Living Slowly and Appreciating Beauty

26 | Queer | neurodivergent | she/he/they | DNI: TERFs, homophobes, bigots. | side blogs: @cottagedaydreams (cottagecore), @swords-and-quills (adventurecore/dark academia), @half-in-the-broomcloset (witchy), & @sapphosims (sims 4 cc finds)

[anarchopuppy]

roxy’s Great Big Mutual Aid Masterpost

So, this isn’t the first post ever made like this, but I’m trying to do something a little different than just posting a bunch of links. I’m only gonna include resources that are international, common, displayed either as a map or as a geographically-sorted list, and easy to participate in, to make this masterpost as accessible as I possibly can. If you’re reading this post you’re probably an English-speaker with an internet connection, and so with that in mind my goal here is that any given link you click will have a decent chance of having something near you, and there will almost certainly be at least one link on this list with something you can plug into

Groups

Mutual Aid Wiki - A map of mutual aid groups of all kinds, largely (but not exclusively) ones started in response to the pandemic

Food Not Bombs - A map of free public meals from rescued food waste. Can be a little outdated

Buy Nothing Project - A list of hyper-local gift economy groups

Trash Nothing - A list of local groups where people give and request things that would otherwise be thrown away

Transition Network - A map of local groups seeking to build sustainable circular economies from the ground up, for people, not profits

Industrial Workers of the World - One big labor union for everybody, with local chapters across much of the world

It’s Going Down’s Upcoming Events Page - A partial list of radical actions taking place in the near future, updated frequently

Locations

Slingshot Collective’s Radical Contact List - An international catch-all list of projects

Intentional Community Directory - A map of communes, housing coops, land trusts, eco-villages, and similar communal living projects

Repair Cafés - A map of spaces where you can show up and have your broken items repaired for free (or volunteer to do so for others)

Sharing Cities - Maps of the commons in various cities across the world

Sharing Spaces

Little Free Library’s Sharing Box Map - A map of little free libraries that have been converted into sharing spaces for food, personal care, or hygiene items

Freedges - A map of community refrigerators for sharing food

Little Free Pantries - A map of sharing boxes for non-perishable food

Can’t Find Anything?

None of these lists are comprehensive, and these aren’t the only resources available either. Try using a search engine or looking on social media with keywords like “[your location] mutual aid”

Maybe you could start something yourself! Here are some resources: How to Form an Affinity Group, How to Share from Shareable, Small Town Organizing for Anarchists, resources for mutual aid groups from Mutual Aid Disaster Relief, seven steps to starting a Food Not Bombs group

If you don’t have even a single accomplice to start an affinity group with, there are still actions you can take on your own! Check out my #practical tag for ideas

[radicalgraff]

Putting anti-capitalist stickers on ads in NYC

[pcos-and-endo-awareness]

If you haven’t heard, today PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome has been renamed to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome. This change reflects that this is not a reproductive “problem” but a whole body disease.

[leahstuff]

For reference, from the WHO website:

(Text: PCOS affects an estimated 10-13% of reproductive-aged women. It is estimated that up to 70% of women with PCOS worldwide do not know they have this condition.)

[laziestgirlintown]

The Lancet link about shift to PMOS. Spread this to everyone who works in health care now. People with uteruses and ovaries are in agony - yes, the whole body suffers a crisis every fkn month - and health care should help

[bemusedlybespectacled]

Something important not yet mentioned: there is evidence that PMOS is not sex specific. AMAB people can have similar metabolic and hormonal symptoms as AFAB people (insulin resistance and weight gain, high levels of certain hormones, reproductive issues, and early-onset male pattern baldness), particularly those closely biologically related to AFAB people who’ve already been diagnosed.

It’s not an official diagnosis yet and more research needs to be done. But acknowledging that it’s a hormonal and metabolic disorder, not solely a problem with ovaries themselves, is a big step.

[exxos-von-steamboldt]

[delicatefury]

I just googled this and… yes, it’s absolutely real.

And there are so many articles and videos and discussions. Like, the scientific community is buzzing about this.

So much research will have to be redone because the data was absolutely compromised, off by orders of magnitude, by using standard lab gloves.

The world is probably not horrifically contaminated by microplastics. Sterile laboratories, however, are contaminated by latex and nitrile gloves.

Thank God someone bothered to check.

[scatterbrainedbutterfly]

Update! Here is the links to the study and the writing done by the university!

Nitrile and latex gloves may cause overestimation of microplastics, U-M study reveals

Nitrile and latex gloves that scientists wear while they are measuring microplastics may lead to a potential overestimation of the tiny poll

Avoiding and reducing microplastic false positives from dry glove contact

To attenuate microplastics pollution, we first must quantify the number and types of microplastics found in the natural environment and iden

[the-future-is-chrome]

repeat after me. humans are not inherently evil humans are not like a virus on this earth humans do not “deserve” to go extinct or anything like that. we are living breathing animals that deserve space just like every other creature on this planet. there’s just a tiny amount of us that have a fuck ton of money and power and they really suck

[faggotette]

ecofascist rhetoric getting popular again and i don’t like it one bit

[mehblahblah]

You are never too talkative for someone who likes to hear you, you are never too annoying for someone who find your little actions cute, you are never too depressed for someone who knows what you went through, You are never too late for someone who awaits to see you all day, you are never too far for someone who loves you...

[corantus]

locked the fuck in get my money up

[skoomabong]

[tribblefarmer]

The Artemis II images are making me emotional for a lot of reasons but one of them is:

[odinsblog]

Below are screenshots of posts from another older post, from 2014 asking about the origins of the comic book image above

Here’s the EC Comic

[headspace-hotel]

In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"

We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines

[headspace-hotel]

We will be feeding our grandchildren strawberries and raspberries we grew in our gardens, dragging them along to the farmers' markets for tomatoes and eggs and goats milk and pickles and pecans and salsa and sunflower seed butter and jars of honey, as they complain and drag their feet because Gramma always stands around talking to people for like an HOUR

and we will say "When I was YOUR age, fruits and vegetables came from a supermarket and they were bred to get shipped 1000 miles in a truck and sit on shelves for weeks, and they tasted so sour and watery it was like eating paper compared to these ones. It wasn't even legal in some places to grow your own food"

and they will roll their eyes like yeah yeah just because everything was miserable in the 20s doesn't mean I have to have a smile on my face standing in the hot sun while you listen to that one guy talk about his bees FOREVER

But they will go, because there might be baby goats.

[headspace-hotel]

Since I made this post, dozens and dozens of people have left tags telling me that it was the first thing today that made them want to continue living, that it was the first thing that made them consider that they might be okay years in the future, that they might grow old, that it was the first and only post of its kind they'd ever seen—the first post that boldly predicts a future where we make it.

And many other people have been just spitting, foaming at the mouth fucking FURIOUS. How dare I have the audacity to imagine a future where things get better?

Don't I know how BAD things are? Am I not aware of the TERROR and DEVASTATION of climate change and fascism and biodiversity loss? How dare someone be so bold, so callous, as to imagine something other than misery and suicide. How dare someone suggest it will get better. How dare a person propose that there is a future where we will be okay, in the face of so much terror. Hasn't she seen the abyss opening its jaws before us?

Well? What do you think?

Do you think I've seen the abyss?

[cuntyjugheadfromriverdale]

the idea that there is hope for the future is the only way we have this kind of future.

there were kids who stayed inside because of the black plague and went on to help cure it.

there were women who sat at home and cleaned the house and dreamt up a world where they could vote and have jobs.

there were kids in the mines who thought up a life outside of it. there were children who hid in annexes and wrote a diary where they prayed for a future without a terrible man in control

there were slaves who wanted freedom so badly and had hope that it would get better

there were gay people who hid in the corners of clubs and fought back for a future where they could walk down the street together

do you know what all of that has in common? they had hope that things would get better and they made that change. they looked at the world in its cruel ways and fought back.

so now, there are kids and teenagers and young adults and new adults who dream of a world so beautiful and the only amazon their grandchildren know is the rainforest

and it is in everything we do that we find this hope. wishing on dandelions, counting the stars, making our own clothes out of crochet or knit or sewing it, watching the sunset, going to the farmer’s market, feeding the birds, planting seeds.

step by step, we dream up, like our ancestors before us, a beautiful world

[headspace-hotel]

THE ONLY AMAZON OUR GRANDCHILDREN WILL KNOW IS THE RAINFOREST

[sevdrag]

You can have hope and fight. In fact, it’s the only way we will possibly succeed.

[guerrillatech]

Black panther poster. Just as relevant today

[jingerpi]

IF YOU'RE UNEMPLOYED IT'S NOT BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ANY WORK JUST LOOK AROUND: A HOUSING SHORTAGE, CRIME. POLLUTION; WE NEED BETTER SCHOOLS AND PARKS. WHATEVER OUR NEEDS, THEY ALL REQUIRE WORK. AND AS LONG AS WE HAVE UNSATISFIED NEEDS, THERE IS WORK TO BE DONE. ASK YOURSELF, WHAT KINDS OF A WORLD HAS WORK BUT NO JOBS? IT'S A WORLD WERE WORK IS NOT RELATED TO SATISFYING OUR NEEDS, A WORLD WHERE WORK IS ONLY RELATED TO SAT- ISFYING THE PROFIT NEEDS OF BUSINESS.

THIS COUNTRY WAS NOT BUILT BY THE HUGE CORPORATIONS OR G6OVERNMENT BUREAUCRACIES. WAS BUILT BY PEOPLE WHO WORK. AND, IS WORKING PEOPLE WHO SHOULD CONTROL THE WORK TO BE DONE. YET, AS LONG AS EMPLOYMENT IS TIED TO SOMEBODY ELSE'S PR0FITS, THE WORK WON'T GET DONE.

[leonardcohenofficial]

this isn't a black panther party poster, this comes from the new left big-tent org new american movement

[kropotkindersurprise]

April 7, 2026 - "All you had to do was pay us enough to live, all you had to do was pay us enough to fucking live"

A worker in Ontario, California, USA, set his company’s warehouse on fire and has a message for the CEO:

“There goes your inventory. You know we may not get paid enough to fucking live, but these bitches (lighters) dirt cheap. All you had to do was pay us enough to fucking live.”[article]/[video]

[kropotkindersurprise]

and there's a bunch of liberals on this post criticising why someone might want to burn down the warehouse where they work, or crying about all those great warehouse jobs (that dont pay a living wage) that were lost due to the fire. Wondering why a warehouse worker might snap when they could just Vote. [link]

Within moments of the man hitting the floor, Sam said a woman ran over and began performing chest compressions. The woman began to cry and screamed out for someone to help her. Sam, who has CPR training, asked her supervisor if she could assist. The supervisor watched the woman heaving her weight into the man’s chest and gave no response. “I started sobbing and said, ‘I want to help, please!’ I know she’s going to get tired and need to be subbed out,” Sam told The Western Edge. The supervisor, who Sam perceived to be in shock, had a simple reply: “It has to be management or safety team. Please get back to work.” “I need to help,” Sam said. “Just turn around and not look. Let’s get back to work,” Sam recalled the manager saying.

[xredthedeadx]

Found on Tiktok! Thought it was a good share.

(Sorry if the alt text is too short, I included all of the Text so it can be read, but Tumblr kept deleting what I typed so it has been retyped multiple times)

[what-even-is-thiss]

It’s crazy that countries on the edge of the Sahara desert are reversing desertification by just digging half circles

[what-even-is-thiss]

The ground in these places is too compact for water to soak in during wet season which leads to flooding but digging these holes gives the water a place to stop and soak in. And they’re pushing back the desert with this. By just digging holes.

[what-even-is-thiss]

The new plants also help even more water soak into the ground which reduces flooding even more.

These places also give people places to grow food and graze animals like people are turning completely dry compact desert into a refuge for wildlife and plants and solving regional food insecurity just by digging holes.

[untitledgoosegay]

Yacouba Sawadogo - Wikipedia

The half-circles are called zaï! They're a traditional farming practice in the Sahel desert, and their introduction + reintroduction can be largely credited to Yacouba Sawadogo, the man linked above! He reintroduced and innovated on the zaï on his own farm in the 1980s, and did extensive outreach (along with scientist Mathieu Ouédraogo) to encourage other farmers to adopt them as well.

He also promoted the use of cordons pierreux, which are basically just lines of rocks to reduce erosion, preserve sediments, and increase water absorption.

Immensely cool dude. He's been a personal hero since I learned about him.

[she-is-amused]

Ooooh, Mr. Sawadoga innovated the traditional zai method by adding manure and other biological matter to the holes! This put nutrients in the soil as well as helping even more with water retention and attracted termites whose tunnels helped loosen the compacted earth, all of which supported plant-growth like no zai before! Which increased water-retention even further! Oh excellent, excellent work!

[shannoneichorn]

It is a crime that the link preview doesn't show Mr. Sawadoga's face, so here's his photo from Wikipedia.

This is the face of a man adding beauty to the world and making the future better.

[disgruntled-foreign-patriarch]

A People grow great when old men plant trees under whose shade they know they will never rest.

[echoictwistofshadow-deactivated]

There's a lot of questions in my head on this one.

The biggest one is vaguely to do with "who the fuck are you to control the environment this way, to fuck with the ecosystem this way?" Another is "what exactly is it about deserts that you think is so bad and evil?"

I recognize that I probably lack some level of context here. I'm also half-asleep and trying not to lose this post. That said.

There is /plenty of green in other deserts/ - so I challenge this idea of "desert bad". In fact /due to the dry heat of the desert/ I question the //sanity// in increasing the risk of /wildfire/ if this greening area is located near any infrastructure of any kind.

I recognize that this one's the Sahara. In Africa. So I'm sat here wondering exactly what good it does do, once again - food sparsity is something they brought on themselves, to my understanding, when they started killing /farmers/ for their /skin color/.

[what-even-is-thiss]

Desertification - Wikipedia

Desertification - Wikipedia

[exai]

i no longer respect the hustle i want universal basic income and dignity for everyone

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of you that didn’t know any better

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of yourself that knew better but did it anyway. forgive every version of yourself. we are constantly learning from our mistakes.

[wholeheartedsuggestions]

forgive the version of you that didn’t know what to do and could not have foreseen what the right choice was, if there even was one. forgive the version of you that made a choice and regretted it.

[solarpunkbusiness]

Climate-resilient Cocoa-free "Chocolate"

Foreverland, Green Spot Technologies and Kawa Project have all won Bühler Group’s future-friendly chocolate innovation programme.

Recognised for their cocoa-free ingredients, they emerged victorious from a pool of over 50 applicants to the New Chocolate Challenge, which sought to find sustainable solutions for an industry marred by climate change. The New Chocolate Challenge focused on three cocoa-free innovation routes: plant-based or upcycled sidestreams to deliver chocolate-like flavours and textures, biomass or precision fermentation to produce essential chocolate compounds (like flavours and lipids), and cell-culture approaches directly leveraging cocoa cells

Producing chocolate emits more greenhouse gases than any other food except beef, and making a single bar requires 1,700 litres of water on average. Further, the industry is the source of widespread deforestation and food waste.

The cocoa crisis has prompted the industry to look for sustainable alternatives, resilient to climate change and supply shocks. 

Foreverland, based in Puglia, Italy, modernises the carob-based chocolate substitutes of the previous century with fermentation. Its ingredient, called Choruba, valorises a widely wasted food (90% of the carob fruit is discarded globally, with the seeds used for locust bean gum) and lowers water consumption by 90% and emissions by 80%, compared to conventional chocolate.

Green Spot Technologies takes a similar approach, upcycling commercial food waste by fermenting it into functional ingredients. Its cocoa-free solutions are made from fava bean fibres and grape skins, and are sold under the Milatea brand as powders, chocolate chips, and fillings. It recently raised €5M in funding to scale up these innovations.

Finally, Kawa Project uses spent coffee grounds from industrial breweries and employs a proprietary extraction and refining method to produce a powder that can be used as a substitute for alkalised cocoa powder in baking applications.

[awakefor48hours]

Not just "fuck ICE" but also "love immigrants"

[awakefor48hours]

ICE is a domestic terrorist group that promotes behaviors similar to literal slave catchers and nazis that needs to be stopped yesterday.

and

Immigrants are human beings who deserve no more or less love than anyone else on the planet.