Pardon me as I enter my ATLA phase…
we owe everything to the weird little horny freaks on ao3 and artists on all platforms don’t forget that
Lulu is still out there being a gluttonous little heathen btw! I didn't even know she had a different channel at one point cause I know her from her YouTube channel Claire Luvcat.
So to the Prev that said "I miss Lulu" "I hope they're alright" they are! And you can find them there :D
It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.
Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.
In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.
Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:
Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)
Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)
How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)
Gardening
Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)
Country/Rural Living:
Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)
"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)
Sewing/Mending:
Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)
Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)
Sustainability/Land Stewardship
Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)
Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)
Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"
Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.
"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)
Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)
These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!
do you love yuri? gorgeous art styles? sick ass action scenes with unbelievably stupid stakes? a solid mostly female main cast of characters that play off of each other really well and are also funny as fuck?
Introducing "Love Bullet", the GL manga about cupids! with GUNS!
The series isn't officially localized in english yet, but luckily fan translators are hard at work on a real-time english translation (I won't share a link here, but you can find it easily enough)
*flowey voice* huh? why am i doing all this? because love bullet is at risk of being cancelled!
the author's said she already has the entire story planned out, but due to bad marketing and a lack of official english translations, the sales for volume one have been pretty low, and the story risks being discontinued
the chapters out so far aren't many, they're a relatively quick read, and really entertaining all the same. i am DYING to see more of these characters, they're loads of fun and there's some genuinely interesting hypotheticals about love, romance (and lack thereof) the series could get into... but only if it stays running!!
so please, give this story a shot (lol) and if you like it, consider supporting the original mangaka. other fans of LB have been resourceful enough to put together a way for you to do that, even as a western fan, so it's the least i can do to spread the word.
do it for yuri... and also insane women and heart grenade launchers
★
since tumblr is going to start scraping blogs to train ai be sure to glaze and nightshade your art!! Not only will both of these programs protect your art from being copied but nightshade also poisons any ai that tries to steal it
here is some more info on these tools and where you can download them:
Nightshade: Protecting Copyright (uchicago.edu)
Nightshade: Downloads (uchicago.edu)
Glaze - What is Glaze (uchicago.edu)
Glaze - Downloads (uchicago.edu)
I wish I could switch which is my main blog https://laidenbreecatchall.tumblr.com
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