If you're in Maine or Philly or wherever the fuck Vance claimed DHS is going next, I BEG you to look at the rapid response and mutual aid networks and how they've been built in Portland, Chicago, and the Twin Cities, and start building your own version NOW.
Download signal if you haven't already. Pick a resistance pseudonym. Make a proton email that has no indicators to your real name. Start buying and printing whistles and whistle zines.
Organize your school patrols and foot patrols NOW. Talk to your community and your mercados and your Hmong and Somali grocery stores, ask them what support they need. Get "ICE are not welcome here" signage for businesses and homes. Familiarize yourself with the difference between an administrative warrant and a judicial warrant.
Learn how to take down a SALUTE report. PRACTICE salute reports. Learn, memorize, and embody radio etiquette for rapid response work.
Pick your lane: rapid response or mutual aid-- you can't do both, because rapid response often puts you in direct contact with ICE. They've been taking down plate numbers and leading responders back to their own homes here in the Twin Cities.
Remember that being under siege is a marathon, not a race. Try to remember that while your neighbors are being kidnapped in their underwear, from their own homes.
Meet your neighbors. Attend your city council meetings and demand separation ordinances NOW. Tell your congress people and representatives not to give ICE more money.
Prepare yourself to see high school children being stopped and harassed. 5 year olds being used as bait for their mothers. Old men being dragged out of their houses in underwear and Crocs simply because all of them are not white.
Be flexible, be ready to pivot on a dime as situations change. Be ready to be paranoid. Be ready to be distrusting of every Texas, New York, California, or Illinois license plate. Be ready to be suspicious of EVERY out of state license plate. Dark sedans and SUVs with extremely illegally tinted windows. Unreadable or missing plates.
No one will save you, save us, or save our neighbors but ourselves. No one is coming to help or protect us but us.
Hey, Angeleno here to add: look for or start mutual aid groups that buy out your vendors, jardineros, tradespeople, helping support the most vulnerable members of your community from making the choice to stay home and safe or provide for family. Weāre still doing this here and it helps.
āICE NOT WELCOMEā signs are great for solidarity and breaking morale, but please make and help pass out signs stating a home or business is private property. Make sure your business has an area explicitly for employees only. What weāve seen in the last week makes all this seem like sticking a post-it on a viper and none of us know where weāre headed now, but itās easy to do and could make a difference. Itās made a difference here.
So you can avoid them stealing things from you, the artist/writer, etc.
Pro GenAI websites/Programs:
Facebook
Instagram
X/Twitter (Remember, Grok gives people cancer)
Threads
Pro Writing Aid
Grammarly
Duolingo
Google Docs
Microsoft Word/all Microsoft products Takes from and will feed their machine.
Youtube (taking advantage of people who are hearing impaired. ==;;)
Adobe Products. All of them. If you HAVE to use them (Some businesses require it), save offline because there is a film of at least some privacy protections there, so if you have to sue, you can say it violates US privacy law. Remember, contracts do not circumvent US law.
Corel won't feed the machines, but still uses AI stolen from other artists. Which sucks since Corel Draw is the second best overall for vector programs. (Plus I love Painter, but I bought the offline version to avoid AI). (Canadian company)
Canva Takes and feeds their machine.
Deviant Art Not only supports AI, but put a tool in and said they are going to steal your work if you like it or not for their machine.
Sketchup went Pro-GenAI. The thing is that you can do the same thing in Blender these days with precise measurements.
Autodesk has stated they are Pro-Gen AI here. It is not clear if they will use your models to feed their machine. But be on guard. They make Maya and 3Dmax. You can replace it with Blender.
Neutral ground:
Tumblr (there is a way to opt out [Link] and they don't have an active AI machine.) https://www.tumblr.com/dookins/743519550598987776/heres-how-to-disable-third-parties-like-ai
Etsy allows GenAI, but still has some (minor) restrictions. I'd still be cautious. (Also be cautious of drop shippers). Complaints about too much AI and AI images+patterns made by Ai still exist on the website. They lean slightly more pro-AI, but still won't let it run completely amok, say like Facebook. They won't feed your work into a machine, but also don't ban it through robots.txt.
Bluesky They don't use an AI algorithm except for in the "Discover" section of their website, but while they are anti-GenAI strongly, they don't seem to block the Gen AI bots from entry, so you'd still have to use Nightshade or Glaze (links below). There is no opt-out because they don't need an opt out. (Leaning towards strong position on AI, but I wish they would block GenAI bots).
Searxng- If you super want to screw over Google, in general, and have some tech savvy, you can set up your own search engine through searxng. It's easier on Windows and Linux than it is on a Mac. (Mac you need Docker), but if you're determined on privacy, Searxng adds a layer of privacy. Some of it sometimes uses bits of AI, but most of it doesn't and you can fuss with the settings so it doesn't spit out AI results. At sheer minimum Google will stop spitting out weird videos on Youtube at you because in your private browsing, you searched for the origin of ball bearings while not logged in for a book and Google likes to break privacy laws.
Strong positions against AI:
Scrivener (Creator vowed against AI) Writing program. There is an active forum, and versions for Mac, Linux and PC. It is paid, but at ~60 USD, it's cheaper than most programs. There is usually a holiday sale around Christmas. It has a learning curve, but with an active forum with the programmer of it there to ask obscure questions it's not a dead zone. They often take suggestions and implement them over time. (Especially if you rank the importance, applications, etc) US company.
LibreOffice Open source and free Spreadsheet and Word processor program that can replace Microsoft Word. Some people might have seen older versions where it was called Neo Office (now extinct) and Open Office. LibreOffice is still populated, plus the forums are super helpful if you get stuck. The UX is pretty intuitive if you've used Microsoft Word. Scrivener, BTW, supports exporting to odt (the native file) as well as .doc, and this can open both. The slight thing is that sometimes it doesn't export to .doc smoothly. And I DO wish more magazines, and agent (big clue here) supported .odt files since it is free. Part of the reason .odt isn't as supported is because Microsoft and Adobe have a deal with the devil with each other, so Adobe's Book formatting program InDesign doesn't support ODT. (BTW, if you have a good open source replacement for InDesign that supports ODT, let me know.)
Dabble (as suggested by SF stories, see reblog) is a writing program. Similar to Scrivener. Has vowed against AI and to resist it. 108 dollars a year for Basic. It is almost twice the price of Scrivener who lets you update for fairly cheap. 29 dollars a month, v. 59 dollars for the whole program (Scrivener) for the same features of Premium. You choose.
yWriter is a free Writing program and like Scrivener, and has vowed against AI Last I looked it had some UX issues, but some people swear by it. The learning curve is higher than Scrivener which is saying something.
Ellipsus is an online writing program and vowed against AI. The main feature I like (which Scrivener doesn't have) is the ability to change spellcheck based on region/language. It is a requested feature of Scrivener, but lower priority. So if you have a Brit, you can get the spelling for the character. They are a British-based company.
Cara.app (The creator of the website sued GenAI there is no chance they'll convert) is an artist website. Cara is trying to institute an auto Glaze/Nightshade into the website if given enough funds. People see it as a soft replacement for deviant art. (which went fully AI) If you believe in human art, please donate if you can. Zhang Jingna, the Creator,is Chinese-Singporean. She lives in Singapore.
Clip Studio Paint added AI, but saw the light and decided to protect artists instead because of protest and removed it. There are tutorials and a good forum if you get super stuck. Based in Japan, so the UI and UX is really clean.
Davinci Resolve Pro is a film editing software that's super good. There is a free version and a paid version. The forums are responsive. The programmers aren't always present. There is a healthy group of tutorials. US company. Clean UX. It does take a little bit of time to remember the shortcuts.
Tahoma2D is anti-AI and open source animation program. Takes a little getting used to, but is good for animations and doesn't crash as often as Animate. Programmers are in the forums and some bugs are fixed within hours. The forums are super responsive and helpful.
Krita open source and free, no AI. I'd rank it secondary to Clip Studio Paint (which is paid) I haven't tried the forums, but it's pretty intuitive and can stand for a lower level replacement for Painter, and do a lot of the basics of Photoshop. It's usually ranked higher than the equally open source Gimp.
Writer P AKA Writer+ (app for when you're on the go) is a simple word processor app for your phone that doesn't use AI. The original programmer stopped updating, so Writer+ person took over and isn't out to make a profit since it's free in the spirit of the original app. It has subfolders you can use. Since it was programmed before GenAI it doesn't have AI. Intuitive, easy to use. Fairly easy to upload the files through three dots->share. The files can save to your card or phone with some settings fussing. Simple word processor.
Inkscape is a free vector program and no AI. It is harder to use than illustrator and has less features. But if you're doing smaller vectors for one-offs with less complexity, it'll do you after some learning curve. Best of the lot. I hate Affinity Designer which is the same thing, only paid. (Neither Affinity program was worth the money paid)
Affinity (Designer, etc) swore to be AI-free and does Vector and Photos. The UX is messy, I dislike the program and regret paying for it. Inkscape and Krita are better UX and do the same thing. The forums aren't as friendly since there has been an onslaught of people seeing it's supposed to be a replacement for Photoshop and Illustrator, but the programmers aren't present. The people on the forums are often on edge about this assertion. And the capabilities of the program don't outshine basically Krita or Inkscape capabilities (both free). What is usually intuitive is not. UK company. If you're going to pay for a program, go for Clip Studio Paint which rivals Corel Painter.
Blender is a 3D art program and does not use GenAI. It can do 2D animation, but Tahoma is easier to use in this regard. It's open source and free. Plus there are plenty of tutorials. The forums can be touch and go sometimes, but there are plenty of sub Blender communities that might be responsive. It can also do animation.
Handmade vowed against AI and promised to never sell itself for stock prices to prevent AI (as a replacement for Etsy.)
Discover a world of creativity and craftsmanship through Handmade, an innovative platform connecting passionate artisans with discerning buy
Proton (to replace Google Suite) as suggested by SF Stories (see reblog) Vowed against AI. They are missing a spreadsheet, but have online and offline capabilities, plus a built-in VPN.
But you need a pro website...
Look up robots.txt and AI bots: https://www.cyberciti.biz/web-developer/block-openai-bard-bing-ai-crawler-bots-using-robots-txt-file/
Use cloudflare:
Use Nightshade:
https://nightshade.cs.uchicago.edu/whatis.html
which will poison the algorithm
Use Glaze:
Take Away:
The thing is you think you doing it alone will do nothing, but the more AI feeds on itself, AI images, the worse they become, and the less detailed so, denying it the images, adding poison or not being able to read the human text is eventually going to lead to an AI collapse.
Analysis shows that indiscriminately training generative artificial intelligence on real and generated content, usually done by scrapi
And why not help that along?
I don't want to give cancer to poor people [Link] or make the planet burn faster [Link]. So GenAI collapse is everything I dream of. GenAI apocalypse is not.
Sometimes victory belongs to mercy and looks like failure
had to share this brilliant discussion - source: X
At the most important moment in modern fantasy, the hero fails. Not quietly. Not ambiguously. He stands at the edge of the world, feels the full weight of evil loosen its grip, and chooses it anyway.
At the edge of Mount Doom, with the fate of the world balanced on a single will, Frodo Baggins does not throw the Ring into the fire. He claims it. The moment every heroic narrative has trained us to expect as triumph becomes instead a confession of failure. Tolkien does not flinch. He lets the hero break.
And yet the world is saved.
This is not a plot twist. It is a moral thesis. The destruction of the Ring happens not because Frodo earns victory, but because mercy extended long before the ending finally comes due. The quest resolves because of a chain reaction of restraint. The decisive force is not discipline, not optimization, not grit. It is pity.
This is where Tolkien quietly dismantles the moral machinery of hustle culture decades before we had language for it. We live inside a story that teaches us effort converts cleanly into outcome. That endurance guarantees reward. That suffering is a down payment on success. Tolkien offers a colder and far more honest truth. Sometimes you do everything right and still cannot finish the job.
Scholars have long noted that Frodoās failure is not a betrayal of his character but the completion of it. The Ring is not a fair test of willpower. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote plainly in his letters, the will is not infinite. Power erodes agency. The closer one comes to absolute domination, the less freedom remains. Frodo is not weak at the Crack of Doom. He is human at the end of an inhuman burden.
By the time he reaches the Fire, Frodo has endured starvation, sleep deprivation, repeated physical injury, and sustained psychological terror. Modern neuroscience would describe this as cumulative trauma. Tolkien simply wrote it as reality. Expecting one last burst of perfect moral clarity from a nervous system already wrecked by suffering is not heroism. It is wishful thinking disguised as virtue.
The quest only succeeds because of Gollum. And even that rescue is not redemption in the sentimental sense. Gollum does not transform into goodness. He falls into the fire because of what he already is. The deeper truth is that Gollum is alive at all only because he was spared when mercy looked foolish. First by Bilbo. Then by Gandalf. Then most dangerously by Frodo himself.
The Ring is destroyed not because Frodo conquers it, but because Frodo once chose not to destroy someone else.
This is a devastating inversion of the moral economy most of us were raised to believe in. We are taught to look for visible proof that goodness works. Tolkien gives us an older logic. Moral victories are often retroactive. The most transformative decisions rarely announce themselves as such. They look inefficient. They look naive. They often look like failure.
In the medieval moral tradition that shaped Tolkien, mercy was not sentimental. It was strategic in a way power could never be. Mercy refused to close the future. It kept outcomes unresolved. It preserved the possibility that evil might one day undo itself. Tolkien does not sanctify Gollum. He allows evil to collapse under its own gravity because mercy refuses to force a premature ending.
This alone would be enough to unsettle the reader. But Tolkien goes further. He denies us the fantasy that salvation heals everything.
After the Ring is destroyed, Tolkien insists on the Scouring of the Shire. Home is violated. The saved world is not the same world. The victory does not restore innocence. Frodo returns permanently wounded. He cannot sleep without pain. He cannot fully enter the peace he helped secure.
The modern myth is that collapse will be redeemed by recognition. Tolkien refuses that lie.
We want the hero to stand at the end and receive the moral reward. Tolkien lets his hero sit down and admit he is finished. Frodo does not recover because recovery would falsify the cost.
This is why The Lord of the Rings remains psychologically modern beneath its ancient scaffolding. The story already understands what burnout culture would take another century to articulate. Some burdens cannot be survived without damage. Some systems demand more than one conscience can sustain. Sometimes the bravest outcome is not conquest but survival long enough to make mercy matter.
We live in an age that worships visible dominance. We measure virtue through performance. We reward leaders who claim they can bend chaos through sheer will. Tolkien issues a quiet warning instead. When power becomes the proof of goodness, goodness collapses.
Frodo fails because no one was ever meant to pass that final test.
The world is not saved by the flawless execution of the righteous. It is saved by the accumulated weight of restraint. By choices made without assurance of payoff. By mercy that looked wasted at the time. By patience that looked irrational. By hands that refused the easy kill and kept the future open instead.
The modern fantasy is not Middle-earth. The modern fantasy is that effort always guarantees justice.
Tolkien tells a harder truth. Sometimes the most important moral decisions you will ever make will feel powerless when you make them. Sometimes the victory will not belong to your endurance at all. It will belong to mercy that looked like weakness years earlier.
Anime Explorations Episode 38: Garden of Sinners Parts 4 & 5
This month weāre discussing the 4th and 5th films in the Garden of Sinners series (probably the strongest films in the series so far).
Continue reading Anime Explorations Episode 38: Garden of Sinners Parts 4 &Ā 5
The sudden discourse change around Expedition 33 in one day solely because it got nominated for a lot of awards is crazy.
Itās okay if you donāt like the game. Itās okay if you think it shouldnāt have been nominated for best indie game and best indie debut. Itās okay if you wanted another game to sweep, or a game you love didnāt get any nominations at all. Whatās pathetic is the sudden desire to hate on something solely because itās popular and well received. You arenāt more special for not liking a game. And bullying people who like the game just because you want to feel weirdly superior for going against the norm or having more underground taste is even more pathetic.
Crawling out of my hole to remind people that with this current update to Firefox (version 144) they've gone and dumped in their lot with a buncha lil AI tools, namely Perplexity as a new search engine.
So if the sound of that leaves your mouth tasting of tar, here's what you want to do:
In the url bar, type in about:config
It'll give you a big scary warning page that you might poke holes in your browser. Good. You want to do that. Click continue.
One by one, you're going to need to put each of these into the search bar in the page, not up top:
Each of these are gonna have a lil toggle icon on the right hand side that looks like a funky double-ended arrow. Click that and the value next to it should change to false. It all auto saves as you go. Some of these might already be set to false by default and that's peachy.
The next best thing you can do for yourself is to set your default search engine to udm14 or Qwant, but for now, we're just tidying the garden a lil bit.
Edit: This wildly broke containment for a post that was supposed to be me basically ranting and grumbling like an old man on my porch to my homies. If Iāve inspired you to follow through with this, peachy. That was mildly intended. Better yet, I hope Iāve spurred a buncha you on to do your own bit of digging and research.
If you were one of todayās lucky ten thousand to learn something new, I hope you keep doing it. I wonāt be here to hold your hand through it, as I simply donāt have the time nor spoons for it, so I implore you to go down your own rabbit hole and chase knowledge with wild abandon.
As more and more people are being forced to switch to Windows 11, Microsoft's most AI-malware-ridden OS yet, I've been putting together articles and links for how to undo the damage and save your battery, your RAM, your disk space, your privacy, and your sanity from this bullshit.
FIRST:
The easiest way to get rid of the majority of the bullshit that Windows is forcing on us, as of October 2025, is this one-stop-one-click debloat solution from a modern day hero:
A simple, lightweight PowerShell script to remove pre-installed apps, disable telemetry, as well as perform various other changes to customi
It's very easy, even if you're not tech savvy or get scared of pop up windows saying "ARE YOU SURE?" Yes, you are sure, I promise. This program takes maybe two minutes and will save you SO MUCH pain, time, and money (and exploitation).
Now that you've done that, here's the cleanup, to catch the little shit that the debloat might have missed (most of this will already be done by debloat, but hey, it's good to double check).
Microsoft wants to put AI everywhere on your PC, but you can take back control.
Even just reading about some of these features makes me angry. Fucking Copilot and "Discover" AI scrapers are in Notepad. NOTEPAD. And then there's this uncanny valley garbage:
No uncanny valley video calls for me, thanks! (Also, what else is it doing while it scans your face and listens to your calls? What else, microsoft? Because there was a lot of memory being assigned to this program for a simple "smooths your skin" add on).
Tired of Microsoft pushing ads throughout Windows 11? Here are the settings you can tweak to turn them off and reclaim some privacy.
The truly insane number of places they have stuck ads on your own home computer is sickening. Become Unmarketable.
Bonus:
Some background programs you probably don't need that are taking up space and how to remove them (Microsoft forums, 2024)
Your Samsung Galaxy Phone comes with 22 apps you don't need (Android Police, 2025)
How to disable the AI in firefox (still the only browser that lets you do this permanently) (Windows Report, 2025)
this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.
good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.
sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.
so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.
one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.
Hot take: the following things can be simultaneously true:
America has always done bad things
Trumpism is connected to the failures of Reconstruction
Trump is still a uniquely terrible figure who ushered in a uniquely destructive era in American politics
Snide remarks like ālulz, lmao, you think Trump is bad? America was ALWAYS badā contributed to the cynicism, nihilism, and apathy which led to not enough people caring about the country to try to stop him at the ballot box
It reminds me of people being outraged when Democrats responded to something like Charlottesville with āthis isnāt who we areā; yeah, obviously thatās always been part of America, but rhetoric has an impact and it both empowers white supremacists and demoralizes normies to say āyep, white supremacists represent America and everything has always sucked shit.ā There are consequences to pretending all people and eras are equally bad, because then people stop taking new and dire threats seriously, and there are consequences to people believing their society is always and forever evil, because then they don't fight against those threatening to harm that society. You don't need to whitewash history to understand any of this.
All of this is true. Let me tell you a story to illustrate.
Once upon a time, there was a impoverished king whose kingdom was under a curse. When his son the prince was old enough, the king sent him out to break the curse, but things had been so bad for so long that all the prince could take with him was a lump of cheese and a crust of bread. On the road, he met a beggar, a woman even poorer than he was, who said: "Please, spare some bread, prince." The prince said, "All I have is a lump of cheese and a crust of bread; we can share." He split it equally. Other things happened and eventually he broke the curse with the help of a good witch who revealed herself to have been the beggar on the road. Everyone lived happily ever after, the end.
This story is not representative of reality. Kings are never actually poor compared to common people, there is no such thing as curses, and princes don't generally stop to talk to starving beggars unless it's for a PR stunt.
But that story is important. The story doesn't tell us who we are or how the world is; the story tells us who we aspire to be and what we want the world to look like. It reminds us of proper behavior (kindness and charity with no expectation of repayment is a virtue) and asserts some societal values and beliefs (good behavior will surely be rewarded; virtue is the right path toward solving your problems).
We can and should be mindful of the stories we're telling. But "Actually, this IS who we are; this has always been who we are, how dare you say that it isn't?" is, from a mythological perspective, not a functional story if the function you're aiming for is to change things. Now, it is still an important thing to say, because it's part of the story. But it's only the first part -- "Once upon a time, there was an impoverished king whose kingdom was under a curse." Yep. Yes, that's true. It is indeed under a curse. You're 100% correct about the curse. It is right there for anyone to see if they care to look.
But if the story ends there, then the curse does not get broken -- not in the story and not in reality. Yes, we know about the curse, we've all heard about the curse. It's going to take a lot of work to break the curse, and any of us can become the prince and set out on a quest. But in order for the story to fulfill its intended function, what it also needs to tell us is: What small virtue should we exhibit on the road which will turn out to be the actual key to breaking the curse later on? Not what we should avoid doing, but what we should strive to embody. Which seemingly-distasteful people should we show kindness and solidarity to, whether or not they turn out to be a helpful ally later? What is the reward for virtuous striving?
Now, a lot of leftists will scoff at this: "What, you need rewards? You need brownie points for doing a good thing?" Well, I don't, because I was told a sufficient amount of fairytales in my childhood to have acquired a solid cultural belief that good things will come later if I virtuously strive for kindness now. I heard enough stories to know how that goes.
But do other people need rewards? Often, YEAH SORT OF. We as humans at least need to believe that a reward is possible, because then that tells the dopamine centers of the brain, "You did a good thing? Ooh, I know this pattern!! REWARD INCOMING. Let's go ahead and feel great about it now. [dopamine!!!]" When that happens, you've taught someone that virtue is its own reward.
This is how humans work. This is how you hack the human brain. This is how you build toward a better future -- you tell stories of the journey, of a good person doing a good thing and being rewarded. And the more times you tell that story, the more people believe it to be true, and the more virtue does become its own reward, and the more real and actionable it is to break the curse on the kingdom.
"This isn't who we are" is a story -- perhaps an imperfectly-worded one, but it's pointed in a Direction. It's saying that this thing did happened but it was WRONG, that it SHOULDN'T happen. We all know it does happen. We all know about the curse. But we must, MUST, MUST believe that it is possible to break the curse -- otherwise, we are left with a half-story that saps away our energy and leaves us asking, "What's the point?"
Maybe the curse cannot be broken. But we MUST tell the story that it can, even if it feels like a lie at the time, because when you shoot for the moon and miss, you land among the stars. "Actually this IS who we are, this has ALWAYS been who we are" does not shoot for the moon. It is shooting at the ground. And hey, good news, it hits every time! You're 100% right every time! People reblog that shit going "Mmm, wow, yeah, so insightful, we all need to remember this, so important." And yet we do not reach the stars. We tear each other down, and we never end up offering a crust of bread to a potential ally, so the curse does not get broken.
But what next? What's step two?
"Actually, this has always been who we are" carries the implication that this WILL ALWAYS BE who we are. It is cynical, it is nihilist, it is pessimistic to a degree that baffles me. Do you truly believe what you're implying? Is that the story you tell yourself? That nothing will ever change? That nothing will get better? Does this stony, grim resignation actually protect you from the curse, or does it only protect you from heartbreak and disappointment? Why is it easier to scoff than it is to even acknowledge the possibility of working towards breaking the curse? What is going on in your head to make you tell the story that nothing has ever changed and nothing will ever change? Have you forbidden yourself from any hope, from any faint dream of a better world where the curse is one day broken? Have you ever dared to dream big of what a post-curse world would look like, how it would feel to live in it?
Maybe you're right that it will never be broken in your lifetime, that you will always be living under the curse -- but are you telling that story to your children, telling them that there's no hope for them either, no chance that they might live to see a better world? Do you insist to them that they too have to bitterly accept the presence of the curse instead of questing to break it? And if we all settle into bitter acceptance, then what incentive do we have to set out on a quest and to be kind to those we meet on the road?
I will tell you a story:
Once upon a time, there was a kingdom under a curse. Everyone knew the curse had always been here, and would probably always be there. There were people working to resist the curse and helping those who had been affected by it. But a lot of other people looked at what they were doing and just scoffed in apathy: "What's the point of thinking about a world without the curse? Haven't they heard about the curse? We should be talking more about how bad the curse is. As far as I'm concerned, there has been no progress or change to the curse in the past, and there will be no progress in the future; the only time that exists is the cursed Now. So what's the point?"
Other people were angry at those who were trying to help: "What you're doing is stupid. The curse is something that's baked into society. You'd know that if you'd really listened to the people who are suffering the most from the curse. You know, I hate those ignorant, naive people who think they can break the curse. I have nothing but contempt for them."
Other people were paranoid: "Those people, the ones trying to break the curse, they want to steal the crust of bread that my mother and her mother worked so hard to hoard away from the effects of the curse! They're literally going to come into my house to take my crust from me! Thieves!"
Other people, hearing someone mention a historical figure who had once tried to break the curse or who had succeeded in another kingdom, were quick to say: "Friendly reminder, that person was Bad somehow! So we shouldn't tell stories about that Bad, Bad Person who did a thing that was Bad. We also shouldn't bother talking about people who tried and failed to break the curse. We should only remember people who were morally perfect AND who succeeded in their quest. :) Which leaves... [checks list] no one! :) ...Why are you mad? Wait, you don't SUPPORT Bad People, do you? Ew! You're not a cursebreaker, at all, then! You're a FAKE! I don't want anything to do with you!"
Other people had found ways to benefit from the curse: "The curse is good, actually. Society would literally collapse without it. People who want to break our beloved curse basically want to tear down the kingdom; they're traitors. We're going to enforce the rule of law on anyone who goes questing, because only traitors do that." And all the people who were mad and apathetic and paranoid and worried about Bad People nodded along and said, "Yes, you see? There is no point to going on quests or thinking about breaking the curse. The curse is eternal. It's just as I said."
But there was a poor woodcutter, even poorer than the king of the cursed kingdom, and he told stories to his son: "Curses can be broken. Quests are important. Be kind to the people you meet on the road and share what you have with them. Virtue will be rewarded one day."
So his son grew up believing those things. And because he didn't know the things that everyone knew -- that some curses are eternal, that quests often end in disappointment, that sharing what you have always means that there's less of that thing for yourself, and that virtue always goes entirely unrewarded and doesn't deserve acknowledgment or celebration -- because he didn't know those rules, he still went out questing. He still tried.
And perhaps he didn't manage to break the curse so that everyone could live happily ever after. but that day that he met the beggar on the road, and he remembered all the stories that his father told him, so he shared his crust of bread and lump of cheese with her... And he lived happily that day, and so did she.
