ave

anarchism and stuff

[fullmetalfisting]

Apparently when my grandma first came to America she didn’t know what a raccoon was and assumed it was a fucked up cat and adopted it. I just imagine this 13 yr old girl with a heavy Eastern European accent being like “this is my cat, Petr. He is not very friendly”

[startano]

it’s been a while since i posted art ahklfdsj so here’s one of my swtor characters!

[vodcar]

when the capitalists die out either thru global warming or revolution will we be able to start homegrown internet

[vodcar]

been reading about dual power and how to grow my own tomatoes and i’m wondering how and if we’ll be able to start commie internet lol

like obviously the internet is this huge electric capitalist controlled hardware infrastructure thing so after all that shuts down is there a way to do it ourselves lol

[vodcar]

i want to come home from a hard day on the communal allotment, kiss my Wife, crank up my generator, and start sharing meams!

[anarchopuppy]

GOOD NEWS: the homegrown commie internet is in the works! Across the world, people fighting against censorship and for a more democratic internet are building mesh networks (meshnets) of long-range wifi (LoRa)

Since wifi is just a standard for sending data through radio waves, and radio waves can go a pretty long way if you use ‘em right, it’s not that difficult to connect two computers by wifi from across town. Then you just keep adding more computers to the network and you’ve got internet!

Small antennae, like for connecting across the neighborhood, can literally be built out of trash

And a larger, more accurate one can be built pretty cheap too

(You can also reuse an old satellite TV dish, or really anything else that’s roughly parabolic)

There are LoRa meshnets in places like New York, India, and all over Europe: Spain (pictured below), Greece, Austria, Germany, etc

As for sharing fresh mëmês, the network to go to is Scuttlebutt. Unlike most social media, Scuttlebutt posts are stored on your computer and sent directly to your friends’ computers (rather than being stored on the cloud and sent to a central server). It works just fine over traditional internet, but you can also view and interact with it offline, and it has protocols for connecting over any means that two computers can share information - that includes LoRa, as well as hardwired connections, sneakernet (basically mailing a USB stick back and forth), etc

What that means is you always know that your info is just as safe as the network it’s sent on and the computer that receives it - no one even theoretically has the ability to collect and sell it all. And, since it’s all run on your computer, there’s no servers to go down or companies to go out of business that could destroy the whole thing

You can read more about this kind of stuff here (or here if it’s cloudy in Barcelona)!

[4amsnow]

there’s also the work being done by the DCPT, left-behind Detroiters meshing together their neighborhoods to share overpriced high-speed connections among the community and producing these good good educational documents, especially this rad resource page. building meshnets to share a global uplink is very similar to building meshnets for the purpose of intracommunication and these resources are useful in both cases

[anarchopuppy]

I’ve had a couple people ask about how to join/organize something like this, which is great! The best list of active projects I know of is here, though you should also do a search online if you don’t see one in your area in case they missed it. For those without a nearby group, put a pin here and try contacting nearby pins as well - you can use the instructions on buildyourowninter.net as well as the DCPT’s resources as linked above to get set up!

Please reblog this version so others can get involved!

[femcassidy]

i think what’s wrong with me is that i don’t live secluded in a hut in the woods. i don’t bang enough rocks against enough things. i just haven’t forged any swords

[vagabond-sun]

Otherkinity isn't LGBT+ but Alterhumanity is Queer

Did I get your attention with that spicy take? Alright, let’s talk about it.

Something can be said to be ‘queer’ when it’s about an identity and/or a way of relating to people that transgresses social norms. Of course the word ‘queer’ centers gender and sexuality; those are the spaces it emerged out of. But queer theory has grown to encompass the study of identity politics, intersectionality, culture and assimilation in general. It’s not synonymous with LGBT+ (or any other variation of the acronym). Queer is a philosophy, one that recognizes that your gender identity - that is, the way you express yourself, the way you relate to other people, and the way other people percieve you - cannot be untangled from other social categories.

And, in terms of intersectionality, the overlap between gender identity and alterhumanity is pretty massive. Mainstream attitudes towards gender parallel those towards species: they both rely on biological essentialism. But biological essentialism isn’t a sufficiently complete model for gender or species. ‘Otherkin know they’re human really’ isn’t any more forgivable than ‘he identifies as a man but he was born a woman’ in that regard! More than what’s in your DNA, these identities are about the way you express yourself, the way you relate to other people, and the way other people perceive you.

Speaking of which, personal attitudes to humanity and gender are similar, too. Even if you don’t call it a ‘transition’, plenty of people make changes to bring the way they represent themselves in line with their alterhuman identity. People change their names, wear clothes related to their phenotypes, get tattoos - even using a certain icon on social media is a message to the rest of the world about the way you want to be seen. Basically, you can perform your alterhuman identity in a lot of the same ways you perform gender. And we haven’t even gone into the ways that gender, orientation and alterhumanity directly impact each other yet:

How many people in systems have complicated relationships with gender and orientation because of being plural?

How many fictionfolk have to wrestle with having a different gender or orientation than their 'source’ character? With fan interpretations of that identity?

How many people consider their gender dysphoria and species dysphoria comparable, use xenogenders or straight up list their gender as something nonhuman?

How many LGBT+ alterhumans do you personally encounter in the community?

The staggering proportion of LGBT+ nonhumans, plurals and fictionfolk makes the amount of 'otherkin aren’t LGBT’ reminders I’m seeing this month that much more bizarre. These messages purposefully drive a wedge between two facets of identity that are inseparable for many people. And even if that wasn’t the case - can’t we treat it just like any other intersection of identity? What’s the difference? It’s respectability, obviously. I think, deep down, we all know we’re doing something transgressive with our identities here. And we can either seek to reconcile this by integrating that identity into existing cultural norms, or smash those norms because they’re the things causing your ostracism in the first place.

This is why I think the relation 'alterhuman’ has to 'otherkin’ is the same relation 'queer’ has to 'LGBT’ - they are non-assimilationist responses to the idea that a marginalized group’s goal should be being seen as 'normal’. We could shout over and over that 'otherkin aren’t LGBT’ in the hopes that society will respect us for it. I, personally, prefer to admit to myself that I’m weird, I’m queer, identity is performative, and I can respect my own damn self.

Happy Pride, everyone.

[imp]

some of you never had an intense homoerotic years-long friendship in your early to mid teens that culminated in a dramatic friend breakup and it shows.

[haecceitism]

16 books everyone needs to read at least once because people will reference them in front of you your entire life:

“the faerie queene,” by edmund spenser. this poem is divided up into six books, which you should read, if for no other reason than the fact that there’s an exclusive book club at harvard university for the select few people who have finished all six sections. and honestly, who wouldn’t want to read something that forms the foundation of a semi-secret, decades-old book club at harvard?

“romeo and juliet,” and “othello,” both by shakespeare. these plays fall on the exact same spot on the dark academia spectrum. they both involve two lovers who die because of communication issues. but regardless, they’re both super important to read because there are so many references to them, both in other pieces of classic lit., and in modern culture

“the picture of dorian gray,” by oscar wilde. if you can’t tell, this is my favorite book ever. if you can get past the purple prose, it’s like the most ‘dark academia’ book ever. it’s got references to other famous pieces of literature (which i’ll include on the list), lots of gay shit, a dramatic young adult who loves shakespeare, and ofc, murder

“the brothers karamazov,” by fyodor dostoevsky. actually started reading this one to impress a boy; i think that perhaps he and i have different concepts of what is considered impressive, but the book has turned out amazing, so i’m happy

“the prince,” by niccolo machiavelli. alright, so this isn’t classic literature so much as it is politics, but honestly, so many people talk about ‘machiavellianism’ without ever having read the original Machiavellian treatise, and it would be so much better to just read the book and then be able to cite machiavelli himself at your next political-philosophy discussion.

“the count of monte cristo,” by alexandre dumas. another classic that i heard people talk about for long enough that i finally gave up and read the book. now i can talk about it too, and pretend to be smart

“the canterbury tales,” by geoffrey chaucer. these are classics. they’re filled to the brim with medieval language and sexual innuendo, but that’s part of what makes them so wonderful. if that’s not enough of a selling point, ‘the tale of the deathly hallows’ from “harry potter” is super similar to ‘the pardoner’s tale’ from this book.

“the divine comedy,” by dante alighieri. includes a crap ton of great history references and some super sick burns directed towards the corrupt people of dante’s time.

“meditations,” by marcus aurelius. the original metaphysical journal. probably the epitome of ‘light academia’ if i’ve ever read one

“the great gatsby,” by f. scott fitzgerald. jay gatsby is low-key super relatable…and so is nick, the third wheel…and so is daisy, who feels like women are forced by society to be ‘beautiful little fools’

“the iliad,” by homer. you can’t justify reading “the song of achilles” by madeline miller until you’ve read the original. enough said.

“frankenstein,” by mary shelley. not only is this a great books in terms of philosophical potential, but there are so many great things to debate about in it. and, it’s written by a woman :)

“beowulf,” author unknown. although i make no claims about the original anglo saxon, my favorite english translation is, like the iliad and the odyssey, particularly enjoyable because of its dactylic hexameter.

“oedipus rex,” by sophocles. my favorite book in 9th grade, though god knows why my mother let me read it then

“metamorphoses,” by ovid. a collection of my all-time favorite greek myths, which every single person needs to read because it explains how the ancient greeks believed the world operated, from the way the sun rises, to the reason we hear echoes.

“the aeneid,” by virgil. suggested by @catilinas :) the final addition to the holy iliad/odyssey/aeneid trinity, written hundreds of years after the last part, by a different author, and in latin instead of the original greek. chronologically ocurrs at about the same time as the odyssey, although from the trojan perspective.

and maybe it’s just me, but there’s something about being able to connect with people over classic books that is really enjoyable. it makes me feel like some literature student in the early 1900’s who wears tweed (or glasses or something) and wanders through hallways with a cup of coffee ranting about existentialism ;))

if anyone has any to books to add to the list, just comment or reblog and i’ll edit the original.

[lovingrot]

[lesbx]

who is philip and where’s he gettin all this head from 😳

[lesbx]

[plasmagika]

heard about the spinosaurus news today! congrats!

[p0ssmz]

cool kid

[enjolrassuggestions]

“revolution isn’t always the answer” you’re right! sometimes revolution is the question and the answer is yes

[filippa-kosta]

i dont understand all these sub-genres of “dark academia but not” that try and make “dark academia” non-problematic like??? aren’t “dark academia” texts (not necessarily the aesthetics that they’ve apparently generated bc i understand there’s problems in that like, fandom? on tumblr, bc people’s reading comprehension is Zero apparently) ALREADY a criticism of academia and the associated classism, racism, sexism, elitism etc??? the secret history isn’t out there telling ya to wear tweed, do drugs and be gay, it’s a critique of the fact that isolation and intellectual elitism and playing god is Not Actually A Good Thing, isn’t it?!?

[julykings]

take my ‘which sufjan stevens song that makes me want to cry are you’ quiz 

[garfstar]

brokeback mountain (2005) / the goldfinch (2019)

[sykesarchive1]

why am i not a medicore looking white boy with floppy hair and high cheekbones

[softboypassing]

i hate being one of the few people in a class who talks frequently + regularly…. like i do not want to overwhelm the conversation but it’s also so uncomfortable when no one has anything to say even in response to simple questions