#urban posts

[preservationofnormalcy]

I feel confident enough to post these now. A collection of all the existing posters after some edits from the other post that got 13k notes! These are full size/quality. Go nuts.

You may use them for wallpapers, tabletop campaigns, whatever. Consider tipping me or buying a print or sticker on ko-fi here! If you do use them, let me know what for, or send pictures!

[thefourofdiamondsart]

After the Quest

[hometoursandotherstuff]

I am completely fascinated by this abandoned home some urban explorers came across in Belgium. It’s covered in moss, which only adds to its charm, but look at the Plexiglas sunroom. 

Look at the big windows.

There’s a lot of mold inside, but this would be the kitchen. 

There appear to be stairs going to an upper level in the living room. There may be a bedroom in that dome on top of the structure. I wish he’d taken more photos.

Looks like there’s a bathroom in there. 

And, there appears to be a pantry here.

Apparently, it’s been abandoned for 30 yrs., but whoever lived here must’ve had a child, b/c there’s a Mr. Turtle sandbox. So fascinating.

https://www.instagram.com/realjefsteticsworld/

[staff]

Tumblr Tuesday: Photography!

Hello, Tuesday, hello Tumblr. Have some beautiful photographic images for your dash, courtesy of some of the supreme #photographers on tumblr.

@dantemarshall:

@cleocartwrightphotography:

@takenonfilmnyc:

@freakishnerd:

@danascruggsphoto:

@abearshapedcountry:

@robertcooper1127:

@epilogueofhare:

@eyeofscottie:

@js-visuals:

@bookergoshoot:

[samwisethewitch]

Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

[writeouswriter]

Broke: Acknowledging that a character who is an objectively terrible person is also a complex and intentionally well thought out individual with different levels of nuance you can empathize with in some ways while not in others is immediately “woobifying” or “poor little meow meowifying” them.

Woke: “This character is a bad person” and “this character is still a person” are two statements that can, should and do coexist and admitting that they exhibit nuance and depth and are more than just their bad actions doesn’t immediately excuse or condone their bad actions or mean that you’re ignoring or trying to soften the canonical version of the character.

Bespoke: That’s the whole point, that’s always been the point, to be made to empathize with horrible people so you can understand that they can be anyone, that bad people can be likeable, can be interesting, can be human, are human, and it’s scary to think about all the ways they’re just like you and all the ways they’re just like everything you hate, forcing the use of critical skills in media analysis, forcing a confrontation of the duality of man.

Whatever Level is Above Bespoke: But sometimes, yeah, sure, maybe they are a poor little meow meow, what are you gonna do, get a lawyer

[fixing-bad-posts]

car culture is so fucking annoying.

[reasonsforhope]

"Amsterdam’s roofs have just been converted into a giant sponge that will make the city more climate resilient.

The Dutch have always been famous for their ability to control water, born out of the necessity of their homeland, much of which is below sea level.

Now, their expert water management skills are transforming the city skyline in the capital city of Amsterdam from one of terracotta tile, concrete, and shingles into green grass and brown earth.

It’s part of a new climate-resiliency trend in architecture and civic planning known as the ‘sponge city concept,’ in which a garden of water-loving plants, mosses, and soil absorbs excess rainwater before feeding it into the building for use in flushing toilets or watering plants on the ground.

If heavy rains are predicted, a smart valve system empties the stored rainwater into the municipal storm drains and sewers in advance of the weather, allowing the roof to soak up water and reduce flooding in the city.

In this way, the rooftops of buildings can be wrung out and filled up just like a sponge.

In Amsterdam, 45,000 square meters, or 11 acres of flat metropolitan rooftops have already been fitted with these systems, and the contracting firms behind the technology say they make sense in dry climates like Spain just as much as in wet climates like Amsterdam...

A 4-year project of different firms and organizations called Resilio, the resilient network for smart climate adaptive rooftops, rolled out thousands of square meters of sponge city technology into new buildings. As with many climate technologies, the costs are high upfront but tend to result in savings from several expenditures like water utilities and water damage, over a long-enough time horizon...

All together, Amsterdam’s sponge capacity is over 120,000 gallons.

“We think the concept is applicable to many urban areas around the world,” Kasper Spaan from Waternet, Amsterdam’s public water management organization, told Wired Magazine. “In the south of Europe–Italy and Spain–where there are really drought-stressed areas, there’s new attention for rainwater catchment.”

Indeed the sponge city concept comes into a different shade when installed in drought-prone regions. Waters absorbed by rooftops during heavy rains can be used for municipal purposes to reduce pressure on underground aquifers or rivers, or be sweated out under the Sun’s rays which cools the interior of the building naturally.

Additionally, if solar panels were added on top of the rooftop garden, the evaporation would keep the panels cooler, which has been shown in other projects to improve their energy generation.

“Our philosophy in the end is not that on every roof, everything is possible,” says Spaan, “but that on every roof, something is possible.”

Matt Simon, reporting on the Resilio project for Wired, said succinctly that perhaps science fiction authors have missed the mark when it came to envisioning the city of the future, and that rather than being a glittering metropolis of glass, metal, and marble as smooth as a pannacotta, it will look an awful lot more like an enormous sculpture garden."

-via Good News Network, May 15, 2024

[thespianwordnerd]

The key to understanding Leonard McCoy is that he only ACTS like he hates everyone and everything. Underneath that sarcastic abrasive middle aged man is a fundamental love for living creatures, desire to help others so strong that he made a career of it and a respect for the simple joys, which occasionally show their face when he's turning on the southern charm for a woman or offering to sacrifice himself to save a patient. I mean, you'd probably be a bit grumpy too if your marriage ended and you were stuck in space (a place you hate) trying to stop your best friends getting themselves killed when you could be spending time with your daughter. He's not surly and outspoken because he doesn't care, he's surly and outspoken precisely because he cares so much and yes, that has got him hurt before and probably will again but dammit, he's not going to let that stop him being what he is - an old country doctor who will do anything he can to help people. I love his sardonic witty banter as much as anyone but I think the real reason we take him into our hearts is because despite his complaining he's arguably the most down-to-earth, no-nonsense character in TOS and deep down we all admire his simple selfless dedication to caring for others. Never change, Bones.

[foldingfittedsheets]

The Faun's Love Story

Part One || Part Two (current) || Part Three

The Faun's Love Story

Part One || Part Two (current) || Part Three

Fans of long gay comics can rejoice because this is finally done! The longest one yet, and the first three parter! Click through to parts two and three to finish Clove and Ning's story and to unlock Ning's mysterious backstory. (If you want to reblog them in sequential order, start with three, two, then one.)

If you enjoyed this or any of my previous long comics, please consider tipping on my Ko-fi!

These things take so much time and tips make a huge impact on my finances as I'm a poor broke art student and these comics are a labor of love!

If you'd like to never see these again please block the tag, "do you love the color of the comic" and you will be freed. If you want to see more comics check my pinned post for a directory of long gay comics.

[ghosttownyardsale]

promised land

[fuckyeahplattenbau]

Residential building, built in the 1970s. Sofia, Bulgaria. Photo: Stefano Perego

[whereserpentswalk]

Imagine if a zombie apocalypse happened and nobody cared. It didn't really effect wealthier areas because guards would shoot them down. There's some paranoia that zombies would overrun humans but society never really breaks down.

You'd hear about infested areas out in the rust belt, where entire towns were overtaken by the undead. And mabye you'd see a zombie or two when you're in a really bad neighborhood and you have to cross the street. Most undead are harmless outside of large groups, but it's always good to stay safe.

And if you go to an area that's completely overun things really will look like the apocalypse. And there's something exciting about that. Society is interested in those ghost towns, not as a tragedy, but as a spectacle. You've seen reality TV where people will head into the worst of the outbreak with nothing more then a knife and a camera, all while the locals look on wishing someone could take them back.

Most people don't think about zombies. They're just another thing in the world that sucks right now. Occasionally there's a reminder of them, but eventually you forget why anyone is even afraid at all. It seems so normal.

One of your coworkers was attacked the other day by a zombie. Nobody really knew her well. The main thing people were talking about at the office when it comes to her is how lucky she is the be in the hospital having her wounds treated and disinfected, instead of stuck at work. Someone as young as her is expected to be able to fight one off, mabye she did it on purpose. Nobody was still making jokes when they realized she died, people aren't supposed to die that way if they're rich enough to work in an office.

The apocalypse isn't enough to end society. Society is meant to be more resilient then reality, that's the point.

[sir-ballister-boldheart]

Love this new Netflix genre of "Accidental Dad and his Adopted Problem Child join hands to overthrow the government which has been lying to everyone with centuries of propaganda"

[probablybadrpgideas]

The "I know a Guy" mechanic, but you can't just make up a new npc to help. Instead, you can once per session point at an established npc and say, "aw, shit, that's my ex."

[hometoursandotherstuff]

When The Green Man pub went out of business, not only was it abandoned, it was sealed up underground, where it still lies buried beneath this shopping mall.

It currently lies beneath four retail shops and can only be accessed by a hole under in the commercial center.

The Green Man in Loughborough, UK was a popular local pub decorated like a Medieval castle with large wall murals depicting knights and life in the middle ages. The murals still remain, as well as the benches and the bar complete with dusty beer glasses.

It closed its doors for the last time in 1993 when its entrance was walled up during renovation work on the shopping center.

It still has electricity and this sitting area is intact.

Lovely curved wood bar with a now-rusty foot rail.

One of the Medieval murals.

A former DJ for the pub submitted some old photos to the local paper, taken at the Green Man between ‘87-’88.

This was the entrance as it looked in the mall back then. 

https://www.messynessychic.com/