softly her tower crumbled in the sweet silent sun.

The bad parts of twitter are so strongly influenced by its establishment as the default place to be and its structure which promotes outrage and addiction. To blame the users is weak. But there's a very legitimate fear that tumblr will react to increased users with the same structuring, deciding that now they have enough users to mimic the money-making tactics of twitter, and forever killing the vibe here. Twitter's userbase is so much bigger, that if a chunk of them move here, tumblr could afford to alienate its userbase of the last 10 years and make this place "new twitter". There's no legal right to having fun online, so there's less moral clarity around the 'refusal of refugees'. Idk.

…

Enjoying the fresh rain

the issue is this sort of development is a fucking zoning dystopia that manufactures human misery. I think north Americans who haven't been outside USA or Canada will often forget that the majority of the world and most of human history did not have towns carved up into "housing zone" and "everything else" zones.

The extinction of mixed use zoning has been devastating on communities. It leaves people in food deserts. it leaves people more sedentary and pedestrians more at risk because of car dependency. it leaves children alienated, depressed, and much more dependant on their parents for longer when they need a drive to go anywhere interesting. Not to mention a lack of any profit generation besides property taxes leads to suburbs consistently being subsidized by the inner cities because they are economic sandpits with 10x the asphalt, piping, and utilities needed because every home needs its own independent setup.

Having swaths of land designated for absolutely nothing but residential development is a waste at every level. Hell, even communist bloc housing was smart enough to keep a ground floor for business space, many have small groceries or stores to keep things walkable.

This setup is an extremely common sight in eastern Europe. They aren't American style non-perishable food desert corner stores either, they sell fresh meat and produce and many are open 24 hours. The nearest thing you can get around here to "European" style zoning (we had it too actually, we just bulldozed it all lol) is probably Montreal because Quebec prides itself on french identity and architecture/city planning is no exception.

Pigeon Comic 44 - Under Pressure

Stay with me.

We do not know how the hell the Gay Pirate Plate was first acquired. This being a point of contention is actually pretty plot-relevant; the saga of the Gay Pirate Plate began with my grandmother and her sister, who, for some ungodly reason, both BADLY wanted the Gay Pirate Plate and believed it to be rightfully theirs.

I should back up, firstly, to establish: The Gay Pirate Plate is the cheapest, tackiest, ugliest plate in existence.

It is in no way a collector’s item. It is physically impossible for it to complement anyone’s decor, because the colors in it are garish. It’s just a ceramic plate with a gay pirate painted on it, and the painting is, this cannot be emphasized enough, extremely bad.

(How do we know the pirate is gay if he’s just posing on a plate? Listen. Fully 100% to stereotype, but he is. He is gay. There’s an energy. That pirate is a flaming homosexual. That pirate has sex with men and does it frequently. That pirate is fucking gay, all right, he just is.)

Anyway. The point is that this is an extremely cheap and ugly plate with a poorly-executed painting of pirate on it who is like a nine on the Kinsey scale.

My grandmother and her sister fought a blood feud over this plate for their entire lives. It would be on the wall in my grandma’s house, and then her sister would visit, and then it would be gone. She’d visit her sister and the plate would be on the wall and her sister would pretend it had always been there. She would steal it back, hang it up, and, when her sister visited, pretend it had always been there. This continued for DECADES.

When the sister died, the Gay Pirate Plate lived triumphantly in my grandmother’s house. And then my grandmother died. And my aunt, who had lived with her and been her carer throughout her life, rightfully inherited their house.

We visit my aunt after the funeral and stay with her for a week or two.

Me, my sister, and our dad. Her brother.

The three of us look at each other. We don’t say anything. We studiously avoid making eye contact with the Gay Pirate Plate mounted proud and ugly on the wall. We notice one another studiously avoiding looking at it. We notice one another noticing. We say nothing. We come to a silent consensus. We pack up to leave. We get in the van. Our aunt comes out to say goodbye. I loudly announce I need to use the restroom before we leave. She obviously stays outside to continue talking to my dad.

I take down the Gay Pirate Plate, stuff it under my oversized sweatshirt, go outside, and get in the van. She happily waves goodbye as we drive off.

Two days later my dad gets a phone call that opens with hysterical laughter and “You FUCKING ASSHOLE did you seriously STEAL THE PLATE–”

Anyway. The gay pirate plate lives in my dad’s house currently.

The plate must be clearly and openly displayed in a place of great prominence whenever it is in your possession. When it is not in your possession, the display piece must remain in place. This is where you would put your gay pirate plate, IF YOU HAD ONE.

No active steps may be taken to prevent the theft of the Gay Pirate Plate. That goes against the spirit of the game, as does attempting to hide it.

The plate MUST be stolen and cannot be gifted or removed with permission. Should you witness attempted theft of the Gay Pirate Plate you are required to intervene and return it to its place.