#going to look for donation links or other resources

[mymarifae]

a turnip for you all

[favroitecrime]

posts on this app where people are like “i would’ve reblogged this important thing but the op said i had to or they said i suck if i ignore it so now i’m not gonna” are just so?? like yeah clearly you DO suck if you straight up ignore the importance of spreading vital information just because what? your feelings got hurt? you got called out for your lack of interest?

“i would’ve but you weren’t nice” i really, really, really shouldn’t have to be nice for you to maintain your morals and integrity.

[mangocheesecakes]

the scammer @/rescueplease has now been deleted, but since a lot of people are still reblogging my posts about it, i'm changing my pinned post to a list of currently active scam accounts

scammers with the same m.o., sometimes similar profile pics and linktrees/paypal addresses:

> numberonegoateeeagle (paypal name 'Jeff Owino') new

> nour-samr (paypal name 'Nour Samar') >> nour-samr0 new/remake

scammer pretending to be a sick Black person, using the paypal name, 'Alafred Opondo'

> enchantingqueencreator

the 'insulin scammer''s latest blog (at least i think it's their latest blog:

> fancycoffeepeanut

empty blogs who are mass-reblogging the scam posts and are likely just the scammers sock puppet accounts used to pad the notes of their posts, pls block them too:

> chopra-79

> futuristicphilosopherartisan new

deleted/deactivated/changed url:

maina-3

immariaanszz >> iammarinassaa >> iammarinassaass

jovialsuitdonutai (paypal name 'jeff owino')

khalilhan (paypal name 'samuel obiya') >> khaliilhan

marylinfwaznassar (paypal name 'maryline lucy')

stickytreephilosopher (paypal name 'jeff owino')

perfectlyminiatureface (paypal name 'jeff owino')

optimisticalpacalady (paypal 'jeff owino')

omarkhalini (paypal 'fred odhiambo')

marylinefwaznassar (paypal 'maryline lucy')

khalilhani (paypal 'samuel obiya')

weepingpersondestiny (paypal 'jeff owino')

as always, please block and report these blogs, and more importantly, warn your friends, mutuals, and followers if you see them reblogging their scam posts. if you see a donation post/blog that you believe may be a scam, please do look their url up first on the tumblr search bar to see if someone has already called them out. i will try to update this post with the scammers' new accounts/url as we discover them. please also go to @kyra45's blog, as they are faster and more thorough in updating about newly discovered scams.

some red flags to look out for before sharing donation posts/donating:

new blog, or a couple years old but has only a few random, sporadic posts

backdated posts

spamming asks to a lot of other users, even the ones they don't know or have just followed, and even when the user has made it clear they don't want to receive requests to boost dono posts

is asking you to answer their asks privately, or is sending you a message directly

is straight up asking you for money, and usually for impossibly large amounts

do not put their paypal/money transfer links on their post itself, usually claiming it's to protect their 'privacy'

is using Zelle for their money transfer account, especially if the person is claiming to be in Palestine

please don't be so quick to entertain donation requests and to give away your money, especially if the user ticks a lot of these boxes. if you are familiar with the place they say they are from or the language they are supposed to speak, try conversing with them for a bit to see if their claims would hold. you can also browse my 'donation scam' tag or kyra45's blog to compare if the user has any similarities with past scammers that we've discovered.

that's it po. let's all try our best to look out for each other and make sure that our resources are going to the actual people in need, especially in the case of Palestinians asking for help. the last thing they need right now is for shitty lowlifes to use their suffering to make a profit.

[catboybiologist]

Hi! I'm Sierra. Time for a pinned post refresh.

Otherwise known as CatboyBiologist, or @hi-sierra (my SFW blog [this one is SFW too, but less so]). This page is remaining active, but if you want to find me somewhere else, I use the same username on reddit, Instagram, co-host, and tech.lgbt. This is me:

Trans woman, PhD student in molecular biology, boymoder, shitposter, freediver, hot girl on your phone, hiker, rambler (this post included), tgirl tummy tuesday supplier and enjoyer, former femboy, bane of bioessentialist fuckwads who try to use biology to validate biogotry, flaming bisexual, 196 nanocelebrity… whatever was the first thing that brought you to my blog, I hope it’s enough to get you to stay! I post selfies, hornyposts (minors and people who are averse to that be warned), stuff about the ocean, posts about my growing sense of wanderlust, my adorable lil tortoise, tutorials for transfemmes and GNC people, rambles about science, documentation of my own transition, rambles about transness, rambles about the eroticism of programming a machine to feel arousal, rambles about nature, and random shitposts. Please send me pictures of cute animals in your life!

If you wanna support my science career and my transition, consider dropping a tip here! PhD salaries are notorious for being negotiated to be exactly the cost of living…. And then forgotten about for years as inflation drops that below minimum wage. So I’m always a little strapped for cash. Anything helps!

Links to some of my tutorials and relevant resources under the cut:

I'm tracking my transition, and some people have said they found this helpful! This spreadsheet is generally updated monthly:

Usually, I write a little journal to go with it when it updates- you can find that under the #trans journal on my blog.

If you're interested in checking out some of the things I'm trying to write, here's a post with links to individual stories I'm making:

https://www.tumblr.com/catboybiologist/741010247774306304/writing-consolidation-post?source=share

My femboy guide, written well before I started HRT, but still has relevant info:

A "boyboob" tutorial, aka how to make it look like you have cleavage in an outfit that looks better with it:

A quick and dirty guide to taking better selfies, with a specific emphasis on people who may have stopped hating their body recently due to transition:

And here's a few of my personal favorite little rambles and posts about my transness, in no particular order:

CW for transphobia on this one:

A massive shoutout to @foldingfittedsheets for this amazing art of the lil borgir holding a trans flag:

I adore this so much <3 if you want to support their art, her commissions are open and really sweet!!!!

And of course, a massive shoutout to @whalesharkcat for this lovely pixel art of my tortoise:

I still love this so much, and will continue to into the future <3

For preHRT selfies, search the femboy tag. For post HRT selfies, use the "trans selfie" tag. I've been on HRT since August of 2023, so I'm still very early in the process! Day to day, I present male, but I plan to change that around the 1 year mark.

I guess that's about it! One final note is that I've been alluding to video/podcast style things for a while now. With my aderrall prescription, I've actually put in a lot of research work that might lead to 1-4 of those, so that might actually happen in the near future! No promises of course, life always catches up to you.

And if you liked my previous pinned post better, here it is:

Anyways, if you read this far, thanks for sticking around and bbyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

[godbirdart]

june 21 is national indigenous peoples day up here in canada; a day focused on celebrating the arts and cultures of our indigenous neighbours and communities.

if you’re looking for ways to support, or generally further your education on indigenous history, here are a bunch of links to help you get started! please go further and look up events hosted by your local community specifically, as some may not be listed on the sites below.

remember that if you cannot attend events or monetarily support businesses - you can always boost indigenous artists and voices online too.

indigenous tourism; lists businesses, events, and other indigenous-owned / led programs for the respective province or territory

indigenous tourism canada [generalized resources, event listings etc]

yukon

northwest territories

nunavut

british columbia

alberta

saskatchewan

manitoba

ontario

quebec

newfoundland and labrador

new brunswick

nova scotia

prince edward island

art

bill reid gallery of the northwest coast

lattimer art gallery

native northwest [while NNW itself is not indigenous-owned, it is a good way to discover artists and purchase their work. some artists sell on other sites too, so look around]

strong nations [sells books by indigenous authors]

education and resources

two-spirited people of manitoba

alberta indigenous history timeline [pdf]

alberta indigenous history resources

british columba history timeline

list of first nations peoples [wikipedia; could be incomplete / inaccurate]

cbc indigenous [indigenous-focused news]

missing and murdered indigenous women and girls

national centre for truth and reconciliation

native land interactive map

orange shirt day

qikiqtani truth commission

lil’ red dress project

whose land interactive map

charities / support / donations

clan mothers healing billage & knowledge centre

first nations health authority

indian residential schools survivor society

indigenous peoples resilience fund

qajuqturvik food bank

niqinik nuatsivik nunavut food bank

nunavut food security coalition

reconciliation canada

urban native youth association

additional links are always appreciated

[kaijutegu]

Are you angry/scared/worried about potentially losing Roe vs. Wade? Do you want to help?

A lot of people are REALLY WORRIED about the leaked Alito draft, and for good reason. If Roe vs. Wade is overturned, many states will enact trigger laws that revoke the right to safe abortion access. But that doesn’t mean that safe abortions won’t be possible. They’ll just be harder to access.

Fortunately, we aren’t powerless. There are things we can do to help preserve the right to abortion and, if Roe falls, help people get the abortions they need.

Here are some actionable things you can do to help!

Donate to your local abortion fund.

This is a financial commitment, obviously, but these funds are vital to helping people access abortions. There are different types of funds. Practical funds help with transportation, housing, and other practical needs. Clinical funds help with paying for the procedure. Both types of funds are necessary and helpful!

If you’re in a state with protected abortion access, see if there’s a practical fund in your state that you can donate to. These funds make it possible for people for other states to afford travel and lodging in your state. You might also want to consider donating to funds in states or regions that have trigger laws, like the Yellowhammer Abortion Fund, which helps people in Mississippi, Alabama, and the Deep South.

To find an abortion fund in your state, you can google “abortion fund + your state” or open up this google doc that’s a maintained list: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1T-aDTsZXnKhMcrDmtcD35aWs00gw5piocDhaFy5LKDY/preview?pru=AAABgKwRCFs*fZxkvUyYtHx7T4KXmRnOLA

There’s also https://abortionfunds.org/, but as of right now (2 May 2022, right after the SCOTUS leak happened), their website is down. Too much traffic!

Volunteer with a hotline.

As of writing this, a lot of abortion fund websites are completely overwhelmed. Lots of people are rightfully upset and looking for some way to help. Many of these funds have hotlines that you can help out directly from your own phone! Google “abortion fund + your state (or your region) + hotline” and see what comes up. These hotlines are going to be SWAMPED soon and many orgs are going to be onboarding volunteers very quickly to help deal with the onslaught.

Donate to grassroots causes. 

I love Planned Parenthood as much as the next gal, but donating to them isn’t actually going to help as much right now as donating to an abortion fund. Smaller, grassroots networks are going to be more effective at allocating resources to the people who need it most. Independent clinics are also going to need substantial help. Independent clinics provide the majority of abortion care in the US, and many are the only clinics operating in hostile states. Check out https://keepourclinics.org/ if you’re interested in donating.

Make a list of resources.

There are a lot of people out there who aren’t going to have the time or energy or emotional bandwidth to deal with this dumpster fire. If you have the capacity to do so, then maintain a file somewhere with the following information:

- any abortion funds that serve your area with their contact info- email and phone and links

- any abortion hotlines in your area

- national care hotlines, ESPECIALLY RAINN because this is going to be really, really hard on survivors

-a list of crisis pregnancy centers in your area, clearly marked with their names, contact info, and primary links. Make sure that these are highlighted in a way that separates them from the actual abortion providers because these centers are highly predatory and manipulate people who are distressed and confused. If somebody has access to that list and know who’s operating in an area, it might help them avoid these places!

Have this file ready to go so that you can share it with people who are overwhelmed!

Help the safe havens.

Losing Roe feels inevitable at this point. It might not be, but the world is terrifying. However, some states are safe havens and will maintain abortion access, regardless of what SCOTUS eventually decides. Practical access funds in these states will need help because they will help people traveling from unsafe states to safe states. Refer to this map: https://reproductiverights.org/maps/what-if-roe-fell/

Look for funds in states that are blue or yellow. This means they have expanded access or protection if Roe falls. But be sure to hover over and look at the summary of the protection– for example, Florida has abortion protection, but they just passed a 15-week ban. That’s basically protection in name only!

If you’re not sure which practical fund you’d like to support, I highly suggest the Midwest Access Coalition. MAC is based in Chicago and helps people from all over the Midwest come to the city for reproductive healthcare. A lot of the Midwest is really hostile to abortion, so MAC can help a lot of people. But there are many, many others!

In the coming days and weeks, there will be more to do. There will be marches, protests, and other organized action. But right now, tonight, these are things you can look into doing.

[mysticheathenn]

Messages of Self-Care

Hi, Hexlings!

This pick-a-card reading is all about what kind of self-care you need right now in your life, etc.

This is a general reading, remember to take what resonates and leave what does not. This reading does not supplement your need to seek professional help. Tarot should be used as entertainment and not a for sure answer to your problems but as a guide, a sense of hope, and amusement.

Take your time when choosing your pile. Ask yourself the question and choose the picture that you can’t stop looking at. Listen to your intuition.

MasterList

Patreon Link

Ko-Fi Donations

Next Up: What's Your Fairytale Love Story? (Patreon, This Week)

Pile l:

What Kind of Self-Care Do You Need Right Now? Tarot: 2 of Wands, 5 of Pentacles, 3 of Pentacles (reversed), 4 of Swords, 6 of Pentacles

Balance & Courage. Right now in your life, you are lacking balance. This could be in any area of your life but for most of you, there is a misalignment with your finances as you have 3 pentacle cards establishing that this reading is specifically finance-focused. There is a mix in this pile as some of you may possibly have issues with spending money because the way you spend money is a coping mechanism of a way that you can remain in control of your life or feel better when things are going wrong. Others of you finances are tight because of your job not paying enough for you to survive but there are some of you that are being paid enough you just suck at budgeting. The remainder of you are giving away your money to others way too much when they are in need without holding people accountable in paying you back because you don't want "drama." Either way, you are looking for a break financially so you can rest and not stress every second of the day about not having enough money to pay for things you need in order to survive or have a roof over your head. This message of self-care is your cue for most of you who have ideas of plans to do better than what you are doing to chase after those ideas and goals. Now is a better time than never. I am hearing if you start now in implementing your ideas/goals withing 6-8 months you should see some sort of return that will look like the 10 of Cups/Pentacles. Last message for this group has to deal with your mentality around money. I may suggest looking into LOA (law of attraction), Neville Goddard, and other teachings in dealing with your mentality around money if you are a part of the spiritual community (Tumblr has a lot of resources). Others who are religious...pray to your spirit team and god to help move you in the direction or remove things not needed in order to bring in your financial break.

Extra Messages: Similar to how you choose a card. Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, open them, and whatever word stands out to you meditate on that word for a message to come through for you. Too many messages for me to type out.

Freedom, Beauty, Commitment, & Forgiveness

Pile ll:

What Kind of Self-Care Do You Need Right Now? Tarot: The Star (reversed), 8 of Wands, The Moon, 5 of Cups, Knight of Pentacles (reversed)

Release. Healing. Self -Love. There are many messages for you here pile ll. Some of you are dealing with depression, grief, or some sort of emotional loss because you are either have to let go of something or someone who isn't good for you or you are not happy with your current life right now. Others of you are lacking between self-love and self-care. You are not taking care of yourselves but this is more so in a self-love kind of way. You are talking down to yourself and hiding in the shadows not wanting people to see you. I was about to continue that sentence but then I caught myself and realized I was about to list the signs of depression (not a doctor only going off from experience and what I was medically diagnosed). Those who resonate with being unhappy with your life you are unhappy because you are not taking the steps that you are needing to take in order to get to where you want to be. Some of you want your manifestations, wants, and desires to land in your lap and that's not going to happen. You need to put in some sort of work. The wild thing is you know what you need to do and for some of you the thing is simple but you are overthinking it. For others of you the thing is scary and you hate the unknown and fear failure. For those who are dealing with self-esteem issues and insecurities, you is kind. You is beautiful/handsome/a cutie/etc. You is amazing. You need to be your own hype man. Find something that you like and hype yourself up from there and don't tell me you don't have one thing you like about yourself. It can be something as small as you like your left toe. Start there and build yourself up. If you are still stubborn and refuse to see one good thing about yourself ask someone you trust what is one thing they like about you. Don't demean it or cast it assign take the compliment and build off of that.

Extra Messages: Similar to how you choose a card. Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, open them, and whatever word stands out to you meditate on that word for a message to come through for you. Too many messages for me to type out.

Passion, Dreams, Protection, Transformation.

Pile lll:

What Kind of Self-Care Do You Need Right Now? Tarot: 3 of Wands (reversed), The Empress, 8 of Swords, 6 of Swords (reversed)

Stuck Energy. Some of you may have kind of been drawn to pile ll but not fully as this message kind of relates to some of that message but not fully. What I am saying is this pile's cards are straight forward when they tell me that you are dimming your light and also not wanting to let go of the old you for the new you because of XYZ reason. Some of you are holding yourself hostage in the same place mentally because either the people around you continuously keep triggering the old you or because you don't want to let go of those around you so you refuse to grow. Overall you are dimming your light to let other people shine and to hold yourself complacent and that's not ...that's not it my love. You are meant to shine bright in the light not hold yourself prisoner to the same song over and over again as if this is looney tunes hell. For those who have seen the original SpaceJam remember when Micahel Jordan agreed to stay stuck in the cartoon world if he lost and he would do the same thing over and over again (lose to basketball, sign autographs, do humiliating things, etc) that is your current energy right now. Break from the prison chains and see yourself for who you are. Step into your most authentic self and be dammed who doesn't like it. Be dammed with who all you lose. Remember that whatever you lose you gain back 10x forward. You lose your friends okay so what better friends who will align more with you are on the way. Don't be too uncomfortable with the idea of shining that you hold yourself so far back that you miss out on life. Not just life but YOUR MOST ABUNDANT LIFE. Sorry for the all caps I just need that for dramatics and to emphasize how much you need to shine your inner light to the world. Someone needs your inner light and now. Maybe it's me. Maybe it's that one family member you thought hated you but doesn't. Who knows either way shine baby shine.

Extra Messages: Similar to how you choose a card. Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, open them, and whatever word stands out to you meditate on that word for a message to come through for you. Too many messages for me to type out.

WillPower, Talent, Good Luck, Clarity, Happiness, Peace, Answers.

Pile lV:

What Kind of Self-Care Do You Need Right Now? Tarot: Ace of Swords, 4 of Pentacles, Ace of Cups, 2 of Swords, 9 of Wands (reversed)

Pile lV you remind me of the meme where people make fun of moms and wives when they ask for help and it's not fast enough for you so you do it yourself then complain about having to do everything yourself even though help is right there. I'm getting the sense you don't ask for anything, but for some strange reason end up shocked when you get exactly that.....all for what?? To not be a bother, to be a "cool/easy girl/boy/person". I had a friend like you once...she would complain about something in her life and when I or a solution would come about she would be blind to the shit and get nothing done, just complain because it's easier than doing the work. It's easier than bothering someone. Some of you just like to have a struggle story because you think life hands out I struggled and concurred trophies. Why is that pile lv? Why do you refuse help? Why do you pride yourself in struggling when all you want is peace? Make it make sense...please. I'm not going to lie though for some of you I fall into this trap also of not allowing help because I know I will get it right the first time instead of leaving it up to the possibility of someone messing things up. But even so, there comes a time in your life when you need to ease up and let in help. Let in ease. Let in Peace. Let in this emotional and even mental fulfillment you are seeking. You can't bring that when you are constantly controlling things. I'm getting a specific message for a few of you asking god/universe/etc for help and when you get the help you go.."no not that kind of help" Beggars can't be choosers, my love. You have to give some type of way in order to achieve what your end goal is in life. Whatever that is for you..there are to many of you with different messages so take what resonates and leave what does not.

Extra Messages: Similar to how you choose a card. Close your eyes, take a deep breathe, open them, and whatever word stands out to you meditate on that word for a message to come through for you. Too many messages for me to type out.

Manifestation, Protection, Commitment, Lighten Your Load, Freedom, Good Luck, Financial Health.

Thank you for liking and reblogging my readings. I always appreciate you guys on here and on Patreon.

Stay safe and be blessed

[headspace-hotel]

so, in regards to your recent posts on kane-tucky and usa food industry, do you / how do you keep active hope and not slip in into apathy and "looking out for my own" get out of dodge mentality? im having a hard time articulating this, but what makes you not curl up into a shaking mess in anger resentment and a deep desire for change that likely, if ever, wont happen in our lifetime.... any advice is appreciated

The short answer is "getting out and doing stuff in the real world, educating, volunteering, whatever is within your ability"

I will add that "looking out for your own" is not...bad. Like I don't know precisely what you mean by this phrase, but it's actually very important to come to terms with the fact that your impact is strongest where your feet touch the ground, and you have a responsibility and relationship to the people immediately around you, the place immediately around you.

This has not been a popular opinion of mine in the past, but...you can't and shouldn't care about literally everything on the planet. There is of course huge global disparity with access to resources and aid networks, and the largest communities we belong to are: all of Earth and the whole human species.

However: your level of agency is so low with issues that are happening on the other side of the world from you, compared with issues that are happening in your home town. And we're seeing people just get completely burned out from compassion fatigue without ever doing shit because the global responsibility is pushed on us and the local responsibility is not.

I hated my hometown for a decade. In high school I wanted so badly to leave. It's one of those desolate-feeling towns that's developed enough for a shopping center and big chain retailers but not enough to have a sense of community or a single bookstore. I've never been able to place myself precisely along the urban-rural spectrum because I feel isolated from even isolation: there's nowhere to go that doesn't feel razed by human development, where you can't hear the noise of traffic on roads, but it's all cattle pastures, sprawling storage facilities, auto parts stores, big, empty churches. One wrong turn will put you in a dark valley where there are rotting, derelict trailers on cinder blocks hidden back in the woods, and this place has that same feeling of "nowhere to go."

And I felt paralyzed by everything bad happening around the world and the fact that I was just one person, and I had gotten the horrible impression that the only thing I could do about anything was vote and donate money to links I saw online. The worst lie the internet taught me was that in saving the world, nothing matters except Power, Money, and an unclear third category that involves throwing bricks at cops.

But I touched grass. And the weeds taught me something. Do you see the parking lots, the harsh pavement and gravel and brick? I saw. I was surrounded by this landscape of brutal, totalitarian surfaces, impermeable concrete locking the soil away. But in the cracks in the surfaces, dandelions, purslane, and spurge were thriving.

I observed that the spurge stretched out like a shaggy rug and padded the concrete surfaces. The old leaves of the dandelions, as they withered, caught bits of dirt as it flowed into drainage ditches after rains. Soil was forming, and the sprawling structure of the early weeds seemed specially adapted for the task. In older cracks, more plants moved in; I found a wild ruellia blooming in a paved road, an evening primrose. And in some places, seedling trees.

Have you seen what happens when a sidewalk is left unmaintained for years? It disappears. The roots slowly buckle and break it into pieces, and it vanishes beneath lush leaves and moss. A tree growing in a crack in concrete will slowly pry the slab apart.

This is how my IRL rewilding project got started—just pulling plants from the pavement cracks, raising them in pots. I was surprised and awed at the resilience of the plants. I found little trees in concrete with at least two years' growth on them, that had survived being mowed down multiple times.

The weeds changed my viewpoint on the world forever. Up until that point, certain facts about power and politics and money had seemed like law, but I'd suddenly seen that there was a deeper magic.

The dandelions' survival made it possible for others to survive, which in turn made even more life flourish. They could not demolish and remove the concrete and pavement, but they could overcome it by refusing to be destroyed, because the power to take care of each other is in their nature.

People have made fun of me for telling others to go plant a tree. I think culturally we have this ingrained dismissal of things like that due to the twee, cutesy associations of "tree hugging" environmentalists, except in this instance it's because planting a tree is pointless in light of something something systemic issues, not because climate change isn't real, or...whatever reason people have for finding environmentalists cringe. (That is kinda sus now that I think about it.)

And I'm not saying planting a tree will fix climate change. I'm saying that something in my brain had broken and planting a tree unbroke it.

Go outside. Touch grass. Do the work in the immediate community you belong to, in the place you are in, where you have the best and most impact. We have the power to take care of each other, and that power grows stronger the more we are cared for.

The internet is a good place to share information, but that's fucking it. The real stuff, the stuff you can touch with your hands, the stuff that will heal despair, is out there in the real, touchable world. You need to see and feel what you are doing. Don't just give help—accept it. The power to take care of each other is in our nature, and by nature we can give more when we thrive as a result of others' care.

I hope this helps.

[decolonize-the-left]

Hey y'all please watch this and share it around, my father in law is so proud of this and Im proud of him for it. Look at him getting them in frame, he's so excited to contribute and doing work on the ground!

If you love people or hate ICE then watch this and skip to 13:30 when the conference starts

Alright so this group helps asylum seekers at the southern border by providing things like food, drink, tents, and shelter. They have formed a small tent city at the border as well because the asylum seekers are told that if they leave the outside detention site they'll get deported.

This is them addressing bold face lies that San Diego county has told in addition the failure to meet expectations and provide things themselves.

One of the lies is that the county claims the money being used to support asylum seekers come from taxpayers but it was THIS GROUP and others who raised funds. Upwards of $60k.

This is after they ignored the groups request for funding.

They touch on the corruption of sending funding to a large, unhelpful nonprofit where most funding goes to staffing rather than people migrating. They amount was $6 million and the Free Shit Collective is surprised at how fast the money is going without any substantial changes for the asylum seekers.

Also if you helped them earlier in my previous post, there's a thank you for anyone who donated. Bonus: you are now personally involved in the lies that San Diego is telling about the border and claiming YOUR donations dont exist and that the money is actually from the state.

Also resource links and how to help! I know how much y'all love those!!

[thebibliosphere]

Um, Joy, hi. I hesitate to ask, but what is a Phangs arc request and why are you getting so many that you can make them a pile out of 700+ emails??? Do you want, like, a banner or something that says "can't answer these!" because I know how to make one.

Phangs arc requests are when I give copies out in exchange for reviews or from the “donate” pile people regularly contribute to via my Payhip.

And lol, thank you. I appreciate that. I’m spending today and tomorrow looking at my workflow and setting up tighter filters on my email to hopefully catch more things.

The arcs are honestly fine. It's the people deliberately censoring words to get around my autofilters that are the biggest problem.

The abuse I just kind of eyeroll at. It’s really quite ridiculous seeing someone tell you to “un@l!ve” yourself or calling me a “m*nchi3”. But it really wears me down when it’s people doing it with health queries.

Some people really don’t like getting my generic “here are some MCAS resources” email and go out of their way to make sure they get my individual attention, even though what they’re asking is answered in the links I provide.

I’m sure it pisses them off no end when I reply to their c3ns0red emails with the same copy-paste response they just got, but hey, if you’re not going to read the things I put time and energy into curating and then send your email again with keywords filtered so my autoresponder can’t catch it, I don’t much care. I feel bad for you, but I will guard my limited time and energy. (and going forward anyone doing that will just get blocked)

Also, most of the time I’m not qualified to do what they want. I can’t diagnose anyone or tell them what meds to take. I’m just a sick bitch sharing the resources I spent literal years curating to try and make things easier for others.

(covid absolutely made this 100% worse. I’ve got so many people reaching out because unlike a few other well known MCAS bloggers I don’t charge for my time or push supplements via my website. I’ll tell you what supplements I use, but I don’t profit from it. Legally, I can’t, but it also just feels a bit morally icky.)

Hopefully when I get around to my website update, having just a page I can easily curate and update as new studies come out will help with this.

And to those who send me apologetic emails saying they tried to find things on Tumblr but the search engine wasn’t working: it's cool. Tumblr doesn’t show me half of my MCAS info posts at this point.

Functional webbed site.

[kyra45]

Donation scams

For pet donation scam information, go here.

What is a donation scam? - This kind of scam occurs when someone is asking for money but isn’t being genuine/honest for why they need it and upon closer inspection you’ll often find out their fundraiser information is stolen from someone else who needs support. For example, the text itself would pull up someone else’s fundraiser that’s posted on another site such as Facebook or Gofundme with names that don’t match up or certain details edited out or added from something else entirely. In a sense, the post doesn’t make much sense or seems to be mashed together from other places. These are scams because money given to them isn’t going towards their goal and also not going to the one who needs it.

Was there an ask sent? - Asks for these scams are varied with no common theme but they usually seem poorly worded and link you to their post which may be pinned. Usually they’ll be sent immediately after following you with no prior interaction even when they call you their friend. Sometimes they’ll say they see you share mutual aid posts too but that’s generally just some excuse they’ll use so you won’t be too suspicious of them. Legit people be warned: Spamming these asks will get people suspicious of you and asking you questions instead. If someone tells you to please limit them, it’s advised you try to. Don’t send these asks to anyone who has stated they don’t like them.

Is the account new? - Another common thing to check is the posting date of the posts on the blog. An account with a massive amount of posts dating across many years is generally a legitimate person if they have several original posts and overall appear to be a person. Unfortunately, scammers tend to backdate posts to make their blogs look older then they may be but rarely have that many original posts. By turning on timestamps, you can see the original posting date in other notes if they have shared posts. Usually the backdated posts are only a few days old but have been made to look years old. What is post backdating? Please refer to this post.

Does the story make sense? - Basically, how well does the story they give sound and does the information it has seem reasonable. Is there anything in it that seems too far fetched to be applicable to a situation? Such as stating they need money for someone’s funeral but the images they supply seem to be photoshopped. Or they have their name on a paper but there seems to be a filter over it which may be obscuring minor details from the original unedited image. You may notice the story also doesn’t give much information out that would be anything important like if a law applies to their situation but they don’t supply a general idea of what country their in. Sometimes the story changes after a few days too.

What else should you do? - If you still can’t figure out if someone’s legitimate, then you may try to nicely ask them questions related to their situation. These questions don’t have to be anything needing personal information; It can request clarity about something your unsure of or further explanation regarding a detail that doesn’t seem to make much sense overall. Most people don’t mind answering these questions as long as your being reasonable and friendly. Most usually will answer you. Unless they ignore you.

What if it is a scam? - Once you have gathered enough resources to confirm the post is by a scam account, it’s necessary to compile it into one place then make a post showing it or show them what you found as well. The scammer will most likely get really angry and deny your evidence and then block you and continue scamming people. Unfortunately it’s suggested to post the information yourself before confronting scam accounts.

Other stuff to look out for? - Asks being spammed; Mass tagging accounts who share mutual aid posts; Replies/reblogs are missing; Harassing people who proved they are scamming

How to report these accounts? - Report -> Something Else -> Illegal content or use -> Phishing

—

If you like this guide, feel free to check out my blog as I report on these scams nearly daily among other kinds of scams that I post about. If you like my hobby, feel free to drop some pocket change as thanks! However, all I really want you to do is share this post to help me bring awareness of tumblr scams. Send it to people who might not know what a donation scam is or link to it in posts you make! Thanks. Hope this information is helpful!

[vyl3tpwny]

do you have a preferred method to get vsts and other such instruments for a DAW?? im poor as heck and dont know ANYTHING about piracy, im so scared of getting goobered by people on the internet

i wish i knew more about the best go-to sites for pirating rn unfortunately i have no clue. ppl on the internet can have such shit intentions too so i dont even know where to look or who to ask. but also here's some free + VERY cheap things u may consider (below the break):

vital synth (i will always shill for vital bc i use it constantly and its free lol)

ob-xd synth (it says buy for $49, but the free download is on the left. the buy link is just a donate)

klanghelm plugins (all these are made by one dude. mjuc is a great vintage style compressor, the dc8c is a pretty featured compressor for the price, sdrr has a particularly nice tube saturation/distortion, and vumt is a great metering plugin, i have vumt on every single project since 2019)

analog obsession (if you donate $5 to their patreon you can get every single plugin they make. also all made and maintained by one person. lots of different things, so i recommend just downloading everything and exploring the functions of the plugins)

tokyo dawn labs (all very high quality mixing stuff. they have free versions of most of their premium stuff and they're quite featured despite being free. ez.)

kilohearts (they recently made all their main effects free. and if you want their flagship stuff, its all rent-to-own as well.)

sforzando (soundfont player. if you dont know what soundfonts are, theyre essentially really condensed, lightweight sampled instruments. they can often sound rlly cheap or tacky [which might be good, i definitely love that sound] but just install this and google [instrument] soundfont and just find lots of free instruments that way)

togu audio line (some free effects and instruments if you scroll down. but i also recommend TAL Sampler if you want a cool sampler and can afford it)

meldaproduction (has a free plugin suite. theres an annoying watermark at the bottom for free versions, but everyone understands. shit is expensive)

native instruments (they have the komplete start bundle which is just a bunch of free decent stuff)

musicradar FREE SAMPLES (ive sworn by a few of the sample resources that i've gotten from musicradar as far back as 2011 lol)

looperman FREE SAMPLES (looperman is a user-sourced sample website where ppl upload samples they've made* and you can just download and use them for free. sometimes people request specific credit, so check for that if you can. *NOTE: its very possible for people to upload unlicensed samples or stuff they didn't make so use your best judgement when sorting through stuff)

freesound FREE SAMPLES (freesound rules always reliable)

synth1 (AHHHH IM SO HAPPY I CAN RECOMMEND THIS RIGHT NOW!!!! synth1 used to be abandonware but was finally picked up again and is supported by modern systems once more. i used this religiously from 2013-2017. and i'm going to start using it again honestly)

valhalladsp (this is the only exclusively premium thing i'm going to leave in this thread [aside from bitwig, below], but it's just that god damn good. every plugin of theirs is $50, so if you can manage to go for ValhallaVintageVerb and/or ValhallaDelay you will basically never need another reverb/delay ever again; would recommend NOT pirating from them if you can help it bc theyre definitely a very small company but u know.. ur call)

bitwig (if you need a DAW, i can now heartily recommend Bitwig. it's on the rent to own program through splice if you're ok getting it legally...)

—

i know this isnt what u asked but i hope its still helpful. i've also rescinded my recommendations for spitfire audio bc the company was revealed to be run by a bunch of queerphobic knuckleheads. everything in this list i have personally used for my own music and can vouch for them from actual experience (YES even bitwig, i made the song "Futura" on Carousel exclusively with Bitwig, making it the first time i've made an entire song outside of Ableton since 2014).

again i hope this helps, forgive me for not knowing enough about pirating at the moment 😭 please make so much music and please look at this animal:

[fiercynn]

on otw's $2.5 million budget surplus: for fuck's sake do something with our money

the recent ddos attack on ao3 illustrated that the otw (@transformativeworks) has amazing volunteers who were able to get things up and running again after a cyberattack. and i’ve seen a bunch of different people urging others to donate to otw in light of the attack.

the problem? not only are the volunteers not going to get any of the money, but the otw likely isn’t going to do anything else with it, because they already have more than $2.5 million in budget surplus that they have not been transparent about with their members, and that they have no plans for.

yup. we’ve known for years that otw had at least $1 million in their “reserves”; they’ve said so at their last two public finance meetings in 2021 and 2022. but a few months ago, @manogirl and i went digging a little deeper because we suspected that there was even more. 

and we were right. from the documentation available, our estimate is that at the beginning of 2023, they had $2,585,841 that was not dedicated to any purpose. this does not include money they had budgeted to spend in 2023 on regular expenses. just extra. (keep reading to see how we got that figure.)

equally appalling? they have all this money and are barely earning any interest on it. satsuma on dreamwidth looked at their 2021 tax returns and found that only ~$10k of their money is held in an interest-bearing savings account, which resulted in them earning only $90 in interest income for 2021. the rest of it is not in interest-bearing accounts. it is just sitting there.

looking at all the crises and dysfunction that have been discussed and uncovered over the past few months - racist harassment and the three-year-old promise to hire a diversity consultant; the mistreatment of volunteers by the otw board both related to last year’s CSEM attacks, and, separately, mistreatment and racism towards chinese and chinese diaspora volunteers both in the past and recently with the closure of the otw’s weibo account; and of course, this latest ddos attack - all of this indicates that there is severe dysfunction within the org. and donors throwing more money at the organization clearly isn’t helping.

the otw board needs to get its shit together and hire people to help with these things. this is not a new idea - there’s been talk for years about hiring paid staff, and in fact, at their july 2021 board meeting, otw said they would be appointing a volunteer who would be known as the “paid staff officer”, to come up with a plan for hiring paid staff. (to be clear, the “paid staff officer” would be an unpaid volunteer.) it’s been two years since that commitment. they have not, to my knowledge, appointed that officer yet.

it’s infuriating, because otw’s “scrappiness” as an organization is constantly used to defend their obstruction of action on things like racism, and this ddos attack will be used to further that agenda as well. but otw doesn’t need to be scrappy. they are well-resourced and could be using that money to set up more sustainable systems, instead of burning out and mistreating their volunteers, and reneging on commitments to address racism and harassment.

at the very least, if they’re not going to do anything with their massive budget surplus, they should stop taking more of people’s money. but we’d rather they did something useful with it.

if you want to see this change, the otw finance commitee holds a public meeting where you can ask questions and give them feedback. last year it was in mid-october. you do not have to be an otw member to attend. i'll definitely be making noise about it once the date is announced, but you can also follow otw's socials.

one brief aside: at the time of posting, a lot of these links are not working because the otw's website is still down. i copied these links from a twitter thread i made in the past and they should all be correct, so you just may have to wait until the site is back up to look at them.

now, to debunk some common excuses that people (not otw representatives, mind you, but just people on the internet who have decided to defend the org) give when confronted with how much money otw has:

MYTH: otw needs to keep $2.5 million in cash reserves in case of an emergency or unexpected revenue shortfall. REALITY: it’s true that nonprofits do need SOME cash reserves for those cases. typical practice is to have 3-6 months’ worth of operating expenses. otw’s current operating expenses are ~$520,000/year, so 6 months would be $260,000. (and, in fact, when i was told by an otw finance committee member that they had $1 million, they were intending 25% of that to be for emergencies, around $250,000). if you were being REALLY cautious, you could have reserves up to one to two years. but $2.5 million is enough for almost FIVE YEARS OF OPERATING EXPENSES. that is an absurd amount to be hoarding, especially when otw’s history of fundraising is that they always exceed their goals, and always make more money in donations than they need for their expenses within a given year. MYTH: they need this money for legal costs if they get sued. REALITY: otw gets most of their legal expenses donated, which is also not listed in their budget, but is in their audited financial statements. in 2021, the most recent financial statement we have, you can see on page 10 that they received just over $230k in donated legal expenses. they do budget some minor legal expenses yearly: in 2023 they’ve budgeted a little over $5k for “registration fees for conferences and hearings and funds set aside for legal filings if necessary, as well as an allocated share of newly adopted OTW-wide productivity tools”. however they do not have a history of even spending that much: in 2022, they had budgeted $4k for legal expenses and only spent $244 (see cell C29 of the budget spreadsheet). they have never been sued, and they do not appear to budget for litigation costs. and when, in the past, they’ve been asked about what their reserves are for (back in fall 2022 when the finance committee told me they had $1 million in reserves, even though this was patently false given their tax documents for 2021), litigation costs were not brought up.  MYTH: they just haven’t had enough time to figure out investment options. REALITY: they clearly have at least one savings account set up to generate interest, which only has $10k in it. even if they haven’t figured out a full investment portfolio, why wouldn’t they put more money in that account? in the u.s., the federal deposit insurance corporation (FDIC) insures bank accounts up to $250,000, so they should have at least that much in there. absurd. also, they have had plenty of time even for a larger portfolio. if you search “investment” on their site, you’ll see that they’ve been talking for YEARS about investing their reserves. more specifically, at both their 2021 and 2022 finance meetings, they said that they needed more time to research investment options. as usual, they have had far more time than they need.  MYTH: they need this money for new servers. REALITY: otw does in fact include expenses for new servers and server maintenance in their yearly budget reports. you can see this in their 2023 budget spreadsheet if you go to the sheet “program expenses” - under “archive of our own”, you’ll see server expenses. the $2.5 million is money that is EXTRA to their listed expenses and revenue in that spreadsheet.

finally, see below where we’ve given more context on otw’s budgeting and showed our work in coming up with these numbers.

showing our work

firstly, i should note for the record that i sent a message to the otw finance committee through the contact us form on the otw website on may 11, 2023 to ask them to state the amount in their reserves.

it has been two months and i have still not received a response (which i find funny, because at the last otw board meeting in early july, the board specifically said to use that form to contact the finance commitee if we had questions about the 2023 budget), so @manogirl and i were forced to do our own math. we've had this work checked by a number of people, but of course we were only able to work with the information the otw has made publicly available.

a few things you need to know about the otw’s budgeting:

they release yearly budget reports on their website (here’s their most recent one, which shows what they project for 2023 and their “actuals” for 2022), but they do not include their surplus in this report - they only include the revenue and expenses for each year

they also provide both their yearly audited financial statements and their yearly tax returns (form 990s) on their reports & governing documents page, but currently, the most recent statements we have are from 2021

otw typically raises more money in donations than they need within a year, so their surplus is always growing 

they have used the term “reserves” in the past to talk about money, but we don’t know exactly what they mean by “reserves” - is there a dedicated account that they consider their reserves?

because of these uncertainties, the goal for @manogirl and i was was to figure out how much of a budget surplus OTW had at the beginning of 2023, and because we don’t know how they define “reserves”, we defined it as how much they had in liquid assets that were not being dedicated for a specific purpose in their budget. (liquid assets are anything that can be converted into cash quickly – e.g. not equipment like their servers, nor anything that would be held in a long-term investment account, etc)

the first document we looked at was their 2021 audited financial statement. the key number is on page 11, under the section on liquidity, where it lists their end-of-year liquid assets as $2,315,841.

so at the end of 2021, they had over $2.3 million in liquid assets.

but since their 2022 audited financial statement isn’t up, we had to turn to their 2023 budget, and specifically, to their 2023 budget spreadsheet, where they show the “actuals” (what they actually raised & spent in each line item) for 2022 in column C. as i mentioned, they don’t list their reserves in this spreadsheet - only the revenue generated & expenses paid within that year, not anything carrying over from the previous year unless clearly outlined.

so at the bottom you’ll see that their net income (revenue minus expenses) in 2022 was $493,564.94, and that they then transferred $400,000 of that to the reserves sometime in 2022.

and the remaining $93,564.94, their adjusted net income for 2022, presumably carries over to help pay initial expenses in 2023 before they started earning more revenue. they also transferred $130,000 of their reserves BACK to help with that at the start of 2023.

so now we have the numbers we need to calculate the surplus (including reserves) at the start of 2023:

$2,315,841 (liquid assets at end of 2021) + $400,000 (transferred to reserve in 2022) - $130,000 (transferred from reserve in 2023) = $2,585,841 USD at the start of 2023

so that’s our math. otw had $2.5 million at the beginning of this year in surplus, in addition to around $223k (last year’s $93.5k in income and the $130k they transferred back from the reserves at the beginning 2023) to fund their expenses for the first half of this year. this does not even include the hundreds of thousands they raised in april 2023 during their fundraising drive.

okay the main part of our documentation is done, but if you want to read a little bit more about what @manogirl and i learned from doing this deep dive, here are a few additional thoughts/nuggets:

first of all, OTW is incorporated in the u.s. state of delaware, which is interesting because as @manogirl researched, delaware is a tax haven where 501c3 nonprofits don’t have to pay any business tax. plus, in many u.s. states, nonprofits have a limit on the amount of money they can keep without spending, but this too is not the case in delaware. of course, incorporating in delaware to take advantage of those benefits is not illegal! but it is very savvy, a characteristic that seems to have not continued with their financial management past their original incorporation lol

next, some more detail on their finances from their 2023 budget spreadsheet. let’s start with revenue.

the most interesting thing to me here is that while their spring and fall membership drive donations bring in the most, non-drive donations are also substantial. also their “total unrestricted net revenue received” is $975,638.36 in cell C16. however, for some reason, when they calculate their net income for the year, they use cell 12, “total unrestricted revenue” ($1,012,543.42) instead. the difference between those two cells is that cell 12 is the amount before their transaction fees are subtracted. but i have no idea why the transaction fees would be ignored when calculating their net income. is this an error?

next, their expenses, which came out to $518,978.48. not too much surprised me here except how low their legal advocacy spending still is, plus  the fact that they’d given francesca coppa a grant for her book on the history of fanvidding, lol. (i’ve written more about this; so has wistfuljane on dreamwidth if you scroll down a bit from here).

it’s also interesting to look at what they’ve budgeted (both the revenue & expenses they’ve expected going into the year) for 2022. in every revenue category, they have exceeded their goal, except for $50 in “other income”. and in most of their expenses categories they have overestimated their needs, except for going over about $700 in the transformative works & cultures, & about $500 for development. this just shows how much they are able to meet their yearly expenses (overestimated) with the revenue generated each year (underestimated), & still have substantial amounts left over (almost half of revenue transferred to reserves)

so that’s what we’ve found. if anyone else notices weird things in their budgeting, please let us know!

[dca-fanart-gallery]

The DCA Palooza is finally here! We're so excited to have you here.

After years of hard work...

The DCA Palooza is finally here.

And here's the intro post.

Why was the Palooza created?

Recently, I made a note commenting on the atrocious reblog-to-like ratios for the Daycare Attendant Fandom. As @chandlelures calculated using their own art, 18 percent of their notes were reblogs, and the rest were likes. Now some are fine with this. For them, likes are any other type of validation except that logic falls flat when you consider how this site works. Reblogs put art on your follower’s dash, keeps the art circulating, and you can leave nice compliments in the tags which artists will probably screenshot and read when they’re feeling sad. It’s about a feedback loop of good vibes and participating in community.  The ratio particularly affects smaller artists who may average 10 notes at best, and when over half of those notes are likes–well, it hurts their chance of growing their audience and having more people see their hard work. 

That’s why I’m excited to introduce the DCA Palooza! 

It’s not just about fixing numbers, or asking people to reblog more. It’s creating an event space where we can share our ideas and art, while also promoting image accessibility (writing IDs, tagging for eyestrain and flashing, etcetera) for disabled fans too! It’s addressing the wider cultural shift that many older fans have complained about, where we’ve started treating ourselves as content creator and consumers, instead of fans all obsessed with the same blorbos. To do our part in fighting against this and building community…

Here are our main goals: 

Encourage fans to reblog and support smaller artists.  

While we love the concept of “gallery spaces” from @roachworks Gallery Jamboree! You don’t need to create a sideblog to become a curator. If you want to join Monthly Wrap Ups (where you promote new artists and AUs you found) all you need to do is tag @dca-fanart-gallery to join the event! We’ll see your tag, reblog from you, and then go hunt down those artists you mentioned and reblog from them too :D! 

Host weekly magmas and community events 

Magmas are a place where multiple artists can draw on the same canvas. It’s a great way to find new artists and their art styles, and have fun with their community. They’re currently hosted by @venomous-qwille every Saturday, and we post the art pieces in our Discord

Raise awareness about accessibility 

In the Discord Server, we ask that you write short IDs for every image you post and hopefully learn to write IDs for your own art. The main gallery will promote accessible artists and link to resources for writing image descriptions, as well as write IDs for much of the art we reblog. It doesn’t take too long to learn, and as the original artist, you’ll know what to emphasize in an ID than we’ll ever can! 

How can you support us?

Check out and follow @dca-fanart-galleryl! It’s run by a blind Y/N who’s trying to understand where the heck these blorbos came from. Donate your abandoned sketches to become coloring pages for the @dca-coloring-book! Look at the ID guides tag and make your art accessible for your fellow blind/visually impaired fans. And most excitedly...

Join our discord server and have loads of fun!

[f1strollinfo]

Hey guys! I moved to Tumblr to post a very informative post which is on my Twitter (this will be word for word almost)

For those of you who do not know, Lance Stroll’s girlfriend Marilou is a Zionist.

She publicly liked Chloe Stroll’s pro-Isr*al singing video, she also has been HEAVILY rumoured to donate to an IDF fund and not only that, her brother publicly showed his support for Isr*al commenting under a propaganda video.

The link for the video of her brother supporting the creator.

Here is the link for said fund Marilou donated to,

Lance is my fave driver, however his silence is truly questionable now seeing his girlfriend and her brother publicly support a horrible country. It isn’t hard to educate yourself on what is going in on the world right now. There are of resources to look at such as Eye On Palestine or Shaun King for those who are in Canada, [edit: however I was told to be accepting of his support but to not look much into him, check comments for why]. I believe bigots like her, her brother + Chloe Stroll deserve to be called out for their actions. I understand that Lance Stroll is some of my followers’ fave driver. You can choose to like him still or be on the fence, it is your choice. But at the end of the day, know that he is silent while his Zionist girlfriend parades around with her WAG status.

I would not be surprised if Lance himself is a Zionist. I understand that drivers “cannot” speak on what’s happening however Lewis did. Lance’s silence is questionable because I could name 10 or more Zionists he is currently linked with. It really is disgusting knowing his entire environment is connected like that. An example of this is his problematic dating life where now his current AND ex girlfriends have all supported a genocide.

Just because Marilou is “sweet” and “cute” doesn’t mean she’s a good person. If you support Marilou, you’re supporting her support the k*llings of innocent and that includes innocent babies.

Here is the link to the thread.

Retweet, Reblog, Share. I don’t care, as long as people are aware and do not forget.

EDITED: Marilou is actively blocking people on Tiktok who call her out because TikTok is assumed as her “safe space” when other social platforms she’s been called out on like Instagram, Twitter, here, etc there’s no problem. Which is weird. Besides that, she is blocking people on TikTok while knowing what other people are saying about her and calling her out for. Yet she chooses to not care.