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alex-guerin · 2 months

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So, a very good friend of mine is having a baby in March and I was invited to the baby shower...to which I sadly cannot attend because it's on a Sunday and I work on Sundays and two people from my department already have it scheduled off, so I can't ask for the day off.

So, I was thinking of making something for her to send in place of not being able to make it....but I'm not sure what.

I had originally thought I could crochet a little newborn Princess Leia hat for the baby, or maybe some kind of Star Wars or Disney-ish baby blanket (her and hubby both are HUGE Star Wars fans, and she is completely Disney obsessed, so it would be fitting for them), but I can't really find any patterns I like.

So then I thought, well, maybe I could DRAW her something to hang up in the nursery. She is always trying to encourage me to do more art work, so doing an illustration could be nice to send her...maybe one of her and her hubby dressed as Han and Leia, their 5 yo son dressed as an Ewok, and then just the floating cradle from The Mandelorian. Or even one of a baby sitting up, head tilted to the side, wearing an oversized Stormtrooper helmet with "F1NL3Y" scrawled across the top (baby girl's name is gonna be Finley). But I dunno.

What do you guys think? Is it better etiquette to send practical things that she'll need for the new baby? Or would something more customized and decorative be okay to send? I really could use some insight. I have been to exactly ONE baby shower in my life and it was the most awkward experience of my teenage years so I have done well to block most of it out.

#baby shower #advice #suggestions #halp

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missdragon42 · 1 year

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Ok so I have two ocs (Finley and Eli) that i have not given much of a story to despite the fact that I cannot stop drawing them

So my amazing friend @dusky-star a while ago asked if I wanted to do an oc redesign swap with them (where we give each other old ocs to redesign) and I originally offered a different oc but then gave them full freedom to do Finley and Eli if they wanted

So this is the result of that redesign

The drawings are @dusky-star’s, all I did was ink and color because I wanted to try out a new digital coloring style

(Finley is on the left, Eli is on the right)

They also made their own character for this universe and got @poet-pufflehuff and @kangaspark to make characters as well

And all I’ve got to say is just

You guys are so good at making characters

And I have no idea where this is going to go but I’m excited

Thank you

#mermen #not technically my art #ocs #my ocs technically #my ocs #friends

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chelzone · 9 months

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Upcoming Games from Me

been a bit since i touched upon the progress of the games ive been working on proper, so gonna do a lil write-up to give a refresher and hopefully inspired me to get back to regular game dev soon

this is a long write-up, so ive hidden everything under a read more for anyone that's genuinely curious to learn more about the three games ahead

Hallowed Discharge

this one is still slated to be the kinky and text-focused game made within the Quest engine. not entirely text though, as i utilize the map-making system within it so the player has a better idea of where they're going

short story summary like ive said befores is that you play as Reverend Artemis, a furry priest basically, and your goal is peacefully exorcising spirits from a long-abandoned mall

besides the protagonist Reverend Artemis, every other character is ghosts of every major or minor roles. it would be far too much work for me to detail every single one right now, especially cause there's still a big chunk ahead not yet written for!

there's a basic energy system in place tied to one's actions in the game, alongside a faith system and weight system. weight system affects not only the Reverend physically but also which tasks are feasible, how interactions pan out, and can lead to early game overs depending on the situation (ie: you hit the maximum in-game limit and cant feasible move out of somewhere)

the game's setting is the Delícias do Vale, an abandoned mall near the outskirts of the town of Sweet-Kiss Oasis in the country of Centauri. basically you'll explore the different floors of the mall, both parking lots, and a small bit of roads surrounding the mall

development progress: MOST of the map is set up in terms of foundation and what connects to much. there's still areas to block off / require alternate routes or tools to access based on the story and player's inventory. the main objectives are like 20% done currently, with the other 80% basically requiring me to handle the remaining exorcism tasks

possible release: still hoping for later this year at the earliest. the date has changed a lot due to me having to take breaks and hitting bouts of burnout. health always comes first, so if i need to take this slow for the rest of the process i will

Enchanted Bliss

my first attempt proper at making a visual novel, within the Renpy engine. basically a mixture between a story about furry wizards investigate a city-wide disaster and friendship and / or romance possibly budding between the protagonist and one of the supporting characters

characters involved include the protagonist Dylan Rhodes, the supporting wizards you can team up with (Brava Denver, Maple Finley, Marcos Wylder, Price Flynn, Remy Taffy and Serena Journey) and the lead supervisor for the team Carmichael Kentz

unlike other romance-adjacent dating sim type deals, this VN is made to ONLY support choosing one of the six supporting wizards to team up with during a single player. once you've made the choice, you CANNOT turn back unless you load a save back to the beginning of the game before making the choice. this was done to better flesh out the relationships between player and choice as well as make the dialogue and mini stories involved with each choice have way more impact and care put into em

main setting will be set around the demolished city of Filia Lunae in the country of Centauri. depending on who you team up with, you'll get a chance to either explore a facility within the city, the sewer system under it, or the outskirts where a river runs along the north edge of the city

development progress: all the main backgrounds are drawn, including the main screen. i'll still have to draw epilogue screens eventually and any bonus area screens if it seems needed. ive made at least 10 music loops for the soundtrack, tho i still need to make a LOT more before i start applying them to portions of the game while moving the rest to the official OST later on. only the introduction of the game is written, right before the player makes the choice of who they will team up with. none of the character assets / emotions are drawn yet but i'll get to it. only things ill have others handle is public domain sounds with credits given in the game of course. music, art, writing, and coding will fully be done by myself

possible release: realistically Sometime 2024 at the earliest, i cant possible be less vague than that because i'm trying to be realistic as possible with how much work is still ahead on this.

Nigh Maintenance

my first proper RPG maker game, following many scrapped less-focused attempts over the years. it's only in its early planning stages right now, with most of it being in the mind and not transferred to a proper document in my folders yet

will involve the main cast of my characters Waever Nuelle, Glory Fantasy, Mason, and Weston Fredericks. friend group of furry investigators of sorts, focusing on strange, paranormal, supernatural, and even extraterrestrial scoops and cases. i plan to include one supporting character past that, a currently-unnamed trucker that made her soft debut in my short story AFTERGLOW back in June 2020. will draw out her design and name in the future

basic story i got going currently is barebones but something along the lines of the main cast traveling with the trucker either through a desert focused setting or a cold focused setting. perhaps a mountainous one if im feeling so bold..? we'll see, only today as of writing am i finally figuring out a very rough story concept that excites me for once

will not feature combat, at least in the normal sense. i might do a gag where you 'fight' a door to break it open or something like that. generally past that i'll have puzzles that tie in inventory and stats of the party members, provided it doesnt get too ambitious. also lots of text and dialogue, much like the rest of my works lol

possible release: who knows, wouldnt be surprised if the 'earliest' i can say is 2025 but even then remember that as of writing i havent even BEGUN to write down plans and ideas in a document yet. all in the mind until i feel ready to start that stage of work

#WIP plans

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tixersdotcom · 1 year

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Any film that opens with a missing-child tricks our emotions and draws us to the film. However, the trailer of the latest film by Robert Rodriguez not only hooks you with a lost child, but throughout the trailer, it provides thrills that you can't turn your back on. The famous director who has gifted us with daunting films like "From Dusk Till Dawn," "Predators," and "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" has decided to delve into the psychotic mystery genre. Well, if we have your interest now, you might be excited to know that the protagonist is Ben Affleck. The "Hypnotic" trailer is mind-boggling with the twists, and you might just end up doubting everything you believed to be true. The film is not just about a missing girl but also about a heist. The entire film is sure to play with the audience's mind and trick them at every possible nook and cranny. We see the protagonist, Daniel Rourke, the police detective, and an anxious father whose daughter goes missing. In between his therapy sessions and his anxiety about his daughter, he is a dedicated police detective who is trying to solve an insane heist. But, as we said earlier, and as the name suggests, it is difficult to differentiate reality from the alternate reality that your brain tricks you into believing. Here is where you will appreciate the director for his ingenuity and Ben Affleck for his amazing acting skills. The trailer for "Hypnotic" is not a regular trailer that will either give away the story or keep you in utter darkness about the plot. The trailer (hopefully like the film) will play mind games with you. 'Hypnotic' Release Date The film is set to be released on over 2000 screens in the United States on May 12. The film is releasing on the same day as "Love Again," starring Priyanka Chopra. 'Hypnotic' Cast No matter whether you support Ben Affleck as Batman or not, you cannot deny what a phenomenal actor he is. Affleck has given us films that have made us cry, laugh, and bite our nails in anticipation. From being "Batman" in DC films to his outstanding performance in "Good Will Hunting" (1997) with Matt Damon and Robin Williams to "Gone Girl" (2014) against Rosamund Pike, “Argo” (2012), Zack Snyder's “Justice League” (2021), to his recent film “Air," which was released on April 5 in the United States by Amazon Studios, he has constantly been commendable. The trailer assures us that we are in for some Ben Affleck charm once again. The antagonist in the film is William Fichtner, the amazing "Prison Break" star. We have also seen Fichtner in action in films like "Black Hawk Down" (2001), "The Lone Ranger" (2013), "Independence Day: Resurgence" (2016), "The Dark Knight" (2008), and many more. We have the Brazilian actress Alice Braga, who is mostly known for her performance in the series "Queen of the South" (2016-2021), and you also might remember her from "Predator" as well. Among the other actors, we have Dayo Okeniyi, JD Padro, and child actor Hala Finley. 'Hypnotic' Trailer: What To Expect From Ben Affleck Film? We are not new to police detectives with an internal turmoil to battle. The protagonist, Daniel Rourke, is a police detective who thinks it is cool to defy the instructions and risk his life to get to the truth. The trailer opens with a voice asking what the person sees. Then we see a vision of a park where young children play, and soon we learn that (Ben Affleck) Daniel Rourke saw his girl in his session and lost her at the drop of a heartbeat. Soon his session is interrupted by a text message from his work; it reads something about the Bank of Austin, and someone called Nicks will pick him up in less than five minutes. Rourke's therapist seemed concerned about him joining a task, but like any dutiful officer, he was ready. We watch the crime take place from a surveillance van and watch the antagonist play with people's minds as he pleases. As he arrives inside the bank to investigate the crime, he finds a picture of his daughter in the safest room in the locker room.

Although Rourke finds a way to find the criminal, he turns the policemen against Rourke with his words. However, even when there was more than one gun pointed at him, Rourke asked the antagonist about his daughter showing him the picture. However, the antagonist escapes, leaving him clueless about his daughter. Soon, we are introduced to the concept of hypnosis. This is where even the trailer gets messy. It is said that nothing you see or hear is true, for when you are hypnotized, an alternative reality is created that has no common ties with the phenomenal reality. The detective finds it hard to distinguish reality from his idea of a realistic world. The trailer would undoubtedly hurt you, but at the same time, it would fuel your zeal to get to the bottom of the truth. The trailer is sure to excite the audience about the film. The anticipation for the film is high, and the audiences are already waiting for its release.

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beguines · 3 years

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Podcast Recommendations for Christian Mystics, Religious Leftists, and Others:

Descriptions are taken from the podcasts/their websites, not written by me. Some of these I enjoy or recommend more than others, but tastes vary. Favorites of mine are starred. These recommendations aren't considered an endorsement of all the content within, even those that I consider my favorites. I hope this list can be helpful for some!

Encountering Silence: Encountering Silence explores the beauty and importance of silence from many angles, not just the religious/spiritual/mystical, but also reflecting on the psychology of silence, silence and the arts, silence and politics, silence and education… the list goes on. For a topic that we often don't devote a lot of time and energy to, silence certainly has an important (if quiet!) role in all our lives. ⭐

Faith & Capital: Faith and Capital is a show inviting Christians to participate in the struggle for emancipation from the system of capitalism. ⭐⭐⭐

The Liberation Theology Podcast: A weekly look at the basic concepts of Latin American liberation theology with David Inczauskis, SJ. ⭐⭐⭐ (A great introduction to liberation theology for those who are perhaps less familiar with the subject; episode 4 in particular explores the tensions and relationship between Christianity and Marxism.)

Turning to the Mystics: Turning to the Mystics is a podcast for people searching for something more meaningful, intimate and richly present in the divine gift of their lives. James Finley, clinical psychologist and Living School faculty, offers a modern take on the historical contemplative practices of Christian mystics like Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross. Leaning into their experiences can become a gateway to hope, healing and oneness. Together with Kirsten Oates from the Center for Action and Contemplation, they explore listener questions and examine their own paths as modern contemplatives in this beautiful and broken world. ⭐⭐⭐

Deus Ex Musica: Hosted by Delvyn Case, the Deus Ex Musica Podcast explores the many fascinating intersections between music and the Christian faith. Each episode features a guest who discusses their journey as a musician and a Christian, then dives deeper into their work.

PTR (Post-structuralist Tent Revival): Continental philosophy, theology, useless commentary on various issues. (This was a particularly good episode)

On Being: A Peabody Award-winning public radio show and podcast. What does it mean to be human? How do we want to live? And who will we be to each other? Each week a new discovery about the immensity of our lives. Hosted by Krista Tippett. (As On Being has a massive archive, here's one of my favorite episodes)

Sufi Heart: The Sufi Heart podcast with Omid Safi features teachings and stories about a sacred tradition of love, one that manifests outwardly as justice and inwardly as tenderness. Drawing primarily on the wisdom of the Islamic tradition as well as the legacies of the Civil Rights movements and other wisdom teachings, Omid invites you to a meditation on the transformative power of love and recalling the necessity of linking healing our own hearts with healing the world. ⭐⭐⭐ (Episodes one through five are particularly special to me and I love to revisit them. Omid Safi has the most wonderful, melodic voice and I could listen to it forever.)

Another Name for Every Thing: Another Name for Every Thing with Richard Rohr is a conversational podcast series on the deep connections between action and contemplation. Richard is joined by two students of the Christian contemplative path, Brie Stoner and Paul Swanson, who seek to integrate the wisdom amidst diapers, disruptions, and the shifting state of our world.

Homilies with Richard Rohr: From time to time Fr. Richard speaks at his local parish, Holy Family Church, in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The Magnificast: Started in the wake of Donald Trump’s inauguration in the United States, The Magnificast is a podcast exploring Christianity and the political left. A lot of people around the world are looking for ways to resist growing reactionary trends, but don’t know where to start. We think the Christian tradition and the tradition of leftist politics provide unique resources, historical examples, and theoretical tools for engaging these problems in ways that go beyond the usual conservative/liberal divide that characterizes a lot of Christian and political discourse. Inspired by Mary’s song of praise, we talk about how to fill the hungry with good things and send the rich away empty. ⭐⭐⭐ (There are too many good episodes to pick and choose what to highlight. They have some great ones about unions and organized labor that I would recommend to anyone who is less familiar with these things!)

Homebrewed Christianity: Our job us to get you the best audiological ingredients so you can brew your own faith. Each episode centers around an interview with a different thinker, theologian, or philosopher. ⭐ (A great listen for people who are more interested in intense dives into theological topics.)

Things Not Seen: Conversations about culture and faith. Things Not Seen is an independent radio show and podcast that features in-depth interviews with nationally recognized guests. Each week, we welcome authors, musicians, politicians, filmmakers, and more.

Lonely Mountain Mystics: For those finding faith or losing it; for those who feel they no longer fit where they once did. For those who have been hurt, helped, broken or healed by faith experience and find that their current spiritual journey has led them wandering some place wild, unknown and far from home; you’re not alone. "A podcast for the spiritually homeless", the show follows the hosts conversations about faith, love, and how to practice them.

Public Theologians: As public theologians, Jerran and Casey believe that everything about us says something about God and something about the world. The late theologian James Cone phrased it like this: "theology is political language. What people think about God, Jesus Christ, and the church cannot be separated from their own social and political status in a society." While silence on issues that have been deemed by religious talking heads as secondary matters (from poverty to war to movements) will always be an easier route, we know that there has to be a better way. We’re here to push for that better way.

Bread and Rosaries: A UK podcast about Christianity and the left. (This is a relatively new podcast that I have yet to listen to, but what a great name!)

#resource #theology #podcasts #christianity #islam #these should all be available on just about any platform you use to listen to podcasts!#this took a bit to compile so apologies for any bad links or typos #recs

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aria-greenhoodie · 3 years

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My opinions on every Dream smp character (/rp /c! /lh)

THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE CREATORS THIS IS ABOUT THE CHARACTERS AND THIS IS ALL SAID LIGHTHEARTEDLY!!!

Dream - die.

George - Does he even exist??? I think he just stays asleep in a shroom forest until Dream XD drags him out for “fun time.”

Sapnap - Pet Killer. >:( But is engaged to Karl and Quackity who are both cool so I guess it’s fine.

Callahan - All knowing and terrifying, but fantastic and great.

Sam - What the fuck??? Is??? Going on with this man??? He’s fucked up. I don’t think hes a bad person but he needs someone to tell him to fucking stop, because he has done bad shit, even if I dont think he’s bad, like, what in the fuck. I kinda wanna bite him.

Warden - IM SORRY IM SORRY DONT KILL ME FUCK SHIT PISS BALLS IM SOR

Sam Nook - The best Sam. I’d kill and die for him. irl. /gen. This is not a joke. I love this robot. SO MUCH. Love so muchh. <333

Alyssa - Exists? I think???

Ponk - I don’t know a lot about her but I want to know more and I know they are WONDERFUL AND DIDN’T DESERVE WHAT SAM DID TO HIM, SAM WHAT THE FUCK, THIS IS WHY YOU NEED TO BE PUT IN FUCKING LINE, PONK WAS SO NICE TO YOU EVEN AFTER ALL THAT, WHAT THE FUUUUCK

BBH - Bit fucked up. Not that pleasant.

Tommy - Big Man. Always correct. Don’t argue with me about this, I'll bite you. And he probably will too. He reminds me of me when I was in middle school and because of that I will side with him always.

Tubbo - Awe, what a little lad! Oh, he’s a bit fucked up. O-oh… he’s a LOT fucked up… Still a little lad though! Also pretty gender. Also according to literally every single “WHICH DSMP CHARACTER ARE YOU?” quiz I take I’m him, so that’s cool!

Fundy - I hold you very gently and tenderly but also very far away at arms length just in case.

Punz - Punz

Purpled - Funky fucking alien boy!!! Good builder, really cool, deserved better, I got really sad when Quackity blew up his UFO because it looked fucking sick and if it was mine I would have cried.

Wilbur - Seems very polite, but also maybe a little unhinged…

Ghostbur -pspsppssps sweet man so polite come back to me please pspspspspspspps come here pspspspspspspss yes I would love some blue now come closer pspsppspspspspss

Revivedbur - Sir please do not fuck this up I’m rooting for you because I know you can do great things please do not make me regret this please sir I believe in you please

Schlatt - Drunk bitch. Fuckin died. L.

Skeppy - Wait what even is your lore? You got corrupted by the Egg at some point but did you do anything after that?? Do you even still EXIST????

Eret - King, Queen, Royalty at its finest, you have tried so hard and I love you for it, also you’re violently gender and kinda pretty ngl so I may be biased but stfu you fucking kill it you funky fucking Herobrine ily <333

Jack Manifold - ON THAT JACK MANIFOLD GRIND! THE JACK MANIFOLD GRIND NEVER STOPS!

Nikki - Babe ily you deserved better, I may be rooting for Revivedbur but if you wanna punch that mf in his undead face I fully support you ily ily ily

Quackity - YOU! YOU!!! FUCKING YOU!!! I’M GOING TO VIOLENTLY ADORE YOU!!! YOU ARE SO FUNKY!!! YOU’RE ONE OF THE ONLY CAPITALISTS I WILL ACCEPT!!! FUCKMAN!!! LOVE YOUR WORK ON ALL THOSE WARCRIMES!!! <3333333

Karl Jacobs - Funky Time lad! Also really pretty. And kinda gender, but only a little bit. Those cool drawings of his old skin that the fandom came up with where he's a weird colorful rubber-hose-armed marshmallow human thing are more gender than what he is now, though.

Hbomb - Furry /pos. Seems nice enough.

Technoblade - BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! TECHNO NEVER DIES! LOVE ME AN ANARCHIST OLD MAN PIG WHO WILL DESTROY ANYTHING IN HIS PATH! Also Piglin /pos.

Antfrost - Furry /neg. He’s actually fine, but I don't actually have much to say about him.

Philza Minecraft - is quite old, he is married to a woman, which I find interesting. I love him but would also like to punch him, just once. Just one little punch. Nothing super hard, just a little punch. Love ya, Dadza <3

Connor - Sonic Kinnie. I know he has lore but I cannot understand it and only know 1/10 of it so I can't actually say much about him. He seems depressed all the time though, so I feel bad for him.

Captain Puffy - The best Father I have ever seen <3 Also the only semi-fucking-responsible adult??? Like Sam used to be too but then he… yeah… I love her!

Viky - Doesn't exist in cannon I think??

Lazar - Does he exist in cannon either????

Ranboo - YOU!!! You <333 YOUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!! I love you!! You make me a little sad sometimes but also INCREDIBLY happy!! My little hypocrite <3 my little walking contradiction <3 also REALLY gender, VIOLENTLY so. And Enderman /very pos.

Foolish - I like you! I don’t know much about you, but I’m learning more! I like your builds and attitude! Nice man :)

Hannah - I know literally NOTHING about you at all but I want to because you seem so badass and cool holy shit

Slimecicle - FUCKING WEIRD ASS SLUDGE MONSTER FROM THE BEGINING OF TIME???? YES PLEASE!!! SO GENDER!!! SO COOL!!! LOVE!!! LOVE LOV ELVOEKJDENJJW!!!!!!!!!! I love this fucking man <3333333 Filled with bones and meat and not slime at all <333333333

Michael McChill - Dream Stan /neg I don’t know much about this guy, actually, pretty neutral on him.

Michael _Beloved - Nice boy! Very polite! Probably could kill me if he wanted! Good lad!

Michelle - Oh she would whoop my ass. Great and fantastic!

Yogurt - babeyy,,,,,, boi,,,,, come hereee,,,,,, pspspsppspspsspspsp,,,,,,, i love youuu,,,,,,,

Foolish Jr. - Seems energetic and excitable! Good lad!

Finley - Fantastic, wonderful girl!

Shroud - I LOVE YOU. I WILL FIGHT ANY WAR YOU ASK ME TO. I WILL KILL MY FAMILY FOR YOU. SHROUD SUPREMACY. AAAAAAAAAAAA.

Mexican Dream - Eyyyyyy look at he! Look at the he!!! I like he :)))) he’s cool.

Dream XD - Oh so you’re THAT kind of asshole. Love it. 10/10. Also biblically accurate angel inspired designs for this mf??? So gender. Violently gender. Love that shit.

Drista - YOU!!!! ARE!!! SO!!!! COOL!!!! I WOULD KILL AND DIE FOR YOU!!!! LET'S BLOW SHIT UP TOGETHER!!!! CHAOS!!!!! ARSON!!!!! YES!!!!!

Mamacita - p, prett y wom an,,,

Mumza Kristin - If anyone doesn't like Mumza I’ll cut their body into fourths and burry the pieces under a Denny’s <3 She’s so poggers.

Friend - Friend! :DDD

#dsmp #dream smp #aria ramblings #im not tagging everyone that would take effort and I am tired #dream smp shitpost #dsmp shitpost #c!dsmp #dsmp opinions #is that a tag?#dsmp opinion is that a tag?#I dunno #Im tired #long post

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alollinglaughingcat · 4 years

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Ink Mystery Wiki!

I’m sure we’ve all thought about it once or twice, but here it finally is! The official Inky Mystery Fan Wiki! Here for all your Inky Mystery needs. It’s still in its early stages, and, like any fan wiki, needs its fans' help to grow! So, theorists, writers, and fanatics, get ready to write down summaries, information and theories for your fellow IM lovers!

It’s easy to do- you shouldn’t need to register an account to edit anything! Just head to a page and start writing (ei; fill in a summary about what happened to Boris in Book Two). Keep in mind that anyone else has the ability to correct and edit what you wrote, just as you have the ability to do the same to theirs! Eventually, it’ll be less of a “writing summaries” project and just a fun wiki to look around at and help gather information for theorists. If, for some reason, you cannot edit any pages or register an account to do so, just DM me whatever you want edited on the wiki (ei; “Can you add sub-race Water Demon to X Character’s desc”). Similarly, if you don’t know how to make a new page for a character or item, just ask me, and I can make the page for you (ei; “Can you add a page for Finley Fox”)!

Small note; sometime’s the editor glitches and you’ll be taken to a blank page. If that happens, just use the back arrow and try again. It works best if you choose ”edit source” rather than “edit”. You have the options to edit by source (code) or visually. Most of you will probably prefer visually. Also, I have no idea what editing looks like on mobile, and I assume it’s probably best to edit on computer or laptop.

Also, don’t worry about links and references unless you know how to work those. I’m still learning them too, but I’ll eventually add a guide or something to help. But, if you want to try, the best way would be to add a link to the chapter or Tumblr post you got the information from in the links section.

Additionally, there’s an option to add images! If you want your art (or someone else’s featured with their permission) featured on a character’s page, item page, book page, etc., just DM me and I’ll put it up there for you! This isn’t only “put a Holly on Holly’s page”, or a “put a book cover on the book page”, it can be a “hey I drew this rune! Let’s add it to the rune page!” or a “I drew this scene! Let’s add my drawing to the chapter page the scene is from!”

Here’s the link! Have fun! And don’t hesitate to ask for help! // https://inky-mystery.fandom.com/wiki/Inky_Mystery_Wiki

@theinkymystery @thisanimatedphantom @mercowe

#the inky mystery #inky mystery #babitim #inky mystery wiki #link #bendy the demon

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runfast-runfar · 3 years

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Loooong time since I’ve done one of these lol!

7/27/21

✨ life’s been very very up and down for a while now. Lots of personal stuff that honestly has caused constant shifts in my moods and attitude from day to day which gets hard. Kinda like I’m getting emotional whiplash but from my own dumb self 🙄 but it is what it is. I’m really very lucky I have a solid few people in my life who I am lucky to get to call close friends that make days feel full of love and light.

✨ some snippets from the past week.

- got this new fleece from a trip to REI and I’m in love with it!! It’s soooo soft and warm, and I know it’s summer and hot but I live in sweaters no matter the weather, so 🤷🏻‍♀️

- got to spend some time at Finley’s house watching Lucy (the cat!) and it sounds morbid, but being right there with fin makes my heart feel a little more okay. It was 10 months since she died last Friday which is crazy bc I remember her being here like it was yesterday.

- theas still thea, and a little derp (whom I LOVE)

- been going on walks every day and it’s a mental escape. Also slightly an ed compulsion…. But win some you lose some I guess. I’ve been logging in 14-20 miles a day and being outside is honestly life saving.

- I’ve started drawing more again. Which has also been therapeutic!

- I’ve been working a ton too (sad though bc this week my close friend is away so work is much less enjoyable lol) but overall it’s been good! I open which is so nice compared to closing since you’re done with your work day by 9-10am every day hah

- I caved and bought a switch yesterday and I’m obsessed. So. Obsessed. Been playing the new Zelda which is AMAZING!!! And then I also got Mario kart deluxe 8, Tony Hawk pro skater, and obviously animal crossings new horizons. My brother has a switch so I’ve played games like animal crossings and such before, but I have wanted my own for a while and I’m so happy I splurged on it!

- now I’m currently playing Zelda, eating Life cereal for dinner, and then getting to bed early bc I open tomorrow at 4am!

✨ mental health wise things are hard. Food stuff is really rough. Attachment is really hard. Self hatred and guilt is really hard. And family dynamics and home stuff is really hard. And finding the balance between having supportive people to lean on, but also not being too dependent on them is fucking hard.

✨ I don’t talk too much about it openly but my moms boyfriend who we all live with in his house, is someone I honestly cannot stand in so many ways, and living here with him like we have been for almost 2 years now is taking a toll and incredibly frustrating. But the Bay Area man…. Not affordable, or realistic to move out while also in school too. So I’m pretty stuck here for the time being which is awful for my mental health. But it is what it is.

✨ anyways, I hope you’re all well ♥️

#me #life #personal #runner #running #vegan #recovery #mental health #climbing #climber #yoga #yogi #switch #Zelda #student #college #quarantine days #covid19 #thea #my pet #cats

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ademonwithinternet · 3 years

Note

Salutations, this is Finley’s-Dumb-Stories and today we are listening to Finley say dumb shit

I’ve been working on an animation all day (it’s good omens) (it’s the wall slam scene) (except they kiss) and I’d occasionally go downstairs to get more water or a granola bar or something to keep me going but other than that I was holed up in my room all day so the only things I’ve said to other human beings(in my family) all day were:

I’m playing a game called “how many times can I draw David Tennant’s nose without going insane”

Guess I’m gonna be obsessed with good omens for another month at least

I require sustenance

Move, I’m gay (this one was to Eli cause he was standing in front of the fridge)

Spider-Man is pretty epic

Ah yes. Doom-scrolling.

Yes, I’m making an animation and no, you cannot see it until it’s done

I’m supposed to be doing my homework but yolo

I need a haircut

Hey mom, can I take my nachos up to my void room?

ELI PUT THEO DOWN

ELI OH MY GOD WHY DO YOU ALWAYS DO THAT

I have a crush on Alex Fierro

Can you just? Not?

Now I have five different Queen songs stuck in my head. Thanks, Lee

So long and goodnight

So yeah, but I also FaceTimed my friend this afternoon and talked to her, and then I FaceTimed my crush and talked to her, but I didn’t say much to my family all day :P

vhjgsdgfadhfgfgskdafhsdljkhfsaklgjsdahf this is a m a z i n g

also ANIMATION WHAT ARE WE GONNA GET TO SEE IT

#tw caps #i cant express to you the perfect vibe you conveyed in these words

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finleycannotdraw · 10 months

Text

the idea of them being a family after the events of the movie is literally controlling my thoughts

of course when I finally draw something for nimona it’s absolutely ridiculous <3

#nimona #nimona 2023 #nimona movie #ballister boldheart #ballister blackheart #ambrosius goldenloin #ballister x ambrosius #finley cannot draw #THEYRE EVERYTHING TO ME #ILL DRAW SOMETHING WITH BAL AND NIMONA TOMORROW SO I CAN POST MY PLAYLIST

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modernmisterdarcy · 4 years

Text

An Unfortunate Turn

“Yes!”

It seemed almost, perhaps, a bit too easy. Then again, he had suffered so much in his relatively short life-- why shouldn't one thing come easily to him now?

“But I didn’t get you anything,” said his fiance. “Here,” she said, and suddenly her embroidery hoop was in his hands. Adrian stared at it with a raised brow, quizzical, looking from the piece, to the girl who had given it him. “ It’s…hideous –” she admitted. “But it’s . something?”

“I’m sorry,” Eirene said through a sheepish smile, not giving him the chance to respond. “I’m acting strange. Only– You see, I’ve never been proposed to before. And neither have you! But I didn’t propose to you. What I’m trying to say is– I cannot wait to be your wife, and I will do anything to return the happiness you’ve given me.”

“But-- you've no cause to give anything to me, except-- well, except what you have given already.” Adrian's face relaxed into a smile, and he clasped the awkward embroidery to his chest. “Your hand in marriage is more than I could have ever asked for, Eirene, be sure of that. And thank you for your-- er-- kind gesture.” He held up the embroidery. “I believe traditionally the man is the one who does the giving, but I appreciate it all the same.” Gingerly, he set the hoop aside, the better to take Eirene in his arms, and lay a tender kiss on her forehead.

Then they talked a while. The Duke spoke softly of redemption-- of how in Eirene he found redemption for all the long years of suffering he had endured, of having no regrets for anything any longer, as every happenstance had made him into the man who had, that day, earned her enthusiastic consent to marriage.

Adrian stayed a while, visiting with Eirene, whispering sweet nothings to her, a completely changed man from the cool and distant creature she'd met the night of the Astleys' gala. At some point, the Earl rejoined them, and a teatime was passed with a distinct celebratory air hanging over it.

The ensuing days and weeks saw Adrian an attentive and able suitor for Eirene. He called as often as decorum allowed without seeming overbearing-- perhaps every other day-- as his business allowed. Sometime they passed teatime in the Kings' parlor. Sometimes Adrian took Eirene out to a tea room, or a cafe, or simply on a promenade, though the latter were infrequent and often brief, owing to Adrian's diminished ability to walk well enough to enjoy a promenade.

Other times, he invited Eirene to accompany him to various social engagements in the evenings, whenever she was available. It was here that Adrian performed the heroic work of not only restoring Eirene's reputation, but bolstering it, making it shine, speaking of her own sort of heroism and grace, of how brave she'd been the night of her party, and of how satisfied everyone was to see Tobias finally put in his place.

Wedding plans, too, were discussed. They talked of a date some six months hence, and Eirene was sent to a dressmaker's to begin constructing one of the most important garments of her life.

The engagement had been announced formally in the papers just a few days after the Duke's proposal, however, the formal celebration-- the engagement party-- was to take place some six weeks after the proposal.

Plans for that, too, progressed smoothly, though as the date drew nearer for Adrian and Eirene to appear before society as a formally engaged couple, the Duke began to show signs of dreadful fatigue. Between the engagement party plans, wedding plans, his business at parliament, his attentions to his fiancee, and attending practically every social engagement in London, his meager energies were exhausted utterly, every day. A fever crept up on him, and he pressed on, until one day, he collapsed in a friend's parlor while on a call with Eirene, and forthwith went home and begrudgingly allowed the physician to be called.

Adrian insisted he'd be well again in a few days, but in this, the Duke was horribly mistaken. A few days more saw him weaker than he'd been in months, suffering violent coughing fits which wrought rivers of blood from his lungs, tormented by fevers so severe that they left him delirious, at times numb and confused, other times raving and half-mad and seething despite his weakness.

Not a week before their engagement party, the Duke had been so ill that the doctor warned the Earl and his daughter, that any day now might be Adrian's last. The doctor advised that the brother be written, and that Adrian, when lucid, ought to speak to his solicitor to ensure his affairs were in proper order.

Ghastly pale, bathed in a cold sweat, his eyes glimmering with fever, and his lips stained an uncanny shade of red, Adrian called Eirene to his side.

“Knowing you, and being engaged to you, has been one of the sweetest pleasures of my life,” he whispered, his eyes heavy at half-mast. “If I should survive this relapse, Eirene, I... I hope you'd consider--” Adrian broke off, coughing, choking dangerously on his own blood, with scarcely enough strength to turn and expectorate into the basin. “If indeed you still intend to marry this terrifying creature you see before you, I should hasten to do it... much sooner than we had before planned.”

But what the date might be, would be determined if and when the Duke should rally, for at that moment, he fell unconscious, and did not wake for at least a day. The outlook was very grim indeed, and preparations were being made, now, for a funeral, instead of a wedding.

Life at Finley Sanatorium had been torture thus far. It had been but five weeks, and they were the most unendurable weeks of Tobias Wolfe's life. He had come a drunk, and now, he was a dry drunk, having had nothing to drink but water and tea since his arrival. There had been a period of intense withdrawal, shaking and vomiting and fits of near-hysteria, but by now, Tobias had calmed.

Well, calmed was perhaps too generous a word for it.

The withdrawal symptoms had abated, but Tobias felt the entire time like a caged animal. The sanatorium was quiet, clean, and confined. There was precious little to occupy an active young man like Toby, and even now in late February it was far too cold to go swimming in the lake on the campus. Toby did not care for reading or painting or any of the other sedentary and dull occupations the staff at Finley would have had him do-- he wanted to ride, to walk, he wanted to drink, dammit, and go back to his usual life back in London, but nay-- he was here under his brother's auspices for the foreseeable future. Though Toby was there to “recover his sanity”, he was certain that another two months in the place would have him simply losing it instead.

All this to say that when he had news of his brother's sudden and serious illness, Toby nearly welcomed the distraction, then hated himself for it, because he knew Adrian would only permit them to write if he was near death. The thought was a frightening one. Toby left immediately.

The scene which Tobias encountered upon his return was a familiar one, and one he did not care to see, now or ever again.

The house was far too quiet, it felt cold, the fear of Adrian's death looming over the place in a pall. Without bothering to change from his traveling clothes, Toby immediately went to his brother's room, only to see Adrian in the grips of a horrendous coughing fit, with blood on his lips and trickling down his cheek.

“You ought to have a nurse,” said Toby; the first thing he'd said to him since leaving Adrian the night of Eirene's party.

Adrian choked by way of response, lurching to one side so that he could spit blood and phlegm into the basin. He nearly fell from the bed, but for Toby holding him steady until the fit passed. He eased Adrian back into bed, and began cleaning the blood from his skin.

“Why is no one tending you?” Tobias demanded. “You oughtn't be in here all alone like that.”

Adrian could not respond; he breathed raggedly, eyes rolling in the back of his head as he fought unconsciousness.

Toby forsook the seat by the bed, and fell to his knees. He took Adrian's hand and kissed it, appalled by how cold it felt.

“Please, brother, don't leave me!” he whispered. “Adrian, you mustn't-- you mustn't--”

“I'll not die, I assure you, until there is a more respectable heir to the Duchy of Bainton,” Adrian muttered, able to speak at last but too weak to draw his hand away, but his fingers curling into a loose fist as Toby clasped it. “Get off the floor, I cannot bear for you to ingratiate yourself.”

“Ingratiate? I-- I do not ingratiate myself, Adrian, I... I'm frightened for your life!” Still, Tobias did as he was told, climbing to a slightly more dignified posture in the chair.

“Unhand me.” Adrian's voice was but a rasp, hollow and weak in his chest. He frowned slightly at Toby. “I cannot bear to be touched like this.”

“You're delirious,” Toby muttered miserably. “Your fever has made you so mean.”

“It is not the fever.” With a grunt of effort, and a wince, Adrian removed himself from Toby's grasp. “It is your touch which wakens my meanness, Tobias.”

The younger of the brothers Wolfe slowly drew his arm into his body, as if it were wounded; though the wound was in his spirit, not in his body. His heart ached as if it had been stabbed, and for the hundred thousandth time he wondered why Adrian acted so. Why he spoke so. Why he spurned Toby's undying love, over and over, and said such wretched things.

“But... why?” he finally said.

Whether it was the fever or not, Tobias would never know, for when he glanced over, Adrian appeared to have succumbed to his weakness. His eyes had closed, the bitterness had left his features, and he had gone still. For a dizzying moment, Toby wondered if Adrian had broken his promise and died; he leaned over, and strained to listen. But yes, the deathly-sounding wheeze in Adrian's chest told Tobias that his brother still lived, however tentatively.

Toby wanted to cry, both for his brother's life being in danger and for the ugliness which had just happened between them. He was tempted to, and a few tears escaped him, but he stifled them with a sniffle upon hearing Eirene's step in the hall.

Tobias composed himself somewhat, though his features betrayed some measure of his inner turmoil. Before he stood, he bent over Adrian and kissed his brow, then went into the hall.

“Hello, Lady King,” he said softly. “I trust you'll want to be alone with my brother. He does not do well, only just now he fell unconscious again.” Tobias's eyes fluttered a little as he bit back another wave of tears. “But I have no doubt that your very presence does him well, were you inclined to sit with him a while.”

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toloveawarlord · 5 years

Text

The Atlas Puzzle (Ch.1)

You can find my masterlist in my bio!

SURPRISE! I wrote Mousse’s first chapter for his babies! Sadly, he doesn’t make an appearance XD just the kiddos. A special thanks to @plumpblueberry for nagging encouraging me to finish this chapter!

The ship gently rocked for the first time since departure, signaling that the journey across the ocean had come to an end. A port securely restrained the large vessel. Weeks had dragged by since departing the other country. The passengers stuffed into the small holding had begun to rot, the stench worse than sewage. Each one fleeing from their homes to seek refuge in a far away land.

Khepri squinted up at the open sky for the first time since boarding the ship, green eyes aching from the sudden exposure. Cradled against her chest, her six-month-old sister Rania slept soundly. Her arms tightened around the baby, bracing against the shuffling of the people around her.

Like when they’d boarded, aggression spread through the crowd like a plague. The desperate struggle to escape the past and start anew in this place. One harsh yell. Like horses fleeing from captivity in the open fields, they stampeded forward, clambering to escape. Bodies slamming into one another, forsaking any form of human concern, animals freed from their cage.

“Watch out!”

The falling body narrowly missed the two children. Khepri found herself swept up awkwardly in a pair of arms, being whisked through the crowd. The man used himself as a shield, barreling past anyone who dared get on his way. The one ladder becoming nearer.

He drove his shoulder into someone. “They’re not going to let us all out. There are whispers of a reward for deserters return. You need to run the moment you get to the deck. Let no one notice you before you are on the land, understand, young one?”

Finally, able to get a good look at him, Khepri recognized the man. He came from the same village as her, but spent most of his time away, selling their homemade goods in other towns for profit. His left eye missing, marred with a large scar dragging down his face. “Yes, I understand,” she answered.

“That’s a good girl. Now, hold on tight,” he instructed, reaching the bottom of the ladder. In the thick of the chaos, he lifted both girls up to the man above him. “Oi! Lift them out!” He jostled with the wave that came from behind him.

Khepri’s grip on her sister nearly faltered. The baby had been so deprived of sleep that nothing could wake her. Both high with fevers, covered in dirt and filth, and desperate for a warm meal. Should they get stuck in here for any longer, it would fate them with certain death.

She lost sight of her savior, pulled free and up onto the deck. The crew had turned on their own people, out for money rather than standing against those who wanted to destroy their country. They shoved the refugees back down into the holding, uncaring of those that were below.

His instructions echoed in her mind. Run.

Swiftly, Khepri ducked between two adults fighting to leave the ship. Rania had awakened and her wails drew unwanted attention. Shouting orders to catch them spread through the crew like wildfire. Even on the docks, crew members chased after her. Heavy breaths fell from her lips, eyes darting around for the person her mother had described for her.

They’ll have a uniform on, black and silver. Maybe a band around their arm. Find them, and you will be safe in Cradle.

None in her path fit the description. Her pursuer grew ever closer. Darting around a shipment of fresh fruits, the dock ended, and the port town was even busier, many vendors out and townspeople lining the streets.

A flash of pink hair caught her attention, the uniform matching vaguely what her mother had told her. Onlookers had turned to see where the crying baby was. Khepri ran up to the man, pulling on his sleeve. Her voice cracked with dryness, aching for a drink of water. “Please help us.”

Fenrir dropped to one knee, forcing a smile across his face. Her thin frame and dirty clothes told him that she must have been mistreated, and the baby in her arms looked just the same. He had so many questions, but first asked, “What’s your name?”

“Khepri and this is Rania,” she answered, rocking her sister slowly.

“Do you mind if I hold her for a minute? I can calm her down for you,” Fenrir offered, slipping his arms under to cradle her. His heart ached for them. Who would allow such a thing to happen to two small children?

Letting her arms drop, Khepri rolled her shoulders. Since boarding the ship, she hadn’t once set her sister down for more than a few seconds. Freed from her, the strength left in her body had begun to fade away, leaving behind tiredness and agony.

Rania quieted, curious green eyes staring up into his pink ones. He hadn’t held a baby since Finley, but the memories and techniques still lingered. “That’s it. There’s no need to cry. You’re safe with me, okay?”

“Hey,” A rough voice shook through her body, tightly gripping Khepri’s arm. “You shouldn’t be off the ship.” He’d hauled her backwards, intent on taking her with him.

Fenrir rose to his feet, easily drawing his gun with one hand. “Take one more step with her, and you’ll be barking like a puppy for the rest of the year.” The click signaled the readiness to fire. Rania lifted her small arms, giggling at him.

The man turned his gaze back. “What does the Ace of Spades want with two street rats? They aren’t your citizens.”

His grip on her arm made her bone creak. Khepri dug her free hand around in the satchel that held only a few belongings from her home. A crumpled letter fell onto the dirt, rustling softly in the wind. “Our father is here. This is his country!” Khepri said, struggling to reach the letter. Her fingers barely tapping the edge of the paper. If only she could reach…

“You’d say anything to get away with betraying your country, wouldn’t you!” His hand raised to smack her. He stopped midway to avoid the blade now pointed up between his arm and his target, eyes wide with surprise.

“That’s no way to treat a lady, you brute!” Seth interjected, raising his dagger a little higher. “Release her, immediately and we won’t detain you for kidnapping.” His threat worked quickly, freeing the girl. Swiping up the note, Khepri found herself hidden behind him. Seth’s pulled features melted into a bright smile. “Do you mind if I take a look at that?”

Khepri did her best to uncrinkle the paper, allowing the other officer to scan over the hastily written words. Her mother had relayed a message quickly, offering just enough information to get them safe passage into Cradle.

Seth paused, nearly at a loss for words. “You’re… an Atlas? The diplomat Mousse Atlas is your father?” He must have read that incorrectly. He didn’t personally know the man, but from what he did see, he couldn’t deem the man competent enough to be a father.

Khepri’s head bobbed at his question. “Yes. Papa visits us as often as he can. Mother wanted to move here, many moons ago.” That had been the promise at his last visit. He was working to get the three citizenship to the country. The war had broken out much sooner than anticipated and their village had not been spared by the violence.

Exchanging a look with Fenrir, Seth returned his gaze to the man. “Well then, it would seem that these two little girls have a claim to Cradle citizenship, wouldn’t you say, Fenrir?” He flipped the blade in his hand around lightly, a silent threat.

“I agree, which means they are under the protection of the Black Army,” Fenrir agreed, rocking the baby in his arm. Her eyes fluttered, sleep taking over but she fought it, too curious about the man holding her.

The man shot them both a dirty glare, but huffed and turned away, muttering about the loss of money.

Returning his blade to its sheath, Seth tucked the letter away into his pocket. His hands clapped together, his grin growing wider. “That’s much better, isn’t it? No more scary men.” He scooped the girl up, tapping his finger against her nose. “No more worries. We’ll get you all cleaned up, fed, and send word to Mousse that you’ve arrived. How does that sound?”

Seth brushed a matted piece of black hair out of her face. It would take some work to comb all the tangles and clean it properly. Despite the dirt and mud caked on, her tan skin still held the white markings of her tribe.

A soft smile fell across her lips, the first since being ripped away from her mother at the port of her home country. She’d heard many stories about this land. A paradise awaiting their arrival. A place where the four of them could be together and live in peace.

A land that now only held three pieces of their puzzle.

I cannot believe this didn’t end up with Mousse showing up XD. It would have been twice as long if I had gotten to the point that he did. Next time, though, Mousse will be reunited with his girls!

#things happen #and never the way i originally intended #mousse atlas #khepri atlas #rania atlas #seth hyde #fenrir godspeed #ikemen revolution #ikerev #ikerev kids

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theculturedmarxist · 5 years

Link

The Problem

In the late afternoon of 10 February 2015, local police in Chapel Hill responded to a report of fired shots. They entered a Finley Forest condominium to find the lifeless bodies of three young Arabs. The first, Deah Barakat, lay dead in the front doorway. The others, his wife Yusor and her sister Razan Abu-Salha, had been slain in the kitchen. All three had been killed with gunshots to the head in an execution-style murder. Over the coming hours and days, as details emerged on social media, it became clear that these young Muslims had been murdered in a hate crime. Seeing this in the context of state-sponsored islamophobia, which had fuelled a growing climate of harassment and hate-crimes against Muslims in the US, as well as the mass slaughter of civilians in drone attacks across the Middle East, activists online started using #MuslimLivesMatter, which was tweeted over one hundred-thousand times, to challenge the lack of coverage.[1]

The outcry surrounding the use of #MuslimLivesMatter came swiftly.[2] Those outraged onlookers, drawing on the language of the most visible movement for racial justice in the United States at the time, #BlackLivesMatter, were met with charges of reductiveness, appropriation and – most potently – anti-blackness. As one contributor to muslimgirl.com wrote:

The pattern of violence against Black people – specifically Black people – is a unique one, with both history and implications that will never be comparable to the struggles of other communities of color in the United States. Institutional racism and discrimination against Black people is evident in our courts, our prisons, our entire justice system.[3]

We have seen this pattern emerging for some time: on one hand, the exceptionalisation of a thing referred to as ‘anti-blackness’; and on the other, the mobilisation of this charge against ‘non-black people of colour’ who attempt to draw comparison between black struggles and their own. In a 2016 lecture, entitled ‘Irreconcilable Anti-Blackness’, Frank B. Wilderson III explicitly sets out to dis-analogise the violence of white supremacy and that of anti-blackness. While his argument – counter-posing the logical nature of racism experienced by so-called ‘non-black people of colour’ to the supposed gratuity and incoherence of violence directed at black people – is central to the relatively small but growing body of literature within the theoretical frame of Afro-pessimism, echoing this broader set of trends. Entrenched in anti-racist theory and practice today is the belief that all racial and ethnic domination is structured around a global hierarchy, with ‘white’ people at the top and ‘black’ people at the bottom. [4] This shift has necessarily coincided with the increasing purchase of the notion of an historically coherent ‘ethnic blackness’ in theoretical and political spaces.

Together, this set of beliefs, as in Wilderson’s earlier-mentioned title, has been given voice through the increasing prevalence of the concept of ‘anti-blackness’. Thus, the tension between the presumptions of this universalising analysis of racial categories and the as-yet unresolved question of blackness, what it is and who possesses it, plagues anti-racist politics and organising. Consequently, the limitations of popular theories of race are becoming increasingly apparent. Indeed, ‘blackness’ can be conjured in a myriad of curious ways, and there remains a conceptual confusion around this term which deserves more attention than it is currently given. This article will therefore show the necessity of interrogating this increasingly dominant conception of blackness and the assumptions it invests in correlating theories of anti-blackness.

The exceptionalism with which ‘anti-black’ racism is treated, along with the territoriality over what are deemed particularly black registers of resistance, in this increasingly powerful assemblage of analyses stands in stark contrast to the most prevalent traditions of black anti-imperialist organising of the 1960s and 1970s. The Black Panther Party lent both their name and Ten Point Programme model to various anti-imperialist groups including the Dalit Panthers, the ‘politically-black’ British Black Panther movement and the Puerto Rican Young Lords Party. Indeed, the Party was among the first political groups in the US to attempt to integrate the antagonism between blackness and whiteness into a broader theory of racial dynamics through Minister for Defense Huey P. Newton’s concept of intercommunalism. Huey took the question of race in the USA and framed it as merely one iteration of America’s incursions on collective self-determination. By reframing the black/white antagonism within the context of a broader critique of the USA’s imperialism, intercommunalism conceived of blackness as historically contingent and aspired to the abolition of race altogether.[5]

Where has this newer politics come from? I argue that these political impulses arise from an increasing disconnection from the intellectual history of the last period of anti-colonial insurgency. The radical politics of the 1960s has been recast within the anti-racist frame – the genesis of a New Left from which identitarianism can ostensibly trace its roots. This is no accident. As Keeanga-Yahmatta Taylor stressed, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the political establishment to obscure the history of the last era of black insurgency in the US.[6] Indeed, there have been three central tenets of this erasure. First, the collapsing of the hugely-diverse political traditions represented in the Black liberation struggles of the 1960s and ’70s into a nebulous concept of a Black Power era.[7] Second, the extraction of this period of insurgency from its international context. The meme of militant Black America has been allowed to cannibalise the broader traditions of resistance within which those militants were situated. The 1960s and ’70s were a buoyant period for the oppressed and exploited – as Huey Newton characterised it, Afro-Americans were in fact ‘late to the party’.[8] Third, the conceptual separation between domestic and international resistance. This has facilitated the replacement of anti-imperialist (transnational) frames of thinking with anti-racist (national) ones. The revival of racialism has been the death of genuine solidarity, shaping the political imagination of this generation of theorists and activists for the worse.

Curiously, while the framework has become pervasive in structuring thought on the question of race, no concerted effort has been made to establish what ‘anti-blackness’ means. Embedded in the vagueness of this ethical critique of racism is a set of myths and mystifications around the nature of race. Crucial to this is the absence of a coherent and historically informed definition of ‘black’. In many ways, the recent theoretical interventions of the ‘movement of thought’ termed Afro-pessimism have both shaped, and been shaped by these developments.[9] Thus, this article seeks to intervene in contemporary debates around the nature of race, racism and racial liberation through a sustained critique of the growing Afro-pessimism literature. I will first address the emergence of Afro-pessimism, indexing it to particular developments in anti-racist organising. Then I will provide a critique of two key premises of Afro-pessimist literature: a) the subsumption of the world by the slave relation; and b) the subsumption of ‘Africanness’ by an Americanised conception of Blackness. In my conclusion, I assess the implications of these assumptions for contemporary politics, and point to an engagement with the radical politics of The Black Panther Party and its contemporaries as a possible route towards more-productive thinking.

Something in the Water

In Badagry, Nigeria – a slave town built by a former slave turned slaver – between the barracoon on the mainland and the Point of No Return beyond a small body of water, where slaves became cargo on ships, lies the ‘spirit attenuation’ well which provided the final source of water for hundreds of thousands of slaves who were destined for the Americas. Following reports of slave rebellions on the earliest ships which killed several European slavers, Yoruba slavers responded by charming the water. Today, local legend still holds that to drink from the well will result in memory loss, a complete dislocation one’s history. It is believed that this powerful charm left slaves ready to be remade as the slaver desired because it took from them the memory of freedom. In many ways, the slave in this carefully-kept local history resembles the remaking of blackness itself in Afro-pessimist literature.

Here, we find blackness unmoored from time and space by a ruthless disregard for material historical processes; when read with Fanon, the ‘psycho-affective’ quagmire from which the colonised intellectual must wrench himself: ‘individuals without anchorage, without borders, colorless, stateless, rootless, a body of angels’.[10] At the heart of this blackness, which both preceded the transatlantic slave trade and is created by it, there is no memory before the slave ship. Those various socio-political formations on the African continent, documented locally, which both predated and gave life to the transfer of people across the Atlantic Ocean on an industrial scale cannot and do not exist. In other words, to be racialised as black and to be a slave are treated as one and the same.

Afro-pessimism, as Jared Sexton has pointed out, has largely developed through the ‘proliferation of social media platforms in the same moment when the professoriate groans under the intensified administrative command to turn research into output with eventual market value’.[11] Thus, the position that leading Afro-pessimist scholars – such as Frank B. Wilderson III and Sexton – hold within the academy is in large part dependent on the following that they have garnered among organisers. This in part explains the ascendency of what was once ‘a highly technical dispute in a small corner of the American academy’ to a structuring logic of various political formations in the era of #BlackLivesMatter. Afro-pessimism is a crucial literature to engage with, precisely because it has both shaped and been shaped by the organisational impulses of Afro-American and Black British activists in particular.

To engage Afro-pessimism is, in many ways, to take aim as a moving target. On one hand, the body of literature which Sexton describes as a ‘movement of thought’ sprawls in multiple directions.[12] Culture, society and political struggle have all had the Afro-pessimist gaze turned on them, churning out articles and citations in large numbers. In explaining the increasing organisation of far-right groups, as demonstrated by events in Charlottesville, one prominent British commentator mused that ‘Afro-pessimism is the best history of America.’ The breadth of analyses that it has inspired is certainly striking. On the other hand, much of the literature itself is near impenetrable for the layperson. It rests on both the peculiar invocation of various canonical figures in the Black Liberation tradition, and the collectivisation of various registers of blackness. This has meant that the literature is typically mediated through reductive simplification, and its sometimes-contradicting conclusions taken at face value.

Some points of clarification are therefore necessary. First, though the literature of Afro-pessimism is broad, these texts are, and often confess to be, largely derivative of the parameters set out in ‘the announcement and enactment of Afro-pessimism in the work of Frank B. Wilderson III and Jared Sexton’.[13] To this end, I will primarily be engaging their work. Second, my thoughts on Afro-pessimism are structured by a distinction between those who identify themselves as Afro-pessimists (Sexton, Wilderson, et cetera) and those whose work has been retrospectively drafted by Afro-pessimists into their project (Frantz Fanon, Hortense Spillers, Steve Biko, James Baldwin, et cetera). This distinction is especially important in the case of Afro-pessimism because the framework of thinking developed by the former often relies on partial and self-serving readings of the latter. Third, I seek to engage the theoretical structure and premises of Afro-pessimism, beginning with its conception of blackness.

In this, I mean to distinguish my contribution from Fred Moten’s Black Optimism, in which Afro-pessimism has found a comfortable antagonist.[14] Against the space that Moten opens between ‘the fact of blackness and the lived experience of the black’ – ‘the irreducible and impossible sociality’ of Black life, I posit a re-interrogation of the very notion of Blackness as a fissure whose character we can easily assume.[15] Indeed, Moten accepts Wilderson’s claim that ‘the bridge between blackness and antiblackness is “the unbridgeable gap between Black being and Human life”’, but neither attempt to elaborate the meaning of Blackness beyond the assumption of a coherence between Africa and her slave diasporas.[16]

Upon interrogation, Sexton’s assumption that ‘the slave is paradigmatically black’ brings two axioms to the fore.[17] The first, the insistence that the position of the slave is necessarily black. Black, here, is to be understood in a morphological sense. However, this must be taken with the second axiom in order that the implicit biological definition of ‘black’ cohere; slaveness links the Negro and the African. Wilderson articulates it thus: ‘slaveness is something that has consumed Blackness and Africanness, making it impossible to divide slavery from Blackness’.[18] The manner in which Africanness disappears into Blackness ought to be suspect: it suggests that slaveness is the thing which connects the Negro to the African with no move to elaborate the causal logic. And yet, it is from these, seemingly incontestable, assumptions that the Afro-pessimist imaginary springs forth.

The following takes aim at these twin axioms in turn because the stakes are so high. As I will show, the veiled interlocutor of Afro-pessimism is not the ‘White Master’ but what has in recent times been termed the ‘non-Black person of colour’. The paradigmatic blackness of the slave in Afro-pessimism acts not to establish the anti-blackness of white supremacy but the supposed anti-blackness of the ‘non-Black person of colour’. The white must challenge her racism, but the Native American, Arab, Asian or Latino must root out the anti-blackness which is surely inscribed in the shadiest corners of their mind. Indeed, both Sexton and Wilderson explicitly take aim at ‘non-black people of colour’.[19]

We saw this in action when the York University Black Graduate Students Collective called on all people to boycott a 2016 Israeli Apartheid Week event on campus which featured journalist Rania Khalek. In an ‘Anti-Black Racism Bulletin’, they denounced her as ‘notoriously anti-Black’ with no elaboration of her apparent offences.[20] Twitter was far more vocal in its charges. On the one hand, a previous questioning of what she referred to as ‘segregated organising’, when #BlackLivesMatter asked white people not to attend a Cleveland gathering, was taken as an offensive appropriation of a painful chapter of Afro-American history. On the other, the deeper charge was her attempts to analogise Black and other anti-imperialist struggles – framed by many popular bloggers as ‘appropriation’. This had come to a head through her consistent critique of the Obamas as symbols of racial justice while US drone-strikes waged destruction on Pakistan and Yemen.

In the debate that ensued, juju jones, a blogger, invoked Frank Wilderson ‘on ahistorical comparisons between Black struggle & the fight to free Palestine’.[21] Commenting on comparisons between the plight of Palestinians and Afro-Americans, Wilderson says, ‘That’s just bullshit. First, there’s no time period in which Black police and slave domination have ever ended. Second, the Arabs and the Jews are as much a part of the Black slave trade – the creation of Blackness as social death – as anyone else.’[22] Here, Wilderson’s work is not to situate the European settler-colonial project given life through Israel within a broader anti-imperialist frame. Instead, he makes two theoretical moves: first, to reject the analogy between the carceral violence of two settler-colonial states; second, to place Palestinians (equated in his comments with Arabs) and their colonisers (equated in his comments with Jewishness) in a solidarity of anti-blackness through a significant role in the ‘Black slave trade’. The historical conflations of Wilderson’s claim, and the contortions that are required to for him find himself there, notwithstanding, he goes on to tie this to the impossibility of true contemporary solidarity: ‘As I told a friend of mine, “yeah we’re going to help you get rid of Israel, but the moment that you set up your shit we’re going to be right there to jack you up, because anti-Blackness is as important and necessary to the formation of Arab psychic life as it is to the formation of Jewish psychic life.” … we know, once they get over [their own hurdles], the anti-Blackness that sustains them will rear its ugly head again against us. So that we don’t fall into a sort of genuine bonding with people who are really, primarily, using Black energy to catalyze and energize their struggle.’[23]

This saga, and Wilderson’s referenced comments, rest on a set of four intertwined logics: a) ‘race’ is necessarily globally consistent, a science of continental bloodwork; b) blackness is a stable category referring to a historically coherent people whose experiences of violence are necessarily tied by a common ethnicity – there is a clearly identifiable ‘us’; c) the phenomenon of anti-blackness is exceptional, existing in a register of experience that is essentially different to all other experiences of racism; and d) the analogisation (by people of colour) of various manifestations of racism and imperialism, insofar as it draws on black experiences and therefore ‘black energy’, is tantamount to anti-blackness.

No doubt, the institution of ‘chattel slavery’, along with all the material processes for which the phrase stands has become a shorthand, has a palimpsestic afterlife.[24] The conjuring of racialism to salvage the practice of slavery has left an indelible mark, underwriting the script of the repressive state-apparatuses of the US state. However, Afro-pessimism has mistaken a single frame for ‘the afterlife of slavery’, and a partial frame at that. Central to this project is an ambivalence concerning the success of liberatory struggles of anti-colonial insurgency in forcing the subject of racial domination to hurriedly scrawl all over the script to salvage the political order that he had created throughout the second half of the twentieth century. Wilderson and Sexton are therefore holding up fading polaroids and asking us to see a panoramic tapestry. Through this elucidation, I argue that the debate around political blackness raging in the United Kingdom is not so parochial after all, thus setting the stage for crucial questions about the intramural dynamics of anti-racist political formations today.

The Master and Slave Transformed

Like Marxism, Black Consciousness was also hobbled in an essential way. Fundamental to Marxism is the notion that the world is unethical due to its subsumption by relations of capital. What we learn from Fanon and others is that the world is unethical due to its subsumption by the slave relation.

— Frank B. Wilderson III[25]

Out of slavery the Negro burst into the lists where his masters stood. Like those servants who are allowed once every year to dance in the drawing room, the Negro is looking for a prop. The Negro has not become a master. When there are no longer slaves, there are no longer masters. … But the Negro knows nothing of the cost of freedom, for he has not fought for it.

— Frantz Fanon[26]

There is a long (and justifiably) maligned reductionist line that posits racism as simply a ‘seed of division sown by the bosses to divide the workers’. This line, both when it is used to argue that calls to combat racism among workers are unnecessarily divisive, and when it is used to argue that challenging racism is necessary for revolutionary politics, treats ‘race’ as significant only insofar as it is an obstacle to class unity. As noted by contributors to the Racism Research Project in 1975, we continue to lack a distinctively Marxist account of ‘racialisation’.[27] In the absence of a coherent theoretical framework which roots the superstructural phenomenon of racialisation in the economic processes that demand it, many Marxists have succumbed to this essentially conspiratorial account of racism, or have been content to allow this crucial theoretical gap to fester.[28]

Seemingly without an economic base, racism has increasingly been treated as a purely social relation; distinct and extricable from class. Consequently, Marxist scholars have instead typically approached the question of ‘race’ through resistance, emphasising solidarity as instances in which the barrier of ‘race’ has been overcome to achieve working-class unity. This has meant that an interrogation of the crises to which racialisation responds has been largely left by the wayside.

It is into this conceptual space that Afro-pessimist literature inserts itself. The mistake of this Marxist orthodoxy, Afro-pessimists argue, is in its attempt to subsume an ostensibly ‘different’ phenomenon of white supremacy under the banner of capitalism. Thus, it argues, race belongs to the realm of the structurally determined, a global juggernaut organised around a hierarchy of morphological groups which provides the ‘real’ antagonism of modernity. As Frank B. Wilderson III intimates, ‘the black subject reveals marxism’s inability to think white supremacy as the base and, in so doing, calls into question marxism’s claim to elaborate a comprehensive, or in the words of Antonio Gramsci, “decisive” antagonism’.[29] The United States, he argues, ‘is constructed at the intersection of both a capitalist and white supremacist matrix’ but Marxism is impotent in the face of the latter.[30] It is taken for granted that this can be generalised globally.

The notion, advanced by Afro-pessimists, that to be ‘ethnically’ black is paradigmatically different from any other racial group rests primarily on the presumption that the master–slave dynamic is essentially racialised. A tension emerges as Sexton and Wilderson go further. For them it is neither race, nor racism, which structures white supremacy; rather, White Supremacy is just one iteration of a global anti-black solidarity. Black is not a race, since blacks are the antagonist of the very category of human, and yet it is. Indeed, the category of ontological non-being, which Sexton and Wilderson identify, relies heavily on the assumptive logic of ‘Race’ – following from Patrick Wolfe’s paradox, this is in itself a powerful sign of the extent to which racial ideology has embedded itself in our capacity to conceptualise difference.[31]

Thus, the purportedly distinctive dynamic between ‘the Human and the Black’ is widely articulated through ‘anti-blackness’ and its contemporary accoutrements. Today, the concept of ‘anti-blackness’ has come to signify, not only the particularity of racism against those deemed black, but also the centrality of such racism to all paradigms of racial domination. In this sense, Afro-pessimism emerges from a tradition of ethnocentric analyses, which focuses on the particular intensity of systemic white domination of black people. However, Afro-pessimism marks a departure from this tradition through a theorisation of anti-blackness that takes aim at other racially dominated groups as fundamentally and irredeemably implicated in the domination of black people.

Afro-pessimists want us to think through these relationships as existing on different planes. Between the poor white and the white master, and between the ‘non-black person of colour’ and the white, there is a sort of reasoned violence. For the black, on the other hand, there is primarily gratuitous violence – existing in a state of incomprehensible ‘external superviolence’ and internalised self-hatred.[32] Wilderson renders this logic explicit when he asserts, ‘every other group lives in a context of violence which has what I would call a sort of psychological grounding wire, which means that they can write a sentence about why they are experiencing that violence. … For a Black person to try and emulate that kind of interpretive lens, the problem becomes a lot bigger. For us this is the ongoing tactic of a strategy for human renewal.’[33]

This emerges from a reading of Fanon that begins from the points where he seems ‘at a loss’ to explain what he is confronted with.[34] Contrasting Fanon to Marx, Wilderson comments that ‘[the] slave relation … relegates the capital relation … to a conflict, and not the antagonism that Marx … thought it to be’.[35] Crucial to his argument is the idea that Fanon’s critique of Hegel’s master–slave dialectic sets out to show some essential difference between the worker/capitalist relation and the Negro/White master relation. Wilderson goes on to assert that ‘were [the worker/capitalist relation] to be “solved” (were it to cease to exist as a relation, after the victory of the proletariat), the world would still be subsumed by the slave relation: an antagonism not between the position of the worker and that of the boss, but between the Human and the Black’.[36]

This reading treats Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks as a series of independent moments, disregarding his emphasis on temporality in the introduction.[37] In a lecture, titled after one of his articles, Sexton argues that these moments are in tension, constituting ‘a slippage between the universal denunciation of all exploitation, and the conceptual conflation of all such suffering under the broadest heading’.[38] It therefore effaces the relationship between these moments of complete despair and his moments of clarity – where these mystifications of ‘race’, the burden of incomprehensibility that they impose, and the nihilism which they invite, are turned on their head within the same text through the illuminating capacity of struggle. Turning, for example, to Fanon’s essay on ‘The Negro and Recognition’, embedded in his critique of Hegel’s master–slave dialectic is a striking demystification. Clarifying his motivations, Fanon writes:

I hope I have shown that here the master differs basically from the master described by Hegel. For Hegel there is reciprocity; here the master laughs at the consciousness of the slave. What he wants from the slave is not recognition but work. In the same way, the slave here is in no way identifiable with the slave who loses himself in the object and finds in his work the source of his liberation. The Negro wants to be like the master. Therefore, he is less independent than the Hegelian slave. In Hegel the slave turns away from the master and turns toward the object. Here the slave turns toward the master and abandons the object.[39]

What does Fanon mean when he says that what the master ‘wants from the slave is not recognition but work’? Against Hegel’s ‘absolute reciprocity’, Fanon advances a conception of the negro slave as the alienated epitome of exploitation; which is to say that the master and the slave in Fanon’s account are not produced by a relation of anti-blackness (in the new life that this term has taken on) but by exploitation. This harkens back to Wilderson’s earlier misunderstanding of the base in Marxist theory. Fanon, in contrast to Wilderson, gives ontological priority to the exploitative relation of production between master and slave. This priority is reiterated elsewhere, when Fanon takes aim at attempts to assert a global blackness: ‘“Negroes” are in the process of disappearing, since those who created them are witnessing the demise of their economic and cultural supremacy.’[40]

Fanon is less concerned with the slave as an opposing pole from which ‘Man’ has built community – he has no such illusions about the material existence of white fraternity.[41] Culture, he argues, is first and foremost national in nature.[42] Instead, Fanon is concerned with how the profits from her labour finance society. We might then think of the position of the slave as the capitalist aspiration for all workers – stripped of all that which renders her recognisable, the worker as ‘a mere mechanism’, but possible only through the mystification of race.[43] In contrast to Wilderson’s assertion that ‘an ensemble of ontological questions that has as its foundation accumulation and fungibility as a grammar of suffering’ exclusively marking the black as outside of ‘[a humanist] discourse that has as its foundation alienation and exploitation as a grammar of suffering’, the master–slave relation which Fanon proposes upsets this binary.[44]

Fanon’s elucidation exposes the slave as contingently black, not ‘paradigmatically black’. What is the difference? The Afro-pessimist sees the world as structured by a non-black solidarity in preventing the ontological possibility of black life. Were ‘black’ meant as a metaphor for the condition of total alienation from self, this might make sense.[45] However, because the Afro-pessimist imaginary ties itself to a morphological account of blackness, this leads us to a theoretical dead end. In this world-view, it therefore becomes necessary to begin by treating ‘race’ as a problem fundamentally rooted in the formation of sociality – in which the Black precedes the historical order and the processes, both violent and mundane, which create her. By contrast, to think through the implications of contingency is to confront the reality that these racial categories – categories that Wilderson and Sexton treat as absolute – are actually unstable as evidence that something else is afoot. It is to see ‘race’ not as an anchor, but as a mystification conjured to weather crises of legitimacy.

For example, we can examine how Sexton links the condition of the Afro-American slave, the free black and the African thus: ‘because blackness serves as the basis of enslavement in the logic of a transnational political and legal culture, it permanently destabilises the position of any nominally free black population’.[46] The presumption of a shared (presumably global) legal and political culture within which the assertion that blackness was a basis of enslavement might be made is quite mistaken. Even in the US, the centralisation of the legal and political status of blacks only emerged at the moment of formal abolition following the American Civil War. Prior to this, the internal border system of the US produced divergent rationales and attendant juridical technology for enslavement.

The South might be considered to fit the relationship that Sexton suggests. For example, Supreme Court judges in Georgia argued that the free black was ‘associated still with the slave in this State’.[47] However, the North tells a different story, wherein free blacks were likened to ‘white women and children … denied many political rights but did not therefore forfeit their basic status as citizens’.[48] In any case, the debates within slave states in the late antebellum period included the proposition of ‘forcing their free black populations to elect between re-enslavement and leaving the state’.[49] The concerns of legislators and judges in the South, that free black populations might inspire slave revolts and undermine the racial order, indicate that their motivations were not paradigmatic but pragmatic. This is to say that these political and legal elites were well aware of the fragility of the racial order that they had created.

Indeed, on the relationship between the free black and the slave, a sketch of the thinking of legislators in the Northern and Southern states offers a radically different picture to Sexton’s. Rather than being a given, the position of the free black was both contested and geographically dependent. Interestingly, during an 1820 Congressional debate regarding a clause in Missouri’s proposed constitution which would bar free blacks from entering the state, it was the condition of Native Americans which structured the logic regarding the position of free blacks: ‘the Indians born in the states continue to be aliens and so, I contend, do the free negroes’.[50]

Contrary to Sexton’s assertion of the exceptional nature of the Afro-American experience in this regard, legislators consciously rooted their position in a nexus of other ‘undesirables’ which included both Native Americans and white ‘paupers’. The preoccupation with the condition of ‘poor whites’ is certainly not a new phenomenon. Legislators in the antebellum South were consumed with the implications of (white) pauperism which meant that, ‘the adjudged pauper is subordinated to the will of others, and reduced to a condition but little removed from that of chattel slavery, and until recently, by statute of 1847, c. 12, like the slave, was liable to be sold upon the block of the auctioneer, for service or support.’[51] Moreover, it is important to note that the Northern and Southern states proffered different rationales for the contested status of free blacks, and that, at this time, the federal government’s role in determining the parameters of the claimable rights of individuals ‘was largely restricted to establishing the requirements for naturalization and the requirements for alien ownership of federal lands’.[52]

The fragility of hierarchies of race is inherent to the project of racialism. Rather than emanating from some assuredness regarding the morphological provenance of racialised ‘personhood’ and ‘unpersonhood’, what we see here is the adoption of specific policy-practices in order to construct a world in which the insurrection against domination that the American Revolution represented could co-exist with the continued brutal exploitation that slavery represented. And so, the slave was not created so that the American might exist; instead, the black was created so that slavery might survive republican fervour. Indeed, we must be careful about operating at a level of abstraction which would enable the post hoc justifications of enslavement concocted by Southern slave owners embattled by a crisis of legitimacy to shape the historiography of chattel slavery.

Wilderson and Sexton want us to believe both that the myriad forms of exploitation – indentured servitude, ghettoisation, mass incarceration, police brutality et cetera – which followed the formal abolition of slavery constitute a continuation of enslavement (or its ‘afterlife’), and that the position of the slave is fundamentally different from the position of the ‘white’ or ‘Indian’ indentured servant who often performed similar labour and whose resistance incurred violent repression. Such a framework mystifies three crucial facts: first, that the ‘blackness’ of the category of slave was both contingent and unstable;[53] second, that to exceptionalise African enslavement obscures the many categories of ‘alien’ which were comparable to the negro in the US context; third, that natal alienation was not from some African collectivity but from specific and diverse social formations in Western Africa.[54]

Between the Nigger and the Kaffir

There can be no such thing as rigorously identical cultures. To believe one can create a black culture is to forget oddly enough that ‘Negroes’ are in the process of disappearing, since those who created them are witnessing the demise of their economic and cultural supremacy.

— Frantz Fanon[55]

Thus, we return to the second premise of Afro-pessimist theory – a necessary conceptual convergence between the African and the Negro. Wilderson parses this logic flippantly: ‘slaveness is something that has consumed Blackness and Africanness, making it impossible to divide slavery from Blackness’.[56] This convergence is developed in greater depth by Sexton: ‘As in the case of black immigrants to the United States, the movements for decolonization in Africa encounter the “racial calculus and political arithmetic” … of slavery as an internal limit on their capacity to claim (national or regional or continental) sovereignty and independence in the manner of their Asian and Latin American comrades.’[57] The manner in which Africanness disappears into Blackness is indeed suspect: it distorts the conceptual space between the Negro and the African which Fanon elaborates. In short, the Afro-American scholar’s desire for an American genealogy of slaveness to overwhelm the complex encounters between Africans and imperialism alone, however fierce his intuition, cannot make it such.

In large part, the problem for Wilderson and Sexton is that their analysis takes for granted the salience of a phenotypical register of blackness. They read Fanon, presuming that his different registers of ‘black’ are one and the same. This can be addressed by a return to his more resonant text of the period – The Wretched of the Earth. Fanon explicitly argues that the relationship between national consciousness on the African continent and a shared African consciousness ‘does not rest upon a metaphysical principle’, but on the mindfulness to the rule that a colonialism which ‘lingers’ anywhere poses a threat to freedom everywhere.[58] In his essay on national culture, he addresses these different registers head on. Transformed by his experience as part of the Algerian Revolution, he revisits negritude, which he had previously described as his ‘last chance’.[59] He argues that, ‘once the concept of negritude had been elaborated’, the project of establishing the ‘existence of an African culture’ with the ‘inner dynamism’ of distinctive national cultures faced serious problems.[60] He goes on:

[Gradually] the black Americans realized that their existential problems differed from those faced by the Africans. … But once the initial comparisons had been made and subjective feelings had settled down, the black Americans realized that the objective problems were fundamentally different. The principle and purpose of the freedom rides whereby black and white Americans endeavor to combat racial discrimination have little in common with the heroic struggle of the Angolan people against the iniquity of Portuguese colonialism.[61]

This point can be elaborated through a comparison of the impulses that distinguish processes of racialisation in the antebellum US from those in colonial Africa. Orlando Patterson’s ‘social death’ thesis, which Wilderson and Sexton take as inherent to the black condition, posits three elements of coercive power in slavery: violence, dishonour and natal alienation. It is easy to see all three manifested in the condition of the black slave in the Americas. Dislocated from kinship relations and subjected to brutal relations of force, ‘their political existence [had] been destroyed’.[62] Try as they might, Sexton and Wilderson’s generalisation of natal alienation as embedded in the black condition cannot stand against the empirical evidence that we now have regarding the technologies of colonial rule.

In colonial southern Africa, the need for labour to service the farms, mines and industries – set up by settlers for the purposes of capital accumulation – necessitated interventions in the pre-capitalist social formations that still existed in the periphery.[63] On one hand, labour needed to be geographically mobile: this meant that the formal, predominantly male workforce needed to spend increasing periods of time away from the homestead. On the other hand, labour migrancy presented the possibility of ‘detribalisation’, disrupting birthrates and the possibility of ‘full proletarianisation’.[64]

Consequently, urban centres and the rural periphery had an interdependent but contradictory relationship in which the colonial administrations required both the integration of the native into capitalistic wage labour and the maintenance of ‘elements of pre-existing relationships’ to preserve the ability to reproduce the workforce.[65] The contradiction between legitimacy and accumulation meant that colonial authorities frequently intervened to strengthen the hold of kinship bonds, in order to secure young men’s labour in a system of indirect rule. Wage labour was ethnicised, with ethnic identity often determining which forms of labour were performed. Workers were often employed through ‘tribal’ authorities. Thus, the African’s primary relationship to the state was neither as a worker, nor as a black, but as Xhosa, Zulu, et cetera. These cultural identities were in turn stabilised as ‘biological’ lineages. This fragmentary worker status, in which an interaction between the urban mining and cash-crop areas and the (ethnicised) homestead was institutionally mandated, refracted relations of super-exploitation.[66]

This phenomenon of ‘class-ethnic structures’ stands in stark contrast to the technologies of the transatlantic slave trade. Without a steady stream of slave labour from across an ocean, colonial authorities had to consider the long-term reproduction of the workforce. Without the complete dislocation from traditional hierarchies of authority that the transatlantic passage represented, colonial authorities found themselves competing with pre-existing loyalties and political obligations. Thus, these problems were incorporated and transformed by administrators who sought to stabilise and absorb these pre-colonial socio-political formations.[67] Thus, while it is understandable that the ‘blacks who lived in the United States, Central, and Latin America in fact needed a cultural matrix to cling to’, the phenotypical register of blackness obscures much more than it illuminates regarding the various technologies mobilised to violently incorporate Africans into global capitalism.[68]

Were we to think of these two cases in conjunction, without the baggage of a mystifying search for a programmatic ‘anti-blackness’, we see a different set of similarities. Consider, for example, Steve Biko’s claim that ‘being black is not a matter of pigmentation’, which is elaborated in the logic he advances in addressing the unity, under the banner of blackness, of those designated as ‘Africans’, ‘Indians’ and ‘Coloureds’ by Apartheid:

What we should at all times look at is the fact that:

We are all oppressed by the same system.

That we are oppressed to varying degrees is a deliberate design to stratify us not only socially but also in terms of the enemy’s aspirations.

Therefore it is to be expected that in terms of the enemy’s plan there must be this suspicion and that if we are committed to the problem of emancipation to the same degree it is part of our duty to bring to the black people the deliberateness of the enemy’s subjugation scheme.[69]

Biko’s second point is crucial. Afro-pessimism treats the distinction between morphological blackness and non-blackness as simply social (which is to say that it conceives of race as a hierarchy of stigma, in which the permanently dishonoured state of blacks places them outside of humanity); Wilderson and Sexton relegate dynamics of exploitation as incidental to blackness. Biko’s point is a corrective to this, opening the door to an exploration of the manner in which the class-ethnic structure, and its afterlife in post-colonial states, mirrors in many ways the class-racial structure of US slave society, and its afterlife.[70] These structures act to mystify relations of production. We see class relations materially refracted through ethnic and racial lines. Relatedly, the division of labour along racial and ethnic lines. In colonial southern Africa, white and Indian workers were incorporated into this structure through the reservation of specific, often skilled, roles for these groups.[71] In the US, this manifested first in hierarchies of unwaged labour, then in the active exclusion of blacks from various industries and skilled positions.

Thus, when Sexton describes the position of the Black thus – ‘A slave is one without standing anywhere, no matter how elevated in role or material circumstance. … Even the enslaved state functionary or military conscript. Even the manumitted slave gainfully employed, awaiting recapture’ – we must see this move for what it is, an abdication on the part of Afro-pessimism of a responsibility to contend with both the divergent processes of racialisation and ethnicisation in colonial and slave contexts, and the material reorientation of ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ spearheaded by the National Liberation tradition, in which both Fanon and Biko situate their work. Indeed, in this light, the incomprehensibility of ‘external superviolence’ which characterises Blackness for Wilderson is exposed as a mystification produced by his own loaded problematic.

Can’t Fight, Won’t Fight

To educate man to be actional, preserving in all his relations his respect for the basic values that constitute a human world, is the prime task of him who, having taken thought, prepares to act.

— Frantz Fanon[72]

So I think that what I have to offer is not a way out. What I have to offer is an analysis of the problem.

— Frank Wilderson[73]

It is often taken for granted that movements which resist dominant forms of exploitation and oppression have the capacity to reproduce themselves in different forms, at different points in history. As a result, we are liable to appropriate the language and heroes of past political insurgency and imagine ourselves the bearers of their traditions. This presumption, which unthinkingly ties political traditions of the past to contemporary politics, is quite mistaken. Of course, Marx has a line about tragedy and farce which is now clichéd. As a consequence, the political salience of historical retrieval is not always immediately obvious, both to organisers who often relate to political tradition through a series of canonical memes, and to historians for whom the task of reclaiming context usually serves to trap political logics in the past.

It is easy to imagine why, in the context of a global shift in the balance of forces, when revolution seemed imminent, the Panthers were able to construct an integrative theory of racial solidarity between people of colour. Where today we have seen the privatisation of various crucial functions of the state’s repressive apparatus, for them, the enemy was visibly unified; the troops on the ground in Vietnam bore the same stars and stripes as the police forces which terrorised black communities within the US. Thus, the literature of the Party is replete with striking analyses which are attentive to our capacity to redefine which communities of resistance we see ourselves as part of. The Party was able to attend to the particular struggles of Afro-Americans whilst maintaining that the subject of revolution was universal, thus asserting the necessary interdependence of human freedom. Consider, for example, these comments from the Party’s International Co-ordinator Connie Matthew’s speech at the Vietnam Moratorium demonstration, and Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Chapter and founder of the famous Rainbow Coalition in Chicago:

We got to face some facts. That the masses are poor, that the masses belong to what you call the lower class, and when I talk about the masses, I’m talking about the white masses, I’m talking about the black masses, and the brown masses, and the yellow masses, too. We’ve got to face the fact that some people say you fight fire best with fire, but we say you put fire out best with water. We say you don’t fight racism with racism. We’re gonna fight racism with solidarity. We say you don’t fight capitalism with no black capitalism; you fight capitalism with socialism.

(Fred Hampton)[74]

Now whenever the Vietnamese fight, and they are fighting, and they have won the war, they are fighting for you here. … Now, I am saying you have had what is known as group freedom and you are trying to find individual freedom. We are all one people, this is all one country, in fact in the world we are all one people, so until everyone has known what group freedom is you are not going to be able to exist in your hippy and yippie societies with individual freedom.

(Connie Matthews)[75]

These in turn echo Bobby Seale’s mantra that ‘the best care package we can send to the other liberation struggles around the world is the work that we do at home.’ [76]

The Black Panther Party had developed towards this politics of intercommunalism through sustained contact with the national-liberation movements of the global South, most notably through Algiers. This engagement opened up the space for the articulation of a universalist politics through the particularity of localised forms of domination. It is no wonder, then, that a surviving Party reading-list includes Frantz Fanon’s Wretched of the Earth and Studies on a Dying Colonialism, written through the transformative experience of participation in the Algerian Revolution, rather than the Afro-pessimist-favoured Black Skin, White Masks.[77] This stands in stark contrast to theoretical tendencies in contemporary ‘anti-blackness’ theory. Today, the prevalent engagement with the latter, instead of the former, has produced readings which extract Fanon from the context of struggle which animated his work. This leads people to treat him as simply a theorist of race, rather than a revolutionary who saw race as a technology of imperialism.

However, it is important to remember that the Panthers were not the only ones articulating such a radical form of solidarity. They shared their analyses with the infamous ‘political blackness’, which now sees the anti-racist left in the UK turn in on itself, as well as the South African Black Consciousness movement. When the Panthers closed the gap between the local and global arenas, this undermined the ideological stability of racial difference. For South African students, and migrants in Britain, an expansive definition of Black – incorporating Africans and Asians (mostly from the subcontinent) in Britain, and Africans, Indians and ‘coloured people’ in South Africa – presented a substantial challenge not only to the systemic racism faced by those colonial and post-colonial subjects within the metropole on one hand, and at the heart of a settler-colonial project of accumulation on the other, but also to the very processes of racialisation and ethnicisation which mystify relations of exploitation.

If one can imagine why, in strength, the hand of solidarity is easily extended, this raises pertinent questions about the contemporary political arena. The 1980s neoliberal backlash against the increasing political power of the Third World and its diasporas in the West has resulted in a chronically weak Left and a restructuring of the economic and social relations upon which communities were conceived. It is in this context that the #BlackLivesMatter movement and more academically-directed decolonisation movements such as Rhodes Must Fall have emerged and spread across the globe. Both movements, and their eponymous slogans, intervene in a historically unprecedented moment, where identity-based social justice politics have largely replaced class politics. While Union density in Europe and North America is waning and the language of class is increasingly scarce, a new brand of identity politics is on the ascendancy in many arenas, not least university campuses.

Though Afro-pessimism could well do without contemporary identity politics, and intersectionality, its most recognisable watchword – and in many ways is trying to – it is a gap left by intersectionality, in accounting for the existence (rather than nature) of oppression that has brought it into political spaces. Thus, in order to understand the zeitgeist of anti-racist organising today, we must be allowed to fearlessly interrogate the two as integrative, with an implicit social theory which is profoundly limited in what it conceives of as politically possible. Without the transformative and clarifying power of struggle, the theoretical tension between individual and structure with which Afro-pessimism is confronted, just like in Crenshaw’s juridical theory, is resolved through a particular concept of identity as the manner in which structure manifests in individuals. This leaves us with a social theory that treats structures of domination as pathogenic, creating multiple oppressor and oppressed binaries. Against the pathologisation of the oppressed, this politics pathologises ‘privilege’. It results in a logic which dictates that not to share in the experiences which are generalised among a given group is to be implicated in the oppression of that group. In other words, it means the impossibility of genuine solidarity.

Afro-pessimism meets this charge by positing an ‘anti-black’ solidarity among ‘non-black’ people. Thus, it is concerning that the framework acts as a mechanism of determining social power (the right to speak on or organise around issues) in political spaces with three key premises: Firstly, collapsing the distinction between ‘blackness’ as a project of mystification – along with its social, political and economic processes of non-consensual ethnicisation – and ‘Africanness’ as a historical fact. Secondly, the essentialisation of blackness, as a coherent and stable category that was invested with a set of stigmatising values by imperial encounters, rather than being de facto created by the imperial encounters themselves. Third, the collectivisation of ‘black’ trauma within an imaginary, which is reminiscent of Black Nationalism, and sees the transatlantic slave trade as simultaneously an origin-story and an (albeit crucial) event in the longer trajectory of a coherent people.

What, then, are we fighting for? I want to open the door to this critical, but absent, conversation around anti-racist organising – the space for such conversations is desperately needed. Indeed, many of the claims about race that I have challenged created a suffocating climate in the last decade in which dissent from shared assumptions and attempts to develop theoretical grounds for solidarity are routinely characterised as ‘anti-black’.

Thinking back to the words of Fanon and Wilderson which opened this conclusion, we see a contrast that illuminates phenomena responsible for the contemporary prominence of this particular language of black exceptionalism. However, the best that this politics can offer us is a fight without a purpose. Since this account of how the world works genuinely believe that these identities – and the conflicts which they purportedly entail – are insurmountable, its conception of emancipation is either messianic, genocidal, or it otherwise does not believe that emancipation is possible. Thus, anti-blackness, an unrelenting and totalising beast, an omnipresent hindrance to selfhood, is impossible to effectively resist. Like Fanon’s French negro, freedom in this account must come to blacks from without – to struggle is pointless. And yet, for this very reason, having abdicated liberatory struggle in favour of despair, when dancing in the ashes at the end of the world, we would still ‘[know] nothing of the cost of freedom’.

#afro-pessimism #frantz fanon #blacklivesmatter #muslimlivesmatter #identity politics #idpol #anti-racism #dialectical materialism #historical materialism #socialism

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thenickelportrust · 6 years

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if mc dies but is resurrected by a certified villain (as in holy hell that man is EVIL) for villain-y purposes and debuts as their number two, how would the ro's react? bonus: mc can't remember who they were before they died but feels like they know the ro in question?

This is kind of related in theme to last nights angst-fest even though this ask is technically unrelated I’m just gonna imagine that this is post-dying-in-their-arms. (Does… Does that make it better or worse?)

(Then we can also add to the “holy hell that man is EVIL” aspect if we say that the villain was the one who killed them, no?)

Finley: They… they watched them die. They felt their fingers go cold and held them until their lips were pale blue. They were there when they were lowered into the ground and they were there until it was covered with dirt. Even after- there’s- there’s just no way-

But the clues all line up and with the debut it is undeniable because Finley would recognize that voice anywhere. They could still hear it, in quiet moments, responding to questions they forget won’t actually be answered. It’s all felt wrong, so, extraordinarily wrong but this… this is a whole new kind of wrong. Something happened. Something bad. Something awful.

Dead or alive or… whatever this is it doesn’t matter. That’s the MC, and Finley promised long ago they’d always be there, to help them even in the worst of scenarios and they don’t intend on breaking that promise now.

If nothing else, there’s hope now where there wasn’t before. And they’ve gotta cling to whatever they can. That, at least, hasn’t changed since their death.

Raf: He thinks he’s hallucinating the first time he sees them. He has to be. There’s no way- they were dead. That was undeniable. He held their hand and felt the chill of death himself. But… but they’re there- and he’s- he’s so happy at first, he starts crying, how could he help it?

But they… they don’t remember him. And more than that something isn’t right. Joining with the villain, the way they’re acting…? No, none of it is right.

Jacob: Jacob had never stopped trying to save the MC until it was too late. This just means he still has work to do. And there’s a long fight ahead of him… But Jacob has never backed down from a challenge.

Especially not for the one he loves.

Lucy: They’re alive! They’re actually, honestly, alive! They’re here and they’re alive! Ok, sure, maybe its a li’l shit still considering, well, they don’t recognize her and that stings- a lot- and they’re also kind of working for a villain- not the best, admittedly. But they’re alive!

Now she’s just got a new battle to fight. But she’s always fighting for them.

Yolanda: When she doesn’t recognize Yolanda something snaps within her- it was already broken after she’d died but Yolanda had scrapped together all she could to tie it once more. Having it broken again is a more painful experience than she could have ever possibly dared to conceive…

But the pain will push her forward. She knows now who it is that did this to the MC, and if resurrection is possible then she’d be fool to say anything else isn’t. There’s a chance, now, and it’s more than she had before.

Yolanda’s performed miracles with less.

Eileen: She can’t- she just can’t take this kind of thing anymore. She held them as they died- and that was bad enough, that tore out her heart, shredded it beyond repair. That had already broke her. To see them again just drove the nail deeper, hope flaring up as she reached out, calling their name.

Just to be cast aside.

This is not the person she loves. Loved. They are not evil. Were. They were kind. They were not… Not this. Not them. They are still dead.

But she cannot take it anymore, cannot take this life in Nickelport of constantly having her hope and love crushed beneath the boots of people more powerful than she could have ever imagined. She’s done. Done with this place.

The person she loves is dead, whether or not their body is under or above ground makes no difference anymore, because they were never just a body. This is an imposter in their face.

There’s nothing more in Nickelport for Eileen, so she leaves.

Informant: He’d been trying to process all that had happened and now there’s even more to try and understand and he- he-

No. It doesn’t matter how he feels. He needs to look at the facts. And the fact is that the MC is alive. They don’t remember him. They’re under some kind of… persuasion by this villain. But their alive.

That’s a start.

He can deal with everything else afterwards.

Ricky: This isn’t- this- none of this is how anything was supposed to go. And to think- the MC had almost made him believe that these sudden, unexpected changes were a good thing- for everything they brought into his life up until… that, was good, great, even, better than he could have ever imagined but…

This is nothing like that.

No but… Long ago the MC helped save Ricky from himself, and, if he thinks of it like that, it becomes a little easier. The thought that he could, somehow, in some way, return the favor seems almost… plausible.

Nothing they ever accomplished ever seemed plausible, yet they still accomplished so much. Ricky is not them, not by a long shot.

But perhaps it wouldn’t hurt to try.

V: V’s been out for blood ever since the MC’s death. Now they just know exactly whose blood to draw- though there’s a new problem now, too, it’s certainly a fixable one. It has to be.

Who knows? Perhaps they should even thank the villain, too. After all, they’ve brought them back, didn’t they? V can work with back.

#answers #model citizens unmasked #everyone

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