#actually in poverty

[germtimes]

Praying I keep my electricity and the company doesn't get mad cuz I spent the last $70 on food so I can stop feeling so bad instead of trying to pay off this $170 bill... at least I have eggs.

[noagskryf]

Do people not understand that even if someone was surrounded by money and food and water and clothing and shelter, if they physically cannot feed themselves or dress themselves, they would die? Because i feel like some people think that the Great Solution is eradicate poverty and not "accept that some disabled people do rely on constant care and no amount of resources can substitute the need for human help"

Obviously poverty and inequalities in society make it harder for disabled people to survive but i don't think some activists understand that disability itself is disabling and disability isn't just an outcome of ones circumstances

[beeseverywhen]

Mind blowing that this even needs to be said but

Neat run down of all the ways we're poorer now than in 2010. In case you come across anyone honestly asking 'are we more well off after 14 years of tory rule' no. You aren't. Even a little bit.

We analyse a key point of contention in the general election campaign: the government’s record on pay, housing, energy and food bills

It is a simple question – and it will be at the heart of the general election campaign. After 14 years of Conservative government, people are asking: am I any better off?

The answer for most people is – no, you are not better off.

[a-leg-without-fear]

WHY DID NO ONE TELL ME "A STEADY RAIN" WAS A THING????

AND THAT THEY RAISED OVER $1.5 MILLION FOR BROADWAY CARES, WHICH FUNDS AIDS RESEARCH?????

as if i couldn't love this man any more

[shrcker]

so I moved into my new place but I still need a lot of support right now financially at least until I can throw together a good portfolio and finish my studies to get a decent job.

until then, I do still need to ask for any donations to help feed and support myself. anything will help, I appreciate any and all support, I'm just sorry I can't do this through commissions or anything similar

below is a link if you can help, thank you

[nando161mando]

“We are helping you actually.” -sincerely, your exploiters.

[oscargender]

Heartbreaking: “problematic” danmei everyone told you to avoid is actually pretty decent and has mildly interesting things to say about poverty and class

[maslows-pyramid-scheme]

I just don't see the point of a rights/liberation movement that has to shame and argue its beneficiaries into adopting its 'core' praxis. If the beneficiaries are that resistant to the praxis, then maybe it's fair to say that the particular praxis is unworkable, and that it's time for proponents of the rights/liberation movement to reconsider how they're going to address the problem (in a way that actually is achievable)?

Like, let's argue that separatism was the core radical feminist praxis (and not consciousness-raising, which actually is): if male violence, female (un)happiness and housework disparity statistics and a healthy dose of shame aren't enough to convince heterosexual and bisexual women to ditch their romantic relationships with men, then separatism can't be said to reflect the needs and desires of the affected group.

And radical feminists have two real responses:

They can either ignore the feedback, dig their heels in, and keep trying to convince women, which, I'd argue, doesn't actually help anyone - women in/open to relationships don't want to be condescended, especially by those who aren't perceived as having a stake in the issue (lesbians, bisexual women, women who don't want romantic relationships), and the women doing this inevitably end up feeling frustrated and alienated from others.

Or they can use the repeated rejections as feedback, and reconsider how they want to achieve their goal of female liberation even if women are still living with men (and this, imho, is the beauty of consciousness-raising, because it allows people to get a sense of what a group actually wants).

Separatism has been splintering the feminist movement since the 1960s; if separatism hasn't appealed to heterosexual and bisexual women until, then maybe, just maybe, it's time to get back to our consciousness-raising roots and start brainstorming what's actually achievable?

[snekdood]

notice how when you hear about all these rich white men in high positions of power doing heinous shit, none of them end up being trans men or mascs 🤔 but surely we're just as privileged as any other cis guy right?

[annabelle--cane]

I think I'm particularly pleased about the celia reveal because, as someone who was raised by a single mother, I don't think I often see single mothers in fiction who are reasonably well adjusted and actually care about their kids? I feel like I see happy couples, tortured but loving and soulful single dads, and unstable/abusive single mothers. which isn't to say I think any of those situations are invalid to represent or anything, but when single mothers are always shown as uniquely awful in comparison to married mothers and single dads, the message starts to feel very "women are irresponsible and need a strong man to balance them out."

[starscreamingg]

Detroit Become Human and why does this game decide that the problem in society is individual people treating androids poorly because those androids are choking them out of the workforce and NOT the corporations and governments who deliberately designed the androids to do this

[mags-writes]

me, 14 and reading the end of mockingjay:

me, 24 and reading the end of the ballad of songbirds and snakes:

[morganbritton132]

Do the boys do anything for Easter? I feel like Eddie would hide eggs with treats in it for Ozzy to hide.

Eddie had only been living with Wayne for a few months when their neighbor across the way came knocking on their door. She was a single mother with two unruly children and always tried to flirt with Wayne when he was leaving for work.

The way Wayne tells it, she’s organizing an Easter egg hunt for the kids in the trailer park. Ain’t no reason why they shouldn’t get to have the same experiences as better off kids just ‘cause the price of eggs went up a bit. If the Munsons can afford it, she’d appreciate if they donated.

Wayne’s seen Eddie’s notebooks – there are more drawings in them than school work – and thought he might get a kick out of decorating eggs. He even went out and bought a dye kit.  Eddie was a little too old for something like that, but he could see an olive branch when it was being extended.

Him and Wayne hadn’t yet found their footing with each other, but Wayne was making an effort. No one has ever done that before, so Eddie accepted with one exception, “You gotta paint them with me.”

They boil eggs on the stove and argue about how long you’re supposed to keep them on for. It turns out that Wayne is just as meticulous with his artwork as Eddie is because they spent hours painting and dip-dying eggs. Wayne even broke out an old paint set he had so they could use actual paintbrushes.

Eddie painted a dragon on one egg and an orc on another one. Wayne painted Tweety Bird on one egg and Garfield on another. They were a big hit at the egg hunt (even though Wayne insisted that Eddie participate and he wiped the floor with the other kids).

The extent of Easter in the Harrington house was: Get dressed, go to church, don’t embarrass anybody. That was it. They didn’t do a big dinner. There was no Easter Bunny visit. They never stayed long enough after church services to participate in the church’s easter egg hunt. When he got older, he’d go to Tommy’s, but they then they were too old for the fun Easter traditions.

When Steve taught second grade, he would buy candy and make Easter baskets for his students. He would organize an Easter egg hunt with the other second grade teachers with – much to Eddie’s supreme disappointment – plastic eggs. He was more disappointed to learn that middle schoolers don’t have parties.

So the first Easter after Steve got Ozzy, Eddie was celebrating Easter the right way.

The whole holiday is still kind of lost on Steve, but he’s entertained Eddie enough to just go along with it when he’s this excited about something.

The first year, they learn very quickly that you should not let your dog eat a lot of boiled eggs (also Eddie forgot when he put all of them and Steve nearly killed him). Every year after, Eddie has gotten more and more elaborate and Ozzy gets more and more excited. Steve has woken up to this dog prancing in place with excitement, waiting for them to get up to see what the ‘Easter Bunny’ left him.

A couple years ago, they started putting treats and snacks in plastic eggs and hiding them around the house for Ozzy to find. And then when they got Joan, they started including catnip and toy mice in some of the eggs.

Steve and Eddie continue their tradition of buying each other the most fucked up chocolate bunnies they can find.

[patheticrafeenjoyer]

ward and rafe both throwing money at barry (or at the ground in front of him) is something very casually sinister imo.

firstly it's important to establish the class disparity between them. we know the camerons are wealthy (big home on obx, another in the bahamas, several cars, dressings of wealth and luxury). conversely, we know barry is not (he lives in a trailer, wears clothes that are worn/older-looking, has money from dealing but obviously owes someone else for the supply). even when we look at the obx map, tannyhill is at the furthest point away from the Cut as possible could be (as deep into Figure 8 as you can get), and barry's trailer is about as far away from Figure 8 as possible (its even right on the furthest border of "livable" land in the Cut before it turns to marshes).

from the literal opposite poles that these two reside on, it draws the implication of it being The Richest Of The Rich (camerons) and The Poorest Of The Poor (barry). i do think there are certainly people poorer than barry, but that's not really the point i'm trying to make here. all i mean is that we are explicitly told/shown the class differences between barry vs. the camerons.

so, to the money throwing. in another post, i talked abt how throwing money the way the camerons do is indicative of the value they have for individual bills being significantly less than the value they have for their whole accumulated wealth. it's less than pennies to them. but before ward and rafe throw money at barry, they both have a moment where they kind of hold the money up and wave it at barry, almost tauntingly, the way you'd tease a dog with a treat.

and then, instead of handing him the money, they toss it onto the ground in front of him. again, this shows how little that money means to them. also, in throwing it on the ground, they just expect barry to bend over backwards to pick it up.

it's incredibly cruel and dehumanizing to taunt someone who can't afford to just literally toss money around with it and then make them get on their hands and knees to pick money up off the ground. there's an obvious hierarchy and power imbalance here.

when ward throws the money at barry, barry gives him shit and says "pick up my money", which ward obviously doesn't. this then creates a moment of tension and chicken between them. who will cow first? who will be the one to get the money?

in the end, it's barry. ward could've thrown that money (and more) on the ground and just walked away, and it wouldn't've made a dent in his bank account. the same cannot be said for barry. so barry gets on his hands and knees and starts picking up the money while ward stands over him, literally looking down at the humiliating scenario he's forced barry into. (and then he kicks the shit out of him but that's another post)

when rafe throws the money at barry, barry's obviously not interested in whatever rafe is trying to rope him into. and then rafe tells him "you know why [you'll do this]? because you'll do anything for money." tossing in barry's face that he will ultimately do what rafe wants so long as he pays because barry needs the money enough that he will subject himself to rafe's whims.

the money ends up in a pile on the ground, which barry once again is forced to get down and pick up. rafe throws it and walks away, like he doesn't need or care about that money (he doesn't), and like he knows that barry is in a position where he does need that money.

and yet again, barry is subjected to this humiliating act of picking up money thrown at him by someone to whom that money means nothing. it's so fucking cruel.

the conversations about class in outer banks are soooo fascinating, and honestly i wish they'd dive into it more, with more nuance. and the potential conversation about race and class would be even more fascinating. alas, these are conversations that have to come from reading between the lines. :/ such is life

[formereldestdaughter]

ok wait i need to hear more of your thoughts on peeta owning a bakery....

This is one of those rare times where I’m pretty sure this anon isn’t someone I know personally bc I’ve subjected anyone who will listen to my rant about the Peeta Bakery Headcanon. Anyway, you’re gonna regret asking this anon bc there are fucking Layers here.

I know this is probably a controversial take based on the number of fics where I’ve seen it, but I simply do not think that Peeta would open a commercial bakery after Mockingjay!! Like on a metatextual level, I don’t think it really fits with the point of the ending of the series. It actually sort of fascinates me that it’s just such a common headcanon because the ending of Mockingjay is exceedingly vague. I think that vagueness invites us, as readers, to imagine a better world post-revolution. A world where Katniss would feel confident that her children would be safe from injustice, where she’d feel confident that her children would never know want the way she did as a child. A just world. A kinder world. Can a capitalist society ever be just? Is a capitalist society where a disabled teenager has no other means to subsist himself (or feels like there’s no other way he can be a contributing member of his community) really the post-revolution world we dream of? Is that really the best we can imagine?

(This got so insanely long I’m adding a read more lmao)

I get that showing a better world is not always the point of post-mockingjay headcanons/fics. Like there are plenty of really great post-mockingjay fics I’ve seen where, yeah, part of the fic is that society like ISN’T all that different or all that much better. I’ve seen that really well done! Hell, I’ve written them myself! It’s easy to imagine how a lot of aspects of society would not get an overhaul, a lot of the same structural inequalities would continue to exist. One headcanon that really stuck with me (I can’t remember which fic it was from) was that Peeta sells basically mail order baked goods to people on the Capitol, sending them iced cakes and pastries by train, because there are still people who were “fans” of theirs during the Games. And idk this doesn’t actually have much to do with my point lol but I liked it because it’s kind of fucked up and like! Yeah! It makes sense! If he needed money that would be a good way to make it! War often makes people rich, often for horrible reasons, and often it’s people who already have capital in the first place.

Anyway, more about the hypothetical bakery because alright. I bring up the fact that “yeah society not being all that different post-revolution and still being an unjust capitalist hellscape” could be a reason why Peeta re-opens a bakery because that’s actually never the types of fics where I see the bakery headcanon. Fics where Peeta opens a bakery are usually trying to make the exact opposite point. Like. Things are getting better, now he can open a bakery! Look at how much better the world is now, plus he’s got a bakery! Peeta is healing, that’s why he can open a bakery now! And I am so, so sorry to inform everyone who’s never had the grave misfortune of owning a family business, but there is truly nothing further from the truth lmao. Like just putting aside the immense amount of emotional baggage that Peeta has about his family, running a small business is an insane amount of work in any context and being a baker especially is physically grueling and involves early hours (and long hours) that aren’t really the best fit with the multiple ways that Peeta is disabled now. (I could go into this more because I have a lot of thoughts. But I will spare you.). I also think it’s seen throughout the books that Peeta is someone who needs time to pursue creative outlets to process his feelings and someone who values leisure and values quality time with his loved ones. And having grown up in his family’s bakery, I think he’d understand the reality that running a bakery wouldn’t leave much space of those pursuits and wouldn’t leave much space for him to have the things that keep him healthy and stable. I think he’d know that the way he is now— after two Games and the war and unspeakable torture at the hands of a dictator—isn’t compatible with the lifestyle necessary for running a commercial bakery.

And tbh with that in mind, I don’t think he’d push himself to re-open a business (one that would be a constant reminder of his dead family and his complicated relationships with them that got no closure) that would require him to sacrifice his physical and emotional well-being. Like I think he might look into the possibility, I think he might even start trying to open a bakery out of a sense of obligation/duty, maybe harboring some idea that this is who he was supposed to be, who he would've been without the Games, or that it’s this last piece of his family that can live on, or that it’s this last connection to his family so he can’t let it die too. But ultimately, I think any attempt to open a bakery wouldn’t get very far. Maybe he'd start wading into the logistical nightmare that is small business ownership and realize it's not for him (because it's probably also true that as much as him and his brothers were involved in the business, there's almost certainly parts they weren't involved with and didn't see, i.e., filing taxes). Or maybe looking into opening a bakery— how triggering it is, the stress of it— causes a downward spiral. Maybe he hates how much he's worrying everyone by unraveling. Maybe having a breakdown from the stress of just trying to open a bakery makes him realize, yeah, maybe in another life he would have ran his family’s bakery but the way he is now just doesn’t work with running a bakery, not without great sacrifices he's not willing to make. I just can’t see a bakery coming to fruition.

I know a lot of fics include Peeta deciding to reopen a bakery as a big step in his healing or include him rebuilding a bakery as part of his healing process but honestly, I think the opposite would be more true: I think Peeta either trying/failing to open a bakery or ultimately deciding not to open a bakery would be hugely healing for him. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way he is now as a person, his new limitations but also his strengths. I think it would be a huge part of him accepting the way his life his now and accepting that he likes his life the way it is, that he’s satisfied with his life without needing to own a bakery. I think it would be an important part of him coming to terms with the loss of his family. I think he knows he can never have things back as they were and I don’t think he would try to recreate them, especially because his family’s legacy isn’t a business. I think he’s emotionally intelligent enough and self reflective enough to realize that what mattered to him about the bakery— taking care of others by feeding them, being integrated into his community and being actively involved in it, brightening people’s days with delightful things whether that’s beautiful cakes or hearty food or delicious treats— and the things he learned from his family through the bakery, are things that he can carry on in other meaningful ways.

(Do you regret sending this ask yet, anon? Because if not, you will soon. I’m not done yet. There’s more.)

I wasn’t really sure where to put this next part in what is rapidly becoming an essay because it sort of combines the points about like “what do we imagine a post-mockingjay society to look like” with the practical difficulties of starting this bakery but here’s another thing: do people really think that the Mellarks owned the land the bakery was on?? Like, sure, the merchants are the petit bourgeois of Twelve but I still don’t imagine they really own anything. In a society where houses are assigned to people upon marriage, where property ownership and capital are so closely interconnected with citizenship (as shown by the Plinths who, by having immense capital, are able to leave their District and become citizens of the Capitol) do people really think the Mellarks would be allowed to own the land their bakery is on?? I always imagined it sort of like a tenant farming situation: the Capitol gives them the raw materials for the bakery and in return the bakery give them some absurdly high portion of their profits, or the Capitol sells them a year’s supply of raw materials at a premium on credit and at the end of the year the Mellarks have to use the money they made with those materials to pay it back, except it’s never enough to turn a profit so they always have to buy next year’s materials on credit and the cycle continues.

We (understandably) get a really skewed view of the merchant class through Katniss’s perspective so I can see why people come to the conclusion that his family owned the property and, as the last surviving member, he would’ve inherited it. I’ve seen the inheritance thing in fics a lot or a hand wavey “well Twelve was decimated to no one owns anything anymore so it can be his” or even like an almost sort of reparations type situation where he’s entitled to the land as a surviving refugee of Twelve. But I don’t know. I guess I don’t think it fits with everything else we know about Panem that the Mellarks would’ve owned that land and I think the question of whether the government would’ve let him take ownership of the land post-revolution brings up a lot of issues about the structure of society post-Mockingjay that I find more interesting to explore in other ways, especially when, from an emotional perspective, 1) I find the idea of Peeta not opening a bakery more compelling and 2) I don’t think it really fits his character arc by the end of Mockingjay to reopen a bakery, as I went on about at length above lol.

On the flip side: literally who cares!! Do whatever you want!! Headcanon whatever you want!! I get why people go for the bakery!! It’s fun, it’s wholesome, it’s a built in bakery AU that isn’t even an AU. It doesn’t matter if it’s practical or realistic!! It doesn’t need to be practical or realistic!! It’s fanfic of a dystopian YA series!! My unfortunate affliction is that I grew up in a family that owned a restaurant and that I have multiple degrees in the social sciences so I can’t see the bakery without being like “What about the overheard? What about the start up costs? Who’s spending long nights balancing the books? Is Peeta covering shifts when an employee calls in sick? Is Peeta the sole person working there until the bakery is open long enough (often a year or more) to start turning a profit? How does that sleep schedule work with his nightmares? How does that work with Katniss’s nightmares? What happens when he has an episode and suddenly needs to take the day off before he has any employees? Does the bakery just remain closed for the day? Can the profit margins withstand regular unexpected closures? Can the supplies withstand regular unexpected closures?” And if the answer is “Elliott none of those things matter he’s not doing the bakery because he needs the money but because he wants to”, then my question is why does he want to? Does he not get the same sort of satisfaction out of feeding his loved ones? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would rather give away baked goods than sell them?? Doesn’t Peeta seem like someone who would prefer to make cakes for people’s special occasions upon and then when they insist on paying him for it, he only lets them “pay for the ingredients” which actually cost significantly more than he says they did??

So yeah my point is that it’s a matter of personal taste! It doesn’t fit the way I see the series but that doesn’t mean it’s like wrong, I’m not an authority on Peeta lmao.

It’s also a matter of personal taste in the sense that I find the themes that most resonate with me at the end of Mockingjay (and the end of Peeta’s arc specifically) more interesting to explore in other ways. Grief, living with loss, relearning yourself, finding hope, figuring out your place in a dramatically different world when you don’t even know who you are anymore, healing, building a new life after such complete and total destruction of your old life— those are all things I find compelling about the end of Mockingjay but for me the bakery isn’t the most compelling way to explore them.

Not to say I find the concept of the bakery totally uninteresting. I have this fic about Johanna that I’ll probably never finish where the point sort of is that, yeah, her life really isn’t all that much better after the war. It’s been years at this point and she’s still miserable and she doesn’t know how to be a person but by the end she’s trying to figure it out. And towards the end, Peeta tells her that he’s spent years sort of passively, half-heartedly trying to figure out how to inherit the land his family’s bakery was on, only to find out it was never theirs in the first place. They’d been renting it the whole time and he’d never even known as a kid. So he sort of passively, half-heartedly went on another wild goose chase to find the owner and now, finally, after years of writing to various government agencies and being sent in circles and things being barely functional, he’s managed to track down the owner. Now it’s owned by the daughter of the man who owned it when he was a kid because the original owner (who was likely up to some sketchy war crime shit) died during the war and she inherited it (the irony…). He got in contact with her and asked how much it would take for her to sell it and she told him she’s not interested in selling but in light of the situation, in light of the fact that he’d have to build a new building in order to operate a bakery, that she’d cut him a deal— she’d only require 50% of the bakery’s profits as rent instead of the 80% his family used to pay. And of course Johanna is outraged, that’s not right, the owner shouldn’t be allowed to do that, they should do something about it, they should fight back. And Peeta is like. Not interested. He was actually sort of relieved that opening wasn’t very feasible. Getting the answer was a lightbulb moment where he saw that over the years of trying to look into this, he’s built a life that he likes— one where he’s stable, where his loved ones are stable, where he’s cared for and can care for others— and he doesn’t really want to change it drastically by opening a bakery anyway. He just needed an answer, one way or another, before he could get some closure and move on. (And the point of the conversation is Johanna is having her own lightbulb moment that it’s okay to move on, it’s okay to change, it’s not a betrayal of the people and things she’s lost but that’s not my point here!!).

But anyway. That’s obviously not about running the bakery— it’s about the choice to not run one.

Anyway!! Anyway… are you satisfied anon? Is this what you wanted?

Lastly, here is my most important qualm with the bakery headcanon: must Peeta be gainfully employed? Is it not enough for him to be Katniss’s boytoy? Can’t he just paint and garden and bake and hang out with his girlfriend all day? Is that really too much to ask?

[littlefankingdom]

I need y'all to understand that Bruce is not a normal billionaire. He is a billionaire because it's useful to the plot, but he is not a billionaire like our billionaires. Don't make him say or do shits billionaires do, he is not like that.

I just have enough of the posts and fics where people makes Bruce pro-capitalist, a finance bro with nfts or against leftist ideas like free housing because "the economy 😭😭". That's not him at all, and y'all are showing that you only saw the Lego Batman movie.

First, Bruce pays his taxes and hates that other rich don't. It is shown in Future State: Dark Detective, where he literally says that rich people who don't contribute to making society better kind of deserve to be killed by a vigilante. Murder is still bad, but he will not cry them AT ALL.

Second, Bruce hates how people abuse the housing markets, rising the prices, kicking out poor people, you know the drill. This is shown in Batman: White Knight, when Bruce PUNCHES his rich FRIEND at a gala after learning that the guy is buying properties in Crime Alley, kicks the poor people out and build new apartments complexes with rent way too high for the old residents. In Gotham Knights (the comics), he tests Lucius by playing the normal rich asshole and being like "we can't take money from the shareholders, these hard working folks, to help the poor", because he wants to see if it will make Lucius angry. Once it does, he is like "good, you should be" and tell him he will sign it. Not being mad at the inequalities in the world is not acceptable for Bruce.

Thirdly, Batman: The Animated Series often establishes how the real vilains are not the rogues but rich people. Bruce doesn’t disagree with Poison Ivy or Mr Freeze, but with their methods. Bruce doesn’t hate his rogues, because he knows they were pushed to a corner, but he hates the rich in charge. The owner of a company is shown to be a bad guy because he doesn't think his workers deserve to have a say in the company. Seriously, if BTAS was made today, we would be submerged with tweets and videos from people crying that they made Batman a communist.

Fourthly, while we are at it with BTAS, Bruce cares about the environment. I have seen this terrible panel of Bruce, as Batman, being mad that Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn destroyed a WE factory who was heavily polluting, which is ooc. In BTAS, Bruce is shown threatening to fire WE higher-ups because they made a partnership with a company hurting the environment. This partnership is why Poison Ivy targets him in the episode and tries to kill him, btw, which shows once again that they agree on the matter, it's the murder the problem. Outside of BTAS, must I remind everyone that Bruce was going to marry Talia Al Ghul and that Ra's Al Ghul saw a heir in him??? Like, he has to be a bit of an ecologist for ECO-TERRORISTS to love him this much. Also, Alfred said to Dick when he joined their household that Alfred wants ecological issues to be taken care of. No way would Bruce not has been raised to care about the environment, or would harm the planet knowing Alfred doesn't like it.

Finally, WE has multiple charities and organizations dedicated to help people in Gotham. WE gives jobs to ex-convicts and help them in getting rehabilitate. Bruce feeds, clothes and houses the poor, he pays for any damage done by vigilantes or rogues. He has money to give and he gives it. AND all the galas exist so he can take money from the rich to give to the poor. He even encourages Dick in Nightwing (2016) to manipulate as much as possible his guests to milk their money. Bruce wants to take from the rich to help the poor, that's always been the case.