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Chris wasn't a discordian, but his attitude sure as fuck was
https://thesolmann.blogspot.com/?zx=8d4ec2cedd90f2de

The world may come at you with knives
and try to cut away the pieces of you
that do not fit their vision
of who you should have been

The voices may pile up one atop the other
screaming your inadequacies
Rehashing every loss and sorrow
You never learned to grieve

And you may spend your whole life fighting
And never seem to make ground
You may lose your friends
And see your enemies in power

But know this

You do not have to fulfill any prophesy
You do not have to avenge the girl
You do not even have to get your shit together
To be worthy of this love

You are enough as you are now
With your failures and your fears
With your dreams unaccomplished
With your weaknesses and doubt

You with every goofy grin
With your scars and addictions
With the weirdness to your walk
And your terrible fashion sense

You are loved

The Future is Bad For You

I have some bad news for you folks. The Future isn't coming, it's already here.

And you're not halfway ready for it.

The Future has all the Wrong Values, and doesn't regret anything. The Future thinks "profit" and "nationality" make about as much sense as hats with buckles on. The Future doesn't have any fucking time for your business model, because it already chewed up and spat out five other companies like you last week and it's SO BORED with that now.

The Future doesn't need flying cars, because it has phone watches and 3D printers and never needs to be alone or ignorant again unless it chooses to be. The Future already has an improvement on the improvement to your greatest achievements, and it was released last week open source.

The Future is a hypocrite, and it's going to make sure that you know you're one, too. The Future is full of Causes and the ones that resonate with Freedom and Civil Rights and Equality will survive and the ones that come from dusty old books will die with the last generation that knows what a dial-up modem sounded like. The Future is going to come down on you like a ton of bricks.

But maybe it's not all bad.

If you can listen to The Future, it will sing you a song of things to come. Of art and culture and plenty. Ideas bouncing off one another, interacting, giving birth to strange new abominations and games that look like reality and a reality that's made of nothing but games. The Future wants to have fun, and it has the means to make it happen. The Future writes itself.

If you learn to swim with The Future, you will see yourself changing. Old identities -- and even the concept of identity -- are sloughed off and replaced with costumes that are easily worn and removed as appropriate (or amusing). Core convictions that once filled whole mountainsides in engraved text now fit inside a locket, and are worn close to the heart. The Future doesn't believe in money, and you'd be amazed how much that will save you.

So, consider us your ambassadors from The Future, the terrible world that's right outside your door. Coffee and sandwiches are on the wall to your left.

It's going to be a very long week.

Was he always a twat or did he descend into twathood? If it was a descent, where you you mark the line?

He was my backup husband, because my real husband is so fucking danger prone and headstrong and has such a terrible diet we all joke that I'll be a widow someday. I feel like a widow today. He was tall with dark hair and watery blue eyes and I was in love with him before I ever saw his face. We stayed up all night writing and editing, sharing memes and confessions in the dark. He was alone and cold in the dark when he died.

Our brains came from the same "irregular" bin, we'd say, the same flavors of crazy and creative. He was better at pounding out wordcount, I was better at quips and poetry. We were propagandists, provocateurs. We tilted at windmills and brought down empires and swore to make sailors blush. He loved the Atlantic maritime aesthetic, tall ships and salt water. Loved his city and his country and his island home. We'd give each other shit for using different units of measure, for the slightest differences in accent. We both lived with one foot in politics and the other in activism. Our victories were beautiful and our defeats crushed us.

We'd stay on the phone til all hours and he'd take his breaks here and there for a cigarette after promising me a thousand times he'd quit. He was an addict, and like all addicts he lied about things but none more than his addiction and the state of his recovery. He wasn't when I met him, unless you count the cigarettes. Grief and a sudden influx of cash gave him the ability to fall much further down a hole than most people can before hitting a bottom. We stopped talking for two years because I couldn't watch him self destruct from 400 miles away. I sat on the fire escape and cried my eyes out as the sun set. He preferred chaste little kisses to passionate ones, and wanted his turn as the little spoon. I threw the creative output of our breakup on the table in a real and literal sense when he came back to town. He told me I hadn't changed. He had.

I stayed up with him too late and he soaked up my tears while the world seemed fake and dangerous, like cracking ice I would fall through. He had a roll to his gait and he'd snort when he laughed and had way too many strong opinions about science fiction. He was getting better.

He loved my husband and us as a couple and my husband loved him in the same brotherly way. Co-conspirators, comrades in arms. His mother didn't know what to make of it but she knew he was better when he was with us, knew Boston did him good, knew the relief on his face when I said I would meet with him again and see if I could handle having him back in my life. She said it was too bad I was married, but never when I was in earshot. We rescheduled our wedding in the hopes that he'd make the trip. I was always giving him shit that he never showed up as soon or as often as he promised. He was always over-promising.

He was a fighter and he couldn't give up a losing fight or even admit when he'd found one. He got paranoid and he'd forget that he was loved and who loved him. He saw magic in everything.

He was, and that's the hardest thing to say: "he was." Because thirty eight is not old enough and never married is not old enough and still talked about wanting kids someday, the work he was still doing to salvage his relationship with his mom the work we were doing to patch ourselves back together turn into whatever we were going to be it's not enough and now it never will be because he was.

God
Is the moment
When you nearly burst into tears
In the back of a cab
Because you want nothing more
Than to plant a soft kiss
On the cheek of the driver
Who has been through so much
And seen so many things
Lived such a complex life
Of joys and sorrows
Across three countries
And sixty years
And has offered you the barest glimpse
In this short time you have together
It is being completely overwhelmed
With love for a stranger
For just being

I am an unreliable narrator you say. I never know what's happening. You are too put together to bother with her. She forgets, she falls apart, she looks at things from the wrong angles. You feel nothing about her. I can't stop feeling things. Life is a firehose I am fighting all the time I don't know how to function without a fight and you are maddeningly unscathed. She is unplugged, malformed, unstuck from time, she is struggling and crying and screaming and I am just trying to hold you together just trying to get you through this just trying to find a light in the distance to point out: we just need to make it that far. You go through motions. Sometimes you forget to breathe. She can't feel her face right. I don't know how to save her. There are no walls between us. You feel the pit in your stomach, the creeping dread. You are where you are. Nothing is right. Her legs aren't real, her body creaks like an old house. She only speaks in metaphor, she only lives as metaphor. I write and write and people say what beautiful fiction and you do not see that it's just reality from another side, that there is no skill here no beauty no trickery or smoke or mirrors just what I am splayed out what she is pinned to the wall where you were and will be and you are walking through like a dream following a script you never wrote. She is chasing butterflies in a field because that's what dreamy girls are supposed to do. She isn't supposed to be there yet. You know what you're supposed to do but you keep forgetting. Everything is out of order. Floodgates rusted shut and a torrent behind. Flat affect. lips sealed tight against anything that would give away the game. She wanted to be something but nothing worked out, biology got in the way the narrative of her life got in the way you can explain it all you can make it sound so rational and nobody questions a thing. Of course she's like that. It's nothing to be ashamed of. I'm not lazy I'm not selfish I'm not manipulating you it's not enough it's too late she can't open her mouth she can't be in the same place twice. She is staring at the hair tie on her wrist, she cannot look them in the eye. I have depression she is trying to scream it but nothing comes out the face doesn't move you can't deal with it right now you aren't going to deal with it nobody can make you and you evaluate your steps did you drink water did you eat food did you sleep like sleep could make a dent in this thing that she is that you are like there's a chicken soup a cure for crazy you're not crazy you are she is I am.

I never wish for serenity. And knowing that, I should not be surprised that I never get it. But even when I reflect on this omission on my part, I never seem to change my wishing ways.

I see serene people in my life, I know that it is a possible thing. But the people I see who are content bring up bile in the back of my throat: the wealthy, the lazy, the willfully ignorant. Nothing could be further from my heart's desires than to settle for *this*, to set down my megaphone and shake the tension out of my fists, to decide that this is good enough. I am a malcontent, and I know it will kill me in the end.

I never wish for an end to the fight. There are days I cannot even imagine what an end would look like. Other days it's all to clear to me: a boot on the face forever and ever, we all love Big Brother, a tiny upper crust making merry on the backs of billions as the world burns. And to say that all the danger is external would be a lie, I know too that I have my inner struggles, my own dragons to slay.

I wish for a better sword. I wish for a stronger shield. I wish for a pitcher of water and more ammunition, for you at my side at the end of the world. Forever.

One time I was moving out of one apartment and into another one just across the street (there were three apartment complexes all bunched together in this little patch of land just outside of the high property tax college town we orbited). My eldest was a wee little thing in a stroller and I wasn't yet pregnant with #2. It was a nice day and I was free to do some moving work while my husband was out at work.

For some reason, I had gotten the idea in my head that I had to deal with the air conditioner in our old unit. Looking back I can't imagine how I got there, I don't think we bought the fucker and we sure as hell didn't need it at the new place, but here I was sure that I had to get the thing out of the wall before we handed over the keys. There was one of those holes high in the wall for the AC to sit in, the base of it at about 6 feet. Not too high for me to reach, but high enough that it's above my head. And I shuffled the unit out ok, and started to pull it out before I realized that no, I did not have this. And the weight shifted forward and I put myself in the way, the front of the air conditioner mushed into my face and my arms barely holding the thing in place, the edge of its little alcove in the wall the only thing preventing me from losing control of the situation completely.

I did not have this. I could not hold this fucker at the angle I had it. I could not readjust without losing control even further and everything crashing to the ground. So I froze. And it felt like forever standing there, baby sitting quietly in the stroller just in the other room, phone perched above her and out of reach. There was no way out. But I could not stay. I am not going to die here with an air conditioner on my face. So I shifted my weight and pulled it forward and let the fucker fall, keeping my toes out of the way. And I controlled the fall enough that it didn't break and I moved on with my life.

No matter how hopeless the situation, sometimes you just have to decide that you are not going to die here with an air conditioner on your face.

bitches I'm blocked again, fix it.

As someone who leans decidedly to the left on many issues, I would like to take a moment to express how utterly and completely DONE I am with liberals accusing conservatives of being hypocrites. Seriously, over it.

For starters, it accomplishes nothing. The people who are voting conservative are not unaware of the hypocrisy of their leaders, they have made a calculated decision that what they gain from electing inconstant dickweasels far outweighs whatever damage to their immortal souls they're incurring consorting with hypocrites. You won't change someone's mind or vote with an accusation of hypocrisy, so stop wasting your breath.

For another thing, it's distracting. Attacking someone for hypocrisy invites a debate as to how hypocritical a particular action is, and what someone's true moral compass looks like, and how much of a compromise position is really acceptable, and whether forgiveness is a valuable trait in a voting bloc. And sure, if hypocrisy were literally the worst thing in the world, it would be worth having that debate, but THERE ARE WORSE THINGS THAN HYPOCRISY. If you're mad about children being detained and teargassed, just be mad about that. Don't muddy the waters debating whether or not Jesus would be happy with Christians who pulled that shit.

For one more thing, it's self-destructive. If one side decides it is the party of no hypocrisy, that side will lose. Because you will have serial gropers, texters of dick pics, people who made bad jokes ten years ago and folks who are bad at keeping up with their taxes in any group of people. But if one side is willing to burn those fuckers to the ground internally and the other side is willing to tolerate that bullshit so long as their objectives are still being met, guess which side is at an advantage?

I'm not voting in favor of hypocrisy. I just want people to stop pretending that it's the most important issue of the day.

There is an idea floating around that goes something like "the language we speak controls the thoughts we are able to have." It's the subject of serious study, and like all good bullshit there is a corn kernel of truth in it, but the fact is that it's still bullshit.

The arguments in favor go thus: several experiments have been able to demonstrate that certain functions of the mind are, indeed, tied to the available vocabulary, and without that vocabulary the mind simply refuses to recognize some concepts. Languages that do not differentiate blue from green, for example, produce people who don't draw a line between the two colors, and indeed there are whole cities that have blue lights on their traffic signals because well who gives a shit, it's still under the "grue" umbrella, isn't it? In another example, deaf children who learned a limited vocabulary form of sign language were less able to imagine the inner mental experience of others, and this was not changed until they were exposed to people with a wider vocabulary, at which point they caught up quickly with their peers.

So, if we extrapolate this outward, you can see the pull towards imagining that all of human experience is dictated by our language filters. That we are incapable of feeling things for which we have no name, and the things that we can feel have an indelible mark upon them based on our available vocabulary. Perhaps this extends out even further, and there are whole realms of existence that we are blind to from lack of words to understand them.

This, again, is bullshit.

We have all experienced the "wit of the stairwell," when you think of just the right thing to say after the moment is lost and you can never get it back again, regardless of whether we're speakers of French or have heard the term "l'esprit d'escalier." The internet was overjoyed when it found the word "shadenfreude" to perfectly describe its pre-existing love of watching others suffer. Even neologisms like "sonder" have not opened up new feelings -- most of us had already felt at one point or another the complex emotional stew that accompanies an acute realization that others' lives are as real and complex as our own. Experiences can defy our ability to describe them, which by necessity means that our experiences are not limited to what we can describe.

There is, however, something of value in all this.

Vocabulary does not limit what we can feel, but it does put a limit on what we can express, and a lack of vocabulary can pump the brakes on our self-reflection and even our ability to cope. Processing an emotion often requires a certain level of understanding, of examining the thing and putting it in the correct box on the mental shelf. We do this internally -- through the filter of our own consciousness and vocabulary -- and externally by talking things through with trusted friends. When we don't have a word for an experience, we have trouble putting it in the box ourselves, and we have trouble explaining it to others. We rely on metaphor and lengthy descriptions, which make us more self conscious about the whole thing. "If this was really so common, wouldn't there be a quick shorthand for it? I must really be crazy," quoth the brainweasels.

So expanding our vocabulary, especially our emotional vocabulary, is a huge positive thing! And as neologisms and hyper-specialized loanwords infect the wider world of internet english, we can expect to see improvements in our ability to process and communicate our own feelings, and an increased ability to empathize with the complex emotional states of others.

We're not going to start seeing word fairies, though, so quit it.

Sometimes the thing that's got you fucked up is too insignificant to justify just how fucked up you are.

Sometimes the monsters have no nads for you to kick.

Sometimes you find yourself overdosing on adrenaline and cortisol for no good reason at all.

Sometimes there's no hope of a satisfying narrative conclusion.

And you can hide from this reality, and you can deny this reality, you can live in this reality with no hope of ever growing up or out of your petty trauma and maladaptive coping mechanisms. You can be furious with this reality, and scream into the unfairness of not having a moment to dredge up and fight and win. You can insist that no you're fine really and let everyone else carry the burden of your shit, because you won't.

But these are choices, and you have other options as well.

If a narrative conclusion is what you need, then go and fucking make one. Your head's as big as mine, as big as all our heads: whole universes fit in there. Start using that machine for something more productive than Marvel Cinematic Universe continuity errors. Build yourself a monster and fight it. Build yourself a trauma and overcome it.

You've always been a flighty kid, a dreamy kid, a kid with an overactive imagination. Stop hating that and start using it. Stop wasting it on entertainment and start using it to heal yourself. Write a better story. Run a better game. Make better art. Run that "coming to terms with the past" narrative over and over until it wears a rut in your brain as familiar as the one that says you're an idiot who can't do anything right. Make it as automatic as the path from your bed to the toilet.

Because it turns out your brain doesn't actually give a shit whether the bad thing you're getting over is real or not, it just needs practice going through the motions. It turns out healing is a habit like any other, and "cheating" means absolutely nothing in this context. Sure, there are folks with specific monsters with nads they can kick, who need to spend time doing that thing, but if you are one of the many who is broken because of a thousand papercuts instead of a sword wound, take heed.

Pretending is more powerful than you know.

We are what we do

So if you don't know who you are, start doing things! Over time an identity will emerge, or something close enough that you can run with it. It may take a long time --years even -- and it's not remotely safe, but it's the only way out. Date somebody. Dump somebody. Go to Shakespeare In The Park. Buy a membership at a Museum. Find a library and start hanging out there.

Don't worry too much about clothing, hair, and accessories. Appearance isn't identity, it's just a way of presenting yourself to the world. As you start doing things, you'll find some outfits work better in certain situations than others, and some aesthetics get you further into the circles you find yourself. Go to a riot. Go to a city council meeting. Take an online course. Pick up a new hobby and find the other people doing it.

If money is no object you have more options, but even if you're struggling to get by you can still figure yourself out. Access to the internet puts tons of free, structured educational paths within reach, and countless communities for any interest you can imagine. If you don't have access where you live, libraries are free and have computers. Museums have free admission days. Volunteer opportunities don't have to be huge time sinks. Sit in on a church service. Collect trash and make something from it. Go for a walk and let yourself get a little lost.

This also applies if you know who you are and don't like it very much. Change comes by doing things, and if apologies are owed they don't have to be the first thing on your path to being a less shitty you. Pick up a paintbrush. Move away. Stop spending time with people who make you a worse person than you want to be.

I'm not crazy.

It's weird, because I spend a lot of time crazy, but right now I'm not. I'm sad, and scared, and have a problem with procrastination and confronting things sometimes, but it's not crazy. It's just human shit.

I wish there was a way to explain that subtle divide between crazy and not, to wrap it up in neat little paragraphs or poetry and go "see? This is the line." I don't even know how to start.

Maybe it's an issue of cohesiveness: an internal experience that's all one thing and not a war of screaming invasive thoughts and impulses. It's knowing the things that are in your head are all yours -- strike that, knowing that it's all you -- and not feeling a need for a dialogue or a conflict with it. It doesn't mean anything is resolved, there's still all the emotions and practical concerns that were there yesterday, and I'm crying at the drop of a hat and barely caught up with half of my work, but I'm not crazy.

The world is still a terrifying place and there is still so much wrong we may never recover, and I may be leaving my children a far more difficult life than my parents gave me. There are still fires and the theft of elections and the threat of war and social collapse. There are still nazis on our doorstep. Relationships are still hard.

I want to say it's like being in a pool, hearing everything muffled and muted by the water, but it's not like that at all. There is a reduction in the intensity of the experience, yes, but it's more like someone was screaming into a megaphone next to my head and only just now put the damn thing down. It's like finally taking your hand off the hot burner. There are still problems, and there is still pain, but it's less.

I've had times like this before. I know it's no guarantee that I've "made a breakthrough" and I'm "cured." My crazy is deep and rooted in the genes of my ancestors, a long line of uppity women with private battles as far back as the stories reach. I am not deluded.

I feel like I should be happier about this, excited, but really it's just a thing. I spend a lot of time crazy, so I have a lot of stuff built up to make me a functional crazy person. When I'm not, it's almost a little trouble adjusting back. Have to relearn how to make art like this, how to write, how to relate to other people. It's not a complaint, either, I like being safe in my own skin.

It's worth knowing. It's worth talking about.

To the parents
Of the kids
In the store-bought costumes

I worked hard putting together
My son's outfit tonight
Finding the right cloth
To obscure his face
Without obscuring his vision
Building the magic staff
With hidden flashlight
And enormous plastic gem
Fitting the overwrought custom mask
To his small face
Sewing him into his headgear
Because there was no other way
To secure it
Layering the right clothing
To keep him warm
While preserving the aesthetic
And here
Is your child
In a $10 ninja jumpsuit

I just wanted to say
That you should not let anyone
Disparage what your child is wearing
Or the effort you put in
Or the investment you made
I just wanted to say
That your child's happiness
Is the only thing that matters
And that their participation
In this silly tradition
Is more valuable than a chest full
Of custom-tailored costumes
I just wanted to say
That whatever your situation
Or your child's
I'm happy you came out tonight
And if anyone gives you shit
I will sic my son on them
With his ridiculous tentacleface

I put a bandanna in my purse
on the way out the door
reflexively
Because if there is teargas
you want to cover your mouth and nose
Because I was going out to an event
and I don't go to events anymore
where we don't worry about teargas
and nazis
There were people spraypainting signs
NO FASCISM and SOLIDARITY WITH CHARLOTTESVILLE
but there were no cops there
except the ones blocking traffic
and the dumptrucks they used to close the road
were too much like the ones they used
to block off the protesters from traffic
for fear of another Charlottesville
This is my whole life now
Everything is protests or politics or echoes of both
and even the places I escape to
are reflections of the fear and rage
the banshee wail I can't ever get out
and can never walk away from
it's become second nature
reflex
Because for two years there has been
a quiet war
And we fight it with cardboard
and bullhorns
and bandannas

What do you post here? Your favorite sentences from your own writing, or someone else's with attribution. Context is for losers.

She has tinnitus
Says it sounds like a symphony
Tones that ebb and flow into infinity
Words drop out she responds numbly
Smiles and nods like a foreigner in her own country
Her body is failing and she can hear
Everything

She has tinnitus
Says it's nothing really
Winces when the sound jabs too deeply
Can't stand the radio, hides at the party
It's always too much and she hates to be needy
Her body is failing and she can hear
Everything

She has tinnitus
Says it feels like a fantasy
The ambient soundtrack to her every reverie
The howling void outside our reality
The edges are ragged and she rides them fearlessly
The world is failing and she can hear
Everything

She has tinnitus
Says it's like electricity
Angels in the wiring screaming in assembly
Incomprehensible, prone to insanity
The simulation's failing and she can hear
Everything

The first thing you need to do is disabuse yourself violently of the notion that I am here to elevate the level of discourse. Hammers are an excellent tool for this purpose, but I'm sure you can figure something out in a pinch.

I'm not here for you.

Or maybe I am, but certainly not in a manner you anticipated or will enjoy. I spent all my patience today on hookers and homeless people, there is nothing left but teeth and claws and scales and batwings. I spent my afternoon vacuuming up a mummy. Well, to be fair that one was more of a corpse, but there was a mummy the other week I assure you, and the process of disposal puts me in A Mood.

And you would think all the incel, red pill, racial-realist, trans-exclusionary radical feminist, oppression cosplaying, kekistani, alt-right, nazi and nazi-adjacent fucks in the world would be enough of a punching bag for my rage, but it turns out they don't like getting punched in the face and chased around town and laughed at NEARLY as much as their uniforms would suggest, and they hardly show up at all anymore. No, I'm left with a seething rage at the universe and my left shoulder with No. Valid. Targets.

You wanna complain about complaining about complaining about bitching? Sure, you can rub your e-peen raw on it, no worse than self-insert Sonic fanfic. But motherfucker if you are going to SUMMON ME into your circlejerk of who's the better resistor based on arbitrary goddamned criteria on which forms of bitching are producting and valid, when I am already ready to burn the house down? That's the kind of tactical error they write books about. Whole graduate theses.

If the front line fighters of the culture wars do not shit their hate, they will die. If the support line resistors do not shit their hate, they will die. If the slactivists do not shit their hate, they will die. If the people trying to look badass for The Revolution do not shit their hate, they will die too. And if the WHOLE LOT OF THEM aren't vomiting their grievances on every platform conceivable, The Powers That Be will have a much easier time picking out the REAL troublemakers and making them go away.

But you never think about social camouflage, do you? Your intellectual contribution to The Revolution probably consists of several strongly worded letters and an "I Voted" sticker. Which wouldn't be bad at all, you know, if you didn't harangue the people fighting on the other fronts.

I hate you all.

How sad it must be
to be a flower
that has never known the touch
of a woman or a girl

To never be taken in soft finger tips
and feel the brush of her nose
the gentle kiss of her breath
as she takes in your scent

To wilt away in obscurity
never seeing a quiet smile
cross her pretty face
to be carried away into the world

How sad
and how utterly normal

You could fight, you could bleed, you could throw yourself on the cogs of the machine.
You could work yourself to exhaustion and wear the soles off of your shoes.
You could work, you could march, you could pour out the contents of your bleeding heart.
Or
You
Could
Just
Not.

No one is keeping score, no one even knows, no one is holding the fire to your toes.
There is no reward worth having and no punishment in store.

You
Could
Just
Not.

There's so much that you're missing, so many things you've lost
Your time, your cash, your energy, all offerings to the cause
You'll never get it back, and these battles never end
So
You
Could
Just
Not.

Your family is waiting, your friends you disavowed
The games, the parties, the playground, the worlds you used to know
There's still a space there for you, if you wouldn't yell so loud

You
Could
Just
Not.

https://imgur.com/a/qHZWNAs

This is for the big artsy things that have words on them. Most of these are also available words-free over in the Backgrounds thread

The contents of this thread are released Creative Commons: Non Commercial, No Derivatives. Technically they're supposed to be attributed too, but IDGAF about that. Cropping does not constitute derivative work, so go nuts with that if you want/need to, just ask if you want to smash things up with other pictures.

In general, I'm open to most other uses of this work, just ask here or email (qgpennyworth at gmail) and let me know what you have in mind.

Here's a link to the gallery, I'll be posting as I go. Only a couple uploaded so far, these are ones I made for the multifolds and hadn't exported yet

The contents of this thread are released Creative Commons: Non Commercial. They may be used commercially in any Discordian collection as long as it's vaguely in keeping with fair use principles (you're not releasing an entire book that's just my marginalia, for example). Technically they're supposed to be attributed too, but IDGAF about that.

In general, I'm open to most other uses of this work, just ask here or email (qgpennyworth at gmail) and let me know what you have in mind.

https://imgur.com/a/pJHFPxw

Here's how this works! I'm going to post each image in a reply to this thread as they're made, but there's an imgur album I will try to keep consistent at this link https://imgur.com/a/rt2EaTW

Imgur thread will be shared with the community, and I'm going to get the links to the QGP site and Redbubble in there.

Hey, here's a thing to fill out and help me be more commercially appealing and shit https://goo.gl/forms/VuZdwc3wgJ6C2Tuh1

Oh you
You rebel
You queer and wayward child
You abandoned and listless
You angry and forgotten
You brown and black and indigenous
You homeless and impoverished
You dreamer
You warrior
You are not alone here
You have never been alone
Not in this place, not in this time
Not in the whole of history
There have always been ones like you
There will always be ones like you
We have always fought
In the papers, in the streets
With paint cans and with pens
With knives and with torches
In your armor inadequate
In your fear and your rage
You have never been alone

Plant your feet like the thousand year oak
Scream like the ghosts of your ancestors
Light your hearts on fire
With the ashes of all the dead suns

Oh you
You rebel
You irredeemable soul
You arrogant and desperate
You immigrant and refugee
You moody and awkward and unsure
You romantic and impossible
You dreamer
You warrior

Take up your arms
Abandon your fears
History is calling you
The heirs of Revolution
Rise

The public events of the last two years are of the
class which will go into the nation's permanent
history. We have been living in an atmosphere of history
which will be immortally preserved. Even the brief
series of important dates to be collated for the use of
school children centuries hence will contain the dates we
groggily stumble through in our "daily grind."

To us who have been the witnesses, so to speak,
of the tragic incidents of the times, it seems
entirely probable that future generations will eagerly
scan every feature of our misery.

How accurately will our descendants know the
immense volume of sorrow which has rolled over
the land? Will those who come after us ever be able to
understand the extent of our distress? Is there anything
at all in our history, or any foreseeable event in theirs,
that might be used as a parallel?

Perhaps a careful reading of the daily news of the
present may give some future antiquarian a fine
idea of the feelings of the nation at this time. But these
records are so large, so full of detail, that the coming
American will never find time to read even a relevant
fraction of it, let alone the personal writings we bequeath
them. They will depend on a brief statement, meagerly
compiled by an anonymous and exhausted historian.

W.O. Davis, with edits

If a protest goes well, if the gods are smiling and the sun is bright and everyone keeps their cool and there are no counter-protesters and the government is on board, if everything aligns exactly right, it's a perfectly lovely day on the streets.

But if things go as wrong as they can, it's two steps away from a war zone.

My friend is saying he will volunteer as a medic and I am telling him about the advice I've gotten from other street medics on packing some trauma bags: a gallon zipper bag with 3 4x4 sponges for cleaning, a water resistant bandage for bandaging and a roll of gauze for if the wound is larger than the bandage and a pair of gloves. You know, if someone is hurt and you need to get them out of there fast, you don't have time to mess around with a fancy kit with everything sorted properly. He says if someone is bleeding like that you shouldn't be moving them, you need to call 911 and wait.

Sometimes the bad thing is still happening. Sometimes your choice is to leave them to bleed out on the street or move them when it's risky. He has never been this close to a war zone.

I am talking to the children about what to do if they get arrested, what to do in a stampede, where to go if they get separated and what happens if the police shut down the whole common and they have to make it home by themselves. I am constantly managing my language, adding caveats, calling myself paranoid. "Hope for the best, prepare for the worst." I an swearing like a sailor, because active shooter drills are more offensive than any cuss word.

There will be counter protesters. They are saying they will be armed.

At night I lie awake imagining getting shot in front of my kids, making contingency plans to get them out of there safely no matter what happens to me. I am talking with my friends about the optics of my potential injury or death. I am screaming inside, not a wail or a shriek but something battle-hardened and furious and fearful. I have the vocabulary for this. I know what I am doing.

I show them how to make flyers and why you use quarter sheets and how much text is too much and give them permission to demand more, to shout louder, to take a radical stance and let the other motherfuckers negotiate you down. I teach them chants and we talk about intersectionality and how fucking useless the kids in the next grade up are and how they've stopped talking to one of their classmates because he "has mixed feelings about the Holocaust."

"Don't resist if they go to arrest you, they'll be using the zip ties and those really hurt if you struggle."

They brought munchkins to their planning meeting and I've brought donuts to the day of the march. They are smiling and she is wearing her mockingjay pin and every year she looks more like Katniss and the world looks more like the dystopia that needs her, and I know why my baby has a crush on her. We are going over last minute plans and coordination and we are stocking up on water and snacks and we are double checking the maps on our phones to be sure we're talking about the same places.

"Everybody needs a bandanna or a scarf." I tell them. One of the other moms realizes what they are for.

I forgot my bullhorn and there is someone on the train who has his sign out and ready at our stop and there's more and more at every stop on the way, the doors open to a sea of young faces and sensible shoes and signs with slogans from the internet and memes only a middle schooler could love. We are in pairs. We are not panicking. We know how to move with the crowd.

"If there is a stampede you need to stay up. Move with the crowd, and keep yourself upright. Falling down is how people get hurt or killed."

The sun is shining and it is cold and the organizers could never have prepared for this but they have done an amazing job anyway. We see the politicians and the unions and the street medics and the socialists, the refuse fascism folks and the moms demanding action. We are courageous and prepared and we check in with our home base and we wait for word from the people who went to put themselves between us and the nazis. Because it's 2018 and nazis are a normal part of our political discourse.

Nobody gets shot.

My husband is live on facebook and they are calling him a felon and they are making teenagers cry and he holds his ground and he draws their attention and they stay away from the stage and away from the people who would not be able to take that trolling so lightly, the people who might be goaded into throwing the first punch.

I am in the crowd and the girls are leading chants and a hundred people around us are responding to them and we yell BLACK LIVES MATTER in front of the police station. My son is the only one brave enough to say hello to his Senator, until another mom speaks up and tells him that we're from his home town.

My voice is hoarse from screaming and the other moms did not know I am this person, but they know now.

Roses Are Red
I Like Your Moxie
Lets Get A Beer
And Go Punch A Nazi

I joined a church? It's weird. The local UUs are, strange as this may sound, very nearly our kind of people. Like, the chair of the worship committee described it as "the church for people who burst into flames walking into other churches." Nobody talks about an afterlife. At. All. Nobody asks God to cure anybody of anything, nobody advocates being nice and letting sky pixies sort it out. The weekly prayer always includes something to the effect of "give us the balls to go fix this shit." The collection plate gets shared with lawyers who advocate for victims of sexual assault and charities serving Puerto Rico, the meeting hall gets used for meet the candidate events, and there are rainbow flags at the door and next to the altar. They hold discussions about systemic racism and white supremacy, they hold vigils on trans remembrance day, there are pagan-y services and the name tags include pronouns. The minister is a petite trans dude and the first time I saw him was at the pop-up "oh shit Nazis" in our town, and the first time I went in for a service was after those nazi fucks showed up in Boston and I cried like a bitch.
They really, genuinely, care about The Work, and they want to support the people doing it, and they want to do more of it themselves while keeping themselves sane. And yeah, they're not perfect, but they're queer and they're nice and they give a fuck and they fall down and get back up.

It's still super weird, you guys.

Once again, when presented with the means and opportunity to do so, I did not punch any nazis.

Oh Blessed St. Petrov
Patron of Keeping Your Cool
Who did not push the Shiny Red Button
No matter what protocol said
We beseech you, help us to breathe

You did not falter when the lights were blinking
And the soldiers were panicking
And the sirens blared
The end of the world was at your fingertips
And you left it there

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Let us follow in your footsteps
Let us refrain from burning the house down
At the whim of petty drama
Or malfunctioning technology

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Let us remain bipedal
In moments of crisis and desperation
Let us consider what is likely
Rather than what is frightening
Let us choose the path of uncertainty and reprimands
Over certain catastrophe

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Averter of Apocalypse
Let us not romanticize the collapse of civilization
Let us value the world
You preserved for our sakes

Oh Blessed St Petrov
Hear our prayer

He will never be president. He will never be the hero the world needs but does not deserve. He will never pose dramatically on the barricades, never deliver the speech that propels the resistance to glorious victory from the wing of his f-15. We will never follow him to the gates of hell. Whatever "it" is, he does not have it.
It is 2017 and we are all struggling to breathe. We are all looking ahead, to the midterms, to 2020. We know we need to foster the talents of the rising stars, to lift up the people who will save us, who will right the ship of state in the nick of time, if it's not already too late. We put our love and our time and our energy into resistance, into the daily grind, into the campaigns of our future heroes.
He is no hero.
What he is, who he is, is smaller, and simpler. He is a man who cares about the intersection the pedestrians fear to cross, the sidewalks that are impassible to wheelchairs. He cares about public transit and bike lanes and lead pipes and innovative ways to pay for the mundane things a city needs to function. He cares about affordable housing and engaging the renter class in local politics, he cares about neighborhood beautification and neighborhood character and how systemic racism plays out in the local schools. He cares about the wild diversity of language and culture and religion and political thought in the crowded little postage stamp of the city limits. He cares about showing up.
He is unsuited for the revolution. He would collapse under the weight of a state or federal office, would falter in high stakes debates, would turn off voters in the vast swaths of Red America.
But he is perfectly right for the city council office for which he is running.

Will you be there when he needs you?

I go home exhausted every day.
My brain checks out sometime around 9pm and it's just gooooooone.
I have an acute case of resting existential dread face.

It's 2017 and I am doing the work.

My state rep connected to me on facebook to personally explain why he can't be at the nazi punching, and it's a perfectly good reason and I'm glad he told me, and I'm glad that he noticed I kept blowing up his social media and calling his office.
It's work.

I chewed out some poor woman who was only doing her job, because "if it's not on her schedule the Representative won't be able to go" is not an appropriate response to NAZIS AT OUR DOORSTEP and it is not particularly brave or politically dangerous to publically appear in opposition to alt-right fuckwits in the bluest blue state, and how many more times do I need to call before standing up to nazis becomes a priority for the woman elected to represent me and my brown neighbors.
And I told her I was sorry for unloading on her and she's not at fault, and it's scary because I have kids and I don't want them growing up in a world like this, and it's frustrating making these calls all day, and it's hard when it feels like nobody's listening and I keep getting the run around.
It's work.

My state senator is on vacation and one of my US senators is in Korea on business. My governor said he would make it "if he could" and it's on fucking camera because I got myself into the press conference with two hours notice and asked him in front of the whole world, and I was so scared and spent that I did not hear his answer as he said it and I had to watch the replays over again hearing my own strange voice piping up from off screen, and I grabbed the hand of the friend who was next to me, who will probably misinterpret it as a romantic gesture but I was just flailing and needed to hold something for a second, I need to hold something for a second.
But I spoke up anyway, and I nailed the governor and the mayor both.
It's work.

I ruined Thanksgiving. No, I didn't ruin Thanksgiving, my dumbshit cousin did because he posted in my ex's feed and equated nazis to their opposition, and called Black Lives Matter a terrorist organization, and blamed the people put in the hospital and the woman killed by a fucking white supremacist for their own injuries, and it's NOT OKAY and it HASN'T BEEN OKAY and it's NOT RIGHT TO BE PATIENT ANYMORE.
My friend is losing her mother, who was never that good of a person and in fact was always racist, was always okay dropping n-bombs, was always a "war of northern aggression," "heritage not hate" dishrag. And that divide has been growing for years, but there's a difference between "I might have to cut ties eventually" and "this is finally it." So we held her and we told her it's okay to cry about it and it's okay to cut them out and we will be your Thanksgiving, and you have nothing to be sorry for.
It's work.

I spent half my day today explaining to straight white men how to be better allies. And it meant eating my own feelings for a minute and slowing down and not judging too hard. It meant pushing myself right to the point where I knew I was about to burst, and it meant getting to that cliff face and telling someone "if you keep going this will get ugly, please stop" and having him ignore me and plow on anyway, and even as I am getting heated insisting that "this isn't an argument" and not hearing me when I said I did not want to keep going. And another man had to come and tell him to take a break, and I had to play nice when he came back, and pretend that his "I was only..." explanations were enough. And I could have told him to fuck off, I would have been justified in telling him to fuck off, but he has already moved really far and there is good reason to believe he can be fully bipedal someday, and it won't happen if I blow up too hard, and I have an obligation to try and help people get there if I have the spoons to do so and they are willing to do their part.
It's work.


Are you doing the fucking work?

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0Bx5otfQlEHZcMWgyMV9PemNQN3c

This is the print version, online is next in the pipe

EDIT: LINK HAS CHANGED

[Nothing is going behind a paywall.]

I would like to launch a patreon to subsidize my work on Holy Nonsense and the flyers, QGP art, and related stuff and nonsense I get up to. Nothing is going behind a paywall. I'll still be releasing Holy Nonsense on PeeDee and distributing things as far and wide as possible, and patrons won't get to dictate anything getting into the book. The only difference would be that I get slightly less shit for doing this instead of taking work on fiver or whatever.

In the unlikely event that I get filthy rich on this, money will be thrown at PD costs and other causes the contributors request.

I think this is still within the non-commercial license all HN authors agreed to, but I would feel better if folks chime in and let me know if this is okay.

Give everything to this life, because if there is another we have yet to see it. Give everything to this life for your reserves will not serve you past your dying breath. Change while you are in this world of change, for even the most pleasant of other worlds we have been promised after this one are all fossilized and stale. Change this world, change the people and yourself. Breathe the air of this world and do not stop until you cannot draw breath. Smile. Scream. Do not die with anything in reserve.

Death comes sudden to some and slow to others and you never really know which way it'll go for you until it's too late, so be ready. Remember that you are a thing your body is doing, so take care of your body as best as you're able, so it can do a good job of being you. Remember that what happens after is largely a function of the stories you leave behind, so take risks now and then. Get banged up. Get your heart broken. Maybe crack a bone or two. Overinvest in people. Some of them will fuck you over but the ones who don't will likely outnumber them and come to your aid when you're down and out, and even if that's not the case screw the bean counting and overinvest anyway. Because you can't take anything with you and you can't bequeath your emotional reserves to your children anyway. Love catastrophically. Cook big meals. Sing loud. Make bad art and write bad fiction. Make terrible jokes, and laugh your stupid heart to death.

Live while you're alive.

External validation helps me keep moving. If you see threads with pdfs or images you like, mittens and/or constructive criticism are encouraged.



Please clap.

[print only]

A new layout for one from the Et Cetera Discordia. I did this before with a blue background but I've been hating on it for a while so here's the better version. Two pdf attachments here! The booklet is for print only. Duplex, flip on short side, fold in half for pretty propaganda. The other pdf is suitable for online viewing, or printing single sided for postering.

The images here are from the online/poster order.

[multipurpose pdf]

Some editorial comments and asides from Holy Nonsense, gathered here for your amusement. This is a multipurpose pdf. You can print it out as a booklet (duplex, flip on short side) OR you can print it single sided, and cut in half for postering.

We have to be ready, at all times, in all places, to fight. On the bus, in the school, at the mall, on the street. In chatrooms and forums and businesses and libraries. We have to be ready to fight at city hall and the state house and the commons and the grocery store.

We have to be ready to fight.

There is no peace that will hold forever, evil will never be vanquished. Our neighbors and co-workers and our family are all susceptible to the siren call of enemy ideology. Even we are not immune. We must put our stakes in the ground. We must hold our lines.

It is not enough to be merely "not evil." It has never been enough. We must be ready to fight, if we are able, because not everyone can. It's not enough to say it's someone else's problem, it's not enough to bite our tongues to keep the peace. It is not enough to defend the utopian ideal of tolerance at all costs.

If you tolerate hatred, you're an asshole.

We have to be ready to fight, even when our enemies hide their attacks behind "I'm only joking" and "free speech means awful speech." We have to be ready to fight when they invade the spaces we thought were safe. We cannot wait for the mods to wake up, we must take up arms ourselves.

We are the only ones we can count on.
We have to be ready to fight.

So, there's this story from 2015 where a man from Senoia, Georgia drove a truck through his own house. And sure, you see stories all the time about accidents where a driver fell asleep at the wheel, or hit the gas when they thought it was the brake, or thought they were in reverse when they were in drive, or what have you, but this was none of that. He drove his truck through his house, clear through from the back yard to the front, intentionally.

This made the news, in several outlets. There are photos.

Some iterations of this story accuse -- and I shit you not this is his real name -- John Paul Jones Jr. of driving through the house because he was frustrated nobody wanted to buy it, but I'm mostly interested in the version of the story that CBS46 went with. I found it because of the fantastic final line: "Jones is not being charged with a crime because there's nothing against the law about driving a truck through a house, as long as it's your truck and your house." It got passed around social media, because of course it did, and eventually wound up in one of my random feeds, and I had to go track it down.

This version of the story refutes earlier reports, saying Jones wasn't mad at the house, but just frustrated in general. He'd just gotten off the phone with his wife, he's been out of work for a year and a half, one thing just led to another.

It's important to know that Jones is a contractor. He fixed all the damage to the house in two days. "I've been out of work for the past year and a half. Needed some work," he told CBS46. "It didn't pay anything, but hey, it kept me busy."

And yeah, that's pretty fucking funny. The bit where he tells the cops he did it because he needed air conditioning is great. But like everything, if you look at it long enough, you start seeing pieces of bigger things in it.

So I'm sitting here, reading essentially a "news of the weird" post, and I'm starting to think about the economy in Georgia, and the private contracting economy across the country. I'm thinking about the recession that never really ended, not for poor folks, and I'm thinking about all the people who bought "fixer-uppers" in 2007. And then I think about certain breeds of dog, the ones where they need something to do or they will tear holes in your yard and destroy your house.

And I think about this guy, John Jones, generic as can be. And I think about how he needed something to do.

http://www.cbs46.com/story/29084151/frustrated-man-takes-anger-out-on-own-house

I made a page for it. hxxps://www.facebook.com/BostonDiscord/

Any advice on what stuff goes on a page like this?

[duplex/double sided]

Like all booklets, print duplex/double sided and flip on short edge, then fold in half and enjoy!

Two files, the main one is pretty ink-heavy, the plain one keeps all the line art but removes the background, and is appropriate both for conservation of ink and improved legibility purposes.

Booklet  for handings out! Print doublesided (flip on short side) and fold in half for excellent propaganda!

Nobody thinks they're the bad guy.
Nobody wakes up in the morning, stretches out the crick in their neck, rubs the gunk out of their eyes, and thinks to themselves "Welp, time to go make the world a worse place than it was before I got here! What a great day to be evil." It doesn't happen. Nobody, nowhere, believes they're the bad guy.
There are people who know they are doing bad things, of course. And if you talk with them about it they will not deny that what they are doing is bad, but they will tell you at length how it is necessary. They'll tell you how they have come to be in this terrible position of being forced to do bad in the world, despite the fact that they are, in their hearts, a good person. They may be very convincing. They may even be right.
There are people who do not see what they are doing as evil in the first place, no matter how terrible it may seem to an outsider. These people do not see themselves as victims, but rather as warriors. They are fighting the good fight in their own minds, and they surround themselves with people who believe the same, or at least do nothing to challenge that belief. They are operating with a reality-interpreting grid that allows them to see some humans as "less," or some human behavior as "unacceptable in any circumstances." They live in a world where the stakes are high and time is short, and they are doing their part to make the world better.
They may be wrong and they may be crazy, but they still never think of themselves as the bad guy.
And this isn't to say never fight back, it's not to say you are required by some law of bipedalism to accept their opinion of themselves. This isn't a demand that you never give up on anybody, no matter how foul their deeds or ideas. It's just a reminder, just some information, because you will be more effective in the fight if you accept all of the intelligence available to you, that you will be in a better position if you build a more accurate internal model of your foes.
Keep moving. Fight good fights.
And pray to whatever gods will listen
that the bad guy
isn't you.

The enemy will always be at the gates. We will always be besieged. This is the life we chose.

If we all wake up tomorrow, that is the most we can hope for.

Morale will always be fragile. We will always be a powderkeg. Everything we do is just to maintain the current state of crisis.

There are no victory conditions.

There will never be enough to go around. We will always be scrambling. We could have been anything we wanted, and we wanted this.

We will never be safe.

We put out fires. We rebuild fortifications. We will never stop paying for our mistakes.

We kiss like it's the end of the world.

She is looking at her cupped hands intently, like there is nothing else in the world. Her toes are pressed down hard on the tile floor, her heels perched in the air. One knee bounces nervously. There is no one else in the bathroom. The stall door is closed. She stares at her hands.
She imagines a fire in the empty space between her fingers and her palms, holds it gently like a bird's nest. She does not see the fire. Her heart is racing.
"Breathe," she mouths to herself, and obeys. She purses her lips and breathes out into the fire that is not there, imagining the ash and embers dancing in the steady airflow, imagining fuel catching, feeding it life.
She feels static in her fingertips.
No one else is here, no one else can see. She breathes out again, tightly controlled steady stream of air touching her fingers, feedback in her nerves mingling with the electronic noise that doesn't stop but increases. Her fingers make small, unnatural movements, like insect legs. The joints feel creaky and unresponsive. She is not plugged in right.
Her brain floats in a soup of adrenaline and cortisol, muscles tense, heart too fast. To call her scared would be a mistake. She is on edge. There is something on the other side and she does not know what it is and the fear is not the kind you get when a man in a mask jumps out at you or something fangy and ill-tempered spots you, it's the kind of fear when you're about to go around a corner and you don't know what's there, but you know it's not whatever's behind you. She wants to see what's around the corner, but her legs are frozen.

A noise like a footstep. Her eyes snap back into focus, her hands still tingle. Finish up like a human, she tells herself.
The sensor does not know she has gotten up. The button malfunctions. The pipe is leaking. Does it know she's not plugged in right? She forces it to work.
The sink in front of her has a sign that says out of order. She does not remember if that sign was there before. The sink next to it does not work either. She stands in front of a third sink, moving her hands that feel like animatronics in front of the sensor, trying to trip it, trying to connect. It takes forever to work. When she steps away the water keeps running for fifteen long seconds.

She is broken, and her malfunction makes the machine inefficient. And when she tells people they want to help her work better, to plug her back in correctly, but all she wants is for someone to see her and revel in her glorious inefficiency.

Her footsteps are all wrong.

I'm going back and forth on this layout. On the one hand, I really want to make sure I don't have too many pages with the "ran out of words at the top, pictures on the bottom" format, and I really want to avoid having too many right-side pages with that, but at the same time, this feels a little lopsided with the image up top. Your opinion would be appreciated.