BATLIKINAN

The time everyone talks about at Helwater and then they kissed again in Jamaica.

*clears throat* In defense of this, I shall make the following case.

(standard disclaimer to not take anything I say that seriously. also, thanks for the beta-like help @mistresspandorawritesthings )

… 

“Oh, God, John!” he [Jamie] said.

I stopped dead, halted much more by the tone of that voice than by the words—it was broken with an emotion I had seldom heard from him.

Walking very quietly, I drew closer. Framed in the half-open door was Jamie, head bowed as he pressed Lord John Grey tight in fervent embrace.

My very first instinct was to think Jamie is hugging John, which he is, in part… of course, “embrace” defined as “an act of holding someone closely in one’s arms” and “fervent” defined as “having or displaying a passionate intensity.” There is also little reason for Jamie’s head to be bowed if they are hugging. But if he’s leaning down to a kiss…

(If you strongly believe Jamie was merely holding John, please carry on and disregard the following, but if you want to hear my argument that they were kissing, please continue on this journey with me.)

If your answer is “it shouldn’t have to, this isn’t for everybody,” then what you’re really saying is “this new world I want to build doesn’t have room for disabled people in it.”

In case you’re wondering what defensive, non-apologetic ableism looks like, I found one!

Edited to add: seriously, if I start out with ‘ask yourself’ and follow up with ‘if your answer is that this isn’t for you’ then maybe you should #notallabledpeople yourself right out the fucking door if you decide you want to come fuck with me right now.

And all that this tells me is that people jumped as fast as they could to what would allow them to be pissy, and didn’t actually follow the things I said. And that’s cool, I guess. But what I was actually explicitly addressing was the idea that small houses (which are touted as the new, environmentally-awesome, space-okay, cost-efficient, way to live) don’t need to be accessible, because tiny houses are, by definition are just not “meant for you.”

That, yes, is ableist. If the “new way of building” and so on - if this movement actually gets off the ground - is explicitly exclusive of disabled persons, that’s a problem. And if saying ‘trololol this isn’t for you, why are you making my house about you’ is your response, yeah, that’s pretty ableist, guys!

And this isn’t theoretical in its long-term effects. There’s a pretty predominant house type that was faddish a while ago near where I live – a tall, skinny rowhouse that’s really, really not accessible at all. If you want to buy a house near where I live (and no, “just move” isn’t an answer), the affordable houses are all these tall, narrow rowhouses. The difference between buying one of these homes and a house which either is already accessible or can be made accessible is an order of magnitude. The ranchers or potentially-accessible homes cost literally twice as much. 

These buildings have narrow doors; narrow, turning stairs which are not even easy to install a chair lift on – even if your insurance company will pay for you to get a chair if you live in one, which, guess what, that’s why my wheelchair was declined; they usually have multiple sets of stairs leading up to the front door, making installing a wheelchair ramp nearly-impossible.

These houses were built more than a generation ago, and cannot easily be modified to become accessible. (I know, because we’re currently trying to find a way to make it so that I can get my wheelchair into and out of my house without someone else doing it for me. That’s kind of the opposite of accessible, if an able-bodied person literally has to fold up my wheelchair and carry it down two sets of stairs for me to take my wheelchair out of the house.) They also form the entirety of affordable housing where I live. 

“Just rent an apartment” isn’t an option either. Not only is that a blindingly ableist response in and of itself, because inherent in it is “you don’t get to/need to have the stability of a mortgage payment, or the ability to built equity or eventually have a house that’s paid off” but rent for an accessible apartment around here actually costs more than my mortgage. I could absolutely not afford an accessible apartment where I live – the last time I checked, a ground-floor, wheelchair-accessible apartment in a neighborhood similar to mine cost half-again as much as my mortgage payment.

Examples of larger stained glass panels with solar cells:

1. Sarah Hall - York University, Toronto 2. Marjan van Aubel - Current Window 3. Hiroshi Segawa - “Annabelle” 4. Michael Grätzel (inventor but not builder) - Swiss Tech Convention Center

It’s hopeful. Solarpunk doesn’t require an apocalypse. It’s a world in which humans haven’t destroyed ourselves and our environment, where we’ve pulled back just in time to stop the slow destruction of our planet. We’ve learned to use science wisely, for the betterment of ourselves and our planet. We’re no longer overlords. We’re caretakers. We’re gardeners.

Scientists are heroes again. And not just physicists and astronomers. Knowledge of biology and earth sciences matter, they’re the building blocks for a future on Earth. Scientific literacy isn’t just for academics — it’s part of daily life. People know how the things they use work, and if they don’t, they can access that information. 

It’s diverse. Solarpunk is rooted in using the environment, so it looks different in different places. Alternative energy is best when specific to place (I imagine geothermal, wind, tidal, and hydroelectric energy sources are still used in certain places) so no overarching government system is needed. Communities can organize themselves, taking their own location and needs and history into account. Brazilian, Inuit, Egyptian, Pacific Northwest, and New Zealand solarpunk can all look very different, but be unified in resourceful, intentional, low impact living.

Individuality still matters. In a post-scarcity society, ingenuity and self-expression are not sacrificed on the altar of survival. With solar power there’s no reason not to go off grid, if that’s what you want to do. Communities can self-organize. You can find a community that suits you, or go live by yourself if that floats your boat.

There’s room for spirituality and science to coexist. Solarpunk is rooted in a deep understanding and reverence for natural processes. There’s room for spirituality there, be it pagan, Buddhist, Sufi, Transcendentalism — anything. There’s so much to explore, from nature worship to organized monotheistic religions, and how they interact with solarpunk.

It’s beautiful. The most common solarpunk aesthetic is art nouveau, but again there’s room for diversity, incorporating art styles from multiple cultures in respectful, non-appropriative ways. The most important aspect of solarpunk aesthetic is the melding of art and utility. The idea of intentional living is strong in art nouveau, but it’s not the only art movement with that philosophy.

Essentially my disdain with yarn graffiti is that it is a phenomena whose origins are an exercise in privilege. White feminists used yarn bombing as a way to ‘counter male-dominated realms of street art and graffiti’ and forcefully insert themselves into a subculture made up of poor people of color, primarily black and latinx youth.  

The lumping of graffiti and street art alone raises red flags as it fails to acknowledge how the emergence of street art has negatively impacted women writers of color. While I don’t want to get into an in-depth discussion between graffiti and street art (because it is a ton to delve into), we must note two important and relevant distinctions which separate these realms—race and class. Graffiti (graffiti as an element of hip hop and not solely the act of writing on surfaces w/o permission) has always been an art attributed to kids of color from a lower socio-ecomomic background and is for the most part looked down upon as vandalism. While ‘street art,’ a relatively new art-form, has long maintained a white middle class majority artists as well patrons and is considered a legitimate art which has gained prominence as well as commercial succe$$. 

Now, white feminists ignore these important distinctions and offer yarn graffiti as an alternative w/o understanding that although sexism is a problem that persists the graffiti world, we cannot ignore the problems of racism and classism that are contributed by these co-optive side-graffiti arts which both street art and yarn graffiti can be included in.   

If there is going to be a change that challenges these issues it should be done from the bottom up. Women of color exist in the graffiti world. It is insulting that these feminists believe they’re solving our problems as women when they have no idea what it is to be a woman writer at the bottom of the graffiti hierarchy, especially when their solution is one that will never be criminalized/looked down upon but instead be seen as cute and edgy but most importantly an art that will be welcomed by mainstream culture. 

in the end, yarn graffiti is simply yarn art made by probably racist women (first yarn art was attributed to a group who went by the name of knittaplease—that name is questionable AF) who got bored and thought just because they liked a life that was foreign to them they would create a graffiti offshoot to cater a need of belonging while at the same time writing off women of color who have long participated and fought against misogynistic attitudes in graff culture.

Forty year old Mize Juma Othman installs a new photovoltaic panel on a home in Matemwe village, on the Tanzanian island of Zanzibar. Othman trained for six months in India to become one of the first 13 “solar mamas” in Zanzibar, able to install, troubleshoot and repair the systems. 

She and Zanzibar’s 12 other female solar engineers will be sharing her skills with other local women at a new solar training center funded in large part by the government here. The new center “will bring us to the reality that once women are empowered, they can do anything,” says Asha Abdallah, with Zanzibar’s Ministry of Empowerment, Social Welfare, Youth, Women and Children.

Abdallah adds that many solar projects failed here because they were run by outsiders who never trained local people to take care of the equipment.  But she says this one’s different because it’s involving the communities themselves. The center will train two dozen women a year, each of whom will install and maintain 50 systems a year. It’s the first of six solar training sites Barefoot College plans to build in Africa, from South Sudan to Senegal. And with prices for solar equipment falling fast, this community-led model is spreading quickly and changing minds in even the most traditional villages.

Source: Zanzibar’s ‘Solar Mamas’ flip the switch on rural homes, gender roles 

so a lot of what im seeing is a huge focus on super ornate clothing, esp inspired by traditional folk costumes with lots of embroidery etc. but at the same time theres a huge emphasis on handicrafts and artisinal work.

so i think its important to make a reminder that those clothes, though hand made, were not what people wore every day. that’s formal wear, especially the more i=ornate stuff. (other things, like smocking, where practical as well, as decorative, but i digress)

so here’s my Solarpunk Fashion Vision™:

simple, easy to mix and match garments for daily wear. more boxy, shaped using belts etc. most style comes from color or jewelry, not on the actual clothes.

for stuff like special events and festivals, fancier clothes with more decoration etc. not to say it couldnt be worn otherwise but its impractical to suggest that such clothing could be produced on a large enough scale to be worn often.

Shanty Mega-Structures | Lekan Jeyifo

Air Bonsai

@kickstarter campaign from Hoshinchu to produce levitating bonsai plant arrangements, combining traditional and contemporary craft:

Although I think Solarpunk should have some amount of optimism stashed in there, I don’t think they necessarily need to be utopian or perfect worlds. Especially the second just isn’t possible and optimism can live in even the grimmest of situations. Don’t let all the enthusiastic brainstorming and speculating of a problem-free world fool you into believing that there cannot and will not be some sort of conflict hidden around the corner in a solarpunk novel.

THIS. There’s a difference between “Optimistic in the face of catastrophes of culture and environment” and “Literally no problems whatsoever.”