🏳️‍⚧️Lito / Chaos🏳️‍🌈

Like "You have to venture into the scary insane asylum!" VS "You're a patient who was admitted by force to an asylum, and you are very clearly in real danger, but everyone is pretending that you're just deluded, and are essentially leaving you to die because they don't really see you as a person."

It's been interesting to see what media people are recommending based on the first post alone. A lot of recommendations for games/franchises like World of Darkness, Carrion, Kill All Humans, Among Us, etc. It's interesting because these are games that put you into the shoes of the violent other that has to infiltrate, without actually challenging the idea that the other is a threat. They actually parrot the ideas of the other as violent.

Funnily enough, the people recommending the comedy game Octodad understand the post much better than most of the people recommending horror media. A few mentions of Am I Nima, which isn't finished yet but does look like it could be what I am describing, so brownie points to the people recommending that.

But everyone saying stuff like "This is just being Trans/Autistic/Etc" really gets it, like really really gets it. Horror always communicates the fears and anxieties of the people who create it, this post was basically: "What if instead of communicating the fear of the other, we communicated the fears of the others, which are actually vastly more legitimate than the dominant groups fear of the other. We should recognise that it is overwhelmingly the others who are the ones who actually suffer and die, all for the perceived "saftey" and "comfort" of the dominant group."

This idea is about transphobia, it is about ableism, about anti-imigrant rhetoric and white supremacy, about queerphobia, it's about all of it. It is horror from the perspective of minority groups. It is the twisting of a trope built upon reactionary fears and narratives in order to critique them, it is a direct allegory for all those experiences you are describing.

From there the political aspect of it got picked up by climate doomerist types who pushed it as an antidote to the impending apocalypse. Alas, being fanatically worried about climate change seems to have fallen out of fashion since COVID for whatever reason. I believe a lot of these people have moved on to walkable urbanism and anti-AI movements.

And the aesthetic side of it started off with a particularly influential Tumblr post from 2014 that had quite a few neat ideas. All of those were sanded down over time into a vision of skyscrapers with moss and solar panels, coupled with some recycled cottagecore material and a bunch of Ghibli screencaps.

And then Chobani comes in and makes a yogurt commercial that's just futurist luxury automated cottagecore in a Ghibli aesthetic, complete with some vague handwaves at a spunky DIY attitude and a whole bunch of small-scale renewable electric generators. And from there the movement, whatever it was, merged with "Frutiger Aero" and completely fell apart into bland nothingness.

Praxis itself? It looks like disability activism. It looks like attending local town council meetings. It looks like diving into super specific debate on local law requirements on water-permeable surfaces percentage. It looks like keeping in contact with local priest to snoothly distribute furniture from well-off middle class finishing renovation to 18yo orphans ageing out of the system. It looks like negotating with local cultural activity center how to organise half-illegal craft workshops because paperwork for fully legal ones excludes the most neglected demographic. It looks like lobbying for health insurance to put "replacing batteries in the implant surgery" on the list of covered medical services, so people don't need to surgically replace whole implants. It looks like million other specific things.

People who got inspired by solarpunk tend to spend some time looking at art, then turn around, ask "okay but what can be done now that I can engage with" and then go do it. And then what they do stops looking like solarpunk aesthetic.

Of course there's also that thing that before Covid, lots of climate collapse containment issues were literally "we know that business-as-usual is cheapest short-term but can we focus on how it's killing us long-term". Covid era showed that business-as-usual is unsustainable now, mid-term and short-term and today and yesterday; and also that goverments can simply decide to act and it create tangible effects. Suddenly, it wasn't "solar would be better if your gas import was ever endangered", it's "we build all the solar for yesterday because we cannot afford keeping to gas". Creating inspiring narratives is optional when cost of business-as-usual is visible to naked eye. Lots of people who used to share inspiring pictures of solar on background of green hills either went to install solar and negotiate specifics of grid inclusion, or moved on to the next issue.

Central idea of solarpunk aesthetic was to give people tools to imagine sustainable future; to create visual and narrative shorthands allowing people to engage with vision of non-apocalyptic future.

Central idea of solarpunk philosophy is that apocalypse is anything but inevitable and the main challenge isn't lack of means and tools, but widespread cultural pessimism. You cannot change anything if you believe change is impossible. Therefore, for change to be possible, you need to envision the world that can be changed.

Basically, if solarpunk art convinced anyone that there is achievable alternative to doom, it have already succeeded.

You absolutely can merge in one all the issues ever discussed in context of exploring how sustainable climate-proofed non-capitalistic world can work and how it can be achieved, with the attempt to design a distinctive and consistent visual language for it.

And you absolutely can blame whichever aspect of that merged entity for the fact that detailed fact-based solutions are difficult to derive from visual language or using visual design tools.

Also it is absolutely ridiculous to think that we can deem a work from a country where queerness is illegal less legitimate because the author has not chosen to publicly disclosed their identity. Authors who were forced to hide their names because of government crack downs on queer art have been questioned for not being openly #Ownvoices.

I'm passionate because I have experience with this issue. I was questioned as to whether I could write about trans people, while I had been out as genderfluid in my personal relationships for years. I just didn't think it was a strangers business. If not for pressure from outsiders, I may have had a better experience coming out on my own terms, but some of y'all ruined that for me.

Offer alternatives: IE, “Sorry, nobody’s allowed to hang out over there, but we have seats over here you’re welcome to use”. I recommend getting familiar with local parks, public seating, free food programs, outreach, mobile aid, etc., just in case those are needed.

Be polite: IE, “Excuse me, sir”, “I beg your pardon, miss”. This should go without saying but everyone deserves dignity.

Avoid phrasing requests as orders: IE, “Don’t stand in front of that” VS “Excuse me, could you move a bit to the side?”. This works best with an explanation, like, “There’s a sign behind you”, or, “you might get clipped by someone”. This helps communicate that you are asking for a reason, not just throwing your weight around. If you don’t have a reason, rethink whether or not you need to be doing anything.

Avoid directing blame or fault. Don’t say, “The owner says you gotta go” when you could say, “I’m not supposed to let people be here for X period” or “do X thing”. Again, try to have alternatives ready so people can use other resources or do something else instead of just abruptly changing plans.

Come from a place of compassion whenever you can. People are gonna tell you to get rid of the crazy screaming guy. They say that because they’re frightened and don’t know what to do. Your best approach is, “Hello sir”, followed by, “How are you today?”, “how’s it going?”, “are you doing alright?”, etc., depending on what the person is ACTUALLY doing / saying when you get there. You can offer help from there if needed, or leave them alone if they’re not in danger or a risk to anyone.

Remember you’re not a cop. This can mean whatever you need it to mean. For me personally, that means that with incredibly rare exception (like trying to sell to kids, contaminating other’s food or drink) I won’t report you for drugs. If I find you doing drugs on my site I’ll tell you a different place where you can do them instead and ask you to do them there. I have interrupted drug deals to ask the client and the salesman to both kindly move 15 feet to the left, I’m not kidding, I do not care.

Know who you can throw under the bus. Sometimes you gotta enforce rules and be the bad guy and if that’s the fault of some dipshit in a suit 200 miles away, you can say that. Sorry man, I can’t let you park your car on the lawn. I know you’re not hurting anyone and frankly I think lawn culture is stupid but there’s other parking stalls and if my boss sees you I’ll get a write-up for not doing my job. Shit sucks sometimes but if it wasn’t me telling you it’d be the new guy, and between you and me he’s an idiot and he’ll probably just report you to bylaw.

Don’t just act like you’re their friend, genuinely try to be a good friend. If you know that someone is doing something that will only result in a bystander phoning police, don’t let them go down like that. Let them know, “hey man, you seem like you’re having a shit time and I get it, I’ll do what I can, but we gotta have this conversation somewhere else ‘cause we’re freaking out the old ladies.”

Swallow your tongue. You can’t fix the world. People are gonna bitch at you about communists and 5G and gangster rap ruining the neighbourhood, that’s just part of the deal. Nod along, remain neutral, shut down any hate speech, redirect if you can, and keep a limit in mind where you’ll have to shut things down.

Accept that sometimes there are no solutions. Yes, that angry guy who blasts music will be back tomorrow. That homeless woman who asks you to help her find her dog that she hasn’t had in 30 years will ask again, and yes, you’re still going to take a description and promise to keep an eye out. That kid who smokes crack behind the building has been clean for a few weeks and still stops by to say hi, and you hope he’ll get his life together and be happy, but he also might relapse and OD before he hits 25. Sometimes you just have to do the best you can, even if nothing is guaranteed.

Be kind to teenagers. Being a kid is hard, and everyone’s on their ass all the damn time for everything.

Remember that the vast majority of bad people aren’t bad, just unhappy. The guy who keeps showing up drunk and puking on the carpet is unhappy. The lady who bitches about the service every single time and keeps coming back anyway is unhappy. The guy who leaves trash everywhere is probably unhappy. If they were happy, maybe they’d do better, but they’re not, and that’s kinda sad. You don’t have to let them get away with their shit, but they probably aren’t actually a worthless human being either.

It doesn’t matter if 12 is true or not. You need to believe it or you will become a harsh and bitter person. Look for evidence that people are not terrible and invent it if you have to

every once in a while you need to eat something yummy. or go on a walk. or a trip to the zoo. take a hot shower. cry your eyes out. dance. listen to music. draw for way to long. write. laugh. sit in a cafe with a friend. paint your nails. dye your hair. go on a run. pet a cat

sometimes you need to do things that are cathartic or make yourself feel alive. sometimes you need the reminder of why you’re fighting so hard to stay alive

Everyone weighs their physical and mental/emotional health against one another in constantly shifting balance; inevitably, there are times when we choose to accept consequences to one for the sake of the other.

“Ghosts aren’t real” it’s very fair and rational that you believe that

“Ghosts aren’t real anymore” I’m about to hear a poem or very sad story

This is one of those non-poem things that are among my favorite poems.

As the OP stated, the use of alliterative consonants is aesthetically just great, especially the placement of the strongest use at the end: “fuck him on the floor.” The use of “chintz” is indeed great word choice.

Because I’m insane, decided to scan the poem:

Not only is the second sentence, indeed, perfect iambic pentameter, the entire poem is perfectly metered, though the first sentence has four iambs rather than five.

There are further things I love about this poem, though: I like the casual connotations of “keep it real” juxtaposed with “chintz.” It causes me to interpret the “chintz” more strongly as meaning something fake, a facade. There is also of course the coarseness of “fuck,” which is a contrast with “chintz” but a different kind of contrast, gutsy and carnal where “chintz” is flimsy and inanimate.

And then there is the storytelling: there is SO MUCH storytelling in just these two lines. To break it down: The speaker is having sex with a married man, in the house he shares with his wife, which is “filled with chintz”—something that here connotes fakeness, in contrast with “keep it real.”

The illicit encounter in the poem takes place within a house filled with facade, the flimsy construction of the wife’s marriage and domestic sphere, but the encounter itself is a taste of something “real.” That’s a story, and it’s just two lines.

This is EIGHTEEN SYLLABLES, y’all. The amount of meaning condensed into these eighteen syllables is stunning, and it is so elegantly done.

🩵🩷🤍🩷🩵

And he kept doing it. Scene after scene.

He spent the film expecting someone to make a joke about how unserious things were or to break the fourth wall or do some other self referential type thing.

Now, maybe I'm just at that point in my cycle or maybe I'm too delicate in general, but I literally teared up hearing that. Straight up cried a bit. It is so fucking sad that sincerity and genuineness is being bred out of people.

People say all the time 'this generation can't take anything seriously!' and really, is it any wonder? Younger people have been trained out of it. You are no longer encouraged to be genuine or show emotion or be honest. You are actively punished for it. In fact, you are almost guaranteed to suffer for it.

That is so fucked up. I'm sorry to go on a bit of a random ramble rant but it's so fucking gut wrenching to see younger people lose that element of themselves. You can't express your passion without being told you're 'crashing out' or 'cringe'. You have to live in this neutral state of fear of perception, and god forbid anybody step outside of it!

You're told you should only consume and succumb and be ironic and emotionless and cool.

Listen, if you're following me and you're like.... 25 or under, let's say. Please. I beg of you. Do not fall for this rhetoric. Please, for the love of all things, feel. Feel and create and be honest with yourself. Indulge in things that make you happy. Be sincere. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Do not let this hyper-capitalistic, hyper-consumerist, self-centred, individualist culture take that from you.

To all the bookworms and bibliophiles

To all of those unable to purchase books in this time

To all who craves literary works and words etches on paper

I created a google drive full of books in ePub, PDF, and AZW3 format, free of charge. I understand that this technically counts as piracy (whoops) but I feel as though times are tough and not all of us have access to books because of either financial reasons or maybe because of shipping issues. Hard times still lie ahead but I hope that these books can be gateways and escapes for you as they have for me. If you enjoy it, I beg of you to purchase an official/legal copy to help and support the authors.

In the folder I have also attached a google form for books requests, if you have any books you want and isn’t available in the folder, don’t hesitate to fill in as many as you want and I’ll get to your request as soon as possible.

Love,