Sharpen your Knife

There's so many bloggers I see that when you look between the lines of their discourse, when you try extra hard to put yourself into whatever nonsense they must've been told or forced to endure to make them think that way, it becomes obvious they're desperate to find something to cling to. Someone to hold responsible for their pain and find their power in tearing someone else down. Someone who they can expect to say "sorry I did this to you" instead of the intangible institutional powers that dignify their abuse with accusations and excuses.

So today regardless of stances, of opinions, of discourse and drama - whoever you are, out there reading this - you didn't deserve the harm put upon you. You didn't deserve to be isolated, to be abused, to be strung up on a stage and expected to dance for a jeering audience.

I hope for a day we can all come together and accept whatever differences we may have and celebrate them instead of existing in a digital realm that demands we perpetually be at each other's throats in the name of justice that may never come.

Case in point, I've never been to a woman's only space that wasn't obviously hostile to me, and that's when I was even allowed there in the first place. And I understand why - my voice is very low and I make no attempt at voice training, I dress in a gender neutral way, hormones have done very little for me. Unless I am making a special effort to be feminine I clock as a guy. I am also tall and broad. The only way I can gain any kind of acceptance in "woman's spaces" is if I go to extreme effort to completely warp my presentation and step on egg shells the entire time. If im not actively ashamed and apologetic about the fact I read as a man I am not welcome.

Because, again, the reality of woman's spaces is that they are about the comfort of those who organize them.

I'm also very aware that it's not just non passing trans women who get the short end of the stick here. There is a long history of racism connected to these kinds of spaces that absolutely has not been resolved, for example.

The other half of the woman's spaces discourse is about resources, and is just so detached from reality it is kind of pathetic. The idea that a trans man coming into a woman's only space is somehow stealing resources from women is pervasive as it is stupid. The reality is that very few resources of any kind are expended in cases like this, and far more important is the single most important resource in marginalized politics, solidarity and coalition strength. Any "loss" of resources that occurs when lines are blurred is more than made up for by the social and political power that depends on different marginalized people regularly interacting with each other.

Can you please leave me alone? I don't think it's kind my block to message me through my askbox. I don't agree with your comments and you telling another trans woman that transitioning doesn't exist. Commenting on trans women's bodies as innately male, and denying medical transition.

It's called a sex change because you change your sex. That is the biological reality regardless of what you want to believe. If you are taking HRT or have/hand any surgeries you have functionally changed. your. sex. The experts agree in case you needed their backup as well as the counsel of your own two eyes.

I'm going to be charitable and assume this person is hurting right now and that is why they are saying these things, but it also doesn't mean that other people are your punching bag for when you get upset with yourself.

It’s so painfully individualistic. Of course me doing that thing isn’t going to save anybody or anything.

Im not trying to be a superhero who personally saves the say.

I am one leaf making oxygen in a massive forest of other trees making oxygen. I am doing my best and having faith that millions of others will do their best as well.

Because that can and has made big changes over time. Like. That is just how change happens. Thats cultural shifts. Thats political shifts. Thats how lasting changes happen.

I don’t plant milkweed because I’m personally gonna save monarch butterflies. I plant milkweed because I know thousands of us are gonna plant milkweed and send money to the people fighting horrible pesticides in court.

Some things you can do to save space include growing plants in stackable towers rather than flat rows. Not everything can grow this way, but growing herbs or even strawberries or some kinds of tomatoes in them can save a lot of space. Bonus points if you can get some vertical vining plants like beans or tomatoes to grow up the sides of them to maximize the space used.

Hanging planters can also be used for things like tomatoes, herbs, some berries, etc. The people who grew up watching TV in the 2000s may remember ads for the topsy-turvy tomato planter. I can’t vouch for the effectiveness of them, but it may be good inspiration for creative DIY hanging planters.

Many people don’t seem to know this (to be fair, it’s not very intuitive), but small melons and gourds can be grown vertically on a trellis. You will need pantyhose or something else that can act like a sling for when the fruit gets large enough, and you’ll also want to make sure the trellis is very sturdy. Here is an example of a watermelon growing on a trellis, with squash growing in the background:

Other good options that require a bit more DIY are hydroponics towers and walls. It’s basically just a series of pipes with holes for plants to grow out of. The only downside is they will require very regular fertilization and supplementation with other micronutrients that are essential for plant growth, because the plants are typically grown in either a non-nutritious medium like coconut coir or nothing at all.

Planter walls are the next step down, basically just building shelves with pots in them to fill with soil. Put these on a wall that gets good morning sun and some afternoon sunlight for best results. These and hydroponics both also have the advantage of being able to hook up to your gutters so that rainwater will go towards watering your plants rather than just being wasted.

If you want to get really fancy, aquaponics is the next step up. With aquaponics, you create a system that circulates water between plants and a tank full of fish. The fish waste provides fertilizer for the plants, and the plants help filter out the waste so the water stays cleaner. I’ve heard they’re a bit tricky to establish, but once you find the right balance, all you’ll need to do is feed the fish. This has the added bonus of providing a source of fish for people who can’t eat things like nuts and legumes but need protein. Here is a link to an article explaining what aquaponics is, how it works, and how it differs from hydroponics.

Most of us can’t do it ever even if we use all our space perfectly. Some of us can do it after years of building those skills, and we might still have bad years. And in the end, what does it get us? Self-reliance is a right-wing preppers dream but it isn’t what we should be aiming for.

If we’re thinking about collective survival and we’re looking at food as part of that survival, there’s two things that work:

Start a community garden. Bring together the resources, time and skills by getting together in a big group. 

Or learn to grow a few crops really well and share them with all your friends. 

If you have a lot of nice soil and can do physically exhausting work? Potatoes, pumpkins, zucchini.

If you have a green house? SOOOO many tomatoes. Fruits that require warmth. etc.

Are you a gardening nerd with time and an interest in learning complicated plants? Take on the challenges like broccoli, cauliflower and depending on your needs, location and options, maybe cannabis? Or build a permaculture garden if that’s your thing.

If you have a balcony or window sill or prefer to do light work in high mobile planters due to limited space or mobility? Leafy greens, herbs, radishes, carrots, maybe a small tomato plant.

Peppers are perennials and we talked about bucket planting for those so you can bring them inside if your winters get cold to overwinter and bring them back out in the spring.

In learning how to garden and grow produce it helps to start small and scale up year to year. Try new varieties and planters and spots in the garden, find ways to allow things to volunteer in the spring (leaving peppers, basil and other plants to cast seeds directly). You’ll learn and grow so much, even if much of it isn’t edible.

Remember to grow flowers too - not just because they are pretty but they will attract pollinators who will help your produce grow too! Sunflowers grow great in the US so don’t sleep on those babes.

Jkr has gone on record saying that lycanthropy in Harry Potter was a metaphor for HIV/ AIDS, a disease that mostly affected queer men, especially at the time of her saying this, which inherently makes the werewolf characters at least somewhat queer coded

There are two werewolves in Harry Potter.

First, there's Remus Lupin who gets kicked out of his teaching job (which he considers rightful) because of his condition, and then goes on to be pressured into getting with tonks, (instead of Sirius whom a metatextual analysis of the text shows almost seemed to be the case) who was the other main queer coded character, then almost immediately having a baby with her and then dies.

The other is Fenrir Grayback, who is said to purposefully infect kids with Lycanthropy, kidnap them, and turn them against wizards

The only other queer person in Harry Potter that is fully confirmed and intented is Dumbledore, the celebate old man who groomed Harry to die. Btw Dumbledore being gay actually affected the 6th movie screenplay, apparently. JKR pretty much chickened out on also calling Grindewald, yk wizard Hitler, who was defeated in 1945, gay, but even if she didn't, it's yikes.

Then, there is Rita Skeeter, a woman whose main thing is being a nosy journalist who is very creepy and spies on children by transforming herself into a beatle & having artificial hyperfemininity that is constantly contrasted with physically masculine traits. She is literally described as having manish hands.

The goblins are basically a 1 to 1 of nazi propaganda of jewish people. They have curly hair, hooked noses, and are short. They canonically took control of the banks in a financial crisis as a way to gain more political power. The only mention of a political ideology that i can find of in the entire wizarding world is a mention that goblins at a time teamed up with anarchist wizards, which is a step away from Judeo-Bolchevism. They also have double loyalty, their true loyalty residing in their own race as shown with Griphhook, who betrays Harry (the christ figure) and dies as a result. Not to mention the 6 pointed star in Gringotts. There is also the entire can of worms of the insane antisemitism of Hogwarts legacy. (To add to the evidence of antisemitism, she uses word association for naming constantly and calls the only Jewish character GOLDstein)

The house elves are the happy slave trope from the Antebellum south. They are canonically enslaved to wizards and outside of Dobby, who is explicitly deemed an exception and Hermione who is mocked, everyone in the universe says the house elves like being slaves. Harry even inherits one, forces him to do labor, and one of his last thoughts in the paragraph before the epilogue is if Kreacher could make him a sandwich. They also speak "broken English", never referring to themselves in the first person. JKR has gone on record calling slavery a system ripe for abuse, which implies she doesn't think it's inherently abusive, which aligns with the reading of the text where good slave masters exist (Harry)

Centaurs are said to live in land designated as allowed for them by the ministry, being parallel to Indigenous reserves.

With all of this taken into account, knowing her politics nowadays and knowing Harry Potter always showed those beliefs, my question is why are so many people giving a holocaust denying oligarch the benifit of the doubt when she has said she put allegories into the text, lycanthropy & HIV/ AIDS and some christian messaging being the ones im aware of that she has explicitly said.

To me, it's kinda obvious that Harry Potter is explicitly a piece of conservative propaganda. Harry Potter is a slave owning trust fund kid who peaked in high school, became a cop and married his high school sweetheart.

That when we talk media, we never get to see a masc girl/woman or even just afab gender non conforming person that is masculine looking ever get a femboy or very feminine man.

When masc women and gnc afabs are shown in media paired with someone feminine it's always a female. Always the "dichotomous lesbian couple" dynamics.

And when femboys or feminine men show up it's the same thing, they're almost always paired with men.

And when we do have a feminine man with a woman she is almost NEVER allowed to be truly masc presenting, she still has to fit in a more feminine box, she still has to be "not too masc", otherwise it's a no go.