This is all I could think about during today’s re: dracula episode

Quick update

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger

TWO HOURS AGO: an incredible photo taken by a ut austin student capturing something deeply poetic in my opinion, a line of state troopers eagerly waiting to arrest student protesters standing just behind a sign that reads "what starts here changes the world. its starts with you and what you do each day."

if you're wondering why THIS tiktok ban bill made it through the senate unlike last time...

biden's reasoning is the tiktok ban "protects national security". lmfao

holy fuck, they are so horribly angry at the constant mockery of their failings among the young and impressionable. they're FURIOUS that there is a means of propaganda dissemination that they don't have complete control over during such a critical time of people coming to the realization "wow this place and the people who run it and everything they stand for fucking sucks".

the suburbs where i learned to drive

Eye, 2007, fiberglass, resin, oil paint, steel, 452 inches circumference Laumeier Sculpture Park Commission, with funds from the Mark Twain Laumeier Endowment Fund, by Tony Tasset

I'm getting so sick of major female characters in historical media being incredibly feisty, outspoken and public defenders of women's rights with little to no realistic repercussions. Yes it feels like pandering, yes it's unrealistic and takes me out of the story, yes the dialogue almost always rings false - but beyond all that I think it does such a disservice to the women who lived during those periods. I'm not embarrassed of the women in history who didn't use every chance they had to Stick It To The Man. I'm not ashamed of women who were resigned to or enjoyed their lot in life. They weren't letting the side down by not having and representing modern gender ideals. It says a lot about how you view average ordinary women if the idea of one of your main characters behaving like one makes them seem lame and uninteresting to you.

It also almost always comes down to poor research.

Rather than research the ways subversive women really acted, what they really said, what they actually cared about, the very specific ways in which women used to be treated, dismissed, infantilised etc, we get books and TV shows in which modern words, modern concerns and modern ways of being “a strong woman” are awkwardly squeezed into eras in which they make no sense.

It’s a disservice to the real feminists of that time, to the real women who lived and survived in a system of continuous misogynistic oppression, and the real journey we have travelled to get to where we are, and the long long way we still have to go. Worse, it feeds into the ignorance that breeds that complacency which then leads to a lot of the gains we have made being taken away from us.

flower sinks by John Maguire Ceramics

a roasted brussel sprout can change your life if you let it. open your heart. take my hand. its good, try it. i love a brusseled sprout I love you

If you're having trouble keeping up with what's going on in Palestine because of US news coverage of university protests, here are some articles you can read and a video you can watch:

While CNN & all the other mainstream media try to paint the university protests as "pro terrorism" (which they're not, they're literally anti-war protests.) Palestinians are being slaughtered by the minute.

Please don't stop speaking about Palestine.

𝖠𝗊𝗎𝖺𝗋𝗂𝗎𝗌 𝖼𝖺𝗇𝖽𝗅𝖾𝗌𝗍𝗂𝖼𝗄 𝖻𝗒 𝗅𝗂𝗏𝖺𝗇𝖽𝖽𝗈𝗆

interlibrary loan is a beautiful name for a baby girl

The student protests for Palestine have been an amazing show of solidarity and support and seeing thr way that so many young people are willing to stand up for their values is admirable when so many others stay silent. But this is all to say that we are entering a pattern of glorifying these white “martyrs” from the global west to put all of this effort and resources and media coverage into instead of the actual cause they are fighting for.

I saw the same thing happen with Aaron Bushnell, when his self immolation was being talked about more than the actual genocide in Gaza (which went against everything he said he was self immolating for in the first place).

And again this happened with the prisoner from the US who worked 136 hours just to be able to donate his $17 check to Palestine aid efforts. In response to this, people wanted to help him and ended up raising over $100,000 in a gofundme for him. This feels almost satirical, as every gofundme to help Gazans evacuate Palestine and get to safety has a goal of less than $100,000 and most of them are not even close to reaching it.

And now, there are more and more posts on how to get aid to the college student encampments, and the “urgency” of getting enough bail funds for the students who have been arrested during them. Talking about Palestine itself and getting resources to Palestine has almost been put on the back burner in favour of making all Palestine related news about college students in the United States.

It think it is valuable to recognise the selflessness and importance of these protests, and getting these students resources but what is MORE important, and what these people are truly fighting for, and protesting, and make a statement about is PALESTINE. We have unsurprisingly reached the point where there are people who care much more about the white people fighting for the cause from the comfort of living in the global west than they care about the Palestinians undergoing a genocide in Gaza. It’s become almost blatant racism, the way people begin to drop everything the second a white/usamerican person does something in regards to helping Palestine, but will not put the same effort into a Palestinian IN Gaza who is telling their story or asking for help. I respect anyone who has done absolutely anything to help Palestine, but I hope people are starting to see the pattern of how the media gravitates towards the “white saviour/perfect martyr” instead of the first hand accounts coming from those in Gaza.

Anyway FIND A GOFUNDME AND DONATE TO HELP FAMILIES IN GAZA ESCAPE GENOCIDE

“A Palestinian woman and her baby from the Shkirat family cry under an olive tree as an Israeli bulldozer razes her home in the Arab east Jerusalem neighborhood of Jabel Mukaber.”

Photographed by Yoav Lemmer.

15 June 1998.

I hate the “open floor plan” that everyone is obsessed with in houses now. I want nooks and crannies and bizarre floor plans. I don’t need to be able to see what someone is doing on the other side of the house. I want places to hide and lurk and dwell in the shadows. I am the beast who awaits in the labyrinth