comfort.

Idea for a story Oh, I'm boring. I'm just rotating him like a rotisserie chicken in my mind... I really want the prequels of this guy. Was he once naive and hopeful? Does he remember his mother? How did he feel after being scorned by his own family? Did he make friends, or did he make his journey forever alone? Were there any companions he viewed as important? He's as tight-lipped as a pistachio with no crack and just as hard to open. But I want to know more about him and delve into his past and psyche. and i'm also thinking about willzing. I've seen a lot of fics in which Laurence is panicking and angsting about his feelings while struggling with his own thoughts on honor, and I want to see a Tharkay version of this... is this guy actually good at self-reflection and acknowledging his own feelings? or does he have to struggle with his long habit of loneliness and his constant experience of being spurned? does he yearn for more from his and Laurence's relationship, or is he content enough with what he thinks he can get? discuss.

Unpopular opinion I have nothing against it!! But. I just don't feel the sexually and romantically dominant vibes from this guy? a lot of wonderful and awesome fics depict him as someone who's in charge, confident, sure in his romantic and sexual endeavors (which is great and very good food), but I don't think he's particularly domineering or even too experienced in sexual and romantic acts. the man's probably busy bouncing around all over the place tangled up in schemes and spying and missions and whatnot. and I think if you ask him to be entirely clear in his own feelings and to proffer them all directly he'd explode into 10 billion little pieces.

Favorite relationship Willzing. They're just very fun to me. I'm holding them up and swinging them around like ferrets.

Favorite headcanon He's demiromantic and demisexual. To me. He's slow to trust but he falls hard after, but only if you've built up a sufficient, steady, and long-term relationship (platonic) beforehand. Personally, I think it would be funny if that happened in. the final book or something.

[samobservessonic]

Next is the third and final part of “Enter the Cybernik”. And y’know, so far they haven’t referred to him as Shortfuse at all, purely “The Cybernik”. I guess we’ll see if that changes this issue or if it’s a name that Shorty picks up later down the line

One of the people who Shorty rescued last time is his friend Hopper, who hopes that they can help Shorty break out of his armour. However, Shorty is all too happy to use his metallic prison to make Robotnik’s life a nightmare. Look at his eyes doing the cheerful emote on that bottom left panel - he’s living his leftist dreams of being able to take down the oppressive dictator!

We then get a sequence of Shortfuse and Robotnik having an aerial fight and it’s all very cool, even if I’ve only included a little bit here

Robotnik ends the fight by flipping a switch that disables Shortfuse’s flight, but is then interrupted by one of his other biggest problems in the Emerald Hill Zone…

…It’s Sonic, of course! And I’m not sure if those stars around Shortfuse are from his circuits being fried or because squirrels just have a habit of being queer for Sonic. Maybe both

“Hey cool, he dropped his device that stops me from working properly!”

The gang’s all here! I’m mostly including this panel because Amy’s in it, but we do get Sonic eagerly asking for Shortfuse to join them, since he’s already proven that he could be a powerful ally in the fight against Robotnik

But Shortfuse would rather be a lone wolf for now, even saying goodbye to his friend Hopper and renaming himself “Shortfuse the Cybernik” as he flies away to fight another day What a great introduction for someone who’ll go on to become one of StC’s better known characters! I like Shortfuse - reading this in 2024 he puts me in the frame of mind of three other Sonic characters: The first is Bunnie Rabbot. Since the timing is similar, I do wonder if Shortfuse might’ve been made to be StC’s answer to Bunnie in the SatAM cartoon. Although their personalities aren’t similar, they have the same sort of role as the powerhouse who was weaponized by Robotnik and decided to use those weapons to fight back against him The present version of Shadow the Hedgehog - mostly for the “grumpy loner who occasionally helps Sonic’s team, but doesn’t join them” vibes. There will be times later on when Shortfuse temporarily joins the team, but he likes to stay his own agent E-123 Omega. This one’s probably the most obvious comparison. Powerful Robotnik robot who wants nothing more than to destroy everything to do with Robotnik. I’d say that Shortfuse is perhaps not as single-minded as Omega. He’s something like a halfway house between Shadow and Omega

Anyway, love this guy already and I’m looking forward to seeing his later appearances

[owlbelly]

this is so so so petty but

sometimes i think about this couple i met in college who had this incredibly queerer-than-thou vibe & positioned themselves as fairly gatekeepy experts on gender stuff (both identified as genderqueer, part of the reason i felt like it wasn't available to me) & also as super politically radical, which intimidated me at the time as a "GNC but cis i guess" monogamous lesbian who thought marriage equality was the most important civil rights issue for queers

& the fact that they went on to get married (there was never even a barrier there since they had different birth assignments & could pass as a straight couple), have a baby & open a fucking microbrewery. also i'm not even sure either of them identifies as trans anymore?

which is obviously not the kind of track my life took lmfao like i am not here for the "who's queerer" shit but by the standards they were holding people to in our early-20s! it's a little bit rich!

sincerely wishing them all the best, they seem really happy, but i sort of wonder now if all that shit was just defensive on their part & covering a deep anxiety that they in fact were "not ___ enough"

anyway don't confidently lay out the criteria for being queer/trans or leftist enough because the people you're posturing to will remember it & have a laugh about you later if you don't measure up to your own bar

[postpunk-vibes]

Heyyy! First post in my new blog. Anyways, i'll be sharing music and maybe some other stuff in here. I listen mostly to punk and post-punk music, so that's what i'll be sharing about here, the songs i'm currently obsessed with etc. Maybe so.e books i read too, and some manga that i loved. This is gonna be a more personal blog i guess.

No pressure to follow, i just made this blog for myself :3

Also, since this ended up being an introduction post, i guess i'll do a short introduction in here, since i don't have one in my main blog.

You can call me Roy or Iker, and i go by he/they pronouns (mostly he/him, but they/them are such a vibe) and i'm genderqueer, pretty masc unless i feel silly. I'm 23 years old and politically really leftist. Also, i'm from the Basque Country, a small region under Spain and France, and the languages i use are Spanish, Basque, English, German and some Franch, and i live the sound of Russian, so expect songs in those languages :3

The compulsory song:

[freesidexjunkie]

I was out w my younger cousin yesterday just vibing and chilling and talking my abt gender stuff and I did get hit kinda with the realization/feeling/thought of like. Being the Family's Token Leftist doesn't have to mean just getting side eyes and dismissive attitudes at family functions. It doesn't have to always be "somewhat drunk relative grasping desperately for a gotcha argument about why actually The Other People are bad." Sometimes being the Family's Token Leftist means you get to be who younger queer family members see as the Safe Person. Sometimes it means being the one to take them to their first pride. Sometimes it means being the one so passive aggressive about their pronouns that family members are intimated into using the right pronouns for once, and while that means some of the family sees you as the hardass who bullies them into leftism it also means getting to see a kid look relieved and comfortable too.

I guess sometimes it means getting to be the person I wanted to have when I was younger and that is. Idk. Very feelings abt it rn. And it feels scary doing things that might alienate the family members I spent my whole life trying to hide parts of myself to appease, but watching it do more than just. Exhaust and drain and terrify myself. Makes it feel so so different.

[nevergoesout]

can't wait to move to the new place and have a tiny fresh start and make everything tidy and organisedddd and just lovely and cosy and show off all our nice things... picked up a beautiful vintage dominoes set in one of those sliding wooden boxes off the side of the road today (i love this city for the leaving free shit outside ur house culture!!). horrible horrible cramps today and forgot my brufen so just had to suffer.. probably for the best for my stomach in the long run i guess.. on and off very sad about dad today, weird how it keeps hitting me/swinging to apathy - weird but mostly exhausting... depressed in general and mostly manifesting in self-hatred which i am struggling to keep control over but i am doing my best .. reading wuthering heights in the sun on my lunch break today, finished a chapter and decided i ought to head back to work and stood up and really felt like i had just woken up from a 30min blackout or something, so disoriented. haven't lost myself in a book like that in so long.. this one is a bit special i do think.. went and sat and played silly games (charades etc) w coworkers after work in the park, again blessedly sunny and very nice vibes , it's very lovely working somewhere everyone my level is a 20something leftist w silly vibes. need to make the most of it and hang out more, and ask people to do things with my one on one (scary !!!!!!! but i am fiending for a museum trip lately..). want to invite people to my birthday on sat but i do not think the two groups would mix well hahahaha. i do love my friends tho, they are chaotic and brilliant and i am feeling more and more real-friends with them lately. things will all be ok, they already are really. watched savannah browns video about being autistic many years late to the party but oh man, timing. and oh man in general. i am on a waiting list........... until then i need to cut myself some slack finally. i dont have to be normal, i never did..

[fefairys]

another dreary thing is being the only ones (me and my partner) still wearing a mask in a very enclosed space with a bunch of other leftists. makes me feel like keeping everyone at arms length. like yeah you’re cool and we vibe but you’re not wearing a mask despite being in very close indoor proximity to like 15 other people right now. so. you don’t really care about people like me do you. so we can be “friends” i guess but there’s still going to be a distance there because you think masking is too inconvenient i guess.

[applestorms]

been reading through some of the author commentary from the patreon post archive for HS^2 stuff & writing notes on certain quotes from it and i think i've come up with (slightly) more distinct reasons for why the epilogues/homestuck^2 feel so off and/or frustrating to me. not gonna post the full thing + i'm only about halfway through reading it all, but here's a few points (warning this one gets kinda political):

It’s possible “Ultimate” Dirk’s presence was suppressing other splinters of himself from manifesting.

Wait, so... Ult. Dirk is just suppressing the other splinters? But I thought the entire point was that he subsumed all the other splinters to become one Ultimate Self? Weird, but I guess that plays more into the narrative powers side of things that they put a lot of emphasis on. That, or the creators don't have a very clear idea of what actually makes an Ultimate Self, which would. also work lmfao

Unlike the other victors of the game, Jane threw herself into the world the kids made together. She grew up preparing to take over a major company, and has the confidence to show for it.

Gonna get more into two ideas here in a bit related to this quote, the first being HS^2's Trump Era politics & the second being Jane more specifically. Here's the first connection:

I don’t know if you noticed, but everything is terrible right now. And I don’t mean just in Homestuck’s dumb fake earth. I mean in our dumb real earth. Our planet is burning and folks go to bed hungry just so twelve guys can have more money than Croesus could have ever dreamed of. The concept of “truth” is at its most tenuous – political divisions involve contradictory interpretations of basic facts. I’ve been playing a lot of Death Stranding recently. Basically any media that you’re making in 2019 has to either address what’s going on around us or come off sanitized, sterilized, with its head in the sand. Kojima offers a simple power fantasy: Through Norman Reedus’s sweaty, urine-filled labor, the things that divide us can be banished. America can be unified again.

HS^2 is kind of agonizingly pessimistic when it comes to its (not at all subtle) political messaging, which I suppose you can in part attribute to a Trump-era leftist/liberal culture, but I personally also attribute to a specific flavor of white person existential pessimism. What frustrates me about HS^2's politics in particular though is just how much it talks down to the reader, acting like their (frankly, imo, pretty fuckin basic) reflections on the flaws of capitalism, gender constructs, and contemporary American politics are these revolutionary ideas that nobody other than them truly understands. It's really aggravating to read, honestly, and reminds me a lot of the perspective reflected on in this video by F.D Signifier about Bo Burnham's Inside & white performative liberalism, though in this context the creators are much more insufferable about it than Burnham ever was. (This is NOT to say every creator working on HS^2 was white or even ascribes/d to these kinds of politics, but that's one of the voices that I feel comes through the strongest.)

Edit: Re-watched that whole video and he really does get at the exact idea I'm thinking of. However, I would add that the thing that makes HS^2 feel especially insufferable to me is the fact that it doesn't feel like the authors are engaging in their politics as genuinely or personally as Burnham does. Where Burnham's look into these issues is self-reflective, the existential dread coming from the ways in which he himself plays a part in perpetuation of systems of oppression, I feel like HS^2's creators were unwilling to look at the ways in which they themselves might've benefited from the same kinds of privileges. It's just- it's egotistical, honestly! And it's a vibe that I get from a lot of heavily queer, young, white fandom spaces, which presume that because of their own experiences with queer and trans-based bigotry they understand everything and don't have to examine their own biases or any other nuances to their social position/the privileges they might personally have & continue to benefit from. I don't know- Homestuck was never going to be a good medium for examining the nuances of race and privilege, that was determined by the very first page or whenever Hussie decided non-canon races were a thing, but that doesn't make it any less agonizing to watch such a ham-fisted, pompous attempt at "social commentary." Ugh.

I guess I can understand the desire to get HS^2's politics to be more up to date and with it, again considering what the Trump-era American political landscape looked like (and what HS proper looked like, let's be real), but the way they approach this just makes the authors seem that much more immature to me. I hesitate to even call this political commentary, it's just pointing out that things are bad and then complaining about it. There's no hope here and it shows, and I personally have very little patience when it comes to that kind of perspective. I don't want to be too harsh to the creators or completely undermine the ways they might've faced structural social challenges (yes, trans people have it fucking bad right now! And there was absolutely some bigoted shit directed at the creators that was more reprehensible than anything here, I was there when this shit was coming out, I saw it all too (alongside the genuinely good criticism that they wrote off just as easily, but I digress)), but this shit is just bad, I'm sorry.

Privilege, safety, and inherited wealth do funny things to the brain. People justify to themselves why they have what they have. If you have enough for long enough, you start to convince yourself you deserve it. Jane won the game, lost very little, and as god of a new world decided to dominate its markets as a corporate mogul. Her conception of what was possible with her capability and god-like reason was shaded, limited by the world she grew up in. She is not a goddess of fantasy, a semi-mythical trickster creature like Jasprose, or a meta-aware marionette master like Dirk. She saw a new world and chose, simply, to replicate the power structures of the 21st-century America she was raised in. Boardrooms, power pantsuits, formality and professionalism.

(Longer quote here justifying the horror they did to Jane's character but let's add one more before I elaborate further)

But in the end, isn’t that what every story is? Trying to untie knots that you put in the rope yourself?

This quote is very telling and gets at my issue with the Jane quote from above, really one of my main issues with the all post-canon shit just in general: when the authors were creating a bunch of problems and inserting them into the story, something that is (typically) necessary for any kind of meaningful storytelling, they went about the process of introducing that conflict totally wrong.

In the original story of HS, problems for the characters primarily originated from Sburb, which acts as both the game they're playing and, as is demonstrated throughout Act 1, the world itself. Problems in the story thus often feel at least kind of true to life because they either originate directly from the game & its constructs (which the characters have no control over, parallel to how you can't usually control the world irl) or individuals responding to those circumstances w/ their own set of unique characteristics (Vriska being an active character and creating villains to become a hero but also Rose deciding she has to go through with a suicide mission in response to the game/Doc Scratch and Dave in turn responding to her actions, etc. etc.).

This is not necessarily true for all of the story or every single plot point/character arc, but I think it generally follows, and so for as meta as HS gets, it never really felt to me like you could see the hand of the author when it comes to how major plot elements are introduced, outside of a few very overt examples. Problems are able to crop up fairly naturally through characters responding in what they think to be natural/rational ways to their circumstances, but may or may not be due to the limitations on their understanding. The situation and environment of Sburb and the world of HS itself may be absurd and stupid and crazy and very obviously created by an author, but the characters typically feel consistent and true to themselves as people in how they respond to the absurdity and confusion of their world. It's one of the reasons why I think HS is so appealing as a coming of age story actually, since stepping into adulthood (or even just your teenage years) does often feel like entering a world that is crazy and cruel and unknowable with all of these malicious, far-away forces that know way more than you could ever possibly understand controlling every detail of the world around you and deciding your fate before you even get the chance to know it's coming. These are kids, they really don't have a lot of power even once they ascend to godhood in comparison to the forces they're dealing with, and the story & world reflects that.

The problem w/ HS^2 & the Epilogues is that the authors don't have the same game construct to work with, barely have a world at all to begin with actually, and so they instead twist pretty much every single character into the worst possible versions of themselves in order to try and recreate the same HS absurdity. But it just doesn't work, because there is no real explanation for why every character is suddenly at their lowest point and acting like a fucking idiot all the time other than "ooo adulthood makes everyone worse!" and vague gestures to capitalism and privilege (or what I would call structural ignorance, though I don't think they ever call it that), so the story just comes across as incredibly cruel and uncaring and unabashedly pessimistic in a way that's just miserable to read.

Yes, Jane grew up privileged, it makes sense that she would be sympathetic to capitalism and try to recreate the same social structures that fucked people up on the original Earth- but that is not nearly enough justification for why she has suddenly gone full fascist dictator endorsing troll eugenics and trying to murder people, and it doesn't even work well as social commentary cause it's so extreme right from the start that it couldn't possibly reflect real life issues or the development of actual fascist/bigoted ideas. Yes, Trump's ties to the alt-right are fucking terrifying and conservative politics in general in the U.S. nowadays are incredibly fucked, but there's still logical people and seemingly rational explanations being utilized to justify the bullshit that many people genuinely believe in and HS^2 fails to meaningfully reflect or comment on any of those, at least from what I can tell. Everyone is consistent with how they are terrible, I'll give them that, for Dirk and Jane and everyone else the flaws that are being emphasized are ones that are generally kind of consistent with canon, but I simply cannot get behind why they suddenly decided to be the worst possible versions of themselves other than that the authors realize they needed plot and decided that the best way to make Candy and Meat the Bad Timelines:tm: was to spontaneously make everyone as insufferable as possible.

I think a part of the problem is the time skip, honestly. And the fact that Earth C as a location itself is surprisingly underutilized when it comes to creating problems for the characters. The characters are gods ruling over a world where they can be dictator of the globe at the end of a single election. Without the game and the lack of distinct outside villains, there is nothing stopping them from having full agency over everything other than each other, so in order to create plot, instead of going through the effort to create a world or social structure they just made everyone worse and called it a day. It's like the epitome of white liberalism's inability to understand bad systems vs. bad individuals- there are no real systems here, nothing that actually functions past a name, so everyone is just fucking terrible.

(Honestly, I think the fact that there are no overt outside villains could've been a good way of transitioning to the fact that these characters aren't kids anymore- if Dirk and Jane didn't have to be transformed into fucking caricatures of themselves in order to do it. Really the problem is that so many of the characters that used to add interesting nuance to the social conflict are fucking dead now. RIP trolls.)

Since this is turning out to be the political astronaut ramble I guess I'll just keep going for a bit: one of the most meaningful insights a professor has ever given to me came is the idea that we "haven't earned our pessimism yet," as the younger generations, or haven't faced The Shit directly or long enough to justify having as little hope as we do. Many of us have looked at the problem and given up before even trying to solve it, and are, in fact, not really justified in making such a decision.

For me, there's an additional layer to that idea as well: one of the ideas that Beauvoir talks about in her feminist philosophy is that of agency, wherein social privilege allows for certain groups to decide which meaning-creating projects they want to or to not take on where others are not allowed to make the same choice. If you sit in any kind of position of social privilege, that historical role has continually been the one to not only benefit from the rules, but make them in the first place. This kind of pessimism is thus not just unearned, not just frustrating to listen to, but actively harmful to the creation of meaningful change. Who really benefits from inaction? From a lack of change to the status quo? And who are the privileged to make decisions about whether or not we're allowed to fight for this shit in the first place?

[coldgoldlazarus]

.

On one hand, it's kinda ironic that I don't like YuzuMei of Citrus, because I hold not only the position that "sisters kissing is hot" but more importantly, "maybe incest between consenting siblings/cousins in the same age range isn't that bad actually and shouldn't be conflated with actual pedophilia?" And yet, I massively prefer HaruYuzu and the main pairing just grosses me out, not because they're sisters but because of everything else about their dynamic.

On paper, I should be all about it, but in practice I just do not like Mei's vibes or how Actually Uncomfortable she makes Yuzu feel on a regular basis, and how the attraction between them feels very much based on the Suspension Bridge Effect from Mei's frequent sexual harassment. Which yeah, I realize is her paying her own trauma forward, and it apparently eventually tapers off after the point where I stopped reading, but it still feels like a pretty shitty origin for their romance. "Hey kids, you wanna know how your mother and I got together? She all-but-outright raped me until I started liking it."

But on further thought, I think it's also partially because I have a more lenient view on certain types of incest, that my bouncing off of Citrus actually makes perfect sense. Because even if it is on a surface level presenting this as romantic, there's still an implicit undercurrent here (intentional or not) of agreement with the idea that all incest is inherently toxic and unhealthy. The fact that the taboo nature of their relationship alone isn't seen as enough to carry an engaging conflict, but it has to be presented as Steamy And Torrid and Softcore-Hypersexual as possible.

It carries somewhat similar vibes for me as like, those old lesbian pulp novels that could have all the gay romance and sex they wanted, as long as one or both of the women got killed off by the end as editorial punishment for their transgressions. Like, a different approach, but still that same vibe of fetishizing something while still ultimately condemning it in the same breath. With those pulp novels it was a conscious decision, whereas with Citrus it feels more like a result of unconscious biases creeping in and affecting the presentation, but the end impression I get is the same. "Sure you can have the gay, but it's still a sin so they have to die at the end!" and "Sure you can have incest, but it's still a sin so it can only come from sexual abuse and manipulation!"

(And don't even get me started on fucking Oreimo, ugh.)

Idk where I'm going with this, just needed to get that off my chest, even knowing most people who might see it will probably not respond well.

EDIT: Like, I guess what I'm getting at, is that as much as I am in support of problematic media getting to exist and not be censored away, there is also some stuff that I disagree with being considered problematic in the first place? And that seeps into the way it is portrayed, even in media that's ostensibly taking a positive approach to it like Citrus. The way incest and pedophilia are lumped together even in leftist circles doesn't sit right with me, when everything wrong with irl cases of the first ultimately stems from overlap with the second, or otherwise is just plain old abuse with the incest aspect being incidental.