Sooooo ummmmmmm this is something that's probably going to piss a lot of people off, but I feel like I really need to say it.
If you get a message from an account claiming to be a Palestinian fundraiser, it is a bot. It is a scam. You need to report & delete the message and encourage others to do the same.
I know because I get messages on this account DAILY. I have a very high follower count and I'm pretty active and I interact with my followers a lot, and apparently that all adds up to one big bot magnet.
Bots following and messaging this account was a MASSIVE problem before Tumblr fixed its new account policies. I used to spend literally hours blocking and reporting the hundreds of bots that I would get following me each day.
I learned a lot about bots and how to identify them. The easiest way is with no avatar, "untitled" in the blog description (BTW if your avatar is still set to default PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF GOD change it because you run a substantial risk of being accidentally blocked & reported as a bot).
One of the dead give aways of a bot was what I call "word salad" names. Three seemingly random words strung together making no sense, always adjective, adjective or noun, noun. If you reported a lot of these bots, you'd notice the same words kept showing up.
Nowadays, I am bombarded with fundraiser requests and sometimes, they don't even bother to hide the fact that they're a bot. The avatar is default, the blog title is "untitled," and the blog name is a classic randomly-generated word salad.
However MOST of the requests I get come from at least semi-legit looking accounts. There are pictures, a name, a story. Never mind that I've gotten that message three times from different accounts.
Sometimes, they claim to be vetted, but the whole vetting system essentially adds up to "trust me bro." There is no way of guaranteeing that this account isn't just lying about being vetted, claiming to be vetted by a false person, or are using the identity of a real Palestinian to scam people.
Previously, I've seen a lot of people getting attacked for raising questions about these fundraisers and getting attacked for being racist or for harming Palestinian families in danger, like Tumblr isn't a website famous for its scams and the words "The Arkh Project" "All or Nothing" or "Miss Officer and Mr. Truffles" mean nothing to you.
I personally have been scammed by people claiming to be charities on Tumblr before, specifically, The Leelah Project which used the name of a trans teenager who died by suicide to swindle people out of their money.
Luckily, there are actual, respected charities out there you can give money to if you want to help the cause:
Palestinian Children's Relief Fund
Palestine Red Crescent Society
United Nations Relief Works Agency
Islamic Relief
World Central Kitchen
Médecins Sans Frontièrs
One of the hardest things to accept about the situation in Palestine is that realistically, there is very little that your average outsider can do to change it. However, these large, well-respected and trustworthy charities are out there doing the hard work to keep people alive, and should be where the donation money is going
These scam bots feed on people's naïvety and need to believe that they are making a difference, and even worse, feed on the fear that by ignoring them, it somehow makes you a racist doing direct harm to a refugee family, when in fact they are using the suffering of Palestinians to take away money from those in need.
As far as fundraisers that don't send out random asks for donations, I honestly don't know. You'll have to do the work yourself and approach with much caution.
Be careful out there.
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College Rivalry with the Genius Toddler in the First Row.
My take on this prompt Requested by @purplereaderfans
Danny looked up from his paper, a bright green crayon clutched in his small hand. Jazz patted his head with a quick smile, pushing her chair in so she could start making her way to the teacher, something about the wrong definition if Danny had heard what she'd been muttering correctly.
grumbling, Danny shook his head in an attempt to fix his hair. he hated how everyone was treating him like a child, he was sixteen, almost seventeen for Ancient's sake!
sure, he looked like he was three, but was this really necessary? head pats, baby talk, dumbed-down explanations; it's like they don't notice that he's still mentally a teenager. Like, seriously?
Mom and Dad had been the ones who created the damn device, they should know how to fix this, but did they? no, because; "Aww, Jack, look at him! Isn't our baby boy just the cutest!" and "Why yes, dear, we should get more pictures! It's not like every day a parent gets to witness their kid's toddler years again!"
danny hated it, even Vlad was treating him like a baby! Danny never wanted to hear the man try and speak to him like that again. it might actually be his new nightmare fuel, you know if he wasn't still using what happened with Dan and Pariah to fuel his consistent nightmares, that is.
Danny was ready to start blasting people's knees the next time someone so much as even hinted at dressing him up again. thankfully, for everyone's safety, Jazz noticed he was still mentally normal. She volunteered to take care of him while their parents worked on a way to reverse what their new ghost machine caused. (though he doubted it would be anytime soon, considering the GIW was acting up again.)
which, by the way, apparently wasn't supposed to have de-aged him, but in fact, just you know, 'barrow' his naturally made ectoplasm and knock him out for a few minutes. Ancients, his parents were insane.
he should have known they were going to do something stupid, but no; he had started slacking after revealing his phantom form and getting accepted by them. Because, again, why would he need to keep an eye on them and what they make when they promised to never try and hurt him and his normal rogues again?
they're adults, they should know how to handle themselves. but no.
oh, ho ho, was that such a big oversight on his part. they were Fenton's, of course, he should have kept an eye on them.
no longer making ecto weapons, his parents wanted to learn how to help peacefully capture raging ghosts and how to help heal the injured ones (mostly how to help Danny when he gets hurt). Noble, right?
right?
Wrong. somehow, they managed to create a de-aging device when they were trying to come up with a way to knock out an angry ghost without hurting them. How? Just how?? and what do they do without even testing to see if it would even work? use it on him. because, oh, danny's half ghost, and it's only supposed to make him tired right now, not knock him out. it should be fine.
and now he's a toddler.
a three-year-old toddler.
"psst!" someone hissed, dragging danny's attention away from his crumbled crayon. blinking, Danny dropped the crayon on the table and grumbled. this was the seventh crayon this morning, he really needed to get his strength under control before someone noticed.
"psst, hey kid!" they hissed again, making Danny sigh. turning his head, Danny glared at the weird dude who kept trying to talk to him. The dude usually talked to him like he was an adult, which Danny appreciated, if it wasn't for the fact the dude was hellbent on figuring out danny's secrets.
all because Danny scored more than him on a dumb test.
"What?" Danny grumbled, wiping the crayon crumbs off his hands and onto his pants. the dude, Danny thinks his name is Tam or something, frowned at Danny, watching him wipe the last of the obliterated crayon away.
"aliens," he hisses, leaning forward so he could stare more intently into Danny's eyes. "that has to be it, you and your sister are aliens. probably from some planet that's more advanced than ours."
danny blinked, studied the dude for a second, and blinked again.
"no," turning back, Danny grabbed another crayon and started filling out the worksheet in front of him, making sure to use as little of his super strength as possible.
the dude groaned and slammed his head onto his desk, the sound echoing out and around the silent room like a gunshot. Jazz snorted, pulling out her chair and sitting down. "that one has got to be one of the worst theories yet," she chuckled, turning her body to face the dude.
"you seriously can't believe my brother and I are aliens just because we got higher test scores, Tim." Jazz explained, casually leaning sideways in her seat so she could see him.
the dude, Tim, just groaned, slamming his head back into the desk, his voice muffled, "I wouldn't have a problem with it if it was just you," Tim lifted his head, glaring at him as Danny continued to carefully fill out his worksheet. "I can accept the fact that I'm not the smartest person in the room, I don't like it, but I can do it. I even respect it, having this much knowledge takes a lot of work and dedication, but him?"
"He's three, Jazz. he should be just starting to figure out the names of colors, and noticing differences between things. not astrophysics-level math questions from an April Fools gag test that our Psychology teacher jokingly gave us." Tim's eyes somehow got even narrower as he continued his rant. Danny valiantly tried to keep himself from laughing; Jazz said it was rude to laugh at people, especially if they weren't mentally all there, so he couldn't laugh.
but by the ancients was Tim making it hard.
with a fianl dash, danny smiled triumphantly. Setting the crayon down, he gave the paper a quick once over before deciding he was finally done filling it out.
now, for the moment he was waiting for; turning in his seat, Danny excitedly held up his paper, "Look jazz! I did it!" he had finally managed to complete the paper without ripping the page! and he'd only broken seven crayons! it was progress! there was hope! but Tim didn't need to know that, no, he needed to think Danny was excited about completing the paper.
Jazz, who was just as much of a gremlin as Danny, smiled as she patted his head, "Good job Danny! I'm so proud of you! why don't you go turn it in, I'm sure Mr. Kronmatil would love to see it."
smiling, Danny turned, climbed out of his seat, and started to make his way over to the teacher.
Tim grumbled in annoyance, his crazed theories and curses filling Danny's ears like the sweet sweet sound of music. if there was one good thing that came out of this whole fiasco, it was that Danny was able to work on his studies and cause as much chaos as possible while doing so.
being treated like a baby was all worth it when Danny turned and spotted the same confused and crazed look Tim had been giving him all week. yes, being de-aged wasn't fun, and he didn't appreciate being partially interrogated every time he entered the same room as Tim, but man it was so worth it when he knew he was driving one of the Gotham bat's nuts.
all because he scored higher than him on a test.
He couldn't wait to see Tim's face once the scores were announced tomorrow. He was so going to tell Lady Gotham all about it later.
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