mods won’t fulfill any of your requests, you’ve spoken truth to their malign power for far too long

skimming through Daggerheart and Draw Steel and i really like "Ancestry" and "Lineage" as more modern/woker alternative terms for "race" or "species" in fantasy settings. they're also just phonetically prettier. will definitely be stealing for my own world.

i know it gives "more middlebrow version of liberal who compares everything to Harry Potter" but the term "orc" really does encompass so much about the American reactionary, particularly your average piece of shit ICE grunt

i mean just look at this guy

yeah seriously. honestly, unless you live in the global south or imperial periphery, quit with the performative "we're doomed because the American proletariat sucks so much ass, wah wah wah" bullshit. if you're American you want an excuse not to do shit while simultaneously feeling better than the Rest of the Treatlerites, if you live in another imperial core country you benefit from the same fucking satanic exploitation (and honestly your working class gets a bigger slice of the suffering-pie since a lot of yall are social democracies).

if you already do stuff or idk live deep in CHUD country and there just aren't any orgs near you, disregard this post it is not directed at you. 

in this economy, it’s not just the straights who aren’t OK

heterosexuals be like my partner is a ball and chain my life is a dungeon

alright but lads,...imagine...if socialism was a beer???

i think this just buys into the incorrect incel framing of the actual social phenomenon though, which i get because the powers that be have intentionally made it the default narrative but it's still flawed analysis.

people aren't exclusively or necessarily primarily lonely along romantic lines - though like all social bonds, the material conditions for finding a romantic partner have eroded and suck ass and shit is rough out there in that way, no denying that. but i've seen data that the number of people who are straight up friendless has gone up 400% since the early 90s, like romantic loneliness is a factor, gender politics are a factor, but it's a far wider reaching crisis than that.

the real solution is to rebuild communal spaces/group activities/communal institutions, deprogram patriarchal conditioning, and to deprogram "us vs them, what can i get out of this person" competitive/transactional thinking about human relationships. this basically amounts to working to dismantle two foundational pillars of societal oppression (capitalism & patriarchy), which amounts to a generations-long mass struggle with no assurance of success. that doesn't make for a fun takeaway in corporate media thinkpieces, so the discourse gets warped along misogynist incel lines.

Or women drastically lower their standards for the benefit of being shackled to one of these trolls.

Weirdly, the second option is the more workable one in some people's opinion.

I do agree that this is the conclusion reactionary misogynists tend to come to, yeah.

i did a quick glance at the data once and i think it's just to co-opt the broader loneliness epidemic (which exists and from what i saw is basically gender neutral) in a way that stokes misogyny rather than pointing people at the correct target (late capitalism hollowing out our social spaces and communal bonds).

there's nuances beyond that in terms of how it probably does impact different genders differently (through the lens of patriarchal conditioning hurting everyone, but not at all evenly in terms of degree) but i think that core co-optation truly is the gist of it.

yeah the way we talk to each other here shouldn’t be how we talk to the broader working class. moving the masses takes a lot of patience and meeting people where they’re at, making them feel heard and not dismissed, and easing them further along by at once finding points of agreement but also encouraging them to go further with their critique of the system.

EDIT: also our private convos with people in our lives trying to change their minds separate from a larger org recruitment strategy or concrete organizing ask only has so much value, don’t drive yourself crazy trying to shift every single persons thinking. like it can have some light value and plant some meaningful seeds, but just keep some perspective.

nope sorry, that’s performative male tendencies. (that is to say, ableistly performing your superior attention span on my adhd ass)

(god i wish my brain would let me read outside of a hyperbolic chamber… )

I try not to bully people IRL the way i do online

fwiw this is a positive, prosocial instinct. unlike online, reaching & moving ppl irl involves a lot of patience & meeting ppl where they're at. if someone comes at you hot/aggressive a little self-defense counterbullying is fine tho ofc