#that's also a very capitalistic mindset of why people write

[fleetsparrow]

There's something I don't like about this survey question, and I've finally figured out what it is.

The question says:

"Where are you currently in your writing career?"

With the following answers, of which you can only choose one:

Writing for fun—not interested in publishing

Intend to get published, but haven't yet

Published one or more short stories only

Traditionally published one or more books

Self-published one or more books

Mixed traditionally/self-published

All of these are perfectly valid areas to be at. That's not the problem.

I dislike how these options are being framed as part of a single "career path" that moves in only one direction: the ultimate goal being traditionally published books.

Easily, you could argue this is the most well-known path of a "writing career" (very old-school, "write every day" type mentality path). But it's not the only one.

Just to use myself as a personal example, I don't know how to accurately answer this question.

My facts:

I have not been published by a big press

I self-publish my own fanfic and original fic

I have had a story published in a kickstarted anthology press which created hard copies of the anthology

I have never completed a novel or novella

I have wanted in the past to have a traditional publishing path

I have written commissions for actual monies

I am currently writing for fun with no desire to traditionally publish at this time, even though this may change at some future point

The most accurate as in "up to the minute" answer is the first, that I am writing for fun.

But the way this question is worded suggests that I'm "just starting out". That I'm "new" to writing. I can almost guarantee the next suggested solutions will be "Writing 101" type lessons.

I also take offense at this answer option, "Published one or more short stories only", specifically because of their use of "only".

I see this a lot in writing spaces (the strongest of which is/was NaNo spaces).

The implication of the "only" is that short stories are not "real" stories. They're seen as "practice" for the "real" work of writing novels. They're seen as stepping stones on the path to becoming a Real Writer who writes Novels

Sure, you can dabble in short stories, as a treat. Maybe you can even create a collection of them once you're established. But when's your novel coming out? You know, when's your real writing coming out?

It's obviously not like there isn't a lot of crossover between short story writers and novelists. Most writers do both at times, to varying degrees.

But they're not the same thing.

Short stories aren't "novel practice" pieces. Writing a short story is a skill on its own, just like writing a novel is its own skill.

Personal example again:

When I was in high school, I wanted to write novels. I had a couple going at a time, including a large high fantasy epic. It seemed very easy, then. I almost exclusively read novels. I had a very rigid daily routine via school. I had much fewer external stresses in my life at the time.

By the end of college, my brain didn't work like a novel anymore.

During and immediately after college, however, I came to fanfic. I found the StoryADay writing community. I discovered flash fiction and micro fiction.

One of my biggest struggles in school was the mandatory 5 page essay. I could always make my point in about 2. But now... You're telling me people can tell entire stories in 100 words or less??? Sign me up!

I've never written anything novel-length since. Even the longest fanfic I've ever posted is only a little over 23,000 words, and that took me ages to put together. (For the record, it's also more like a flash novel or a series of vignettes, in that very few chapters continue the same inner story.)

So, for all that, where does that leave me on the survey?

I will, for the sake of argument, discount my AO3 works from counting as "self-published". That still leaves me having "published a short story" in someone else's book AND "writing for fun" with no intent on... I guess monetary? publishing.

Which, really, tells them nothing about my "writing career".

[writingquestionsanswered]

Not to be a downer, but I actually finished my novel and now I’m confused because I don’t want to publish it. I don’t even particularly want anyone other than maybe my two close friends to even read it. What on Earth did I write 40k words (which I know is not really long enough for a novel, but it’s still far and away the longest thing I’ve ever written) for? I know people say “write for yourself” but like… am I just wasting my time? Help?

(p.s. you can leave this off anon)

(p.p.s your blog is really great 👍)

There's No Such Thing as Wasted Writing

I'm going to tackle this two ways...

#1 - "Write For Yourself" - there's a reason this common phrase has echoed through the Hall of Writers since time immemorial. It's because it's true! Writing doesn't have to be anything more than a pastime. It doesn't have to be anything more than something you do for your own benefit and enjoyment.

I have an in-joke with family members about how any time one of us does something the least bit crafty, DIY, skilled, whatever, a particular family member will always say, "You did a great job! You should do it for a living!" Like, someone can't even crochet a Kawaii mushroom without being pressured to turn it into an Etsy dynasty, or paint a cabinet without being pressured to become the next Property Brothers. And that's such a BANANAS capitalistic mindset, isn't it? This idea that nothing can be done purely for our own enjoyment. That you can't just write a novel because you want to... you can only write it if you plan to share it or publish it? It's just so silly.

And, the thing is, we don't even apply that mentality to a lot of other things people do purely for enjoyment. No one is streaming all of Bridgerton in two nights and saying, "I enjoyed every second of that, but why did I do that? Such a waste of time!" No one spends an hour strumming their guitar under the stars on a beach, and then says, "That was so relaxing and fun, but I didn't charge for that performance and I didn't record it to sell it, so that was obviously a waste of time."

You know what I mean?

#2 - And Anyway, Practice Makes Perfect - And if you keep writing--even if you continue not to share or publish--you'll get better and better with each story you write. Which, maybe all that means is you get to appreciate your own improvement, but also, should you ever change your mind and decide to write something to share or publish, you've now spent time honing your skills. Even if those other stories never see the light of day, they're still an important foundation of the writer you become. Do you know how many unpublished novellas, novels, and short stories I have? Too many to count. Hundreds of fan-fiction and original fiction short stories I've only shared with one or two other people, if anyone. A dozen or so novels and novellas that have only been read by a few people, and some haven't been read by anyone else or have only been read by my CPs. I would never consider those stories and novels and novellas to be a waste of time, because I know every single one made me a better writer. My published work is better because I wrote those other things.

So, I hope that makes you feel better. At the very least you hopefully enjoyed writing your novel--or at least got something out of it--and you definitely honed your writing skills, which matters! ♥

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I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

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[cy-cyborg]

Dealing with Healing and Disability in fantasy: Writing Disability

[ID: An image of the main character from Eragon, a white teenage boy with blond hair in silver armour as he sits, with his hand outstretched. On his hand is a glowing blue mark. He is visibly straining as he attempts to heal a large creature in front of him. /End ID]

I'm a massive fan of the fantasy genre, which is why it's so incredibly frustrating when I see so much resistance to adding disability representation to fantasy works. People's go-to reason for leaving us out is usually something to the effect of "But my setting has magic so disability wouldn't exist, it can just be healed!" so let's talk about magic, specifically healing magic, in these settings, and how you can use it without erasing disability from your story.

Ok, let's start with why you would even want to avoid erasing disability from a setting in the first place. I talked about this in a lot more detail in my post on The Miracle Cure. this line of thinking is another version of this trope, but applied to a whole setting (or at least, to the majority of people in the setting) instead of an individual, so it's going to run into the same issues I discussed there. To summarise the points that are relevant to this particular version of the trope though:

Not every disabled person wants or needs a cure - many of us see our disability as a part of our identity. Do difficulties come with being disabled? absolutely! It's literally part of the definition, but for some people in the disabled community, if you took our disabilities away, we would be entirely different people. While it is far from universal, there is a significant number of us who, if given a magical cure with no strings attached, would not take it. Saying no one in your setting would be disabled because these healing spells exists ignores this part of the community.

It messes with the stakes of your story - Just like how resurrecting characters or showing that this is something that is indeed possible in the setting can leave your audience feeling cheated or like they don't have to worry about a character *actually* ever dying. healing a character's disability, or establishing that disability doesn't exist in your setting because "magic" runs into the same problem. It will leave your readers or viewers feeling like they don't have to worry about your characters getting seriously hurt because it will only be temporary, which means your hero's actions carry significantly less risk, which in turn, lowers the stakes and tension if not handled very, very carefully.

It's an over-used trope - quite plainly and simply, this trope shows up a lot in the fantasy genre, to the point where I'd say it's just overused and kind of boring.

So with the "why should you avoid it" covered, let's look at how you can actually handle the topic.

Limited Access and Expensive Costs

One of the most common ways to deal with healing and disability in a fantasy setting, is to make the healing magic available, but inaccessible to most of the population. The most popular way to do that is by making the services of a magical healer capable of curing a disability really expensive to the point that most people just can't afford it. If this is the approach you're going to use, you also typically have to make that type of magic quite rare. To use D&D terms, if every first level sorcerer, bard, cleric and druid can heal a spinal injury, it's going to result in a lot of people who are able to undercut those massive prices and the expense will drop as demand goes down. If that last sentence didn't give you a hint, this is really popular method in stories that are critiquing capitalistic mindsets and ideologies, and is most commonly used by authors from the USA and other countries with a similar medical system, since it mirrors a lot of the difficulties faced by disabled Americans. If done right, this approach can be very effective, but it does need to be thought through more carefully than I think people tend to do. Mainly because a lot of fantasy stories end with the main character becoming rich and/or powerful, and so these prohibitively expensive cure become attainable by the story's end, which a lot of authors and writer's just never address. Of course, another approach is to make the availability of the magic itself the barrier. Maybe there just aren't that many people around who know the magic required for that kind of healing, so even without a prohibitive price tag, it's just not something that's an option for most people. If we're looking at a D&D-type setting, maybe you need to be an exceptionally high level to cast the more powerful healing spell, or maybe the spell requires some rare or lost material component. I'd personally advise people to be careful using this approach, since it often leads to stories centred around finding a miracle cure, which then just falls back into that trope more often than not.

Just outright state that some characters don't want/need it

Another, admittedly more direct approach, is to make it that these "cures" exist and are easily attainable, but to just make it that your character or others they encounter don't want or need it. This approach works best for characters who are born with their disabilities or who already had them for a long time before a cure was made available to them. Even within those groups though, this method works better with some types of characters than others depending on many other traits (personality, cultural beliefs, etc), and isn't really a one-size-fits-all solution, but to be fair, that's kind of the point. Some people will want a cure for their disabilities, others are content with their body's the way they are. There's a few caveats I have with this kind of approach though:

you want to make sure you, as the author, understand why some people in real life don't want a cure, and not just in a "yeah I know these people exist but I don't really get it" kind of way. I'm not saying you have to have a deep, personal understanding or anything, but some degree of understanding is required unless you want to sound like one of those "inspirational" body positivity posts that used to show up on Instagram back in the day.

Be wary when using cultural beliefs as a reasoning. It can work, but when media uses cultural beliefs as a reason for turning down some kind of cure, it's often intending to critique extreme beliefs about medicine, such as the ones seen in some New Age Spirituality groups and particularly intense Christian churches. As a general rule of thumb, it's probably not a good idea to connect these kinds of beliefs to disabled people just being happy in their bodies. Alternatively, you also need to be mindful of the "stuck in time" trope - a trope about indigenous people who are depicted as primitive or, as the name suggests, stuck in an earlier time, for "spurning the ways of the white man" which usually includes medicine or the setting's equivalent magic. I'm not the best person to advise you on how to avoid this specific trope, but my partner (who's Taino) has informed me of how often it shows up in fantasy specifically and we both thought it was worth including a warning at least so creators who are interested in this method know to do some further research.

Give the "cures" long-lasting side effects

Often in the real world, when a "cure" for a disability does exist, it's not a perfect solution and comes with a lot of side effects. For example, if you loose part of your arm in an accident, but you're able to get to a hospital quickly with said severed arm, it can sometimes be reattached, but doing so comes at a cost. Most people I know who had this done had a lot of issues with nerve damage, reduced strength, reduced fine-motor control and often a great deal of pain with no clear source. Two of the people I know who's limbs were saved ended up having them optionally re-amputated only a few years later. Likewise, I know many people who are paraplegics and quadriplegics via spinal injuries, who were able to regain the use of their arms and/or legs. However, the process was not an easy one, and involved years of intense physiotherapy and strength training. For some of them, they need to continue to do this work permanently just to maintain use of the effected limbs, so much so that it impacts their ability to do things like work a full-time job and engage in their hobbies regularly, and even then, none of them will be able bodied again. Even with all that work, they all still experience reduced strength and reduced control of the limbs. depending on the type, place and severity of the injury, some people are able to get back to "almost able bodied" again - such was the case for my childhood best friend's dad, but they often still have to deal with chronic pain from the injury or chronic fatigue.

Even though we are talking about magic in a fantasy setting, we can still look to real-life examples of "cures" to get ideas. Perhaps the magic used has a similar side effect. Yes, your paraplegic character can be "cured" enough to walk again, but the magic maintaining the spell needs a power source to keep it going, so it draws on the person's innate energy within their body, using the very energy the body needs to function and do things like move their limbs. They are cured, but constantly exhausted unless they're very careful, and if the spell is especially strong, the body might struggle to move at all, resulting in something that looks and functions similar to the nerve damage folks with spinal injuries sometimes deal with that causes that muscle weakness and motor control issues. Your amputee might be able to have their leg regrown, but it will always be slightly off. The regrown leg is weaker and causes them to walk with a limp, maybe even requiring them to use a cane or other mobility aid.

Some characters might decide these trade-offs are worth it, and while this cures their initial disability, it leaves them with another. Others might simply decide the initial disability is less trouble than these side effects, and choose to stay as they are.

Consider if these are actually cures

Speaking of looking to the real world for ideas, you might also want to consider whether these cures are doing what the people peddling them are claiming they do. Let's look at the so-called autism cures that spring up every couple of months as an example.

Without getting into the… hotly debated specifics, there are many therapies that are often labelled as "cures" for autism, but in reality, all they are doing is teaching autistic people how to make their autistic traits less noticeable to others. This is called masking, and it's a skill that often comes at great cost to an autistic person's mental health, especially when it's a behaviour that is forced on them. Many of these therapies give the appearance of being a cure, but the disability is still there, as are the needs and difficulties that come with it, they're just hidden away. From an outside perspective though, it often does look like a success, at least in the short-term. Then there are the entirely fake cures with no basis in reality, the things you'll find from your classic snake-oil salesmen. Even in a fantasy setting where real magic exists, these kinds of scams and misleading treatments can still exist. In fact, I think it would make them even more common than they are in the real world, since there's less suspension of disbelief required for people to fall for them. "What do you mean this miracle tonic is a scam? Phil next door can conjure flames in his hand and make the plants grow with a snap of his fingers, why is it so hard to believe this tonic could regrow my missing limb?"

I think the only example of this approach I've seen, at least recently, is from The Owl House. The magic in this world can do incredible things, but it works in very specific and defined ways. Eda's curse (which can be viewed as an allegory for many disabilities and chronic illnesses) is seemingly an exception to this, and as such, nothing is able to cure it. Treat it, yes, but not cure it. Eda's mother doesn't accept this though, and seeks out a cure anyway and ends up falling for a scam who's "treatments" just make things worse.

In your own stories, you can either have these scams just not work, or kind of work, but in ways that are harmful and just not worth it, like worse versions of the examples in the previous point. Alternatively, like Eda, it's entirely reasonable that a character who's been the target of these scams before might just not want to bother anymore. Eda is a really good example of this approach handled in a way that doesn't make her sad and depressed about it either. She's tried her mum's methods, they didn't work, and now she's found her own way of dealing with it that she's happy with. She only gets upset when her boundaries are ignored by Luz and her mother.

Think about how the healing magic is actually working

If you have a magic system that leans more on the "hard magic" side of things, a great way to get around the issue of healing magic erasing disability is to stop and think about how your healing magic actually works.

My favourite way of doing this is to make healing magic work by accelerating the natural processes of your body. Your body will, given enough time (assuming it remains infection-free) close a slash from a sword and mend a broken bone, but it will never regrow it's own limbs. It will never heal damage to it's own spinal cord. It will never undo whatever causes autism or fix it's own irregularities. Not without help. Likewise, healing magic alone won't do any of these things either, it's just accelerating the existing process and usually, by extension making it safer, since a wound staying open for an hour before you get to a healer is much less likely to get infected than one that slowly and naturally heals over a few weeks. In one of my own works, I take this even further by making it that the healing magic is only accelerating cell growth and repair, but the healer has to direct it. In order to actually heal, the healer needs to know the anatomy of what they're fixing to the finest detail. A spell can reconnect a torn muscle to a bone, but if you don't understand the structures that allow that to happen in the first place, you're likely going to make things worse. For this reason, you won't really see people using this kind of magic to, say, regrow limbs, even though it technically is possible. A limb is a complicated thing. The healer needs to be able to perfectly envision all the bones, the cartilage, the tendons and ligaments, the muscles (including the little ones, like those found in your skin that make your hair stand on end and give you goose bumps), the fat and skin tissues, all the nerves, all the blood vessels, all the structures within the bone that create your blood. Everything, and they need to know how it all connects, how it is supposed to move and be able to keep that clearly in their mind simultaneously while casting. Their mental image also has to match with the patient's internal "map" of the body and the lost limb, or they'll continue to experience phantom limb sensation even if the healing is successful. It's technically possible, but the chances they'll mess something up is too high, and so it's just not worth the risk to most people, including my main character.

Put Restrictions on the magic

This is mostly just the same advice as above, but for softer magic systems. put limits and restrictions on your healing magic. These can be innate (so things the magic itself is just incapable of doing) or external (things like laws that put limitations on certain types of magic and spells).

An example of internal restriction can be seen in how some people interpret D&D's higher level healing spells like regenerate (a 7th level spell-something most characters won't have access to for quite some time). The rules as written specify that disabilities like lost limbs can be healed using this spell, but some players take this to mean that if a character was born with the disability in question, say, born without a limb, regenerate would only heal them back to their body's natural state, which for them, is still disabled.

An external restriction would be that your setting has outlawed healing magic, perhaps because healing magic carries a lot of risks for some reason, eithe to the caster or the person being healed, or maybe because the healing magic here works by selectively reviving and altering the function of cells, which makes it a form of necromancy, just on a smaller scale. Of course, you can also use the tried and true, "all magic is outlawed" approach too. In either case, it's something that will prevent some people from being able to access it, despite it being technically possible. Other external restrictions could look like not being illegal, per say, but culturally frowned upon or taboo where your character is from.

But what if I don't want to do any of this?

Well you don't have to. These are just suggestions to get you thinking about how to make a world where healing magic and disability exist, but they aren't the only ways. Just the ones I thought of.

Of course, if you'd still rather make a setting where all disability is cured because magic and you just don't want to think about it any deeper, I can't stop you. I do however, want to ask you to at least consider where you are going to draw the line. Disability, in essence, is what happens when the body stops (or never started) functioning "normally". Sometimes that happens because of an injury, sometimes it's just bad luck, but the boundary between disabled and not disabled is not as solid as I think a lot of people expect it to be, and we as a society have a lot of weird ideas about what is and isn't a disability that just, quite plainly and simply, aren't consistent. You have to remember, a magic system won't pick and choose the way we humans do, it will apply universally, regardless of our societal hang-ups about disability.

What do I mean about this?

Well, consider for a moment, what causes aging? it's the result of our body not being able to repair itself as effectively as it used to. It's the body not being able to perform that function "normally". So in a setting where all disability is cured, there would be no aging. No elderly people. No death from old age. If you erase disability, you also erase natural processes like aging. magic won't pick and choose like that, not if you want it to be consistent.

Ok, ok, maybe that's too much of a stretch, so instead, let's look at our stereotypical buff hero covered in scars because he's a badass warrior. but in a world where you can heal anything, why would anything scar? Even if it did, could another healing spell not correct that too? Scars are part of the body's natural healing process, but if no natural healing occurred, why would a scar form? Scars are also considered disabling in and of themselves too, especially large ones, since they aren't as flexible or durable as normal skin and can even restrict growth and movement.

Even common things like needing glasses are, using this definition of disability at least, a disability. glasses are a socially accepted disability aid used to correct your eyes when they do not function "normally".

Now to be fair, in reality, there are several definitions of disability, most of which include something about the impact of society. For example, in Australia (according to the Disability Royal Commission), we define disability as "An evolving concept that results from the interaction between a person with impairment(s) and attitudinal and environmental barriers that hinder their full and effective participation in society on an equal basis with others." - or in laymen's terms, the interaction between a person's impairment and societal barriers like people not making things accessible or holding misinformed beliefs about your impairment (e.g. people in wheelchairs are weaker than people who walk). Under a definition like this, things like scars and needing glasses aren't necessarily disabilities (most of the time) but that's because of how our modern society sees them. The problem with using a definition like this though to guide what your magic system will get rid of, is that something like a magic system won't differentiate between an "impairment" that has social impacts that and one that doesn't. It will still probably get rid of anything that is technically an example of your body functioning imperfectly, which all three of these things are. The society in your setting might apply these criteria indirectly, but really, why would they? Very few people like the side effects of aging on the body (and most people typically don't want to die), the issues that come with scars or glasses are annoying (speaking as someone with both) and I can see a lot of people getting rid of them when possible too. If they don't then it's just using the "not everyone wants it approach" I mentioned earlier. If there's some law or some kind of external pressure to push people away from fixing these more normalised issues, then it's using the "restrictions" method I mentioned earlier too.

Once again, you can do whatever you like with your fantasy setting, but it's something I think that would be worth thinking about at least.

[astralscrivener]

do you wonder if your klance obsession will ever go away? has it dwindled over the last few years? because for me mine stopped at the end of 2020 when i found a new fandom to be interested in, but since the beginning of this year my love for those space boys came back full force it makes me worry that i'll never truly get over them. they made me read fics and join a fandom for the first time which might explain why i'm so overly attached but yea

i think like any interest or obsession it may well fade with time

my longest obsession prior to vld/kl lasted about 4 years (and was usurped by kl) so the fact that i'm going on 7 years here is very interesting, tho i think part of that is because

i got obsessed during a time in my life when i still had like. free time. lmao

i got obsessed when i was going through a lot of change and tumult and was simultaneously projecting onto and taking comfort in these characters (to the point where some may argue they have been oc-ified a bit) (if anyone sees a book out in 5-10 years that reminds them of the vld characters no u don't)

i do think i was starting to finally be "free" / lose my interest at the end of 2019 / very beginning of 2020, but rapidly regained my obsession once the pandemic began and people began turning to old favorite things for comfort

at the moment my obsession waxes and wanes, and sometimes i'm like "oh i'm never getting out of here" and then a few days later i'm like "man am i losing my attachment to them?" it comes and goes

but really, i don't think it matters too much in one direction or the other honestly?

everyone's relationship to books and movies and tv and songs and bands and characters and whatever is highly personal, so what really matters the most is youre having fun and it sparks joy, right? and i think there is also a weird push to "move on" or get over something as soon as the next best thing comes along (i think it's a very capitalistic mindset but that's a rant for another day) when the truth is people have been writing for the same fandoms for decades. for some others it is a passing hyperfixation that they enjoy while it lasts. for me i just have a growing group of characters living inside my head at all times. sometimes they yell and clamor for me to write about them but sometimes they are just vibing and that is perfectly okay

i hope this answers ur question and thank u for sharing !

[rollercoasterwords]

algorithms are destroying the world make your own gd decisions about shit

if you hate freedom so much go read a google ads round robin fanfic on ff.n (I think Michelin and Bridgeport are doing the enemies to lovers back and forth rn) or go 😳 at whatever happened to lj

or change all the names and sell your erotica to bellsaplus; just know that the writing is better, and the porn is more diverse on ao3

🥂

(I say porn but JEEZ guys even if you’re reading nothing but gen-fic the writing is still usually trying to say something unlike the useless pap that capitalist “content creators” churn out — to generate clicks in order to generate data on what people do everyday sitting and watching or better—-shopping. that data is then sold to other bidders. please protect the plentiful, the beautiful, the ao3. god knows what anyone would say if they say my ao3 history)

wow ok coming in hot! i'm assuming this message is meant to be like...ranting at me the way u would to a friend on facetime and that the "you" you're yelling at isn't actually me? and i am also going to take a wild guess and say that this is a response to the tiktokification essay i wrote that has escaped its enclosure and is now running wild across tumblr. so.

yes i agree we need to protect ao3 and yes i agree anything made for the sole purpose of getting as many people to click on it as possible is probably going to be pretty soulless but i feel like this rant is maybe getting slightly away from what the original intent of my post so i'm just gonna use this as an opportunity to address a few things i've seen across people's responses that have made me like :/ (warning this gets long lmao)

the tiktokification essay was not intended to be an all-encompassing analysis of the way things are across every fandom space connected to ao3. like. i am pretty secluded over in my little corner of marauders-fandom tumblr and i generally post my little essays expecting maybe like...10-20 people to interact with the post? like, when i post stuff on this blog, it's just because when i start thinking about something i can't really relax until i sit down and write my thoughts out and organize them. so when i'm posting those thoughts on tumblr it usually feels to me like the equivalent of facetiming a friend and rambling at them, except the friend is my little handful of beloved tumblr mutuals <3 anyway, i know the post is called "the tiktokification of ao3" which is a very broad statement, but that's just because i like pithy titles. if i had known it was going to run amok across tumblr i probably would have been a little more intentional with my phrasing, but oh well! what i did do is specify in the post that i was only talking about the marauders fandom, because that's literally the only fandom space that i am a part of. it's interesting to see how widespread the stuff i was talking about seems to be across different fandoms, but for anyone who has interacted with the post to essentially just be like - "ok but this isn't true everywhere/in every case"....cool! that's because i was talking about a phenomenon i have observed specifically within the marauders fandom.

it was also not intended to be me shaking my fist and cursing the youth, nor was i trying to invite like...an "us vs. them" mindset between older and younger members of fandom spaces. this is where i've seen some stuff that's made me a little like...hm. because, ok. i am one of those people who's sort of in-between the like...older versus younger sects of fandom spaces. and so i see the ageism that gets aimed towards older people by a lot of younger teens, and i understand why a lot of older adults are fed up with young fans and feel defensive, and i get that teens can be annoying on the internet. on the other hand, i still very clearly remember when i was an Annoying Teen on the Internet, and it was because i was still just...learning, y'know? like. i was just coming into contact with complex ideas about emotion and morality and relationships and everything, and that is just part of being on the internet together. there will always be shitty people, yes, but there will also always be people learning, and especially when those people are young teens, i personally tend to try and start out by giving them the benefit of the doubt. like, i tried to be clear in the post and also included in the tags (though those do get lost when the post gets spread around) that i wasn't trying to condemn anyone for engaging in the behavior i was talking about, because i do genuinely think that a lot of it is simply coming from a place of not knowing any better. so, while y'all can vent however you want on your own blogs and i do understand the frustration, i just want to make it clear that my own intention was to say - hey! younger marauders fans! here are some things to think about moving forward in how you interact with fic, since you have maybe grown up with only one model of social media, unlike those of us who grew up with the internet (i was literally born the same year google was invented) and have seen various examples of social media and observed how it's changed over the years. and it was also intended to say - hey! older marauders fans! if you're scratching your head and wondering wtf is going on with younger fans, consider that they maybe genuinely do not know better and this might help explain some of the roadblocks when it comes to trying to communicate with each other about our fandom spaces.

i did not intend to imply that there is anything wrong with wanting people to read your fanfiction. this is another thing that like. i might have spent some more time clarifying had i known how many people were going to be reading the post. but i did state very clearly that "those sharing their work online might be seeking community, but that is fundamentally different from seeking an audience." it is completely natural and understandable to want people to read your writing!! i actually made a separate post about this after the tiktokification essay but obviously they're not going around as a pair lol. however, i stand by the statement that writing fanfiction with a goal of going "viral" or just getting as much interaction as possible is not sustainable and will not bring you deep or lasting joy. idk i'm not gonna go on about this here if u want to know my thoughts on social media culture rot u can scroll through my blog i've talked abt it in a few different posts.

i was not trying to say that negativity is a new phenomenon in fandom spaces. a few people have interacted with the essay and said something along the lines of "i disagree with this"/"this isn't accurate" because there always have been and always will be people in fandom spaces who are entitled and rude and criticize fic. which like...cool! i'm sure that's true. i do think you missed the point of the post a little bit. it was specifically about a phenomenon in the marauders fandom involving the way that changes in social media over recent years have fundamentally altered the way we view online interaction, and the way i have observed that bleeding over into the marauders fandom. it wasn't just about general negativity in terms of things like comments and messages so much as it was about how expectations relating to influencer culture and virality have led to things like...people making tiktoks about "jegulus fics i hate" or fics going viral on tiktok and people then interacting with the writers as though they are the ones who made those tiktoks. and granted, i have only really been involved in this fandom for a single year, so maybe i'm just wrong about how new this is! but the tiktok stuff at least can't be older than like...2020. so. i do actually do think it's valid to talk about how changes in social media culture might be affecting the ways people interact with ao3 and fic, and i do think there's more to it than just "people will always be negative and entitled sometimes!"

i was not trying to say that we have a right to treat influencers/people posting shit on other social media sites as though they are products. this is another thing that a few people have felt the need to add on, which...okay. nothing wrong with wanting to clarify that. again, if i'd known the post was going to get so much attention, i might have spent some more time talking about it. but i'll just clarify here - my observations about the way capitalism gives rise to an influencer culture that essentially leads to viewing people as products are just that. they are observations. they are not normative statements. just because i understand why we interact with influencers like that does not mean that i think we should interact with influencers like that. however, there is a difference in an influencer whose job is content creation on social media versus an ao3 writer, and the purpose of my essay was to talk about that. saying "we shouldn't treat ao3 writers this way" does not mean "but we SHOULD treat all influencers this way."

anyway, as i warned at the beginning, this got very long -- and honestly, each of these points could probably be its own separate essay, but....i'm tired rn lol. i know that most of the people reblogging the tiktokification essay probably will not come all the way to my blog and run across this post, but i'm just leaving it here because i get grumpy easily and it's annoying to see people misinterpreting or missing the point, so i want to have all the little things i've thought about addressing in one place.

and anon - the main reason i say you may have been getting slightly away from the original point is just

1 - it had nothing to do specifically with porn, and that seems to be mostly what you're talking about? which like. real. but also just wasn't really part of the original post lmao

2 - you seem pretty angry, which again is valid, but i'm just...not. like i feel like u came into my inbox wanting to rant back and forth, and the thing is that i wasn't really intending to rant in that essay! like i said, i'm not necessarily angry at the people i've seen asking for algorithms, because i think a lot of them genuinely don't know better because they have only ever used social media that is algorithm-based, and to me that's mostly just sad and something i wanted to pick apart and piece back together like a puzzle, so. apologies for hijacking your rant to as an excuse to write a whole 'nother essay lmao i appreciate ur energy tho <3

[tobeornottotc]

I agree that BLs could be so much better and so much more in terms of the writing, direction, production and more variety in settings and genre. Thailand is the leader and GMMTv is the biggest so they should and could be pushing boundaries but they are not or atleast are very slow to change. I suspect a lot of the reason why is homophobia and the need to place lgbqt people all in neat boxes with little to no complexity. But we as consumers of the BL media should demand more with the product.

Hi,

I think it's complicated because most people behind producing and writing BLs for GMMTV are queer themselves so I won't say it's homophobia being the obstacle I think it's just how they perceive the BL fandom/culture over there, Y novels are extremely popular and will lead to easy fame for their celebrities, so they tend to go the shallow route of not challenging that, all they think fans want is skinship that makes them ship the couple too in reality, and a love story that makes people swoon with different tropes associated with the genre. The focus is always just getting a medium to do that easily, quickly and in high quantity so people feel satisfied with at least one storyline depending on their tastes and likes. They are slow to change because it is a capitalistic mindset, what they're doing is working for them and produces a lot of money for the company when following the correct template (2gether, Bad buddy etc) so they rather just stick to that, it means normally writers and directors go in mind with a bl storyline how to make it work for fans and make money and sell the couples rather than just wanting to tell an amazing story or create an amazing series. Like I said you have exceptions there are some that have the goal of representation with BL so they change and edit the novels they take, and now GMMTV is also putting more effort in hiring original stories for BL (also capitalistic to sell novels lol) so they are dipping their toes, they know the audience wants queer storylines so they hire someone who can do that like the warped effect, but they know the audience wants something more, hopefully we get more variety other than just adding representation as a way to do that, i want budget and quality and risks with more varied genres for bl, more worlds to be explored, some unique ideas like the gifted and Midnight museum, something that focuses on storytelling and creativity than just the normal template. Right now they tried with my school president to elevate not change the template and it worked, and like I said I'm hoping Parbdee BL this year (Be my favorite) is more than just the typical BL I know already the director has a goal more than just that as he has put even his own money into the production and changed filming style and production of a typical bl show. We'll see if he is forced to stay stagnant and keep the template format or if there's more he could do with the time travel aspect, (the novel is quite shallow as with jittirain so i'm hoping its more like Not me where they take the idea and just recreate everything else than just film the novel storyline with a few small changes to accomadate more convo about representation). Just me anyways i hope this year GMMTV experiments and risk taking in all their categories will also include BL i'm hoping even when being pessimistic that midnight museum is a test as well. next step more budget and quality (which they are slowly improving on for every show)

[beautifulpersonpeach]

K-pop Fan Perception of BTS's Ticket Pricing (Repost)

Anonymous: Hi BPP! Are you going to Vegas? I got tickets just now and I'm so excited I could almost pee on myself!! Sorry haha. It's only been a few months since the LA concerts and I already miss BTS. The energy and quality of their performances always moves something deep inside me. The happiness it brings is so tangible for me. I will gladly spend more and more money on them. Which brings me to my question, kpoppies were upset at floor/barricade tickets going for ~$500. Firstly, why do they care?

**

Hi Anon,

I’m happy you got tickets! Honestly, myself and a few friends breathed a sigh of relief that all tickets went on sale for ARMYs first, rather than that SOFI disaster that had randoms and scalpers bleeding people dry. Things have become incredibly busy for me irl recently so it’s possible on that date I might not have the time to go, but yes, I got tickets for the Vegas concerts!

I. Am. Excited.

But I’ll admit I laughed reading your ask. "Why do they care" indeed.

Because they’re k-pop stans.

Serious question: is it possible to be a k-pop stan in 2022 and not be outraged at BTS / ARMY / HYBE on a bi-weekly basis?

That’s a really flippant thing to say, isn’t it? I’m not sure I can write the rest of this post in a way that won’t have a multi coming for my neck lool. But I’m asking a serious question and it’s one I’ve been asking since like 2017. I’m sure these people have what they think are genuine gripes with BTS or whatever. Perhaps there is really some hyper-capitalist theory that damns HYBE’s business practices as ‘immoral’.  What I’ve observed however is these bursts of outrage seem to be more from shock than anything else. Pure incredulity. There’s the outrage born of boredom that you’ll frequently see in k-pop spaces, usually in the discourse-for-discourse’ sake -type environs, but genuine surprise also plays a factor sometimes.

Shock that BTS can charge what they do, when no one else in k-pop charges those prices. Awards, streams, album sales numbers - all of those things can be ignored and dismissed after you’ve heard about them often enough. What’s harder to look away from is demand shown in real time and expressed in cold hard fiat currency.

I keep saying k-pop is so inherently competitive and it’s because I’ve seen even those decrying how competitive it is, falling into that same mindset nearly every single time. It’s a really hard mindset to shake off and it’s why these people see BTS’ numbers and instinctively compare to the groups they know. It’s one reason I was laughing non-stop when prices for BTS merch were released. I saw people comparing Jin’s PJs to PJ merch of other k-pop idols (of course priced significantly lower) and then being outraged. BTS merch prices were on par with many Western (and a couple Asian) artists’ merch. At least the pajamas, accessories, hoodies and sweatpants were (Hobi is so unique with the potted plants idea). But k-pop stans expected BTS to be priced similarly to other k-pop groups… when that’s been kind of silly to do for about 3 years now.

There are a lot of questions k-pop stans ask that can be easily answered just by reminding them BTS is the biggest group in the world.

BTS is the biggest group in the world and has been selling out multiples dates of ~100,000 capacity stadiums since 2019, in seconds. Considering this, $500 for barricade/floor seats is a steal. If you’ve ever felt the heart palpitations when buying floor tickets at Coldplay, Adele, Beyonce, or Drake concerts, then I wouldn’t fault you if you weep for joy at the generosity that is BTS’s ticket pricing. Scalpers sold multiple tickets for the LA concert for as high as $22,000/ticket. For the BTS Vegas concerts, HYBE of course offers very affordable options with several tickets going for $50 - $65.

But these fans think either that BTS is not good enough to charge those prices or feel anger that their own favored groups are ‘better’ but not valued as highly… Again, competition. They can’t help it. Price is typically determined by demand and supply, and rather than condescend more than I’ve already done in this post so far, I’ll just leave it at that.

Let’s just let people enjoy things. :)

One really shouldn’t be getting triggered by how fans choose to spend their own money and resources on musicians and artists they love. 

Originally posted: March 3rd, 2022 12:54am

[amereaardvark]

An important message from me

Hello everyone. You might have noticed that I have been streaming less often for a few weeks now. The only stream I planned very soon is playing the new Tintin game for a bit. So, allow me to go into an explanation into why it has been happening.

I have been streaming for 2 years and several months as of writing this. I started one August night in 2021 after I was inspired by a new friend at the time who was also streaming to start as well. It was not much, but I did something that I wanted to do. Around that same time, I was several months away from watching Twitch streams and stumbling upon the VTuber community. That was the inadvertent explanation for the PNG of a hand drawn aardvark head for the early days. As I watched more Twitch and found more VTubers, I was also crafting the experience for my own, creating several assets of my streams for, what it was supposed to be, an evolution of my streaming.

I was keeping it up for months on end, fitting them in beneath my college work and outside work at a restaurant that was increasingly becoming more stressful. It’s a tough balance, one that I still struggle with to this day. Part of the difficulty to balance became increasingly the relationship with streaming. While I oftentimes relayed the purpose of streaming is to enjoy myself doing whatever to any name that comes across, picking between various games that I was interested in, creating art live with an old and dying Chromebook, and whatever other activities, there were times which I felt dissatisfied. I was dissatisfied with my performance in providing commentary during gameplay, speaking clearly or being funny in general. If you know me well, you probably know that I have relayed all these issues onto you. Oftentimes, the answer is you just trying your best in beneath the unpredictable algorithm of Twitch, and I agreed, you know, maybe it was just a bad stream or not a good night.

However, it was increasingly hard to know when and why those bad nights occur. The unpredictable algorithm of Twitch feels like wrestling with inconsistency, and being razor tight with everything planned and ready for a broadcast that you don’t know if people will actually come or not. I am on the autistic spectrum, and one of the things about me is having a pattern or routine to go through, as a mental glue for the order that happens. It is often the same way with forming schedules and going through with planned streams. Sometimes it works because it feels like the right time and place, but due to the changing and arguably more capitalistic nature of Twitch, it felt as though those bad nights occur more often, either due to technical issues or just not being of massive interest. Something about me is that I play stuff that I am genuinely interested in, and that changes from time to time. You may have noticed that I was playing Sonic games and then later SpongeBob games, but they later appear to be mere hyper-fixations. The reason I started playing Undertale last month was because I thought that was fitting for October and because it was in my backlog- and I have yet to go back to it.

It's more present to me nowadays, that delving into things is spontaneous but spurred out of genuine interest in presenting things, whether it’s topics to discuss or interesting games like Jimmy Neutron vs. Jimmy Negatron, a game that I played in my childhood that I find really memorable. It was more of a disparity between wanting to stick to my guns and do whatever tickles my fancy and needing to grow and evolve the channel, eventually reaching affiliate- the goals and circumstances becoming more impossible without grinding, burnout or reaching an unhealthy mindset. There were some wins, but at what cost? At the same time, when I was writing about topics that are on my mind, I felt more engaged. Writing is more so an effective way to communicate my thoughts for me than speaking or even art. I thought I can do both and split the time, but as I watch more video essays or more informative works, those writings can eventually be those video essays, not just writings on a site.

And so, it comes to this. After the upcoming stream, I will no longer be streaming consistently and instead shift my focus to creating videos to YouTube. I have a poetry channel that I want to put work into creating art, while displaying video essays and more informative yet fun content on to my self-titled channel. I have been learning to edit gradually, and it has been a more of a challenge that I am proud to be taking on. I have already started drafting quite a few potential YouTube videos, but it is something that can suit my strengths while also improving in ways that are manageable. I want to talk about Tintin games in a more genuine fashion, not simply play them and attempt to be funny. I never had the strongest and most expressive voice, but I can work with the vision when reading a script.

That is not to say, that the Twitch streaming is all for nothing. In fact, I somewhat debate this being a decision I do not regret. The most valuable aspects are improving my art, both hand-drawn and digital, getting out of my shell in communicating, and more importantly, all the wonderful people I meet along the way- acquaintances, fellow mutuals, and the best part, my friends who I love dearly so much that I can’t even believe that I have and keep, all who have helped and supported me, and that I have helped back. Letting go of this almost feels like abandoning, and I apologize to all the people who haven’t been able to catch my stream who won’t see me live again.

I do not know how this will work out, and it scares me, the unpredictability. But I know a path through that that I will take. Maybe it will be a permanent decision, maybe it will not be. Maybe I’ll come back to streaming whenever I really truly feel like it, maybe once a week or two weeks or whatever. Part of this is the changing times, and the inner desire to ride those waves, despite the mental struggle to adjust or just wanting something to change and be new- and I think that I will be happy in the long term.

Thank you for reading this very long message (like I said, this is how I effectively communicate), but thank you for being there, whether you follow, talk or even share my stuff. For all I know, this is merely just a beginning.

Sincerely,

A.I. The Aardvark

[maxwell-grant]

Who's your favorite Batman villain?

The Penguin. Was gonna put off this ask for a bit but I got surprised today with an incredible rendition of him, so now the dastardly bumbershoot waddled and squawked his way into my thoughts again and I gotta talk about him.

Penguin's not just my favorite Batman villain, he's my favorite DC character and comic book supervillain, the main reason I even want to write a Batman story someday.

I love the imagery that surrounds him, the trick umbrellas and the birds he so lovely dotes after and the WAKs and the Iceberg Lounge, which has become maligned in recent years as a sign of his downfall, but I very much appreciate as a concept in general still. I love a lot of the performances and actors who've taken him over the years. Burgess Meredith and Danny DeVito are some of my favorite performers of all time, Paul Williams has a wonderful voice and starred in my favorite film of all time. Tom Kenny, David Ogden Stiers, Robin Lord Taylor, Penguin's just had such great, terrific performances and adaptations. Batman Returns is my favorite Batman film by far and it was what got me to start paying more attention to Oswald.

I love the roles he can play in any given Batman story and how he's managed to endure all of his falls from grace by becoming an indispensable part of Batman's worldbuilding. I love his varied dynamics with Batman and Riddler and Catwoman and Gordon and his henchmen and those who get close to him. I love his style and the way he conducts himself when he's allowed to be more than just a generic mob boss. Penguin's design has, by simply staying unchanged over the decades, gone from "common rich person wear draped over a funny cartoon gangster" to "he is so out of touch and desperate for respectability that he dresses like an 1930s capitalist caricature, like a little kid's idea of what a rich and respectable man looks like, and Penguin's still stuck in that mindset". I love how absurd and plausible he is.

I like that Penguin can very easily fit just about any kind of Batman story, from the campy supervillain plots to the gritty urban crime ones. You can tell stories about Penguin falling in love, pretending to be legit because he doesn't want his aunt to learn he's a criminal, and opening up a comedy act with a talking penguin, or stories about Penguin terrorizing the city with giant robots and guided missiles and driving people to suicide. I like that he's a character who both relishes in his lifestyles of supervillain and crimelord alike, and yet is perpetually restless because the minute he acquires what he wants, he immediately starts wanting something else. He could have Batman and the Batfamily and all other supervillains wiped out and have Gotham in his pocket and maybe even become President of the United States, and he'd still want more. Because Oswald is nothing but wants, the wants of a traumatized manchild in a funny costume throwing money and toys and brute force and tantrums at the world until it makes sense, which only makes him far too fitting as a Batman villain.

Everyone forgets that Penguin was canonically the first villain to ever successfully escape Batman at the end of a story, completely bypassing the usual "villain swears revenge behind bars" ending to instead escape scot-free, and went on to establish himself as one of his biggest, most inventive and most cunning villains, second only, if not equal, to Joker. I love that he's ruthless and inventive and classy and cunning and brutal and how his main trick is using the fact that everyone underestimates the short fat man to his advantage. He's taken traits that got many of us in real life relentlessly tormented for them, and he uses them to pull the wool over those who think they are better than him.

It'ss a trick that works because even in real life people can't stop looking at this weird and silly little man and think "that guy's too silly for a Batman villain, he's not a murder clown or musclebound monster, what's he gonna do" and, yeah, that's the point, that's been the point from day one, he doesn't look scary or intimidating or even that evil, and he's the guy who pulls the rug under supergenius fighting machine Batman and becomes the top crimelord of Gotham City, a city ruled by terrors and manias and monsters infinitely bigger and scarier and stronger than he is, and he STILL made it to the top and he STILL maintains it, time and time again even when newer and flashier and scarier villains come and go. Batman is, at it's core, a fundamentally absurd character, and Penguin acts as a reminder of that. Because the minute we accept a man can terraform himself with training and money into a living legend on the level of gods, there's no reason why a tiny fat man with similar drive and resources can't likewise throw his weight with monsters and warriors far above his station.

Despite how ridiculously often he's disrespected by writers and fans alike, how far he's fallen off his former position in Batman's Rogues Gallery, and how often he's used as just a punching bag for assorted Bat-people, Penguin never goes away. He's the biggest survivor of all of Batman's villains, more so than the genuinely immortal ones, because he's the cockroach that won't go away no matter how many times you flush it.

Because once you get past the piles of money and the lounge fortresses and the armies of goons and the piles of cartoony gadget toys not too dissimilar from Batman's own, what the Penguin has is brains, and spite and hatred on a scale no other Batman villain has. He hates Batman, because Batman is nothing but yet another bully who thinks he can push Oswald around just because he's bigger and stronger. He hates the lower class for it's unsophisticated brutes and boors that made his childhood hell. He hates the upper class that's rejected and also tormented him since infancy, that he desperately spent so long trying to be a part of. He hates the monsters and supervillains he works with and has to associate with to stay alive. He hates the city that he fights to rule over tooth and nail.

And although he may never admit it, he hates himself, because he'a short paunchy man with a beakish nose who's brutal and immoral not just because those are the cards life dealt him, but because he likes what it affords him too much to give it away. Because he's never going to have the love and acceptance he desperately craves, he will never be able to accept it or keep it. Because he can never fully be a gentleman, or a monster, but instead a sad mix who belongs in neither of their worlds. Because at the end, he doesn't look like anyone else. He looks like one of him.

And still, I like Penguin because he's a Gentleman Villain. The one Gentleman Villain of Batman's rogues gallery, even if that's faded from a lot of his recent appearences that pushed the crimelord aspects to the forefront. He dresses like a gentleman thief, he's canonically a huge A.J Raffles fan, he's one of the most cunning brains of Gotham, he's got the money, resources, and adventurous spirit. Problem is, he's The Penguin. And suddenly, all that he has becomes overblown, outlandish, theatrical, and out of touch purely because it's him trying to do all those things. He's a gentleman adventurer gone rogue, the Count Fosco of the DCU, and that only makes it amusing, even endearing, when Penguin does engage in the swashbuckling antics he's so fond of.

When all his plans go to hell and so he starts fencing Batman, or when he commands henchmen with superflous fancy language, or even when Oswald gives the whole "hero" thing a shot and we see he's actually not bad at it, maybe he actually could have been one if it wasn't for the bile drowning his heart and the hellscape that warped innocent young Cobblepot into Gotham's Penguin, a name that immediately denotes something silly and ridiculous, and he carries it with pride, because he will make you respect that name.

And that's just a couple of reasons. I really, really love this character to the point of obsession and the main reason why I ever wanted to write stories for DC was to get to write Penguin and at least try to do the character a little more justice. But if nothing else, Penguin endures, regardless of what happens to him, in and out of universe. If nothing else, that's a very admirable quality in a supervillain. Oswald is the best.

[aniy2k]

Riot Grrrl, Kinderwhore, and White Feminism

Riot Grrrl was an underground feminist movement that began in the early 90s. It was tied to the punk music scene, radical politics and DIY. It started originally with a Zine by Tobi Vai named Jigsaw in 1988 that expressed and spread radical politics and feminism. Vail later on decided to start a band by the name Bikini Kill. 

For most ‘Styles’, people don't even bother looking at the history of where it came from originally, so why is it important? 

While part of Alternative culture is Fashion and a way to express yourself that's against societal norms, there is alot of political significance that comes with it. When talking about it, Riot Grrrl tik tok creators, and other Alternative creators, say the political significance is based on what the subcultures are. Without that, you cannot be a part of the subculture. Obviously there are alot of conservatives in the scene (As you can see from the usage of lace code) Some complain and say that it's “gatekeeping”, but in my opinion, it's honestly… not. This isn’t the same as someone taking a popular music artist, then saying “You don't know this song? Ur fake lolz”.. This is separating mindsets that Alternative people strongly believe in and instead protecting a community that is supposed to be a safe place.

The Riot Grrrl movement provided a space where women in punk music tackled the conflict of inequality and sexism, and decided to fight it, united and organized.

Kathleen Hanna, Bikini Kills lead singer, ended up writing the “Riot Grrrl Manifesto” in 1991, which is a summary of what Riot Grrrl is and what it means to be a part of it. 

Summary: 

“ BECAUSE us girls crave records and books and fanzines that speak to US that WE feel included in and can understand in our own ways.

BECAUSE we wanna make it easier for girls to see/hear each other's work so that we can share strategies and criticize-applaud each other.

BECAUSE we must take over the means of production in order to create our own meanings.

BECAUSE viewing our work as being connected to our girlfriends-politics-real lives is essential if we are gonna figure out how we are doing impacts, reflects, perpetuates, or DISRUPTS the status quo.

BECAUSE we recognize fantasies of Instant Macho Gun Revolution as impractical lies meant to keep us simply dreaming instead of becoming our dreams AND THUS seek to create revolution in our own lives every single day by envisioning and creating alternatives to the bullshit christian capitalist way of doing things.

BECAUSE we are unwilling to let our real and valid anger be diffused and/or turned against us via the internalization of sexism as witnessed in girl/girl jealousy and self defeating girltype behaviors.

BECAUSE I believe with my wholeheartmindbody that girls constitute a revolutionary soul force that can, and will change the world for real.”

I’m not personally too much of a fan of how Kathleen Hannah ended up seeming like the regular ol’ white feminist that basically put WOC in the shadows within this whole movement. While this piece is about educating about the power that the Riot Grrrl scene had within punk culture, it has many many faults. The diversity within the scene isn’t there. It seemed to be a feminst movement, but only showcased one type of girl. White girls. 

Multiple black punks from that era came out and said that they felt that the riot grrrl scene wasn't for them. Honestly? I don’t blame them. You look up Riot Grrrl on pinterest or on tumblr, you can probably count on your one hand how many POC women are showcased.. This moment for women of color is probably the epitome of White feminism in some cases. Author, Gabby Bess, adds that “The history of Riot Grrrl is inevitably written as "predominately white," glossing over the contributions of black women and other women of color”.

Just like the article from VICE states, 

“In contrast to this ironclad narrative of the white Riot Grrrl, black women did participate in the movement. Few and far between, maybe, but they participated nonetheless, and they deserve more than to be swept under a rug of whiteness--These women carved their own feminist pathways into the hardcore scene, precisely because they were rendered invisible by the Riot Grrrl movement.”

One very powerful punk from that time, Ramdasha Bikceem, made up a whole Zine when they  were 15, that illustrates the conversation of race and gender in Riot Grrrl so perfectly 

This would all result in another black punk from that time, Tamar-Kali Brown, to make her own movement called “Sista Grrrl riot”. Out of all of the information that is circulated about the Riot Grrrl scene, Sista Grrrl Riot was probably one of its least talked about movements. Tamir-Kali Brown and her bandmates brought together a community and showed people a version of themselves on a stage where they weren’t represented.

> Kinderwhore 

Kinderwhore is a very popular style within the RiotGrrrl community. A lot of people Champion Hole lead singer, Courtney Love, for this style's popularity, but actually her bandmate Kat Bjelland introduced the style first. Though, with that being said, Courtney Love definitely made Kinderwhore one of many staple styles for the Riot Grrrl Subculture. 

What is Kinderwhore exactly? One thing about styles like this one is, there isn’t a specific definition to what it is. It was a bold, punk and sophisticated subversion of the classic "girl" stereotype, with a mini-feminine dress and bold makeup. The great part of the Kinderwhore Style is that it was about power. The power of femininity. It was so much more than just a style that included small dresses and mary janes. It was taking the most “fragile” feminine image and making it into something that is punk, and that takes all of the power back. 

Another part of Riot Grrrl fashion is just a subversion of regular punk fashion. DIY, big boots, Plaid, Skirts, Spikes. 

The idea of taking every inch of femininity that men manipulate and instead using it to make them realize that they can't handle what we are, is such a powerful thing to me as a fashion lover, but also as an aspiring social activist. As the rise of social media attention of Alternative Subcultures continues, I believe the next generation of Riot Grrls are going to kick butt and be more inclusive than the 90s scene was.

ani ok.

pls give me feedback and for those who obv have more education abt this pls give me feedback as well!! i think this is super interesting and enjoyed researching this <3

[putschki1969]

Why do you keep pushing your capitalist ideologies on us?

Well hello there, comrade...

Uhmm...may I inquire what spurred on this ask? Are you trolling me? Is this an honest question? Do I come across as a passionate advocate for capitalism? I am usually someone who NEVER uses social media as a platform to push their political and economic views on others so I am surprised I am getting a message like this. Is it because I keep telling people to buy releases and join the fan clubs? Or maybe because I openly talk about how much money I spend on Kalafina and everything related to them? I have honestly no clue.

I want to avoid writing an entire essay on this topic so let's keep this short. I am by no means a big supporter of capitalism, there are countless downsides to capitalism and I am not even gonna attempt to whitewash them BUT I am not delusional, I accept the fact that we live in a capitalist society and therefore I choose to abide by its rules. Whether I like it or not I am part of the machinery but with some effort and the right tools I can make it work for me to ultimately profit from the system. It wouldn't do me any good to work against the "establishment" by refusing to "consume". I am not promoting mindless consumption because that's bullshit and you should never do that but if you care at all about something or you recognise the value of it, you should try your best to support that.

The work of an artist (or anyone really) takes a great deal of time, effort and money, it is extremely valuable and as such should be treated accordingly. If no one is willing to pay for that "product", it will steadily lose quality and eventually cease to exists.

I am seeing this trend among young people (especially in extreme leftists circles on Twitter) who just want the best of the best handed to them on a silver platter without ever having to do anything in return. They hate their lives, they feel oppressed, they wallow in victimhood, they blame the system for all their problems and they want said system to solve all problems for them. On top of that, they hate the idea of having to work for anything or doing a job they don't like. In an ideal world they can do whatever they want and everything would be for free because for some weird reason they believe they are "owed" something. However, that's not how life works. You can go around preaching stuff like "eat the rich" and bash capitalism all you want but fact is, you are just a lazy child suffering from a warped sense of entitlement and shitting on other people's efforts and achievements out of envy. If you honestly believe a communist utopia is the answer to your problems, you are gravely mistaken. Your lazy ass wouldn't survive a single day in a communist regime. You pretend like you want a classless society where all are equal, everything is free and everyone can practise a profession they are passionate about when in reality all you want is to be part of the privileged upper-class that doesn't have to lift a single finger (completely ignoring the fact most of those upper-class people have indeed worked very hard for their privilege). What you need is a sugar-daddy/mummy and not communism.

Please note that this is not an attack against communist and socialist ideologies. While there are disadvantages of course, I do believe that these systems have their benefits (most modern societies have many socialist elements woven into the fabric of capitalism and for the most part that's a good thing). My point is that I absolutely cannot see a so called communist utopia working with people who have mindsets as described above. Edit: This is also not an attempt to single out liberals. I am very much aware that people with mindsets such as this also exist on the right (tons of them actually) but I guess I just don’t notice them as much on social media.

Rant over.

Last but not least:

SUPPORT Wakana and BUY her releases | JOIN the FC

SUPPORT Keiko and BUY her releases | JOIN the FC

SUPPORT Hikaru and BUY her releases | JOIN the FC

[punkofsunshine]

Neoliberalism, conformity, and the monetization of individuality

Hey guys, I’m back! Ready to get into some more heavy topics, this week it is the topic of neoliberalism, also known as the modern capitalist system.

First. What is neoliberalism? 

Essentially, it is what was initiated under the Reagan/Thatcher administrations which “freed the market” and allowed corporations to globalize more than they were already. As some may know, capitalism subverts democracy by placing power into the hands of people with money, not those who are supposed to have control over legislation (the government). In that way, capital has more say in our political system than anyone/anything else making America a modern day oligarchy which is an extension of a traditionalist system of governance; monarchy. The (western) heads of the neoliberal governance are sometimes called “new world kings” due to their vast swathes of wealth and influence in governmental affairs, but it also became the reigning ideology among the people as well, however “unleashing the market” turned out to have disastrous consequences even until today. A research article by Vicente Navarro states  “. . .[pharmaceutical] companies that systematically prioritize their objective of maximizing profits over any other ends, such as preventing and/or curing illnesses (which, by spreading, may turn into pandemics – as we are witnessing in the current crisis). Many other sectors of medical care show similar behavior. And it is this commercialization of medicine and prioritization of private interests over public ones that have affected very negatively the health and quality of life of millions and millions of people (see my book Medicine Under Capitalism, 1976). These behaviors have been accentuated in the neoliberal period, which started in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the Western world.” This specifically discusses the neoliberal economic system and how it effects us here and now during the COVID-19 pandemic (which at time of writing *15/02/2021* is still going on in the US and various other places).

Due to the rise of the neoliberal mindset, punk and Gothic styles gained quick popularity among the outsiders of modernized society, as did a sub-genre of punk (specifically in the 80′s-90′s), cyberpunk. Cyberpunk imagines a world controlled by corporations, climate change, rampant crime, and no heroes to save the day. Real life cyberpunks didn’t adhere to the aesthetic we think of now, during the rise of the internet they were/are the code monkeys, the people who knew how to navigate commonly uncharted space by the rest of the people online at the time. As good as it all sounds, that’s where the problem begins however. As technology progresses so do the ways to exploit the people using that technology, same thing goes with everything we use now. Just as the outsiders created their own thing, a capitalist will find ways to sell that to you packaged as individuality, the good thing is that punks accounted for this already and are big users and advocates for DIY. However the Goths got the short end of the stick when their style got repackaged and put into malls, thus mall goths were born. I say all of this because now, when in pursuit of individuality one must be aware of whether it’s truly fringe and custom or just another re-branded aesthetic like mall goth. In other words, true individuality doesn’t come from what you buy or how you look, it comes from who you are. Conformity doesn’t come from how you look, but how you act.

Now why did I talk about mall goths and punks? Have you seen how much Gothic and punk style clothing costs? That’s the monetization of individuality, at least physically speaking. This also is applicable to Cottagecore, maximalism, plant parenthood, and other aesthetics/movements that cost money. To hear more about that click here to read about Marxian alienation, capitalism, and the commodification of the individual. And no, this is not me saying that if you have that style you’re a conformist, it’s just marketed heavily towards those who want to oppose capitalism and our blatantly imperialistic government, which is incredibly ironic. I personally know punks who made their clothes by themselves instead of buying clothes from fast fashion companies. If you don’t, don’t sweat it, although it’s really useful to learn those skills, sewing specifically. Just keep in mind that they’re trying to sell you rebellion. Anything that can be sold, will be sold.

Sorry for rambling so much this time, I try to not make it a habit. I hope you learned something though.

This has been punkofsunshine, have a good one and stay safe.

[ahiddenpath]

My Current Thoughts on Writing Fanfics

I’m so glad I’ve had this bloggity since 2012, because I can see how much my approach to writing has changed!  I wanted to touch base on where I am now, plus answer the most common questions I receive about writing fanfics beneath the cut.

Obligatory disclaimer: I’m a hobbyist writer, this is meant to be taken as opinion/reflection, not advice, different approaches work for different people, annnnd also check out my digimon fanfics (FFN and AO3).

How do I develop a regular writing habit?

I’d start by setting aside 15 minutes a day to write.  Don’t focus on word count- writing x number of words can be intimidating, but most people can sit for 15 minutes and get something down.  If you’re writing on a computer, turn off the internet and place your phone out of reach

Gradually increase the session length.

Never worry about the quality of your writing while you’re drafting.  That’s what editing and subsequent drafts are for.  I have a post on utilizing successive drafts to combat writing paralysis here, but the tl;dr is that the pressure to write a perfect story in the first draft often turns writing into an agonizing trial instead of creative play.

Your first draft is bad, period, at least compared to what it will be.  In the kindest way possible, get over it.  Your value as a writer- or as a human!- isn’t tied into your questionable first draft.  Please explore your story in the earliest stages with enthusiasm, not criticism!  You’re going to make it so much better by the time you’re finished!

How do you write so much?

See, here’s one of the biggest changes in my mindset compared to my early days as ahiddenpath.  I used to think that doing all of this writing was like... extra credit, like a stretch goal I pushed myself to achieve.  

I learned in therapy starting in 2018 that the reason I keep writing is because I have to.  I have general anxiety disorder, and my brain...  Have you seen an old-timey cartoon with a boiler?  They are drawn swollen, metal distorting with steam pressure, rivets groaning and popping free.  That’s how I feel if I don’t write.  Don’t ask me why or how, but writing is like turning a valve to release the pressure.

(Quick PSA- my therapist calls creative outlets “coping skills.”  If you feel like you have boiler brain, make time for your hobbies, no matter how tired you are.)

For me, writing is challenging play.  Although I’m often conveying messages that matter to me or exploring ideas I want to work through, and I try to make the best product I can...  I don’t take it seriously, and I don’t sweat over it.  I’m here to wander, play, and take care of myself.

So basically, I think the recipe for producing lots of writing is: regularity/habit (do it every day, even for just a little while), minimizing distractions, separating the processes of drafting and editing, turning off criticism in the early stages of drafting, and writing for yourself and your own needs.

 Do you feel embarrassed about writing fanfic?

Nope.  I write for my mental health/because it’s fun, period.  However, I also don’t tell people IRL that I write fanfic!  But I’m a private person (I don’t tell people IRL that I’m asexual, for example, and I only tell them I have anxiety if I freeze up in front of them).

Do you feel embarrassed about writing OCs/fakemon?

Hahahaha!  Look, I know there are lots of people who won’t read OCs and fakemon.  I know there are probably people who wish I would stick to more canon stuff (both in terms of OCs and my strong preference for AUs).

But I’m here to write what I want, and while it makes me happy when people read and enjoy my work...  It’s no skin off my back if they don’t.  I already fulfilled my goal of taking care of myself.

Don’t you want to get published and make money for your writing?

No, not at this time.  For everyone who has said that I have the writing skill to be published, thank you so very much.  That’s so kind, and I truly appreciate it!

But...  The United States has the enormous capitalistic attitude problem that endeavors are only worthwhile if they generate capital.  I can’t even begin to tell you how damaging this concept is- literally, I’m not equipped with the sociopolitical educational background.  

Sometimes I think I’d like to become a published novelist?  But sometimes I recall that I have a dope research gig, and I wanna play around with writing in my free time.

To be clear, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t pursue your creative career dreams!!!  And, who knows, maybe some day I’ll get tired of research and want to try swapping to the hobby/skill I’ve spent so much time refining.  Just...  Never stop doing something fun and harmless you enjoy because “it doesn’t make money.”  

I’m not gonna sit here acting like I know what the purpose of life is, but I think having fun and meeting your needs is pivotal.

Okay, so how can I support my favorite fandom content creators?

Bless you, f’real.  The easiest way is to comment on their stuff.  For meta writers, leave comments, engage, ask questions.  For fanfiction writers, leave reviews.  I have so many lovely folks who chat with me over Tumblr or discord after reading my stuff, which is so great.  But it’s hard to find those sweet messages later.  I can always click on reviews any time I need a little positive reinforcement/boost.  So, even if you’re going to talk to the writer later...  Leave that review!

If the content producer uses social media, reblog their stuff to give them more exposure.  Likes are for you, so you can find a post later.  Reblogs are for the creators, so other people can see their work.

Things like fanart, fanfic of fanfic, cosplays, and other... fan content of fan content make our year, I promise!  We love that so stinkin’ much!

Some fan content producers have a ko-fi and/or a patreon, so sometimes there are monetary ways to show appreciation.

If you’re intimated by a content producer, please remember that we are all massive dorkasauruses.  I absolutely guarantee it.

How do you have so many ideas?!

Ah, I have a Future Projects page on my blog- I don’t think pages work on mobile.

But here’s the secret: ideas are the easy part.  They are literally a dime a dozen.  Heck, there are AU generators!  Just pick characters out of a hat and use an AU generator and bam, you’re off!  And even then, you don’t need a real idea to start writing!  I launched Four Years on the thought of, “hahaha, wouldn’t it be a mess if the Chosen went to college together?!”

We’re writing fanfic; we’re here to play.  There’s no need to crush yourself with the expectation that you must write the next hit thriller plot.

In my opinion, the much better question is: how do you manage your projects such that you complete them?

So, uh, how do you manage your projects?

I’ve established that I write fanfic to play and to take care of myself, but I do want to grow as a writer along the way.  And the best way to learn how to craft narratives is to practice completing them.  If you launch stories over and over and only write roughly 1/4 to 1/3 of the way through the story...  All you’re practicing is how to start a story.

When I first started writing as ahiddenpath, I did exactly zero planning (see the Four Years reference above).  I ended up with longfics stretching as long as 400K+ words- that’s over six novels (based on the average adult fiction novel length)!!!!!  It is so daunting to work on longfics, because you feel like the ending is nowhere to be seen.

SO most of my pointers circle around always writing towards your ending, even before you start!

-Decide what you want to say with your story before you start writing.

First, “what you want to say” doesn’t have to be a big, grand theme.  It can be as big as “how the trauma of their adventures impacted them after” or as small as “I think these dorks would have a good time at laser tag.” 

I’m not talking about a detailed outline (in fact, I personally hate outlines).  Just know what your story is about and make sure what you write points to it.  If you can make the structure of your story mimic your theme, even better!  But no worries if that doesn’t work out, it’s not always possible.

-Write linearly

The best way to keep moving along in your story is just to... keep writing it in order.  This helps achieve regular updates, and prevents you from potentially “losing” material if you change your mind about the plot before reaching the bit you wrote already.  This happened to me so frequently that I stopped writing ahead of myself.  If I have an idea, I write it down, but I don’t draft future scenes.  In my experience, they often never see the light of day.

I’m told people often write the bit of the story they most want to write first?  If you have a single scene that you’re really longing to write, but you don’t know how to get there/don’t want to write the rest...  May I suggest that you... don’t write the rest?  If your scene works as a oneshot, write that oneshot!  Don’t torture yourself with a lot of writing you don’t want to do.  Most often, people end up forcing their way through 1-4 chapters, then stalling before ever reaching the Good Bit. 

A moment of silence for all of the unwritten Good Bits out there.  Now, some Enya.

If you can’t reduce Good Bit setup to a oneshot, reduce as much as possible.  I think that sometimes, people underestimate the incredible advantages of writing fanfiction?  Everyone knows your characters already, and maybe even the setting, if you keep it canon.  You can cut out the setup and dive right into what you want to do with the characters! 

-Think about the structure of your story before you start

Considering the structure of your story is a fantastic way to estimate how long it will be/ensure that there is an ending in sight from the start.  For example, in Voices, I covered a single school year in Japan, writing a diary entry for a different Chosen every day, so I knew that I would write the story for roughly a year.  After August had one chapter per Chosen, so each child could help Taichi deal with his post Adventure trauma in their own way, plus an opening and closing chapter.  My Tri story, Tri: Integrity Lens, is written and posted in installments covering each Tri movie.

It’s fine if no particular structure strikes you.  I could see forced structure turning into a gimmick, you know?  But if it naturally works out, it’s a great way to have a solid idea of how much story is ahead of you before you start, and where the story will end.  And being cognizant of how and when a story ends from chapter one yields a tighter, shorter fic, one that you’re more likely to complete.

-Consider writing in batches/sections before posting

So lately, I’ve been experimenting with how I deliver fanfic updates.  I mentioned that my Tri fic follows the Tri movies.  Each movie is covered with a few 3,000-6,000 word updates that I post every other week.  I cover an entire movie before posting any of it, and then I plan to take a break in between movies to work on either the next movie or a different fic.

AND THIS IS SO GREAT!  Having large chunks of my story written is such a fantastic way to do things!  I keep thinking of little details I can add/things I should mention and noticing inconsistencies I can fix before posting.  Giving myself a larger picture and time to mull over it by spreading out updates is making a huge difference for me.

Plus, giving yourself little breaks between installments can help keep you fresh and motivated, while leaving your audience waiting at a nice, natural stopping point.  Plus, this way they know that you haven’t just... up an vanished or dropped a story.  You’re just taking an announced break.

How do you plan stories?

I believe I mentioned hating outlines.  I personally respond best to “structured freedom.”  I focus on things like: what are my themes/what do I want to say, how will the characters grow or regress, how is this story structured or formatted, what is the overall tone and mood.  Other than that, I keep things fluid...  Which is why it’s so important for me to enforce some kind of ending point before I begin.

Basically, for me, too much planning = a boring slog where I can’t inject the moods and ideas of the day into my work without derailing meticulous plans.  Too little planning = longfic hell.  I’m guessing that everyone has to decide for themselves where they land on this continuum!  Exploration is vital.

Okay, I am out of steam for today.  If you have any other writing/fanfic questions you’d like answered, please let me know!  Here are some other resources I’ve made.

-Combating writing paralysis with successive drafts

-Dishing with an artist

-Tips for Fanfic Authors

-More Tips for Fanfic Authors

-Tips for Winning Nanowrimo

-Resources/Advice for Digimon Adventure Fanfic Writers

[flirting-with-psychology]

[zombiebandido]

Can you recommend any Neil Gaiman to me, aside from Stardust or Good Omens? I cannot

What’s the best concert you’ve been to, if you’ve been? Idk, I think I’m just not huge on concerts

What’s the funniest screenname you’ve ever seen? i-run-with-scissors-to-feel-dangerous

Is there an animal you like that most people don’t? Don’t think so

Is there an animal that you think is overrated in terms of how it’s liked? Goats or cows, maybe

Is there a time period you think is underrated? Not really

What about music? Showtunes

Do you find yourself listening to music that’s a bit more esoteric? No

What are your three favorite books and why? Harry Potter because of the worldbuilding, Mistborn because of the worldbuilding and characters, A Confusion of Princes because it is a fun standalone book

What about authors? Idk, I mostly like specific books  Do you have any likes you wouldn’t tell someone until you got to know them? Nah probably not

Do you have a favorite language? Not really

What about a place you’ve always wanted to visit? Ireland

What’s something someone does or says that just makes you laugh? Idk, it’s usually situational

Do goldfish crackers ever make you sick, or is that just me? No?

Do you have a favorite art style? Probably realistic

Do you have a favorite myth/fairy-tale? No, sorry I’m being boring with this quiz

Who is your favorite person aside from family? Probably my bff

Do any of your pets (if you have them) have weird quirks? My cat was just very emphatic

Do you listen to music from anywhere besides America? Not really

Have you ever “quit” a site and came back to it more than once? No

Do you have an “odd” fascination with anything? Dice

What is the thing you want most at this moment? An interesting job and a return to normal from the pandemic

What was the last book you read and what was it about? I’m currently reading The Martian about an astronaut stranded on mars

What was the worst book you’ve ever read & why? Walk Two Moons because the twist ending fucked me up

Do you have a favorite breed of dog or cat? Which? Golden retrievers

If you like any anime/manga, what are some titles you recommend? I don’t really like it

What do you think about school in general? I thought it was interesting and I wish I could go back

What’s the hardest thing you’ve been through, & what did you learn from it? Maybe the braces. Dk what I learned from it

What are three “unrealistic” things you want most? An interesting creative job with steady and high pay lol, the lottery, the good place experience from The Good Place

What are some of your favorite foods? Pasta, chocolate, cereal. I am a simple girl

Where do you like to buy your clothes? Kohl’s, Macy’s, and thrift shops

Do you take any daily vitamins? When I remember

Who are three of your favorite fictional characters of all time? Kelsier from Mistborn, Sirius Black from Harry Potter, Raydan Lykel from The Crown and the Flame

If you had to give the world a pre-existing mythological/fictional being, what would it be? Idfk

When buying Slurpees, if you do, do you get only one flavor or mix them? Mixing is fun

Do you have a favorite 7Eleven food? No

Do you have any desire to learn (a) foreign language(s)? Which? Not strongly

If you could have any career, “realistic”-ness aside, what would it be? Something in film maybe

What are three memorable movies from your childhood? The Little Mermaid, Harry Potter, Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper

Do you, personally, put a space after ellipses, or not? Let me check... do I? I guess I do

What do some of the things that inspire you have in common? Making things

Micky D’s sweet tea, y/n/other? No

What are three of your best (non-physical) qualities? Creativity, honesty, smarts

What are three of your worst (again; non-physical) qualities? Stubbornness, anxiety, lack of empathy

What is one of your firmest beliefs? I don’t really have firm beliefs

Do you ever question things until you’re unsure of even the silliest thing? Yes

Do you have anything that keeps you from doing something you’d truly enjoy? Anxiety and procrastination, and money

What are your three biggest pet peeves (personality-wise) in others? Holier-than-thou people, acting like you’re too cool for fun, being unsafe

Do you work to fix your faults? Or at least, admit to them? I admit to most of them but I’m not so great at working on them

What are three of your best physical qualities? (NOT EYES!) Why not eyes? Other than that, I guess hair color, boobs, singing voice (at least I’d like to think so)

What are some of your greatest aspirations? Do something fun, have a good social life, see what I would look like in my prime

How do you hope the world will change, if at all? Get done with the pandemic, stop having capitalism be so shitty

Who are three (fairly known) people you find very intriguing? Taylor Swift, Voldemort, F. Scott Fitzgerald

What are three things that make you the happiest? hanging out with friends, crafts, cuddling with my boyfriend

What is/are your view(s) on god, religion, spirituality, or relations to? I don’t believe in them

Are you arachnophobic or scared of spiders in the least? YES

Do you play WoW? What do you think of it either way? No, I am just not that into video games

What kind of computer do you have? Windows 7/Vista/XP/Other? Macbook Pro

What are you good at? Crafts and school

What career do you hope to have? Something creative

Are you taking any interesting classes in school/do you not attend? I’m finished with school but I wish I could go back

If you don’t attend, are you taking any “lessons” for anything? No

A book/piece that has had an exceptional impact on your life? Harry Potter

If you know of pandora.com, what is your favorite station? I haven’t listened to pandora in ages

Have you ever “lost” a friend in any way? How did you deal? Some just faded away but some actively ditched me and I tried to find out why

Any music recommendations? Showtunes

What are at least three of your biggest fears? Spiders, living a mundane life, covid right now

Most recently read book that you liked? A Confusion of Princes

Do you have a piece of jewelry you don’t like to take off? No, I have so many that I like to alternate them

Do you have a favorite quote? Why is it your favorite? Carpe Diem. Haven’t lived it much lately though Any odd pastimes you have? Making lists and charts

Are you quirky in any way? (Name them please). My fashion sense especially in high school, the nerdy things I do

Have any practices you aren’t opposed to but wouldn’t do yourself? Probably a lot, I’m generally of the live and let live mindset

Political standing?

Left

Do you have any piercings/what do you think about piercings? I just have my ears pierced

Do you have a favorite material? I’m a fan of soft materials like suede or velvet, also metals like copper and silver

What are three names you’d name a pet if you HAD to get a pet right now? It depends on the pet

Do you like to listen to dorky/amusing music? Idk

Coffee vs. Tea vs. Energy Drinks: Order from favorite to least favorite. Tea, energy drinks, coffee

Do you like more “fruity” sweets or “savory” sweets? Fruity unless it’s chocolate

What do you hate the most? Spiders

What genres of music are your favorite? Showtunes

Do you believe in true love? Idk

Do you believe in love at first sight? If yes, why? No

What are some of your favorite clothing accessories? Jewelry

If reincarnation exists, what sort of person would you want to be next?

One of those outgoing guys that always has adventures with his friends What are some things you believe strongly in? Idk

Where’s your favorite place you’ve been? London was pretty cool, also Italy

What sort of books and movies do you like? For books: sci-fi, fantasy, dystopia. For movies: rom-com, sci-fi, musical

What’s your favorite thing to do on a rainy Saturday? Idk, just stay in

Is there a book you’ve read that really touched you? The Great Gatsby just because I related to Gatsby a lot

Do you have a favorite artist? Taylor Swift

PC or MAC? Mac

What do you love doing? Crafts, shopping, board games

If you could create the perfect world for yourself, what would it be? Basically just the good place from The Good Place. Unlimited time and resources to learn and try things without pressure to make money off it

Do you think that fate plays a part in people’s lives? Not really

Are you religious, spiritual, atheist…? Atheist

What are your opinions on the media? The media is a very broad range of things

Do you think that people throw the words “love” and “hate” around too much? Idk

What is your favorite piece of technology that you own? My laptop

What’s a piece of technology you’d like to own? I have what I want at the moment.

Are you afraid of technology developing to where we’re too reliant on it? A little bit of getting to the point where a lot of jobs get replaced with AI, because instead of making lives easier like they could be, there will just be a huge unempolyment problem that our stupid capitalist society won’t solve

Does it bother you when people do things to fit in with a certain crowd? If it’s not what they want to do

Hot or cold? Cold Do you think that Bzoink should extent the character amount for questions? I don’t use Bzoink

Do you have a favorite combination of complimentary colors? Maybe green and pink

Do you know why all the young people who have nice cars always look grumpy? I don’t think I’ve noticed that

What’s your favorite odd ice cream flavor? Lemon Sorbet or Coffee Toffee Bar Crunch

Where do you like to get your ice cream? Haagen Dasz or Ben and Jerry’s

What’s your opinion on stereotypes/labels? Idk

Do you ever use random word generators for Bzoinkoids?

What?

Do you believe that history repeats itself? It sure seems like it is

Would you rather learn from your mistakes or just undo them? Learn from them

What was the most interesting class you had in school? My words and music class in college Do you write? If so, what? I used to write poetry, I sometimes come up with stories but I don’t really write them

Do you have a favorite website? Tumblr and Etsy

Do you think that the quality of TV shows is going down? No, there are usually good ones to discover

Do you have a favorite culture? Maybe Celtic. I just like the art patterns What was a story you heard as a child that really affected you? The Headless Horseman scared me a lot

Who was your favorite grade-school teacher and why? My third grade teacher and my 6th grade math teacher

Do you think that the world will end? How? Probably in a few billion years when the sun turns into a red giant

Do you believe in Global Warming? Have you researched it? Yes but I haven’t researched it

Do you prefer piercings or tattoos? Tattoos

Do you remember your dreams? Sometimes

[canchewread]

Editor's note: this journal is original content (written by myself, of course) and has not appeared elsewhere online before today. I should also note that because this is both an opinion piece and an informal journal, my level of commitment to providing citations for the disingenuous wasn't particularly high; if you're looking for formally documented evidence that we're currently in the middle of a fascist takeover, I encourage you to check out my academic writing about the subject on ninaillingworth.com instead.

Journal 09/09/2020: Looking the Beast in the Eye

When I originally sat down to pen this journal, my intention was to call it something along the lines of “advice to a young leftist” which is probably in no small part, the reason why it's taken me three days to write this piece. This is because unfortunately I do not have very much good advice for a young leftist today in two-thousand and twenty, or at least much advice that isn't going to sound rather a lot like “quit before what you believe destroys your entire life.”

As I've written (extensively) elsewhere, we're in the middle of a fascist takeover that is more or less succeeding across the entire Pig Empire, and what passes for the liberal (read: capitalist) establishment in our respective nations seem quite content to try and appease the beast by feeding them the entire left and any marginalized group “uppity” enough to demand justice, equality or representation. There is not a lot of upside to being an open leftist right now and understanding what I know about both the history of fascism and the history of reactionary crackdowns in America, it's awful hard for me in good conscience to advise any young person to willingly subject themselves to the tender mercies of an uncaring state and its fascist cutout vigilante groups.

Let's talk a little bit about what that history, including very recent history, can tell us and why what it tells us isn't very good for the American left. Here in particular, we as both a class in American society and a people that believe in a more equal, compassionate and humane way of life, stand at the intersection of state power, class oppression and the homicidal revenge fantasies of a fascist political order that has seized power throughout much of the United States. The fact that this is not understood by our milquetoast Dem Soc allies and the bougie “progressive left” is completely irrelevant; as any Ferguson activist (who is still breathing) can tell you COINTELPRO never ended, performative liberal anti-racism stops well short of opposing police repression, and genteel society will respond to violent reprisals against activists by the reactionary right with either dead silence or some mild clucks of disapproval at best.

Are the liberals aware that when the increasingly fascist American right says “the left” they mean liberals and suburbanite Democrats too? On some level I'm sure they are, but clearly the threat of increased taxation and social programs for the poor terrifies them far more than the possibility fascism will progress to the point that they're next in front of the firing squad – I've been told the liberals of Weimar Germany felt much the same way during Hitler's rise; which merely demonstrates that the liberal capacity for coddling fascism if it's profitable knows few limits. Furthermore the nauseating truth is that many of your misguided and misinformed liberal allies in the working class simply don't understand that the fascist right always seeks to eliminate the militant left first simply because those are the people who're going to fight back when you start loading Muslims, Latinos and lanyard Democrats onto cattle cars.

This historical process of fascism of course intertwines with the American establishment's history of ruthlessly repressing, criminalizing and even murdering the left. As I detailed extensively in a prior essay called “The Inversion Perversion” the state's war against Americans who want a more equal society (in any number of ways) predates the rise of Nazi Germany, the American Civil War and as those who've studied colonial America might argue, even the foundation of the country. Between the mass deportations of anarchists, suppression of left wing literature through the mail, two Red Scares, anticommunism, Hoover's COINTELPRO war against the civil rights movement, the black power movement and the American student left, or all the way up to the Obama Department of Justice's ruthless oppression of the Occupy, Ferguson and North Dakota Pipeline protests, I could easily spend this entire essay demonstrating that when it comes to persecuting, destroying and yes even murdering the left, there is a long and storied history of bipartisan consensus in America – I see no reason or evidence to suggest that has changed much in our modern times.

In other words history, even recent American history, says that this story ends in a jail cell or a shallow grave for some of the folks reading this journal right now and I don't know how to sugarcoat that for anyone, let alone a young person with their whole life (such as it is) ahead of them. The plain, god-awful truth is that the American right wants you dead, and the center-right American liberal establishment simply doesn't care, just as it has never cared, because they also want the left destroyed and fear sharing their ill-gotten wealth more than they fear fascism. Furthermore, this same elite “liberal” establishment is actively engaged in splitting the component parts of the current American uprising up into acceptable and non-acceptable targets; that's why Joe Biden keeps yammering about police funding, anarchists and “looters.” Democrats in particular are doing this even as fascist militia vigilantes are starting to execute antifascists and protesters in the street, might I add.

Did I mention that it's a really bad time to be an open leftist, or even just someone who passionately feels cracker murderpigs shouldn't get away with murder because some fascist gave them a badge? And yet of course therein also lies the rub; just as there is danger in resisting the imposition of a fascist order there is also danger in refusing to resist.

Turning once again to history, we know that the fascist creep isn't going to stop itself until well after it has killed millions of people and destroyed everything about our lives that contains any meaning whatsoever. The reactionary backlash will not stop with silencing, arresting and/or killing teenage anarchists, African Americans protesting against racialized police violence or Portland soccer moms who've had enough fascism for a lifetime. The fascist mindset and method of societal control dictates that there must always been more enemies both within and outside of the state who represent both an abomination that should be destroyed and a threat to everything good and pure in the national character. Right now, the waking dragon of American fascism has cast a laser-like focus on those brave few Americans who are willing to physically resist the transformation of the country from a corrupt Oligarchy to an overt fascist police-state with rigged elections. Once that enemy is crushed and defeated, the beast will turn its eye to others – unions, teachers, and yes even Democratic Party politicians who've always been friendly to the fascist capitalist billionaires running much of the reactionary American right today.

Whether you choose to fight, hide or run, it has become crystal-clear clear to me that we are all headed towards dark days in the very near future and the only variable left to be determined is which segments of the audience reading this will be thrown onto the pyre first. What we know today as “Western Society” is blindly crashing through the kinds of barriers people who desire peace, comfort and security simply don't breech without expecting violence, bloodshed and a whole lot of rain.

Perhaps in light of all this my advice to the young leftist should be to harden oneself for the torrential downpour of violence, repression and yes death that lies ahead, regardless of whether or not you choose to resist the fascist creep. Perhaps the best thing I can offer a young person staring directly into the eye of this beast is the assurance that it is not their fault, that nobody in history has ever asked to be born into the war against fascism and that ultimately the fascists cannot win because fascism is a death cult that will eventually eat itself and has done so every single time before this one. Perhaps all I really have to share with you is the hope that in the darkness and despair that lies ahead of us you will remember my words and know that no matter how much they repress, terrorize and torture us, fantasy cannot be reality, slavery cannot be freedom and life cannot be death.

And that I think is the handle and the comfort I can offer those of you reading this who’re young enough to have a future beyond the fascist order; I have no optimism to sell you but I can make one promise that may help carry you through the bowels of the hell we are all descending into after all. It might not amount to much yet, but I promise you there will always only be four lights; no matter how many of us they murder to try and “prove” otherwise. Do not give these maggots the satisfaction of seeing your fear; know that at least some of you reading this will eventually dance on their graves and take whatever comfort you are able to, in that inevitability.

Never forget - one way, or another, the future is left.

nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Twitter, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

Inquiries and requests to speak to the manager @ASNinaWrites

Chat with fellow readers online at Anarcho Nina Writes on Discord!

“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”

[feministfatale-tah]

Even today, as the world slowly progresses into a more liberal mindset, one topic that remains 'taboo' in more groups is that of sex. If you sit down for a moment and think about that, you'll realize how ridiculous that is. Sex is natural for most people. The vast majority of the human population enjoy it, take part in it. So why is it so hard to talk about? Fancy Feast, in a BuzzFeed article called "Sex Toys Will Never be Able to do the Hardest Work for You" writes about her experiences with this exact problem. Working in a sex shop for some time, she came to be very comfortable talking about sex. After all, it was her job to make sure that the customers were getting what they wanted and to help them make smarter decisions about some of their purchases. But what she came to discover was a common issue with many of her customers was their reasoning behind why they wanted to buy the sex toys. 

She found that many people were not only looking for toys to 'spice up' their sex lives, but because they thought that the right sex toy might fix any and all problems with sex. Because buying a sex toy was easier than sitting your partner down and having a conversation with them about what might not be working for either of them, they turned to sex shops for toys. This, predictably, would not fix many issues so much as it would cause different ones, just with a new source. Because of the way that society treats sex, it has been ingrained in people that it is not something that should even be talked about with your partners. This is not a healthy way to maintain a relationship. The author discovered that conversations with complete strangers that painted sex in a more positive light could lead to them disclosing personal issues such as histories of abuse, sexual fantasies they were too scared to bring up to their partners, and even marriage doubts. 

So why are these conversations so easy to have with strangers and yet someone would never think to bring them up to their partner? Fancy Feast alludes that much of this is due to a fear of rejection. There is also a certain level of vulnerability that comes with opening yourself up about something that can be so intimate. People do not want to be told that they are weird or that they are too high maintenance to be bothered with. And so the answer, according to this article, is to buy a sex toy. It is easier to place the blame of something not working out on a 'malfunctioning toy,' just as it is easy to take the credit for the better sex if the toy works out. It is not easy to open yourself up and admit that you might have an issue with your partner or that you yourself might be the issue. 

Therefore, to combat this, sex has to be turned into something that can be talked about outside of dark shadows and online forums. Fancy Feast ends her article with this important message: "Sex positivity can only be an actionable philosophy [when] it [can] account for oppression, inequality, and the forces of capitalism." What this means is that sex positivity will only come about when we as a society start to combat the things that make it impossible to achieve. The historical oppression of those whose sexualities have been silenced or reserved, the inequalities found not only between the sexes when it comes to sexual liberation but also the races and sexualities, and finally, the pressure from a capitalistic society that buying things will always make you feel better. In this case, the purchase of a sex toy isn't going to fix your life. And it's certainly not going to fix your relationship.