art and space and dreams

are we the baddies: SFF subgenre focused on agents of an imperial power realizing that and grappling with what to do next, in contrast to stories focusing on the scrappy rebels resisting said imperial power

I could fix him (the empire): SFF subgenre where the colonized subject being nice and/or sexy enough Ends Colonialism, frequently tied to the John President of Racism problem

librarian bait: books centered on the transformative life-changing power of books and libraries, cousin to books focused on the transformative life-changing power of storytelling and narrative in general

college brochure fiction: stories where the protagonist has an artfully arranged group of diverse friends who are as flat as paper and whose cultural backgrounds never come up meaningfully

It hails from an immortal tumblr post by penultimate-step, except not immortal apparently because I get 'not found' when I try to go back to the original. (Edit: Link found) So here's the text:

this is not a temporary flaw or a series of bad decisions that can be corrected over time, it is structural and it is foundational. the system is not a broken version of something better, it is functioning exactly as it was designed to function. expecting it to suddenly produce justice or equality ignores the reality of how and why it was created.

political participation, especially within the narrow limits of electoral politics does not meaningfully challenge this foundation. choosing between candidates who operate within the same system does not alter the system itself. it reinforces the idea that small adjustments are enough and that progress can happen without confronting the underlying structure.

people often ask what is wrong with america, why it behaves the way it does, why exploitation and violence seem so persistent, and the answer is that these outcomes are not accidents. they are consistent with the country's origins in colonization, slavery, and imperial expansion. those patterns have not disappeared, they have evolved and adapted.

there is also a reason why so many people feel exhausted, disengaged, or unable to imagine alternatives. capitalism benefits when people are too overwhelmed to resist or even to question what is happening. economic pressure, constant stress, and limited time all contribute to maintaining that condition.

capitalism, as it operates, is not failing. it is producing exactly what it is meant to produce, concentration of wealth, inequality, and dependence. the belief that it can be reformed into something fair without fundamentally changing its structure keeps people invested in a system that continues to harm them.

The Other Side

An innocent man is home with his family instead of spending his kids' whole childhoods in jail for "resisting arrest" when none of the cops could agree on why he was being arrested in the first place. (But it definitely had nothing to do with him being a Black man in a nice car, honest! 🙄)

And it still took like two hours of delibration after we'd heard all the evidence because one lady was so gung ho about believing everything the cops said, even when not a single goddamn one could agree with their own testimony, let alone their colleagues'.

Pointing out all the inconsistencies and admitted misconduct and letting people slowly come to their own conclusions as the trial played out was fucking hard, I won't lie. I can be patient, but it doesn't come naturally to me.

But. Yelling about how this was obviously a bs case would have shut everyone down and made them stop listening. Asking questions and letting people discuss how the cops tried to make xyz sound suspicious but it was totally normal, or about how if things played out the way the cops said then logically events should have proceeded in a totally different direction, and positing different theories that actually lined up with the evidence presented?

That got people thinking, and everyone realized that for a variety of reasons we all had reasonable doubts that the defendent had committed any of the crimes of which he was accused.

It is the middle of a Sunday afternoon. You have nothing on, and aren't expecting visitors, deliveries or post.

Unexpectedly, there is a knock at the door.