I Like Myself Too Much

I couldn’t resist

I knew exactly what I was in for but that didn’t stop me from absolutely losing it

star wars heritage post

honestly i love how the faster pace made annabeth seem 900% more batshit. girl watched percy for 45 minutes total and then pushed him into a river. no explanation, no buildup. it’s like the third scene she’s in and it establishes her perfectly. casual drop that she is the head camper of the athena cabin with no explanation as to what that even means. this girl’s soul is 750 years old and does not even care that it’s in a twelve year old body. iconic.

bless this iteration of Percy Jackson for genuinely believing, for at least three seconds, that he is the second coming of Christ

“My thesis is that at many levels of human interaction there is the opportunity to conflate discomfort with threat, to mistake internal anxiety for exterior danger, and in turn to escalate rather than resolve.” (from Conflict Is Not Abuse by Sarah Schulman. highly recommend it if you’re interested in having better dialogues and feeling less defensive in your life)

In the New Complete Book of Self-Sufficiency, John Seymour - who pretty much defined the principles of “self-sufficiency” as a modern political movement - goes into detail about conflict and community-building. So far from today’s interpretation of self-sufficiency as an American prepper-homesteader isolated from their neighbors - self-sufficient in the sense of “alone” - he envisioned self-sufficient in the sense of “not needing to buy things,” whether that was buying things for pure survival or buying things just to feel good. Seymour felt strongly that a community of close friends, preferably meeting frequently in pubs with wood-burning fires and live music, was a hallmark of being especially practical and self-sufficient; and if you think about it, you’ll see that it makes sense.

After all, if you want to buy absolutely nothing - if you want to create a way to live separate from society - you cannot do it like Thoreau; even Thoreau wasn’t doing it like Thoreau; you have to create an separate society, a self-sufficient community, and live in that.

And interestingly Seymour put his finger on “why communes fail.”

In his experience, which was deep and broad, experiments in self-sufficient communities/communes virtually always failed. And not because the idealistic fools weren’t capable of growing crops, or chopping wood, or whatever. It isn’t even the founders were stupid or ignorant or inexperienced, or because self-sufficiency only attracts dramatic personalities. No, the communities he observed consistently failed because they had no ability to resolve conflict. Every group of people will have to come to a tricky decision, resolve a sticky situation, have an awkward conversation or even just get along with unideal situations. They didn’t fall apart because a sheep fell in a ditch; anyone can get a sheep out of a ditch; they fell apart over the arguments about ideology, ditches, sheep and blame. It was always some issue of conflict or communication that broke these well-meaning, well-intentioned, well-educated people apart.

Step back from that and think: people frequently try to live outside capitalism even in this modern world, people frequently try to live in the most environmentally-friendly way, people frequently try to envision an alternative to a hostile state, even in this world where it is difficult or impossible to do so. For every utopia you might picture, people (being people) will have already made a decent attempt at building and living it, in the hope of showing it or even giving it to you. And those utopias aren’t here at the moment for you to have, because it’s terrifically difficult to make communities out of nothing. And that’s largely because it’s very hard to have communication skills about anything at all, let alone something that gets you mad.

So it’s worth having communication skills. As a matter of self-sufficiency.

If you have ever worked with the public, remember: the public will be part of your politically utopic community.

All the mommy bloggers, all the brosephs, all the every single customer or client or other person you have dealt with who you wanted to fucking strangle, or at least wanted to be allowed one of those amazing moments of Put Down that viral reddit posts are made of, every single frustrating as fuck human: they will be part of your post-capitalist utopia.

They will not wake up, the morning of the revolution, and suddenly become different people. Your choices will be to line them all up against a wall and shoot them . . . .or figure out how to live with them in your community. (And multiple revolutions in the past hundred years have tried that whole "line them up and shoot them" thing, tried it REAL HARD, and it didn't work out great for them either.)

The more de-industrial, de-urbanized, de-impersonal, whatever, your ideal society is? The more it will involve having to work, and work well, and work effectively and without interpersonal violence (physical or social) against people who irritate the fuck out of you.

And no, we never really had any Neat Trick to make that easier in the past. What we most often had was survival pressure so intense that the threat of being ostracized (or having the group turn on you) was enough to force resolutions that nobody was really happy with, or that left an unspoken wound to fester for generations, or to offer up a scapegoat to vent the community's violence on and then pretend to move on, or . . . .

Etc.

If you want a cooperative, non-violent, non-coercive community, and especially if you want that to be the norm, you end up having to learn to work collaboratively and productively with the person who irritates and frustrates and upsets you most in the ENTIRE world. And if you can't picture doing that, then maybe it's time for some self-reflection about how you really want the world to work, and what you're capable of contributing to that.

Reposting this quote from The New Complete Guide to Self-Sufficiency just because I find it extremely funny:

“Do not be put off if you find some of the people irritating or bizarre in some way. You have to remember that several of these people are likely to become very good friends as time goes by.”

Do not be put off if you find some of the people irritating or or bizarre in some way. You have to remember that several of these people are likely to become very good friends as time goes by.

i spent THIRTEEN YEARS waiting for an age accurate casting of percy jackson but now that it's here and i am no longer a child looking at heroes my age, i'm just plain HORRIFIED on behalf of these children.

I think now would be a great time for that

genuinely stunned at the fantastic choice for Percy not to pray to his absent and unknown father—like he did in the books—but to his mother.

the show is really taking us to one of riordan’s central theses straight off the bat.

parenthood isn’t about power and legacy and the recognition of shared blood.

It’s about the incredible act of showing up for your child—again and again and a-fucking-gain. That’s how you inspire respect. That’s how you become a child’s patron and beloved god.

gotta say hearing luke tell percy that annabeth is head counselor of the athena cabin and the cut to annabeth herself—my mind instantly went “what??? how??? she’s twelve???” like I KNOW she’s head counselor. I’ve known since I was in second grade. but actually SEEING a twelve year old child being put in charge of a cabin full of teenagers rewired something in my brain. and that’s how I know seeing these kids fight is going to break me

how are they gonna adequately prepare whatever child they cast for nico di angelo. it has got to be impossible for someone that young to give informed consent about playing the saddest wettest loser in all of human history. like hey kid i know youre sprightly and all of ten, but we need you to be in all five stages of grief at all times. remember, your mother was killed in fascist italy, youre eighty years old, and now youre in love with the guy who killed your sister. say this next line like you know what it's like to be an ear of corn.

slamming my head against a wall again and again and again and again

STAR TREK: STRANGE NEW WORLDS (2022-) S01E07, THE SERENE SQUALL

EXCELLENT WORK EVERYONE KEEPING THE MISSPELLED TAG TRENDING DYSLEXIC PERCY WOULD BE PROUD

and is there a mister carriage?

Yes. This guy.

I made this image for my geology loving friend