purplepink-blueberry

[purplepink-blueberry]

There’s a regular at the fabric superstore. She’s at least 80 years old, and she just got back into sewing after giving it up for 40 years. We’ll call her Irma.

I love Irma.

Irma is constantly surprised by the newfangled sewing gadgets our store sells. Today she bought some extra-fine glass-head pins and a magnetic pincushion. As I’m ringing her purchases up, she tells me very seriously, “did you know, if you’re careful, you can sew RIGHT OVER those pins? You don’t need to take them out!”

I told her that I liked that you can’t accidentally melt the head of the glass pins with your iron, and she nodded. “They used to all be like that, but times changed.”

I love old sewing machines and asked what kind of machine she has, and she goes, “Oh, it’s an old Singer Featherweight that my husband bought me when we were first married. It’s probably not worth anything anymore, but the thing sews fine. Have you seen the ones those girls over there–” indicating the sewing machine sub-store in my location “–have? Those things go in every direction and the needle always comes to the top when you stop sewing! Imagine how handy that is!”

I mention that I used to sew on my grandmother’s Featherweight but now there’s a intra-family war about who owns Grandma’s Featherweight and so no one gets to use it. It’s genuinely the best portable straight-stitch machine I’ve ever used.

I warn her to never let anyone tell her that Featherweight isn’t worth something. “I know, I miss my husband and it’s always going to have a place in my heart, just like your grandma’s.”

“I mean, Irma, there’s that, but they’re also worth a really notable amount of money. The Singer Featherweight is really financially valuable. I almost never see them for sale around here for less than about $400, and that’s in bad condition.”

“It’s a good thing my husband’s dead, honey, because if you told him that he managed to buy a sewing machine that’s worth more in 2021 than he bought it for in 1950, well, he’d be so smug that I just wouldn’t be able to tolerate driving home with him.”

[purplepink-blueberry]

If somebody does or says something objectionable, go ahead and boycott them.

If an individual has not done anything you can point to as particularly objectionable, but you want to boycott them because they're of a particular nationality, then you're not disagreeing with a particular action, opinion, or viewpoint. You're objecting to a particular kind of person.

For example, I object to the CCP. I believe they are carrying out genocides against Tibetans and Uighurs. I understand, however, that my objection is with the CCP and not Chinese people. So, I boycott particular corporations and individuals who I see as contributing to the oppression of these people (Huawei, for example). I do not object to Chinese nationals being in films, being hired at my university, and I regularly consume art and media created by Chinese nationals.

If I objected to my university hiring a Chinese professor, I would rightly be called Sinophobic. I would be doing something racist. This wouldn't be a boycott, it would be bigoted and discriminatory behavior.

You should object to certain actions and attitudes, not to certain kinds of people.

[purplepink-blueberry]

There's so much fucking antisemitism everywhere all the time.

When I've done things to show support for black antiracist movements, nobody ever told me that I'm black and pretending to be white.

When I've done things to show support for Muslims experiencing Islamophobia, nobody ever told me that I'm Muslim and pretending not to be.

When I've done things to show support for Ukrainians, nobody told me that I'm secretly Ukrainian.

When I've done things to show support for Asians experiencing anti-Asian racism, nobody told me that I'm secretly Asian.

Yet, when I've done things to show support for Jewish people experiencing antisemitism, people have accused me, on multiple occasions, of being Jewish.

Jewish people are portrayed as unreliable narrators of their own experiences. Collective gaslighting has convinced many people that antisemitism is overblown. All while statements that would be immediately flagged as racist, if said about any other group, are tolerated if said about Jews.

It's so plain to see. I mean, if I (a non-Jew) have been accused of being Jewish in order to discredit me, what does that suggest about how people frame the reliability of Jewish people?

[purplepink-blueberry]

nothing humbles you faster than realizing the sentence you’re most proud of is grammatically incomprehensible.

[purplepink-blueberry]

sorry

[purplepink-blueberry]

We should abolish single sex spaces btw. There is no way to make a single sex space without being sexist, transphobic, exorsexist and intersexist.

Public bathrooms should be single stalls only. Contact sports should be organised by weight class. Single sex schools need to reintegrate. Gender/sex based marketing needs to stop altogether. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

If you have a problem associating with people you see as being [x] gender/sex then go away. Remove yourself from the situation and stop bothering innocent people with your insecurities.

[purplepink-blueberry]

academic who writes a paper and just puts "credit to original author :)" for all their citations

[purplepink-blueberry]

Racism in the ace community is seen as a joke from the outside and a confusing concept in the inside but it's pretty bait tbh:

Barbie, Wednesday and Elsa are ace-coded but not canon aces but they're widely accepted as ace icons in the community. Lacking genitalia, disliking romance and being single are not inherently asexual yet the community happily claims them as ace solely on those reasons. But Selah Summers? Nah she actually didn't say the words "aroace" even though the director confirmed it so she didn't really count. Abbi Singh? Nah she had a girlfriend and her superpower is being a succubus and it's not like the Imperfects actually addressed the themes of an asexual lesbian South Asian woman and her sexuality or anything. Fei Hargreeves? Well yeah the actress and producer confirmed it but she never said it on screen. Ace characters of colour always get held "screened" for approval to be "real rep" in a way white aces aren't its so weird (this also happens to gay aces but that's another post)

Almost anything involving Yasmin Benoit. The reason she's unacceptable ace rep is because of misogynoir. She's spoken so many times about never dating and not having sex (which mind you is none of our business and she shouldn't need to explain herself in the 1st place) and yet she's "too sexual" to represent the community. Again with the nitpicking, popular white ace accounts were so quick to dogpile her for not-so-good takes but when she speaks about racism? Crickets. When she spoke about sexual harassment? Crickets and not only that but they defended her harasser. The main ace activists that defended her were other Black aspecs.

Not understanding how desexualisation affects POC. Specifically, Black women are excluded from representations of love and sex because we're seen as undesirable. It's common for TV/Film to pair up everyone but the Black girl, or have a rebound Black partner for the non-Black main character who's disposed of when they're ready for their "real" non-Black partner again. This isn't done for Black aspecs benefit. It's a form of dehumanisation. Friendship especially in m/f is needed but exclusively pushing for friendship between Black women and non-Black men when there is romance coded or confirmed and shaming Black women in fandom or in show for shipping the Black female character is not doing what you think its doing.

Not understanding how sexualisation effects POC. Again linking to Yasmin, POC, especially Black people have been sexualised due to white supremacy. The "allosexual privilege" framework fails to acknowledge this because Black people's sexual attraction and sex is seen as aggressive and animalistic. Black people aren't "allowed" to be ace because of this sexualisation and why Yasmin regardless of what she wears or does is seen is too promiscuous.

Not acknowledging ace POC as ace rep. Again, where was the acknowledgement of Selah and the Spades as groundbreaking rep? The first aroace darkskin Black girl as a lead in any film? Sherronda J Brown spoke about Big Mouth's Black ace character and someone said it didn't count just bc they dislike the show. Again with Abbi and Fei the community didn't make noise for them like they did Todd from Bojack Horseman or Florence from Sex Ed (mind you the gap between how they did Florence vs O is jarring in itself) Isaac from Heartstopper was inspirational for many aspecs and I wont take that away but the way he's instantly credited for ace representation when he has so little screentime compared to the others is wild.

Just tired tbh. "Listen to POC aces!" "POC aces are valid!" Prove it then...?

[purplepink-blueberry]

has anyone figured out how much art you need to make to make your mental illness go away

[purplepink-blueberry]

the idea that "transandrophobia truther" or w/e are primarily concerned with being "special" and not like. the actual real world harm done to trans men by society. would be funny if it weren't so frustrating. y'all bought into Transmasc Word Bad so deep that you think our primary concern hasn't always been about trans guys' safety. anyways this IS you agreeing with genderkoolaid womp womp

[purplepink-blueberry]

králové v pohádkách, z nějakého důvodu:

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[purplepink-blueberry]

For some reason, it never occurred to me that Project Gutenberg would have public domain old cookbooks. This is BRILLIANT. There’s a 1953 cranberry recipe pamphlet and a suffrage cookbook from 1915 and a translation of Apicus’s guide to food in Imperial Rome and a whole bunch of other fascinating old cookbooks, many pre-1800. Treasure trove!

[purplepink-blueberry]

During the first games Katniss thinks Peeta is playing some sort of 7D chess meanwhile the boy is barely playing checkers.

[purplepink-blueberry]

As an Aroace I think both aros and aces need to find a good word for “if I experienced attraction I know I’d be madly in love with you but I don’t so instead you’re just like, nice and pretty”

[purplepink-blueberry]

So I was writing a small paper in Microsoft Word and the program suddenly crashed (I saved a couple minutes before, thank god) and I get this message in the corner of my screen two seconds afterward

what the fuck