i'm sorry i never did your tag game. i love you

Gentrification creates a stifling homogeneity in urban areas that makes it less suited for the everyday lives of the lower class and more suited towards the leisure and tourism of those with expendable income.

An old, decrepit laundromat gets replaced by an upscale bakery? And people are mad? It’s not that the poor hate organic vegan cupcakes, it’s that most of us don’t have a way to do laundry in our own home.

Run-down corner stores replaced by hand-made designer clothing boutiques? We don’t hate your eco-fabric shawl, but I can’t eat that for dinner after work like I could have a can of beans I grabbed from that corner store when I don’t have time to take the bus to the real grocery store after work.

What gentrification brings in and of itself is not typically bad, it’s that gentrification brings institutions of leisure and pleasure and makes it so that the poor have to go farther out of their way for basic necessities. It turns low-income living spaces into local tourist attractions. It can even create food deserts by putting restaurants, grocery stores, etc. in that the majority of the lower class cannot afford.

Imagine if someone totally renovated your house and turned it into a mini theme park - they took away your sleeping space, where you prepare food, where you clean yourself and get ready for your day, and replaced it with things that will please people who are visiting, who have their own homes they can go back to, who are here not for their entire life but just as a distraction from their otherwise mundane existence. It’s not that you hate theme parks, it’s not like you’ve never been to a theme park and vow to never visit one again. It’s just that you need to live! To survive! And the leisure of those who have more than you should not invalidate your existence.

I am glad this has made the rounds. Some people feel a dense misunderstanding or misinterpretation concerning gentrification, and I think it helps to hear a description/explanation of what gentrification is from those who are both affected by it and educated by the culture from which it hails. I and many others enjoy some of the delights of gentrification while simultaneously having their livelihoods threatened by it. 

My first successful chain ply and it is a bit rough and a tad bit ropey, but very usable. There is 304 yards here and I’d say about a sport to a DK.

Tim Hortons is doing a Harry Potter collab and like. Whatever. I quit going there years ago because the food and drinks are bad. But it's annoying me off how people keeping boiling down folks boycotting Tim's to "People are mad about things JRK said on Twitter" and "People are mad because they don't like Harry Potter". I heard the former stated as the reason on the radio the other day. Jesus Christ, no. People are mad because any money JKR gets from this promotion will be funneled straight into lobbying against transgender rights and access to healthcare in the UK. Very tangible real world harm. It isn't about the ideological purity of the stupid wizard donuts.

tips for managing cleaning/tidying in a way that gives you a sense of control instead of dread and shame:

dishes

- wash at least one dish every day. could be a single fork. just do one. at absolute worst this means you're regularly running clean hot soapy water through the heap of backed up dishes in the sink.

- any time you have to wash a plate or utensil because you're out of clean ones, wash two of them. need a knife? wash two knives. need your only baking sheet? wash a cup too.

clutter

- overwhelmed by clutter? take out the bins and do laundry. it's very difficult to organise a space when it's full, and trash and dirty clothes take up a lot of space both physically and mentally. emptying bins makes room for the whole cycle to move.

- those little boxes and containers advertised for ADHD really do work, even if you don't have ADHD. they let you move surface clutter around even if you don't have time to sort and clear it. you can quickly box up the craft project that's been taking up your desk for two weeks, clean the surface, and put everything back.

- on that note @3liza clued me in to the power of a simple wicker basket a decade ago and it changed my life. this isn't a desk tidy, this is a medium to large box or basket without a lid that you can comfortably carry in two hands (doesn't have to be wicker). personally I like a collapsible one so I'm not tempted to fill it with stuff when it's not in use. the point of it is collecting and carrying.

- instead of taking on individual sidequests for every item in an overcluttered room, walk through with your simple wicker basket and collect everything that has to go in the kitchen. take it to the kitchen, put it away. then collect everything for the bedroom. take it to the bedroom, put it away. it's your sifter, your filter, your best friend. this is but one use of the simple wicker basket.

trash

- differentiate in your head between dry trash and wet trash. dry trash is paper, plastic wrappers, packing foam, scrap fabric, dried up pens. 'shelf stable' trash, if you like. nothing likely to leak or rot. this can be collected in small lined wastepaper size bins around the house – one in every room honestly isn't overkill. you only have to empty these when they reach the top of the container.

- wet trash is food waste, soiled or greasy food wrappers, empty bottles, sanitary products, used medication ampoules, anything contaminated by mould or pest damage, etc. the yucky stuff. this goes in a single, large, lined bin with a lid, in a central part of the house (probably the kitchen). Empty this every 3-4 days or as soon as it reaches the top of the container. it won't fill up as fast without dry trash bulking it up, and disposing of it in small amounts regularly keeps the place feeling fresh. importantly it also means the gross stuff is contained in one place, not wearing on your peripheral attention day after day making you feel bad.

generally

- everything I said about clutter and surfaces above also works for floors. you can take stuff off the floor, vacuum, and then dump that shit right back where it was. you don't have to wait for one glorious day when you have the energy to do everything.

- the longer something goes untouched, the worse it gets psychologically. if a particular area of mess is especially upsetting or daunting to you, agitate it. pick up just one thing. dust around it. divide it in two. do anything you can bear that gets you to engage with it and handle it. it's manageable. you'll get there.

- never ever ever ever feel bad about spending money on trash bags, gloves, disinfectant wipes, sponges, or whatever you need to comfortably stay on top of things. you're allowed to use cleaning products and you're allowed to just throw shit out.

polycule where you call all your loves "my sweets" and use their favorite candy/dessert as their personal pet name 🥹

new look

i feel like "man massively cuts foreign aid spending, resulting in hundreds of thousands fewer lives saved, is he a mass murderer?" is kind of an interesting thought experiment. but its really really bad it happened in real life. in real life its just very simply one of the worst things you could do in your life

so many people will be theoretically anti-war and some may even pay lip service to the notion of imperialism being bad, they will perhaps go so far as to say they oppose the idea US occupation. and yet still they will genuinely be shocked when you straight up hate the military in a real way, in the kind of way where you do not make excuses for or lend sympathy to anyone who enlists. they won’t follow you there. they will invoke things like poverty and ptsd and when you remain stone faced and uncompromising they will think YOU’RE the monster. and not, you know, the people who literally knowingly signed up to be a part of the mass murder machine.

like people are always talking about poverty in defense of enlisting and I just wish y’all could recognize the very simple fact that the people in the countries that United States military members are voluntarily signing up to kill are often also living in poverty and then on top of that they are having to worry about being bombed and slaughtered by the imperial poor. Like it’s just not a good excuse to offer yourself up to the murder machine. It isn’t. Of course the United States government doesn’t treat veterans well. It doesn’t treat anyone well. What do you believe veterans to have done that should entitle them to decency not afforded to anyone else? I guess personally I’d rather focus on getting EVERYONE fed and housed, focus on opposing the systems that lead to these conditions, rather than finding sympathy for those who believe they are owed a meal ticket drenched in blood.

Yall, I can’t believe that I have to do this, but I am going to say this in as clearly as possible

The anon was very confused.

I have Narcolepsy, which is a sleep disorder. Narcolepsy has nothing to do with Necrophilia. I am not into necrophilia.

I didn’t realize that one said “necropolises.” That’s actually so funny. I think that one must have been a joke

my main thing is that it's mega FUCKING frustrating when black people vent about our experiences with antiblackness in left leaning spaces only to get ignored because non black people genuinely think they're being a nuisance but yall only become annoying if you derail our points or speak over us.

and it's more frustrating when a white person basically repeats our points and have people feel more comfortable interacting with them because they are scared of the angry negro. black people only matter as a hypothetical and when it comes time to really listen to us we are talked over and ignored.

i genuinely try to stay compose and not tweak out over it but it's so discouraging that people only want to interact with us black people and our issues from a 10 ft pole while claiming to be our allies. it's performativity like that that gets us put in danger + drowns our voices out, it's why I keep asking y'all to boost black voices. not just mine, but the black people around you. especially your friends or family.

you have to consciously unlearn racism and continue to watch for it because it will come out without realizing. because so much of society is structured around it. shrugging and going "i dont care" or "i dont know how else to say it" means you are okay with being racist and hurting other people with how much you dont give a shit about them.

the reason dog whistles are effective is that on the surface they are plausibly innocent. in fact, many people who adopt the language are genuinely ignorant of the secret meaning.

which is to say, if you say or write something that you thought was fine and normal. then a marginalized person in the notes goes HEY WTF. pause and listen. it's (usually) not a personal attack, it's someone saying "hey! you harmed me!!". Instead of answering "no I didn't and how dare you call me racist", try "huh? I don't want to hurt people, can you expain?"

I have lost count of the people who have used antisemitic dog whistles, and when I approach them politely, instantly double down and in the process call me a hypersentive lying zio manipulator etc.

I know this happens and it looks suspicious but

this image? we have every reason to think it is a cucumber, like it was made in clay models in burials period, it's painted green, it's on the small side of things (9.6 cm or 3 3/4 inch)

oh right and it was placed on a model offering table with small model bread and drinking cup

sometimes a cucumber really is a cucumber.

i think a lot of white queer/trans people need to hear that "breaking gender norms" isnt just wearing a dress while masc or dying your hair. its also unlearning the beauty standards that impose ideals of white beauty and attractiveness on non-white folks. yes you have a nose ring but i just heard you tell your black friend with meticulously cared for natural hair "you'd just look so nice with straight hair is all im saying..." why does your blog fetishizing i mean uh. appreciating trans women only feature skinny white women who pass. when societal gender norms are so inextricably tied to whiteness and emulating whiteness it is not enough to simply change your aesthetic. you need to defy the gender norms in your own head too.

fun fact! the original draft of this was about native features, but i changed my examples bc historically my native-centered posts get basically no notes compared to my other social-justice/activism posts :) which definitely doesn't frustrate me at all as a queer native american. anyways reminder that gender roles are informed by culture and what you (white person reading this) consider "gender non-conforming" might in fact be a gender-conforming feature in their culture!

[Image ID: Tumblr tags reading: #in that vein #a native american trans man with long hair is not inherently GNC #some guy wearing a dhoti is not inherently GNC #a woman with short hair is not inherently GNC #unlearn that shit /End ID]

there's this weird thing people fall into online a lot, where people assume that if the [perceived-to-be-inferior] version of [activity] is discouraged then people will, naturally, do [perceived-to-be-superior] version of [activity] instead. When really it's just as (or more) likely that if [perceived-to-be-inferior] version of [activity] is discouraged people just won't do it at all.

audiobook listeners are not necessarily people who would otherwise do a lot of traditional reading if audiobooks did not exist, many are people who simply would experience zero books. Booktok romance readers would not necessarily be reading the classics if booktok did not exist, many of them would simply not read. Fanfiction writers would not necessarily be novelists if fanfic wasn't an option, many would just be people who didn't write. You know?

Not enough people talking about how well broccoli holds a sauce

I’ll never not be amused by the fact that I can drop the words “crucifix nail nipples” into a conversation and some of you who have been with me since the livejournal days will join me in the flashbacks, screaming and crying all the way.

I require context. Because this is a very interesting start of a story, and now I need the rest of it. Could I get a link, or a summary, or something? Pretty please?

All right buckle the fuck up kids, it’s the year 2012 and I’ve just been handed what should be an easy editing gig by my senior editor. It’s a vampire erotica story because one of the final Twilight movies is about to come out, and everything is vampires. Everything. I haven’t edited a single thing in months which isn’t about vampires. I am ready, I can do this. So I open the file and notice there’s a typo in the title, which really should have been my first inkling that something horrendous was about to go down, but you see I’m not quite dead inside yet so I carry on, bushy tailed and bright eyed with my faith in humanity intact. It’ll be dead by page 24, but I don’t know that yet. I’m just editing one more vampire boner fest.

The MC is a girl who we’ll call Sue. Sue is a Good Girl™, Sue is Not Like Other Girls™, she is pale and awkward and a virgin and has somehow managed to find herself a Bad Boy™ for a boyfriend. We’ll call him Dickhead.

Now Dickhead as previously stated is a bit of dick, he tries to pressure Sue into sex because he knows she is The One™ but he loves her really so it’s okay. Except it’s not okay because Sue is a Good Girl™ and holding out till marriage which he’s fine with except he’s got such a bad case of blue balls that one night walking home an attractive stranger lures him into an alley with the words “hey stud” and he follows, dick out before she’s even finished her sentence. Well turns out that was a mistake for Dickhead because she’s a vampire, but not just any vampire, a Dick Biting Vampire. So what started out as a skeevy blow job behind a club that he’ll feel bad about in the morning, turns into him being bitten on the dick and drained of his life essence and left for dead. Except DBV fucked up and now he’s a vampire. Are you still with me? Good, cause it’s about to get weirder.

Realizing he is now an abomination, Dickhead flees, becoming a creature of the night and feeding on animals rather than humans to repent for being such an asshole in life. Sue meanwhile is heartbroken, but carries on valiantly with her life and goes to bed each night crying for the loss of her One True Love™ who she would do anything to bring back. Well guess what Sue, Dickhead never really left you! He’s been “instinctively protecting her from rapists” by hiding out on her roof and fighting hobos who try to get to her open window via the fire escape for months now. Because that’s not fucking terrifying at all.

Upon learning of his predicament and how it happened, Sue can do nothing but blame herself. Oh if only she’d let him touch her secret places, then perhaps all of this could be avoided! Meanwhile Dickhead is having another dilemma of his own, realizing too late that his vampire powers have given him super senses and now he can smell her blood and he can’t decide whether he wants to get with her or eat her. And I don’t mean in the French sense. But he is strong! And over comes his base manly vampire instincts and neither rapes not kills her. Hurrah! And this is so romantic that Sue gives it up, but not before she launches into a theory about how in all fairy tales, True Love saves the day, so maybe her magical pure vagina that has never been touched by anyone, not even her, can bring him back to life. So Dickhead being a dickhead agrees and rips her clothes off, but not before he takes one last moment to marvel at the beauty of her purity, because he will never again look on her again and know she is Pure.

If you’ve only vomited once by now, I applaud your resolve.

So they hop on the good foot and do the nasty, except she is literally so pure in spirit, her flesh burns his. And I quote you from memory because these words are burned into my soul: “her breasts bit into his hands, like crucifix nail nipples tearing at his flesh, but he did not care because he loved her so and couldn’t stop”

This phrase haunts me. I dread that it will be the last thing I think about on my death bed and my last words will literally be “god fucking dammit” as I die, carrying that mental image with me into the afterlife. My own solace is in knowing that I inflicted it on other people too, like @ahzuri who is somehow still with me after all these years.

When the magical burning sex fails to heal him and leaves her bruised, battered and broken with “a dainty blue bells of bruises around her secret flower” (I am genuinely quoting this, I could never make something as horrendous as this up without being on acid) Dickhead leaves. Yeah. Off he fucks, leaving her to the mercy of the hobos at her window, and into the night to be the true monster he really is. But wait, there’s more. Remember the dick biting vampire? Well turns out she has figured out she made him into a vampire and has also been stalking HIM and is totally jealous of Sue, so tries to kill her. But again Sues Purity saves her, because sex before marriage which was done out of True Love is not a sin, so she is still a spiritual virgin and I’ll be honest, I started drinking heavily at this point and it’s all a bit of a blur.

A fight ensues some pages later after Dickhead returns, realizing the mistake he has made. And he rescues Sue from the Dick Biter, but not before he assaults Dick Biter, and calls her a slut for luring innocent men into alleys cuts her heart out by cutting her breasts off, at which point i screamed “THAT’S NOT HOW YOU REACH THE HEART” and my brain short circuited completely and I have no idea how it ends because I realized there was 30 pages left and my soul couldn’t take it. I emailed the chief editor like ?????!!!!!!????!!!!!! and the book was immediately pulled from the work line and the author dismissed from the publishing house. Turns out she was a friend of a friend and that was how she got the manuscript past our entry levels for requirement.

And that’s the story of how an author sent me death threats for over a month because I stopped her shitty vampire porn from ever seeing the light of day. You’re all fucking WELCOME.

Happy ten year anniversary to this fucking post 😂