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what I wish people would understand about fundraising for gaza is that while everyone is desperate and I would never say not to fundraise for or donate to individual families-- I currently fundraise to support multiple friends' families-- the overwhelming narrative I see on Tumblr that the best and most ethical thing you can do is send money to individuals and there is no option for anything else is so so incredibly damaging and inadvertently lends support to the marginalization and distrust of any remaining communal social infrastructure. the sameer project, which you should donate to, talks about this in a recent video they put out. the situation in gaza is unimaginable and everyone is in need of a huge level of support, and yet this fundraising discourse by well-meaning people in the west that donating money to individuals is the only moral way reproduces societal divides wherein resources are directed to people who speak English, who have relationships with people outside of gaza, and who have internet access while hundreds of thousands are left behind.

there ARE non-ngo locally based grassroots initiatives working to meet those needs however they can, and your small donation goes a lot further with them because they are able to buy food/water/supplies in bulk at a reduced price and reach more people with less money. again I'm not saying people shouldn't fundraise for individuals because these initiatives are so limited and many people cannot access them -- but as an example, the group I fundraise with is currently serving people fleeing north gaza who are starving and have nothing, and when we fundraise enough to do cash aid distribution there's so much need that our partners can only distribute 100-200 per large family. and then I go online and see people who have absolutely no understanding of this context at all exclusively working towards raising tens of thousands for just a few people when evacuations haven't been possible for months. it's good to do whatever you can but please consider how this narrative being reproduced among westerners trying to help that there are no other options has the potential to damage groups working towards equity and wider reach however is still possible

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fujoshi wizard has put the two knights into a timeloop with only each other for comfort

which could mean nothing

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I think it would be really fucking funny to write a piece of fiction set entirely in real life but using lazy fantasy worldbuilding talk. I gather coin* for the road west** - I will need it to enter the Capital.***

* two quarters and two dimes

** Interstate 64

*** Richmond, Virginia

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[DAZED FROM BLOOD LOSS] hey not to kill the vibe completely but i think i am in love with you

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"furry inflation" (2024)

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the bus may cost me $6 dollars a day but at least its slow and unreliable

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when your friend Mark forgets to return the worms he borrowed from you

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The essay series no one at all is asking for.

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masks that cover the face but leave the eyes visible give someone a deeply personal character - they present someone as a thinking, feeling person first and foremost, and anonymise them physically.

on the other hand, masks that cover the face but leave the mouth visible do the opposite - they present someone as a body, a visceral and physical being. where the eyes subjectify, the mouth objectifies them.

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What are your feelings on car centrists? I don’t want to need a car but I still want to have one.

when my friends and i need to organize a big trip to a box grocery store to really stock up, we rent a gig car and split the cost. ideally, there's a public fleet of vehicles accessible to people to use when they need it.

but also, there's no reality where we get to, like, zero percent car ownership. i feel pretty confident in saying that you are not under any risk of being unable to have a car if you feel you'd like to have a car. the idea is not to abolish car ownership altogether (at least not in the short term) but to reduce the number of situations in which the average person NEEDS a car. obviously if you live in the midwest where everything's a million miles apart, until you've got speedy frequent reliable rail and a solid bus network folks are still gonna want cars. this is a big fucking country.

which is why cars need to get smaller again! a big reason why there's a pedestrian death epidemic is that tax exceptions, tariffs, and small business grindset have combined to create a car market where you're most incentivized to buy an SUV or truck. unnecessarily big motherfuckers with awful sight lines and broad flat fronts perfectly designed for killing pedestrians. often spotless and rarely used for the kind of work they're designed for. at least china is out here actually making small EV cars oh wait 100% tariff on chinese EVs thanks biden the most progressive president in modern history!

anyway, i don't think there's such a thing as a "car centrist." there's no middle ground here. we already live in a utopia of cars. if you're a car, it's never been better for you than right now. investing massively in public transit does nothing to affect the existing quantity of car stock, but merely decreases our reliance on it. the kind of project i'm imagining here is something that will take decades of concerted effort to accomplish, along the lines of the New Deal works projects i grew up hearing about from my parents as these astonishing acts of human organization and ingenuity. no one is coming to take your car away, and no one is going to make it impossible for you to get a car any time soon. but wouldn't it be nice if you had a lot more options to get around besides a car?

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Utena fanarts I made back in may when I first watched the show but that I never felt like posting

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i love the commentary against those wannabe murderers who shouldn’t drive but you do realize not everywhere has public transportation right? also like not everyone with a car hates poor people what is that mindset in your tags. i’m poor and disabled and can’t walk everywhere in a city that barely has sidewalks. and the only public transportation is like one very expensive repurposed school bus

that's exactly why i'm always talking about transit! i grew up in oklahoma, i'm a public transit evangelist because i never had access to it until VERY recently. the attitude espoused in my tags is an honest expression of my own frustration with car owners and car culture. personally, i find it very annoying that every time i make a post like this i get a note like "umm not everyone who has a car is evil, actually in the suburbs you HAVE to have a car to survive." as if i don't know this? i lived in the suburbs most of my life working shit jobs without a car, so i walked everywhere, sometimes riding my bicycle on the highway as the only way to get to work. part of the reason i left the film industry was the realization that i simply couldn't continue doing the job without a car, and besides not being able to afford it i just don't trust myself behind the wheel and never have. at the same time, i've seen how car ownership can become an albatross for low income people, a vortex of debt and obligation that could be solved instantly if accessible transit were an actual priority of the ruling class.

don't you want to be free of this? have you so resigned yourself to the impossibility of public transit where you live that the best you can think to do is "well actually" a complete stranger who's talking about something that would directly benefit you? i understand that car culture is imposed upon us and a lot of people would choose to take trains/buses if they were available. but i also understand that a gargantuan quantity of car owners i've met and encountered become bloodthirsty freaks when even the minorest of inconvenience shows up while they're driving. i hate car owners! my brother in law once openly boasted at a kitchen table full of kids that if he saw an occupy protest in real life he'd mow them down with his car, and then everyone laughed because SUBURBAN CAR OWNERS ARE FUCKING INSANE and they should be persecuted! by which i mean public transit needs to be invested in on a massive scale, alongside a program that disincentivizes car ownership! i want that to happen WHERE YOU LIVE! i want your life specifically to be better than it is! just because you're a car owner doesn't mean i hate you. good car owners also hate car owners, in fact most of the urbanists & transit advocates i know are people who are forced to rely on cars to get where they're going, who've spent most of their lives in the suburbs and only recently escaped to a city that still only *barely* has good transit, and are saying a lot of the same things i'm saying anyway. we're frustrated and fed up with a world that is totally owned by car dealerships, and in the absence of a broad socialist movement we're instead fruitlessly venting our frustrations online.

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Would being called big dog fix me? Who knows?

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moon princess wizard

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My housemate's cat came into my room while my dictation was on...

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