Yeah, sure, seeing new things is helpful as a fantasy writer. But. Don’t make the mistake of assuming that exposure to new things is the same as traveling. You know what else exposes you to new things? The internet. Documentaries. Books. Freaking Youtube. So when you’re bored of cats and cooking tutorials, go on an adventure!
TRUTH. What you need is imagination, and you don’t need to go anywhere to use it.
The best thing about the internet is that it means its not just the fortunate sons that get to learn, and explore and imagine and write. We get to see stories from all over the place, from all sorts of people, who bring All Kinds of New Ideas.
people have this tendency to believe that fandom discourse exists because people in fandoms are Stupid Nerdy Losers, but in fact fandom discourse exists because anytime you get a group of more than 100 people together, they will start creating interpersonal bullshit. fandom is not special in this regard
There is sports discourse. There is yarn discourse. There is food discourse. There is academic discourse (dear sweet god is there academic discourse). If there are people out there collecting brass buttons specifically from 1921, they are going to have discourse about which buttons are trash and whether Person A cheated person B. To be human is to engage in pointless wankery sometimes.
Being a crafty person and making a bunch of things often prompts people to ask “oh wow did you make that?” And like, the short answer is: yes I did, but the long answer is: well, no, the pattern isn’t mine, but I did choose and buy the fabric/yarn and sewed it together/crocheted it/knitted it myself. I used a reference for that drawing/painting, I didn’t come up with it myself. That ceramic piece was insired by a poem and a painting made by different people. What I’m trying to say is, everything I make requires other people to make their own thing first, and then I get inspired by them to do my own thing. So I can’t really call anything truly mine, because really it’s just a bunch of inspirations and experiences of others (and me) put together by my hands. Does that answer your question
This yarn came from sheep raised in New Zealand and was spun by a woman in Peru. The pattern was created by someone in Germany. My needles were made by a craftsman in China and my stitchmarkers came from the lady at the local fiber festival.
I may have knit this sweater but it contains the souls of people from around the world.
the xbox is a Machine. the playstation is a Device. the switch is a Toy. the personal computer is also a Machine. what the world needs, is a way to play video games on a Contraption
Day 286 of quarantine I have discovered www.webstaurantstore.com
It is, I BELIEVE, a website intended to be used by restaurants for bulk ordering food and utensils. And this is bringing me such unbounded delight scrolling through and recognizing that I, a single individual, ALSO can order ridiculous obscene enormous offensive-to-all-common-sensibilities shipments of BULK FOOD, to my LITTLE LITTLE APARTMENT, for PENNIES on the dollar. I have this god given power to flood my entire living space with bulk grains and it is one single button click away from my reality.
30 POUNDS of chocolate for $100. 20 POUNDS of peas for $13?? $13!!!! I will wake up every single morning from now on knowing that a box of donuts and a sack of dried split peas heavy enough to bodily injure someone both carry equal monetary weight. 25 POUNDS OF ONION POWDER for $50. Do you understand the enormity? the accessibility? the potential here? With the single click of the button I can put myself in a position of bequeathing more than a humanly comprehensible amount of onion powder in my will. AND IT WOULD ONLY COST ME $50 TO MAKE THIS A REALITY.
But what gets me
What truly gets me
is the 50 POUND BAG OF RICE
FOR LESS THAN $20
Do you know how much that kills me? How much I’m losing my mind? that I can order MYSELF WORTH OF RICE for something to the tune of $50? I can OUT-RANK MYSELF WITH RICE, DEMOCRATICALLY OVERRULE MYSELF WITH RICE, IN MY OWN APARTMENTfor the fucking PENNIES that is $50
I’m so sorry for the normal person I’ll be after quarantine because the cabin-fever version of me I’m inhabiting right now is perhaps just uninhibited enough to follow through on this dream I’ve just discovered of out-ricing myself.
real talk though, if you had a large number of people in your community who wanted a particular food item and couldn’t afford it (for instance if you’re in a food desert and need produce or if you’re a part of a large disabled and/or overworked community who all need prepared frozen food), you could pool funds and get an order from a supply store like this.
it requires organizing for finance management, ordering, transport, and distribution, but if you build a stable mutual aid network, it’s genuinely within the realm of possibility.
This idea is called a buyers club (or buying club, buying coop, etc) and it’s a great time-tested method of mutual aid. And there are guides and tools for starting your own at managemy.coop
Pink lemonade is such an unreasonable thing to exist. It’s lemonade, but pink. But indescribably different. It’s sold separately and tastes different. What’s the different flavour? Well, Pink
In a memo to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem regarding tribal members recently detained by ICE, Frank Star Comes Out, president of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, said:
“This is a treaty violation. Treaties are not optional. Sovereignty is not conditional. Our citizens are not negotiable.”
