Vampangel-Pie

I repeated the experiment later, wearing the boots but otherwise my usual clothing and mimicking the expression I thought I’d had at that moment. People parted like I was Charlton Heston.

I now wear that style of boots whenever possible. I recently had a man do a double-take as I walked by and ask me, politely, where I had served because I “looked like a soldier.” I’m not current or former military. I was wearing a flowy purple peasant top and looked as un-soldierlike as possible.

The plan for the 17th, when the adult content ban comes in, is to protest.

To do that, we are making as much noise either side of the 17th as possible, and using the site as normal.

On the 17th, dead silence.

People are saying log off but what they really mean is don’t open the site or the app.

But, on the 17th make as much noise as possible on every other platform. Tweet about it and post on facebook and instagram and everywhere else.

What this does is causes a massive dip in ad revenue for one single day. That does not make staff think ‘oh everyone’s gone let’s shut down.’ What it actually makes them think is ‘oh shit people aren’t happy and if people don’t keep using our site we’re out of money and out of jobs.’

A boycott reminds a company that the users (consumers) have the power to make their site (business) worthless with one single coordinated decision.

If you want to join in, here’s what to do:

Do:

Close all open instances of the app and site on all your devices before the 17th

Make posts before and after the 17th on tumblr and other platforms, talking about why this ban is bad

Make posts on other sites during the 17th. Flood the official tumblr staff twitter and facebook with your anger and your opinion

Come back on the 18th and check in

Don’t:

Delete the app from your phone (this doesn’t affect their revenue and since it’s off the store at the moment it’ll be hard to get back)

Delete your account. I mean you can if you want to, but if you keep your account and don’t use it you’re saying to staff that there’s still time to save it. If you delete it’s hard work to come back.

Open the app or website (including specific blogs)

Make any posts (turn down/off your queue and make sure nothing is scheduled)

Go quiet elsewhere. Make it clear that this is just about tumblr, not a mass move away from all social media.

Remember: the execs don’t care about anything but money. Shutting down the site means there’s $0 further income from it. That’s their last possible course of action. If we make it clear we’re not happy, they’ll have to do something or we can do more and more until it becomes too expensive.

Something that really annoys me, as a lesbian, is when a supporter who obviously means well says something a little off and then like,,,, fifty people attack them and make the feel like shit.

For example, the other day, I was on Instagram and was in the comments section on a post that was just some transgender positivity.

This girl had commented something along the lines of: “I love transgenders and want to support all the transgenders out there.”

Instead of politely correcting her and saying that transgender was an adjective, not a noun, people started yelling at her saying that she was a fake supporter and that she should go fuck herself.

The girl then said “I’m sorry, English isn’t my first language, I’ll try to remember that next time, I’m still learning.”

THEN AGAIN, instead of being respectful, people started telling her that her support wasn’t welcome or needed and that even if she didn’t know English well a slur is a slur and she needs to stop making excuses.

My cloth pad pattern is now available! I’ve drafted this pattern especially for plus size undies, with a wider gusset and longer wings. There’s a regular length and a long length, and you can make a hidden or exposed core design.

It’s got in-depth instructions, fabric and absorbency guide, tips on washing your pads, and a bonus tutorial on making a single pad pouch.

Ditch cotton balls/pads/tampons/rounds/ect. Switch to rags and stuff to remove makeup and wash your face, then replace cotton pads/tampons with washable cloth pads and a menstrual cup. Save a shit ton of money a month and do a lil bit better for the environment.

Also get rid of those make up triangle things. Get a silicone applicator or just use your fingers. No shame.

Make sure you clean your brushes though, so you don’t have to keep buying more. I only have four brushes now: Eyebrow brush, smaller one for contour/highlight (I rarely highlight), big brush for powder, and one double sided brush for eyeshadow.

Think about switching contours to just unsweetened cocoa powder. I mixed a 1 part dark to 2 parts regular for my skin tone and apply a line and blend a bit then use my big powder brush to help blend. Why spend the shit ton that Too Faced charges for something that literally smells the exact same.

Water filters - you know you need to drink water so don’t question me. But if you broke asf and don’t have a fridge filter, get a bamboo charcoal stick on amazon and plop that in a thing of tap water for a couple hours. Tastes better I promise and gets rid of baddies.

Need killer outfits? Second hand stores like Plato’s Closet or Upscale Cheepskate are good places to try. I found some professional as fuck Ann Taylor suits from a thrift store and I bought that shit up and made the pants fit me. Also, while you’re at it. Thrift stores have a lot of jars and other glass stuff so buy that shit up if you use a lot of plastic/single use stuff at your place. 

Learn to sew, trust me you’ll thank me. My pants are all specific to me because I re-tailor them for me only. WithWendy on youtube has a good tutorial on how.

Knock-off yeti’s are dope, get one. Two of those are your needed water in take a day and I use mine for hot leftovers a lot. Also switch from plastic cups/coffee mugs, switch to glass, metal, and ceramic. Better quality and plastic doesn’t leech in to your body.

Speaking of leftovers, if you’re in the Sugar Bowl with me, you probably have a decent sized bag to have everything always. Get a collapsable lunch box (preferably silicone) and take it with you. If you and your SD are out and you get to take home leftovers he’ll be so impressed that you have your own. Also get a straw, metal or silicone if you chew your straw all the time like me. He’ll be 10/10 impressed by your preparedness.

Lush is a lifesaver. I love their products and I have the little tins for their shampoo and conditioner. THOUGH!!! I’m trying to use less shampoo in general and down to only using shampoo once every two weeks, my hair feels a lot healthier. Plus, no plastic bottles with the bars. Also, their Ro Argan body conditioner is to die for, all my SD’s can’t get over how nice my body smells and how soft it is. Then they recycle the tubs when you’re done. Also, their toothy tabs are dope toothpaste alternative.

Switch to fountain pens with pistons and learn how to use them. More eco friendly then any other pen and looks hella professional.

Stop using shit on your face. Washed, masks, ect. Quit it. It’s bad for your skin. Use only water with a clean wash cloth and if you need to exfoliate: use a little bit of baking soda and water to a paste, apply and leave for a few minutes (Not long), and rinse with water. Only use your hands. Healthier face means the less makeup you have to use and girl lemme tell you it is freeing to barely need concealer/foundation.

Also! If you have bad acne or just need a moisturizer with acne help! Almond oil (if you’re not allergic) with about 20 drops of tea tree essential oil, shakey shakey, boom. It’s a acne fighting moisturizer and all I have to do now is stop touching my chin cuz the rest of my face is fine.

Also stop buying exfoliators. Sugar, coconut oil, and a splash of vanilla will do a lot more good and is a lot cheaper.

Shave with a safety razor. It’s scary at first just go gentle and slow and make sure you wash the blade a LOT after one or two swipes. Eventually you’ll get a hang of it and be more confident. I always exfoliate before I shave to make sure it’s all ready, and for around your kitty be sure to pull the area tight while you shave to get it good. For your cat itself, make sure you trim that shit up close with a pair of scissors before you do anything. I use shea butter lotion to shave there, exfoliate with a rough cloth because you don’t want sugar in that area, and pull tight to shave in very short motions. It takes a while but its worth it. I use an alum stone after and tea tree oil if I have any red spots.

Don’t forget to exfoliate your underarms too. They get stinky because dead skin and sweat build up there. Also ditch the deodorant. You can make your own or I use rose scented witch hazel. It takes a bit to detox it from your skin if you use it a lot but its been vaguely linked to breast cancer so it gets a mighty Fuck That from me.

Healthy nails are 10/10 every day. Coconut oil on them and around them before you go to bed and don’t use them, use a file. Same for toes. Clippers fuck them up and files just brush it away.

Bamboo toothbrushes are lit, can be composted just gotta remove the bristles once you’re done with it.

Get a compost bin and find a place where you can take your compost in your city. The charcoal filters can be composted too. But the bin I got from Target has a carbon filter on the top so I don’t smell anything and my university has a place to take it. And I haven’t seen a single bug or rodent even in my dorm.

Ditch the house cleaners. Use white vinegar in glass jars and citrus peels. Fill a quart jar a little under half full with citrus peels (not packed full or anything) and then fill the whole thing with white vinegar. Let that shit sit under your sink for about two weeks then strain it in to a separate jar, compost the peels. This is a multi-purpose cleaner. I use it on surfaces and spray it on my floor and use a swiffer stick but with a microfiber cloth instead of the pads because fuck that and use it to clean my floors. For glass, one part white vinegar to one part water. Use a microfiber cloth and bam, streak free shine bitches.

Use loose leaf tea, those lil packs are made from plastic a lot of the time and in hot water plastic leeches in to the tea so I just use a metal strainer

Not everyone gives birth “naturally.” Some women can’t. My grandmother didn’t. Her hips were fused so she literally couldn’t deliver a child. She had c-sections for both my mother’s birth and the birth of my aunt’s, who are twins.

My grandmother had three pregnancies.

Late into her third pregnancy, she started hemorrhaging. My teenage mother came come from school to find her mother laying on the couch with a blood stain growing from between her legs. She had to convince my grandmother to go to the hospital. My mother packed up the twins, who were toddlers and dropped them off at her cousins down the block, and drove my grandmother to the hospital.

My grandmother would later admit that she knew she had lost the baby as soon as the bleeding started. She stayed on the couch, almost bleeding out, because she was grieving and desperately praying that it wasn’t really happening. It was my teenage mother that forced her to do anything else.

My grandmother had to have a late stage abortion. The child was dead, and if they didn’t perform an abortion, my grandmother would have died as well. My grandmother’s hips were fused, so inducing labor and still birth were not an option, and a c section was deemed unsafe (probably due to her blood loss, though this I do not know). They performed a D&E, or dilation and extraction. This abortion procedure is used for miscarriages in later trimesters to remove all the tissue from inside the uterus before infection can set in.

I won’t describe the procedure, my grandmother wouldn’t have wanted me to, but it saved her life.

Now, you will notice that I referred to the unborn child as that: an unborn child. Because my grandmother wanted the baby, but she miscarried. Her abortion became a medical necessity, as most late term abortions are. After her miscarriage, the doctors told her she could not risk another pregnancy, her body could not carry another child. If she had gotten pregnant again, she would have to abort the fetus as she could never carry another child to term.

You’ll notice, I now call it a fetus. A woman can get pregnant, but not be able to or want to have a child. The lump of tissues that constitutes a pregnancy is a fetus. Aborting that fetus is a medical procedure. If my grandmother had gotten pregnant again, she would have gotten another abortion, but this time a different one. An early one, likely as soon as she determined she was pregnant. She had three kids at home and couldn’t risk a pregnancy killing her.

Some women have kids, and don’t want another one. Some women don’t want kids. Birth control is not 100% effective, therefore plan B, emergency contraceptives, and other early stage abortion medication is important. Accidental pregnancies happen, and women have the right to determine when they want to have kids, or if they want to have kids at all.

Women who are raped, and the victims of incest should not have to carry to term. Women who cannot say no to the act that creates the fetus should have every right to terminate it.

Abortions are medical procedures that women receive under various circumstances, and we should not limit the access to safe and sanitary procedures. Banning doctors from performing abortions will not stop abortions, it will only stop safe ones. History has shown that women will seek other ways to abort the fetus, and many “home remedies” and “back alley abortions” are unsafe.

Women have the right to determine when they will have children. And women need access to a medical procedure to terminate a pregnancy when complications arise that endanger her life. Women should also have the right to terminate a pregnancy if it is determined the fetus is not going to survive. Severe medical conditions can be determined while the fetus is still in the uterus, and should doctors determine the fetus will not live, a woman should not have to carry the fetus to term or, more likely, to a late stage miscarriage.

I am sharing a family story to highlight the fact that abortions are not a black and white issue. There are a lot of reasons for women to have abortions, and banning access to abortions increases both infant mortality and maternal death rates.