#and having more in *common* with ppl who Did Queer Things than ppl who didn't *even if they never actually did them*

[raytorosaurus]

i think where people get confused is that mcr did try very hard and very overtly to make their shows a safe space for queer people and women which is not a political act it just feels political because being queer and/or a woman means you exist in a space where your being is politicised by those around you whether you want to actively be involved in those politics or not. but, as you said, the art itself is personal and the message at shows is generally also about personal expression and learning to be yourself and take care of yourself. there's an element of respect each other/respect each others' differences but that's not political there's no call to action there's no fight for structural change and that's totally fine they don't have to be that

yeah no you said it, i totally agree. like i said, they're only political as far as all art is political - maybe slightly more because they made an active effort to engage with a socially outcast audience, tho in their minds that wasn't about specific marginalised groups like queer people, neurodivergent ppl etc - beyond their vocal support of women at shows/in the scene, they were directing their art just at people who didn't quite fit in in general. there's a big venn diagram there (and obviously some contextual cause-and-effect in terms of what kind of people tended to be unwelcome in hardcore scenes lol - even then, mcr never made any statements about race or whiteness) but it's not like gerard started a band to empower or liberate specific identities in a political sense - it was very consciously an effort to sing more about general unifying human experiences - i.e. ones lots of people can relate to. one of mcr's (especially gerard as lyricist) greatest strengths is being able to tap into those "universal" emotions like grief, loneliness, self-hatred etc. and make them a little easier to confront head-on or feel a little less isolating. that's literally why they're popular - if they had been overtly political they simply never would have made it that big! wait i'll let hanif abdurraqib say it because he said it best (brief snippet from his wonderful essay on the black parade in his collection they can't kill us until they kill us - 100% worth the cost of the ebook alone, and all of his essays are brilliant).

that idea is kind of at the heart of mcr and something i really appreciate about it. there's actually very little specificity in mcr's lyrics by design - it's meant to be projected onto and interpreted. that makes it inherently difficult to politicise bc good politics requires clarity of message and intention. that in turn makes mcr pretty apolitical by nature - which isn't a bad thing! different bands (like all types of art) exist for different reasons, and mcr's reason is catharsis and connection far more than it is any kind of activism. we can be pretty assured based on the lyrics and what we know of the guys that their politics aren't terrible and that's enough for me.

the real issue comes in when people act like mcr are political and give them credit for something they're not (and something they've never really claimed to be!). i get that mcr is a gateway band for a lot of people into harder/heavier music - it was for me too! - but even bands one step removed from mcr in the same scene (e.g. thursday) are leagues more political than these guys are.

this goes beyond mcr/bandom now but....tbh i think a lot of it comes from that relatively recent attitude that's common in online circles that activism is heavily rooted in personal identity (which ties in with the harmful pattern of, for example, white queer people acting like they're somehow above other white people in terms of racism) and comes more from individual thought, words, and discussion (in which using the correct language sometimes has more weight than what you're trying to say) than it does from actual community action. this isn't an attack at anyone btw - a lot of the statements about mcr's politics around here are pretty flippant and light-hearted anyway, i doubt too many people are taking them super seriously, but it's probably worth considering. overall, i'm not listening to mcr for politics and i'm certainly not looking to any of them for political guidance, but it's nice to feel connected to them and to all of you guys and to know that they support my identity, but that’s kind of as far as it goes for me.

#me at 6pm: i'm too dead tired to think straight after work :((( #me at 9pm: so in hanif abdurraqib's essay on the representation of universal grief in the black para- #answered #mcr talk #i Think there's an id on that screenshot btw i hope it worked lol (i'm on desktop)

[cdmodule]

9, 17, 24, 28, 29, 31 bitch

Hi Nate

From this post

9 - Favorite quality about your favorite character?

Is it fair to say their accent. Because dear god Ther Voice Their Giggle tbeir little vocal quirks make me INSANE DEAR GOD

17 - Favorite (canonically) queer character?

Besides Winner obviously, Latte EEE and Snowy LAF <3 love them

24 - Favorite Intro?

Minutely Object Show S1 Intro nearly brought me to tears

28 - Favorite Ship?

Tree x Clock when theyre chained onto each other (iykyk)

No but like Jokes Aside Take A Wild Guess

I have maaany ships I love but Winnerclock & Winnerloser really Take The Cake For Me

In diff ways tho. To make it short:

Winnerloser I focus less on the romance aspect overall, they def had smth going on though. They were bandmates, they went into adulthood with each other, saw each other grow and grow apart, starting to detest what made them fall in love to begin with. (Keeping it vague for now)

Winnerclock is two Abandoned People with a rough start, lack of boundaries/self awareness clashing with someone who sees everything reminding themselves of their past as a potential threat. But they have more in common than they think. I think they could find new beautiful things in life with each other. Im Normal about these objects btw

Honorable mention: Losercake for bein my first big ship <3Hi nate

29 - Least Favorite Ship?

I only rly care abt bfdi ships Enough so. If you asked me 2 months ago I wouldve said fireafy and a lot of things abt them Writing wise still piss me off, esp in post split but it already started in ep15 TBH. However charlie (and kind of harmie) kinda fixed them for me cuz no one gets it like they do Its Fine .

Some other mentions: Barf Bag x Spongy (theyre not good for each other Im Sorry), Snowball x Fanny (theyre funnier as friends also theyre both gay), Snowball x Basketball (same as prior but bb is Bi to me) uhhh Gelatin x Lollipop but I never see that anyway

Why are all of these straight ships I promise Its not on purpose

31 - Random Fact about a character/show that you love

How much Cary did NOT want Loser to be eliminated (and that Loser is Cary and Michael's fave)

In his reaction to BFB6 he mentions that he specifically didn't want Loser to check the crack for the twinkle so she doesnt make the team lose and ppl Vote Her Out For It. He didnt want Clock to get booted out either which is why he says smth abt "Dont forget Im the reason why we won ep 1 and 3"

And that speech pin and coiny did was supposed to show her in a GOOD LIGHT but it made viewers believe she was secretly evil and breaking the team apart and If u watch the reaction hes Genuinely Suprised how MANY ppl were voting Loser out

CARY N MICHAEL WERE RLY EXCITED TO HAVE HER AND THE SHOW AND ALSO MENTIONED LOSER HAVING BACKSTORY!! ITS SO SAD!!

#ask game #answered

[tyrannuspitch]

really funny how some ppl will be like “sorry but transgenders were only just invented so you get, at most, one (1) century into the past, and if you see your experiences in anyone further back, that’s ahistorical :(” and then ten minutes later they’re like “ICONIC WOMEN IN HISTORY: 1. this 20,000 year old mummy”, as if they have literally any reason to think a palaeolithic person was cisgender

#blah blah blah i'm not a historian and don't have a perfect solution to this #but i do get the feeling that ppl... underestimate things #like. things may be very different in specifics #but i feel like.. just logically speaking... #if you have society organised by assigned sex you will develop a system of gender #and if you have a system of gender you will end up with trans people #we just kind of happen #and like. hmm. slightly different thing but ppl are always saying #'well before this point the vocabulary for queerness was about what you DID not who you WERE' #'so they didn't distinguish gay and straight as identities or internal experiences like we do they saw it all as a choice' #as if vocabulary (generally determine by those in power) can 100% determine the self-concept of the *oppressed*? #like. the lack of vocab does not mean that there was no-one who *understood* themself as queer and closeted #as being Strange or Different or Broken and as idk having ~sinful desires~ or whatever #and having more in *common* with ppl who Did Queer Things than ppl who didn't *even if they never actually did them* #also like just bc cishets saw queerness as a choice does not necessarily mean queer ppl would agree with them lmao #like yeah they'd be influenced by those societal ideas of course! but they also have far more data to draw conclusions from #and might well agree with the v common feeling that at least like... queer ppl are predisposed to Doing Queer Things in a way others are not #i feel like this is common sense. #people thinking of themselves as gay or ace or trans does not begin with the coining of words for gayness or aceness or transness #i know this for a fact re: asexuality and i see no reason why it should be different with gayness or transness

[misterbitches]

i wish more than anything he could have had this. i love you man

i really fucking do

my love for nirvana and immense respect for kurt isn't something i ever expected. after being a huge fan of jonghyun too as a musician, a person who had things to say, a human being. the people around him. i fucking hate that kurt is gone and i was like...2. i got into hole when i was like 25 really heavily and refused to listen to nirvana. didnt' care about these white boys. but there's a reason why people love this band and why they loved kurt. i get mad sometimes at his death—selfishness—and then i make jokes to deal and cope. we all do with everything. it's just that and this is from a cis person...but i know so many trans people or people on the gender spectrum who have read his journals see him as someone struggling with gender. and after years of thinking and becoming such a huge fan i think that was honestly the truth. i think at this point we're all pretty sure he was gender queer or struggling with identity.

his aversion for oppression, his stand with the marginalized, not accepting racism, homophobia, transphobia BECAUSE THAT IS THE HEART OF DIY (spurred by my black people cos ofc it is and we do everything) and i wish that he could have beeen better.

to me it seems like his pain with his crohns (or wahtever he had) lead to his intense struggle with drugs because that's pretty common when needing pain management. on top of that, his family's history of MI. on top of that, his life being hounded and not being prepared for it (this i think is the idea of white privilege at work and wasn't naive of him necessarily, but...it's just something he thought wouldnt happen to him. that's whiteness at work as who they were as a diy fucking anti pop anti capital punk band. sonic youth said 'we didnt sell out, we made them buy in') and his rship with courtney. he said without court he might be gay or bi.

i won't read his journals, it's too fucking much for me and i dont feel allowed or maybe i will when i can handle it, but i know reading about them and him and hearing the way he changed his songs and his abhorrence for bravado, for men that talk about women as disposable and sex objects, for not being able to enjoy a punk band, for the whiteness and maleness. krist novoselic was a 6'7 fucking bassist and dave grohl is a sizeable dude with hideous tattoos. back then, no one said a fucking bad thing about them. come as you are.

we know that suicide is a state we get into. when you go to a psych ward you see that it's actually calm and an ebb/flow. it is extremely fucking boring. the thing is we don't know if these feelings last forever. we can't go back and time and history cannot change. it was his decision, like jonghyun's, to end his life. but i know there could have been longer. if they got help. i try not to resent courtney especially not now with people being irresponsible and unearthing the FBI report on him. he killed himself but it was definitely emotionally sparred by her and she should have told people what happened weeks before his death.

but no one failed him per se. his suicide note is full of hope and it kills me to see. he should have been able to be whoever he wanted. been a son, been a daughter, been anything.

whenever i hear the changed lyrics or see him in a dress or hear distress i dont know. i wish we didnt lose him but i also know that no one wants to go back to that time. it wasn't necessarily great but it wasn't all bad. and i wish commodity didn't destroy legacy. i wish we werent's so obsessed with the death and gore instead of the liveliness and hilarity of this band and of kurt. and i wish we could talk about him more and the idea that maybe there's so much going on with it; i have many critiques for things they have done, things kurt has done as well.

i'm talking in circles but i genuinely just get bummed. every day he is still dead. but this dude man......i love him a lot. i'm so glad nirvana gave what they did to the world. getting to know kurt so long after the fact is fucking hard sometimes. it is frustrating. but focusing on the positives too or trying to understand another perspective has given me a lot of insight. and i always try and remember that it wasn't just one thing, that nirvana were a band, it wasn't just him, and he could have been better but it just didn't work out that way. it's not solely about his internal pain and the narrative of a tortured artist is suffocating.

he wanted to be a star, make this insane pop song, and when he got it he didnt realize it became everything he hated. he was already struggling and all this shit hit a point. i have mad respect for them still. dave grohl said billie eilish is the kurt of her gen (about 2 yrs ago) and that drives me up a wall for various reasons. antiblackness and class. fuck that. these dudes were poor as fuck trucking it through washington with other bands and the basis is blacness and black art they were trying to fight and make it and give a shit man. it didnt turn out the way they could handle but they were not PRIMIING themselvs for musical stardom. no artist who cares would do that. but if you get the recognition you want because who doesn't, it comes at a price too.

this is why i critique commodity and capital so intensely. i participate, and i will have to as an artist. i don't have a desire to be poor because i've lived a life that gave me space to see what i want to do. i have class privilege (and a lot of debt) and i am grateful. but it isnt like i dont want peopl eto know. it's just that i know that i can't give in and accept and demand nothing and then decide to hoard it to myself. taht money that goes in funnels out and is not for me to keep. there is no trickling down. dont paly yrself.

artists like kurt and in a sense like MF Doom (rapper who only came out to be seen when he wanted to) or DMX even it's like....man u came out fucking fighting to be heard you know. do your thing. make your shit. be amazing. esp black people. DMX had a fucking face for a camera. hopefully i'm gonna watch belly at my best friend's house on the 28th.

i wish everyone who deserves to stay can stay until their body releases them in the most pleasant way as possible. jessica walter's death made me sad, but she was older and i'm so happy she got to live. same with cicely tyson. at the same time, the young deaths over drugs, suicide, accidents....id on't really get it. why is kissinger alive but these people can't stay? how did this come a somber tale of death instead of just i fucking love kurt cobain lmao

he's def one of those ppl that im like u rock. him, robeson, seberg to an extent. hm who else. wong kar wai, jenkins, joe (thai filmmaker whose name i cant spell.) all those people who are running forward on their own and beating their chest. yea i like that. an award is just another award. what matters is possibility and action.

RATHER BE DEAD THAN COOL

#a thot