(was c3ntaurscanfly)
Ollie / 24 / ENFP / genderfluid / England. Disillusioned chem graduate currently living in an eco project in Spain learning better ways of existing. I want to learn how to live and nurture communities independently from this planet's industrial nightmare, and transform that nightmare where possible
Not to be dramatic but pestilence is ravaging my body and I’ve hardly left bed all day please pray for me
be a friend to the wind, and she will be a friend to you. when she whistles, you must sing along. when she dances, you must step in time. earn her trust, her love, and when you cry, she will wrap you in winds and let you howl. she will help you weather the storm– and if you need, she will sweep you away to somewhere sweeter, where the air is cleaner and the clouds have all been blown away.
Despite what liberals say, an ‘x’ marker on government identification is not a step forward for trans and nonbinary inclusion, it is a creation of a masterlist of trans and/or nonbinary people, it is just another chance to be mistreated and catalogued by a government that does not want us to exist. A true ‘step forward’ for trans and nonbinary inclusion would be the removal of gender markers from all government documentation.
Legitimately, once a government is allowing us to choose our gender markers, there isn’t a single reason I can think of to keep gender markers on. I used to figure that at the very least they were using it as a descriptor, much like how my License lists my eye color.
But now? My state allows me to change my gender to x. Does this provide any useful description to anyone? It allows pre-hrt, non-passing trans folk to change their gender more easily. Does gender provide any sort of description once they’ve admitted that we can look like anything?
I will not be changing my gender marker to x. It feels unsafe. I feel like I’m in pre nazi Germany where they’re making lists of the Jews, or America like a year ago where they’re making lists of our Muslims siblings. Everyone I’m out to is sending me information f this progress but mostly I’m just scared of it
Here’s something I wanna say real quick, while I’m feeling salty: Amazon has totally contributed to the devaluation of literature. Those prices you see, the $13 they’re asking you to pay for a hardcover book? Those are deep, DEEP discounts that they’re able to implement because they don’t collect sales tax if they can get away with it, they don’t contribute money to the communities where they have a physical presence, they have shitty labor practices, Jeff Bezos has more money than god, etc.
They’re so omnipotent at this point that they’ve normalized the discounted prices for books as the standard. I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve had someone come up to me and tell me what the price on Amazon is, expecting me to match it. The number of times I’ve been told, “Oh, it’s cheaper on Amazon, I’ll just get it there.” Even at author events, where book sales DIRECTLY CONTRIBUTE to whether or not that bookstore will be able to get more authors in.
So when you go into a bookstore, and you’re asked to pay $27 for a hardcover, remember: THAT IS THE COVER PRICE. Set by the publishers. The bookstore is not upcharging you. They are asking you to pay the value of the book. Amazon’s low prices come with a cost. Please, just keep that in mind.
(I made a post with options for buying books online that aren’t Amazon. Check it out!)
This is a great post, and I just want to point out: publishers aren’t upcharging you either.
The cost of the book is the advance for the author, it’s the salaries for all the people who work on it (including editors, yes, but also designers and marketers and publicists and lawyers and accountants and everyone else who makes sure publishing works). It’s the cost of printing the books and the materials to print those books on and the warehouses to store those books in.
It’s keeping the literal lights on.
No one in the book business, from the author to the publisher to the bookseller, is making themselves rich off your money. This is the cost to survive. Amazon is running at a deficit because they can make up the cost with other things they do, and because once they run everyone else out of business, they’ll be the only game in town and can charge whatever they damn well please.
And please, please do not ask a bookstore (especially an indie bookstore) if they “price match.” It’s so insulting.
Amazon routinely sells books at or *below* wholesale cost. Meaning that when you ask a bookstore to ‘price match’ Amazon, you’re literally asking them to give you the book for free, or even take a financial loss on it.
‘So how can Amazon do it?’ you ask? The answer is Amazon does not care about losing money. It sells goods at a loss continuously. (Don’t believe me? Just search “Amazon quarterly losses” and you can find article after article about this) Why? Because its goal isn’t to sell the most things, it’s goal is to be the only place where you CAN buy things. They gouge prices on goods to a point where brick and mortar retailers absolutely cannot compete and they do it with the singular goal of eliminating competition.
Things have value. They represent many people’s time and labor. For books, specifically, they represent tremendous cultural worth that extends far beyond the value of the paper they’re printed on. We have to appreciate the value of goods and be willing to pay a fair price that will support and nurture industries.
It’s ok to be upset that you can’t afford $26 for a new hardcover, but make sure that that anger is directed, not at the people whose labor makes books possible, but at the people on top (like Jeff Bezos) who have devalued your own labor such that you can’t afford it.
^^^ if anyone is wondering this is LITERALLY the exact same strategy that Walmart used to destroy any small business and fuck over local economies.
there should be a tax that youtubers pay where 1.5% of all of their revenue goes back to Kevin Macleod for basically supplying YouTube with it’s own soundtrack.
who is this man and what music did he make???
if you hear a royalty free song on youtube, there’s approximately an 80% chance Kevin Macleod wrote it.
here’s some you’ve almost definitely heard:
for those wondering, yes, he also made THE generic royalty free song that was EVERYWHERE in 2014.
also, his site incompetech.com also has graph paper generators, if you’re in need of that. It has any kind of graph paper - INCLUDING hex paper, you tabletop gamers out there! (or knitting paper if you’re into that)
