“When a woman is in touch with her sensuality in real ways, and not performing sensuality for photos but truly connected into a sensuous consciousness, she naturally draws in beautiful things, people, places, opportunities, and deeply nourishing relationships. Practice self-care. Upgrade your intuition. Grow your intellect. Increase your emotional intelligence. Learn a new language. Refine your body. Get creative. Cook your own food. Surrender and trust life. Spend time in nature. When you allow yourself to be sensual, you tap into the simple luxury of living really well.”

lemme just be a fandom grandma for a sec:

you’re allowed to just - not like a thing. be it a show, a plotline, a character, a pairing whatever. you just be like “i do not Vibe with this” and move on. you don’t need to explain your preferences, you don’t need to discover some way in which you can call the thing “””problematic””” to justify you not liking it. if something doesn’t spark joy within you, that’s absolutely valid enough.

Not only is it valid enough, but not liking the show, character, plotline etc and just moving on with your life is the single healthiest way to handle not liking the thing. Marinating yourself in negative feelings, even to find some deeper reason for feeling them, only leads to worse things, both for you and for people around you. Just letting it go and doing things that make you happy instead is so much better for you.

You can’t deserve a person’s love. You’ll drive yourself crazy thinking like that. They either love you, or they don’t. That doesn’t mean you weren’t good enough for them to love you, because love isn’t something you earn by being good enough. It isn’t something that can be quantified or doled out. Don’t blame yourself for not being loved how you need to, just teach yourself how to look for love where love lives.

This isn’t just about romantic love, or even skewed towards romantic love, although it does apply there too. One of the hardest things I’ve ever had to accept is that my mother simply wasn’t someone who was capable of loving me, and there is no version of me that I could have ever been that would have earned that love. But with acceptance came healing. I was able to love myself more instead of resenting myself for not being more than any one person could be.

Are you listening? Even love for yourself isn’t earned. It is a kindness you give yourself.

Resources for Bookbinding

Here’s a big list of resources. If anyone has further suggestions please send me a message and I can add it to the list (and enhance my own knowledge!)

Bibliography

How to Make a Book ArmoredSuperHeavy - Self-Published - 2019 This is document is still in development but you can read the entire thing for free This is a service I am offering to fandom and part of the fandom gift culture.

Physical book construction

Introduction To Bookbinding & Custom Cases: a Project Approach For Learning Traditional Methods Tom Hollander-Cindy Hollander - Schiffer Publishing - 2019 ISBN 9780764357350

Bookbinding & Conservation By Hand Laura S. Young - Oak Knoll Press - 1995 ISBN 1884718116

Fonts, Typography, & Layout

Better Type: Learn to see subtle distinctions in the faces and the spaces of text type. Achieve legible, beautiful, and expressive type every time. Betty Binns - Watson Guptill - 1989 ISBN 0823004848

The Complete Guide to Typography: A Guide to Setting Perfect Type James Felici - Adobe Press - 2003 ISBN 9780321127303

Just My Type: A Book About Fonts Simon Garfield - Gotham Books - 2010 ISBN 9781592406524

Contemporary Book Design

Bookmaking: Design/Edit/Production Marshall Lee - W. W. Norton & Company - 2004 ISBN 0393732967

Notes on Book Design Derek Birdsall - Yale University Press - 2004 ISBN 0300103476

Historical Book Design

The Book: The Story of Printing and Bookmaking Douglas C. McMurtie - Dorset Press - 1943 ISBN 0880293489

Modern Book Design: From William Morris to the Present Day Ruari McLean - Essential Books - 1959 (no ISBN)

Book Typography 1815-1965 in Europe and the United STates of America ed. Kenneth Day - University of Chicago Press - 1965 (no ISBN)

Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing Ruari McLean - Faber & Faber - 1963 (no ISBN)

Art of the Printed Book 1455-1955: Masterpieces of Typography Through Five Cecnturies from the Collections of the Pierpoint Morgan Library, New York Joseph Blumenthal - Pierpoint Morgan Library - 1973 (no ISBN)

Illustrierte Geschichte der Buchdruckerkunst: mit Besonderer Beruecksichtigung Ihrer Technischen Entwicklung bis zur Gegenwart Karl Faulman - A. Hartlebens Verlag - 1882

Supplies

Talas Online Talasonline.com - huge selection of archival, library, bookbinding, includes heavy equipment and things like real vellum.

Hollander’s Hollanders.com - best selection of decorative paper; also different bookcloths, offers Davy board custom cutting service which is worth it

Etsy Etsy.com - search Bookbinding Supply, you can get deals on things, also decorative papers.

Blick Art Supply DickBlick.com - Stocks some essentials; if you have a brick and mortar near you it’s great for emergencies like if you run out of glue in the middle of winter.

Affordable Binding Equipment by Jim Poelstra https://affordablebindingequipment.com/ His “simple sewing frame” and “simple book press” are very similar to my homemade ones. They do the job.

May 24th, 2020

when writing about marginalized groups:

personally i think there are a few different things that writers (specifically white writers/writers that aren’t part of certain marginalized groups, regardless of what groups they are apart of) need to consider before writing whatever project they might be working on:

- if you have plans to write about a race different than your own, what do you actually know about that race? are you willing to go to places other than the internet to find out things you don’t know? when people of that race tell you you’re doing something wrong, will you listen? is your response going to be some kind of rehash of “i’m trying my best” or “well my [friend/coworker/family member said this so you’re wrong” instead of looking further into what you might have gotten wrong/misunderstood?

- are you aware that different people multiple marginalized groups will have different experiences than people who may be a part of just one [ie a black lesbian will have different life experiences in many ways than a straight black woman, or a black ND man with a NT black man]? are you prepared to take seriously the opinions of the people within that group and go the directions that they suggest when it comes to your creative writing?

- do you rely on stereotypes for your characters or themes, insisting that some stereotypes are “good”?

- do you fetishize these characters because of their race/mental illness/gender identity/other?

- do you think because you’re a creative writer you have a “right” to write about any subject that you please, disregarding the facts or the feelings of the marginalized group you’re not apart of to get your own rocks off, for your own success, your own pleasure, or for the watchful eyes of other fans that are likely not apart of said marginalized group?

- do you believe that your work is just fiction and has no effect on the real world? have you looked into the histories of the people that you’re writing about, and is there anything in your work that could be deemed offensive? are there things in your work that can be connected to those histories in a negative way, a reworking of old stories to demonize their groups? [see about: stereotypes and fetishizing]

- do you have plans to write “coming of age” stories or something with a similar flair of basis [ie stories dealing specifically with the issues within that marginalized group]? why do you feel the need to do that? do you not think it might be better to use your voice to uplift the stories of people who have actually had those experiences?

if any of your answers to these questions is yes, you need to completely rethink the way you’re going about your project. there is nothing wrong with writing about people in marginalized groups that you’re not in, but to a point. you should not be writing about coming out stories / coming of ages stories / the like that you have no stake in, that you can’t relate to at all, because no matter how much research you put into this, no matter how well done it is, that’s still not your story [not to mention in many cases, “researching” certain topics within this umbrella for the sake of creative writing could be looked at as objectification]. rarely ever will it be very well done. you will never understand what groups you’re not in go through, regardless of what you may go through in groups you are in.

and this is beyond fandom and fanfic, although this is where i see a lot of these issues directly. the outside world has these problems too, as we see every week on TV when marginalized characters are being killed off by the dozens or written as evil/cr*zy/another stereotype or simplification.

use diversity in your writing. no one is saying that you shouldn’t. representation matters in all ways, shapes, and forms. but don’t write things that aren’t for you to write. listen when people in those groups tell you you’re doing wrong. educate yourself. understand when something isn’t yours to explore and understand why. educate other people, too. we’re all working to get better, so continue to better yourself.

I need everyone to reblog this please. This is about my kiddo's safety. THIS IS ABOUT THE PHYSICAL AND EMOTIONAL WELLBEING OF A CHILD. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE SPREAD THIS SHIT LIKE WILDFIRE

My kiddo and i need your help now more than ever before.

2 years ago, my child was assaulted by their paternal father during his visitation time with them. I will not go into detail about what happened because it is incredibly disturbing and gruesome, but they ended up in the hospital. I tried to press charges, but the charges were dropped because they could not find the weapon that was used.

After it happened, i took the paternal father back to court and I was able to win sole legal and sole physical custody of my kiddo.

The paternal father is once again, trying to take custody of them. They do not want to see their father, they want absolutely nothing to do with him. They are 11 years old now and I feel that they are old enough to make that choice and that it should be respected.

I need help raising $$ for a lawyer and court fees so that i can fight this and protect them. I do not want them to be further traumatized by being forced to see their paternal father against their will. Please, please help me protect them. Help my kiddo stay safe.

v*nm0: sorrym0mmy

c*sh*pp: sorrym0mmy

paypal . me / kodamabutts

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE IF YOU CANNOT DONATE THEN PLEASE REBLOG!!!!!!

There's something about the way social media... Flattens or obscures regional/geocultural differences between people in a way that is very unhelpful and like. The opposite of what dedicated pen pal programs tried to do in the 20thc that I think really contributes to the meanness and high-handedness people take with each other. Like some things SHOULD land different if you are hearing them from like. Someone living in rural Oklahoma vs your housemate in Chicago, y'know? Someone from like. Bulgaria saying they don't trust communism SHOULD sound different than the person you're at a party with in Manchester. Someone saying all US politicians are the same to them who lives in Somalia SHOULD feel different than some white anarchist trust funder in Seattle. But instead everything gets read as if someone very very like you is saying it and saying it To You and like... Yeah that would be annoying if that was what was happening but its not and I feel like we are encouraged to not see that idk

I don’t think you’re ready to have an adult conversation about politics until you’re able to admit that there are things you love and enjoy that would not and should not exist in a just world. $8 billion dollar budget movies every other month don’t exist in a just world. New 900 GB AAA video games every year don’t exist in a just world. Next day delivery doesn’t exist in a just world. 80 different soda brands don’t exist in a just world. 

All of those things come from exploitation on some level, and if you wouldn’t trade those for a world where everyone can eat and have a home no matter who they are or what they do, I don’t know what to tell you. 

Man, this post makes me feel conflicted, because on the one hand, of the things listed, next-day delivery is the only one that DOES actually exist in the world today. The others are exaggerations, and while I understand the point being made, they do detract from it.

I understand—and agree with—that sentiment of, “I want slower deliveries by drivers who are paid better,” as one recent tumblr post put it. I absolutely agree with the idea that we need to produce and consume less as a culture, and that an actual substantive conversation about politics should involve willingness to relinquish the many modern luxuries that are built on exploitation.

I don’t think these are good examples of those luxuries, though.

Large budget movies are possible because consumers (and investors) are willing to pay for them. A large budget is actually a necessary component in making sure workers are being adequately compensated; the fact that they currently are often exploited by studios is a result of deliberate misallocation of resources, not anything intrinsic to the size of the production. Same thing goes with high-quality video games. As for releasing a new film/game every month/year, that’s only unsustainable because there’s only a handful of monopolistic studios doing it. In a well-regulated industry that encourages growth and competition, we could see tens, if not hundreds of studios producing big-budget films and games. And, with a well-compensated and socially-supported citizenry, consumers would have enough disposable income to support it.

Similarly, the problem with soda isn’t that we have 80 brands; it’s that we have two. And those two brands each own 800 different labels. In a healthy economy, these monopolies would be dissolved, and we could support well over 80 moderately-sized independent beverage companies producing their own sodas.

Same-day delivery, again, could be easily supported with proper allocation of resources. Currently, we have huge centralized distributors like Amazon exploiting gig-workers with slave-wages to ferry cheap mass-produced crap to people, and that’s what makes it bad, not the speed at which they do it. If instead, we had something like a super-robust USPS, with well-compensated deliverypeople working reasonable hours within a decentralized network of independent-but-cooperative suppliers, there would be absolutely no reason why you couldn’t get something delivered to you from the distro ten miles down the road within a day.

When we critique capitalism, and they respond, “Yeah, well capitalism made the cell phone you’re using!” our response shouldn’t be, “Oh shit u right,” it should be, “No, capitalism made the cell phone I’m using break after a year so I’ll buy a new one, and they use slave labor to do it while they pocket the rest.”

There are luxuries, and there are artificially-valued, mass-produced, built-to-break trash that are marketed as luxuries. But we don’t solve the problems of fast-fashion by saying, “Welp I guess I shouldn’t wear clothes.”

Robin Buckley + Just Neurodivergent Things

I feel like adhd bored is different than neurotypical bored because like. You don’t understand. I have a billion things I could be doing. I turn on the tv. I stare at the Netflix screen for five minutes. Flip through shows and movies for the next thirty minutes. Nothing looks good. I put in a video game. Play for two minutes. Not feeling it. I load up YouTube. Watch half a video before closing the app. Maybe I’ll read a book? I stare at my giant bookshelf. The thought of starting a new book seems too hard. I lay in bed and play phone games for six hours. Nothing has gotten done. Still bored.

I feel like a better term for this experience is “restless.” 

Sometimes nothing sounds good; I have a specific experiential craving or itch that needs to be scratched but I don’t know what it is or how to placate it so I will rapidly cycle through activities in search of something that will provide the level/type of stimulation I crave. Like a tiger pacing in the zoo. 

It’s a really bad, unbearably vibratey itchy feeling. A craving for relief that takes too great a mental effort to overcome.

It can be physical too…sometimes if I don’t walk/pace it feels like my bones are squiggly and it’s as unpleasant as it sounds

My bones are squiggly and it literally physically hurts sometimes and a lot of times I will get abruptly and inexplicably exhausted bc my brain has had enough of this “bored” shit and would rather just shut down for the day than endure it any longer.

Understimulation is incredibly mentally draining because when nothing motivates you and feels good, every little thing you do needs an absurd amount of spoons for you to actually do it. You may not notice it, because the understimulation is so intense that it overpowers fatigue, but it’s something that constantly drains you in ways that are almost impossible to explain to people who don’t experience similar issues.

Going to the jasmine dragon now comes with the free entertainment of seeing local tea boy Lee and his kyoshi warrior being disgustingly corny

"Eddie Munson was so well written" No, that was Joseph Quinn improvising every Eddie scene and making it 10x better.

Maya Hawke insisting Robin be a lesbian instead of just a rebound love interest for Steve. Joseph Quinn playing Eddie as someone who's clearly got a crush on Steve. Caleb and Noah giving such raw emotions in their characters. A big thank you to all the actors making their characters better than anything the writers could do.

if cats aren't meant to be kissed on their heads then what's that little space between their ears for

Embossed braille should be standard on computer keyboards. 

It would raise braille literacy more than anything else I could imagine - among both the blind and the sighted. Currently braille is actually vanishing due to an increasing reliance on audiobooks and screen readers. 

I think that braille has a lot of potential use among non-blind groups. As an alternative to traditional writing for dyslexics. As a way to help photosensitive people type with their eyes closed. Or simply as a means to help sighted people find things without needing the lights on all the time!

This is such a great idea. Most of us have all the locations of letters on a keyboard memorized without effort, imagine if we also had the little dots on the keyboards memorized? Boom. Effortless braille skills.

Same with sign language. Imagine if signing was just something we just did whenever we talked, because we all grew up learning to do that? We’d have an automatically more inclusive society and we’d all get the extra power of being able to communicate with each other next to loud machinery, across crowded spaces, through windows, etc.

Like, this isn’t some fiction, there have been societies where sign language was a standard part of language.

This is not how Braille works. Yes, individual letters have one-to-one corresponding Braille letters, but the way to read Braille quickly and efficiently is through the use of contractions. Contractions take the place of longer words or parts of words. For instance, the word drink isn’t d-r-i-n-k, in contracted Braille it’s d-r-in-k, where one contraction takes the place of “in.”

Braille is written with six dots, meaning that some contractions are dot-number-letter contractions. As in, dot-five-F is “father.” Some words are just dot makeups: one-six is “child.” Unless keyboards will now come standard with the six keys a Braille user needs, there isn’t a way to write those words.

Learning how to read Braille is awesome, and taking the initiative to emboss Braille on your own for things like menus and signs can be a rewarding way to show your support for Braille readers; it’s even fun to have as a great pen-pal “secret code.” But please stop assuming it’s one-to-one correspondence and that we can just “put it on a keyboard” without further modifications, because that erases a lot of the complexity and the language-building Braille contains, not to mention all of the work Braille readers put in to learn it.

Exactly.

- V.E. Schwab, The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue

Trying to find something to motivate myself and I found this little line from Van Gogh

#this will never not be funny

Okay, we need more gay/bi/pan/ace characters in the media we’ve all established that. It’s incredibly important. But I personally think we need a little more diversity in straight couples and mlw couples in general as well as queer couples and poly groups so can I please get:

And there’s a lot more I could think of. We don’t just need normal straight couples of the same ethnicity where the woman is one head shorter than the man and stupid cheating tropes and tomboys being turned into girly girls. There’s a world of possibilities out there and ways to show straight people how they can casually be friends with and in relationships with queer people too. I dunno. I just never see this particular thing being addressed.

give us straight people not Straight People™

Pretty convenient that a lot of American students never learn that Einstein was a Jew who came to America and started the nuclear research after fleeing from the Nazis and having most of his research lost in the book burnings. 

Or how much of his life and work was shaped by his autism, like how it was his biggest asset because it allowed him to think differently, but also his biggest hurtle because of all the abuse he received in school from teachers who labeled him as a dunce and told him he was stupid because of his disability. Which he proved wrong by discovering the theory of relativity because of his autism instead of in spite of it.

EVEN THOUGH THOSE ARE THE TWO MOST RELEVANT DETAILS OF HIS LIFE THAT EXPLAIN HOW AND WHY HE DID ALMOST EVERYTHING HE DID. But nah, Im sure diversity wasn’t relevant enough to be important in this situation.

Its almost like we have a biased school system that censors the accomplishments of marginalized groups to stop them from realizing that people like them have accomplished things.

He taught at Lincoln University after he was told black students couldn’t attend his lectures at other colleges and universities.

Remembering someone who cared about education

I didn’t know this about Einstein, all I knew was crazy hair math man. It makes me sad that we never learn about his life.