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[smithasandwich]

dissertation writing advice

[smithasandwich]

The Iranian Regime is going to execute rapper Toomaj Salehi for supporting protests of Jina Amini’s murder by the regime in his songs.

Iranian activist Elica Le Bon says, “Iranians in the diaspora picked up on the fact that the regime tends not to execute people who become known to the international community. We have seen many examples of prisoners that were either released on bail or had their sentences commuted through our “say their names to save their lives” campaign on social media, using hashtags to garner attention for their causes, and even before social media existed, through getting the stories of political prisoners to international media outlets. Once reported on, and once the eyes shift to the regime and the reality of its pending brutality, realizing that the action is not worth the repercussions, we have seen them back down and not execute. For that reason, this is part of an urgent campaign for readers to talk about Toomaj as much as you can, using the hashtag #FreeToomaj or #ToomajSalehi. Every comment makes a difference, and if we were wrong, what did we lose by trying?”

[smithasandwich]

I want you to help spread the campaign so that I can get my young children out of Gaza. I have a baby girl who is not more than a month old. Please help me.

please donate and spread this GFM

[smithasandwich]

Long Post: Why I Don’t Like The Drow

I’ve been ranting about this to a friend on discord (a lot of points I make will come from him) but I’ve finally figured out what my issue with the drow is outside of inherently evil groups being dumb.

The drow are boring. Drow lore is less of a dive into a unique culture and more of a list of fucked up things they do. Like, I cannot name a single interesting aspect of typical drow society that does not directly involve murder, sexism, or slavery, or Lolth. And even then, most of those things are written about in an incredibly bland fashion with them.

The Drow don’t really have much depth to them, and are just kind of evil for evil’s sake (or “because Lolth said so”). They do slavery, but the only real purpose of doing slavery for them is “because Lolth said so”. It isn’t for cheap labor, it’s to be more evil. They betray each other purely because that’s what evil people do. They’re misandrist, not for any real societal reason, but because Lolth hates men. There’s none of what would make slavery an interesting topic or story element, no justification for why they should be allowed to commit one of the worst injustices possible, no real economic reason for it. They just do it because Lolth says they should, and from a writing perspective it hammers home the fact that they’re evil. They aren’t evil because they enslave and murder, they enslave and murder because they’re evil, if that makes any sense.

Them being written as comically evil as they are also hurts them from a worldbuilding perspective. They’re so reliant on slaves for menial labor that the lower class of their society struggle to get jobs. Drow culture so obsessed with betrayal and dumbass house wars that even when actively under attack from the outside they sabotage each other. They’re so decadent that their buildings are held up with magic and semi regularly collapse when a spell fails. To put it bluntly, drow society feels like one that should have collapsed in a few centuries, which, funnily enough, is way longer than D&D elves live.

Their culture being so monolithic also makes writing anything about them difficult. Every drow antagonist is going to have near identical motivations, methods, and ideologies as every other drow antagonist. Every drow protagonist is going to ultimately feel very similar to Drizzt, because leaving their fucked up society to become a do-gooder is such a common backstory element that they added a whole extra god just for doing that. In fact, you can divide 90% of drow characters from any official materials into these categories:

Manservant

Ambitious male, usually a wizard (5 bucks says he has long hair and a widow’s peak)

Dommy Mommy Warcrime Woman

Drizzt Do’Urden or one of his many duplicates

Self-loathing and/or resentful Drider

And finally, their existence almost purely to be humanoid enemies you can fight at nearly any levels is just kind of lazy. This is a problem that I have with the “evil races” of a lot of fantasy but having a group that’s evil by birth just feels like an excuse to not have to write actual motivations for your antagonists. It’s the difference between “go attack this camp of soldiers because they’re part of the SkullMurder army and their general wants to use our land to build a dread fortress” vs “go attack this camp of soldiers specifically because they’re drow/goblins/orcs/the dreaded peepee-poopoo folk”. Using stuff like this just feels like an excuse to not have to write an actual antagonist since it comes pre-written in the group’s lore. This has the side effect of whenever such a group is the antagonist of the plot, the players or audience know near exactly what to expect. The orc is here to conquer, the goblin is here to steal, and the drow is here to enslave or do some dark ritual.

I’ve legitimately heard people say “well if XYZ can’t be inherently evil anymore, who will we use as bad guys?” It’s very simple: whoever the fuck we want. Write an evil queen, or a scheming wizard, or an underground slave trade network. For God’s sake, anyone can be evil, you don’t need to tie that to a specific ethnic group and write it as “they’re just like that”. Write an actual character for your antagonist.

[smithasandwich]

PALESTINIAN KUFIYA RAFFLE!!

I am raffling off TWO authentic kufiya’s from Palestine!! I know they are almost always sold out and I was generously sent 2, so I figured I would try to raffle them off and help a Gazan family at the same time 🤍🇵🇸

HOW TO ENTER:

Donate the equivalent of €10 (or more) to Hani’s gofundme! This is a vetted gofundme (and a friend of my dear Elios @fallahifag 🤍) and Hani needs help getting his family out of Gaza.

Once you donate send me proof of your donation and I’ll enter your username into the raffle.

EVERY €10 DONATED COUNTS AS AN ENTRY (so if you donate €10 that is one entry, €20 is two entries, etc)

My possibly out-of-reach goal is to not choose a winner until Hani’s gofundme reaches at least €10,000. I will reevaluate if that goal isn’t being reached in a reasonable amount of time. I will use a random generator to choose two winners- you must be comfortable enough to give me a name/address to mail it to if you win. It’ll basically just be first come first serve for who gets which kufiya.

Please keep donating and FREE PALESTINE 🤍🇵🇸

[smithasandwich]

Hello, I am Hala, a mother of a child who has been living in Gaza under bombardment for more than three months. I was forced to leave my home and move to at least 7 areas in search of safety. We live a life devoid of the minimum necessities of life, with the struggle to obtain water, electricity, and food. My three-year-old daughter is unable to provide her with baby formula, Pampers, and even clothes. We have nothing. We left our home with nothing and cannot return to it. For a long period without work or any income, and with a lot of loss of life and money, my house was damaged, as was my husband’s wedding hall and his workplace. As A mother is unable to protect her daughter from hunger and death. I only want safety, and there is no safety in Gaza. We are forced to leave the country under these harsh conditions of displacement, killing and starvation. The image of my child crying for fear of death is still in my mind. I do not want to lose her soul in these massacres. But getting out of Gaza to save her, to keep her alive, requires a lot of money that we do not have. I started this campaign trying to get out of Gaza with my daughter and my husband across the Egyptian border, and if that fails, I will use this money to spend on my family and try to rebuild and compensate for the losses we suffered. We are extremely grateful for any assistance you can provide, and thank you from the bottom of our hearts for considering our appeal for support during this difficult time.

https://gofund.me/27fba9b6

[smithasandwich]

Hi guys! I posted some new drawings that you all can view for only 1 usd every month on my patreon! I post 3-5 early access and exclusive art there! These are some crops of bigger pieces of art! For only 1 usd you'll get access to almost 300+ art I made not posted anywhere else ♡ and you'll be helping me and my family of 5 and our cats! As I gain more subscribers, the more art I'll be able to make!

I am a disabled indigenous trans guy from the global south, and I love drawing southeast Asians (and Asians in general), and from my culture ♡ I want to make comics, escape homelessness for good, and just make art! Thank you for helping me and liking my drawings!

[smithasandwich]

Please help Kenan and his family flee Gaza

[smithasandwich]

you ever just sit and realise u can’t remember 80% of your childhood? like … what happened? who am i ..?

[smithasandwich]

[smithasandwich]

A crowdfunding appeal has been launched to help a 29-year-old Black trans woman who lost both her legs after allegedly being thrown onto NYC subway tracks by her boyfriend. A statement from the New York City District Attorney confirms that the victim and her boyfriend were at the Fulton St. station in Brooklyn when the man is said to have seen the oncoming downtown train coming and “thrown” his girlfriend towards the tracks. “The victim was rushed to the hospital, where both of her legs had to be amputated. She also suffered from fractures to her ribs and a blood clot in her lungs,” the statement continues. When the police arrived, they found the woman under the train, reports Into. The woman has since taken part in an interview with trans activist Hope Giselle, and explains that she was on her way to a gender-affirming appointment when she alleges that she and her boyfriend got into an argument and he “threw” her onto the tracks.

Continue Reading.

Donate here:

[smithasandwich]

It’s lesbian visibility week! Won’t you help out a struggling, sweet femme?

Consider helping me, a disabled, Mexican-indigenous, nonbinary lesbian! I am a full time worker, and i still do not make enough to cover my expenses as a disabled person who cannot drive and also just paying bills and surviving.

I have a goal this week of $200 to help get me by til next payday on Tuesday.

This would cover my groceries, my rides to work, and an upcoming bill.

Any and all help and sharing is so appreciated.

Venmo/cashapp: sithprincex

PayPal.me/ajfund

0/200

[smithasandwich]

Hey, I'm a queer black enby who desperately needs to get an abortion, but literally can't due to my state's (idaho's) restrictive bullshit abortion laws. I'm mentally ill and have a part time remote job, but can't hold more hours. my roommate/friend is a trans person with a full time remote job, so fortunately we can stay employed out of state. but with mounting bills and the soaring cost of living we need some extra help with being able to move to oregon.

i'm setting my goal to $500 for gas, motel, and food, but literally any bit helps. thank you guys. paypal (pls ignore the deadname): paypal.me/jennycarsons cash app: $aboriginalsoull 0/500

[smithasandwich]

I'm selling beaded earrings to fundraise to help a Palestinian family evacuate! Please share and donate if you can!

[smithasandwich]

New video from Walaa and her family - please watch, donate, and share with your followers, friends, and family! Walaa and her family need our help to evacuate Gaza. They are a little over 1/4 of the way to their final goal, please help if you can.

[smithasandwich]

From Walaa's family, please help them escape Gaza by donating and sharing with your friends, family, and followers - time is of the essence. €30,044 out of €80,000 (4/23/2024)

[smithasandwich]

On that note, I want to spotlight the fundraiser for an Afro-Palestinian journalist, and Lama Jamous' uncle. He has less of a following amongst allies because he posts almost entirely in Arabic, so I'm going to spotlight him on my blog and put him on the fundraiser list as well.

And please follow him on IG as well, even if you only speak English he has small captions on the videos he posts that translate his Arabic.