a secret code between women: are you safe? in a contact of eyes. i’m here if you need me, the littlest shift of a skirt, of an inclined head, of watching the man who is asking you to smile, bitch. you aren’t alone on the walls of restrooms, i was where you are too. the quiet doling of emergency numbers, the shelters. the space between two women in a largely empty train station. the waiting game of two women strangers who walk, quietly and quickly, to their cars in abandoned parking lots, who watch to be sure the other leaves safely. text me you get home safe. the tally marks of drinks on hidden wrists, carefully disguised as other things ever since men picked up on what it meant and used it to target the “weakest link.”
my father tells me we have nothing to worry about. last night he sent me one of those email chains that say at the top “Safety Tips For The Women In Your Life!!!! Don’t Let Her Die!!”
me, and the stranger on the train. she is asleep and the man is asking me who i am going home to. i feel tears pricking the sides of my eyes. i am 13 while he towers over me. he reaches out one hand, and while i don’t know how she knows, she speaks up without opening her eyes: “If you touch my daughter, sir, I will murder you.” Whatever he grumbles is lost in history, because this moment I am so grateful for the existence of other people that I cannot breathe.
I am 19 and on my phone when i become aware of a 13 year old girl is smiling nervously at a man who’s saying disgusting things. I grab her arm. “There you are, cindy,” I say, and then look at the man like he is bile. “Do you need something from my sister?” i ask, and i walk away with her. she cries later.
this is the way of things: a silent, secret web. our promise to each other that despite our differences, when it comes to the wire, we become family, instantly. the unspoken promise. i’m here. i’m watching. i’ll witness.
you don’t lose this language, this obligation, when you leave being a woman behind, either: as a man among other men, you see a woman hesitate on the threshold into your space, looking to see if she’s gonna pay for coming within arm’s reach. you say ‘it’s cool, we’ll behave.’
you keep an eye out. on the train you watch drunks, at the bus stop you look out for girls, in restaurants you care about your waitress. you say to your coworkers— i saw him touching you, testing you. i heard what he said. can i help? you’re not alone.
you say, i’m here, because you too were born there. you still own that space.
So, your landlord/parents/home inspector/favorite movie star is dropping by, and your place is a disaster. You don’t have much time to clean it up. You’re in emergency mode. Let’s get started.
Don’t panic. Panic leads to fear, fear leads to procrastination, procrastination leads to the dark side. You can do this, but you have to stay calm.
Unlike maintenance cleaning, we’re not looking to completely unfuck one space at a time. Instead, we want to decrease the overall mess in stages, spread evenly across the whole area that we’re concerned about. If you think your home is at Level 10 filth, we want to bring the whole thing down to a Level 9, and then down from there. One really clean spot in an otherwise messy home is not going to be helpful here.
Get prepared. You’ll want to shut the computer down (or turn the modem off if you need your computer to play music). Trust me. Get your music going. Gather up trash bags, your vacuum and mop, some rags or paper towel, sponges, and other cleaning supplies. Use what you have on hand. Don’t get distracted running to the store and spending an hour browsing cleaning supplies. A multi-purpose cleaning concentrate or a jug of vinegar will be just fine.
Breaks are very important. Depending on your time constraints, work in 20/10s (20 minutes working, 10-minute break) or 45/15s. But take breaks because otherwise you’re marathoning, and marathon cleaning is no one’s friend. Keep hydrated, don’t forget to eat, and check in with yourself frequently to make sure you’re physically doing OK.
Make your bed. This will be your home base if you get overwhelmed or need somewhere clear to take a break.
Start with the garbage. Going from room to room, throw out anything that is obvious trash. Once you fill a bag, take it out. Repeat as many times as necessary.
Move on to dishes. Gather the dishes from all over your house and bring them to the kitchen. If you can, start them soaking in a sink of hot, soapy water or start loading the dishwasher. After the dishes are all in one place, spend one 20/10 getting started getting them under control.
Now it’s time for your flat surfaces. Countertops, tables, dresser tops, etc. Clear them off and wipe them down. Don’t get distracted in too much sorting and organizing. We’re in crisis mode here. There will be time to get in-depth once this is all done. The same applies to cabinets and closets. Unless you have reason to believe people will be opening closed doors, leave these alone for now.
Attack the floordrobe and shoe pile. Get your clothes either put away or in the hamper. Start a load of laundry if you need to, but keep in mind that laundry and dishes have three steps: wash, dry, and put it away, goddammit!
Get random stuff up off the floors. If something is trash-worthy, throw it away now rather than just move it around a bunch of times. Otherwise, put stuff where it belongs.
Take another 20/10 or 45/15 to catch up on more dishes, if needed.
Head into the bathroom. Pour some cleaner in the toilet bowl, fill the sink with hot water and cleaner, and either spray the tub and shower with cleaner, or fill the tub up with some hot water and add cleaner and let it soak. Put everything away that’s out and shouldn’t be, clean the mirror, counters, and toilet seat. Sweep or dry mop the floor. Wipe down the sink and tub/shower, and give the toilet bowl a scrub. Mop the floor.
Sweep and mop the kitchen floor.
Vacuum everything you can, and sweep everything you can’t.
Walk outside of your house (don’t lock yourself out, please). Walk back in and see what catches your eye first. Go and deal with that.
If you’re being inspected or your landlord is coming in for repairs, spend time on whatever area they’ll be focusing on.
Give the whole place one more once-over and pay attention to anything you’ve missed so far.
It’s an old trick, but if your place is a little funky-smelling, put a pan of water on the stove on low heat and add some citrus or cinnamon or vanilla. Don’t leave it unattended or forget about it.
Take a shower, put on something clean, and eat something.
You can do this. It’s overwhelming, yes, but it is not impossible. You just need to do it. You have a list. You have directions. You have a whole bunch of Internet strangers who have been there before and who are cheering you on. You can do this, but you need to get started.
Why are you still here? GO. START. NOW.
the number of times in my past that I desperately wanted/needed someone to sit me down and tell me this stuff. I will never get back the hours and hours lost to headless-chicken mode, but it’s nice to know that in the last year I’ve learned so many coping mechanisms 😀
Say, Thanos, I recall you telling your adopted space daughter (who you routinely abused, by the way) that her home planet of Zehoberei was now thriving because you killed half its population – including her birth mother – because ‘balance was restored’.
Do you know what I think about that?
I think it’s nothing more than a
BIG
FAT
LIE!!!
So apparently her planet prospered to the point everyone spontaneously died? Troll-logic yourself out of that one, you insane oversized prune.
Actually in the Gamora comic it’s stated that another race came in and destroyed the rest of her people. Thanos then let her kill the royal family of that race that ordered the death of her people as a birthday present.
“as a birthday present”
Would that race have been able to kill the rest of the Zehoberi people, if they hadn’t been half dead already because of Thanos? Maybe not….
My point exactly. The war against Thanos would have severely weakened Zehoberei’s defense forces even BEFORE Thanos halved them. Add that to the infrastructure loss, societal collapse, and mass panic caused by, oh I don’t know, HAVING HALF OF THEIR POPULATION MURDERED RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEIR FACES, Zehoberei would never be able to recover even on its own. The second invaders were just a catalyst for their damnation.
i kept scrolling down expecting a punchline but no this is just a kickin’ rad adaption of that scene from ESB!!!! or, wait, of… the entire movies?????? omg
tumblr: when people include racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. ideas in their stories it has real life consequences
also tumblr: but ships are never problematic, what’s with all these “antis”? it’s just fictional and can’t affect anything
Just Anti Things: I honestly don’t see any difference between popular mass media and someone’s obscure fanfic
this….isn’t a new argument. we’ve had it before. many times. representation matters, people can also ship what they want. those don’t contradict each other.
if a producer puts something racist, sexist, or homophobic work, it is their fault for broadcasting that out into the media, where it affects hundreds of thousands of lives and portrays an imbalance in the system we live under.
if some average teenager from kentucky has racist undertones in their 20 page, freely-made fanfic, then that just shows that they’re racist. and you can go on with your life avoiding/blocking/not liking them because of that. because racism in people won’t die so soon, but racism in the institution absolutely should.
the internet and tumblr, however, are just places where average people congregate. It is not an institution and absolutely shouldn’t be treated as such. that’s why tumblr isn’t held to the same standard, because their users are average people.
“It is not an institution”
Thank you for bringing this up. Fandom is not an institution. It should only overlap with social politics in the sense that fandom should be inclusive – beyond that, assigning responsibility to everyone in fandom to portray only non-problematic things is not only impossible, but presumes fandom has way more power than it does. A nebulous gathering of people with similar interests in fiction is not an institution that you can or should hold responsible for fixing society’s problems.
Fandom is not an institution is such a good goddamn point
Fandom is not an institution and has little, if any, centralized social power. It’s not formally organized, it has no proclaimed goals and few longstanding traditions; fandom is to mass media what a pick-up football game is to the NFL. I don’t want to downplay the influence that small, loosely organized communities can have on lives, but they’re neither the cause nor the solution to institutional problems – at worst they’re a symptom.
Fandom activism aiming to address social problems is basically doomed to fail. The best it can accomplish is education of individual members, because fandom is not an institution.
“i am a monument to all your sins” is such a fucking raw line for a villain it’s amazing that it came from halo, a modernish video game, and not some classical text or mythos
classic texts have nothing on the crazy people come up with in modern times tbh
“I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.”
– Joshua Graham, Who Is A Fallout New Vegas NPC, Something Most People Throwing This Quote Around Don’t Realize
“If the world chooses to become my enemy, I will fight like I always have.”
– Shadow the Hedgehog in what is widely considered one of if not the single worst game in the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise
this is the source for this text and it haunts me on a regular basis
“Do you think God stays in heaven because he too, lives in fear of what he’s created?”
PLEASE DO NOT THROW THE YA GENRE UNDER THE BUS it is filled with diversity that goes far beyond whatever makes it to the movies! Please give it a chance!
just moving along like everyone else 