"Punishment Works!!!" We're Drowning In Three To Four Generations Of People So Pants-shittingly Terrified

messy megop yuri sketches bc this song for some reason keeps reminding me of them (and also bc i've been thinking on revisiting my humanformer designs lmao)

potentially? suggestive stuff below?? (idk if it counts, maybe? doing this just in case lol)

accidentally got so carried away last night that I ended up in Narnia whoops

I really love your Poppy playtime children art, are you going to do the others as well because I would love to see Marie, Theodore, and Riley as well

Sure! :)

You can't keep them all safe, they will die and be afraid, tell me, so I say

Poppy, tell me you will stay

i was thinking about this since i posted earlier about us needing to address the trend of gen z men being pulled into alt-right pipelines might have contributed to the outcome of this election.

i think contrapoints is really smart, and from what i’ve seen, has been way more effective at getting people out of harmful ideological pipelines than i’ve seen from the majority of leftists online who instead berate and drive a greater wedge of antipathy (though i understand why! and it can be very hard to have empathy for the people who see you as a threat). that antipathy makes the right more radicalized because they don’t feel like they can talk about anything without the “crazy lefties” who won’t even engage with them. where did these issues come from?

what i’ve noticed, and i’m even guilty of this, is that people don’t interact with groups of people whom they refuse talk to, which makes realities more hypothetical in the minds of their opponent since they aren’t open to seeing reality from their perspective. this is true on both sides. from what i’ve observed, it seems to originate from hypothetical perception of the opponent, but when people treat those perceptions as though they are real, it becomes real with their actions, which then makes the antipathy justified to someone. again, on both sides.

what makes contrapoints so successful at breaking this down is that is that she creates these socratic dialogue skits that represent real people and ideologies, has a sense of humor, isn’t afraid to discuss these things, reframes how we see these things by introducing nuance to both sides. she’s a leftist, but she also knows how to engage without ripening division, of meeting someone halfway and being completely humble about it. she is able to soften extremes.

she is able to get into the mind of people who aren’t aligned with her views, understand the nuance and rationales from a realistic perspective, breaking down a big block of “this is all bad” into “ok, some of this makes sense…”, what this does is create a space for self-reflection that doesn’t feel ham-fisted (which could otherwise cause people to double down on their beliefs instead of opening up to other perspectives outside of their bubble). while also being entertaining and well-produced on top of it.

what she is doing is creating these scenarios and socratic discussions that SHOULD be happening in real life but aren’t in this polarized social climate.

i graduated from new college of florida this spring, the small liberal arts college that was in headlines across the country for ron desantis’s board of trustees hostile takeover and exodus of professors.

new students and student athletes from conservative walks of life were being basically incentivized to go there who were taught to fear the lgbt boogeyman growing up in their conservative communities. but once they actually interacted with lgbt students there, many of them they felt like they understood them, and they weren’t as bad as they were told they would be. new college of florida was also famous for getting derek black (child of the man who created stormfront, and godchild of the kkk grand wizard david duke) out of white nationalism. their peers at NCF called them out but also interacted with them, invited them to dinner. black wrote a book about it.

now of course some people are too far gone and you shouldn’t waste your time with them, like derek’s family for example. but i also think a lot of people who voted for trump are not informed, are operating off of emotion and knee-jerk mentality because it’s easier than thinking, and they are not seeing the discussions that need to be had to change their mind because fuckin…nobody is doing them.

and we feel this visceral disgust to people of the opposing party because of its associations. i just want to know how it happened and how we got to be like this. i think social media is partly to blame and also the algorithms that take people down dangerous pipelines and sharpen them, insulate them.

i myself understand the vitriol you might have for anyone that voted for trump. i feel so disappointed that half the people of this country voted against our collective benefit. and i’ve seen a lot of sentiment from the left today saying “every single person who voted for trump is dead to me. i disowned you”.

you can see the reality of trump’s demagoguery, and it’s so obvious, but what i want to know is: what do they see? why did they vote for him? emotion and entertainment travel faster and have more reach than reason. and it’s that’s why i think contrapoints’s videos are exemplary at tackling this ideological divide. this is something i’ve been thinking about for months before today and i thought now was a better time than ever to give my two cents on it.

I hope both sides of his pillow are never cold

I needed this drag. Let’s change guys and not look back

my least favourite turn based strategy game is email

ELECTRIC KISS! Finally done with my silly little fan animation!

HUGE thank you for screenofthesius (twitter/blesky) for composing and recording the piano tunes. g the piano tunes. :notes:

Elliot.... Look, I'm sure the man had nothing but good intentions and truly cared about Harley but like others have pointed out, he really did not consider Harley's situation at all. He mentions in his observations about Harley that the boy probably has a bad home life:

"From here and there he talks about home, I get the sense that he doesn't miss it very much."

AND YET HE ENDS HIS LETTER TO HARLEY WITH:

"So I challenge you to head for home, Harley, and to look at the people around you."

LIKE SIR YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT THE PEOPLE AROUND HIM PROBABLY AREN'T GREAT WHY WOULD YOU SAY THAT

Chances are that Harley did go home afterwards (he is a still child at this point after all, where else can he go?) looked at the people around him and fully threw away whatever humanity he had left after that - becoming the person we know today.

Not to justify Harley's actions at all, but I would feel betrayed too if I opened up to someone about a rough home life, and then when they kicked me out of the one safe place I had they sent me back home.

Like hello?

And again, I truly believe Elliot thought he was doing the right thing. But I don't think he should have made the fatal assumption that every child came from a good home - especially with all the hints already in place.