*feels both “I am so bored & understimulated I want to do EVERYTHING!” and “I am so exhausted & overwhelmed I can’t do ANYTHING” at the same time*
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.
your life can look so different, so much better, in just a few months. keep going.
Okay so like I said I’m going to document my transition! So its idk day 1? And all I did was decided to transition & shave my face.
lil update for anyone who remembers this post! 6 months hrt bby!
Donate to My Fundraiser!
so in light of current events (being cut from my insurance & having to travel for work) I could really use all the help I can get to continue pursuing a gender transition! I’ve been urged to start promoting my gofundme in hopes that I c an still continue to pursue my goals. any donations will help immensely! and I promise every coin will go towards funding my transition! this money will go towards a legal name change, laser hair removal, an updated gender marker, hormone replacement therapy, facial feminization therapy and eventually sexual reassignment surgery! and I cannot stress enough that if you cannot afford to donate then do not feel pressured to!
(ps if you aren’t comfortable working with gofundme, I also have cashapp & paypal upon request!)
archive mb for @gir1slove
“it’s 4 in the morning and all I can think about is how I hate sleeping in my room because even in a place so sacred it reminds me of you.”
— i remember when we’d fall asleep together (via fallouchboy)
kind of tempted to leave a review every time i go through someone’s ff.net/ao3 and reread everything but i also dont want to freak people out with the wave of emails
Please for the love of god do this. In the last… oh, I don’t know, seven-ish years since I first discovered fandom, the culture has made a huge shift. It used to be that, whether you yourself wrote any fic or not, you reviewed every goddamn chapter of every goddamn fic that you read. Usually in detail. And plenty of people (myself included, at times) would leave a review on every chapter even if there were already twenty or thirty chapters in the fic before I ever stumbled upon it.
But we’ve moved away from that. Now, plenty of authors (particularly those who aren’t Big Name Fans) practically have to beg for reviews to get even a small amount of acknowledgement, and that’s not fair. The SE fandom is better about it than plenty of others I’ve been in, but we’re not immune either.
So if you wanna go all out and leave ALL OF THE REVIEWS… I say do it.
D O IT
I’LL JOIN YOU
I remember the time with a custom to REVIEW EVERY SINGLE CHAPTER YOU READ AND GIVE FEEDBACK TO AUTHOR IN DETAIL. In less than 10 years it has changed to “I consume but don’t interact” (why? what has given peeps the belief that authors don’t want to have comments and feedback from you? That leaving your comment is “bothering” them and they think you are stupid? WHERE DOES THIS SILLY IDEA COME FROM?) Let’s bring it back, the habit to comment plenty!
You can always tell when, shall we say, someone Slightly older discovers your fic, because not only do you get hits, you actually get kudos and what can only be described as a Review at the end of each chapter. Usually followed by a question because they Want to engage. They Want you to know they enjoyed your thing and want to read more from you.
I can’t tell you how discouraging it is for some of my work to have literal actual thousands of hits and 10 kudos and 0 comments. And then people who have never left a single note of their presence come into my messages months later like “hey you’re my fave writer why did you stop :(”
Because. It. Feels. Like. No. One. Gives. A. Shit.
Nothing makes an author’s day faster than seeing that someone is reading a whack of their stories in a row, or re-reading one, because coming back for more is the best compliment we can possibly get. But we only know that is happening if you leave kudos or comments! So, go for it. Feedback is love!
I recently had somebody go through, binge-reading all of one of my fics, and leaving comments on each chapter, and I looked forward to tracking their progress.
I would love to get reviews on every single chapter.. It really affects the writer’s confidence in themselves as writers and in their stories. Leave reviews! 😇
you’re so young and you have so much time. life is longer than you think, and there will be time for you to do everything. if you lost your youth to mental illness or abuse, your life isn’t over. you can do everything you missed out on, and more. if you’re losing your youth right now, there will be time for you to do the things you want to do. it’s gonna be okay, you still have time.
just got hit with a $600 bill for an ER visit from a couple weeks ago and i do not have the money to cover that so if anyone is able and wants to help out i’ll just leave my paypal here:
