so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

About This Blog

Here’s some basic info so that anyone contemplating following me can interact in a way that feels best and most supportive to them.

- I’m “old.”  Yep, I’m over 40 and still tumblring.  If this bothers you, do what you gotta.  That being said, please do not follow me if you are under 18.  (If I follow you and find out you’re under 18, I’ll unfollow immediately, no offense.  I’m not hating on the kids, but this is an adult space and I’d like to be able to comfortably exist online as an adult.)

- Related to the above:  this blog is NSFW.  I am pro-sex, pro-slut, pro-thirst, pro-sex work, etc.  I don’t often post sex content, but I will when I want to.  That being said, I’ll also tag that stuff as “nsfw” so you can monitor or block that tag.

- If you’re some kind of TERF, transphobe, homophobe, racist, ableist, fascist, bootlicker, etc, fuck off.  To be perfectly honest, the amount of fucks I give about what Tumblr bigots have to say is in the negative numbers so if you are any of the above and feel that harassing people on a terrible social media site with your abhorrent views is some kind of brave and noble crusade, you might want to take a long hard look at what a sorry-ass person you are. blockt.

- I will block spam/porn blogs, so if you try to follow me and your blog has absolutely nothing on it, I’m gonna block you unless you message me or do something to prove you’re a real person, sorry.

- my fanblog is @the-luckiest-man; if you’re in the Fallout/gaming/whatever fandom and are wondering why this main account is following you, it’s because Tumblr is a completely dysfunctional platform and won’t allow me to follow from another account.

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pro-queer, pro-asexual/aromantic, pro-disability, pro-indigenous, pro-Black, pro-immigrant, pro-Mexican/Latinx/Hispanic, pro-AAPI, pro-did i miss anybody please let me know because I’m all for you being safe and supported and happy and fierce in this world, pro-fat, pro-femme, pro-butch, pro-anarchy, pro-punk, pro-trans, pro-nonbinary in all its forms, pro-abortion, pro-body mod, pro-write whatever fucked up fanfic you want, pro-having adult conversations about shit that makes you uncomfortable, pro-union, pro-rioting, pro-looting, pro-abolition, pro-therapy, pro-not going to therapy if you don’t want to, pro-feeding everybody, pro-recovery, pro-smashing the state, pro-knowing that discovering who you are is a sustained and ongoing process that does not conform to some hegelian concept of linear progress

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[decolonize-the-left]

"Note: 

There may be some resistance & discomfort when I say “we need to dismantle self-care”. The concept is prominent in leftist spaces & hailed as a radical form resistance. However, it is rarely understood in its original context with the necessary caveats which I’ll elaborate on below. It has also been sanitized, manipulated & co-opted for profit. As a result, it’s become bigger than what it was intended to be. People look to self-care now as a revolutionary “solution” to our collective problems (which it is not). Given that we live under capitalist, colonial systems that breed individualism, narcissism & self-centeredness, I think it’s important for us to rethink the utility of this concept today. In this piece, bringing in the knowledge of collectivist, land-based cultures, I’ll explain why it is urgent & critical for us to practice + embody COMMUNITY care which is a more complete framework that creates conditions of liberation needed for us to survive & thrive as we fight for the land & against the ecological destruction of our planet.

So even if you feel some discomfort arise, take a deep breath & hear me out."

- Ayesha Khan, Ph.D

It's time to embrace community care & let go of individualistic self-care

Care is a fundamentally relational, reciprocal practice & we were never meant to care for ourselves

wokescientist.substack.com

Some quotes to consider:

• The most prominent origins of the concept may be traced to Audre Lorde[...] She wrote about how cancer pushed her to realize that we all needed to slow down, pull back from oppressive systems, refuse to operate according to their values or accelerated “productivity” benchmarks when we can & that this divestment from a profit-driven system was critical for us to even begin to think about what collective “health” & healing means. It is an important first step in one’s political radicalization journey. It’s not everything & it wasn’t meant to be.
• Self-care today is often reduced to: i) consumption of products, ii) neglect of community & erasure of the contributions of other beings who enable our care, and iii) one-sided, transactional extraction of care with a sense of entitlement to receive care without reciprocity or without focusing on daily practices of giving care in community. What does self-care look like in practice today?
• Is there anything you do that doesn’t directly or indirectly involve the contribution of other beings? Even when we rest, there are conditions of some level of safety or security that have to be enabled for us to truly rest. So let’s take a moment to sit with how the beings at the other end of the “care products” we consume are being treated.
• On the other hand, what does “self-care” that actively harms the collective look like? Relax at home alone with a sheet mask while ignoring a friend who reached out to connect because “you don’t owe anyone anything”, purchase care products & services from violent corporations killing our planet as a form of “self-love” while deprioritizing community building thinking it will heal you
• Mainstream self-care has created NEW forms of oppression, extraction & exploitation. 
• The perspectives I offer in my community care work are not MY novel findings but a responsibility I bear as part of my ancestral/ community teachings & traditions. These perspectives are sorely missing in leftist spaces. I write this piece to honor our collectivist traditions & to affirm the many global communities who find the concept of “self-care” reductive, confusing or fundamentally indecipherable. Our cultures are rooted in caring for each other & the land that sustains us all— I’m slowly learning to carry & embody these values by any means necessary.

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

Why aren’t we blocking the fuckin streets for climate change? Just fuck up traffic in the worst parts of town so people stop driving for like, even two or three hours. Jesus fucking Christ it’s going to be 110 motherfucking degrees back home next week - in a temperate maritime climate! Someone just please set off a fucking explosion in the middle of the freeway or something I don’t fucking care this shit is going to kill me anyway.

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[gatheringbones]

mark thompson, gay body: a journey through shadow to self, 1997

[bobafett]

Image Transcription:

[My shame, I’ve discovered, is heaped in a room near the bottom of my soul. It’s where every deceit, secret, and denial of my life ended up and is stored. It’s an ugly, embarrassed, and wounded place—the sum of the betrayal of my feelings—and I don’t like to visit there very often. In fact, I don’t even want to know that it really exists. But it lives each day as I do, growing like a putrid leaden mass. Sometimes, when I least suspect it, the stench of it is overwhelming. Others notice, too, and then my shame pile grows even larger.

All gay men, whether they know it or not, are being called to examine that wounded inner place. The cost to our well-being is simply too high if we do not. As John Bradshaw points out, by refusing to look at our shame we remain caught in that “all-pervasive sense that I am flawed and defective as a human being.” This denial results in “internal bleeding... a sickness of the soul,” a self-generating feeling of being isolated and alone. An individual thus afflicted “becomes an object of its own contempt, an object that can’t be trusted.... A shame-based person is haunted by a sense of absence and emptiness.”]

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[divine0]

important poll: do/did your parents take away your phone?

yes, my phone is taken away

no, other devices are taken away (computer, ipad, tablet)

yes, also other devices are taken away as well

no, other objects are taken away (video games, books, art supplies, ect.)

no, wtf are you talking about (parents wont take away things)

i dont have a phone

n/a + results

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[fyeahderrickjensen]

“Our strategy should be not only to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joy, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness—and our ability to tell our own stories. Stories that are different from the ones we’re being brainwashed to believe. The corporate revolution will collapse if we refuse to buy what they are selling—their ideas, their version of history, their wars, their weapons, their notion of inevitability. Remember this: We be many and they be few. They need us more than we need them. Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”

— Arundhati Roy, World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, Brazil (via lehaaz)

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[reborn-rekall]

Wish I was here...

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[ymutate]

Field With Fluffy Plumes (2022) by Welsh

artist, Phil Greenwood, born in 1943.

Etching and aquatint

48 x 56 cm, 19 x 22 in approx

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[etakeh]

ALT

y'all there's gonna be a dunk tank.

ALT

ALT

source: Fash Free Festival twitter

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[etakeh]

Legal support, organized by Bee D

This will help fund a legal case against a single mom who is being sued for $1 million by Andy Ngo. This goal incl… Bee D needs your support

gofundme.com

This person is being sued by everyone's favorite...whatever he is...Andy Ngo.

The trial is happening *right now*.

ALT

You can also use this, if you're not fond of go fund me

cas ap $ unlawfulwhatever

[etakeh]

ALT

ALT

This is the kind of thing they're dealing with.

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[etakeh]

Legal support, organized by Bee D

This will help fund a legal case against a single mom who is being sued for $1 million by Andy Ngo. This goal incl… Bee D needs your support

gofundme.com

This person is being sued by everyone's favorite...whatever he is...Andy Ngo.

The trial is happening *right now*.

ALT

You can also use this, if you're not fond of go fund me

cas ap $ unlawfulwhatever

[etakeh]

ALT

ALT

This is the kind of thing they're dealing with.

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[handweavers]

who are you when you are not watching tv or movies? when you aren't playing video games or reading a book or fanfiction or listening to music or whatever other kind of media that you engage with? who are you when your mind isn't in another world or story, when you are forced to sit with yourself and the only experience you have is your own sensorial life? can you define yourself outside of what you consume? who is that person? do you like them? can you bear it? can you bear it?

[handweavers]

i am not asking if you can sit completely still and do absolutely nothing. are the only options a) consuming media or b) doing nothing? what lies outside of that? if you were to create space for a version of you outside of that, who might that be?

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[queersatanic]

We know you want to burn down capitalism.

But for today, just don’t answer your boss’s call off the clock.

[queersatanic]

We know you believe in ACAB and think they all should get the wall.

But for today, just don’t call 9-1-1 on the guy screaming outside of your apartment.

[queersatanic]

The memes are fun. The memes are aspirational and keep us reaching for the horizon.

But look down, too, at what actually is.

Endure pains now—suffer the inconveniences now—knowing that they likely involve unpleasantness.

The Revolution™ is fun to imagine and involves no pain. But the real world does involve pain, and it’s necessary to exercise the muscles needed for future work and opportunities.

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[spiralbound]

“Isn’t the real question this: Is the work worth doing? Am I, a human being, working for what I really need and want—or for what the State or the advertisers tell me I want? Do I choose? I think that’s what anarchism comes down to. Do I let my choices be made for me, and so go along with the power game, or do I choose, and accept the responsibility for my choice? In other words, am I going to be a machine-part, or a human being?”

— Ursula K. Le Guin, in an interview for Algol, conducted by Jonathan Ward

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[ken-fr]

Reblog to give mutuals a break from whatever they're been going through

[so·​liv·​a·​gant | (adj) : wandering alone]

[intersexfairy]

Last week, two young Black men were murdered. 33 year old Ricky Cobb II was shot to death by Minnesota State troppers. 28 year old O'Shae Sibley, a Gay dancer, was stabbed to death while playing Beyoncé's music and vougeing with his friends.

The cops responsible for Ricky Cobb's death are Ryan Londregan (the shooter), Brett Seide, and Garrett Erickson. His relatives (and many others) are fighting to have these troopers held accountable. A currently unnamed 17-year old turned himself in for stabbing O'Shae Sibley, although he was accompanied by others.

I don't know if Ricky Cobb's family has a crowdfund set up or not (if so, someone please add on), but O'Shae Sibley's family does. You can find the GFM here.

O'shae not only was the glue to this family, he was a great dancer and performer for the majority of his life. His spirit lit up every room he stepped in. His smile was contagious! To know him, was to live him. He did not deserve this. Everyone loved his spirit ❤️

-- from the GoFundMe started by O'Shae Sibley's father, Jake Kelly.

From Ricky Cobb's relatives:

"I'm exhausted. My heart is heavy every day for the last three days. Waking up, I have migraines. And I'm hurt. I would like those officers to man up. I'm here to be a voice and stand strong like a rock that I am for my son and speak out." -- Mother, Nyra Fields Miller

"My brother was a good man. He was a provider for all of us. He protected all of us." -- Sibling, Octavia Ruffin

These men should still be alive. Their families, friends, and community should not be going through this loss and grief. If there's one thing any of us (nonblack people) can do, it's not let them go through this unheard and unseen.

Rest in power Ricky Cobb II. Rest in power O'Shae Sibley. Abolish the police.