ersatzpenguin

[ersatzpenguin]

being so fr with you all we need to drastically accelerate anti-car propaganda.

we need to make it so clear to future generations that we no longer tolerate a world where you cannot conveniently go for a walk or get a coffee or get groceries without a car

#urbanism #bikes #trains #transit #buses

[ersatzpenguin]

Me: It happened again. I dreamt I was investigating a mystery when I discovered that reality was being manipulated using a device created by an enigmatic scientist—a scientist that I eventually discovered was my ex-husband before he tried to reset reality. Chasing after him, I encountered a young boy who felt familiar—a glitch in my ex-husband’s reality distortion attempts revealed that the child was just a facsimile of our toddler who had died years prior on my ex-husband’s watch. The realization of all that I had lost as a result of my ex-husband’s hubris led me to finally wake up here with you in our bed—with the tears streaming down my face slowly soaking my pillow. I know it wasn’t real, but I am deeply sad and moved.

My Partner: Holy shit.

#dreams #this is what too much sci-fi does to you #science fiction #I seem to routinely write short stories in my sleep

[ersatzpenguin]

A modern zen koan:

Student: What is the difference between an urbanist living in a walkable environment and enjoying their life—and a hot mom?

Master: None. There is no difference.

Want to be a hot mom, too? Easy. Just use the sidewalk, ride your bike, take a bus, or ride a train to get places. The rest will follow. 🙏🏻

(Photo courtesy of my partner who thought they were taking a cute photo of me and my kids but who also accidentally captured my hot mom vibes at the same time.)

#urbanism #bikes #trains #sidewalks #not using a car is sexy #pleather jackets are cool

[ersatzpenguin]

YOu woUlDN’t DoWNlOad A gEnDEr.

#gender #piracy #female.avi

[ersatzpenguin]

Celebrating the undead lord and savior with the objectively correct gothy vibes. 🙏🏻

Christian Easter fashion is unhinged. Jesus died, came back to life, bodied a huge rock, showed his friends his wounds, and then ascended to an unknowable plane found only in death—and you want me to wear pastels?!?! How am I supposed to celebrate our undead lord without black lipstick?!?!

#undead lord and savior #lord and lich jesus christ #jesus #Easter #gothy

[ersatzpenguin]

Christian Easter fashion is unhinged. Jesus died, came back to life, bodied a huge rock, showed his friends his wounds, and then ascended to an unknowable plane found only in death—and you want me to wear pastels?!?! How am I supposed to celebrate our undead lord without black lipstick?!?!

#easter #goth #undead #jesus #lord and lich jesus christ

[ersatzpenguin]

Science is just the human attempt to overcome all the ways nature gaslights us.

[ersatzpenguin]

let’s see paul allen’s mall-based outfit

#emo is a gender #just look at it #gender #emo #emo gender

[ersatzpenguin]

Inaugural post, I’d like everybody to internalize that the Netherlands did not rise out of the primordial soup as a cycling paradise.

In fact in the 1950s and 60s we were pretty busy making plans to roll highways through cities, looking at cars as the ✨ future ✨ and trying to follow America’s lead - including hiring American planners, some of whom advocated flattening entire historic neighborhoods to do so (like plan Joniken). In the 1970s Amsterdam was deciding whether to rebuild a historic neighborhood that had been partially demolished to build the new subway or build a four lane road there, and the road plan was defeated by just one vote (crucially the wife of one of the councilmembers who voted to restore the old street layout was about to have her baby, but he stuck around long enough for the vote).

In the 1970s many Dutch streets were what I’d graciously term car gutters, cluttered end to end with traffic, and the number of traffic deaths kept rising, peaking in the early 1970s with about 3300 deaths - 400 of whom were children. There was a growing “damn we can’t keep living like this” realization

Amsterdam traffic in the 70s

People began protesting and advocating for change, including the admirably bluntly named “stop de kindermoord” (‘stop the childmurder’) campaign, among many others. These campaigns did stuff like block streets and hold dinner parties there, holding demonstrations and illegally painting lanes on the road at night, but also by identifying traffic bottlenecks and producing a huge report with practical solutions. It was a constant struggle and they had to fight for every street, but they got results and their progress is reflected in the official standards that all streets have to meet, which over the course of a few decades of regular street maintenance and redesigns meant the entire country steadily became bike friendly. The effects can be seen in the statistics (below are traffic deaths per year, divided by type of vehicle, red is cars, light blue is bikes, dark blue pedestrians). The proportion of young children who died in traffic also fell sharply. Don’t let yourself be fooled into thinking the Netherlands just emerged as a place with a cycling culture out of nowhere - people fought tooth and nail to get the cars to fuck off

#cycling #urbanism #street design #bikes #transit

[ersatzpenguin]

incarceration

#the cycle is complete #graphic design

[ersatzpenguin]

the scream i scrumpt

#my chemical romance is just queen for disaffected kids #that doesn’t make them bad #i enjoy mcr #but they aren’t punk #they aren’t even emo #midwest or otherwise

[ersatzpenguin]

#whoops #capitalism #everyone deserves to live without fear caused by lack of resources

[ersatzpenguin]

Oh you know some parables, do you? Do you know the one about the girl who stretched her ear piercings so far that they won’t ever close, and now she’s doomed to be cool for the rest of her life?

#piercing #ear piercings #guages #plugs #it’s me #i’m the girl #the smallest they will go is 0g

[ersatzpenguin]

You know what, you’re right—but not due to intellectual property concerns or anything. I just think that cars are the root cause of multiple problems (in North America especially), and would like to limit my exposure. Bikes and trains, though…

#urbanism #cars are a waste of space and infrastructure #piracy #trains and bikes though… #trains #bikes

[ersatzpenguin]

My five-year-old has decided that she will split nachos with me at our neighborhood “family restaurant,” and I have never been more excited about being a mother in my entire life.

#motherhood #nachos #parenting #share your Ws #success

[ersatzpenguin]

Something that I think gets lost in all the internet bluster from bigots is the fact that most bigots are quiet—some of them can even be polite. They won’t say the things they think about you or your loved-ones to your face. And that honestly bothers me more in some ways.

A short story:

When we moved into our current house, and met our neighbor across the alley for the first time, she seemed surprisingly cold and distant. But, try as we might, we couldn’t pin down why. We quickly learned that she was good friends with the couple that lived in the house before us, and figured she must have just been sad to lose her friends. So, we went out of our way to be friendly and good neighbors. We were new to the city, and if she wanted friends, we were certainly looking for them. But, nothing changed.

In fact, over time, we noticed that she’d started actively avoiding eye contact with us—sometimes going so far as to act like we were not even there. For example, on a couple occasions her dog ran across the alley into our garage to say hello. When this happened, she’d tell the dog, “Former Owner 1 and Former Owner 2 don’t live there anymore, you can’t go over there”—all while ignoring our assurances that it’s okay, and we love dogs. Like, not really even replying or acknowledging us.

By this time, the only reason I could think of for her apparent disdain for us is the fact that we’re queer. But, she’d never said anything along those lines to us, and we live in a very queer-friendly neighborhood (in some ways, the “young gayborhood” in Minneapolis). So, wanting to believe the best about people, I figured I was wrong, and maybe we had done something we weren’t aware of to upset her—maybe right as we were moving in.

But, it bugged me. I don’t need to be friends with my neighbors by any means, but some sort of friendly communication seems necessary—after all, you want your neighbors to know they can talk to you about turning your music down instead of just calling the cops, etc. So, after we got to know our other neighbors better, I asked them if they knew anything about what was going on or if there was something we had done we weren’t aware of. While one hinted at her having said some “weird things,” most of them just affirmed that she’s not worth being friends with, has literally called the cops on another neighbor for noise without saying anything to them first, and has generally been a bit of a pain to have as a neighbor. She’s also apparently bragged about how the plants in her front yard discourage loitering. Hearing this, I thought to myself, “Fair enough. She’s just an antisocial jerk. I can handle that.”

And that’s how I thought of the situation for the last year or so. I had honestly gotten to the point where I felt bad for her—living alone, not seeming to ever have friends over or anything resembling a social life, just her and her admittedly much more charismatic dog. C’est la vie.

That is, until yesterday—when my partner pointed out she has a new sticker on her trash can. One of these:

And… there was my answer. She’s just a bigot. I spent multiple years worried we had somehow offended her without knowing what we did, trying to be as friendly as possible—and all that time and energy was for nothing because she’s one of those “‘Adam and Eve,’ not ‘Amanda and Eve’” weirdos.

Don’t get me wrong, I kind of like that she doesn’t feel like she can actively spout her nonsense to others—it speaks to the sort of community we have that the best she can manage is a poorly designed and thought-out bumper sticker on her trash can. I’m just frustrated that I spent so much of my time and energy worrying about her feelings before realizing she wasn’t worth it.

#bigots #bigotry #homophobia #transphobia #queerphobia #bad bumper stickers #bumper stickers that scream i have an eight grade education and a lot of misplaced anger

[ersatzpenguin]

i watched My Neighbor Totoro for the first time, here's my chronological viewing experience:

woo-hoo! dusty old japanese house with japanese architectural details aplenty

these kids got some ENERGY my goodness

family dynamic's adorable. peak quality dad humor

kids: our house is haunted. parents: that's so cool!

hell yeah, wrinkled old lady rep. we need more friendly old women with potato faces and warts like storybook witches. the backbone of society, these ladies

Plot Summary: Small Child Bothers Local Wildlife

sacred tree sacred tree sacred tree

Introducing Totoro! nobody said this fucker's got TEETH???

Uh-Oh! Inadequate Parental Supervision Detected

(you misplaced your four year old! you're not supposed to do that)

4-year-old: i met a magic forest spirit. dad: oh shit fr?

4-year-old: *angrily hugs sister* missed u bitch

this small child has a smile like a toad. like a really really cute toad. like the cutest toad in all existence. i love her she's perfection please just let this child be happy

rice paddies are so pretty....so back breaking....rice is such a prissy crop

*my crush is stranded in a rainstorm* takethisumbrellait'syoursnowBYE *runs away in panic im so good at flirting*

Giant Chinchilla Learns To Hold Umbrella, Is Fucking Delighted By Experience

take this, it will help you on your quest! *hands u trail mix wrapped in a leaf*

LO-FI HIP HOP STUDY LIST!

crouching down to peer at dirt--A++ top notch foundational childhood experience

mom has a big ass forehead

honey! the chinchillas are performing Rituals in the backyard again

help yeah let's jack and the bean stalk this shit

huh so we're all just climbing aboard the giant chinchilla's tiddies now ok

class trip!

the pure adrenaline of Vegetable Gardening

no! the small child is crying! she is bawling her eyes out. no no no. i can't cope with this. emotionally i cannot cope 🥺🥺🥺

i've only had Mei one hour but if anything happens to her i will raze this earth and everyone on it

please someone make this small child smile again

oh no the tall child is crying too

i can't take this. my heart can't take this.

i need a drink

small child running determined to deliver magic veggies to the hospital. this kid is my hero

she is also unsupervised. so, so unsupervised

babe you are FOUR

godDAMMIT ghibli, you cannot give me watercolor sunsets while a small child is missing. u are killing me. my heart is giving out. this is me, experiencing heart failure.

Totoro to the rescue!

no wait CATBUS to the rescue!

i admit i initially thought the cat was a creep. alice in wonderland prejudiced me. i have revised my notions of smiling cats

i've decided the cat is a metaphor for the magic of a robust public transport system

MEI'S OKAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and so is mom. she's a lovely lady im sorry for what i said about her forehead. it's a noble forehead.

happy ending YES bitch!!!!!!

ok. ok ok ok. that was magical.

(as a first-time adult viewer i was worried i wouldn't be able to Access the Magic. but i could and i did and it was incredible. that was culture. that was ART. joy distilled into animated form. holy rites of childhood. i understand now. how glorious, this world we grow out of. how full of marvels. i'm going outside to smell grass and sun and get dirt under my fingernails. miraculous.)

#my neighbor totoro #tonari no totoro #totoro