#and if you decide that it is

[dont-open-dead-inside-25]

Stop making me pick my gender!! I'm not a woman I'm not a man I'm not nonbinary!!! I'm not anything!!!!

[hualianisms]

verified ways to donate to gaza directly

Help a Palestinian family directly:

gazafunds.com - Donate directly to a Palestinian family in urgent need of evacuation, medical attention, rebuilding homes/businesses or more. Site run by Palestinians, all GFMs verified (full list here). Spotlights 1 stagnant GFM at a time. (*If you can't decide who/where to donate, just go to gazafunds.com & donate to the 1 GFM they show you!)

masterlist of 200+ verified Palestinian families' GFMs: Operation Olive Branch

Help provide tents: (*emergency as Rafah is being bombarded as we speak)

The Sameer Project: Currently providing tents & transport for families in Rafah who urgently need to evacuate to Deir Al Balah. Has a team on the ground in Gaza who have supplied tents to 1% of the displaced population in Rafah. Run by Palestinians. (paypal) (gfm)

@helpgazachildren: Currently helping Palestinians in a refugee camp in Rafah flee the Rafah invasion to Khan Younis. Funds go directly to Hussam, a Palestinian in Rafah who hosts a refugee camp. Funds will cover the cost of tents & transport fuel. Managed by a Palestinian @.fairuzfan. (gfm)

Food, cash & essentials:

Care for Gaza: Palestinian charity on the ground in Gaza distributing food, cash, medicine & other essentials to displaced families. Proof of their work found on their Twitter. (paypal) (gfm)

We Feed Gaza: Team of Palestinian volunteers in the heart of Gaza distributing food & water to 344+ families. More details & proof in their gfm. Vetted & promoted by LetsTalkPalestine. (gfm)

Direct Aid for Gaza: A Palestinian activist on the ground in Gaza distributing food, cash & other essential supplies to displaced families. Proof of their work found on their twitter. (paypal) (gfm)

Water (*only 2 weeks left to donate!):

Gaza Municipality's water campaign: The official Municipality of Gaza needs help rebuilding the water infrastructure in Gaza City to restore access to clean water & waste management services for the people of Gaza.

eSIMs:

guide to buy & send esims to gaza (highly needed, esim supply very low)

Crips for eSims for Gaza: If you don't know how to buy esims, don't have enough $ for an esim plan, or don't have the capacity to manage them (e.g. topping up regularly), you can donate any amt to this team of volunteers who pool funds to buy & maintain gaza esims regularly (see their financial accountability document).

Medical Aid:

Gaza Wound Care (urgent): Palestinian doctors in central Gaza treating injured/sick children & mothers in neglected displacement camps far from hospitals. Facing a severe shortage of medicines, medical equipment, and supplies. They need funds for their current campaign to battle infectious diseases in refugee camps. (paypal) (gogetfunding) (gfm)

international charities: Palestine Red Crescent Society, Palestine Children's Relief Fund, Medical Aid for Palestinians

Other ways to help:

Share & amplify Palestinian fundraisers in your online & irl circles.

Organize/help with an irl/online event to raise funds for Palestine

Boycott

Get involved with a protest/strike/direct action in your area

Contact your reps

Educate yourself & others both irl & online

(you can even adopt 1 fundraiser campaign to regularly boost it & make materials promoting it online, or print posters/flyers about Palestinian fundraisers to encourage others to donate. (poster/graphic about gazafunds.com: here, flyers about esims: here, flyers about gazafamilyfunds: here)

(longer masterpost of all ways you can help)

updated 3/6/2024 with Gaza Wound Care & We Feed Gaza. I wanted to focus on Palestinian-run grassroots initiatives that will actually reach Gazans on the ground, so all of these except Crips for eSIMs, PCRF, PRCS and MAP are by Palestinians. i have verified them but please feel free to do your own vets for your peace of mind.

Remember small donations really do add up. Any amount counts, even $1!

[beaft]

a small child came into the café today and asked to buy a chocolate truffle. he tapped a credit card on the reader and it did not go through, mainly because it was not a credit card but in fact a junior cinema pass. i gently explained he couldn't use that to buy things in shops and he looked so gutted that i was like "...but just this once you can have it for free, don't tell my boss though" he said thank you and walked out with his truffle and as he went i heard him chuckling to himself and saying "yes..... yes!!!!!" like the sickos comic

[fleshadept]

looking at (vetted) gofundmes for people trying to escape palestine and i don't know how many of you actually click on the gofundme links you reblog but i would like to point out, for what it's worth, just how amazing it is that so many have raised so much money. it may overall feel like a drop in the ocean but the fact that several gofundmes have raised tens of thousands of dollars is amazing. it is so expensive to leave gaza right now, and people still need money after they escape. but regardless of what propaganda the US, UK, canada, and other western nations are trying to pump out, people across the world are doing what they can to help these people survive. many of them are still very far from their goals (like this one and this one and this one) and some of them are very close to high goals (like this one), and some of them have reached almost double their original goal.

and that's not even addressing direct aid or organizations that take continuous donations for distribution of food, menstrual products, etc. the PCRF has raised $16,000,000 of their target goal of $20,000,000 to fund current aid and long-term relief efforts in gaza. ANERA's febuary 13th update discusses the material ways they helped palestinians today:

(ANERA donate link)

my point is, it often feels like the world is turning a blind eye to palestine. but i would like to point out that there is an important difference between "the world" and "western political leaders and media narratives". a breathtaking amount of real people, the people who make up the world, are trying to help. in the face of israel attempting to commit genocide, the world is saying No. These people deserve to live. and literally sending millions of dollars internationally, through the internet connection that israel has desperately been trying to destroy.

it may not feel like it matters in the grand scheme of things. but to the people who get fresh clothes, or a hot meal, or blankets, or the kids who get new toys, or to the people who are able to bring their families to safety, it matters to them. go make someone's day better. i've linked so many options with ways to do that.

[lastoneout]

People don't like to admit it bcs cringe or w/e but Homestuck really did revolutionize the webcomic as a storytelling medium and I am endlessly frustrated that before webcomic artists could really stretch our legs fucking webtoonz swooped in, set a new, more restrictive standard, and then monetized and monopolized the ever living fuck out of the concept of The Webcomic until it drove away anyone who couldn't be a professional quality manga artist for free, and now the only webcomics that actually feel like spiritual successors to Homestuck are so obscure they're basically cult classics that you have to beg people to read.

Like it's just so wild to be in high school and see Homestuck be like "we're using like fifteen different artistic mediums to tell this story bcs we can" and be really fucking inspired by that, only to grow up and see basically every webcomic ever have to conform to One Single Standard or fucking perish.

[beepboopappreciation]

Is this anything

[fact-dogsarehappiness]

Another reason why I’m a firm believer in letting Bruce get old is because the idea of him looking and his dark haired children without his glasses on and genuinely not being able to tell them apart is unparalleled

[tofixtheshadows]

I've been thinking a lot lately about how Kabru deprives himself.

Kabru as a character is intertwined with the idea that sometimes we have to sacrifice the needs of the few for the good of the many. He ultimately subverts this first by sabotaging the Canaries and then by letting Laios go, but in practice he's already been living a life of self-sacrifice.

Saving people, and learning the secrets of the dungeons to seal them, are what's important. Not his own comforts. Not his own desires. He forces them down until he doesn't know they're there, until one of them has to come spilling out during the confession in chapter 76.

Specifically, I think it's very significant, in a story about food and all that it entails, that Kabru is rarely shown eating. He's the deuteragonist of Dungeon Meshi, the cooking manga, but while meals are the anchoring points of Laios's journey, given loving focus, for Kabru, they're ... not.

I'm sure he eats during dungeon expeditions, in the routine way that adventurers must when they sit down to camp. But on the surface, you get the idea that Kabru spends most of his time doing his self-assigned dungeon-related tasks: meeting with people, studying them, putting together that evidence board, researching the dungeon, god knows what else. Feeding himself is secondary.

He's introduced during a meal, eating at a restaurant, just to set up the contrast between his party and Laios's. And it's the last normal meal we see him eating until the communal ending feast (if you consider Falin's dragon parts normal).

First, we get this:

Kabru's response here is such a non-answer, it strongly implies to me that he wasn't thinking about it until Rin brought it up. That he might not even be feeling the hunger signals that he logically knew he should.

They sit down to eat, but Kabru is never drawn reaching for food or eating it like the rest of his party. He only drinks.

It's possible this means nothing, that we can just assume he's putting food in his mouth off-panel, but again, this entire manga is about food. Cooking it, eating it, appreciating it, taking pleasure in it, grounding yourself in the necessary routine of it and affirming your right to live by consuming it. It's given such a huge focus.

We don't see him eat again until the harpy egg.

What a significant question for the protagonist to ask his foil in this story about eating! Aren't you hungry? Aren't you, Kabru?

He was revived only minutes ago after a violent encounter. And then he chokes down food that causes him further harm by triggering him, all because he's so determined to stay in Laios's good graces.

In his flashback, we see Milsiril trying to spoon-feed young Kabru cake that we know he doesn't like. He doesn't want to eat: he wants to be training.

Then with Mithrun, we see him eating the least-monstery monster food he can get his hands on, for the sake of survival- walking mushroom, barometz, an egg. The barometz is his first chance to make something like an a real meal, and he actually seems excited about it because he wants to replicate a lamb dish his mother used to make him!

...but he doesn't get to enjoy it like he wanted to.

Then, when all the Canaries are eating field rations ... Kabru still isn't shown eating. He's only shown giving food to Mithrun.

And of course the next time he eats is the bavarois, which for his sake is at least plant based ... but he still has to use a coping mechanism to get through it.

I don't think Kabru does this all on purpose. I think Kui does this all on purpose. Kabru's Post Traumatic Stress Disorder should be understood as informing his character just as much as Laios's autism informs his. It's another way that Kabru and Laios act as foils: where Laios takes pleasure in meals and approaches food with the excitement of discovery, Kabru's experiences with eating are tainted by his trauma. Laios indulges; Kabru denies himself. Laios is shown enjoying food, Kabru is shown struggling with it.

And I can very easily imagine a reason why Kabru might have a subconscious aversion towards eating.

Meals are the privilege of the living.

[samgiddings]

@staff @support @engineering @music @books

Have you ever considered this is a really stupid layout to have when there’s no way to easily get your account back if you accidentally hit the wrong button???

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

Of the 19 hijackers who carried out the Sept 11 attacks:

15 were from Saudi Arabia (a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

2 were from the United Arab Emirates (also a powerful/oil-rich country the U.S. works hard to maintain diplomatic relations with)

1 was from Egypt, 1 from Lebanon.

None of the hijackers were from Iraq.

None of the Sept 11 hijackers were Iraqi.

None of the 9/11 hijackers were from Iraq.

[mistbix]

so i've been re-watching atla....... expect more art soon

[quibbs]

whatever this is girls keep doing it

[cozylittleartblog]

"content creator" is a corporate word.

we are artists.

[nateconnolly]

[Image ID:

A picture that says “A student once asked anthropologist Margaret Mead, “What is the earliest sign of civilization? The student expected her to say a clay pot, a grinding stone, or maybe a weapon. 

Margaret Mead thought for a moment, then she said, “A healed femur.”

The second picture is a news headline. It is bolded and a much larger font. “27-year-old who couldn’t afford $1,200 insulin copay dies after trying cheaper version.”

The third picture is the same font and size as the Margaret Mead quote. It’s a continuation. It says, “A femur is the longest bone in the body, linking hip to knee. In societies without the benefits of modern medicine, it takes about six weeks of rest for a fractured femur to heal. A healed femur shows that someone cared for the injured person, did their hunting and gathering, stayed with them, and offered physical protection and human companionship until the injury could mend.” 

The fourth picture is another headline. It is in a large and bolded type. “Dying man who couldn’t afford to go to hospital after vomiting blood"

The fifth picture is a screenshot of the Margaret Mead story.

Mead explained that where the law of the jungle—the survival of the fittest—rules, no healed femurs are found. The first sign of civilization is compassion, seen in a healed femur. 

The next screenshot is of a slightly different font. The letters are pointier and the lines are a little curvier. It says, “Susan Finley returned to her job at a Walmart retail store in Grand Junction Colorado, after having to call in sick because she was recovering from pneumonia.

The day after she returned, the fifty three  year old received her ten year associate award — and was simultaneously laid off, according to her family. She had taken off one day beyond what is permitted by Walmart’s attendance policy.

After losing her job in May 2016, Finley also lost her health insurance coverage and struggled to find a new job. Three months later, Finley was found dead in her apartment after avoiding going to see a doctor for flu-like symptoms. 

A screenshot of a bold, bigger headline. It says ‘The house always wins’: Insurers’ record profits.

A final screenshot of smaller text with a slightly gray background. It says “We are at our best when we serve others. Be civilized.” /end ID.] 

[reasonsforhope]

Sometimes you just have one of those moments where the progress we've made as a culture get thrown into stark relief. You look at something and go "Holy shit, that would never have happened when I was a kid."

Today, I had one of those moments when I realized that the teenage boys I'm working with are just. genuinely, openly enthusiastic about going to Build-a-Bear for their outing.

These are sixteen and seventeen year old boys! They just had a whole conversation about what to name their "cute", mostly new squishmallows! They're genuinely excited that they're going to Build-a-Bear this weekend and asking other kids to pick up specific accessories for them!!

Holy shit, that never would've happened when I was 16. None of the boys would have dared to be visibly interested - and neither would most of the girls! There would have been a million gay jokes and "Haha, you're a girl" jokes and "What are you, a baby?" jokes. Teenagers weren't even supposed to care about anything back then!

Less than 15 years later, and I'm watching three 17 year old boys treat all that as not even worthy of comment.

So let's call that a reason for hope. Even when the kids aren't alright, in some ways apparently they are alright. Go Gen Z, honestly. It's so lovely to watch you guys just openly doing and saying stuff that, when I was a teen, would've been a social death sentence.

[daz4i]

nikolai

nikolai