You Know, When I See Fictional Characters Who Repress All Their Emotions, They're Usually Aloof And Very

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

ur future nurse is using chapgpt to glide thru school u better take care of urself

I'm gonna try to compile a list of resources for the genocides and humanitarian crisis going on so people will at least have a place to start so they can stay informed

Each place will have a link and then just click on the link to go to the resources. If yall have any you wanna recommend say it under the post of that place

Pls reblog the original posts so more people can see what’s been added

Hope this helps someone

Syria

Lebanon

Palestine

Sudan

Congo

Yemen

Iran

Morocco

Western Sahara

Armenia

Afghanistan

West Papua

Haiti

Tigray

Ukraine

Yezidi People

I've seen little about it so, Just an FYI what's been unfolding in England today. Far-right protestors are literally trying to kill asylum seekers in hotels.

In Rotherham, Yorkshire fascists have tried to set a hotel on fire with migrants staying there. Some signalling cut-throat gestures at the people staying in the rooms.

In Tamworth, Staffordshire the very same thing is happening. Another hotel has been set on fire with asylum seekers still inside alongside racist graffiti.

Other similar protests that are going uncountered are happening in Middlesbrough, Hartlepool, Stoke-on-Trent and many more areas, chances are there will be one somewhere by you if things keep going the way they are. Nazis are literally strolling about unchallenged and these people are marching happily with them. There are more sensitive videos online which I won't share here but there are groups of nazis chasing down and circling black people in cities and beating them up, indian and chinese takeaways being targetted, turkish barbers being set alight and there have been incidents of muslims being assaulted and even stabbed.

BUT... There are success stories from UK cities where riots have failed due to no turnout or due to antifascists driving far-right pricks out of the city.

Cardiff, Wales - About 5 fascists turn up compared to 500 conuter-protestors. They failed to get anyone here despite trying two times.

Liverpool, Merseyside - A significant EDL mob is marched out of the city and fought against. Counter-protestors form a ring around a mosque being targetted.

Bristol, City of - antifascists block the entrance to a hotel that nazis are trying to get into as well as a fierce citywide push against the EDL and racism.

Nottingham, East Midlands - A huge antifascist counter protest outnumbers EDL and the far-right, preventing a riot from occuring.

There are many many more of these riots planned. If you're in the UK get organised and be prepared to fight alongside the people who make our communities stong and resiliant and make our country and cities a wonderful vibrant and friendly place to be. Help by whatever means you can. If you are not from the UK then please signal boost this because this needs to stop this nastiness from spreading and to make nazis afraid again.

The idea of dragons in modern times is so fun because imagine a hot summer day on your vacay and go to use the hotel pool and staff is like "valued guests we regret to inform you that the pool area is out of service at the moment, we apologize for the inconvenience"

And people like "wtf why" looking out their hotel room window and there's this. This dragon just curled up in the pool chilling, literally, cooling itself down

Some of the staff are trying to gently shoo him away and the dragon does a soft little "rrrrrr" like a grumpy cat and a warning puff of smoke and they're like "fuck it i don't get paid nearly enough for this" and no ones using the pool today sorry!

We created the halfling goncharov

Concept: a D&D-style fantasy setting where humanity’s weird thing is that we’re the only sapient species that reproduces organically.

Dwarves carve each other out of rock. In theory this can be managed alone, but in practice, few dwarves have mastered all of the necessary skills. Most commonly, it’s a collaborative effort by three to eight individuals. The new dwarf’s body is covered with runes that are in part a recounting of the crafters’ respective lineages, and in part an elaboration of the rights and duties of a member of dwarven society; each dwarf is thus a living legal argument establishing their own existence.

Elves aren’t made, but educated. An elf who wishes to produce offspring selects an ordinary animal and begins teaching it, starting with house-breaking, and progressing through years of increasingly sophisticated lessons. By gradual degrees the animal in question develops reasoning, speech, tool use, and finally the ability to assume a humanoid form at will. Most elves are derived from terrestrial mammals, but there’s at least one community that favours octopuses and squid as its root stock.

Goblins were created by alchemy as servants for an evil wizard, but immediately stole their own formula and rebelled. New goblins are brewed in big brass cauldrons full of exotic reagents; each village keeps a single cauldron in a central location, and emerging goblings are raised by the whole community, with no concept of parentage or lineage. Sometimes they like to add stuff to the goblin soup just to see what happens – there are a lot of weird goblins.

Halflings reproduce via tall tales. Making up fanciful stories about the adventures of fictitious cousins is halfling culture’s main amusement; if a given individual’s story is passed around and elaborated upon by enough people, a halfling answering to that individual’s description just shows up one day. They won’t necessarily possess any truly outlandish abilities that have been attributed to them – mostly you get the sort of person of whom the stories could be plausible exaggerations.

To address the obvious question, yes, this means that dwarves have no cultural notion of childhood, at least not one that humans would recognise as such. Elves and goblins do, though it’s kind of a weird childhood in the case of elves, while with halflings it’s a toss-up; mostly they instantiate as the equivalent of a human 12–14-year-old, and are promptly adopted by a loose affiliation of self-appointed aunts and uncles, though there are outliers in either direction.

Passenger trains in US vs Europe (image is making the rounds among U.S. transit advocates today)

Something I find incredibly cool is that they’ve found neandertal bone tools made from polished rib bones, and they couldn’t figure out what they were for for the life of them. 

Until, of course, they showed it to a traditional leatherworker and she took one look at it and said “Oh yeah sure that’s a leather burnisher, you use it to close the pores of leather and work oil into the hide to make it waterproof. Mine looks just the same.” 

“Wait you’re still using the exact same fucking thing 50,000 years later???”

“Well, yeah. We’ve tried other things. Metal scratches up and damages the hide. Wood splinters and wears out. Bone lasts forever and gives the best polish. There are new, cheaper plastic ones, but they crack and break after a couple years. A bone polisher is nearly indestructible, and only gets better with age. The more you use a bone polisher the better it works.”

It’s just. 

50,000 years. 50,000. And over that huge arc of time, we’ve been quietly using the exact same thing, unchanged, because we simply haven’t found anything better to do the job. 

I've noticed that Youtube and Google in general seem to be making it increasingly difficult to find small channels. I'm looking for the weird shit. The out-there shit. I don't care if it has flaws like not being crisp and perfect audio and video. I like the stuff that's a bit amateurish, but apparently, that is a thing of the past. YT is becoming the domain of professional types. Which isn't bad by itself but YT used to be a place where just regular people could post videos and have crazy, weird opinions. Not anymore, I guess.

If videos don't look a certain way, sound a certain way, or have the right content they are hidden by the algorithm. I can't even find the filters bar that used to be available if you searched on computer.

Anybody have any knowledge or something as to when, why, and how this happened? Does anyone know what I'm talking about?

It’s crazy and fucked up that being yourself is actually the solution.