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and sometimes they come back when you least expect it, years later, even, and there's this sudden rush of relief like there you are, there you are, even though you barely knew each other.

there's a strange kind of love to it. i don't know you and i want to hold your hand across miles and time zones and oceans. i can still see the imprint of you in this community you left. you don't anyone will notice or care when you're gone, but we notice and we care and we wish you well.

So the standard “hide all your unsightly things by doing xyz” may look nice for the first week or so, but by the end of the week it’ll look like a tornado made of pure inhuman frustration ripped through the house as I try to find the fucking advil.

To give you an example of the kind of hell I’ve been fumbling my way through the last 20 odd years: dishes will be washed and left in the drying wrack but never put away. Which means I can’t wash more dishes, which means dishes pile up, which means I can’t make food, which means I don’t eat, which means my CFS gets worse, which means I don’t have the energy to put the dishes away, and so on so forth until I have a meltdown, cry to ETD (who also likely has ADHD but has never had it confirmed) about how I can’t cope with life, and then we fix it for a while, but inevitably end up back at square one within about a week.

Pinsky’s solution to this was “remove an obstacle between you and your goal, if that means taking all the doors off your kitchen cabinets to make things easier, so be it.”

And lemme tell you, fucking revolutionary.

Laundry never ends up in the hamper??? why???? is it a closed hamper??? Remove the lid. Throw it out the window. Clothes are now miraculously finding their way into the hamper??? Rejoice????

Mail ends up spread out over every available flat surface? Put a sorting station right where your mail arrives. Put a shredder or “junk” basket under it. Shred or dump the junk immediately. Realize you only actually have two real letters that need attention, feel less overwhelmed, pay your bills on time.

Like I’m not saying this book is miraculous, but it did help me realize that I was effectively torturing myself by trying to conform to certain ideals of “perfect house keeping”, and presenting a certain image rather than just allowing myself to live in my space as effectively as possible. And why? Why was I doing that? Cause people with different lives and capabilities are perceived as the norm? Fuck that. If this was a physical problem I wouldn’t be forcing myself to conform to an ableist standard, so why am I doing it with this?

As relaxing as I find this, I also find it oddly ominous and terrifying. 

If x charity aims for £10, but gets £15, would you expect then to give back the extra five or give it then to another charity? No. Any extra costs go into the “rainy day” fund; sometimes servers crash or break, sometimes false reports are made that require the legal team, sometimes you need to hire coders or what not to implement new features or fix bugs or deal with broken code … 

The money they aimed for is the bare minimum, which goes towards things like basic server costs and domain names and legal advice and so forth, but they don’t just “pocket” the rest (as people claim). It’s not a business. It has no advertisements. It needs some “rainy day” cash to function. 

You can’t ask a charity to give money to another charity. 

They don’t “pocket” excess money. They have a publicly accessible budget - waaaay more info than most charities, in fact. In it, you can clearly see where each dollar goes. (Also, you are vastly underestimating either how much traffic AO3 gets or how much servers/hosting costs.)                    

In my experience, people who don’t work in web design and hosting just have no concept of how heavy a load something like AO3 would have. Not only is the traffic absolutely buck wild, but the quantity of data that archive needs to store is fuckoff crazy. I’m talking “more than the library of congress” crazy. The only reason it doesn’t require Netflix levels of data serving is that it’s text based rather than video.

AO3 is in the top 300 websites in the world, and the top 100 in the US. It is the number 2 literature website.

Number 2 in the entire world. JSTOR is 20.

It sees about 6 million people a day. About 250k an hour. Each of those people is loading multiple pages, many are running searches that execute on literally hundreds of potential variables per search. The demands involved are astronomical.

JSTOR, btw, makes 85 million dollars a year.

It’s 18 ranks below AO3′s traffic, and takes in 650 times the amount of money.

But let’s say you think that’s an unfair comparison. Would you say that the Project Gutenberg Literature Archival Group- another text based archive that handles literature operating outside traditional copyright requirements- is more similar?

Because it sees all of 4% of the traffic that AO3 handles.

Care to guess its budget?

Double that of AO3.

AO3 is doing shit on the kind of shoestring budget that I fully, 100% cannot comprehend. And that’s just the archival service.

The 130k also pays for the OTW’s legal team, which they use to defend the right of fandom to fucking exist.

Because there is just so so so much more involved than you would think. First of all just contemplate rent space for all of those servers… Rent average for the area in which OTW is located is $5.94 per square foot, with an average total rent of $4,062 gives us an average square footage of about 683 (I live in a 500 sq ft apt which is exactly enough room for 1 person and 2 cats, I can maybe fit 4 people total in my combined kitchen/living area expecting a business to fit in the same parameters is laughable so I’m doubling the sq. footage and estimating their servers etc take up about 1200 sq ft) so $5.94 for 1200 sq ft is rent of $7,128 a month or $85,536 a year. So now $190,000 drops to $104,464. 

Now, how much electricity do all of those servers need? And how much electricity is required to keep the hvac system operating to keep all of those servers cool enough to function? I really don’t want to do the math for that. Please don’t make me. But you start to get the idea… That there are a lot more hard costs involved just in necessities of remaining in operation, forget growth and maintenance. 

And if you actually check on their OTW Finance: 2018 Budget Update tab you’ll see that they had to overhaul their servers this year and that cost $115,000 on it’s own (where I work we just had to replace landline phones and it was $20,000+, I can’t imagine having to replace computer servers) And then they have legal costs, fundraising, etc. Which when you look at each of these sections they are really spending quite modestly (I love that Con outreach was $50, because basically all they could afford to do was hand out flyers). 

If x charity aims for £10, but gets £15, would you expect then to give back the extra five or give it then to another charity? No. Any extra costs go into the “rainy day” fund; sometimes servers crash or break, sometimes false reports are made that require the legal team, sometimes you need to hire coders or what not to implement new features or fix bugs or deal with broken code … 

The money they aimed for is the bare minimum, which goes towards things like basic server costs and domain names and legal advice and so forth, but they don’t just “pocket” the rest (as people claim). It’s not a business. It has no advertisements. It needs some “rainy day” cash to function. 

You can’t ask a charity to give money to another charity. 

They don’t “pocket” excess money. They have a publicly accessible budget - waaaay more info than most charities, in fact. In it, you can clearly see where each dollar goes. (Also, you are vastly underestimating either how much traffic AO3 gets or how much servers/hosting costs.)                    

In my experience, people who don’t work in web design and hosting just have no concept of how heavy a load something like AO3 would have. Not only is the traffic absolutely buck wild, but the quantity of data that archive needs to store is fuckoff crazy. I’m talking “more than the library of congress” crazy. The only reason it doesn’t require Netflix levels of data serving is that it’s text based rather than video.

AO3 is in the top 300 websites in the world, and the top 100 in the US. It is the number 2 literature website.

Number 2 in the entire world. JSTOR is 20.

It sees about 6 million people a day. About 250k an hour. Each of those people is loading multiple pages, many are running searches that execute on literally hundreds of potential variables per search. The demands involved are astronomical.

JSTOR, btw, makes 85 million dollars a year.

It’s 18 ranks below AO3′s traffic, and takes in 650 times the amount of money.

But let’s say you think that’s an unfair comparison. Would you say that the Project Gutenberg Literature Archival Group- another text based archive that handles literature operating outside traditional copyright requirements- is more similar?

Because it sees all of 4% of the traffic that AO3 handles.

Care to guess its budget?

Double that of AO3.

AO3 is doing shit on the kind of shoestring budget that I fully, 100% cannot comprehend. And that’s just the archival service.

The 130k also pays for the OTW’s legal team, which they use to defend the right of fandom to fucking exist.

They also spent a good amount of the rest of the 30% budget on significant server overhaul costs. 

AO3 is literally a service you get for free and the audacity you’d have to not bother reading the very open budget plan they have, but to then bitch and whine about people donating to keep the site running is wild. 

antisemitism is a form of oppression, but it relies on a different mindset. it is a different ballgame than ANY sort of prejudice you know. yknow why? because to antisemities, jews aren’t lesser (well, we are, but that’s not the important thing). we’re successful.

that’s the kicker.

antisemities WANT you to believe that jews are doing well, because if we’re doing well, we’re not REALLY being persecuted. it all goes back to the protocols of the elders of zion: the jews are taking over. the jews are a threat. therefore, if they’re a threat, it’s only right to kill them. it’s only right to ghettoize them. it’s only right to have exterminated 40% of the world’s jewish population in the 40s.

nevermind the fact that antisemitism makes up nearly 50% of all religious hate crimes in the us. nevermind the fact that jews make up less than 2% of the world’s population. nevermind the fact that jews, historically, have been scapegoated and killed and othered for literal millenia. i mean, who cares, because jews are rich and powerful, right?

don’t fall for it. don’t fall for the centuries-old claim that jews are just faking it. listen to us. support us.

This person is my new best friend

In a minute.

So, taking it that you said you live in Arizona and “your family has a farm in Chihuahua,” A quick congratulations are in order. You’re an absentee landowner! You’re right at the peak of farming’s social pyramid. Living the dream.

So you probably don’t participate in the day-to-day management, you just collect checks. Pretty common situation for absentee landlords. From that distance, it’s understandable that you have a poor grasp on water, land, and how they play out in various types of agriculture.

But let’s take a step back.

Lots of cultures have used low or no meat diets. The Ganges valley, ancient Egypt, China, much of early Europe, ect.

Notice anything in common there?

They’re all very, very wet. Plants that are edible for humans grow readily.

They also had intense hierarchies where elites could just tell the lower classes they weren’t allowed to eat meat-whether via religious teachings, custom, or just straight-up economic exploitation to where animal protein was unattainable. But that’s a whole different discussion.

On the other hand, lots of cultures have used mostly or all animal diets.

E.G. The Bedouin, Mongols, Maasai, Inuit, ect.

What do these have in common? They’re in places that are either very dry or very cold. Either the plants that grow are very sparse & tough, or none at all.

Humans can only digest specific types of plant matter. We need tender stems, leaves & fruit; enlarged seeds, or energy storing roots.

The entire rest of the plant is inedible for us. Stalk, branch, dry leaves, ect.

And without intense irrigation, the only plants that grow in dry areas are entirely made of things that humans can’t digest. They’re almost entirely cellulose. Tough stalks, fibrous leaves covered in wax and hair, thorns, ect.

That’s why we call these areas ‘scrub’. The only use humans can make of the natural vegetation is to scrub pots.

But…cows, sheep, goats, horses, bison, deer, camels & other ruminants can digest all of it.

That’s what those 3 and 4 chambered stomachs are for. These animals GI tracts are fermentation chambers full of microflora that break long, tough cellulose molecules down into sugars and fatty acids that the cow can use.

We can’t do that. We eat straw, we just poop out straw.

That’s why people living in deserts, scrub & dry grasslands aren’t vegetarian. They’d starve. They kept close to the animals that can digest what grows there; ruminants.

(The oceanic food chain that Inuit & other maritime peoples are looped into is a whole 'nother discussion.)

Failure to recognize the role of local environment in diet is a major oversight in the vegetarian community at large, so again, no personal blame here.

Traditional vegetarian societies are trotted out to showcase that low/no meat diets are possible. But it’s done w/o recognition as to why 'those particular’ societies did it, and others did not.

Paying attention to local environment is a huge part of sustainability, and yet sustainability movements don’t always do so well at that.

We can also fall short by failing to recognize that for dry regions, the bottleneck in productivity isn’t land, it’s water.

As an absentee landowner, you may or may not be aware of how much irrigation water it takes to grow vegetables in a desert. Math time.

Let’s start w. cows. Best figures for cow carrying capacity in landscape similar to Chihuahua are for dry part of CO. Double that for Chihuahua’s longer growing season, and 10 cows would need about 73 acres to live on (wild scrub w no irrigation.)

Cool, so we don’t have to irrigate to feed those cows. All we have to do is give them drinking water. How much? A cow needs about 18.5 gal/day, so 10 of them for a year would need about 67,000 gallons.

67,000 gallons is a decent amount of water.

Now let’s look at how much it takes to grow vegetables on that same land.

Most plant crops need about an acre-inch of water per week.

For the non-farmers and absentee landlords following along, an acre-inch is just how much water it takes to cover an acre of land 1” deep.

It’s about 27,000 gallons.

An acre of crops needs that every single week.

Chihuahua’s got this amazing long growing season. So let’s say a veggie, grain, soybean or other plant protein farm in Chihuahua’s got crops in the ground 40 weeks out of the year.

73 acres x 40 weeks x 27,000 gallons/week = 79 MILLION gallons of water.

That’s a thousand times more water.

It takes a thousand times more water to grow an acre of crops for human consumption, than it takes to grow an acre of cow on wild range.

Again, as an absentee farm owner you may or may not be aware already. But for audience at home, most of Chihuahua’s irrigation water comes from the Rio Conchos.

The river’s drying up so hard that it’s the subject of a dedicated WWF preservation project.

“But that’s not a fair comparison. An acre of crops can feed 10x as many people as an acre of cattle.”

Exactly. A crop-only diet can feed 10x as many people. But it takes 1000x as much water.

In places where there’s limited land and a surplus of water, it makes a lot of sense to optimize for land, so there, grow & eat crops.

And in places where there’s a lot of land and limited water, it makes sense to optimize for water, So there, grow & eat ruminants.

It’s really interesting to me that the conversation around vegetarianism & the environment is so strongly centered on assumptions that every place in the world is on the limited land/surplus plan.

You know what region that describes really well? Northwestern Europe.

They really are. You can’t really apply human drives to bees; we’re set up so incredibly differently. 

Making honey for bees isn’t work…it’s more like…a basic instinct. Like breathing or eating is for humans. And there’s no “we have enough we can stop” switch. 

If left completely as nature intended in a world where humans weren’t a thing, honeybound hives would peter out over time and eventually die out. By that point they’ve spawned many swarms, and many new hives. Old honey would be robbed out by animals and other bees, the hollow trees the hive was in would decompose, the wax left behind would rot, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

So Scientology has recently been purchasing ad spots on social media sites including Twitter and Facebook. Scientology has always worked hard to recruit young people it seems like they’re investing in social media as well now. I know most people think Scientology is a joke but it’s a seriously dangerous cult which uses fear, extortion, violence, vandalism and various other unethical actions against those who oppose them both inside and outside the church. Here is key information on the abuses committed by Scientology: 

•Scientology uses a form of pseudo-therapy called auditing which focuses largely on embarrassing and traumatic memories. Scientology collects the information you share and uses that information to threaten you if you oppose the church. They also charge huge amounts of money for auditing sessions (which is why they really are doing all this).

 •They are extremely anti-psychology and psychiatry and pressure you against taking any antidepressants, anti-anxiety medication or any other drugs for mental health.

 •They believe homosexuality can be “cured” and are blatantly homophobic. •Enemies of the church are labeled “suppressive persons” and it is forbidden to communicate with such people. This isn’t just to limit the negative press they receive but also is a manipulative tool. If you are in the cult and decide to leave or criticize the church you stand the risk of being completely cut off from your friends and family. “Suppressive Persons” are often also harassed, stalked, or threatened. 

•If you’re new to Scientology and your family or friends are worried about you being in a cult you’re instructed to cut them out of your life, increasing your reliance on the support system (though there’s nothing supportive about it) the church give to you. 

•Scientology’s doctrine includes the concept of “Fair Game”. This basically says that those who are judged a threat to the Church can be punished and harassed by any and all means possible.

 •Because of this, they have no moral qualms about having their members lie in court which they use to defend themselves from lawsuits or charges that they’ve broken the law and also to help win lawsuits against their enemies. •They essentially spied on and stole information from the IRS and tried to frame the mayor of Clearwater Florida for a hit and run. 

•Scientology filed 50 different lawsuits in one year against the Cult Awareness Network, an anti-cult organization. Using false testimony they won one of the suits and because the organization couldn’t pay the fine Scientology took the organizations name and logo so if you were calling to get out of Scientology you’d be unknowingly telling Scientology of your intentions. (For full transparency my mom was a member of the Cult Awareness Network before it was taken over and was sued individually by the Church of Scientology) 

•Scientology has an official branch known as the Sea Org, a mixture between a paramilitary group and slavery, comprised of their most dedicated members including many children/teens who’ve been raised in Scientology. This is where some of the most rampant and terrifying abuse in Scientology occurs. 

•Sea Org members often work over 100 hours a week for Scientology for around 2$ per hour.

 •Sea Org member’s living conditions are terrible; they live in overcrowded communal rooms with up to 12 other people, are not given healthcare unless there is a free clinic in the area, often are forced to miss meals or sleep in order to successfully completed their work. 

•Several former Sea Org members have accused the church of physical abuse. •Sea Org members may not have children and women who have become pregnant have reportedly been forced/coerced by their higher-ups to have abortions. 

it’s one of the scariest “religions” you’ll ever meet if not THE scariest because it was PURPOSELY created to make money. unlike most cults that do have some seed of genuine belief however twisted and off base the founders are, scientology was never a belief system - it was a get rich quick scheme for a terrible hack author who saw that there was more money to be made in manipulating people into a cult and then not letting them leave. higher and higher levels of scientology, which you have to take to be truly “clear” aka free of evil spirits, will cost you thousands and even millions of dollars. they will literally hook you into a billion year contract and then pursue you for any money you “owe” them, thousands of “back fees” for their religious training, if you try to leave.

oh and it has literally driven people to suicide as part of its goal to keep “suppressive persons” from spreading information. someone even made a fucking song about its abuses.

stay the fuck away from anything marked scientology or dianetics. narconon (NOT the same as narcotics anonymous, the 12 step program) is also their thing. never even step FOOT into one of their free dianetics “auditing sessions” because they will use it to manipulate you into joining. they are incredibly persistent and will use every trick in the book to get you on board.

Narconon

Dianetics

Associate of Better Living and Education (ABLE)

Criminon

Applied Scholastics

Delphi Schools

The Way to Happiness Foundation

Author Service Inc.

Bridge Publications Inc.

Golden Era Productions

New Era Publications

Citizens Commission on Human Rights

The National Commission on Law Enforcement and Social Justice

I have BEEN doxxed. I have been stalked online. I have had people go through my journals and my pictures to try to identify me for malicious purposes. I have had people search me on court websites to try to find the charges I filed against an ex when he stole from me, for the purposes of trying to humiliate me about an online roleplaying game. (No, really.) I’ve had people try to match up pictures of the flowers outside my synagogue and the building in the background with pictures of synagogues in the Philly area to try to fuck with my life.

So I know the kind of gut-clenching, cold down the back of your neck, hands-shaking fear that comes with being doxxed. I do. It’s happened to me more than once. It will probably happen to me again, because I’m a loud fat queer femme Jewish disabled activist, and boy does that piss people off.

But let me be clear: I was existing as a person that someone else didn’t like in those cases. I was existing as queer, I was existing as ‘someone I don’t like on a game.’ I was not showing up in public, carrying a torch, and advocating for the massacre of millions of people. When you show up in public carrying a torch, you are not being doxxed.

You are being IDENTIFIED.

WHY

DIDN’T YOU

TELL HIM

THAT YOUR COSTUME ALSO PORTRAYS AN IMAGE OF LINGERIE AND BONDAGE

The hilarity might be in the fact that Yuuri’s most important reason for choosing this costume is implied to be unrelated to its imagery : it’s the costume of his love at first sight the first time he saw Victor skating, which is emotionally significant to him. Also, it fits his theme.

And then, regardless of whether Yuuri does know or not, across from him Victor is likely thinking OMG MY POLE DANCING SEXPOT IS PICKING MY LINGERIE AND BONDAGE COSTUME, WE SHARE FETISHES OMG THIS IS THE BEST ROMANCE I’VE EVER BEEN IN with a perfectly straight face.