Advice From Dad

What I can't cope with, OK, is L.M. Montgomery's use of bedrooms as a site of both autonomy and belonging. When Emily arrives at New Moon, she has to share the bed with Aunt Elizabeth and feels she is in bed with a griffon but when she moves into Juliet's old bedroom in the "lookout" she is overcome with the sense of nearness to her mother as well as having true space and freedom for the first time at New Moon. Later, she loses a lot of this sense of place and independence moving into Aunt Ruth's spare room where she doesn't have to share a bed, but can't even choose the pictures hanging on the walls - at the same time she loses her freedom to write fiction. Jane hates her bedroom at 60 Gay Street, finding it "hostile and vindictive" - in many ways just like Grandmother Kennedy, but at Lantern Hill, her father lets her choose everything that goes into her bedroom and she is allowed self expression. Her friends give her gifts to furnish it, as emblems of their love for her. Like Jane, Valancy has no control over the furnishings in her room, from the painted floor to the tacky artwork to the dingy and unwelcoming furniture, but she's so constrained that her only rebellion is to throw the jar of potpourri out the window because she's "sick of the fragrance of dead things". To have a sense of self, she imagines a magnificent castle as an escape and is delighted to find Barney's house is just as good a place to be who she wants to be - free from her family, making her own choices. Anne, upon marking the first anniversary of coming to Green Gables, reflects on the garrett room and finds it "as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine." Before Green Gables her life was probably a mix of dormitories and makeshift beds in attics that she couldn't change, in versions of her life with no freedom or affection. THEIR BEDROOMS ARE SYMBOLS FOR THEIR LIVES OK. When their rooms are controlled by others, their inner/emotional/creative lives are constrained. When they have their own rooms, they have autonomoy, they choose furniture, they have freedom, they have themselves, they have love, they have me gnawing armchairs about it.

Also funny that both Valancy and Emily are tormented at various times by inescapable portraits of queens - I do wonder if LM had one in her home that no one would let her take down.

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

25 ways to be a little more punk in 2025

Cut fast fashion - buy used, learn to mend and/or make your own clothes, buy fewer clothes less often so you can save up for ethically made quality

Cancel subscriptions - relearn how to pirate media, spend $10/month buying a digital album from a small artist instead of on Spotify, stream on free services since the paid ones make you watch ads anyway

Green your community - there's lots of ways to do this, like seedbombing or joining a community garden or organizing neighborhood trash pickups

Be kind - stop to give directions, check on stopped cars, smile at kids, let people cut you in line, offer to get stuff off the high shelf, hold the door, ask people if they're okay

Intervene - learn bystander intervention techniques and be prepared to use them, even if it feels awkward

Get closer to your food - grow it yourself, can and preserve it, buy from a farmstand, learn where it's from, go fishing, make it from scratch, learn a new ingredient

Use opensource software - try LibreOffice, try Reaper, learn Linux, use a free Photoshop clone. The next time an app tries to force you to pay, look to see if there's an opensource alternative

Make less trash - start a compost, be mindful of packaging, find another use for that plastic, make it a challenge for yourself!

Get involved in local politics - show up at meetings for city council, the zoning commission, the park district, school boards; fight the NIMBYs that always show up and force them to focus on the things impacting the most vulnerable folks in your community

DIY > fashion - shake off the obsession with pristine presentation that you've been taught! Cut your own hair, use homemade cosmetics, exchange mani/pedis with friends, make your own jewelry, duct tape those broken headphones!

Ditch Google - Chromium browsers (which is almost all of them) are now bloated spyware, and Google search sucks now, so why not finally make the jump to Firefox and another search like DuckDuckGo? Or put the Wikipedia app on your phone and look things up there?

Forage - learn about local edible plants and how to safely and sustainably harvest them or go find fruit trees and such accessible to the public.

Volunteer - every week tutoring at the library or once a month at the humane society or twice a year serving food at the soup kitchen, you can find something that matches your availability

Help your neighbors - which means you have to meet them first and find out how you can help (including your unhoused neighbors), like elderly or disabled folks that might need help with yardwork or who that escape artist dog belongs to or whether the police have been hassling people sleeping rough

Fix stuff - the next time something breaks (a small appliance, an electronic, a piece of furniture, etc.), see if you can figure out what's wrong with it, if there are tutorials on fixing it, or if you can order a replacement part from the manufacturer instead of trashing the whole thing

Mix up your transit - find out what's walkable, try biking instead of driving, try public transit and complain to the city if it sucks, take a train instead of a plane, start a carpool at work

Engage in the arts - go see a local play, check out an art gallery or a small museum, buy art from the farmer's market

Go to the library - to check out a book or a movie or a CD, to use the computers or the printer, to find out if they have other weird rentals like a seed library or luggage, to use meeting space, to file your taxes, to take a class, to ask question

Listen local - see what's happening at local music venues or other events where local musicians will be performing, stop for buskers, find a favorite artist, and support them

Buy local - it's less convenient than online shopping or going to a big box store that sells everything, but try buying what you can from small local shops in your area

Become unmarketable - there are a lot of ways you can disrupt your online marketing surveillance, including buying less, using decoy emails, deleting or removing permissions from apps that spy on you, checking your privacy settings, not clicking advertising links, and...

Use cash - go to the bank and take out cash instead of using your credit card or e-payment for everything! It's better on small businesses and it's untraceable

Give what you can - as capitalism churns on, normal shmucks have less and less, so think about what you can give (time, money, skills, space, stuff) and how it will make the most impact

Talk about wages - with your coworkers, with your friends, while unionizing! Stop thinking about wages as a measure of your worth and talk about whether or not the bosses are paying fairly for the labor they receive

Think about wealthflow - there are a thousand little mechanisms that corporations and billionaires use to capture wealth from the lower class: fees for transactions, interest, vendor platforms, subscriptions, and more. Start thinking about where your money goes, how and where it's getting captured and removed from our class, and where you have the ability to cut off the flow and pass cash directly to your fellow working class people

if there’s one wisdom i can leave you with its smoke weed, eat local, and fuck often

i feel like throwing up

“Calm and queenly, comes the summer nymph, July—crowned with azure, clothed with splendour,”

— John Critchley Prince, from Dreams & Realities In Verse and Prose; “July,”

So Kinder, wir gehen das jetzt einmal schnell durch mit der Neuwahl und so. Hier ist die derzeitige Wahlumfrage:

Jetzt einmal kurz schreien und dann aufgepasst:

Das ist jetzt erstmal n grober Richtwert. Statistisch kriegen die Grünen und die Linke wahrscheinlich weniger Stimmen als in vorläufigen Umfragen, während CDU/CSU und vermutlich AfD mehr Stimmen kriegen. Wir nehmen die Werte jetzt trotzdem mal so.

Wir beobachten folgendes: - CDU gewinnt beinahe garantiert - Die FDP kommt nicht über die 5% Hürde - Die Linke erst recht nicht - 14,3% aller Stimmen haben keinen Einfluss auf den Bundestag, weil die entsprechende Partei zu klein ist - Die AfD hat keine Sperrminorität, selbst wenn sie sich mit dem BSW zusammentut

Das gibt uns die folgenden Koalitionsmöglichkeiten:

Bis jetzt lehnt die CDU eine Koalition mit der AfD offiziell ab. Bei den Grünen sind sie gespalten. Die einfachste und fürs Image attraktivste Option für die CDU/CSU ist eine Koalition mit der SPD. Das ist jetzt nicht gerade großartig, aber nicht ansatzweise so katastrophal wie Schwarz-Blau.

Hier ist der Knackpunkt: Wenn durch ein mittleres Wunder sowohl die FDP als auch die Linke in den Bundestag einziehen, sieht die Verteilung plötzlich so aus:

(Grafik stellt ein Szenario dar, bei dem beide Parteien 5% der Stimmen erhalten. Bei Einzug durch Direktmandate weichen die Nummern etwas ab, die Optionen sind aber die gleichen.)

Die "kleinstes Übel" Große Koalition ist nun keine Möglichkeit mehr. Welche Koalition in diesem Fall zustande kommt, lässt sich nicht mit Sicherheit sagen, aber die AfD wird für die CDU plötzlich sehr viel attraktiver aussehen.

Natürlich muss man dazu sagen, dass der Anteil an AfD dadurch schrumpft. Wirklich relevant ist das aber nur im Falle der Sperrminorität, die sie ja auch vorher nicht hatten.

(Wenn entweder FDP oder Linke die 5% schaffen, ist eine knappe GroKo noch möglich. Allerdings ist es wahrscheinlicher, dass die FDP die Hürde kriegt als die Linke.)

Die Zahlen werden sich im kommenden Monat natürlich noch ein bisschen hin- und herbewegen, und die Wahlergebnisse werden nochmal anders ausfallen, aber die Tendenz haben wir ja schon besprochen.

DESHALB:

Die eigene Stimme nicht verschwenden!

Wenn die 14%, die Klein(st)parteien wählen, stattdessen SPD oder Grüne wählen, hätten wir fast schon Chance auf Rot-Grün.

Die CDU wird stärkste Kraft.

Daran lässt sich nicht mehr rütteln. ABER wir können beeinflussen, auf wie viel Widerstand sie trifft. Je mehr SPD, desto weniger CDU in der GroKo.

Überleben ist wichtiger als Reine Moral.

Ja, SPD ist auch kacke. Ja, ich würde auch gerne lieber die Linke wählen. Ja, ich finde auch, dass die alle was falsch machen, und moralisch verwerflich sind, und Dinge tun und sagen, die mich zum Kotzen bringen, und für die ich mich schäme, deutsch zu sein. Ja, ich bin der SPD eigentlich scheißegal. Aber die SPD will mich zumindest nicht fucking tot sehen. Das Gleiche kann ich, als queere trans Person mit Uterus, nicht über die CDU sagen. Und über die AfD sowieso nicht. Und wenn ich Migrationshintergrund oder kein Einkommen hätte, wärs noch dreimal so schlimm.

Wir hatten das grade erst in den USA. So verdammt viele Nicht- oder Protestwähler. Und jetzt haben wir den verfickten Salat. KÖNNEN WIR DAS BITTE VERDAMMT NOCHMAL NICHT NACHMACHEN??

Wählt strategisch. Bitte.

Die Linke kommt nicht in den Bundestag. Deine lokale Furzpartei kommt nicht in den Bundestag. Steck deine Stimme nicht dahin. Steck sie wohin, wo sie was ändern kann. Wenn du SPD halt gar nicht hinkriegst, wähl zumindest Grün. Auch das begrenzt die Macht der CDU und AfD. Und je mehr sich ändert, desto wahrscheinlicher können wir nächstes Mal wieder was Schönes wählen.

YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY . You will find a WAY ….. you WILL find a way . You will find a way you will find a way……!! YOU WILL FIND A WAY YOU WILL FIND A WAY you will find a Way you will (find) a way you will find. a way you will find a way YOU WILL FIND A WAY!!!!!!!