#so the way to do it is to find a support system and use that sadness into something positive

[morggo]

Hi. I set up a GFM to help with urgent needs. If you enjoy my work, consider donating. If you can't donate, please share.

I really appreciate any support.

Details of the GFM are under the cut.

Hi there, my name is Morgan, otherwise known as Mx Morgan professionally. I am an artist, freelancing illustrator, retail and wholesale clerk living and working in the PNW. I'm here to ask for assistance with getting rent paid for me, my partner, and cat, and assistance to pay for my medication.

This year has been difficult, especially the summer. My partner was laid off her job because the business she worked at was not making much money. She was on unemployment from February to June and has been unable to work due to complications from mental illness and medication she was taking at the time. Since then, I've been helping her with day-to-day needs and picking up 100% of our expenses (previously we paid 50/50 on rent, bills, etc.). Currently, I am working three jobs - my retail job, my freelancing job, and a voluntary job at a game studio. My retail job has been having difficulty making expenses to stay open, and my hours are now 10 hrs/week. A lot of my freelancing work has been significantly reduced; I currently have a few open jobs, and the money made from those has gone directly to bills and rent. Therefore, I have been unable to set aside a percentage for quarterly taxes, which leads to penalties and fees (I already owe the IRS about $12k, and I am finding what options may be available to me). The voluntary game studio position is just that - it's a voluntary position that I give the least amount of my time to, and I continue to do so because it genuinely brings me some joy and things are moving forward despite personal setbacks.

I am currently looking for another job and part of a temp agency's hiring pool; however, I cannot move forward to hiring because my social security card went missing, and the card is required for work. I have a replacement on its way, but it will take about another week from this date.

Now, onto rent. My landlord was generous in allowing us to pay the outstanding amount of rent over the month of September. My rent for September was $1951.30, and mostly from freelancing, I have been able to bring that amount down. The amount left to owe is $1096.30. However, there's the issue of October's rent being due, and the way things are going, I will not be able to pay for that either, making the total amount due $2656.30. Our landlord utilizes Ratio Utility Billing System with little to no transparency of how the amount is divided among tenants, so my utilities can wildly fluctuate, often making my rent amount unpredictable. Some tenants have paid $60 for electricity while others have to pay $300, for example. Yes, I have brought up concerns. No, I have not received any solutions.

Breakdown of payments made for the month of September.

Amount paid so far.

Total amount remaining for September, along with rent that is due October 1st.

There is also the issue of health insurance - I have lost my health insurance due to not receiving letters (mail was stolen) asking for my income, so my coverage was terminated. I have reapplied and was approved, but my insurance is not available until October 1st. I have, after GoodRX coupons, about $82 worth of medication I need. Currently, I am out of amlodipine, which manages my high blood pressure. I am out of my anxiety medication and just winging it at this point.

Breakdown of medication, with prescriptions obscured for privacy.

All that said, the amount I am asking from GoFundMe is assistance for 1.) the past due rent 2.) medication and 3.) assistance with October's rent, if able. At minimum, I would like to get the past due rent paid off and be able to get 2 medications I am low on, if I cannot get the full amount for all my medication. At best, I would like to meet the goal and have everything caught up. I have a couple of jobs lined up, but I am likely not seeing any payment until mid-October, and by that time it may be too late to pay for any rent.

Any excess of donations will go toward other aid for friends and colleagues that have been impacted by this year. The sad fact is, I'm not the only career artist who has been affected by loss of work and life complicating things further.

Other than GoFundMe, if you would like to help me and get a little something out of it, I have a ko-fi shop with originals and downloadable licenses. I would be crowdfunding through there, but Stripe takes a percentage for processing and it's all counted for taxes. I'd like to keep business and gifts/donations separate for tax purposes. Typically, I would share my other shops, but due to the urgency of this situation, I will not be promoting them here. A free way of helping is simply sharing this GoFundMe.

My long term goal is to find a stable full time job, file for bankruptcy, and step away from freelancing. At this moment, I simply need help for now.

I think that's it for now. Thank you, take care.

Morgan

[ember-knights]

I am seeing less people talking even though the situation is more dire than ever. I know we are all tired. It is understandable.

Keep it up though. Put your frustration and pain into work and use it. Turn to your family and friends and support each other through it.

To quote Shreen abu Aklaa: “The cause needs a lot of endurance. Keep your spirits up”

Art work by : Sally Samir

We are lucky to be alive and well. Use it.

[bunnihearted]

being too weird and unlikable and off putting and always being shunned and turned into an outcast everywhere i go and not having felt the connection and healing friendship has on you for so many years has really done a number on me

[wakeywakeyjakey]

The Batman characters I always write and view with DID (aka the “DID baddies”) are Batman, Two Face, and Scarecrow—and I LOVE that they each present with such wiiiiildy different interactions with their headmates + experiences within their headspaces.

The way I see it, Bruce and Batman coexist easily. They have the same mission so they work alongside each other and view the other as having an extremely valuable role to play in their life/are aware that they can’t function without each other. What’s cool is that they have completely different approaches to their collective goal, but ultimately they trust the other and both get where they want to be (from a big picture perspective).

Harv and Harvey coexist grudgingly and work against each other in a lot of ways (it’s a WIP) BUT they have a system (haha) for how to navigate daily life so that they both feel equally represented in their decisions. While “trust” might be too strong a word to use, they definitely both see the other as capable of living their collective life even if/when they don’t agree with the other’s decisions—and so they mostly don’t stand in each other’s way.

Jonathan and Scarecrow DO NOT COEXIST! Jonathan views Scarecrow as a liability actively ruining their life and thus works to keep Scarecrow away from the front entirely. Scarecrow views Jonathan as weak and unwilling/unable to do what needs to be done to keep them both alive. The one area of overlap is their research (and criminal endeavors) so it’s the one space they’re willing to coexist, but outside of their heists they’re almost exclusively at each other’s throats and would rather the other not have access to their life/body/decisions.

It adds so many layers to their characters and entirely fleshes out the “personas” when you come at it from the lens of DID as opposed to just viewing it as a costume they take off at the end of the night imo!

[dbphantom]

Hate having adhd went to go work on my fallout modpack, got distracted while going to disable the steam overlay, ended up in the points shop, went to go edit my profile, decided to change my pfp, found a buried folder I forgot existed, found some old Veneer art I forgot existed, spent 45 minutes looking at all the old photos, STILL HAVE NOT TOGGLED ONE SIMPLE OPTION THAT SHOULD'VE TAKEN 30 SECONDS AT MOST

[sysig]

Let’s put it all on the line, see who’s victorious (Patreon)

[baathos]

But your honour endlessly rehearsing conversations is so much less scary than actually having them

[mantisgodsdomain]

Slowly, yet painfully realizing that we're probably the exact type of person that random fandom guys would miscast as a father.

[waywardsalt]

ive spent like 20 minutes trying to world this eloquently but i give up; im a big fan of linebeck just. not being capable of watching over kids not the person to be the guardian of a group of young people he struggles to take care of himself at times and has so much shit going on that it takes about one conversation with oshus for the old man to realize that this guy is. not doing great

[nullcoast]

The world is fucking disgusting

[fantastic-mr-corvid]

the reason i dont talk as much about jjba cecio is bc he is very strongly a piss take of the 'one good pig' because he is the 'one good cop' but hes actually so much worse. hes using a mask of humor and kindness and relate-ability to help aid in murder blackmail wrongful imprisonment and all manner of massive power abuses, but because he does the bare minimum of pretending to be a 'good' person [in the right way] he gets free license to do all that and is seen as sympathetic. so actually hes not worse, hes just an average fucking pig with slight different motivations it doesn't matter if he answers to the police or criminal organizations, because the fucking pigs are their own gang just under the guise of 'upholding the law' and hes betraying his community and ruining peoples lives over and over for power either way

[honeyvenommusic]

.

[someonesomewheredown]

[Image ID: An edit of the "The World If" meme to say "the world if the Nintendo Switch had mod support". Beneath the text is a render of a futuristic society created by the user gelmi on foundry.com /End ID]

[star-ocean-peahen]

After watching Cinderella (the original animated movie, which was my favorite as a child), it strikes me how it solves many common problems people have with this fairy tale. Like:

Why did they try to identify the mystery girl using her shoe size? Because the bullheaded king's only clue to her identity was the shoe the Grand Duke picked up off the steps.

Why didn't the prince recognize her by her face? Because his father wouldn't involve him in the process at all, and wasn't the one going around trying to find her.

Why did the prince want to marry a lady he only met that night? Because his father was going to force him to marry someone, and he genuinely liked this woman.

Why did Cinderella want to marry a man she only met that night? Because marriage was her best and most secure way to freedom. Fucked up, but you can't say it's unrealistic for the setting of a fairy tale. She also genuinely liked him.

If they're using the slipper to find her, wouldn't it be more sensible to search for the person with the other slipper? Yes. The King is purposefully nonsensical and the Duke is purposefully terrified enough of him to carry out his orders to the letter. Furthermore, they end up doing that in the end anyway, because the Duke's glass slipper is shattered, and Cinderella brings out the one she has to prove her identity.

Why didn't the stepmother and stepsisters recognize Cinderella at the ball? Because they were dancing too far away, and then left the party to dance in private, which was possible because the King wanted very badly for his son to hit it off with someone and tried to arrange the best conditions for that to happen.

Why didn't Cinderella save herself? Because in real life, abuse victims should not have to shoulder that responsibility, and usually can't. In real life, you need and deserve an external support system. Asking for help, in this kind of situation, is very important. She is saved by others because she is loved. Because she is not alone. Because she has friends who love her, and want her to be happy and safe and free. Because in real life, people who want to help someone who is suffering are like the mice. We can't pull out miracle solutions, but we can provide companionship and if we're in the right place at the right time, we can help the person find a better life.

Why didn't the fairy godmother save Cinderella from her abusive household, or try to help her sooner? Because she's magic, and magic can't solve your problems. Quote: "Like all dreams, well, I'm afraid it can't last forever." This (and Cinderella's dream of going to the ball) is a metaphor for pleasurable things in bad circumstances. An ice cream won't get rid of your depression, but it will provide you with momentary happiness to bolster you, as well as the reminder that happiness in general is still possible for you. Cinderella doesn't want to go to the ball so she can get away from her stepmother and stepsisters, or so she can meet someone to marry and leave with. She wants to go to the ball to remind herself that she can still have things she wants. That her desires matter. This is important because the movie does a very good job of illustrating Lady Tremaine's subtle abuse tactics, all of which invisibly press the message that Cinderella doesn't matter. While going to the ball and fulfilling her dreams may not be a victory in the material sense, it is still a victory against Lady Tremaine's efforts.

Why is Cinderella's choice to be kind and obedient framed as a good thing, when you are not obligated to be kind to your abuser? This one walks a very fine line, but I think the movie still makes it make sense. Lady Tremaine never acknowledges her cruelty. She always frames her punishments of Cinderella as Cinderella's fault. Cinderella is interrupting, Cinderella is shirking her duties, Cinderella is playing vicious practical jokes. Cinderella is still a member of the family, of course she can go to the ball, provided she meet these impossible conditions. Lady Tremaine's tactics are designed to make Cinderella feel like she must always be in the wrong and her stepmother must always be in the right. If Cinderella calls her stepmother out on her cruelty, or attempts to fight back, Lady Tremaine can frame that as Cinderella being ungrateful, cruel, broken, evil, etc. If Cinderella responds to her stepmother's cruelty defiantly (in the way she's justified to), she's not taking control out of Lady Tremaine's hands. Disobedience can be spun back into her stepmother's control. She wants Cinderella to be angry and sad and show how much she's hurting. So since Cinderella is adapting to her situation, she chooses to be kind. Not only because she naturally wants to be and it's part of her personality, but because it is a form of defiance in its own way, and it allows her to keep a reminder of her agency and value. Her choice to be kind is her chance to keep her own narrative alive: she is not obeying because her stepmother wants her to and she has to do what her stepmother does, but because she wants to. It's a small distinction, but one that makes all the difference in terms of keeping her hope and identity. (Fuck, I wrote a whole paragraph about how this doesn't mean you can't be angry at people who hurt you or that you need to be kind to deserve help, and then deleted it by accident. Uh. Try again.) Expressing anger and pain is an important part of regaining autonomy and healing. Although it is commendable to be kind while you are suffering, it is NOT required for you to get help or be worthy of help. If Cinderella's recovery was explored beyond "happily ever after" she would need to let herself be angry and sad to heal. Cinderella is not only kind because it comes naturally to her, but because it's her defense against the abuse she's suffering. Everyone's story and experiences are different, and one does not invalidate the other.

Bonus round for answers that aren't part of the movie:

Why didn't Cinderella run away? Where would she go? Genuinely, in hundreds-of-years-ago France, where would she go if she snuck out of the window with a change of clothes? With her step-family, she's miserable and abused, but she's fed, clothed, and in no danger of dying or being taken advantage of by anyone other than her stepmother and stepsisters. Even if she escapes and manages to find financial security, her stepmother might be able to find her and get her back.

Why didn't Cinderella burn the house down with them inside it/slit their throats in the night/poison their food/etc.? Because that's a revenge fantasy, and this story is a fantasy about being saved. There's nothing wrong with making Cinderella into a revenge fantasy. That's perfectly fine, as long as you acknowledge that the other type of fantasy is also a valid interpretation. (I mean, the original fairy tale features the stepsisters getting their feet mutilated and all three of them getting their eyes pecked out, so go for it.)

Why isn't Cinderella more proactive in general? Because she's a child who has been abused for the back half of her life, who has had to be focused on survival because. you know. she's an abused kid.

How did she dance in glass slippers? Gotta agree with you there man, that's weird.

[ddejavvu]

this is depraved, but grinding on logan’s happy trail to get off 🫢

Hands Free - Logan Howlett x Reader

send me logan requests!

contents/warnings: smut, minors dni, mean!logan, drinking, don't like don't read.

You've caught Logan at a bad time. The surly mutant is a complicated man, and one with less psychological damage than him might be eager to whip it out whenever, but Logan isn't. He's busy brooding, and he's not to be interrupted when he's got a bottle in one hand and a cigar in the other.

But you need him. There's a pit in your belly that's only made worse by the scowl on his face, and your cunt aches beneath your now-slick panties for something to envelop. You're desperate for Logan to fuck you, but there's no way you'll convince him if he's not in the mood.

"I can feel you staring," He grumbles, eyes still cast to the floor as he takes another swig of burning liquor, "What do you want?"

There's no polite way to say you.

"Uhm," You shift on your feet, thighs clenched, "I'm just feeling- I'm a little, um, I-"

"Spit it out."

"I need you." You breathe, ashamed by the sentence, but Logan's face remains untouched, nothing moving but the lingering smoke from his smoldering cigar.

"I'm not in the mood." He grunts, like it isn't obvious.

"I- I know." You fall awkwardly silent again, rising onto your tiptoes and falling back to your heels. Up, down. Up, down. Up, down. Up-

"Don't make a mess." He shifts in the chair, lowering his hips until they're level with his abdomen, offering you the best seat in the house.

He's shirtless, which means that if you can't have his cock, or his fingers, you can get the next best thing. A combination of the friction from the waistband of his jeans, and his toned abs, blanketed with coarse, wiry hair.

You mount him eagerly, which isn't hard to do seeing as his chair has no arms. It's got a back so that he can lean against it, but your support system is his chest, where you firmly plant your hands in preparation to get yourself off.

There's a dark line of hair that trails from the bottom of his navel and disappears beneath his waistband, flanked on either side with a sharp line of muscle that tapers down towards his cock in a V. His body is a work of art, and you only wish his equally gorgeous face was pointed your direction.

No matter- you won't push. You're lucky he's letting you get off on his lap, you'll take what you can get.

"Easy," He grumbles, rocked by the sudden jerk of your hips. As you settle into a steady rhythm you realize you've already failed his one directive of not making a mess, but there's no way to stop or slow the steady stream of slick that's pouring from your weeping cunt. It's sobbing, slobbering, begging for a cock, but you drag it flush against Logan's abs and mat his happy trail down with your translucent arousal.

"One fuckin' job," He gripes, reaching down to swipe two fingers through the slick that's glistening on his stomach as you find better friction near the waistband of his jeans. The texture of the denim is rough, and you realize with giddy desperation that he's getting hard in his pants despite his insistence that he wasn't in the mood.

He sticks his fingers in his mouth for a taste, his cigar left behind in its ashtray on the side table. He doesn't relinquish the bottle, but he takes equal sips of that and of the mess you're making on his abs.

Finally, thanks to the sizeable bulge in Logan's jeans, you're able to hump your way to completion on his stomach. It's not hard, considering you'd been achingly horny before, but without something inside of you your release feels empty and wasted. You'd use your fingers if you could, but you can't move your hands or you'd faceplant on Logan's chest, and you don't want to invade his space any further in case he decides your privileges have been revoked.

"Poor thing." He murmurs when your hips slow and you're panting against his chest. You glance at his face but he's staring at your cunt, not at you, "She's so hungry."

It takes him one, two, three seconds to reach for his belt, "Well, c'mon. Up now, there y'go." As you shimmy up his abdomen, slicking his happy trail up with your release once more. As soon as he's able to free his cock he slides a hand under your ass, boosting you up so that you're finally able to sink down onto his red-tipped, leaking cock.

"Jesus, she's sucking me in," He grunts, his voice gruff and ragged, "How long were you waiting to ask me?"

"Too long." You whine, pussy already sensitive from your first orgasm, and now in utter bliss from finally being penetrated after all that teasing, "I- hnngh! My toys don't work anymore. They're- they're nothing like you, I can't use them. I can't ever finish."

Logan scoffs, still in a mood as sour as the liquor on his breath, but his hands find their place on your waist as he helps bounce you on his cock, "Shame. Those were supposed to keep you busy. Guess I'll have to do it then, hm?"

You nod vigorously against the crook of Logan's neck, your nose buried where his neck meets his shoulder, and where sweat accumulates sticky on his skin. You lick it up, and Logan hisses against the mouth of his bottle as he takes another swig.

"Fine." He grumbles, butting the bottle up to your head and forcing it against your lips, "Take this, take a nice big- there you go. That'll make you sleepy," He vows, and the head rush comes just like he'd warned. His hips begin shifting, circling slightly in gyrations that only add to the pleasure of bouncing on his dick, "And this'll knock you out, crazy."

[getvalentined]

An open letter to @staff

I already submitted this to Support under "Feedback," but I'm sharing it here too as I don't expect it to get a response, and I feel like putting in out in public may be more effective than sending it off into the void.

The recent post on the Staff blog about changing tumblr to an algorithmic feed features a large amount of misinformation that I feel staff needs to address, openly and honestly, with information on where this data was sourced at the very least.

Claim 1: Algorithms help small creators.

This is false, as algorithms are designed to push content that gets engagement in order to get it more engagement, thereby assuring that the popular remain popular and the small remain small except in instances of extreme luck.

This can already be seen on the tumblr radar, which is a combination of staff picks (usually the same half-dozen fandoms or niche special interests like Lego photography) which already have a ton of engagement, or posts that are getting enough engagement to hit the radar organically. Tumblr has an algorithm that runs like every other socmed algorithm on the planet, and it will decimate the reach of small creators just like every other platform before it.

Claim 2: Only a small portion of users utilize the chronological feed.

You can find a poll by user @darkwood-sleddog here that at the time of writing this, sits at over 40 THOUSAND responses showing that over 96 percent of them use the chronological feed*. Claiming otherwise isn't just a misstatement, it's a lie. You are lying to your core userbase and expecting them to accept it as fact. It's not just unethical, it's insulting to people who have been supporting your platform for over a decade.

Claim 3: Tumblr is not easy to use.

This is also 100% false and you ABSOLUTELY know it. Tumblr is EXTREMELY easy to use, the issue is that the documentation, the explanations of features, and often even the stability of the service is subpar. All of this would be very easy for staff to fix, if they would invest in the creation of walkthroughs and clear explanations of how various site features work, as well as finally fixing the search function. Your inability to explain how your service works should not result in completely ignoring the needs and wants of your core long-term userbase. The fact that you're more willing to invest in the very systems that have made every other form of social media so horrifically toxic than in trying to make it easier for people to use the service AS IT WORKS NOW and fixing the parts that don't work as well speaks volumes toward what tumblr staff actually cares about.

You will not get a paycheck if your platform becomes defunct, and the thing that makes it special right now is that it is the ONLY large-scale socmed platform on THE ENTIRE INTERNET with a true chronological feed and no aggressive algorithmic content serving. The recent post from staff indicates that you are going to kill that, and are insisting that it's what we want. It is not. I'd hazard to guess that most of the dev team knows it isn't what we want, but I assume the money people don't care. The user base isn't relevant, just how much money they can bring in.

The CEO stated he wanted this to remain as sort of the last bastion of the Old Internet, and yet here we are, watching you declare you intend to burn it to the ground.

You can do so much better than this.

Response to the Update

Under the cut for readability, because everything said above still applies.

I already said this in a reblog on the post itself, but I'm adding it to this one for easy access: people read it that way because that's what you said.

Staff considers the main feed as it exists to be "outdated," to the point that you literally used that word to describe it, and the main goals expressed in this announcement is to figure out what makes "high-quality content" and serve that to users moving forward.

People read it that way because that is what you said.

*The final results of the poll, after 24 hours:

136,635 votes breaks down thusly:

An algorithm based feed where I get "the best of tumblr." @ 1.3% (roughly 1,776 votes)

Chronological feed that only features blogs I follow. @ 95.2% (roughly 130,077 votes)

This doesn't affect me personally. @ 3.5% (roughly 4,782 votes)