I Actually Kinda Like It When A Character Getting Better Includes Them Becoming Weirder And Less Polite

Hmm this person interacts with me and we talk. What if they secretly hate me though. What if they can't stand my presence?

Surely that must be the truth.

Friends, we are there. We are at that point. ICE is abducting people off the streets and sending them to concentration camps in El Salvador. That is happening. Trump has said that he’d “love” to send the “homegrowns” to these prisons and told the president of El Salvador to build 5 more. Kilmar Abrego Garcia was kidnapped due to an "administrative error" and the Republican regime is refusing to bring him home, even though the Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that they must. A US citizen from Georgia was arrested in Florida for being an "unauthorized alien" and they refused to release him, even as his mother waved his birth certificate in their faces. (I just learned while making this post that he has now been released and reunited with his family, thank fucking god.) A hundred other horrors have happened that we don't even know about.

No one is coming to save us. We have to save us.

Please, please, please find a (peaceful!) protest this Saturday and attend if you are able. There are also protests planned for May 1. And, frankly, there should be protests every single day, but we have to build momentum and community for that. So let's start.

If you can’t attend a protest, please consider taking another form of action. I was depressed on the train this morning and brainstormed a very incomplete and unofficial list of Things You Can Do:

Print posters advertising the protests and put them up around your neighborhood, your school, your apartment mail room, public restrooms, anywhere.

Spread the word on social media, yes, but also text your family and friends and ask if they know about the 4/19 and 5/1 protests. This date is not getting the same publicity as 4/5 and people are reporting social media posts being suppressed. Direct communication is the most effective.

Call your representatives. The 5 Calls app makes it extremely easy, even if you have phone anxiety. If your reps, like mine, mostly have their voicemails shut down, email them instead. Resistbot makes it super simple. I know it feels like screaming into the void, but it does have an impact. And even if it turns out it doesn’t, it takes 2 minutes. Do it out of spite. Just do it.

Stop buying anything that’s not absolutely essential and start preparing yourself for a general strike. I don’t know that we will get enough of the population on board to do this, but it is our best hope, and each person that is prepared for it makes the reality of it happening a little more likely. If you can, aim to have food and supplies stocked for a few weeks. If you have the means, be extra prepared to help your neighbors. Talk to your friends about this. Start strategizing.

(Also, a note on that general strike website: I'm sharing it for info, but I know a lot of people don't want to sign their name to a strike card. I get it. You don't have to sign up for anything to get prepared for a strike. You don't have to sign up for anything to stop giving your money to this economy. You don't have to sign up for anything to strike, when the day comes. You don't even have to tell anyone. You can just do it.)

If you are financially able, donate to your local food pantry or mutual aid network. The Republican Regime is cutting funding to the food banks in advance of an economic crisis. We are only as strong as the most vulnerable among us. Help your neighbors! A general strike cannot happen without community solidarity. Start building that solidarity now.

Cancel any subscription you can. Especially Amazon. Fuck Amazon. And Target, and Walmart.

If you have to buy something, buy local. Support your community as much as possible. And hey, it's almost farmers market season, hell yeah!

Mask up!!! Do not throw disabled people under the bus in this movement. Wear a mask. It protects the most vulnerable among us, and it protects you. Not just from disease, but also facial recognition technology. And, you know, RFK Jr.

Stay alive. I am sure I’m not the only one who has plunged to new depths of despair over the past few months. Find something to cling to, even if it’s only spite (some days, that’s all I have). Please stay alive. We need you.

DO NOT GIVE INTO THE FEAR OF BEING CRINGE. Taking action in the face of fascism is cool as fuck and anyone who tells you otherwise is trapped in a prison of their own making and they will bring us all down. Do not get distracted by moral purity tests. Do not be afraid, do not be embarrassed. BE CRINGE, BE FREE.

And finally, most importantly, do not let perfect be the enemy of good. We can all only do the best we can under this oppressive capitalist hellscape we’re forced to endure. We're all struggling, we're all tired, we're all scared. Do not guilt yourself into despair and apathy if you have to buy groceries at a big box store or if you can't take off work for a protest because you'll lose your job/house/healthcare. This is the system. This is how it's designed. The important thing is to try. If you can't do one thing, find something else you can do. Little acts add up, and we are all in this together.* As my dad likes to remind me, no one can do everything, but everyone can do something.

Let's do something. <3

*yes I did start humming high school musical here

That Precision.[video]

La reine des neiges et quelques autres contes, Edmund Dulac

It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?

I will be back for you

All USWNT Matches from the 2015 Women’s World Cup

USA v AUS

USA v SWE

USA v NGA

USA v COL

USA v CHI

USA v GER

World Cup Final

I love Josh’s anti-classism so much. I grew up in a single parent household that didn’t have time/the ability to cook. I taught myself as an adult and ended up loving it. I cook with this stuff a lot. Shit, the RealLemon juice ends up in a lot of my cocktails. Sure, I like fancy ingredients when I can afford them and I have things I get picky about using - but I have bad hands, mincing garlic is painful as fuck. There’s a lot to be said for knowing how to work with what you have. Don’t shame people for trying, don’t shame people for feeding their families things that they enjoy.

“It is a condition of monsters that they do not perceive themselves as such. The dragon, you know, hunkered in the village devouring maidens, heard the townsfolk cry ‘Monster!’ and looked behind him.” ―Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Laini Taylor

“Public libraries are such important, lovely places!” Yes but do you GO there. Do you STUDY there. Do you meet friends and get coffee there. Do you borrow the FREE, ZERO SUBSCRIPTION, ZERO TRACKING books, audiobooks, ebooks, and films. Have you checked out their events and schemes. Do you sign up for the low cost courses in ASL or knitting or programming or writing your CV that they probably run. Do you know they probably have myriad of schemes to help low income families. Do you hire their low cost rooms if you need them. Have you joined their social groups. Do you use the FREE COMPUTERS. Do you even know what your library is trying to offer you. Listen, the library shouldn’t just exist for you as a nice idea. That’s why more libraries shut every year

:)

seasons greetings