hello friend please look up i am here

Same hat

Who TF decided I have to get a real job instead of being an eccentric and mysterious wizard who lives in the woods with too many houseplants and two or more cats

There are 4 things I learned when I was 25:

You do not have to be affectionate all the time to care for someone, in fact, caring can also mean a couple of texts or silence for a few days while you both live your lives happily and separately.

People do not care for you less when they’re busy with their own lives. It’s your reaction to them being their own person - and your ability to make yourself happy - that determines how they feel about you.

Not everyone reciprocates to your actions the same way. If you want someone to acknowledge, be interested in, or treat you a certain way for your efforts, all you have to do is let them know. They will try their personal best to accommodate that within their personal spectrum of feelings.

No one owes you 100% of them, not even after 30 years, because someone having a percentage of themselves is what keeps them sane at the end of the day and that’s okay.

These things are so important to learn.

*someone having a majority of themselves is valid and important, and the way to a healthy relationship and a healthy sense of self.

no fucking way

Isthis fucking reallife

Man this sports Anime has a really good budget

“HE ASCENDED THROUGH THE AIR LIKE A DEFENSIVE ANGELLL!!!!!1!1!1!1”

This makes me lose my shit everytime I see it

I am Lokitty, of Catgard, and I am burdened with glorious purrrpose.

This windowsill pleases me. 

YOU GIVE UP THIS CATNIP DREAM! YOU COME HOME!

AND HE NEVER KNEW THAT HE WAS ADOPTED?!

SCREAMS

I DO WHAT I WANT, THORGI!

I’m pretending all the time to be, kinder, stronger, funnier, more sociable than I am. I guess we’re all like that but it just feels so inadequate.

What’s the difference?

I know it sounds flippant but… certain things are fundamentally performative.  And other things are so close as makes no difference.

Kindness is performative.  Actions are kind, and people are kind by performing those actions.  You can’t “pretend” to be kinder than you are, you can only perform kindness or not perform kindness, and choosing to perform kindness is always worthwhile, no matter how much you may second-guess your motivations.

Strength is so many things.  It takes strength to pretend a strength you don’t feel.  And the way to achieve strength is to exercise it, so long as you do it in enough moderation to not strain or break anything.  Being able to affect strength when necessary while being able to put it down again when that in turn is necessary is healthy.  Everyone starts weight training with the littlest weights.  It’s not fake or pretending to do what you gotta do in any given situation.

Funniness lives in the interlocutor, not in the speaker.  It doesn’t matter how funny you think you are (or think you are pretending to be) - that’s not how it’s measured.  At what point are you “pretending” to be a musician if the music still gets made?  And often what it’s tempting to describe in first person as “pretending” is more accurately described in the third person as “practicing” - which is of course the way you cause things to Be.

Sociability is also performative.  Pretending to be sociable is just…being sociable, despite a disinclination towards it.  It’s making an effort towards something you value.  So long as the effort is not so great that it backfires into resentment, there’s no practical difference.  

Qualities or activities or whatever are no less worthy because you have to actively choose to perform them.  If anything, the worthiness lies in the act of choosing.  It’s not “pretending” - it’s agency.

tl;dr: ain’t nothing wrong with “fake it till you make it.”  A plastic spoon* holds just as much soup as a “real” one

* I keep wanting to talk about semantic domains!  Artifacts are defined by their utility, whereas living things are defined by their identity.  So plastic forks are still forks, but plastic flowers aren’t flowers.  So there’s two pep-talk messages to take away from this: (1) for certain things, the distinction between “fake” and “real” isn’t a relevant one so long as they still get the job done, and (2) the purpose of a living thing is to be the thing that it is.  The idea of a “useless person” is as semantically nonsensical as the idea of “pretend kindness” (or fake cutlery).

I love this post. It illustrates what I think is maybe the key difference between a developing self-identity and a formed self-identity, which is, like…confidence? If you are BEING kind, consistently, if you are prioritizing that over your own comfort or fatigue or even, occasionally, your emotional inclination (because OH MY GOD FUCK THIS GUY, I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE–uuughhh, but no, I’m not gonna lash out at him, that won’t accomplish anything, and besides, he’s probably had a bad day, he’s under a lot of stress, I don’t have to be an asshole about this…), guess what? That makes you kind. That is literally what kindness is. Same for patience, same for strength, same for all of this stuff. You got it. You’re doing it. You’re not faking anything. Stop second-guessing yourself and cutting yourself down. Give yourself enough credit to look at your actions and confidently assert to yourself that you are no longer just making things up as you go. 

Daniel Clarke  -  https://danielclarkeart.tumblr.com  -  https://vimeo.com/122076401  -  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/blueforestcollective/kariba-the-graphic-novel  -  https://www.instagram.com/danielclarkeart  -  http://99loop.co.za/artists/daniel-clarke  -  https://www.artstation.com/daniel_clarke

Okay, friends, let’s talk about going to protests and weaponizing our whiteness, if in fact we are white.

You know what the protesters who marched with Dr. King wore? Their best. Their clergy stoles, their suits. If you’re a doctor or a nurse? Wear your scrubs. If you’re a parent? Wear your PTA shirt if it’s too hot for a suit. If you’re a student? Dress like you’re going to go volunteer somewhere nice, or wear a t-shirt that proclaims you a member of your high school band, your drama group, your church youth group. Whatever it is, make sure it’s right there with your white face.

This is literally the tactic of the people who marched with King in the 60s, and we need to bring it back, and bring it back HARD.

I do this all the time when I go to marches. I wear my cutest, least-offensive geeky t-shirt, crocs and black pants, or I wear my t-shirt that mentions my kid’s school district, or now I’ll wear the pink t-shirt that says I’m part of the Sisterhood at my shul. If it’s cold enough, I wear a cardigan and jeans and sit my ass in my wheelchair. (I need to anyway.) I put signs on my wheelchair that say things like ‘I love my trans daughter’ and ‘love for all trans children’ or something else that applies to the event. Dress like you are going to an interview if you can, or make yourself look like a parent going to pick up a gallon of milk at the corner store. Make yourself “respectable.” Use respectability politics and whiteness AS A WEAPON.

Fuck yes I will weaponize the fact that I look like a white soccer mom. And you should do this too if you can. Weaponize the fuck out of your whiteness. If you are disabled and comfortable with doing so, turn ableism on its head and weaponize it. Make it so that the cameras that WILL be pointed at you see your whiteness, see your status as a parent, see your status as a community member. See you in your wheelchair or with your cane. If you have privilege or a status that allows you to use it as a weapon or a shield, use it as a shield to defend others or a weapon to break through the bullshit.

This has a fair number of notes, so maybe it’s already been mentioned but …

The “Sunday Best” thing from the Civil Rights Movement of the 50s & 60s, or wearing markers of an assigned profession (e.g. scrubs) is an established tactic of social movements.  They’re part of what Charles Tilly (one of the academic god father’s of social movement theory) called “WUNC” displays.  WUNC can be broken down to:

While I’m very much in support of anti-fascist protesting in whatever form it takes, especially when engaged in a counter-protest, one of the great tragedies of the American political climate right now is that we’ve really forgotten some of the biggest lessons of the Civil Rights Era.  King didn’t trot out fresh-faced students, church women in big fancy hats, or the elderly and disabled without knowing what he was doing.  He (and the other members of his affiliated organizations) knew that if the police were photographed using violent repression against a mother holding her child, or a student in slacks, a cardigan, and Buddy Holly glasses, it would go over very differently than if they were photographed beating up “unruly thugs”.  Their presence alone would be notable to people locally, especially in the heat of the south.  But so would photographs of repressive violence against “nice people” that would then get picked up by the national media, and maybe in markets that were more sensitive to racial oppression.  

[And like, there are other factors as well.  People also sometimes think the Civil Rights Era erupted spontaneously from Jim Crowe and segregation in the South, and those are giant factors (”depravation” and “grievance”, in jargon), but there were also legislative things and court rulings brewing since the 1920s (the NAACP had been trying Civil Rights cases, and looking for test cases over the years), and the Cold War meant that America needed to appear to be the perfect image of opportunity and equality (together these things manifest as an “opportunity structure”.  again, jargon).  Not to get to down on protest as its own thing, but the structuralists do have a bit of a point.]

…  There are other types of anti-fascist counter-protesting that have developed in various ways through the years. And like, a big thing in social movement theory overall is that while there are common tactics (”protest repertoires” in jargon), historical contexts matter a lot and some groups will have to do more dramatic performances of the WUNC to get attention.  There’s also the move revolutionary antifa-type riot mentality.  I’m not gonna call that one wrong either, mind, but since the Civil Rights Movement was brought up, it should be noted that those two forms of protest differed intentionally.

Anyway, as someone turning in a dissertation on this in a couple of days, here’s some drive-by political-sociology.  If you want to learn more about the research behind processes of social movements, where they succeeded, and where they failed, I totally recommend checking out:

(McAdam has a quite well-regarded book on the Civil Rights Era specifically. I haven’t read it personally as it relates less to my regional context. However like, that’s worth noting and looking into.  Also all of these are stodgey academic texts, but they’re not uncommon in university libraries, or even in some bookstores. They’re also all a bit old now and shouldn’t cost you a ton online.)

As a note – My point here isn’t to descend from the Ivory Tower of Academia and say “you people on the streets are doing this wrong!!1!”.  Theory doesn’t always match up with Practice, and as noted by pretty much every notable theorist anyway… Context matters a TON.  Not all movements will be able to use the same practices or performances.  Sometimes their inaccessible, sometimes they just don’t have the cross-context appeal.  It’s about experimentation and finding opportunity.  To be clear, this isn’t about me telling folks how it should be done.  Still, I think it’s worth sharing information when it’s available, especially if people who might not know are trying to draw specific links to historical cases.  Social movement theorists have pretty much all agreed that WUNC displays (along with other factors like media diffusion) are super duper important and can be recognized in movements across historical contexts.  I think it’s worth it for younger activists who might be looking for protest repertoires that work for their movement as it’s developing to take heed of the successes and failures of the past.  Especially since a lot of it is either a) so much a part of history and culture that it doesn’t really get examined for its constituent bits, or b) has been mythologized to the point that it’s hard to look for really good popular historical information on its technical processes.

(If people have questions, feel free to DM me.  I might be a little slow the next couple of days as I finish up proof-reading and checking all my citations but yeah.  Let’s share knowledge and smash the fash.)

The Nazis of 2017 gained the ground they have with articles about how they were “dapper.” That was a political choice, and it worked. It snowed a lot of gullible goyim. People refused for almost a year to call “the alt-right” Nazis because they looked “like average white people.”

Nazis see their whiteness as a weapon already. Get yours out there and show them – they will never sway everyone. “If you have privilege or a status that allows you to use it as a weapon or a shield, use it as a shield to defend others or a weapon to break through the bullshit.”

We got a few more asks about how white people (and white passing people!) can be the most useful right now. This post is long but the detail is important and shows a lot of historical background. -Lou the Lobster

calling me “pretty boy” or “good boy” is the fastest way to get me weak and ready to listen to everything you say like as soon as those words leave your mouth i’m gone

juggalos: the true allies

I don’t know about you guys but I’m like, really attracted to the idea of moving to a quaint small town, the type where everyone’s friendly and knows each other and that has a bustling village square with a bunch of picturesque niche stores and shoppes in it, and opening up a weird all-purpose place of my own that no one can really define. Is it an antique shop? A book store? A pawn shop? A café? A mystic or occult shop? A foster home for rabbits and cats? A pizza place? A clothing store? An art store? No one is quite sure and everyone’s a little afraid to enter my store to find out, so I gain a reputation as the Town Oddball, the Village Witch, and there’s rumors about me doing supernatural things, but the town clearly isn’t cursed and I organize a bunch of fun community events and send baked goods to anyone if I hear they’re having a rough time with something, so while they’re a little concerned they view it more as a good thing, like ‘oh yes, come to our town!!! This is our local Enchantress she runs ghost tours around the village every Halloween season and she nurses animals back to health and her brownies are to die for, we love her!’ And then I start showing movies in the back room (outside with a projector if weather permits) so kids are always in my shop and it just becomes the It Place of the little town and while I still come off as confusing and mildly aloof to people there’s an overall pleasantness at all times. Like this is absolutely my ideal future. And then I’ll probably end up helping a group of teenagers on a magic quest-

anyway if you support ANYTHING related to white nationalism/supremacy/nazism/racism please unfollow and block me. this is space is not welcome to you. in fact, no spaces should be welcome to you. 

I started to put this in my tags but I want to be clear about this: when I reblog this I’m not just talking about people being active skinheads. I’m also talking to people who think the response to Nazism is calling for ‘civil discourse.’ People who support Nazis demonstrating or gathering safely. People who wring their hands over the idea of not allowing Nazis to be safe. People who think Nazism is just an opinion. You’re complicit too. 

[Source] [Convict Collars]

Because saving kitties is important.

This is a freakn’ wonderful idea and needs to be spread around to let people know.