So my sister wants to start sewing more, because

a. She’s 5′ 11″ and can never find pants long enough for her legs or shirts long enough for her arms.

b. She hates synthetic fibers as much as I do and it’s difficult to find natural fiber clothes that aren’t made of cotton

c. She’s a biologist and would physically fistfight microplastics if given half a chance

So her gift from mom and dad for her birthday was a sewing machine. Not a super expensive one but a good solid serviceable one.

And recently she asked “So where do I GET wool or linen and thread that isn’t polyester” and mom was like ‘go ask your sister’

And I, of course, crashed into the group text like “GET A PEN I HAVE WEBSITES FOR U” and honestly I’m thrilled about this

“Where did u get all this”

“Bets, u know I’m a 15th degree blackbelt of buying shit on the internet”

“oh yeah tru”

Op can may we inquire about the website list

Linen; https://www.graylinelinen.com/

cotton and Silk thread; https://redrockthreads.com/

Linen thread and wool fabric; https://burnleyandtrowbridge.com/ (they’ve got wool stuffs and worsted wool fabric for $15 a yard! I just got three yards of navy worsted wool I’m making a constellation winter skirt from)

More linen thread and wool; https://wmboothdraper.com/ (just ordered wool broadcloth to make a coat)

Silk fabric (THE best place to get silk lining fabrics and raw silk fabric):https://www.dharmatrading.com/

A varying assortment of wool and silk and cotton and even some leather, use coupon code  spring2020 for 50% off your full order, worked yesterday when I bought some stuff there; https://metrotextilesnyc.com/

Wool. You want wool coating for under $20 a yard? Sure you do. It’s here. Not a huge variety of colors, most are black or brown, but hey https://www.fashionfabricsclub.com/Catalog?refinementIds=4096748&Keyword=wool&pageSize=16

I don’t know a lot about sewing, but I want to make or have my mom make some linen pants & shirts for when I’m watering, because it gets to 105 here and we have mosquitos so I need to be covered. What type of linen do I buy? Also, linen pajama shorts, yes/no?

(I’ve been wearing my renfaire pants which are a linen mix, I think. But the frikking mosquitos that hide in the tomatoes get my arms)

Medium weight is what I’d go with.

And linen pajama shorts is a HARD yes.

Renaissance Fabrics is good for all sorts of things

Mood doesn’t specialize in natural fabrics but they do have basically every fabric ever made so

Dorr Mill Store has a great selection of wool fabric in all sorts of colors and patterns.

On days you feel exhausted but frustrated because you feel like you haven’t done anything to be this tired, think about these things:

It doesn’t feel like you have been doing nothing now, does it? It feels like you have a lot going on that you have to deal with daily, even when you don’t consciously notice it. There is a lot of stress inducing factors around you and struggling is okay.

It is not easy to be human sometimes, so please, don’t pressure yourself so much when you are already trying to cope. If it feels like everything is too heavy, please ask for help.

Please take care of yourself. 🌱

the "came back wrong" trope except like... they didnt. like this mad scientists wife died, and so he studied necromancy, brought her back, and she came back and it all worked. like she came back exactly the same as she was before with literally no difference. but the scientist guy is like "oh no... what have i done.... shes Different now!!!! she came back Wrong!!!!" and shes just like. chilling. reading a book. cooking dinner. shes just so so normal but in the guys mind hes like "oh shes soooo weird" but shes just normal

Peer reviewed tags from @somanyofthekids

NO its a JOKE and YOU DONT GET IT. ITS NOT THAT DEEP

While she was dead he put his memory of her on such a high pedestal that she could never live up to it alive

alternatively‚ she came back perfectly fine but he thinks she came back wrong‚ because the tragic reality is that he never actually knew his wife

im going INSANE thats MY POST.

It's your post but the journey to posting it changed it to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to you. Sorry dude.

there’s nothing purer or better than how much kids enjoy being picked up and then hurled at soft surfaces

anyone who’s ever been around kids for ay meaningful amount of time should know exactly how much kids long to be hefted up and then just fuckin tossed! it’s so good! they’re so excited to get fucking tossed around like a sack of potatoes it’s so pure

Why do kids love it so much? Like I remember when I was a kid at diving practice during the summer, the best part was when one if the coaches would toss you into the deep end. And in gymnastics coaches would toss us into the foam pit. Do kids just have a evolutionary urge to die?

https://themilitarywifeandmom.com/why-kids-wont-listen/

“Vestibular sense provides information about where the body is in relation to its surroundings. This is the sense that helps you understand balance, and it connects with all the other senses.

When the vestibular system does not develop properly all other senses will struggle to function properly. Without a strong vestibular sense, kids will have no choice but to fidget, get frustrated, experience more falls and aggression, get too close to people when talking, and struggle with focusing and listening. Because they literally cannot help it.”

“Here are a few ways to support your child’s vestibular sense:

Yeeting kids, spinning them, flipping them upside down, tossing them in the air, and otherwise disrupting their balance temporarily, is Important For Their Development, specifically for their vestibular sense.

Kids love this because they NEED it.

In other words: Don’t forget to calibrate your child’s GPS!

YEET THE CHILD FOR THEIR HEALTH

Hi! Paediatric Occupational Therapist here who yeets children into pillows for a living. It’s actually more than the vestibular system! It’s also giving them proprioception, which is the feeling of your joints and muscles / where your body is in space! 

We all seek proprioceptive input, leaning against walls, pushing against the steering wheel when driving, giving your body a squeeze to wake yourself up, the list goes on! When we ‘crash’ kids into soft things like pillows or beds, we’re waking their bodies up AND calming their bodies down! In other words, getting them into this super nice zone of “just right” regulation. 

When I see a child who is bouncing off the walls and can’t seem to stand still for more than a few seconds? I start wrestling with them, crashing them into pillows, giving their body the right amount of input they need to feel good and organised. And suddenly, this kid is able to sit and play attentively or do their handwriting practice. It’s amazing! If you want to know more about why the vestibular and proprioceptive systems are awesome at making your body feel good, google those two words (and sensory processing) and read through some occupational therapy websites! 

Side note: As adults, does your body ever feel jittering/jiggly/wiggly/like it needs to move or calm down but you just can’t figure out why? That’s your sensory system saying Hey! I need to feel differently in order to function better! Here’s what you can do:

Long story short, everyone has a sensory system and we all use regulation strategies like the ones listed above to help make our body feel better. So if you ever see someone (especially kids!) fidgeting and having a hard time focusing, maybe suggest something from the list above!

Had a few folks interested in how I made the patches I posted for Solarpunk Aesthetic Week, so I thought I'd give y'all my step-by-step process for making hand-embroidered patches!

First, choose your fabric and draw on your design. You can use basically any fabric for this - for this project I'm using some felt I've had lying around in my stash for ages.

Next, choose your embroidery floss. For my patches I split my embroidery floss into two threads with 3 strands each, as pictured. You can use as many strands in your thread as you prefer, but for the main body of my patches I prefer 3 strands.

Next you're going to start filling your design using a back stitch.

First, put in a single stitch where you want your row to start.

Poke your needle up through the fabric 1 stitch-length away from your first stitch.

Poke your needle back down the same hole your last stitch went into so they line up end-to-end.

Repeat until you have a row of your desired length (usually the length of that colour section from one end to the other). Once you have your first row, you're going to do your next row slightly offset from your first row so that your stitches lay together in a brick pattern like this:

Make sure your rows of stitches are tight together, or you'll get gaps where the fabric shows through.

Rinse and repeat with rows of back stitch to fill in your patch design.

When you're almost to the end of your thread, poke your needle through to the back of the fabric and pull the thread under the back part of the stitching to tuck in the end. Don't worry if it looks messy - no one's gonna see the back anyway.

This next step is fully optional, but I think it makes the patch design really pop. Once your patch is filled in, you can use black embroidery floss to outline your design (or whatever colour you want to outline with - it's your patch, do what you want). I use the full thread (6 strands, not split) of embroidery floss to make a thicker outline.

I use the same back stitch I used to fill the piece to make an outline that adds some separation and detail. You could use most any 'outlining' stitch for this, but I just use back stitch because it's just easier for me to do.

Once you're finished embroidering your patch, it's time to cut it out!

Make sure to leave a little border around the edge to use for sewing your patch on your jacket/bag/blanket/whatever, and be careful not to accidentally cut through the stitches on the back of the patch.

If you have a sturdy enough fabric that isn't going to fray, you can just leave it like this. If not, I recommend using a whip stitch/satin stitch to seal in the exposed edges (I find that splitting your embroidery floss into 3-strand threads works best for this).

And then you're done! At this point you can put on iron-on backing if you want, or just sew it on whatever you wanna put it on. Making patches this way does take a long time, but I feel that the results are worth it.

Thanks for reading this tutorial! I hope it was helpful. If anyone makes patches using this method, I'd love to see them! 😁

GREAT tutorial on patches. sharing is caring, my friends.

Had a really vivid dream I was addicted to eating plastic screen protectors and I feel like I understand those my strange addiction people now

They had such a satisfying crunch too

I binged like 4 of them while in a sort of plastic screen protector craving trance and when I snapped out of it I tried to induce vomiting they would have made such an interesting TLC episode on me in my dream

slasher horror: you better not have premarital sex or gerald "the stabber" douglas is gonna getcha

creepypasta: once there was a teen named alex and he was bullied so hard that he and the acid disfigured him so and he started killing everyone so they call him george the attacker

/x/: there was the skinwalker who stole my best friend's voice and then man door hand hook car door

r/nosleep: my wife was hungry for raw meat and then she gave birth to The Satan. he looked me in the eyes and said "don't go outside past midnight or else the eyeless ones might notice." but it turns out i never had a wife or son and the world ended 5 years ago on this very night.

r/twosentencehorror: i ran out of bloodmilk for my cereal. luckily, the creature provides.

mascot horror: this is silly wiggles, the candy giraffe! explore the silly wiggles candy emporium after dark! the secret ingredient is Love™! also the hidden video tapes will reveal that "Love™" is actually the copyright name for the consciousness of tortured children, mixed with the ground organs of factory workers.

indie horror: i can't describe this, there are only 7 pixels so idk what's going on

also get peer reviewed.

Let! That! Baby! Eat!!!!!!

Perfect tags

Please stop trigger tagging with #epilepsy tw/cw/warning/etc.

I need every single person to understand how horrible tumblr’s tagging system is

I go into the tag for epilepsy and its all flashing lights. We can’t use our own tag because people without epilepsy fill it up with improper warnings.

Use ‘flashing’ in place of ‘epilepsy’ in your tags. You aren’t warning people of epileptics, you’re warning us of flashing lights. Please please tag properly. Epileptics say this endlessly and constantly and it’s ignored. You are risking lives by doing this.

Here’s proof of what I mean:

THIS POST IS 100% OKAY TO REBLOG, I ENCOURAGE PEOPLE WITHOUT EPILEPSY TO ESPECIALLY DO SO!

The Turkey Story

So it’s 2001, and my family drives from fucking California and like three blizzards to get to Ohio for thanksgiving, becuase my grandparents are moving into a nursing home and it’s their last holiday in that house.  So its a bit bittersweet but ultimately a good thing.

Since it’s their last holiday there, the family pulls out all the stops when it comes to dinner, all the Russian desserts come out, as does the Lethal Bacon Mashed Potatoes and the horrible candied yams with the mini marshmallows dish because not all expressions of love are good, even if they are sincere.  In the spirit of going all-out, Uncle Bobby smokes a Turkey.  

Uncle Bobby started cooking as a boy scout by tossing foil-wrapped potatoes into a campfire and has been addicted since, and now has a hand-made smokehouse in the backyard where he makes various cured meats and other delights.  He seasons the turkey in the traditional manner, but he and grandpa have a shared passion for a spicier mesquite-style bird, so Bobby makes a Cornish Game Hen seasoned that way, for them.

Then Bobby has a Brilliant Idea.  He realizes that he can stuff the turkey (once it has been smoked) with regular stuffing, and there is still plenty of room for him to put the game hen inside THAT, and stuff the game hen becuase why not?  He confers with Mom, and she explains how to cut open the turkey so there’s  dramatic reveal as the stuffing and game hen come out.  It’s Genius.

Except, of course, that my Aunt Sue is attending, Uncle Cliff slouching after her.

So the day of the dinner, tensions are running a bit high, between the marathon cooking, the kids all being trapped indoors due to aforementioned blizzards, and Uncle Cliff deciding that the best way to amuse himself is by hiding from the adults in the basement, getting drunk and rambling about how various ethic groups were destroying America.  Being that I had close Muslim friends that were leaving the country becuase of 9/11, I was near tears from this nonsense and ready to fight a man roughly five times my size.  

Sue, for some reason, keeps coming down and defending him, or telling us we’re rotten children for ‘attacking’ him, becuase she Must Stand By Her Man, even if her man is a hefty bag of dog feces with an ugly mustache.

My sister eventually bolts upstairs to tattle and my grandfather limps down to the basement and brandishes his Hip-Bone Cane, hands rock-steady in spite of the Parkinson’s slowly taking over him.

“Firstly Cliff, It may not be my roof much longer but while you are under it you will be civil, or I’ll beat your skull in.  Also, dinner’s ready, everyone go wash up.”

We go upstairs and sit down, and do the traditional “Name one thing you’re thankful for” as the bread gets passed around the table, and things calm down a bit.  Bobby brings out the Turkey and everyone goes OOH becuase it’s really pretty, them Mom carves it open so that the stuffing spills out dramatically along with the game hen and there’s an appreciative gasp all around becuase it looks cool.

Only Sue KEEPS gasping, in utter horror, before getting up and clasping her hands to her face ala Edvard Munch and shrieks-

“OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT!”

We all stare at Sue.  We all look back at the fully-dressed-cooked-and-stuffed birds that in no way had any internal organs in them or ever gave live birth. Then we all looked back at Sue, trying to figure out where to begin but since she’d been trying to justify Cliff’s behavior she was pretty much free-associating conspiracies and scandals now, and just kept going.

“IT WAS PREGNANT MY GOD WE’VE COMMITTED AN ABORTION WE’RE ALL GOING TO HELL FOR THIS, I’M SO SORRY JESUS-” She goes into full pearl-clutching gibbering horror at this point and falls back into her chair like it’s a Victorian fainting couch only it’s a shitty chair from the Eisenhower administration so it collapses and she slams into the floor, sobbing and kicking her feet like a toddler.

Everyone watched for a moment before my Mom sighs heavily and starts carving and serving the turkey while my grandmother mouths “she’s not coming back”.   

Cliff, reactions delayed by about six beers, finally notices his wife is on the floor and tries to pick her up, falls on his ass himself.  They are assisted by Dad, who is saintly patient man and less immune to this jacknapery at that point. I am stuffing dinner rolls into my face to keep from laughing at this grand spectacle and it’s not working.

“I CAN’T EAT IT, I REFUSE TO PARTAKE IN THIS BARBARISM-”  Sue begins but Dad puts on his best Kindly Father voice (he was heavily involved with the catholic church and even considered becoming a priest before getting drafted but that’s another story) and assures Sue that she need not eat, or even be in the room if she wants.  She nods, placated by being the center of attention again, and Dad goes in for the kill.

“I wouldn’t want you to go hungry.  Can I make you some Eggs?”

“That would be lovely.” Said Sue, joke flying over her head like a boeing 747.  I recall watching my grandmother nearly choke to death on the green beans over that, and everyone pointedly trying to avoid talking about anything poultry-related while Sue sat there and ate the most ironic scrambled eggs in the history of mankind.

Shortly thereafter, Cliff threw up in the sink and they went home, and the party got underway properly, with Grandpa raising a toast to Mom and Uncle Bobby “For marrying well, for a change” “Pregnant Turkey” has been an Ohioan thanksgiving staple since then.  I’ll see if I can hit Uncle Bobby up for instructions but if you decide to make it 1. you HAVE to shriek “OH MY GOD IT WAS PREGNANT” when you carve it open, or it’s not authentic and won’t taste as good 2. Share the pictures with me.

If you enjoyed this story, help support your local disabled  storyteller by donating to my Tip Jar

you want to help stop tumblr from murdering itself? here's how!

i encourage you to reblog this so we can get as many people leaving feedback as humanly possible. we need to let staff know this is an utterly terrible idea

by the way, tumblr has turned off asks on all of their staff blogs, so this is the only way to tell tumblr how you feel

actually correction, the @/emporium still has asks on. you know what to do gang

Warning: do not delete any sideblogs

I’ve been seeing it happen to a handful of people, but apparently if you try to delete your sideblog you will end up deleting your MAIN tumblr account entirely as well I don’t know if this is a bug or something, but I’ve seen it happen to ~4 people now, so until this possible bug gets worked out do NOT delete any of your sideblogs unless you want to risk deleting your account entirely

As far as I know, this is not a programming bug. This is bad design resulting in user error. It is safe to delete sideblogs if you do it the correct (non-intuitive) way.

Source: I have successfully deleted multiple sideblogs over the years. And I have unfortunately heard of many people accidentally deleting their whole accounts over the years too. This Tumblr help page corroborates my experience and outlines the proper way to delete a sideblog. (Note the difference between the headers: “Deleting Your Account” vs. “Deleting a Secondary Blog or Leaving a Group Blog”)

The mistake people make:

When you go into the settings of a sideblog, there’s a button at the bottom that says “Delete [sideblog url]”

Of course, people think this button will delete only the sideblog they want to delete. But the thing is, this button shows up at the bottom of every blog in the settings page, and the url displayed will match whatever sideblog you’re looking at. It will still delete your entire account, as intended by staff.

What you need to actually do:

When you want to delete a sideblog, you must go to the members tab of that blog and hit “Delete this blog”

https://www.tumblr.com/blog/[sideblog url]/members

Reasoning:

Sideblogs are meant to have the potential to be shared by multiple users. So the thinking is, if you are one of 5 members of a blog and you want to leave, you go into the members tab and leave. The 4 other people still share the blog without you.

That same line of thought applies when you are the only user. When you are the only owner of a sideblog, you must ‘leave’ the ‘group’ from the members page to delete it. Deleting any blog from the settings page will delete your entire account.

If you’re still unsure, you can follow these steps:

ID: screenshots of the relevant pages described in the post /ED

ANTI-CAPITALIST AFFIRMATIONS

This is awesome…some body focused ones would be so nice add, too, seeing as how much money is made off of our insecurities (insecurities they manufacture in us btw)

•I am not only allowed to be still, rest, and eat, I must do these things to survive.

•My body doesn’t need to look or function to someone else’s standards.

•I’m allowed to seek pleasure in my body.

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

To wit:

I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.

Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕

hopefully i'll be able to do more recipes in the future.

stardust the isopod!! 🌌⭐️🪲

gift for @nekochan700 and pattern by TumAnnArt!

insane how many people just have these incredible artists in their families who get no recognition outside of crocheting circles because this art form is devalued for its association with women

in my country, the word for crocheting, is used metaphorically, to compliment a surgeon’s work.

every AFAB person my mother’s age and older, had practiced this craft at one point on another.

My mom has made literal paintings, that decorate our house for years (I’ll come back with pictures when I visit next) you can only see that they are crocheting when you go very close.

as promised here’s my mom’s crocheting “paintings”

There is another one but it had been stored many years ago, (i remember it from my childhood) and sadly it is probably damaged by mold, it depicted wild horsed running in nature 

@snazzy-hats-and-adhd

penis BLAST

I destroy the life you savor

Killing you with perfect laser!

More I blast the more I stronger,

More I fire, beam gets longer.

Give my new attack a try,

Penis blast, you have to die!

Saying "voting doesn't matter" might reach your younger peers online but it certainly hasn't reached Clangus Hargbarg who was part of the kkk in 1951 and still sends in his ballot. He hasn't missed a one.

Hey you guys, I know we had the French-Indian war, native battles, slave uprisings, worker strikes, the entire civil rights movement, and A.I.M and a movement for disability and everyone else who wasn't inherently born with rights (??) In the USA... But I guess that was only because we weren't voting hard enough. Like if we had voted harder things wouldn't have come to that.

Us being oppressed is the natural order of things and we gotta vote to stop being oppressed otherwise they don't know we don't like it. They keep forgetting and that's not their fault!

So just beg harder and louder ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯ try to get cishet abled white people to not only care about you and see you as a person but to also agree you should have rights and then get them to work towards that by taking action through voting for your rights.

Once a year.

Yeah :3

In summary just rely on a bunch of privileged people and white supremacists to care enough to change things . That's 100% worked out for every marginalized group that's ever relied on systems white men created (only in my dreams but that's neither here or there).

Voting matters, you're so right. My bad. Won't step out of line by saying otherwise again.

I think there’s a middle ground here. I will be abundantly clear: voting is not the way systemic change occurs. Systemic change is built on the blood, sweat, and tears of those who came before us. Disorder is necessary for change in a system that was initially designed to only be accessible to the rich white man.

That being said, still vote. I’d much rather we vote someone like Biden into office than Trump. It’s important to vote people into office who are less likely to literally kill us. People like Marjorie Taylor Green (who is quite literally a white supremacist conspiracy theorist) only achieve power because they have a cult following that will bend over backwards to vote them into office. Obviously, the left doesn’t have that. The further left you lean, the less likely it becomes that there is any candidate on the market who stands for your beliefs. But while voting is not the catalyst for positive change, I refuse to roll over and let them win.

Idk I think if I say "human rights are basic requirement that we should have. we should do something to make that happen since voting hardly works" and the general response is immediate pushback and victim blaming and telling me how unrealistic that is then maybe my rock bottom expectations aren't the problem.

maybe it's the very privileged members of the society we live in who keep telling people like me to shut up and vote because they're more focused on patting themselves on the back for getting a dem in office than they are about making sure that dem actually does anything.

It's been almost 4 years. Where is the pressure on Biden to lean left? Where were the protests when Roe v Wade fell? When he went back on his student loan promise? When he didn't codify Roe v Wade after he promised?

Y'all want us to vote and shut the fuck up and that became abundantly clear when they got their "normal" back with Biden.

Fuck the rest of us, right?

Dont wanna let them win?

Refuse to let them win then. Quit letting them. Quit voting for parties that have poisoned our air, water, earth, and kids on purpose. Don't keep granting them power. Take it from them. How else do you intend to make them lose? Do you really think kissing their feet and just being grateful they aren't worse is how progress happens?

Cuz it sounds like something abuse victims say when they're in survival mode.

Maybe it's time to leave your shitty Uncle Sam's house. You don't get out of survival mode by learning to live with your predators.

You fucking leave.

And if they won't then you make them because you deserve better and your safety is worth fighting for even if you have to take a couple hits to get it at first.

That's the only thing that's ever worked before. Like you said. Voting doesn't bring about systemic change. Action does. Blood, sweat, and tears.

Okay, WOW.

Someday I would love to have the confidence you displayed in this Gish gallop.

1) you’re not being victim-blamed. You’re being told that it’s easier to fight when the people you’re fighting aren’t actively trying to murder most of the country, which is true. Your statements suggest to me you’re Native, and you’re 100% correct that the way Natives get treated is absolutely shameful. But when you’ve got Biden signing a law mandating that all reservations should have access to electricity, and the right trying to make it legal to babysnatch from Natives by overturning the IWCA (which thank G-d they failed at)…like one is taking bare minimum steps toward helping and the other is actively trying to commit genocide. Nobody is saying Biden is doing enough for Natives, and if they are they’re at best misinformed. But while we’re working on the kind of systemic change that voting will not provide, it’s helpful to not be catapulting further into a hellhole. I’d also point out that your examples of places where voting wouldn’t help you are all from times and places where Natives couldn’t vote, so yeah, fighting back was the option you had and that was it. But like, down here in Arizona we elected a Native to our state House in 2020, and it has absolutely changed things for the Navajo and Apache in our state. Getting greater political representation would absolutely help you, even if it can’t fix everything.

2) People are absolutely pushing on Biden to lean left. If you were a member of grassroots political groups, you’d definitely know that. Here’s the thing: if you spend a lot of time on Tumblr, you probably get the idea that almost everyone cares about politics. That isn’t true. For many people on both sides, getting their “I voted” sticker every four years is the extent of their involvement. If you want to see political action, you have to go where it’s happening.

3) I have to believe you’re speaking from a place of anger when you ask “where were the protests when Roe fell.” They were EVERYWHERE. And yes, we’re still trying to fix stuff. Unfortunately it’s way quicker, easier, and more dramatic to fix than to break.

4) literally just yesterday you saw six Republicans destroy the promise Biden made about student loans. And his immediate response was “I have a plan B.” He absolutely did what he promised. It was immediately destroyed by Republicans.

5) Biden did indeed say that Roe should be codified into law (actually he said “women’s reproductive rights,” which covers more than Roe, but Roe is in there so we’ll call this accurate). But you’re incorrect in stating he didn’t try to make this happen. The bill stalled in the Senate due to, you guessed it, the fucking Republicans. You may be wondering why Biden doesn’t just make an executive order, and the answer is that executive orders deal with the function of the federal government. Biden can’t just say “and now abortion is legal everywhere because I said so.” He doesn’t have the power to do that. And this is a feature, not a bug, which is most easily explained by pointing out that Trump actively wanted, and tried to provoke, a nuclear war. If executive orders allowed the president to do anything they wanted, we’d all be living in the Fallout franchise right now. Biden tried. And once again, Republicans made him fail.

6) I don’t want you to shut up. I suspect very few people on the true left (not neoliberals, fuck them, I mean actual progressives) want you to shut up. What we are asking for is that you help us get a government that can move us in the right direction. No, it’s not enough. But having a tailwind helps when you’ve got a race to run. Trump is currently saying if he gets back in office he’ll pass laws making it a death-penalty crime to be “liberal or communist.” Which he defines as “anyone who didn’t vote for him.” You can probably see why not allowing that to come to pass is important.

7) “quit voting” is a sure way to get the party that wants you white or dead in power. And again: there’s one party pushing for better environmentalism, children’s rights, and Native rights, and one that wants everyone concerned with those things to die. They are not the same. No, Biden isn’t perfect. But he isn’t doing basically anything you claim.

You’re angry, scared, and frustrated, and I get it. Trust me, I’m in a similar boat. The right wants me dead too. But what you are calling for will not solve anything. It will make things worse. I would like to help fight for your rights. Please don’t make it harder to do so.

I’m happy to elaborate on any of this. And if you’re in Arizona I’m also happy to direct you toward Native grassroots movements here. If you’re elsewhere, your tribal elders or Friendship Center should be able to provide those resources to you. And you can contact ActBlue from anywhere to hook into those groups, as well. But refusing to vote won’t make the election not happen, it just means the winner will come from a smaller pool of votes. And if the majority of those votes come from Festus who hasn’t missed a vote in 50 years, there is a much, MUCH higher chance you and I will both be dead by 2026.

This is the bus analogy in action.

I want to go to the place where POC are safe, green infrastructure is very well funded, healthcare is universal, Roe is codified as law, the student loan situation is moved into something that works, all public colleges are affordable if not free, and LGBT+ rights and protections are all codified. (This is a summary).

I cannot drive or call a cab to the place I want to go to, we are all getting on a bus together whether we vote or not.

Bus 1 goes to a place where the militarization of police continues, racially motivated murders are ignored/joked about/or encouraged, healthcare is worse, I lose all bodily autonomy not just as a woman but as someone with a chronic medical condition, student loans are ignored, fossil fuels continue to get tax breaks, and LGBT+ people lose more rights and access to public spaces.

Bus 2 goes to more public funds into healthcare that work to get some costs down, student loans are partly forgiven (possibly in 10 rather than 20 years of payments which Biden has done), the federal government is working to assist people in states that ban abortions and maintaining access where they can, more money goes into grants for college, and we have federal money for green tech development.

Bus 2 is not going where I want to go. Bus 2 is not going within walking distance of where I want to go. But Bus 1 is going somewhere my life expectancy decreases, where people I love and care about are likely to end up hurt or dead, where the next 2 generations have no chance of going to college or having a future after that college they couldn’t afford.

We are going to end up on one of those buses. I want Bus 2 because there is no bus 3. I wish there was a bus 3, but we inherited a system of governance that locked us into this and no one has a viable plan to change it by 2024 because changing the electoral college requires a constitutional amendment or all of the states that like their inflated influence agreeing to stop.

Bus 2 is on the road to where Bus 3 will pick up. Bus 1 is going in the opposite direction.

I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.

Time to drop some links again.

– https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.

– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.

– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)

– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.

– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.

– https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Google’s. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)